by Carl Hiaasen
“I just couldn’t stop thinking about him,” Bonnie said, “so one day I said screw it, life’s too short. Got up at four in the morning and drove nonstop from Sarasota to Tulsa, nineteen hours. This was after I’d found him on Facebook—”
“But she didn’t even friend me first,” Cody cut in. “One night she just shows up by the salad bar and, you know, holy shit.”
“He was the number two man at the Olive Garden—”
“My boss was a major dickbrain. It was time to move on.”
“When Cliff found out I was gone,” Bonnie said, “he went postal. Called the OSBI and totally sold me out.”
The OSBI was the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, which, after Dr. Witt’s tip, had dispatched Agent John Wesley Weiderman to interview Yancy about the elusive Plover Chase. Unfortunately, the lawman’s investigatory mission to the Keys had been cut short when he was stricken with shellfish poisoning after eating contaminated mussels at Stoney’s Crab Palace on Stock Island. Yancy felt somewhat responsible, and he looked forward to ambushing Brennan with another surprise inspection.
“So I quit my job,” Cody said, “and Ms. Chase and I went seriously outlaw.”
Bonnie blushed. “He still calls me that, after all these years—Ms. Chase! The police were looking for the 4Runner so we switched to Cody’s car.”
“Except there’s no XM Radio. Bummer,” he said.
“Last night we camped on the beach at Bahia Honda.” Bonnie favored Yancy with a fond-memory wink. “A raccoon swiped our marshmallows.”
Cody said, “I chased after him but he got away.”
Yancy loaded two plates with eggs and bacon, and he slid them across the counter. Cody inquired about the possibility of a bagel.
“Cream cheese or marmalade?” Yancy asked.
The young man beamed. “Hell, yes!”
Solemnly Bonnie said, “I never stopped loving him, Andrew. You know that.”
Yancy knew no such thing, but he was savoring the plot line. “Does Clifford know Cody’s back in the picture?”
“Lord, no! He thinks you and I ran off to the Seychelles. That’s what I wrote in my good-bye note, just to throw him off.”
“For God’s sake, Bonnie.”
Cody glanced up from his plate. “ ‘Bonnie’? So who came up with that one?”
Yancy was wishing that Cody would put on a shirt. His tufted breasts were droopy and mole-covered, and Yancy spied what appeared to be a fresh bite mark above his left nipple. It was increasingly difficult to keep an open mind.
“The night before I left Cliff,” Bonnie was saying, “I walk into the bathroom and there he is, dangling from the shower faucet, flopping and gurgling and jerking on his little weenie. For a noose he used one of my Hermès scarves! I mean, seriously, Andrew, enough’s enough.”
“An intolerable situation,” Yancy agreed.
Through a cheekful of mulched bacon Cody said, “Hey, Ms. Chase. If you’re gonna be Bonnie then I’m changing my handle to Clyde!”
She laughed and squeezed his pudgy elbow. Yancy pried a scorched bagel from the toaster and dressed it to Cody’s specifications.
“So, where are you two heading?”
Bonnie said she was hoping they could stay with him. “Until the heat’s off? Please?”
Yancy told her about the visit from Agent John Wesley Weiderman. “It’s not safe here,” he added. “Also, my girlfriend wouldn’t go for it.”
“Whoa.” Bonnie hitched an eyebrow and put down her fork. “Andrew has a new lady,” she said to Cody, who was using a green-tinged thumbnail to remove a sesame seed from his teeth.
“She’s a doctor,” Yancy said.
“What kind of doctor?” asked Bonnie.
“Well, a surgeon.”
“Does she have a specialty?”
“She operates on pretty much everything.” It wasn’t a lie; when Rosa did an autopsy, she diced up the whole works.
“Funny,” Bonnie said.
“You don’t believe me.”
“No, I meant it’s ironic: I just dumped a doctor and here you’ve taken up with one.”
Through the window Yancy saw no sign of the construction workers next door. Wet weather was his ally.
Cody said, “Ms. Chase told me how you butt-plugged her hubby with a DustBuster. That’s some awesome man-shit right there.”
He reached across the counter to honor Yancy with a knuckle bump. Yancy tried to visualize the kid’s photograph in the school yearbook. From Cody’s present condition it seemed inconceivable that he could have made himself attractive to Bonnie at any age. Perhaps he had quieter charms, such as a nine-inch cock.
“May I ask you something?” Yancy said. “It’s about Ms. Chase’s trial. I read where you testified against her.”
“A suck move. Mom and Dad made me do that.”
Bonnie gently interrupted, suggesting a change of topic.
Cody went on: “The important thing is we’re back together again. Right?”
“You kept a hot little journal of your romance is what I heard,” Yancy said.
“Hey, I was fifteen. I thought I wanted to be a writer.”
Proudly Bonnie chipped in: “He was wild about Portnoy’s Complaint.”
“Well, sure.” Yancy smiled. “Cody, are you keeping a journal now?”
He reddened. “No! I mean, what for?”
“In case you two get caught. Bonnie goes to jail, all the tabloids would line up to pay big bucks for your story. But I’m sure you wouldn’t do anything like that. Who wants coffee?”
After they were gone, Yancy walked over to the spec house and set up a Santeria shrine in the future living room. Improvising, he’d chosen a handmade doll of the warrior god Changó, and for sacrificial offerings included apples, tamales, copper pennies, a dead rooster collected on Simonton Street by Animal Control and a saucer of cat blood left over from a spaying performed by a veterinarian friend. These items were laid out upon a crude satanic pentagram that Yancy had drawn in red Krylon paint on Evan Shook’s floor slab. In the center he placed a rat skull, ominously marked with the numerals 666. Students of the occult would have discounted the scene as an amateurish juxtaposition of unconnected superstitions, but Yancy believed that maintaining cultural authenticity was less important than creating a vivid first impression for potential home buyers.
At lunchtime he drove down to Stoney’s and confronted Brennan, who disclaimed responsibility for Agent John Wesley Weiderman’s emergency trip to the hospital. “The man’s got a family history of diverticulitis!”
Yancy said, “I hope he sues your ass off.”
“Sit, Andrew, sit. Try the oysters Rockefeller.”
“I want to see the kitchen. You know the drill.” Yancy was carrying his vacuum-equipped roach-catching device.
“I’m glad you’re here.” Brennan fumbled to fit on a hairnet. “Somebody came by askin’ where you been. Jesus, is that a fuckin’ gun on your belt?”
“Absolutely.” After being nearly murdered by Eve Stripling’s accomplice, Yancy had purchased a used Glock to replace his forfeited service weapon. He would have preferred another 12-gauge but that was out of his price range.
Brennan seemed agitated. “Nobody on roach patrol packs a piece! Nilsson didn’t even carry a damn pocketknife.”
“This can be treacherous work,” Yancy said.
“The way some people do it, yeah. You got a carry permit?”
“Who was in here asking about me?”
“That girl,” said Brennan. “Phinney’s girl.”
“Madeline? She’s back?”
“For ’bout a week now. Come on, man, try the fuckin’ oysters.”
“Where’s she staying?”
“In Old Town, with some pimple-faced Russian d-bag. Hey, are you leavin’ already?”
“It’s your lucky day,” Yancy said, and made for the door.
Defiantly Brennan tugged off the hairnet. “I got nuthin’ to hide here! Drop in anytime!”<
br />
Madeline was working at the same skanky T-shirt shop on Duval, Pestov lurking ferret-eyed among the inventory. She told Yancy she’d returned to Key West because the police no longer considered her a suspect in Phinney’s murder. Yancy noticed that she’d chopped her hair even shorter and dyed it a shade of chartreuse that was popular for tarpon streamers. In addition she was sporting fresh ink—her dead boyfriend’s initials, tattooed on her left wrist.
He said, “It isn’t the cops I’m worried about. That’s not why I wanted you to get out of town.”
“Then who? Why would anyone want to hurt me?”
“Because—hold on, I’ll be right back.” Yancy went to the rear of the store and chased the scuttling Pestov out the door. Then he went back inside and informed Madeline that the man who’d shot Charlie had tried to kill him, too.
“Poncho Boy’s feeling some heat,” Yancy said.
“But he’s got no cause to kill me. I don’t know zip about zap.”
“You know where Charlie got all that money.”
Madeline said, “Stop tryin’ to scare me. And what’s with the gun?”
Yancy remembered her saying she had a sister in Crystal River. “Go stay with her until this is over. Please, Madeline.”
“Millie got born-again last October.”
“Oh.”
“For the third fucking time. All she does when I visit is preach Jesus Christ our Lord ’n’ Savior in my face, twenty-four/seven. One of her stupid cows got fried by lightning and she said it’s God’s will. No way can I be under the same roof with that psycho. She threw my Kools down the garbage disposer!”
Yancy said, “There must be somewhere else you can go.”
“The Russians won’t let anything happen to me. I already talked to Pestov.”
“Pestov is a barn maggot.”
“Dude, I need this job.”
“Really? All the T-shirt shops in the world?”
Yancy hung back while two dancers from Teasers came in to browse for the latest in nipple clips. After they left, Madeline smiled at Yancy and said, “I’m okay here. It’s kinda cool that you care, but I’ll be fine.”
When he returned to Big Pine, the rain had quit and the sky was clearing. Evan Shook stood on the street in front of his spec house, addressing a horseshoe-shaped gathering of the construction crew. Yancy interpreted Evan Shook’s gesticulations as beseeching. Some of the workers apparently had been unnerved by the sight of the Santeria altar or the rodent skull in the pentagram, possibly both. Yancy purposely had designed the display to touch a broad socio-religious spectrum.
He was rocking to Dave Matthews an hour later when Evan Shook pounded on the door, somewhat discourteously in Yancy’s view. He hid the Trainwreck he’d been smoking, unplugged his earbuds and straightened the shiny blue necktie he’d taken to wearing on restaurant inspections; the pattern on the fabric was a lateral skein of tiny silver handcuffs.
By way of a greeting, he said: “Is there news of the wild dogs? Please come in.”
Evan Shook remained on the front stoop, seething in the compressed manner of small men accustomed to bullying. Clearly he was inhibited by Yancy’s height, and also the hip-mounted firearm.
“Have you been in my house again?” he asked somberly. “Somebody …”
“Yes?”
“Somebody defaced the downstairs.”
“Good Lord. When did this happen?”
“Just this morning.”
“That’s unbelievable. In broad daylight? Kids, I’ll bet.” Yancy was counting on the conservative neckwear and police-model handgun to work in his favor, your average vandal being untidy and unarmed. The smell of pot, however, imperiled his credibility.
“I’ve been working all day,” he said. “Just got home.”
“So your answer is no, you haven’t been over there.” Evan Shook wondered if Yancy was too stoned to lie.
“Was anything stolen?” Yancy inquired. “You should hurry and hang those doors and windows, get the place buttoned up. Not just for security—it’s hurricane season.”
“Right.” Evan Shook plainly had more to say, but his gaze kept dropping to the black butt of the Glock. The bracing accusations he’d had in mind, the harsh warning he’d composed—these would remain undelivered.
“The neighborhood’s gone to hell,” Yancy said supportively. “It used to be so safe and quiet.”
“If you see anything unusual going on over there—”
“Of course, of course.” Yancy craned his head out the doorway, as if warily scouting for a rabid dog pack or rampaging delinquents. “I’ll try to keep a closer eye on things, Mr. Shook.”
“Thanks.”
“There used to be deer on your property, did you know that? Every evening around sundown. But now they don’t come.”
Evan Shook nodded witlessly. The damn mosquitoes were eating him alive.
“When I first moved here, it was mostly small houses,” Yancy went on, “what you might call bungalows. Nothing as grandiose as your place. What is that, four floors?”
“I’ve gotta get to the hardware store,” said Evan Shook, “before it closes.”
Yancy stayed up listening to his iPod while the television was tuned to Animal Planet. The effect was enthralling: wildebeest migrations accompanied by Joni Mitchell and the Strokes. Yancy took no delight in Evan Shook’s tribulations but wrong was wrong—the mansion was a fucking abomination. Yancy’s objective was to prevent it from being sold and finished.
He ate three energy bars and weighed himself: 162 pounds, a string bean. He was surprised that Eve Stripling hadn’t sent her stud muffin Christopher back to the Keys to properly finish killing him. By now she’d surely learned from Nick’s daughter that Yancy wasn’t drowned and that he intended to keep pursuing the case. He flipped the channel to Conan and unplugged one ear for the monologue. Afterward he turned off the TV and searched the kitchen cupboards for evidence of vermin. In some ways his roach patrol duties weren’t so different from police work—the quarry was nocturnal, and unfailingly left a trail.
Marinating in a lukewarm bath, Yancy smoked the rest of the joint and dozed off. At some point he was rousted by Dr. Rosa Campesino’s voice. It was rising from his cell phone, which he had apparently grabbed off the toilet seat and answered in a haze.
“Andrew, I need you here right away.”
“Wadizzit? You awright?”
“Wake up!”
“Take it easy.”
“That damn arm is back!” she said.
“What?”
“You heard me. The arm. I’m staring at it right now.”
Yancy splashed out of the tub. “Stripling’s arm? No way.”
“Get your butt in the car,” Rosa said.
Fourteen
Grave robbing was not uncommon in South Florida due to a thriving underground market for human bones, prized by Santeria priests and practitioners of extreme voodoo. The crime required muscle and nerve though no special stealth, as most cemeteries refused to spring for nighttime security guards.
Flaco Chávez and his partner, whose street name was Delta Force, were robbers by trade and had never before cracked a coffin. They’d met in prison and later shared an inattentive parole officer. Delta Force claimed to be an ex-army commando and he sometimes broke into gyms after hours to work out with the weights. Flaco Chávez specialized in mugging elderly ATM patrons, although he spoke vaingloriously of graduating to armored cars.
One night, while scouting for carjacking prospects at a BP station, the men were approached by a couple with an enticing offer: Six hundred dollars for robbing a grave—half the money up front, half when the grisly contents were delivered to a Denny’s restaurant on Biscayne Boulevard. It sounded like an easy job to Flaco Chávez and his partner, who promptly stole a late-model Tahoe from a pregnant nurse and struck out for the St. Lazarus Gardens and Water Park in North Miami. Along the way they stopped to burglarize an Ace Hardware store, acquiring two shovels, a pick,
canvas gloves and a flashlight.
The most challenging aspect of the heist, it turned out, was finding the correct target. Delta Force was ripped on coke and lacking in focus, so it was Flaco’s chore to locate the burial plot of Nicholas Stripling, whoever the fuck he was. Once the site had been isolated, the excavation took barely an hour, Delta Force digging like a dervish while Flaco Chávez feigned a hamstring cramp. Heading back downtown, their stolen SUV was spotted by a county police officer, who deftly swung his squad car into a U-turn and lit them up like a disco ball. Flaco Chávez spoke out in favor of a low-key surrender but Delta Force, facing multiple parole violations and a long bus ride back to Starke, stomped on the accelerator.
Neither man could be bothered with seat belts, so their skulls spidered the windshield at exactly seventy-one miles per hour when Delta Force—showing misplaced faith in the performance-enhancing attributes of cocaine hydrochloride—attempted a cinematic off-road evasion and crashed into a banyan tree. The impact ejected from the Tahoe’s rear hatch a navy-blue golf bag belonging to the husband of the pregnant carjacking victim. The golf bag spilled a full set of Callaways, three sleeves of Bridgestone balls, a speargun and an embalmed human arm, which was sent in its own ambulance to the medical examiner’s office.
Ironically, the stream of emergency vehicles sped directly past the Denny’s on Biscayne, where a couple armed with a stolen 12-gauge shotgun (strictly for protection) was waiting in a rented compact for the grave robbers.
After another hour passed with no contact, Eve Stripling said: “I can’t believe those assholes took the three hundred bucks and bailed.”
“What part can’t you believe?” grumbled the man beside her, the man who was now officially a boyfriend.
“We should’ve offered ’em five on this end,” she said.
“Or maybe we should have said you two shitheads get nada till we get the arm.”
Eve puffed her cheeks irritably. “Okay, honey, so they ripped us off. What the hell do we do now?”