Bad Monkey

by Carl Hiaasen

  “A .357 Smith.”

  “Let me take a guess on the ammo,” Yancy said. “Hollow points, 158-grain.”

  “Okay, stop.”

  “Just like the ones that killed Charles Phinney.” Yancy unstuck the pole and started pushing the skiff off the shallows. “When did this happen?” he asked.

  “One of the doctor’s neighbors heard a bang around seven-thirty, eight o’clock. She knocked on the door, got no answer. Didn’t call the police because she had company—not her husband.” Rosa was frowning. “This morning a rabbi who lives in the building found blood spots in his parking space. They’d dripped from O’Peele’s balcony, where the body was found.”

  Yancy was disturbed to think his visit had in some way precipitated the doctor’s death. Had somebody been surveilling the condo? Or maybe the shooter had followed him there. He thought of Eve and her boyfriend, their hushed and agitated conversation in the backyard on Di Lido Island. Had they been talking about O’Peele? Had they already shot him?

  But why bother killing the guy, since Nick Stripling was dead and unreachable by prosecutors? A murder only made sense if Eve herself feared being indicted as a conspirator in the scooter-chair scam, and if she feared O’Peele would testify against her.

  “I’ll hold off signing the death certificate,” Rosa said. “It should be easy to compare the bullets that killed O’Peele and Phinney. Meanwhile you should tell the homicide cops in North Miami Beach what you know. Tell them you were at the doctor’s condo a few hours before the shooting and he seemed okay.”

  “I’m not telling anybody I was there.”

  “Andrew, this is serious shit.”

  “So is saving my career.”

  On the ride back to the boat ramp, Yancy mentally replayed his brief time inside O’Peele’s place. He was fairly certain he hadn’t left a trace of himself, besides fingerprints on a ginger ale can that the cops were not likely to dust since he’d tossed it in a Dumpster in the parking lot. Fortunately, he hadn’t given the doctor one of his expired detective cards or even a phone number.

  Still, there remained a slender chance that, despite the Percocets and bourbon, O’Peele had been sufficiently alert to have noted the name when Yancy flashed his restaurant-inspector ID. What if O’Peele had scrawled it down somewhere after Yancy had gone? That could be a problem.

  Back at the house, Rosa inspected his stitches and predicted scar-free healing. Yancy attributed her unwavering Hippocratic detachment to the sorry sight of his gnawed, calorie-deprived hindquarters. When he asked her to spend the night, she declined.

  “I’d never make it to the morgue on time.”

  “So, take the day off,” Yancy said, belting his pants. “Join me on roach patrol. Tomorrow it’s a gyro shop owned by Rastas who supposedly sell ganja out the back door. Lombardo thinks mice are nesting in the stash, which means they’re the world’s mellowest rodentia. Still, I could use a backup.”

  “Sounds like a dreamy third date,” said Rosa, “but I’ll take a rain check.”

  “When you talk to the homicide detectives in North Miami Beach, ask them if they found a cell phone on Dr. O’Peele.”

  “They did. In a pocket of his robe.”

  “I’d love to know the last number he called.”

  Rosa said, “Let me see what I can do.” She delivered another toe-curling kiss and headed out the door.

  Yancy took his time washing the dishes because standing was pain-free, making it easier to focus on the murder case. He was certain that Eve Stripling was responsible for her husband’s death, yet he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d had nothing to do with the shootings of Charles Phinney and Dr. Gomez O’Peele. Whoever said there’s no such thing as coincidence never worked as a cop. The young boat mate could have been robbed and killed by some random dirtbag who’d heard him blabbing about his windfall, just as the pathetic orthopedist could have spiraled into a drug-induced abyss and ended his own life. Smith & Wesson was a popular brand of handgun in Florida, and plenty of unreliable characters favored .357s.

  Like most police officers, Yancy had never in the line of duty fired his own service pistol, a lightweight Glock .40 that he’d been forced to turn in along with his resignation. At first he’d felt naked without a holster under his arm, but that had passed with time. For home protection he maintained a double-barreled 12-gauge Beretta loaded with buckshot, a habit left over from residing in greater Miami. For life in the Keys, such a substantial weapon served mainly as a decorative fixture. Yancy would never have thought to carry it while rolling his garbage can out to the street, which is where he was ambushed by a masked bicycle rider wearing a blaze-orange poncho, no more than an hour after Rosa Campesino had kissed him good-bye.

  Eleven

  Yancy remembered exactly when he decided to become a police officer: It was the day of his grandmother’s funeral. A gang of burglars who specialized in scouting obituaries had looted his Nanna’s apartment while she was being buried. Yancy’s family was sickened when they walked in on the mess, which included gratuitous defecation not uncommon in such break-ins. His mother’s knees buckled and she dropped to the floor, sobbing. His father made her stay by the door while he and Yancy searched to make sure the thieves were gone. Stolen were his grandmother’s television set, her wedding ring, some heirloom jewelry worth maybe two grand, and an oxygen tank that had been left by her bed.

  The Homestead cops snapped some photos and told the family not to expect any miracles. Watching his mother cry while his father cleaned up the intruders’ shit, Yancy experienced an overpowering anger. That such a small, shabby crime could cause so much heartache was a revelation, and he thought of how often it happened every day. The jam-packed conditions in Florida prisons seemed proof that the majority of felons eventually fucked up and got busted. Yancy imagined it would be profoundly satisfying to participate in that process, although later he’d look back on his thinking as naïve.

  Still, until his third or fourth year as a detective, he continued to fantasize about capturing the assholes who’d trashed his grandmother’s place on the day of her funeral. In his daydreams the burglars wildly resisted arrest and were always dealt an agonizing lesson, their windowprying fingertips crushed to pulp by a squad-car door or the butt of a pump gun.

  In real life those apprehended by Yancy usually surrendered without resistance, aware that their period of confinement would be brief and only nominally tuned to their actual sentence. Savvy thieves understood that the court system went easy on the unarmed and that violence was for fools. Yancy had occasionally tackled or Tazed a fleeing suspect, but never had he been forced to fight off an attack. Although he’d punched his way out of a couple of bars, he held no special skills in self-defense or the martial arts, having quit karate classes at age twelve because they’d cut too onerously into his fishing time.

  It didn’t really matter, because the cyclist caught him completely by surprise.

  As Yancy was placing the trash can by the road, he heard the swish of air through spokes and he turned to look. A stretch mask obscured the face of the approaching rider but the orange poncho shone even in the deepening dusk. The bike knocked Yancy to the ground, and when he looked up, the stranger was standing over him. The last image to register was a downward-swinging arm with a bulky, ornate wristwatch.

  Later, as a throbbing consciousness returned, Yancy surmised that he’d been struck with an old-fashioned sap or possibly a sock filled with coins. The blow landed on the opposite side from the bruise he’d incurred at Eve Stripling’s house, leaving his head with conforming knots, like raw antler nubs.

  Now the man in the poncho was dragging Yancy by the collar through the lot next door, past Evan Shook’s spec house. Yancy’s rear end was afire with pain, the friction against the ground having shredded Rosa Campesino’s delicate web of sutures. The far side of Evan Shook’s property fronted a canal, and Yancy sensed what was coming next. His limbs hung uselessly, however, and failed to respond
to urgent brain commands. He half-shut his eyes and pretended to be coldcocked.

  The masked stranger was grunting and huffing by the time he reached the canal. Awkwardly he tried to heave Yancy headlong, but Yancy’s toes snagged on a ridge of coral rock, leaving him half in and half out of the water. Swearing, the attacker kicked at the soles of Yancy’s feet until Yancy slid like a comatose otter down the bank.

  He knew that the man who was trying to kill him—the same man who’d murdered Charles Phinney and probably Gomez O’Peele—would be unable to see him swimming in the murky canal if he went deep enough. His arms and legs didn’t awaken for several harrowing seconds, and his lungs were searing by the time he began to make progress. Fortunately the waterway was narrow and the opposite shore was fringed densely with mangrove trees. Skinny as he was, Yancy managed to slither into the embroidery of roots and poke his head up for air. He was no more conspicuous than a floating coconut or an orphaned lobster buoy.

  The burly figure in the poncho stood on the other bank, staring hard in search of bubbles and scanning the length of the canal to make sure that the victim of his beating hadn’t surfaced. Yancy clung to the barnacled mangroves and braced his knees, trying not to create ripples. His bruised skull clanged, and hot pulses of nausea raised the annoying prospect of a concussion. Mosquitoes swarmed his ears and eyes, but he couldn’t slap them away for fear of causing a telltale splash. Eventually his attacker turned and hurried off.

  Five minutes was as long as Yancy could tolerate the insects. Gingerly he extricated himself from the roots, dog-paddled across the canal and crawled out. The thick night air seemed almost as heavy as the salt water. Approaching his house, Yancy saw a light go on in the living room, revealing through a front window the masked killer in the poncho. He was handling Yancy’s shotgun, checking to see if it was loaded, which of course it was.

  Yancy ducked into Evan Shook’s place and groped his way to what must have been a closet. The door had yet to be hung but still it was a refuge of sorts, a recessed cubby where he could hide and dry out. Maybe take a nap. The closet smelled like raw pine, and Yancy felt sawdust under his feet. His forearms and knees stung from where the barnacles had grated the skin. He touched his scalp and found a syrupy wetness. There arose an urge to strip out of his sopping clothes, and the effort exhausted him.

  As he drifted away, a familiar tune entered his woozy head. It was a rocking John Hiatt number, “Master of Disaster.”

  · · ·

  Evan Shook insisted on meeting the Turbles at the Key West airport and he personally escorted them to Big Pine. The couple rode together in the second seat of the Suburban so they could snuggle. With the loss of the skittish Norwegians still fresh, Evan Shook would have donned a topcoat and chauffeur’s cap if he’d thought it would help sell his godforsaken spec house.

  Ken Turble, who preferred to be called Kenny, had made such a killing in the commodities markets that he remained revoltingly wealthy after losing two-thirds of his fortune in a divorce. His new wife, Tanya, was eleven years younger than the youngest Turble offspring. Kenny proudly shared this information with Evan Shook early in the car ride. As a way of backfilling, Tanya yipped, “I got a business degree from Kaplan.”

  By Mile Marker 7, it was clear to Evan Shook that the marriage was doomed. Behind him the Turbles were cooing and murmuring so insipidly that they couldn’t possibly have anything in common. Still, Evan Shook was pleased to see the crusty old coot derailed by lust; obviously he’d buy anything for his nubile bride, including a half-finished vacation chalet in the Florida Keys. A friend in the advertising business once told Evan Shook that Viagra was the only thing keeping Tiffany’s and Porsche afloat, and Evan Shook thought the same might hold true for high-end real estate. A glance in the rearview mirror confirmed that Tanya Turble was now giving her husband a peppy hand job, which could only serve to prime him for Evan Shook’s sales pitch.

  “Eyes on the road,” Kenny Turble warbled rapturously.

  “Yes, sir,” said Evan Shook.

  Tanya inquired if there was a Kleenex in the vehicle. Evan Shook reached back and presented his handkerchief, which happened to be monogrammed. “Keep it,” he said.

  She laughed. “Duh.”

  “I think you’re gonna fall in love with this house.”

  “We saw a gem on Marco Island. Right, baby?”

  Kenny Turble said, “Gorgeous place. Except I don’t golf.”

  “Honestly, I can’t see you two on Marco,” Evan Shook commented. “The average age is, like, eighty-four. Don’t get me wrong—my mother lives there and she’s happy as a clam—but you don’t strike me as the bridge club–and–shuffleboard type.”

  “Or golf,” said Kenny.

  His wife rolled down the window and let fly the sticky handkerchief. “They had a cool gym in town,” she said.

  “Do you enjoy fishing? We’ve got some incredible offshore action—tuna, mahi, even blue marlin.”

  “Kenny loves that stuff. Me, I just like to lay out.”

  “Sun we’ve got,” Evan Shook said. “Three hundred and twenty-five days a year.” It was a statistic he’d invented for the occasion; for all he knew, it might have been accurate. However, the line about his mom living on Marco Island was bullshit; she had a town house in Scottsdale.

  “We almost there?” Tanya asked.

  “Hey, check out the deer,” Evan Shook said as they passed a doe and two fawns.

  “Oh, sweet. And they’re so little!”

  Ken Turble grunted. “When’s the season open?”

  “November through January,” Evan Shook replied, another lie. You could go to prison for shooting a Key deer, but he didn’t want to queer the deal by telling that to Kenny, obviously an avid hunter.

  Nothing seemed amiss when they got to the property; no sign of creepy Andrew Yancy in the vicinity. Tanya Turble headed for the spec house while her husband quizzed Evan Shook about windstorm insurance and flood-elevation certificates. Kenny also wanted to know if he could put in a dock, and how deep the water stood at low tide. The two men strolled to the bank of the canal, where Evan Shook was disturbed to see a discarded liquor bottle, a spinning rod and a gamey pair of flip-flops.

  “What’s the matter?” Ken Turble said.

  “Let’s go inside so I can give you and your wife the grand tour.”

  But the tour fizzled quickly. Upon entering the house they came upon a nude man sprawled on the floor of the future living room. He was face-up in a splayed, post-crucifixion pose. His head glistened with lumps, both knees showed fresh scabs and his outflung arms bore gashes and scrapes.

  Evan Shook blurted, “Yancy, what the fuck!”

  “Those dogs, man. You didn’t see ’em?”

  Tanya Turble stood off to the side with slender arms folded. Her husband couldn’t help but observe that she was staring at the naked intruder’s crotch.

  “Who the hell is this character?” Ken Turble demanded. “Is he on drugs or what?”

  Yancy raised his head to cough. “They went berserk again. I was lucky to get away.”

  Evan Shook was trembling as he hurriedly gathered Yancy’s damp clothes from the bottom of the closet and threw them at his feet.

  “I live next door,” Yancy said, sitting up slowly.

  Tanya said, “What kinda dogs?”

  Kenny elbowed Evan Shook. “That’s his house right there? Oh great.”

  “I was putting out the trash last night,” Yancy continued, “and the pack was on me so damn fast, I barely made it to the canal.” He rose and wriggled into his damp pants. “Soon as I got out of the water I ducked in here to hide.”

  In the hope of boosting Yancy’s stock as a potential neighbor, Evan Shook informed Ken Turble that Yancy was a police officer. Who wouldn’t feel safer with a cop living on the block? A spark came to Tanya’s green eyes, which again her watchful husband detected.

  “What kinda cop?” she asked.

  “I’m not free to say.” Yancy ste
adied himself against a wall. “Sorry about all the blood,” he said to Evan Shook. “Your crew will be painting over it anyway, right? One of these days.”

  “Did you go fishing on my property last night?”

  Yancy sighed. “Jesus, do I look like I went fishing?” He turned to Tanya Turble. “Wild dogs on the island. They only come out at night.”

  “You mean like werewolves.”

  “No, darling,” said Kenny, stepping to his wife’s side, “just a bunch of stray mutts.”

  Evan Shook spoke in toneless desolation. “I’ve never laid eyes on these animals. Not once.”

  Young Tanya addressed Yancy. “Would they eat a collie?”

  “Are you kidding? They’d eat a fucking Clydesdale.”

  She pursed her lips. “Well, we could keep Barney locked up—that’s our dog.”

  Ken Turble was wishing the cop would put on a shirt so that he might recapture his wife’s attention. “No, sweetie, Barney needs open space to run. We can’t leave him cooped indoors all day.”

  Evan Shook asked, “Don’t you want to see the view upstairs?”

  Kenny said no thanks. Tanya suggested they summon an ambulance for the injured police officer.

  “No need,” said Yancy, toddling toward the door. “My girlfriend’s a doctor.”

  It hurt so badly that he actually screamed in the shower. Rogelio Burton arrived with nine tubes of Neosporin, the entire inventory from the local Walgreens. While Yancy gooped his multiple lacerations he told Burton everything that had happened since Eve Stripling had come to claim her husband’s severed arm.

  Burton said, “You need to clue the sheriff in right away.”

  “Not until it’s a lock.”

  “That’s insane, Andrew. You’re gonna get yourself killed and blow the case. How did this asshole find you? The guy who tried to drown you.”

  “I have a guess,” Yancy said.

  He surmised that Gomez O’Peele had a better memory for names than most junkies. The doctor had probably phoned Eve with a shakedown in mind soon after Yancy left the apartment. Told her he’d just been questioned by a cop—how much was it worth to her for him to keep his mouth shut about the Medicare scooter scam? Eve had told him to sit tight and she’d bring some money. Instead she sent Poncho Boy with his .357. Once he pried Yancy’s name out of O’Peele, he put a bullet in the poor slob’s noggin.