Going Dark(51)

By then he’d arrived in the valet parking lot of the Palace, one of Miami’s more glamorous assisted-living facilities, a block down from Miracle Mile in the Gables.

Last year Johnny Greening had retired from U.S. Fish and Wildlife after thirty-five years of undercover work, busting biker outlaws for selling endangered snakes and killer pit bulls to other outlaws, and once infiltrating a primate-smuggling operation that supplied orangutans to rock stars and wealthy perverts, and for a decade he’d worked the Everglades beat, which put Johnny up against a handful of hard-core poachers who’d survived a couple of centuries too long, living far away from the rule of law, in the middle of that river of grass, and had the battered faces and the dead-eye aim to prove it.

Johnny had taken his savings and bought himself a penthouse at the Palace, where he’d become the darling of dozens of well-endowed widows who vied ruthlessly for his attention.

The valet slipped Sheffield a claim check, frowned at Frank’s humble ride, then drove the Chevy off to a dark corner of the garage where it wouldn’t contaminate the Maseratis and BMWs. Sheffield passed through a lobby drenched in red velvet and gold brocade, walking past the white-marble concierge’s stand, across deep-pile Orientals lit by massive chandeliers that blazed as brightly as the souls of recently departed billionaires.

He stood at the bank of elevators, nodded hello to a sharp-eyed woman with a complicated stack of silver hair. She wore a skintight red tracksuit and strappy sandals and had impossible breasts.

“You in the market?” she said.

“Just visiting.”

She ducked her hand in her pocket and came out with a business card. “When you’re ready, give me a call. They’re going fast. I can still get you a sunset view for under two million, but that won’t last long.”

“Nothing ever does.”

Johnny Greening was waiting for him as the elevator doors opened in the foyer of his penthouse. He’d styled his white hair into a rigid flattop and had put on twenty pounds around the middle, but still looked fit enough to wrestle a ten-foot gator if called upon.

“Need your expertise, Johnny.”

“Having trouble with the ladies?”

“Doing fine with the ladies. It’s this.” Frank held up the DVD. “You got a disc player, right?”

“Have to eject Debbie Does Dallas, but, sure, let’s have a look.”

They went into Johnny’s playroom, tricked out with wet bar and blackout curtains. As if he’d been inspired by some Shanghai opium den, the room had no furniture, but the burgundy wall-to-wall carpet was covered with lush pillows of every shape and size. One wall was devoted to electronics. Flatscreen TV and six-foot speakers and a stereo system that had nearly as many dials and gauges and blinking lights as the control panel at the nuke plant.

Johnny ejected the disc from his DVD player, set it aside, and slid in the croc video. He took the remote over to a pillow the size of a kiddie pool and lounged back on it. Frank stayed on his feet, leaning against the wall.

“What is this we’re watching?”

“That’s what you’re going to tell me,” Frank said.

They viewed the video without comment, then Johnny replayed it. A big croc appears at the edge of the canal and climbs up the steep slope. Cameron Prince calls out a warning to Levine, and Leslie waves him off. It was cool, her wave said, no sweat. The big croc in the spotlight wanders a bit, then spots a hump of earth and climbs atop it, seems to listen for a few seconds, then lifts herself high on her stumpy legs and drops hard on her belly. The croc digs into the hump, discovers the eggs and freshly hatched crocs. Leslie Levine is smiling in the shadows as if she’s stoked by the scene unfolding in front of her.

Plucking two hatchlings out of the nest in her mouth, the mother croc heads back the way she’s come. Leslie follows five yards behind, treading uncertainly across the slippery ground.

“Good-looking woman.”

“How unusual is this?” Frank asked.

“Good-looking women? I find they’re pretty rare.”

“I mean a croc digging up her newborns. These two guys stumble on this, is it a one-in-a-million shot, or is it happening all over the place out there?”

“None of the above,” Greening said.

“Would you care to elaborate?”

“You feds, I love how you talk. Bunch of egghead college boys.”

“Lots of syllables, I know. Part of the training.”

“Well, you’re asking is it common what you’re seeing? Yes and no. This time of year for a few weeks, yeah, it’s the season when mother crocs uncover the eggs to see if their babies hatched, probably happening in the low dozens I’d guess, and it’s mainly happening in those cooling canals. The crocs are squeezed into that one tiny coastal area. Can’t go inland, too many shopping malls. Can’t go north, it’s Miami, all concrete and random gunfire; can’t go south because it’s salt water and the young can’t survive salt water, so this is ground zero for croc nesting. That one little stretch.