Stoat convinces Artemus to veto funding for the bridge but has no intention of letting the project fail. He tells Clapley and Artemus that the funding can be put back into the budget later, through a special session of the Florida legislature. Clapley sends a hit man, Mr. Gash, to kill Twilly, while Artemus, in an effort to avoid the bridge project being tainted by a violent death, locates ex-governor Clinton Tyree, a.k.a. "Skink", who vanished in the mid-1970s after a short term of office and is said to be hiding in the remaining wilderness of Florida. Artemus knows that Skink's mentally disturbed elder brother, Doyle, is still on the state's payroll as the keeper of an abandoned lighthouse, and threatens to put him on the street if Skink doesn't apprehend Twilly. Artemus fails to realize the dire consequences of threatening a man with Skink's volcanic temper, or of putting him and Twilly in contact with each other.