Bad Monkey (Andrew Yancy, 1)

by Carl Hiaasen

had received numerous commendations for not fucking up on the job.

baking summer heat that undulated off the bright green grass.

start a damn riot.” Yancy said, “You knew Randolph Nilsson, right? The last guy who had my job.” “Yeah, he was married to my second wife’s third cousin. Or maybe it was my third wife’s second cousin. Anyhow, I’m the one scattered his ashes out by the Mud Keys. He was only fifty-three at the end. But life ain’t fair, right?” “No, Keith, it’s not.”

SOOOOOO GOOD!!!

gummy, sucking heat,

Woodrow Spillwright was practically levitating with joy.

Yancy selected a different pecan and, in hopes of appearing normal, popped it gaily into his mouth. “Have one,” he said. “Uh, no thanks.” He chomped down forcefully with his molars to pulverize the nut, just in case.

Hahahaha!!!!

thundercunt.

“Nobody said he was Alvin Einstein.” Yancy thought it was fortunate that Phinney and Madeline hadn’t pooled their genes.

“Last week I did a post on a man who had a clarinet up his colon,” she reported. “That’s not what killed him, by the way. It was a single gunshot to the head from a jealous lover. She played the oboe.” “Shakespeare was born too soon.”

his hair appeared to have been groomed with salad tongs.

Grave robbing was not uncommon in South Florida due to a thriving underground market for human bones, prized by Santeria priests and practitioners of extreme voodoo. The crime required muscle and nerve though no special stealth, as most cemeteries refused to spring for nighttime security guards. Flaco Chávez and his partner, whose street name was Delta Force, were robbers by trade and had never before cracked a coffin. They’d met in prison and later shared an inattentive parole officer. Delta Force claimed to be an ex-army commando and he sometimes broke into gyms after hours to work out with the weights. Flaco Chávez specialized in mugging elderly ATM patrons, although he spoke vaingloriously of graduating to armored cars. One night, while scouting for carjacking prospects at a BP station, the men were approached by a couple with an enticing offer: Six hundred dollars for robbing a grave—half the money up front, half when the grisly contents were delivered to a Denny’s restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard. It sounded like an easy job to Flaco Chávez and his partner, who promptly stole a late-model Tahoe from a pregnant nurse and struck out for the St. Lazarus Gardens and Water Park in North Miami. Along the way they stopped to burglarize an Ace Hardware store, acquiring two shovels, a pick, canvas gloves and a flashlight. The most challenging aspect of the heist, it turned out, was

Wow. What a way to introduce a character.

finding the correct target. Delta Force was ripped on coke and lacking in focus, so it was Flaco’s chore to locate the burial plot of Nicholas Stripling, whoever the fuck he was. Once the site had been isolated, the excavation took barely an hour, Delta Force digging like a dervish while Flaco Chávez feigned a hamstring cramp. Heading back downtown, their stolen SUV was spotted by a county police officer, who deftly swung his squad car into a U-turn and lit them up like a disco ball. Flaco Chávez spoke out in favor of a low-key surrender but Delta Force, facing multiple parole violations and a long bus ride back to Starke, stomped on the accelerator. Neither man could be bothered with seat belts, so their skulls spidered the windshield at exactly seventy-one miles per hour when Delta Force—showing misplaced faith in the performance-enhancing attributes of cocaine hydrochloride—attempted a cinematic off-road evasion and crashed into a banyan tree. The impact ejected from the Tahoe’s rear hatch a navy-blue golf bag belonging to the husband of the pregnant carjacking victim. The golf bag spilled a full set of Callaways, three sleeves of Bridgestone balls, a speargun and an embalmed human arm, which was sent in its own ambulance to the medical examiner’s office. Ironically, the stream of emergency

These paragraphs - so rich! He had to get the arm to Miami, so here's the story he created out of thin air, to make the story mesmerizing instead of mundane.

blinking like a toad in a puddle of piss.

Where does he GET these? Are they southern sayings? Or is he making these up? So great!

He wondered if something was mentally wrong with him for being content with what he had …

This whole passage has stuck with me - the idea that someone with so little could be happy - and how sweet and funny that he should worry about his mental health because of it - most people would worry, I think. This is a beautiful character he's created.

laser-guided clump of mattress stuffing.

Hahahaha!!!

adenoidal moans

“You can still void?” Eve said buoyantly. “That’s a super healthy sign, Nicky. And I see your toes moving, too!” “Yeah, that’s right, they’re dancing a tango. Now bring me something—a jar or a bowl, I don’t care.” Eve went to the kitchen and came back with an empty wine bottle. Stripling scowled. “Get serious. My dick won’t fit in there.” “Sure it will.” “It’s bigger than a goddamn cork!” Wretchedly he pounded on the armrests of the Rollie. “Honey, chill. I didn’t mean anything,” his wife said. “Gimme your glass before I wet my pants!”

Hahahaha