Skinny Dip (11 page)

Halfway around the island, Joey said, “You’re in pretty good shape for a geezer.”

Stranahan stopped midstroke and treaded water.

“What’s wrong?” she called out.

Ominously he pointed at the waves beyond her. Joey spotted the three gray dorsals cutting the surface and let out a shriek. She kicked backward, straight into Mick’s arms.

“Don’t slug me,” he whispered after a few moments, “but those are just dolphins.”

Slowly she exhaled, blinking the salt from her eyes. “So this is how you get your thrills,” she said.

“I’m fairly harmless. You can ask around.”

The dolphins rolled away, and Stranahan lost sight of them in the sun’s glare. Joey kept her arms around his neck, which surprised him.

“That was pretty wild,” she conceded. “Better than the Seaquarium.”

“I see them playing out here all the time. You want to keep going?”

“You mean with the swimming, or the groping?”

“I’m not groping,” Stranahan said, “I’m trying to keep us afloat.”

“Your hand is on my ass.”

“Technically that’s a thigh, and it’s the easiest place to get a grip.”

“Oh, nice,” she said. “How much do you think I weigh?”

“Not with a gun to my head would I answer that question.” He ducked out of her grasp and pushed away.

“A hundred and thirty-one pounds,” Joey announced, smoothing the water from her hair. “But I’m tall. Almost five ten.”

“You look terrific,” he said. “So shut up and let’s swim. This was your brilliant idea, remember?”

Forty-five minutes later they were dry and dressed. He was fixing waffles and she was brewing coffee and the dog was baying at a boat full of snapper fishermen drifting past the island.

Joey said, “Tell me more about the blackmail plan.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” He left the kitchen for a minute and returned with the cell phone, which he handed to her. “Dial your house.”

“Noway!”

“You don’t have to talk to him. Just dial the number and give me the phone.”

“He’s got caller ID. He’ll see your name,” Joey said.

“Then do star sixty-seven to block it.”

“Mick, what are you going to say to him?”

“Just do it, please.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

Stranahan wedged the receiver under one ear as he tended to the waffles. He spoke in a stage voice that caused Joey to stifle a giggle.

“Is this Charles Perrone? Chaz, we don’t know each other yet, but soon you’ll be giving me a shockingly large sum of money… . No, this isn’t the cable company. This is the person who saw you push your lovely wife off the Sun Duchess last Friday night… . That’s correct. At eleven p.m. sharp, in a drizzling rain. You grabbed her by the ankles and chucked her overboard. Chaz, you still there? Oh, Cha-az?”

Joey applauded after Mick hung up. “That was Charlton Heston you were doing, right? Back in college we got stoned one night and watched The Ten Commandments and Planet of the Apes back-to-back.”

Stranahan said, “I believe I’ve ruined your husband’s morning.”

“What’d he say?”

“At first he thought I was trying to sell him digital Pay-per-View. Then he accused me of being somebody named Rolvad or Rolvag, playing a sick trick on him. Toward the end it was more of a gurgle, really. Like he’d swallowed some bleach.”

“What you just did, is that legal?” Joey asked.

“Possibly not. I’ll run it by Father Rourke the next time I go to confession.”

“You certainly seem to be enjoying yourself.”

“Chaz deserved a hot little rocket up the ass.”

“Well, I admire your style.”

“Now, please tell me again,” Stranahan said, “why you married a jerkoff like that.”

Joey’s smile evaporated. “You’d never understand.”

“It’s also none of my business, I admit.”

“No, I’ll tell you why. Because three guys in a row had dumped me for somebody else, okay? Because Chaz sent a single long-stemmed pink rose to my house every day for two weeks after our first date. Because he wrote me mushy notes and called me when he promised and took me out for romantic dinners. I was lonely, and obviously he was a pro at that sort of thing,” Joey said. “And I said yes the second time he asked me to marry him, because honestly I didn’t want to get dumped again. By the way, this is an unbelievably humiliating subject.”

Stranahan said, “For God’s sake, you’re not the first woman to get conned. But then once you realized it was a mistake—”

“Why did I stay married to him? Mick, it was only two years,” she said, “and not all of it was horrible. Let me try to explain this without sounding like a bubblehead—Chaz was good in bed, and I confess there were times when that canceled out his less admirable qualities.”

“I understand perfectly,” Stranahan said. “Hell, that’s the story of my life.” He stacked three waffles on her plate. “Several of my worst marriages were based on dumb lust and not much else. You hungry?”

Joey nodded.

“Me, too,” Stranahan said. “Maple syrup, butter, or both?”

“The works.”

“Thattagirl.”

They were interrupted by Strom yelping in pain. Stranahan ran outside, with Joey close behind. The dog lay at the end of the dock, pawing at an angry knot on his snout. Joey sat down and pulled the whimpering animal onto her lap.

In the water, no more than a hundred feet away, was the boat with the snapper fishermen; four of them, chuckling as they pretended to tend their baits. Stranahan spotted an egg-shaped piece of lead on the dock, and slowly he bent to pick it up.

“What’s that?” Joey said.

“Two-ounce sinker.”

“Oh no.”

Stranahan called out to the men in the boat. “Did you guys throw this at my dog?”

The fishermen glanced over, murmuring among themselves, until finally the largest one piped up: “Damn thing wouldn’t shut up, bro.”

Bro? Stranahan thought. So that’s what I’m dealing with. “Come over here,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“Go fuck yourself!” shouted another of the fishermen, a smaller version of the first. “And your puta girlfriend too.” Defiantly he swung back his fishing rod and cast a heavy yellow jig at the dock. It landed short, making a hollow plonk in the water.

Stranahan said to Joey: “Please take Strom inside the house.”

“Why? What’re you going to do?”

“Go.”

“No way am I leaving you alone out here with those morons.”

“I won’t be alone,” he said.

Stranahan counted three separate breaches of etiquette for which the fishermen deserved rebuke. The first was the casual manner in which they’d violated his privacy by coming so close to the island. The second was their contemptible assault on a rather dull-witted beast that was merely doing its job. The third was the coarse insult directed at Joey Perrone, who had done nothing to provoke it.

From the kitchen window, Joey could see the boat motoring toward the dock, all four of the fishermen now standing in anticipation of a fight. Stranahan disappeared briefly inside the shed. He emerged with what he later would identify as a Ruger Mini-14, a semi-automatic rifle of formidable caliber.

The intruders’ boat was equipped with a ninety-horsepower Mercury outboard, into which Stranahan methodically fired three rounds. The men could be seen throwing their arms high in frantic gestures of surrender, and their fearful pleas were audible to Joey even through the closed windows. She couldn’t make out Stranahan’s precise instructions, but the fishermen dropped to their knees, leaned over the gunwales and began paddling with their arms. The visual effect was that of an addled centipede in a toilet bowl.

Joey tied Strom’s leash to a leg of the kitchen table and hurried outside. Stranahan stood with the rifle on one shoulder as he watched the boat laboring crazily toward the mainland.

“So, that’s your gun,” Joey said.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m impressed.”

“They were, too.”

“What you did just now, was it legal?”

Mick Stranahan turned to look at her. “Please don’t ask me that question again.”

Eleven

Tool twisted the AC knob to maximum high and it still felt like a hundred damn degrees inside the minivan. American-made, too, which he thought was disgraceful. Florida, of all places, you don’t rent out vehicles with cheap-ass air conditioners.

Not even nine in the morning and already Tool was sweating off the fentanyl patches. To cool down, he removed his boots and overalls, then chugged a liter of Mountain Dew that he’d picked up at the Circle K on Powerline. Fiddling with the radio, he miraculously located a decent country station. Shania Twain was singing about how much fun it was to be a woman, though Tool couldn’t see how that could be true. Just about every female he’d ever known, starting with his mother, seemed perpetually pissed off at the human race. Or could be it was just me in particular, Tool thought.

At half-past nine, the man he was bodyguarding emerged from the house and hurried up the street toward the minivan. Up close he looked shiny and clean-cut—awful damn young to be a widower, Tool mused. You couldn’t help but wonder what had happened to the guy’s old lady.

Charles Perrone motioned him to roll down the window. “Have you seen anybody strange hanging around?”

“Whole goddamn place is strange, you want my opinion,” Tool said. “But no, I ain’t seen nobody ain’t supposed to be here.”

“You sure? Because I think they got into my house again.”

“Not while I was here they didn’t.”

The man looked as if he hadn’t slept all night. “Somebody mutilated one of my favorite pictures,” he said.

Tool was skeptical. “You want, I’ll follow you to work and hang close today. Just in case.”

Charles Perrone said he wasn’t going to work. “How come you’re not wearing any clothes?” he asked Tool.

” ‘Cause inside this van it’s hotter’n a elephant fart. Hey, Red says you’re a doctor.”

Charles Perrone seemed pleased. “That’s right.”

Tool pivoted his immense mass to display the two remaining patches on his back. “Can you get me some more a these?” he asked.

The doctor seemed put off by the damp wall of flesh before him.

“Stick-ons,” Tool said. “They’s medicine.”

“I know, but—”

“Duragesic’s the brand name. Can you write me a scrip?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” Charles Perrone said.

“It’s for super bad pain,” Tool explained. “See, there’s this bullet slug up the crack a my ass—I’m dead serious.”

Charles Perrone blanched and stepped back from the minivan. “Sorry. I don’t do prescriptions.”

“Now hold on a second.”

“I’m not that kind of doctor.” He spun around and strode back to his house at an accelerated pace.

Tool grunted. That’s one lame-ass quack, he can’t even write scrips.

Two doors down, a middle-aged woman in a yellow linen robe came outside, leading two small animals on leashes. Tool guessed that they were dogs, although they resembled none he’d ever seen. Their roundish wrinkled faces were flattened, as if they’d run full bore into a cement truck. The woman herself had a fairly spooky mug, all slick and stretched out like a Halloween mask that was too small for her head. Tool was treated to a close-up view as she walked the strange pinch-faced dogs down the sidewalk. The woman must not have spotted him inside the minivan, for she nonchalantly allowed her critters to pee all over the right front tire.

Tool’s instant response was to punch out the passenger window, raining glass upon the woman’s sandaled feet. She bleated in fear as he stuck his head out the window and instructed her in the crudest terms to clean up the damn mess.

“What!” She yanked the dogs away from the van and gathered them into her arms. “Just who do you think you are, mister?”

“I’m the sumbitch gonna butt-fuck those puppies, you don’t clean the piss off my tar.”

He cracked the door enough for the woman to see all she needed. In a heartbeat she was on her knees, furiously dabbing at the wet tire with a wad of pink tissue while her pets whined and scrapped nearby.

When she was finished, Tool said, “I didn’t hear no ‘pology.”

The woman made a spiteful sound and her cheeks turned red, yet her expression never changed. The skin from her forehead to her chin was so tight and glossy that Tool wondered if she might split open like a bad mango.

“Beat it,” he said, and she did, sandals slapping in retreat. The accordion-faced dogs could barely keep up.

Minutes later, the doctor reappeared.

“What did you do to Mrs. Raguso?” he demanded.

“She let her damn mutts take a leak on my tar!” Tool protested. “I thought this was ‘posed to be a class neighborhood, what they call ‘upscale.’ Hell, I live in a trailer and I wouldn’t let my dogs pee on summon else’s personal vee-hicle.”

Charles Perrone said, “You’d better get out of here. Carmen Raguso is probably calling the police right this minute.”

“What for? She’s the one started it.”

“You flashed her! I was watching from the living room.” Charles Perrone had got himself quite worked up. “I don’t want to deal with any more cops, you understand? Now hurry up, before she gets your license tag.”

“But who’s gonna watch your house?”

“Just keep driving,” Charles Perrone said, “until you hear from Mr. Hammernut. He’ll tell you what to do next.”

“Shit,” said Tool, and started backing down the street. At the corner he wheeled the minivan around, then shot forward at high speed toward the exit of West Boca Dunes Phase II. More than an hour passed before the cell phone rang, but by then Tool had scored two more fatality markers from the grass median of the Sawgrass Expressway. The flowers had rotted down to the ribbons, yet the crosses themselves were in mint condition. Consequently, Tool’s outlook was much improved by the time Red Hammernut called.

“On this bodyguard thing,” Red said, “the trick is, you gotta blend in.”

“I never been too good at that.”

“Okay. Lemme work up another plan.”

“Meantime, can I swap out the minivan?” Tool asked.

“By all means.”

“Get me somethin’ with a decent AC.”

“You bet.”

“By the way, your boy ain’t much of a doctor.”

Red Hammernut chuckled. “Don’t you dare tell a soul.”

Mick Stranahan and Joey Perrone were surprised to see Chaz’s yellow Humvee when they came around the corner at ten-thirty.

“Guess who’s taking a sick day,” Joey said.

Stranahan positioned the Suburban in the driveway of the fugitive telemarketers, same as the last time. Moments later, a panel truck turned onto the street and drove past the Perrone house, then braked, reversed and pulled in beside the Hummer. Painted in red lettering on the sides of the truck: sunshine locksmith.

“Damn,” Stranahan said. “He’s changing the locks.”

“So what?”

“So the spare key in the bird feeder won’t fit.”

Joey raised an eyebrow. “Wait and see.”

Soon another truck appeared. It was a small white pickup with magnetic signs on the doors: gold coast security systems.

“Now what?” Stranahan grumbled.

“He’s reconnecting the alarm.”

“Terrific.”

“Would you please stop worrying?” Joey said.

“Just so you know, I’m not keen on B-and-E’s.”

“Translation?”

“Breakins. They’re messy,” Stranahan said, “and very hard to explain if the cops show up. Are your window screens wired?”

“No, but there are motion detectors in the hallway and bedrooms. I suppose Chaz could put in more, depending on how spooked he is.”

“I would say plenty spooked,” said Stranahan, “based on what we’re seeing.”

“It was your phone call, Mick. The Moses impersonation.”

“Let’s not forget the snapshot under his pillow.”

“Oh yeah.” Joey would have given anything to see her husband’s face when he found it.

By noon the locksmith and the alarm technician were gone, but Charles Perrone hadn’t come out of the house. Joey was restless, ready to roll. She had tucked her hair under a Marlins cap and costumed herself in long pants and a loose-fitting work shirt. Instead of a Bible, her prop this time was a toolbox. Someone watching her come down the sidewalk might have mistaken her for a man, because of her height and long athletic stride.

“What if he’s really sick in bed?” she said.

Stranahan was scanning the place with the binoculars. “Give him one more hour.”

A blue car turned the corner and approached the Perrone residence. It was the Ford compact belonging to the woman with the kelly-green pubic hair.

Joey groaned. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

“Take it easy, now.”

“What, he can’t even make it past lunch without getting his rocks hauled?”

Stranahan said, “Looks like she’s not going in.”

Two short honks came from the Ford, then the front door of the house opened. Out came Charles Perrone, carrying a brown paper bag.

“See that golf shirt he’s wearing? I gave him that for his birthday,” Joey said. “New set of irons, too.”

Chaz got in on the passenger side and the blue car pulled away. Joey noted that the woman was wearing large Jackie Onassis-style sunglasses—”probably so she won’t be recognized from her porno flicks.”

Stranahan advised Joey to stay focused on her no-good husband. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to go back in the house. My house.”

“But how?”

“Wait here,” she said, “until you see the sprinklers come on.”

Stranahan touched her wrist. “The second the alarm goes off, I’m rolling. Be sure to come out the front door, not the back, then walk very calmly to the street.”

“Mick, don’t you dare leave me stranded here. That would really suck.”

“Come to think of it, I still owe you one.”

“Not the stolen boat thing again.” Joey sighed as she hopped out of the Suburban. “How many times did I say I was sorry? Like a dozen?”

Stranahan had been underestimating women for about forty years, so he was not flabbergasted to see the lawn sprinklers bloom at the former residence of Joey Perrone. He would have congratulated her merely for getting past the new locks; that she’d also thwarted the security alarm was truly impressive.

When she met him at the door, he asked, “Were you a burglar in a previous life?”

“No, a wife,” Joey said. “Chaz hid the new key in the same bird feeder, just like I knew he would.”

“Because…”

“See, it was his idea the first time. He was so proud of himself, thought he was so darn clever. And since I’m the only other person who knew about the hiding place—”

“And he thinks you’re dead—”

“Exactly. Why not hide it there again?” she said. “He probably figures that whoever snuck into the house scored the old key from our cleaning service, or maybe the guy who does the aquarium.”

“Okay, but how’d you disarm the alarm?”

“Now, Mick, put on your thinking cap.”

He grinned. “Don’t tell me Chaz used the same keypad code as before.”

“Yup,” Joey said. “Two, twenty-one, seventy-two.”

“Sounds like a birthday.”

“Bingo. I knew he’d be too lazy to make up a new sequence.”

“Still, that’s quite a gamble you took,” Stranahan said.

“Not really. Not knowing him the way I do.”

They sat in the dining room, Chaz’s mud-smeared backpack on the table. Joey said she’d once bought him a nice leather briefcase, but he had told her it was impractical for working in a swamp. Stranahan unfastened the backpack’s many buckles and zippers and emptied the contents pocket by pocket: a sheath of loose papers and charts, a handful of mechanical pencils, two aerosol cans of insect spray, a snakebite kit, tape and gauze, a pair of heavy cotton socks, canvas gloves, rubberized gloves, chlorine tablets, a tube of antibiotic ointment, a rolled-up Danish skin magazine, a bag of stale chocolate doughnuts, a pound of trail mix and a plastic bottle of Maalox tablets.

“Your husband has a nervous tummy. That could be helpful,” Stranahan said.

Joey leafed through the papers. “This is the same kind of stuff he was working on the day he got so mad at me.”

“You were right. They’re charts for water samples.” Stranahan removed a blank form, folded it up and slipped it in the pocket of his Florida Power & Light shirt.

“That’s all we’re taking?” she asked.

“For now, yes.”

He carefully replaced each of the other items in the backpack. “That was a nice little bonus. Now—where does Squire Perrone hide his checkbook?”

“Be right back.” Joey disappeared down the hallway, and returned carrying at arm’s length a crusty, soiled sneaker. “Never been washed,” she reported distastefully.

A clever idea, Stranahan had to admit. Even the most desperate of thieves avoid rancid footwear. Joey turned the shoe upside down and the checkbook dropped out. Flipping through the register, Stranahan found no unusual transactions; the only deposits were Chaz Perrone’s bimonthly paychecks from the state of Florida.

“When did you say he bought the Hummer?” Stranahan asked Joey.

“Middle of January.”

“There’s nothing here, not even a down payment.”

“Maybe he’s got another account I don’t know about,” she said.

Or maybe he didn’t pay for the Hummer himself, Stranahan thought. “What about Chaz’s so-called nest egg?” he asked.

Joey shook her head weakly. “Stocks and bonds?”

“Then he should get brokerage statements in the mail.”

Joey admitted that she’d never seen any. Stranahan stood up and said it was time to go, before Chaz returned with his lady friend.

“Wait. Let’s leave him another present.” Joey was eyeing one of her husband’s umbrellas, which was leaning in a corner.

“Absolutely not,” Stranahan said.

“Mick, come on.”

“He’s already a nervous wreck, I assure you.”

Joey feigned a pout as she followed him to the door. “At least can I leave the sprinklers running?”

“Is the timer box outside?”

She nodded. “On the wall outside the utility room. He’ll have no reason to think that we actually got into the house.”

“Then, sure, what the hell,” Stranahan said. “If it makes you feel better.”

“It’ll do for now,” said Joey, and reset the alarm.

Ricca remarked that Chaz looked dreadful.