Naked Came the Manatee (1996)

by Elmore Leonard

  Marlis had on rubber gloves that came up her arms. She said to Joe Sereno, "See these little specks here in the wall? They from the man's skull, little tiny fragments of bone. Sometime I have to use pliers to pull them out. This dark stuff is the dude's hair. See these other holes? They from the shotgun." She funked around, doing steps to the music as she said to Franklin, "Coolio, for your pleasure."

  Franklin listened and said, "Ain't Coolio." Listened some more, said, "You got your Cools confused. It's LL Cool J, no other, 'cause that's 'Hey Lover.' " He paused, looking past Marlis to a framed print on the wall. "Girl, is that like modern art on there or something else?"

  Marlis went up to the picture for a close look and said, "It's something else."

  Joe looked at it and said, "Oh, my God."

  He watched Marlis remove the print and drop it into a red bag. "Ain't worth cleaning. Anything has body fluids, tissue, poo-poo, you know, anything biohazardous, goes in these bags. We give them to a company takes care of medical waste to get rid of."

  "You missed a speck there," Franklin said, pointing at the wall.

  "I'm still working on it, baby." Lowering her voice, she said to Joe, "He don't like to see me talking to other men."

  "Are you and him married?"

  "You'd think so to hear him."

  "I was wondering, is there any money in cleanup work? You don't mind my asking."

  "We quoted this job at fifteen hundred. Hey, how many people can you find to do it? Another reason it's a good business, recessions don't bother it none. This one here looks worse'n it is. Doesn't smell too bad. You work where a body's been decomposing awhile, now you talking about smell. Like old roadkill up close? You go home and take a shower, you have to wash out your nostrils good. The smell like sticks to the hairs in your nose."

  "What's the worst one you ever had to clean up?"

  "The worst one. Hmmmm." She said, "You mean the very worst one? Like an advanced state of decomp has set in? The body's in a dark, damp place and dung beetles have found it?"

  Franklin said, "Girl?"

  "I'm coming," Marlis said. She got a scraper, like a big putty knife, from a box of tools and went back to work. She said to Joe, "It dries on here it's hard to get off."

  "What is that?"

  She was scraping at something crusted on there. "Little piece of what the dude used to use to think with. His brain, honey. He maybe should've thought better about coming here, huh? Two dudes die and nobody even knows who they are. Least it's what I heard." She looked over at Joe Sereno standing by the closet door, staring at the knob. "Don't touch that, baby."

  "It looks like candle wax," Joe said, "but I don't see any candles in the room."

  "It ain't wax," Marlis said, "it's some more the dude's gray matter. Gets waxy like that outside the head. See how the wood's splintered right above it? That's from skull fragments shot in there. This one dude, I swear, is all over the room."

  "You just do murders?"

  "Homicides, suicides, and decompositions."

  "How about animals?"

  "Once in a while. We cleaned up after a woman poisoned her dogs, fifteen of 'em she couldn't feed no more. It smelled worse'n a dead manatee laying in the sun too long."

  Joe perked up. "There's a manatee over on the bay was shot. You hear about it?"

  Joe thought he saw a look pass between Marlis and Franklin on the ladder as she said no, she didn't think so. "A pretty friendly creature," Joe said, "used to play with that old woman who was killed. Marion something?"

  "McAlister Williams," Marlis said. "Yeah, I've heard of her. Hundred and two years old and still swimmin' in the bay."

  Joe; said, "And there was that guy tried to jump the drawbridge and didn't make it."

  "Name was Victor," Franklin said, down from the ladder, heading for the John with his pail. "Actually was a scuba tank I understand flew out of a truck, hit the man's car and blew him up. Totaled 'em both. Yeah, we heard about that. 'Cool like dat.' " He said, "So-Lo Jam," and right away said, "I take that back."

  "You better," Marlis said.

  "That's from Cold Chillin', so it has to be Kool G. Rap. Yeah."

  Joe had to wait, not having any idea what they were talking about, before saying, "How about that disaster at Club Hell? I was working there that night. It was horrible."

  "Nobody had to clean that one up," Franklin said, coming out of the John, "the sharks took care of it."

  "Come here for a minute, will you?" Joe motioned them over to the sliding glass door that led to the patio.

  "See that guy sitting by the pool? Over on the other side. Who does he look like?"

  "I can't see him good," Franklin said.

  "Take your goggles off."

  Franklin squinted now, eyes uncovered. He said, "I don't know. Who?"

  Marlis came over and right away said, "The dude with the cigar? He looks like Castro. Either Castro or that dude goes around thinking he looks like Castro. You know what I'm saying? Mickey Something-or-other's his name. Yeah, Mickey Schwartz."

  "Wait a minute," Franklin said, still squinting. "What Castro you talking about?"

  "Castro, the one from Cuba."

  "They all from Cuba."

  "What's his name--Fidel," Marlis said. "Fidel Castro, Shaved off his beard." She paused and hunched in a little closer to Joe and Franklin. "Shaved his beard and must've shaved his head, too, 'cause the man's wearing a rug."

  "That's what I thought too," Joe said. "But whose hair does the rug look like?"

  Now Marlis squinted till she had it and said, "Yeah, that high-waisted cat kung-fus everybody he don't shoot."

  Franklin said, "I know who you mean. That kung-fu cat with the big butt. Doesn't take shuck and jive from nobody. But listen to me now. If that's the Fidel we talking about here, there's a man will pay a million dollars to see him dead. Man name of Reyes. It would be easy as pie to cap him sitting there, wouldn't it?" He looked at Joe Sereno. "I mean if it was your trade."

  "Tempting," Marlis said, "but safer to clean up after. Celebrity, be nothing wrong with doubling the fee."

  Joe was thinking. He said, "You suppose a hit man killed these two in here?"

  "Hit men as a rule," Franklin said, "don't make this kind of mess. One on the back of the head, use a twenty-two High Standard Field King with a suppressor on it. We've followed up after hit men, haven't we, precious?"

  "We sure have," Marlis said. "Lot of that kind of work around here."

  Joe Sereno said, "You don't suppose... " and stopped, narrowing his eyes then to make what he wanted to say come out right. "In the past few days I've run into three homicides, counting these two, and a fourth one they're calling an accident looks more like a homicide to me. I have a hunch they're related. Don't pin me down for the motive, 'cause I don't see a nexus. At least not yet I don't. But I got a creepy feeling that once these two are identified, it will explain the others. I'm talking about the old woman, and a guy named Phil. And, unless I miss my guess, it all has something to do with that man sitting over there smoking a cigar."

  "Unless," Marlis said, "the dude over there is the Fidel impersonator, Mickey Schwartz."

  "Either way," Joe Sereno said, "ID these two and this whole mess will become clear."

  A look passed between Franklin and Marlis.

  Joe caught it and thought, Hmmmm.

  13. THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE--Carl Hiaasen Mickey Schwartz had never been to Bimini, as there was not among Bahamians a huge demand for Fidel Castro impersonators.

  Nor had Mickey Schwartz ever been in a Cigarette boat crossing the Gulf Stream with an Uzi-toting goon, an obese fugitive politician, two crabby female hostages, and an older woman who elegantly claimed to have slept with the real Fidel.

  In that respect, it was the most interesting gig of Mickey Schwartz's show business career. And, except for the threat of gunplay, it was also the most gratifying, professionally.

  Being a Castro impersonator in Miami was no picnic--a vast impassioned seg
ment of the population regarded the Cuban leader more as a murderous butcher than as cheap comic relief. As Mickey Schwartz could attest, there was no fortune to be made milking Castro for laughs, at least not in South Florida.

  Most of Mickey's Fidel gigs were weekend parades in Little Havana, and involved long hours of pretending to be dead--lying in an open casket, swinging from a gallows, rotting under a cloud of fake flies in a cane field... that sort of thing. As long as Mickey didn't move a muscle, everything was fine; people cheered like crazy.

  Easy payday, his pals would say. But Mickey Schwartz hated it. The fatigues were stifling and the phony beard was scratchy. Besides, he was too talented for Sunday parade crap. He had a solid lounge act in Sunny Isles--Brando, Nicholson, Robin Williams. He even did a Howard Stern, for the younger crowd. Who else did a Howard Stern? Nobody, that's who.

  Mickey Schwartz believed he hated impersonating Castro nearly as much as the exiles hated Castro himself. Yet now, plowing across the Gulf Stream in a spiffy black Cigarette boat, he figured all the hard humiliating work was paying off. Ten grand, and a free trip to Bimini!

  Mickey wasn't sure exactly who was paying him, and didn't care. He was feeling pretty good about the day, until the speedboat hit the curling wake of an oil tanker and the humongous fugitive politician--the one they called Big Joey G.--choked to death on his conch salad.

  Fay Leonard said, "Tell me you're not just throwing him overboard."

  Hector squinted at her. "No, baby, I'm not throwing him overboard. I'm rolling him overboard."

  The body of Big Joey disappeared over the transom. The splash was majestic. Fay glared at Hector; she hated polluters.

  Hector said, "That oughta add about eight knots to our crui ing speed."

  "And three hundred pounds of filth to the water column," Fay muttered.

  "No, baby, that man is definitely biodegrading."

  Britt Montero, shackled on the deck next to Fay, couldn't help but snigger. Hector winked and flexed, making the scorpion tattoo do a shimmy. He slipped the strap of the Uzi over his shoulder and returned to the wheel. Fay's gaze shifted to the red Gott cooler at Hector's feet. Glumly she considered what was inside, packed on a pillow of ice.

  Nothing left to bargain with now, she thought. The granddaughter of Marion McAlister Williams will soon be sleeping with the fishes, and Joey G.

  Fay felt an elbow in her ribs. Britt leaned close and said, "Don't worry." Fay nodded gamely. Maybe they could talk their way out of it. Maybe there was hope.

  Just as the despicable Hector had predicted, the newly lightened Cigarette boat picked up speed. In her mind, Fay replayed the long ride. By the time Joey G. started gagging, everyone aboard had grown sick of him. His preposterous cryogenics spiel had become a topic of open ridicule among the captives; even Hector admitted it was baloney, along with the Vietnam skull-boiling rap. Nobody who saw Big Joey cram an entire quart of diced conch into his voluminous cheeks could've imagined him as a soldier in any man's army, in any war.

  Then came the jolt of the tanker wake, a shower of salt spray, and Joey was flopping on the deck like an albino walrus. Hector flung himself across the Gott cooler to prevent it from being kicked overboard. Before the others realized Big Joey wasn't reenacting some ludicrous jungle-sapper fantasy, it was over. All of Hector's strength was required to jettison the prebloated corpse.

  At the splash, the elegant older Cuban woman made a sign of the cross. Her escort, the guy dressed up to look like Castro, blurted: "Doesn't anybody here know the Heimlich?"

  "Oh yeah. The Heimlich." Hector peered over the transom. "Gee, I guess it's too late."

  He cranked the outrageous four Mercs and set a course for the Bimini islands. "Bastard," hissed Fay Leonard, but her words were lost in the high roar of the big outboards.

  Booger the manatee had watched from a depth of nine feet as the black speedboat idled from the slender channel into Biscayne Bay. He didn't know the boat was headed for the ocean, then the Bahamas. He didn't know who was on board, or why. He didn't know the dark purpose of the voyage.

  In fact there was much Booger didn't know, wouldn't know, couldn't know, since his brain was approximately the size and complexity of a bocci ball. Booger's breadth of rumination was therefore limited to a daily quest for warm quiet waters, tasty seaweed, and (once in a great while) clumsy sea cow sex.

  Whatever had gotten into this manatee in recent days coursed like a mysterious fever, temporarily investing him with the cunning of a dolphin, the fierce agility of a killer whale, and the dopey loyalty of a Labrador retriever. None of those qualities typically was found in Trichechus manatus--an ancient, migratory, dull, but delightfully docile hulk of mammal.

  The death of the old woman, for example, had stirred in Booger the utterly alien feelings of sorrow, rage, a thirst for revenge. No mere manatee was ever burdened by such complicated emotions! For most, bliss was never farther than the next juicy clump of turtle grass.

  In a way, Booger's gunshot wound was a blessing. Eventually the nagging sting in his flank chased away the brain fever and unclouded his primordial thinking.

  Lolling under the dock at Big Joey's house, Booger found himself losing the insane urge to chase boats, slap his tail on the surface like some hyperthyroid beaver, or attach strange names ("Ma"--what the heck did that mean?) to pale wrinkled humans.

  As daylight slipped away, Booger was cogitating less like a Disney character and more like an ordinary sea cow. He no longer fretted over what was happening in the bright dry world above him. Likewise, the fate of other species was no longer Booger's worry--a kitten could either swim, or it couldn't. And presented with a choice between rescuing a drowning person and dodging the propellers of a lunatic Donzi, Booger wouldn't hesitate to dive for cover.

  Sorry, pal. Every mammal for himself.

  As darkness fell, Booger swam slowly into the bay. He kept to the shoreline and meandered north toward the familiar bustle of Dinner Key. When he got there, he was startled to find swimming among the sailboats another manatee, shy and sleek and miraculously unscarred. As she brushed against him, Booger felt a tingle in his fluke.

  Soon the bullet wound was forgotten, as were the queer events of recent days and the fading clamor of Coconut Grove. Together the two sea cows struck out across the silky waters, breaching and diving in tandem. Booger knew of a little out-of-the-way place on Virginia Key, a quiet teardrop of a harbor where friendly human shrimpers occasionally tossed crispy heads of lettuce to visiting manatees.

  It was a helluva first date.

  The yacht of Juan Carlos Reyes was anchored in a gentle chop a mile east of North Bimini. Even for Hector it was easy to find: a gleaming 107-foot Feadship called Entrante Presidente.

  Reyes greeted them in a navy blazer, cream-colored slacks, and dainty Italian loafers. The yacht's salon reeked of cigars and heavy cologne. Britt and Fay instantly became sick. Reyes ordered them taken to a private cabin and handcuffed to a bedpost. Hector eagerly volunteered, but Reyes told him to sit down. One of Reyes's bodyguards, a weightlifter type with a pearl nose stud, escorted the women away.

  Juan Carlos appraised the Castro impersonator. "The real one was heavier in the belly," he said, circling, "but overall, my friend, you're not bad."

  "Thank you," said Mickey Schwartz. He had a routine to go with the getup: a bombastic and humorously convoluted tirade against Yankee imperialists, capitalism, and blue jeans.

  Juan Carlos Reyes wasn't interested in hearing it. "You must be Lilia," he said to the elegant older woman. He attempted to kiss her hand, but she pulled it away.

  "Little fool," she scoffed. "Cuba will never take you back."

  "We shall see, puta."

  Lilia bent over (for she was a full six inches taller than Juan Carlos Reyes) and slapped him smartly on the face, dislodging the smoldering nub of his cigar. Hector sprang forward, raising the stubby Uzi, but Reyes waved him off.

  "Fidel is ten times the man you'll ever be," said Lilia Sands.<
br />
  Reyes smiled. "Your precious Fidel is dead, old woman. Croaked. Cacked. Deceased. Checked out. Whacked. Eighty-sixed. Muerto. Your amor is no more."

  With frost in her voice, Lilia declared, "I do not believe you, enanillo!"

  "Ah, but my sources are impeccable." Juan Carlos Reyes plucked the cigar off the carpet and relit it. "The highest of connections in Washington--and yes, Havana." He turned to Hector. "Do you have it?"

  Hector nodded, fished in a pocket. He brought out a wispy lock of dark hair, tied in a red and gold Montecristo wrapper. He handed it to Reyes, who examined it as if it were a rare jewel.

  "In a cigar box," Hector said, "in her bedroom."

  Reyes chuckled. "Ironic, no?"

  Lilia glared defiantly. Mickey Schwartz deduced it was not the appropriate moment to mention his fee. He stared down at his black military boots, crusty with salt from the boat ride.

  Juan Carlos Reyes held up the tuft of hair as a trophy. "Proof!"

  Lilia spun away. "You're a fool. Fidel is not dead." She felt a comforting hand on her shoulder--the impersonator. A harmless fellow, she thought. And not a bad kisser.

  Carefully, Reyes slipped the lock of hair into an inside pocket of his blazer. "Hector," he said. "Bring me the prize. Bring me the key to my destiny!"

  "Cuba's destiny, you said."

  "Whatever. Go get the damn thing."

  Reyes himself cradled the Uzi while Hector retrieved the red cooler from the speedboat, which was tied to the yacht's stern. He brought the Gott into the salon and set it ceremoniously before Reyes' s delicate loafers.

  Lilia Sands and Mickey Schwartz had no idea what they were about to see. Excitedly, Juan Carlos shoved the machine gun butt-first at Hector, and flipped open the cooler. He removed a stainless canister the size of a hatbox, and placed it--shiny and perspiring from the ice--on a beveled glass dining table.

  "Where was it?" Reyes asked breathlessly.

  "Hidden in the woman's boat," Hector replied. "The blonde's."

  The stumpy millionaire chuckled. "Lost and then found. Fate, no? That's what brought him to me. Fate in the form of wild women." He stepped back from the canister. "Open it, Hector."