SS 18: Shark Skin Suite: A Novel by Tim Dorsey Page A

clothes.”
    Brook self-consciously looked down at herself, then pulled her chair up tight to the table.
    “I know what you’re thinking,” said Ken. “ ‘I’ve just started.’ But according to TV, you’re already a rock star at mortgage law.” He strolled around the side of the table and placed a hand on a shoulder. “You’ll be teamed with Shelby here . . .”
    Shelby said hello by raising a single finger.
    “ . . . He’ll teach you everything you need to know. We’ve decided you’re essential for this trial. You’re wondering why?”
    Brook nodded.
    “You’re jury candy,” said another voice.
    Ken chuckled and placed a hand on another shoulder. “This is Dmitri Smoot, our jury consultant. He can be a little blunt.”
    Smoot was the only person at the table with a goatee and no sense of humor. “Do you wear glasses?”
    “No,” said Brook.
    “You do now,” said Smoot. “The lenses will be plain glass. Our focus groups selected rims that connect with sixty-five percent of the total population, and eighty-one percent of those who can’t figure how to get out of jury duty.”
    Ken pressed the intercom again. “Nancy, twelve thirty, Vision Palace.”
    “Mauve scarf,” said Smoot.
    “Nancy . . .” said Ken.
    Brook poured a glass of water. So did the partners. The room started to spin.
    “That’s about it,” said Ken.
    “That wraps it up,” said Willard.
    “Roll credits,” said Shug.

 
    Chapter THIRTEEN
    THE EVERGLADES
    A Ford Cobra raced east across a narrow two-laner with no shoulders called the Tamiami Trail. It passed a roadside attraction of airboats and gator nuggets.
    They drove on in silence.
    More boat docks, dams, spillways, panther crossing signs, people cane-fishing in straw hats, vultures working the road. Pickups parked along grassy embankments. Men in camo caps roamed with machetes and baseball bats.
    Coleman turned his head as they went by. “Who are those dudes?”
    “Python hunters.”
    “I thought the hunt was over.”
    “Only the contest part. The stupidness continues.”
    The pair completed eighty miles from the west coast. Just before reaching the outskirts of Miami, the Ford made a right at Dade Corners and sped south on Krome Avenue. After arriving at the end of the state in Homestead and Florida City, Serge took a fork southeast away from the rest of traffic, into sparser settlements and grids of agriculture until there was nothing. He threaded the Cobra onto the kind of solitary road that said turn around.
    “What is this street?” asked Coleman.
    “It’s a dead end.”
    “Where’s the dead end?”
    “Forty miles.”
    Coleman whistled. “Now, that’s a dead end. Why are we going there?”
    Serge stuck a thumb over his shoulder. “To get away from all those python-hunting wannabe mooks. If I’m going to track giant constrictors, I need a sector all to myself so I can bag every last one.”
    The Cobra hadn’t seen another vehicle in either direction for a half hour. Coleman was working a bottle of Old Crow with diligence when . . .
    Splat .
    Coleman leaned toward a dime-sized blotch on the windshield. “Serge, what was—”
    Splat . . . splat, splat.
    Serge turned on the wipers and fired a squirt of washer fluid. “Mosquito season.”
    “Those giant red stains are mosquitoes ?”
    “Where we’re going is arguably the fiercest insect breeding ground in the entire nation, where you often need wipers in total sunshine.”
    Splat, splat, splat.
    “Where are we going?”
    “Flamingo.” Serge hit the washer fluid again. “Most people think where we just came from is the last extreme stop on the bottom of the mainland, but our alternate destination is the real brass ring. So ridiculously remote that few ever make it or even know it exists.”
    “Anything out there?”
    “A ghost town.” Serge came around a final slow bend. “More than a hundred years ago, settlers had plenty of land upon which to raise crops and gather other staples