Skinny Dip (37 page)

Looking at Red’s buffed fingernails and bleached teeth, Tool wondered when was the last time he’d touched a shovel or a hoe. It was a known fact that Red’s late daddy had made a killing off natural gas in Arkansas, and that Red had used his inheritance to buy up row-crop operations all over the Sun Belt.

“Hey, there’s the truck,” Red said.

Tool braked to a halt next to a dusty Dodge pickup. It had been parked on the levee an hour earlier by one of Red’s trusted crew bosses, so that Red and Tool would have transportation out of the Loxahatchee preserve. They intended to abandon the Hummer at the edge of the rim canal, Chaz Perrone’s suicide message attached to the dashboard. Red said the note was a bonus, though he wasn’t sure what to make of the part about the swan getup.

Dragging their captive out of the Hummer, they were surprised to find that he wasn’t dead. With the tenacity of a psychotic gopher, Chaz had gnawed a ragged hole in the shrink wrap, through which he now labored to breathe. It sounded like molasses being sucked down a drainpipe.

“Damnation,” Red said. He snatched a Remington twelve-gauge off the backseat and ordered Tool to cut the sumbitch loose.

“You sure?”

“Hell yes.”

Tool used a pocket knife to skin off the plastic cocoon. Chaz levered himself to a squat, his clothes sopping and his face flushed.

“Thank you,” he wheezed.

Red Hammernut said, “What the hell for? We’re still gonna wax your thieving ass.”

“Red, I’m so truly sorry about the money.”

“I don’t doubt it.”

“I’ll do whatever you want. Just tell me.”

The doctor cowered there, shrunken and hollow-eyed, a squalid portrait of guilt. While Tool had no sympathy, neither was he in the mood to watch a man’s brains get splattered like oatmeal.

Red said, “It was a setup from day one, right? There wasn’t no damn blackmail, just you and some greedy asshole pals.”

“That’s not true!” Chaz protested.

“I always figured you killed your wife. That much I put together from the get-go,” Red said. “But for you to video the whole thing, that’s some sick shit. Just to squeeze some cash outta me? Son, you are one evil little bastard.”

“Listen, Red. I did not kill Joey. She’s alive!”

Red glanced over at Tool, who shrugged blankly.

“Hey, then, what you’re sayin’—she must be in on this, too.”

“Exactly!” Chaz exclaimed. “She’s the one behind the blackmail.”

“Your dead wife.”

“Yes! I found out last night.”

Red nodded. “Well, son, you just answered my next question.”

“What’s that?”

“How low can you go?”

“Aw, Red, I’m telling the God’s truth.”

“Let’s get Mr. O’Toole’s opinion.”

Tool was watching the sun go down, thinking about the hot, throbbing knot under his arm. “Gimme the shotgun,” he said.

Red grinned in relief. “That’s my boy.”

In the distance, a bull alligator grunted. Tool took the Remington and slotted a shell into the chamber. He told Chaz Perrone to stand up and turn around.

Slowly Red Hammernut backed away, saying, “I believe I’ll wait in the truck.”

Sure, Tool thought. Wouldn’t want no blood on your fancy catalog clothes.

“Get in the water,” Tool said to Chaz.

“Tell him I’m not lying about Joey. Please.”

“You capped me and swiped the money.”

“Yes, I made a horrible mistake. Yes,” Chaz said breathlessly.

“You sure did. Now, I’m gone count to five.”

“Oh God, don’t make me go into that water.”

“That’s what you did to your girlfriend, right? What’s to be scared of?”

Another big gator huffed, somewhere off in a slough.

Mating season, Tool surmised.

Chaz began quivering uncontrollably. He slapped his hands on his thighs and said, “Look at me! Just look!”

It was a sorry damn sight, Tool had to admit. The man was wearing an undershirt, plaid boxers and shiny brown socks—that’s how they’d hauled him out of his house. The skeeters were feasting on his soft arms and knobby broomstick legs.

“Want some free advice?” Tool said.

“Okay. Sure.” The doctor nodded stiffly.

“Run like hell.”

“Where? Out there?” He motioned wildly behind him.

“Yep,” Tool said. “Here goes. One … two … three …”

Chaz Perrone lurched down the embankment and crashed into the knee-deep swamp, a setting most unfavorable for an Olympic-style sprint. He fled from the levee in an exaggerated, lead-footed swagger, splashing with crazed desperation through the heavy grass.

Tool’s first shot went too far left. His second shot was low, kicking up a small geyser that soaked the droopy rump of Chaz’s underpants. The third shot was wide right.

Red Hammernut hopped out of the pickup, bellowing angrily. Tool squinted through one eye, pretending to concentrate.

At the fourth shot, Chaz let out a cry and toppled over.

“Finally,” Red declared, only to watch the biologist rise up and resume his sloppy escape, pushing a crooked liquid trail through the saw grass prairie.

Red seized the Remington from Tool and feverishly took aim.

“Hurry,” Tool said with a hint of a smile, which Red failed to notice.

“You shut up!”

Red’s shot—the last shell in the gun—flew so high off the mark that the buckshot sprinkled down in a loose crescent as harmless as pebbles, well behind the departing target.

“Goddamn.” Red jumped off the ground in frustration. “Go get him! Go on!”

Tool laconically declined. “My arm hurts, from where that fucker shot me.” Reminding Red of his recent sacrifice in the line of duty.

“But, Christ Almighty, he’s gettin’ away!”

“Then you go after him, chief,” Tool suggested. “Lemme bright the headlights so you can see’m better.”

One of the lovesick gators grunted, this time closer.

Red Hammernut did not advance even a millimeter toward the still, dark water.

“Well, goddamn,’” he said, studying the shotgun in his hands as if it had malfunctioned supernaturally. “I’m empty.”

“Yup,” Tool said.

In a taut and flurried silence the two of them watched Charles Regis Perrone, Ph.D., vanish gradually into the rich copper twilight of the swamp.

Thirty-one

Joey Perrone burrowed into the folds of her brother’s sheepskin coat.

“Can’t you stay a few more days?”

“Romance and adventure beckon,” Corbett Wheeler said. “Besides, my ewes are lost without me.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing. What if she does turn out to be a bimbo?”

“There are worse tragedies, little sister.”

Joey let out a cry of mock indignation and tugged Corbett’s hat over his eyes. Mick Stranahan carried the luggage to the helicopter, which had nearly given Strom a coronary when it touched down on the island. The pilot re-started the engines and Joey backed away from the din, fighting tears.

Corbett blew a kiss and rakishly twirled his walking stick. Before stepping aboard, he stopped to shake Stranahan’s hand. Joey could see the two men talking intently, Mick nodding and appearing to ask questions. He trotted back and stood with her as the chopper lifted off, both of them waving broadly as it thumped away toward the mainland.

“Ricca’s meeting him at the airport. She had a quick stop in Boca this morning,” Stranahan reported.

“What else? “Joey asked.

“That’s it.”

“Come on, Mick. What were you guys talking about?”

“Nothing, honest,” he insisted. “Your brother just wanted to thank me for taking care of you. He said he knew what a pain in the ass you can be.”

She chased him all the way to the dock, where they stripped off each other’s clothes and dove in. They were making a third lap around the island when a park ranger’s boat surprised them. It was a big SeaCraft with twin Mercs, driven by a muscular Cuban officer in his early forties. As he idled up to the swimmers he broke into a grin.

“Some things never change,” he said.

“Hey, Luis.”

“Hello, Mick. Hello, pretty lady.”

Peeking modestly over Mick’s shoulder, Joey gave a minisalute.

“Meet the legendary Luis Cordova,” Stranahan said, treading water. “We’ve known each other since the grand old days of Stiltsville, back when he was a rookie with the marine patrol. Now he’s a hotshot storm trooper for the Park Service, spying on innocent skinny-dippers.”

Luis Cordova laughed as he tossed a rope. “I’m here on official business, you horny old deadbeat.”

“Aw, please don’t tell me Senor Zedillo kicked the bucket,” Stranahan said.

Miguel Zedillo was the Mexican novelist who owned the island. Joey remembered the name from a stack of books on a shelf in Mick’s bedroom. He had told her that the writer was in fragile health, and that the island would probably be sold after he died. That’s when Joey had piped up and said she’d like to buy it, which had so delighted Mick that he’d immediately made love to her under the picnic table.

“Relax, man,” said Luis Cordova. “Far as I know, the old man is still alive and kicking in Tampico. I came out here to ask you about an abandoned boat.”

Mick grabbed the rope and Joey clung monkey-style to his back. The ranger pulled them to the transom of the SeaCraft, so that they could rest on the dive platform. Joey was pleased to note that Luis Cordova was a gentleman, strenuously averting his gaze from her bare bottom.

“What boat?” Mick asked.

“Twenty-three-foot rental floated up on the rocks at Cape Florida last night, probably when that weather moved through. No dive gear, no tackle, nobody on board. Just a busted spotlight and some blood spots on the gunwale.”

“Human?”

Luis Cordova spread his arms. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Who did the paperwork trace back to?”

“No paper, Mick,” the ranger said. “Rental company says the boat was stolen from the marina before the storm, but I’ve got a hunch they owed somebody a favor.”

“Twenty-three-footer, you said?”

“Blue Bimini top. Yamaha four-stroke.”

Stranahan said, “Sorry, Luis. I didn’t see any boats.”

Joey spoke up. “We stayed indoors all night. The weather was horrible.”

“That it was,” agreed Luis Cordova, gallantly trying to keep his eyes fixed above her neck. “What’s your name, ma’am?”

Joey, who had been covering her breasts with her free arm, let go just long enough to jab Mick in the rib cage. He took the cue.

“She’s trying to keep a low profile,” he confided to the ranger. “Family problems back home. You know what I mean.”

“Did I mention there was a bullet hole in the windshield?”

“No, Luis, you didn’t.”

“Maybe you folks heard something—like a gunshot?”

“Not with all that hellacious thunder,” Stranahan said.

Joey added, “We could barely hear ourselves talk.”

Luis Cordova was nodding, but Joey sensed that he wasn’t entirely sold.

He said, “Well, I figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. Every time there’s a bloodstained boat, I think of you first, Mick.”

“I’m flattered, but these days I’m living a quiet, normal life.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Luis Cordova said dryly. “Sorry to interrupt your afternoon. You want a lift back to the dock?”

“Naw, we’ll swim.” Stranahan pushed away from the stern, Joey riding his shoulders. “Good seeing you again, man,” he called to the ranger.

“Same here, amigo.”

“Are you looking for a body?” The question popped out of Joey’s mouth before she realized it. Stranahan reached down and pinched her on the butt.

“A body?” Luis Cordova said.

Joey, thinking: How could I be such a ditz!

“What I meant,” she said, “was that maybe somebody fell off that boat during the storm.”

The ranger told her that nobody had been reported missing. “But don’t forget it’s Miami,” he added. “Sometimes people disappear and nobody ever calls the cops. Anyway, it’s a big ocean.”

Tell me about it, Joey said to herself.

Swimming toward the house, she couldn’t stop wondering about her husband. Had a suitcase crammed with half a million dollars been found on the abandoned boat, Luis Cordova likely would have mentioned it.

And if no suitcase or corpse had turned up, Joey reasoned, the odds were better than even that Chaz Perrone had survived and made off with the cash. It was almost unbearable to contemplate.

“You kept telling me not to worry,” she shouted to Mick, who trailed her by ten yards in the water. “Now you happy? The worthless creep got away!”

“Why won’t you trust me?” Stranahan called back.

“Because you’re a man.” Joey blew bubbles as she laughed.

“Fine,” he said, “then you owe me two weeks’ room and board!”

“Gotta catch me first.”

She lowered her head and lengthened her strokes, knifing across the foamy crests of the waves. She could barely hear him shouting, “Hey, Joey, slow down! I love you!”

Geezer, she thought.

Happily she kicked toward the seawall where Strom paced, yapping and wagging his silly stump of a tail.

Red Hammernut licked at the corners of his lips. He’d been spitting and swearing so much that his tongue had gone to chalk. For about the sixth time he proclaimed, “That was the worst job a shootin’ I ever saw from a man with two good eyes.”

Earl Edward O’Toole kept his two good eyes on the levee road and said nothing. Evidently he was done apologizing.

Red was nearly apopletic about Chaz Perrone’s escape. Tool had told him to quit worrying; said the guy was a hopeless pussy who’d never get out of the ‘glades alive.

Only what if he does? Red thought.

“That boy can flat-out ruin me,” he said somberly.

Tool chuckled. “He ain’t gone ruin nobody, chief. He’s gone run till he drops.”

“You know sumpin’ I don’t?”

“Just that he’s got plenty to be a-scared of,” Tool said, “he ever comes out.”

“And what if somebody else catches him first? Ever thought about that? Boy’s lookin’ at Death Row, he’d be tickled to rat out yours truly for a plea bargain.”

Tool said, “Don’t getcha self all worked up.”

On the chance that Chaz might backtrack, they had waited a long time in the darkness on the levee—listening, watching for a shadow to move—until Red could no longer endure the bugs. They left Perrone’s Hummer but took the keys, in the event that the sonofabitch was waiting in the weeds nearby. His maudlin suicide note lay prominently displayed on the dashboard—”in case he’s polite enough to float up dead,” Red had explained.