42 pages • 1-hour read
Squeeze Me
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Chapters 6-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Get a Grip”
Chapter 6 Summary
Angie receives an unexpected call from the Secret Service. They’ve retrieved the python carcass from the roadway and think it might be connected to the report that Angie filed about her storage locker theft. When she arrives, she positively identifies the remains and tells an agent named Paul Ryskamp where they came from.
The novel then switches its focus to the backstory of an illegal immigrant named Diego. Educated in the United States, he is forced to return to Honduras when his visa expires. Political unrest in his own country makes Diego desperate enough to get himself smuggled back into the States. He and a band of illegals land on Palm Beach the night of Kiki’s death. Diego manages to blend in and find a job on the mainland. A few weeks after his arrival, he is walking to work when he spies a pink pearl on the railroad tracks. He takes it, considering it to be a good luck omen. At work that day, ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents arrive to arrest Diego and the other illegals who made the crossing with him. When Diego is searched, the pearl is found, and he becomes a murder suspect.
Around the same time, Uric kills Prince Paladin and finds the diamonds and pearls the latter stole from Kiki’s corpse. Uric calls in an anonymous tip, blaming Prince for Kiki’s murder because Uric hopes to collect the $100,000 reward for information about her. He foolishly mentions that he and Prince visited a strip bar on the night of the crime. One of the strippers later tells the police about Prince and is able to describe Uric as well. Unaware that the police are now looking for him, Uric visits a pawn shop to sell the stolen jewelry.
At Casa Bellicosa, Mockingbird is taking a bubble bath. She calls Secret Service agent Keith Josephson to come in and show her his phone photos of the snake carcass, fascinated: “Mockingbird scrolled back and forth through the graphic sequence of photos. She said, ‘It’s gross but also kind of exciting, yes?’ ‘We’re in Florida. This is what goes on.’ ‘Maybe it’s more. Maybe it’s an omen’” (74). She then invites Josephson to make love to her. They have apparently played this scene many times before.
Chapter 7 Summary
Angie goes to collect the python and take it out for burial in a remote area. After examining the snake, she tells Agent Ryskamp that the missing Kiki was definitely eaten by the reptile. He doesn’t believe her and tactfully says that the investigation isn’t a Secret Service matter.
Later, Police Chief Crosby informs the Cornbright boys about an anonymous tip. Their mother’s remains were found at a construction site based on the tipster’s information. When Fay Alex Riptoad, Kiki’s closest friend, goes to identify the body, she tells Crosby that Kiki’s jewelry is missing.
Chapter 8 Summary
Based on Fay Alex’s description of Kiki’s conch pearl necklace, the pearl that Diego found is now tied to her death, and he is charged with murder. Meanwhile, Angie conducts her own investigation to track down the thieves who ransacked her apartment. She calls in a favor from Ryskamp, who gives her Prince Paladin’s real name, Keever Bracco.
At the same time, Uric is anxious to receive a payout for calling in his tip. He doesn’t realize that Crosby has advised the Cornbrights to delay payment: “The chief, who was experienced at interacting with overbred dolts, crafted a simple path for the Cornbrights” (94). Crosby wants time to investigate the tipster to find out if he was involved in the murder. He also thinks it wise to visit Diego to find out where he found the conch pearl.
Chapter 9 Summary
Prince Paladin’s brother, Germaine Bracco, has just returned home from a road trip as a scam acupuncturist when he finds Angie waiting for him. She slips the noose of a capture stick around his neck and gets him in a chokehold. Then, she makes him give up the name of his brother’s partner—Uric.
While Angie is interrogating Germaine, the remaining Potussies gather for a memorial lunch. The narrator reminds us of the reason for their bond: “They wintered in Palm Beach mainly for the sunshine, gilded charity circuit and cosmetic surgery advances, but what bonded them as a unit was their unshakable devotion to the perpetually besieged President” (102). They reach the conclusion that Diego is the murderer. This proves to them that the President is right: Violent immigrants are besieging the nation’s borders.
At the same time, Crosby goes to interrogate Diego. He asks to be taken to the railroad tracks, where the immigrant claims to have found the conch pearl. When the two men search the area again, Crosby finds not only another pearl but, right beside it, a piece of plastic with the letters “SS.” This is the logo for a Chevy SuperSport, so Crosby knows the make of the vehicle that carried Kiki’s body. Diego naively believes that this evidence will clear him of the murder charge.
Chapter 10 Summary
Based on information from Germaine, Angie goes to Prince Paladin’s favorite strip club to see if anyone can identify his unknown partner. There, she meets the Russian pole dancer who was previously interrogated by the police. With the incentive of a bribe, she reveals the name of Prince’s associate: Uric Burns.
The following morning, Uric pays a visit to Teabull. He insists that his original fee of $8,000 has now gone up. Since he knows about the dead body, he could implicate Teabull in the crime by planting evidence. Teabull agrees to pay him $16,000. Uric doesn’t know it, but the police have just found the Chevy Malibu SS that he sank in a canal. Prince’s weighted-down body has also been discovered near the car.
Later that afternoon, Ryskamp and some fellow Secret Service agents are watching a presidential press conference. The narrator offers a description of the President, referred to by his code name: “Up on the TV screen, Mastodon was wearing a vast beet-colored golf shirt that hung on his upper frame like an Orkin termite tent. His long-billed cap had been yanked down tight to keep his hairpiece moored to its Velcro moonbase during gusts of wind” (118). The President announces that Kiki was a close personal friend, though he mispronounces her name as Kikey Pew. In a speech riddled with inaccuracies, he announces that her murder was an act of political terrorism aimed at his administration. Ryskamp realizes he is the only agent who knows that Kiki was eaten by a snake.
Chapters 6-10 Analysis
This segment emphasizes the theme of justice in America. The same subject appears briefly in the first chapters when the reader learns that Angie lost her job because the courts didn’t want to appear hardhearted toward the handicapped poacher, Pruitt. That miscarriage of justice occurred on a local level. These chapters expand that theme on a national scale when the hapless Diego is found with a conch pearl in his pocket.
The illegal immigrant is immediately convicted in the court of public opinion, Palm Beach style, when the Potussies decide that he must have killed their dear Kiki as an act of terrorism aimed at their beleaguered president. The President himself lends credence to this theory when he holds an impromptu press conference and fabricates an accusation about illegal immigrants bent on destroying America. Diego becomes the face that the President attaches to this newest imaginary threat. The legal system does nothing to correct the record. Although Crosby interviews Diego and finds another pearl and part of the getaway car, his evidence is ignored. The state’s attorney is unwilling to release the young man and incur the wrath of the President and his followers. Crosby himself is averse to ruffling any local feathers since he wants to keep his job as police chief of Palm Beach.
While Diego remains hopeful that the law will dispense justice and clear him of the charge, Angie has already learned that the legal system is useless in granting justice. Although she hasn’t yet championed Diego’s cause, she is knee-deep in her own investigation of the lowlifes who stole the python carcass from her storage unit. Using information from Ryskamp, she manages to track down the identities of the culprits. For his part, the Secret Service agent is following the letter of the law by telling Angie that investigating the real reason for Kiki’s death is outside his jurisdiction.
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