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ac259d4
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tree frogs
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Carl Hiaasen |
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30eedf9
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Quit being an asshole, Nicky. You weren't in the medical care business, you were in the stealing business.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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be8e41a
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Well, apparently, I'm trying to fix the entire human race, one flaming asshole at a time.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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9f91584
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In all the years, only one person had been foolhardy enough to try to fight Trooper Jim Tile. The boy's name was Dekle, and he was eighteen, as big and white as a Frigidaire, and just about as intelligent.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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96f72ec
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Consequently the Harney High athletic department decided to focus on another sport, basketball. The first order of business was to build a gymnasium with a basketball court and some portable bleachers. The second order of business was to send a cautious delegation of coaches and teachers into the black neighborhood to recruit some good basketball players. A few old crackers in Harney huffed and swore about having to watch a bunch of skinny ..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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c3e5d60
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He was gone, unglued, lost in a pathetic blubbering panic.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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1ac113c
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During the last days of his governorship, Clinton Tyree had lobbied for a somewhat tougher law. His version would have required anyone who killed a manatee to immediately forfeit his boat (no matter how luxurious) and pay a ten-thousand dollar fine or go to jail for forty-five days. The Tyree Amendment would have also required the manatee killer to bury the dead animal himself, at a public ceremony. Not surprisingly, the governor's proposal..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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5f946d1
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Merry's hair was flying everywhere so she pulled it into a ponytail. It occurred to Yancy that, in the time they'd known each other, he hadn't once seen her look at her cell phone. She never texted, tweeted, Facebooked, Instagrammed, or posted a single picture when they were together. He found this behavior alluring.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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cdf24e3
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Damn it, Billy, you did it again. People don't buy townhouses on 'canals'. 'Canal' is a dirty word. A canal is where raw sewage goes. A canal is where ducks fuck and cattle piss. Who'd want to live on a damn canal? Would you pay a hundred fifty grand to do that? No. You'd want to live on a lake. A cool, scenic lake. And lakes is what we're selling here.' 'I understand," the vice president said. Lakes it is then. Straight, narrow lakes. Lake..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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87979fb
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Bodean James Gazzer had spent thirty-one years perfecting the art of assigning blame. His personal credo - everything bad that happens is someone else's fault - could, with imagination, be stretched to fit any circumstance. Bode stretched it. The intestinal unrest that occasionally afflicted him surely was the result of drinking milk taken from secretly radiated cows. The roaches in his apartment were planted by his filthy immigrant next-do..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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7697829
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Dr. Joe Allen had autopsied 3,712 murder victims during his long career as the Dade County coroner, so he had seen more indescribable carnage than perhaps any other human being in the whole United States. Throughout the years Joe Allen had charted South Florida's progress by what lay dead on his steel tables, and he was long past the point of ever being shocked or nauseated. He performed meticulous surgery, kept precise files, and compiled ..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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b20ecc2
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Sparky Harper and the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce adored travel writers because travel writers never wrote stories about street crime, water pollution, fish kills, beach erosion, refugees, AIDS epidemics, nuclear accidents, cocaine smugglers, gun-runners, or race riots. Once in a while, a daring travel writer would mention one of these subjects in passing, but strictly in the context of a minor setback from which South Florida was plu..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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ba5afa2
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The answer is, nothing's going to happen to you. The friend who called, he put in a good word.' 'Oh, yeah?' 'Jail will not make an impression on this woman. Don't waste your time.' That's a quote.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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e163790
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Burnout is common because of the long hours, the crummy pay and the depressing nature of so much of what we write. As the saying goes, they never send us to the airport when the plane lands safely.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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b78bc08
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Up until a few years ago, I'd never had any doubts about newspaper work, never thought I'd made the wrong choice. I went into the business not because I was looking to get beat up or training to be a novelist, because I wanted to be Bob Woodward or Sy Hersh, kicking butt on the front page. Reality slowly set in and I realized that I wasn't destined for Washington or New York or even Miami, but still there were good stories; good days when I..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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143351a
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A brief snapshot of Race Maggad III: rangy and blond, with a smooth plump-looking chin, narrow green eyes and a tan as smooth as peanut butter. His long aquiline nose has a permanent hump where he once whacked himself accidentally with a polo mallet. Twice weekly his fingernails are professionally polished to a porcelain sheen, and the tooth whitener of his preference is imported at no small expense from Marseille. He calls his wife 'Casey-..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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bc2f23a
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The writers had decided that Buck Nance's brothers should refer to him as 'Captain Cock' when quarreling on the show, and inevitably the sleeveless t-shirt bearing that nickname became the top seller of all Bayou Brethren merchandise.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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7b4e707
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The whereabouts of the other Nance brothers-- Clee Roy, Buddy, and Junior--had been ascertained. They were chilling at the forty-acre Pensacola estate leased by the network and used as an outdoor set for the fractious family barbecue scenes that closed each episode. Down the road a stretch was the rooster farm, which the clan avoided except during taping days, because of the stench.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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9f032d2
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Congratulations. A new low.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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b1ec28e
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Soon enough it was explained to Buck Nance that Key West was a bad location to be making fun of homosexuals, and also African-Americans. This bulletin was delivered by a 275-pound biker who happened to be both gay and black, and owned a right hand that fit easily around Buck's stringy, hirsute neck.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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7397c8e
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Buck got walloped by flying fists and Budweiser bottles, and at one point a man costumed as Lady Gaga attempted to rip the beard from his chin. The man was surprisingly strong, and wore just enough jasmine perfume to be distracting.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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a8ca275
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So that's your man? The 'talent' you manage?' 'He had a bad night.' Coolman said tightly. Merry cackled. 'A bad night? The dude's a total homophobe! Also a bigot!' 'There's a culture gap, that's all.' 'No, it's a decency gap, Bob! Your client's a flaming a-hole! What's the matter with you? I'm so disappointed.' Coolman had received other morality lectures, though never from a professional criminal.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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59dfe37
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Buck stared at this degenerate ambassador for his own popularity, wondering how many other Brethren fans were homicidal, nutjob stalkers.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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efabb49
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Yancy might have found humor in the bourbon-soaked TV version of rural Southern life, if Buck was just another harmless stooge. But he wasn't. He was a septic inspiration to impressionable mouth-breathers such as Benny the Blister.
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Carl Hiaasen (author) |
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c361f07
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As a manager of so-called talent, he was demoralized to find himself in such low company, sitting between an armed crackpot and a fake chicken farmer known to millions as "Captain Cock." Back home in Beverly Hills, rival agents were dining with classy A-listers such as Javier Bardem and the Cohen Brothers, or so Coolman bitterly imagined."
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Carl Hiaasen (author) |
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c61899d
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Only Indian tribes are allowed to run casino operations in Florida, so Dusty somehow persuaded a couple of rich Miccosukees from Miami to buy the marina and make it part of their reservation. Dad said the government raised a stink but later backed off because the Indians had better lawyers.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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9693c7f
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As she grew older, Erin accepted the fact that her mother was a restless gold digger who would never be happy, never be satisfied. On the other hand, her husbands knew exactly what they were getting and didn't seem to care. It taught Erin one of life's great lessons: an attractive woman could get whatever she wanted, because men were so laughably weak.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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2769c9c
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Miklos said he's applied to be night clerk at a Ramada Inn near the beach. He said the waiting list was two pages long. 'But I got more experience than most.' 'You're not kidding,' Garcia said. 'Good luck with that job.' 'Thank you,' Miklos said. 'Good luck with your murder.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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af7a16f
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Eventually Garcia asked what it was like to work in a nude dance club. Shad puffed out a heavy grunt. 'After a while, you don't notice.' 'Come on.' 'Really. I'm to the point where I get excited when they put their clothes on. That's what happens after too long.' Garcia said, 'I know guys who would kill for your job.' 'They can have it. Being around naked women all day is bad for your outlook. After a while it's just tits and ass and nothing..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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68eac39
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Guess what I got in the trunk? An Igloo cooler. And guess what's in the cooler? A human head.' Shad violently expelled the cigar out the window. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his camo jacket. 'No joke,' Garcia said. 'Property of one Francisco Goyo, deceased. I can't begin to tell you how much gas I've wasted on the case. The fat prick got dumped in a dozen different zip codes.' 'Why,' Shad asked, 'do you got his head in an Igloo?' 'So..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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3afa72d
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She said, 'you think I'm a whore?' 'Don't be ridiculous.' Erin stepped back from the water. 'But you wouldn't want your daughter doing what I do.' 'My daughter,' said Garcia, 'is not leaving the house until she's thirty years old.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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d652d08
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Erin said, 'I'll ask you what you've been dying to ask me: how in the world can you do it?' 'Do what?' 'Your job. Dead bodies, day after day. I couldn't take it.' The detective said, 'hey, it's a growth industry. The state could sell fucking bonds.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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c75bd61
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Neighbors were divided on the question of whether Mrs. Braden had been excessive in her reaction. Witnesses agreed that Jesse had been a prodigious sinner, and often conducted himself in a manner that invited homicide. The shooting itself was not so much at issue as Mrs. Braden's selection of anatomical targets. The men in the crowd, sober and otherwise, felt that the mere spilling of an alcoholic beverage--and subsequent insensitive laught..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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df2918c
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Rosa got home from the office at five-thirty. They didn't go out for dinner and they didn't make love. The autopsy she'd completed was that of a girl who had died on her birthday. Only eight years old, and the parents had left her alone when they went to play the slots at the Miccosukee casino, way out on Krome Avenue. The girl was doing laps in the backyard pool when her appendix ruptured, no one there to hear the cries for help. She made ..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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c5e2297
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Eventually she came to believe that her condition was one that couldn't be treated medically; she was doomed to demand more decency and consideration from her fellow humans than they demanded of themselves.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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2fe95a4
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Buck wondered how Blister Krill had survived to middle age in a place as ethnically diverse and gun-crazy as Florida. He was confronted with the possibility that Blister had been a different person before becoming obsessed with Bayou Brethren. It was one thing to market a television program to attract low-class shit-kickers; it was another thing to create them.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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502575a
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Buck Nance appeared ashen and deflated, for good reason. Blister was his creation--the ultimate white-trash nightmare.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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650d8a7
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Buck Nance used Lane Coolman's phone to call Krystal. 'Baby, I'm coming home soon,' he said. 'Who's this?' 'Aw, don't be like that.' 'Wait... now I remember," said his wife. 'You're the scumbag husband who keeps a whore on the side.' 'She's just another stalker. I swear to Christ.' 'Is Miracle her real name or is that what her pimp tagged her with?' 'She's a total psycho, Krystal. You can't believe a word she-' The line went dead."
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Carl Hiaasen |
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ff39d0f
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As much as Sammy Tigertail cherished the Mark Knopfler guitar, embracing it made him think of the casino from whose garish walls it had been lifted. The great Osceola would not have allowed his people to put their name on such a monstrous palace of white greed; more likely he would have set a torch to it.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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8a82052
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Spending time with Benny the Blister had shaken Buck Nance's confidence in the superiority of the white male. He and his brothers had clung to such views since their Romberg youth, warped by their father's fulminations. While redneck stardom had exposed Buck to many white fans who were poor advertisements for a master race, Blister stood out as one of the worst specimens he'd ever met: stupid, reckless, dirty, and delusional. And that's whe..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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b98f445
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He nearly died.' 'Yeah, because he's a fool,' Mickey said. 'There's no known cure for that.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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10767c5
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One day he just 'snapped.' That's Mom's word for what happened. Some brat yanked one too many times on his tail, and Grandpa Kenneth spun around and punted him halfway down Main Street USA. The kid's family sued Disney World for some insane amount of money, but by then Grandpa Kenneth and Grandma Janet had already packed up and moved to Moose Lick Saskatchewan, where they opened a snowmobile dealership and never laid eyes on another tourist..
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Carl Hiaasen |
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6ce0bd3
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I never met a survivalist. How do you get a job like that anyway?' She smiled wanly. 'First you need a TV show.
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Carl Hiaasen |
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d13c2dc
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Wild chickens were roaming all over the streets. 'Your pal ought to feel right at home,' Merry said. 'You kidding? He hates the damn things. Says they're filthy and crawling with lice.' 'Chickens get lice?' Coolman said, 'I work hard not to think about it.
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Carl Hiaasen |