Bad Monkey (27 page)

Andrew said no problem and waved to a fellow in a Rasta cap who was playing dominoes at a side table. “That’s Philip, my wheelman.”

Claspers recognized him from the regulars at the airport. Philip was unenthusiastic about making the run to Bannister Point, but a twenty-dollar bill from Andrew improved his outlook.

The taxi van was parked in the fluttering halo of a streetlight. Claspers sat down in the second row and Mrs. Gates got in beside him. Her husband, the fly fisherman, didn’t.

“What’s up?” Claspers asked.

“Rosa’s taking it from here. For now I’d prefer to hang back. Don’t worry—she knows what’s what in the real estate game.”

The pilot grunted. “Mr. Grunion will be pissed.”

“Mr. Grunion will have his hands full.” The fisherman winked and shut the door.

Philip stomped the accelerator and off they went. Claspers sipped from a go-cup and chatted with Mrs. Gates and thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the ride.

It had been Rosa’s idea to meet the couple alone because Yancy couldn’t possibly accompany her. Nick Stripling’s widow would recognize him face-to-face. Yancy hadn’t argued about Rosa’s decision though he should have. Possibly his judgment had been softened by tequila; Rosa had brought a bottle of Cuervo from Miami, and they’d had a celebratory taste in the motel room while she treated his monkey wounds. She’d been so jazzed about getting a chance to play cop, selecting for the occasion a pair of egregious Christian Louboutin sandals that were certain to catch Eve’s eye and establish Rosa as a serious shopper for condos.

“Go big or go home,” Rosa had said. “That’s my motto.” For earrings she’d chosen teardrops of pure jade, a past-life gift about which Yancy knew better than to inquire.

The plan was far from foolproof, but the start had been promising. It didn’t take an FBI profiler to predict that Grunion’s lonesome pilot would be down at the conch shack—where else in Rocky Town would he go when grounded by weather?

As for Grunion’s receptivity to a cold call, Yancy had counted on a condition known among developers as acute hurricane anxiety. If Françoise flattened Lizard Cay, the Curly Tail Lane project would be
in deep trouble. Grunion would have a wretched time trying to attract new buyers—especially those willing to overpay, a key demographic in the vacation-home market. Hurricanes being only slightly less damaging to real estate values than volcanic eruptions and leaky nuclear plants, Grunion was now probably glued to the Weather Channel with his gut full of refluxed acid, wondering how in God’s name to build and promote a five-star island retreat if the island’s one-star infrastructure was destroyed.

Yancy didn’t know whether Eve and Grunion had tapped out Stripling’s Medicare loot and paid cash for the Green Beach property, or whether they’d been brazen enough to apply for a bank loan. It didn’t really matter; without pre-construction sales, Curly Tail Lane would fail, which is why Grunion didn’t hang up on Claspers and blow off the young American couple who were waiting out the storm in Rocky Town.

Rosa’s mission was to set a trap. An acting job, as she said; no superhero shit. She’d simply let it be known that her “husband” Andrew was determined to own a piece of this gorgeous tropic isle, no matter what the hurricane did. Better still, the couple was interested in purchasing two or three condos, not just one.

Then she’d explain to Eve Stripling that, because of the family’s complex asset structure, the fund transfers and contract signings must take place back in Florida. There Yancy’s pal in Homeland Security would have agents waiting to detain Eve and her boyfriend, based on allegations of previous illegal border entries. The incriminating testimony would come from none other than K. J. Claspers, desperately hoping to save his pilot’s certificate from revocation. It would be Yancy’s task to see that Eve and Grunion remained in custody until prosecutors could assemble at least one of the murder cases.

That was the plan, anyway. By now Rosa was at the house on Bannister Point, and Yancy was worried.

Ever since the night she seduced him on the autopsy table he had wondered how to satisfy such an appetite for excitement. Sending her off to meet with a pair of murderers was one way to spice up a date weekend, but experimenting with variable-speed sex toys in a bounce house would have been safer.

Yancy knew nothing about Christopher Grunion beyond his homicidal
capacities; there wasn’t a trace of the man in the public records or state crime computers. That Eve Stripling’s companion might be using an alias wasn’t surprising, but it heightened Yancy’s anxiety about Rosa meeting with the man. If she didn’t return by ten sharp, Yancy would go to Grunion’s place and check on her. His watch now said eight forty-six.

The wind blew a fat palmetto bug from the thatching and it landed on the opposite bar, next to a plate of cracked conch. A tourist woman who’d been enjoying the native entrée emitted a shriek and nearly tumbled backward. Her companions, all sporting ripely sunburned cheeks, joined in the squealing and pointing. The six-legged intruder composed itself and with probing antennae began to stalk the drippings of a half-finished piña colada. Hysterically the patrons appealed to the bartender, who indicated an unwillingness to intervene.

Yancy couldn’t stand the racket. He walked around to where the first woman had been sitting, and with a bare palm he flattened the insect. The crunch sounded like a boot heel on a pistachio. There was a smatter of tipsy applause and one or two supportive shouts, which Yancy didn’t acknowledge. If it had happened back in Florida, he’d be writing up the place.

He used a cocktail napkin to wipe the roach bits off his hand as the aggrieved female patrons gathered up their pocketbooks and scrunchies. They departed in an ungrateful flock just as a frayed-looking older fellow walked in and propped a fully assembled fly rod against the bar rail.

“Who is that gentleman?” Yancy asked the bartender.

“Dot’s Neville Stafford. Poor mon bin out all night lookin’ for his monkey.”

“We’ve all been there. Let me buy him a beer.”

The American sat down beside him and Neville said thanks for the Kalik.

“Rough time?”

“Yeah, mon.”

“I ran into your flea-bitten buddy,” said the American.

He showed Neville the bite marks and scratches on his legs. Neville felt bad. The American said the monkey had run off in a rainstorm after a fracas at the abandoned house.

Then he said: “Mr. Stafford, I believe that’s my fly rod.”

Neville nodded and set it by the man’s stool. He told him the errant monkey’s name was Driggs and mentioned the Johnny Depp connection. The American said he’d first seen the animal riding a motorized wheelchair with the Dragon Lady.

“Queen,” Neville corrected him. “Dragon Queen.”

“She sort of freaked me out.”

“She freak everbotty out.”

“Isn’t her boyfriend that huge bald dude works for Christopher Grunion?”

Neville said, “How you know Mistuh Chrissofer?”

“I heard he’s building a fancy tourist resort down on the beach.”

“Yeah, mon.
My
beach.” Neville stopped talking and finished his beer. The American ordered him another one.

“You sell him that land?”

“He tore down my house and put up a fence with a got-tam padlock. Ain’t no hoppy situation, mon. It was my hoff sister made the deal. Nobody axe me.” Neville went through the story of the sale. He couldn’t tell if the American, like others, thought he was crazy.

The man finished listening and said, “That’s a lot of money, Mr. Stafford. You could have been rich.”

“In wot way?”

The American broke into a warm smile. “Exactly. My name’s Andrew.”

His grip was firm when he shook Neville’s hand. He said he lived on Big Pine Key, in the southernmost part of Florida. Neville said he had been twice to Miami and once to Fort Lauderdale, to have a mole on his neck removed. The American told him about his own house, about the hot-pink Gulf sunsets and the small wild deer that roamed the island. The deer were no larger than dogs, the man said, which Neville found fascinating.

“Every evening they’d come into this clearing to eat sprouts and twigs,” the man named Andrew said. “I’d sit on the deck and watch them do their thing until it got dark.”

“Ain’t no deer on Andros dot I ever saw,” Neville remarked. “Only pigs.”

“But then some guy named Shook from upstate New York, he bought the lot next to mine and started putting up a huge house, a ridiculous fucking house. It’s way too tall for the building codes but obviously he paid off somebody,” the American went on. “Worst part? He doesn’t even intend to live there, Mr. Stafford. Can’t abide the heat and mosquitoes. All he wants to do is unload the monstrosity on some clueless sucker, take the money and go back north.”

The American seemed deeply bothered by what his neighbor was doing to the land. Neville had never run into a tourist like Andrew, although he’d met a few like Mr. Shook.

“Wot ’bout dose lil’ deer?” Neville asked.

“They don’t come anymore. They can’t eat plywood.”

The man went still. Neville asked him what he was going to do.

“What are
you
going to do?” the American said.

Neville told him about recruiting the Dragon Queen to put a voodoo hex on Christopher Grunion. “But it dint woyk,” he added. “And, at de end, she trick me outta my monkey.”

“I’m not sure she got the best of that deal.”

“Dot’s true.” Neville had to laugh.

“Movie stars, right? Nothing but trouble. Can I show you something?” The American took out a gold badge and held it close to his lap, below the bar counter, so that no one but Neville could see it.

“You police?” Neville whispered.

The man named Andrew put the badge away. He said, “Law enforcement authorities in the U.S. are very interested in Mr. Grunion—and that’s not his real name. We believe the Curly Tail Lane project is being financed with moneys obtained illegally, by fraud. We also believe he’s quite dangerous.”

Neville nodded. “Yeah, dot asshole shodda gun at me.”

“Really? When did this happen?”

“Big fucking gun, mon. Outside his house up Bannister Point.”

“Shit.” The man anxiously glanced at his wristwatch.

Neville drained his beer bottle thinking he and the American had something in common. Both were beset by greedy intruders destroying something rare, something that couldn’t be replaced.

The light bulbs hanging from the beams of the conch shack flickered and dimmed; soon the island would lose electricity. Neville wondered where Driggs would take shelter during the hurricane. Not with the voodoo witch, he hoped. What kind of demon skank would teach a monkey how to smoke?

“Foyst time I gon see de Dragon Queen, I bring a private ting belong to Chrissofer.”

“What was that?” the American asked.

“A sleeve from a fishin’ shoyt like you got on dere, ’cept it was blue. Dragon Queen supposed to pudda coyse on de mon and take care my prollem on Green Beach. But den notting hoppen—”

“It was a sleeve?” The man named Andrew planted his elbows on the bar and pressed the knuckles of his hands together. To Neville he looked a bit pale.

“Yeah, a sleeve dot been toyn off. It was in Chrissofer’s garbage.”

“Torn off or
cut
off?”

“I tink cut.” Neville made a scissor motion with his fingers.

“Oh Jesus.”

“Wot’s mottah?”

“Do you have a car, Mr. Stafford?”

“No, mon. I got a boat, but—”

“Never mind.” The American slapped some cash on the bar and disappeared up the road, into the swaying shadows.

Neville picked up the man’s expensive fishing rod and made his way to Joyous’s apartment where after a quick poke he lay awake, listening to the coconut trees shake and wondering if the American was really a policeman, and if the things he’d said were true.

Twenty

Agent John Wesley Weiderman, five pounds lighter after his bout with spoiled shellfish, had intrepidly returned to Florida on the hunt for Plover Chase. He was armed with a promising new lead supplied by the fugitive’s husband, a retired dermatologist who’d contacted the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

Dr. Clifford Witt had uncovered a series of credit card charges made by the suspect under the alias of Bonnie Witt and posted on a Visa account to which Dr. Witt had access (online password: nookyluv2). The purchases, all made in Key West, included groceries, lip gloss, blond hair coloring, domestic beer, condoms, dental floss, a car rental, four jerry cans, ninety-seven dollars’ worth of gasoline and a room-service charge at a Best Western on South Roosevelt.

“We run out of cash so we had to go plastic,” explained the man inside the hotel room, number 217.

He gave his name as Clyde Barrow, and he seemed unflustered by having a lawman at the door. Then again, Agent John Wesley Weiderman adhered to a low-key approach.

“Do you know a woman named Plover Chase?” he asked.

“She left me, dude. Hit the bricks.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Back on the run, I guess. Once an outlaw, whatever.”

“Let’s start with your real name.”

The man said, “Okay, okay, you got me.”

He was doughy and sunburned. He wore a black muscle shirt that
said:
OLD KEY WEST—A DRINKING VILLAGE WITH A SLIGHT FISHING PROBLEM
!

“I’m Cody Parish,” he said.

Agent John Wesley Weiderman didn’t respond immediately. He was assessing the judicial prospects of his case, which were suddenly dimmer.

“Yo, as in Cody Parish the victim?”

“Got it,” said John Wesley Weiderman.

It was the person with whom Plover Chase had notoriously swapped sex in exchange for good school grades. Now he was all grown up. He was, in fact, losing his hair.

“Ms. Chase and me, we hooked up again after all this time. Actually, she tracked me down on Facebook. Talk about a true-life fairy tale—it’s all in my diary, I mean
everything
.”

“May I read it?”

“First I better get with a lawyer,” said Cody. “See, it’s gonna be a book and then probably a movie. That’s why I need to be careful nobody steals the good stuff and leaks it.”