by Carl Hiaasen
Ned Bunterman said, "No worries, punkin. You won't have to pose nude."
"And even if you do," one of the Larks cut in, "Mr. Chemo wouldn't be standing around slobbering like some school-yard perv. He's a professional."
Cherry's father wished he were back in California, poring over the bills and brokerage statements, or having a spa day with the Jorgensens, his beloved Danes. Once the current crisis passed and Cherry's concert tour began, he could return to a soothing routine of golf, vineyard tours and three-way sex; his wife usually phoned once a day from the road to get the latest numbers, but otherwise Ned Bunterman was not much in demand.
Cherry said, "Who's doing hair and makeup? I don't want Leo anymore, I want Chloe."
"Chloe's in Vancouver," Janet Bunterman said.
"Then send the jet."
"She's on a movie with Hilary Duff."
"God! Not that skank!" Cherry looked around for something to throw, and settled on a sun-dried fig from the fruit platter. "Then what about wardrobe? How can you not wear Versace in Miami? Seriously, Mom."
Janet Bunterman adopted a gentle schooling tone. "Sweetie, this isn't going to be like any other photo shoot you've done. The man's a bit eccentric--he demands total control."
"But he's brilliant," chimed one of the twins.
"Claude?" Cherry made a sour face. "He didn't smell brilliant."
"Plus he's a huge fan," the other Lark said.
"True. He knew, like, every song I ever did."
Maury Lykes looked pleased. "So then we're good to go, right?"
"Then when can I do the Seaquarium?" Cherry scratched an itch under one of her arms.
"Another day," said her mother.
"But I need to get a new thong, 'kay? For our save-the-whales video."
"Of course, sweetie."
"After I die, see, I really wanted to come back as a whale? But now I don't, 'cause who wants to get, like, stabbed with a harpoon?"
Cherry misread the dead silence in the room as empathy.
Chemo coughed sharply. "I got a question," he said, eyeing Ned Bunterman.
"Yes?"
"All these years, you never had her tested? Hell, she was my kid ... "
"That's enough," Maury Lykes said.
"Tested for what?" Cherry asked.
Ned Bunterman felt a paternal duty to inform the bodyguard that he wasn't very funny. The man's response was a soul-chilling leer.
"Does he mean HIV?" said Cherry.
"No."
"'Cause I already been tested, like, a hundred times."
Chemo tweaked an inflamed pock on his jawline. "I was talkin' about the test that tells if you're a retard or not."
Maury Lykes signaled time-out and said, "I've got a meeting with the turds from Ticketmaster in five minutes." Then, to Chemo: "You and I will talk later."
"Damn right we will."
The meeting broke up, and Ned Bunterman rolled his suitcase down the hallway to his room. He had a terrace with an ocean view, but it was the wrong ocean.
Instead of unpacking, he fixed himself a bourbon.
20
It had been a long time since he'd seen that particular De Niro film--or any film--but the governor understood the reference when the tourist called him "Travis Bickle." This happened while he was waiting in the stolen taxi near the Marriott, after he'd politely informed the man that he was off duty and couldn't drive him to the basketball game. The Heat was playing the Nets.
The tourist, a middle-aged knob in a distressed-leather jacket, had turned to his female friend and said, "Travis Bickle here says he's off duty."
"Sorry," Skink had said.
"Those are the worst fuckin' hair plugs I ever saw. You should sue."
"I changed my mind. Get in."
Skink took the Julia Tuttle Causeway toward the mainland. The man worked for an airline that hubbed in Newark--supervising the night baggage crew, the weight of the entire free world on his shoulders, to hear him tell it. The girlfriend, she did temp work in Brooklyn.
"How much farther?" she asked. "We're gonna miss the tip-off."
The governor asked if it was their first trip to Miami and paid no attention to their reply. He was irked at himself for buckling to a reckless impulse; he should have remained in stakeout position across from the hotel, in case Annie and her kidnapper came out.
But the guy in the leather jacket was such an ass that Skink felt compelled to impart a lesson. It was a chronic weakness; he couldn't let anything slide. Never had. Why waste your time on these jerks? Jim Tile always said. People don't change, Clint.
And his standard response: Who cares. It feels right.
"Are you wasted?" asked the knob from the backseat.
It was then the woman pointed out that their driver bore no resemblance to Mr. Henri Juste-Toussaint, the Haitian gentleman whose face was pictured on the taxi license. The male passenger ordered Skink to pull over and let them out.
"Hang tight. We're almost there," Skink said.
"Stop this cab or I'll kick your fuckin' ass."
"Not likely."
He pulled into the James Scott housing project and parked by a basketball court where a lively pickup game was under way. The court had a sun-bleached concrete surface and chain nets on the hoops and three-point lines that had been spray-painted freehand.
The governor's passengers bolted from the taxi, the woman whipping out her phone to call the cops. Instantly the pickup game came to a halt, as it was not a neighborhood frequented by tourists. Now the only sound was a rhythmic thump of the basketball being bounced by a rangy young brother wearing a Cavs jersey and a pair of old Air Jordans.
To the man in the leather jacket, Skink said: "You're in for a treat. These guys can play."
"This is funny to you?"
"Try to behave and everything will be fine."
"Those fuckin' Heat seats, they cost me a hundred each!"
"Right you are. It's a sin to waste them." The governor snatched the tickets from the guy's fingers and hollered out the window: "Yo! Who wants to go see D-Wade dunk?"
He picked the two smallest dudes on the court and drove them to the downtown arena, where in addition to the asswipe's tickets he gave them some cash to take a real cab home after the game. Waylaid by a massive traffic jam, he crept and crawled back to South Beach and began cruising around the Marriott, searching for a parking spot with a view.
On his third pass he spied young Ann, the actress. She wore a starchy ill-fitting dress but otherwise seemed to be all right. The man at her side was shortish and stout; he had an aqua baseball cap on his head, and a wrap of bright white bandages on one hand. His other hand was concealed in a dark carry bag that he hugged to his chest.
The bad news was, they were entering--not leaving--the hotel. The governor cursed and howled like a gut-shot wolf. It wasn't safe to follow Annie inside, not after the suitcase-burning incident; the Marriott management would almost certainly have beefed up the security crew.
Skink was jolted by a long blast from an air horn, and in the rearview mirror he saw a city bus on his bumper. He lifted his sandy shoe off the brake pedal and eased on down the road, trying to figure out a new move.
Ann DeLusia was amazed that a person could fire a revolver inside a hotel room and not one single guest would call the desk to complain about the noise. But crank up Radiohead for twenty lousy minutes while you're zoning in the tub, and they bring out the damn SWAT team.
"There's no justice," she said, balancing in bare feet on a chair. Bang Abbott was holding her ankles while she used a wad of toilet tissue to pluck the bloody remnant of his forefinger off the ceiling.
"My trigger finger!" he kept mewling.
Immediately after the gunshot he'd gone pale and wobbly, on the verge of hurling, but he had gathered himself and grabbed the Colt away from her. He'd tried to retrieve the fingertip himself but chair number one had collapsed in pieces under his heft.
"What should I do with this?" Ann asked afte
r hopping down with the mangled chunk.
"For Christ's sake, keep it warm!"
"You keep it warm, Claude."
So he wedged the seeping wad into the second-most-humid crevice on his body until they located a Cuban clinic that was open on Sundays. There a young physician's assistant informed him that what remained of the severed forefinger was too damaged to be surgically reattached.
"Don't tell me that," said Bang Abbott, sagging.
"How did this happen?"
"An iguana attacked me." The photographer couldn't reveal the truth, because in Florida medical caregivers were required by law to report all bullet wounds to the police.
"That's quite unusual," the physician's assistant remarked. "It just ran up and bit you for no reason?"
"Well, it was a big-ass iguana." Bang Abbott looked sharply at Ann for backup.
She said, "Do they carry rabies? Because this one was foaming at the mouth."
"I'm not sure," said the physician's assistant, "but I can check online." He deposited the sodden tissue containing Bang Abbott's nub into a red bin marked BIOHAZARDOUS WASTE.
Glaring at Ann, the paparazzo said, "Lizards don't have rabies."
To straighten her up, he pointed at the camera bag, which was strapped over his left shoulder. That was where he'd put the gun.
"Darling, you should get the shots," she carried on sweetly, "just in case. I know they're dreadfully painful, but still--"
"Let's not waste the man's time," said Bang Abbott. Then, to the physician's assistant: "Just patch up my damn hand, okay?"
Back at the hotel, he cuffed Ann to a leg of the bed and hunkered down with a Nikon to practice pressing the shutter button with his middle finger. It was awkward, the weight of the camera feeling off center in his bulky new grip. The guy at the clinic had gone overboard with the tape and gauze.
Ann said, "You're uptight about tomorrow. I can tell."
"No, I'm in pain." He held up his bandaged paw. "You shot me, remember?"
"It was an accident, Claude. I said I was sorry."
"Just shut up."
"I'm the one who should be pissed, after all the shitty things you've done."
Bang Abbott didn't respond. He was trying to take pictures of a lamp.
"You're lucky I didn't pop you in the nuts," she said.
It wasn't a prudent way to address an armed, emotionally unstable individual, but Ann was mad and hungry, and she needed a bath. "I can't wait for tomorrow," she said.
"Me, neither."
"Oh, yes, you can. You're scared."
"Try psyched." The photographer waggled his untested digit. "This'll work. I'll make it work."
In truth, Ann herself was anxious about the meeting at Star Island. Would he really just let her walk away, free as a bird, after Cherry showed up? How could he be sure that she wouldn't run straight to the police?
Cherry's people will take good care of you. That's what Claude had said. So there would be some money offered, which was only fair--getting kidnapped was definitely not part of the job description. Ann intended to raise that issue, and others, with Janet Bunterman.
"You said they're sending a car for me."
"That's right," Bang Abbott said.
"To take me where?"
He peered up from the camera. "How the hell should I know? Back to the Stefano, I guess."
"Maybe I prefer the Setai," Ann said.
"Honey, I don't give a shit if you end up at a Motel 6. I'm tryin' to work here, so shut the hell up or I'll have to gag you."
"You already gag me, Claude."
Ann knew she'd have to call her agent once it was over. Months had passed since she and Marcus had spoken. His last gem of an offer was a leg-modeling gig for a depilatory made with Jamaican mango rind; Ann had declined. Marcus probably would want 15 percent of the payoff from the Buntermans, but in Ann's view that was victim's compensation and therefore exempt from his commission. She, not sockless Marcus in his Bally loafers, was the one held captive at gunpoint. Even by Hollywood standards his agency would appear slimy, trying to gouge a client who'd been abducted and abused. It was not an item you'd want to see in Variety. Ann would point that out to young Marcus if he decided to get pissy.
She said, "Maybe I'll go back to L.A. and write a screenplay."
Bang Abbott snickered.
"What?"
"You," he said. "You kill me." He put the camera down and started wiping his lenses. "When this is over, what you should write is your own ticket, understand? They'll give you whatever you want because they got no choice. And if they're too dumb or too cheap to pay up, then you turn the screws. How? Figure it out--somebody tips off somebody, and all of a sudden it's viral: 'Cherry Pye uses a double!' You got a blog, right?"
Ann snapped her fingers. "That's what's been missing from my life!"
"Start a blog," Bang Abbott advised. "Go easy at first, but get their attention. And leave me out of it, for sure."
She smiled. "But why, Claude?"
He knelt down heavily and seized her chin and placed his moist round face inches from hers. Ann was startled.
"'Cause nobody will believe that part of the story," he said, "and nobody--not a single human soul--will back you up. Don't you get it? It'll be your word against mine, and by then Cherry will have seen my pictures and creamed all over herself because she never looked so hot. I'll be golden, princess, and the Larks will put out a statement saying you're just another--"
"Disgruntled ex-employee," Ann murmured through her teeth.
"Bingo. With emotional problems." His breath felt hot and rank on her cheeks. "They'll say you made up the kidnap story just to get attention and advance your own lame career. It'll be so ugly, you'll never recover."
With a grunt he arose. "But, see, the whole look-alike gig," he said, "all these months you've spent behind the scenes, that's a real problem for them. You know certain dates and places, details that could be nailed down by the tabs--like what happened at the Stefano last week. One of the bellhops saw them wheeling Cherry out the kitchen exit, puking in a bucket--you think that mangy little monkey wouldn't sell his story for party money? And he ain't the only one, either. The dam breaks, Cherry and her crew would be muy screwed-o. Think about it."
Ann was reluctantly impressed that the paparazzo seemed to have pondered all the angles. She herself had never been good at smelling the blood in the water. Deep at heart, however, she had no appetite for orchestrating a seedy shakedown.
"All I wanna do is go home and start over."
Bang Abbott sneered. "That's what they all say."
"Know what, Claude?"
"Spare me. I gotta go unhitch the train." He shuffled into the bathroom and shut the door.
Ann lay down on her back, the handcuffs clinking against the metal leg of the bed. She wondered if the photographer had kept her little black dress, and if there was a chance in hell of getting it dry-cleaned before tomorrow.
Cherry Pye asked, "What's that?"
"Cattle prod," Chemo said. He'd bought it at a farm-supply store in Kissimmee, the same week he was paroled from prison. It was a Sabre-Six Hot-Shot, with a fiberglass shaft and nickel-plated contacts. He used it for jobs that were too dainty for the weed whacker.
"Looks sorta kinky. How's it work?" She was slurping another Red Bull, painting her toenails.
"I've been making a list in my head," Chemo said.
They were outside, on the balcony terrace of her suite, Cherry wearing a DOG THE BOUNTY HUNTER T-shirt and a sky-blue string bikini bottom. The sun was intense so Chemo had smeared his face with 70 SPF sunblock, which made him look like a seven-foot mime. He was waiting for his meeting with Maury Lykes.
"Like, what kinda list?" Cherry asked, and he touched the end of the cattle prod to her bare thigh. She made a noise like a chicken going under the wheels of a truck, and pitched over sideways in the patio chair.
"Every time you say like, I prod your ass," he explained. "Also on the list: awesome, sweet, si
ck, totally, and hot. Those are for starters."
She stopped writhing after a minute or so. Her first breathless words were: "What the fuck, dude?"
"That's another one--dude. Consider yourself warned."
"It's, like, electric or somethin'?"
He shocked her again. "Hell, yes, it's electric. They use 'em on rodeo bulls."
"But this is how I always talk," she cried. "I can't just stop all of a sudden!"
Chemo figured her brain functioned at the same simple level as livestock's. "Some of the prison guards upstate used to pack these bad boys," he said.
Cherry hopped to her feet and called him a monster and ordered him to throw the cattle prod away.
"Relax. It won't leave a mark," he said.
"How the fuck would you like it?" she shouted, then recoiled with a flinch.
The bodyguard smiled. "See, it's already working."
"But how come you didn't zap me?"
"'Cause you used the word the right way--as a verb, not an interjection. 'I like good weed' instead of 'I want some, like, good weed.'"
A Carmelite nun with whom Chemo corresponded in prison once sent him a book of basic grammar, which he practically memorized. His own speech wasn't flawless, yet he tried not to butcher the language.
"No volts for acceptable usage," he said to Cherry.
"I hate you!"
"That's better. Stick with simple sentences."
"I'm tellin' my mother. Maury, too."
Chemo said, "Go ahead. They won't believe you."
He pulled from his pocket the tangerine BlackBerry, which had been trilling all day.
"Hey, my phone!" Cherry exclaimed. "Give it here."
"It's not yours. You stole it from Abbott."
"That is soooo totally bogus."
"Look out," Chemo said, and stung her twice with the cattle prod--once for totally and another for bogus, although it wasn't officially on the list.
He left her flopping on the terrace and went inside to call Maury Lykes, who'd promised to return after his sit-down with the Ticketmaster people. The promoter answered on the first ring and said he was riding up in the elevator. As soon as he walked into the suite, Chemo looked him over and said, "Ticketmaster, my ass."