Shark Skin Suite

by Tim Dorsey

  “Serge.” Reevis stared down at his shoes. “I know you mean well, but I really need to get going on résumés. Reporters don’t get paid enough to have savings—”

  “Your résumé’s already in.” Serge squinted at passing greyhounds for clues. “And you’ve already been hired.”

  Reevis looked up. “By who?”

  “Me!”

  The journalist sighed. “Listen, and don’t take this wrong, because I actually find you entertaining in a charmingly eccentric way. But I have to start getting serious about this.”

  “Is this serious enough?” Serge pulled a fat wad from his pocket and peeled off large bills. “How’s five hundred to get you over?”

  “I can’t take that!”

  Serge shook his head and peeled off more bills. “Okay, seven hundred. And I’d heard beggars couldn’t be choosy.”

  “No, I mean it’s too much,” said Reevis. “And you don’t have any work for me.”

  “Oh, I’ve definitely got some work for you!” Serge tucked the cash in Reevis’s shirt pocket. “Consider that a bridge payment until you land another newspaper gig. You can start with me this afternoon.”

  “Start what?”

  Serge climbed up on the fence and pointed at a dog with a yellow flag on its side. “What do you think of number six?”

  “I don’t know anything about greyhounds,” said Reevis. “This job you mentioned—”

  “I don’t know greyhounds either.” Serge began doing jumping jacks. “So I never bet on the dogs. Instead I study the odds board and bet against the crowd.”

  “Win much?”

  “What? Why am I jumping?” He stopped. “The dog business is extremely delicate. Everyone huddled with programs and pencils, performing complex logarithmic calculations, then on the way to the starting gate one of the dogs poops, throwing the odds board into pandemonium, people leaping out of their seats screaming in terror, clawing each other on their way back to the ticket windows, time ticking down like an H-bomb: ‘For the love of Jesus, don’t close the booth yet!’ ” He nodded to himself with the wisdom of experience. “That’s when you make your move.”

  “Serge, back to this new work I’m supposed to do . . .”

  “Requires your specific investigative skill set.” Serge got out his poker chip for luck. “Involves some kind of big legal case. This private eye I know named Mahoney needs some legwork for an attorney in Hialeah . . .”

  Number six pooped. Horrified screams. Serge winked. “Wait here.”

  He ran back in the clubhouse and quickly returned with a newly printed stub. “They’re loading them in the gates! This could be the race of my life!”

  Reevis took a saddened breath and joined Serge at the railing. “So what’s the name of your dog?”

  “No idea.” Serge craned his neck toward the gate. “I always make up my own names anyway. That’s the key to respect at the track: calling out nicknames not on the program like you have inside dope from knowing the dog socially . . . Here comes the rabbit . . . And they’re off!”

  “I guess we’ll talk later about the new work.”

  “What work?” Serge pushed himself high up on the fence to see the back stretch.

  “You just gave me seven hundred dollars.”

  “I did?”

  “Look, if you want it back . . .” Reevis reached for his pocket.

  “No, no, no. I’m sure it was about something . . . They’re in the final turn! Number six takes the lead!” Serge hopped down in excitement and pulled hard on Reevis’s shirt. “He’s three lengths ahead . . . Come on, Turds O’ Plenty! . . .”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Reevis. “He’s actually going to win.”

  “I know how to pick ’em!” Still hopping and pulling the shirt. “Fifty yards to go! . . . Come on, Turds!”

  Thunderous cheers rose from the crowd as the dogs neared the finish line.

  Then silence.

  Serge hung over the fence. “What the hell just happened?”

  “Your dog tripped and went nose down in the dirt,” said Reevis. “Taking out the next three behind him.”

  Quiet was replaced by boos and other mob sounds. A blizzard of torn-up tickets fluttered down. “Son of a bitch!” “This is fixed!” “Why did I bet on that dog?”

  Serge headed back to the clubhouse. “So anyway, Mahoney gave me this supposedly important legal file that allegedly is the key to some big case, but it just looks like mundane documents to me. Figured I’d give you a look-see before I gave up. Something called Grand-Bourg Holding . . .”

  Serge stopped at a ticket window and handed over his stub.

  Reevis’s eyes widened as large bills were counted out in Serge’s hand. “But number six lost.”

  “Exactly.” Serge pocketed the cash. “I didn’t bet on six.”

  FORT LAUDERDALE

  A thirtieth-floor conference room filled with concerned people. Ken Shapiro was on the phone.

  “I know it’s difficult, but try to calm down. I can’t understand anything you’re saying.”

  Brook did her best. Through sobs: “I just know Shelby didn’t kill himself!”

  “Brook, you’re upset,” said Ken. “I talked to the police and all evidence points to suicide. Found the gun with his body in a tidal channel off Cudjoe Key. They say it’s open-and-shut.”

  “I’ve been with him all week,” said Brook. “He was in great spirits. Something’s not right.”

  “I think we should take you off the case,” said Ken. “At least temporarily.”

  “And leave it to Ziggy?”

  “If you’re worried about— . . . Listen, nobody at the firm will question this. We couldn’t expect anyone to continue under these circumstances.”

  “But the trial is the whole reason he got killed,” said Brook. “I’m sure of it!”

  Someone at the conference table: “She’s hearing hoofbeats and seeing zebras.”

  Ken made a slashing gesture across his neck to shut up. “Brook, if it helps you accept it, something else was going on. He lied to us when he called and said he had a family emergency. His mom was home and fine.”

  “Did you talk to Shelby?”

  “No, he texted me.”

  “See?” said Brook.

  “See what?” said Ken. “I want you to come back here.”

  Brook took deliberate breaths. “Okay, I promise I’ll be fine. It’s just that I only heard the news a few minutes ago. I’ll get a good night’s sleep. Shelby would want me to continue the case—he felt so strongly about it.”

  Ken closed his eyes for a long thought, then opened them. “All right, but if you feel the slightest reservation, contact me immediately. Take care of yourself.”

  He hung up and dialed again. “Who are you calling?” asked Shug Blatt.

  “Our investigators. They have carry permits.”

  “What for?”

  “It’s nagging me. I talked to Shelby all week, everything upbeat. And I did only get a text.”

  “You really think she’s right about a connection to the case?”

  “Doubt it, but I’m not taking any chances,” said Ken. “We’re sending someone to watch her back.”

  Chapter THIRTY-ONE

  PALM BEACH COUNTY

  Serge glanced over from the driver’s seat. “What do you think?”

  “What do I think?” Reevis said sarcastically. “You won’t even let me look at the legal file.”

  “I told you: because it’s not time yet.” Serge aimed his camera out the window. “So what do you think? In general?”

  “About what?”

  “Your new job.”

  “How should I know? You refuse to tell me anything about the damn thing.”

  “Exactly.” Click, click, click. “Consider this like the mov
ie Training Day with Denzel Washington, where all is slowly revealed to the new guy in due time. Except by then a bunch of bad shit hits the new guy. Hope that doesn’t happen. Forget that reference. What I’m trying to say is you first need to get into my flow, like Hilary Swank following Clint Eastwood in Million Dollar Baby. Except that ended even worse than Training Day. Cancel that thought.” Serge turned and grinned. “How do you like what I bought you?”

  Reevis stared down at himself. “I never wear tropical shirts.”

  “Tropical shirts are critical in your new line of work.” Serge slipped on dark sunglasses and turned south at Dixie Highway. “You can hide things in your waistband.”

  “Hide—?”

  “We’re here!” Serge leisurely turned the wheel again as they approached Lucerne Avenue and pulled into a parallel slot on the street. Another off-kilter grin and a slapping of palms. “Ready to start?”

  “I honestly don’t know what to say.”

  “That you like seven hundred dollars.” Serge handed him the thermos. “Drink that. And I’m not asking. Since I’m your boss now, it’s an order.”

  Reevis twisted off the cap. “I like coffee anyway.”

  “Then you’re halfway home.” Serge climbed out the driver’s side. “What a beautiful day! Dig the clear blue sky. Follow me. Forget those movies.”

  Reevis stepped onto the sidewalk. “Is this Lake Worth?”

  “That’s what the sign on the old city hall across the street says.” Click, click. “But for a brief period in 1980 it read ‘Miranda Beach.’ ”

  “But Lake Worth was never called Miranda Beach.” Reevis finished off the thermos and handed it back. “It’s not even a beach; we’re on the mainland.”

  “Except in the movie.”

  “Movie?”

  “Florida classic, easily in my top five.”

  Reevis snapped his fingers. “Miranda Beach. That was in Body Heat. I loved Body Heat. It was like L.A. noir meets Hitchcock by way of The Palm Beach Story. Kathleen Turner in that white dress was the new Bacall. Her best line to William Hurt: ‘You’re not too bright. I like that in a man.’ Plus the arsonist was a young Miami native named Mickey Rourke, who also had a part in that Grisham film you mentioned . . .”

  “Coffee kicking in?” asked Serge.

  “Sorry, it’s just that I’m a movie buff and you mentioned one of my all-time favorites. Guess I was babbling a little.”

  “Babbling is underrated.” Serge headed toward the side of the road. “You’re off to a flying start, grasshopper.” He reached under his shirt and handed over a large brown envelope.

  Reevis peeled open the top of the sealed package and slowly flipped through the contents in confusion. “These are photos I’m supposed to investigate?”

  “Not remotely.” Serge tapped the pages in the reporter’s hands. “Screen shots from Body Heat that I grabbed off a computer.” He stopped at the intersection and checked his camera. “Whenever a great movie is made in Florida, I’m compelled to track down filming location so I can stand on the same spots as the stars and absorb the silver-screen magic.”

  Reevis held up an eight-by-ten glossy. “This one’s the Mediterranean house where Turner and Hurt had their affair.”

  “The Scotia mansion in Hypoluxo on Periwinkle Drive, built by the city’s first mayor in 1922. But it burned down in 1999, so I stood on the spot and went on a hunger strike for ten minutes.”

  The reporter held up another photo. “And this is the historic band shell where the couple met for the first time. I’ve been there. It’s on the boardwalk in Hollywood.”

  “Possibly my easiest find to date. Take a look at the next one.”

  “Hey, that’s William Hurt crossing the street toward his law office.”

  “Had a devil of a time finding it.”

  “It looks like this road.” Reevis glanced around. “You found Hurt’s law office?”

  “Not yet.” Serge licked his mouth. “I wanted you to be with me for the climax. I studied that film frame by frame for years, making notes of any possible clue: business names, traffic lights, the way the trees are planted along the road, but no luck. The closest I got was a distant street sign behind Hurt, but it was way too small, so I went over to a friend’s house to blow it up on his sixty-two-inch flat screen. And my friend comes running down the stairs: ‘Serge, it’s three A.M. How’d you get in? We thought you were a burglar.’ And I say, ‘I turned the sound down to be polite,’ then I point and ask, ‘Can you read that street sign?’ And he’s like, ‘Are you shitting me?’ Then his wife comes down in a nightgown screaming like a banshee, so I guess they had been fighting just before I arrived, and I suggest marriage counseling, and they haven’t talked to me for eight years.”

  Reevis had a blank look.

  “I know what you’re thinking.” Serge began walking again. “Standard DVDs are insufficient resolution to read street signs. But then Blu-ray came out and the sign was in perfect focus, except it said ‘Dixie Highway,’ which is like a hundred miles long and doesn’t narrow it at all, so I went to look at microfilm in the library because Hurt walks by this restaurant called Le Cyrano, and sure enough, on page B8 of the Palm Beach Post from February 26, 1982, there’s a feature article about a great French restaurant on the northeast corner of Dixie and Lake Avenue.” He stuck his arm out to the left. “It’s now this gym that we’re passing, which means”—Serge dramatically pivoted ninety degrees to his right—“there’s Hurt’s place.”

  Reevis glanced at the photo, then up at the building. “You’re right, it matches. That’s pretty impressive.”

  “Check out those three arched windows on the second floor. The last one says ‘Law Office’ in your picture. And at the crest of the building’s roof: ‘Rowe, 1923.’ I’m guessing it’s the Rowe building.”

  “But if you’re this good at research, why do you need me?”

  “It’s a matter of focus.” Serge looked up and down the street. “About three minutes into poring over dry documents on a computer, all I can think about is the next location I want to find, and then I’m hovering over the state with Google Earth . . . Let’s go touch the building! You always have to touch the building!”

  “Uh, okay.”

  Serge checked the road again.

  “The street’s clear,” said Reevis. “What are you waiting for?”

  Serge shook his head. “In the movie, Hurt runs in front of a car that hits the brakes and honks at him. We have to wait for a car . . . Here comes one . . . Now!”

  Serge dashed into the street. Tires squealed, a horn honked. “What’s your fucking deal?”

  Serge raised a victory salute to the driver. “Film preservation!”

  Reevis waited until the coast was clear, then jogged to the other side.

  Serge touched the building. “Tag! You’re it!” He spun and sprinted for his car.

  Reevis was breathing hard when he climbed in the passenger seat. “I think you better take me back now.”

  “Why?” said Serge. “I just got you properly warmed up for your first assignment.”

  Reevis sighed. “So now you’re finally going to let me see that legal file?”

  “Allllllmost . . .” Serge threw the car in gear. “If you’re a movie buff, how many James Bond films had scenes in Florida?”

  “Ummm, three. Silver Springs, and two in Miami.”

  “Not bad, but four,” said Serge. “You missed the one in Key West, where Timothy Dalton is reading The Old Man and the Sea on the balcony of the Hemingway House . . . More coffee! . . .”

  A couple hours later, a pair of vehicles took Dixie Highway south through Miami before swinging east. They cruised slowly out along a curling spit of land surrounded by water below Coral Gables. The road came to an end overlooking Biscayne Bay. One of the cars stopped. The other, a ’76 Cobra, turned around and
came back in the opposite direction, pulling up so the drivers were window to window.

  Serge bounded gleefully in his seat. “What do you think?”

  Reevis glanced around the deserted waterfront. “I still don’t understand why you had to rent me a second car.”

  “Because there were two cars in the movie! And I can’t get enough of this place! Matheson Hammock Park, the actual filming location where Paul Newman passed documents between cars in the Sydney Pollack 1981 tour de force Absence of Malice—another classic Florida legal movie, and a journalism movie . . .” Serge produced a brown envelope and handed it through the window to Reevis. “Then someone in the distance with a zoom lens photographed Newman making the exchange . . .”

  Someone in the distance with a zoom lens photographed Serge and Reevis making the exchange.

  Chapter THIRTY-TWO

  THE NEXT MORNING

  Flip-flops slapped into the courtroom. The regular gathering of local busybodies began taking their seats in the audience for their morning show.

  Brook remained out in the hall, swiveling her head. “Where are all our witnesses?”

  “I checked on them last night at the hotel,” said Ziggy.

  “Check again.”

  Ziggy pointed. “There’s two now.”

  “But we’re not supposed to use those particular ones until the end. And even then, only if our case isn’t strong enough.”

  “So we call them out of order.”

  “Check the hotel again!”

  “Okay, okay.” Ziggy got out his cell.

  “I have to go to the bathroom.” Brook ran down the hall. People turned around at the clatter of her shoes. A man in a golf shirt looked up from his newspaper at the fuss, then returned to the crossword.

  The jury was led in, followed by the judge. He stopped and stared down at Ziggy sitting alone. “Where’s your partner?”

  “Right here!” said Brook, pulling a piece of toilet paper off her shoe and rushing to her seat. Out the side of her mouth: “Anything?”