Skin Tight (13 page)

Using their hard-won embezzlements, the couple had purchased a modest farm and somehow managed to infiltrate the hermetic social structure of an Amish township. At first it was just another scam, a temporary cover until the heat was off. As the years passed, though, Chemo's aunt and uncle got authentically converted. They grew to love the simple pastoral ways and hearty fellowship of the farm folk; Chemo was devastated by their transformation. Growing up, he had come to resent the family's ruse, and consequently the Amish in general. The plain baggy clothes and strict table manners were bad enough, but it was the facial hair that drove him to fury. Amish men do not shave their chins, and Chemo's uncle insisted that, once attaining puberty, he adhere to custom. Since religious arguments held no sway with Chemo, it was the practical view that his uncle propounded: All fugitives need a disguise, and a good beard was hard to beat.

Chemo sullenly acceded, until the day of his twenty-first birthday when he got in his uncle's pickup truck, drove down to the local branch of the Chemical Bank, threatened a teller with a pitchfork (the Amish own no pistols), and strolled off with seven thousand dollars and change. The first thing he bought was a Bic disposable safety razor.

The
Philadelphia Inquirer
reported that it was the only bank robbery by an Amish in the entire history of the commonwealth. Chemo himself was never arrested for the crime, but his aunt and uncle were unmasked, extradited back to New Jersey, tried and convicted of mail fraud, then shipped off to a country-club prison in north Florida. Their wheat farm was seized by the U.S. government and sold at auction.

Once Chemo was free of the Amish, the foremost challenge of adulthood was avoiding manual labor, to which he had a chronic aversion. Crime seemed to be the most efficient way of making money without working up a sweat, so Chemo gave it a try. Unfortunately, nature had dealt him a cruel disadvantage: While six foot nine was the perfect height for an NBA forward, for a burglar it was disastrous. Chemo got stuck in the very first window he ever jimmied; he could break, but he could not enter.

Four months in a county jail passes too slowly. He thought often of his aunt and uncle, and upbraided himself for not taking advantage of their vast expertise. They could have taught him many secrets about white-collar crime, yet in his rebellious insolence he had never bothered to ask. Now it was too late—their most recent postcard from the Eglin prison camp had concluded with a religious limerick and the drawing of a happy face. Chemo knew they were lost forever.

After finishing his stretch for the aborted burglary, he moved to a small town outside of Scranton and went to work for the city parks and recreation department. Before long, he parlayed a phony but impressive résumé into the post of assistant city manager, a job that entitled him to a secretary and a municipal car. While the salary was only twenty thousand dollars a year, the secondary income derived from bribes and kickbacks was substantial. Chemo prospered as a shakedown artist, and the town prospered, too. He was delighted to discover how often the mutual interests of private enterprise and government seemed to intersect.

The high point of Chemo's municipal career was his savvy trashing of local zoning laws to allow a Mafia-owned-and-operated dog food plant to be built in the suburbs. Three hundred new jobs were created, and there was talk of running Chemo for mayor.

He greatly liked the idea and immediately began gouging illegal political contributions out of city contractors. Soon a campaign poster was designed, but Chemo recoiled when he saw the finished product: the four-foot photographic blowup of his face magnified the two ingrown hair follicles on the tip of his otherwise normal nose; the blemishes looked, in Chemo's own distraught simile, “like two ticks fucking.” He ordered the campaign posters shredded, scheduled a second photo session, and drove straight to Scranton for the ill-fated electrolysis treatment.

The grisly mishap and subsequent murder of the offending doctor put an end to Chemo's political career. He swore off public service forever.

 

 

THEY
rented an Aquasport and docked it at Sunday's-on-the-Bay. They chose a table under the awning, near the water. Chemo ordered a ginger ale and Chloe Simpkins Stranahan got a vodka tonic, double.

“We'll wait till dusk,” Chemo said.

“Fine by me.” Chloe slurped her drink like a parched coyote. She was wearing a ridiculous white sailor's suit from Lord & Taylor's; she even had the cap. It was not ideal boatwear.

“I used to work in this joint,” Chloe said, as if to illustrate how far she'd come.

Chemo said, “This is where you met Mick?”

“Unfortunately.”

The bar was packed for ladies' night. In addition to the standard assembly of slick Latin studs in lizard shoes, there were a dozen blond, husky mates off the charter boats. In contrast to the disco Dannies, the mates wore T-shirts and sandals and deep Gulf Stream tans, and they drank mostly beer. The competition for feminine attention was fierce, but Chemo planned to be long gone before any fights broke out. Besides, he didn't like sitting out in the open, where people could stare.

“Have you got your plan?” Chloe asked.

“The less you know, the better.”

“Oh, pardon me,” she said caustically. “Pardon me, Mister James Fucking Bond.”

He blinked neutrally. A young pelican was preening itself on a nearby dock piling, and Chemo found this infinitely more fascinating than watching Chloe Simpkins Stranahan in a Shirley Temple sailor cap, sucking down vodkas. It offended him that someone so beautiful could be so repellent and obnoxious; it seemed damned unfair.

On the other hand, she had yet to make the first wisecrack about his face, so maybe she had one redeeming quality.

“This isn't going to get too heavy?” she said.

“Define heavy.”

Chloe stirred her drink pensively. “Maybe you could just put a good scare in him.”

“Bet on it,” Chemo said.

“But you won't get too tough, right?”

“What is this, all of a sudden you're worried about him?”

“You can hate someone's guts and still worry about him.”

“Jesus H. Christ.”

Chloe said, “Chill out, okay? I'm not backing down.”

Chemo toyed with one of the infrequent black wisps attached to his scalp. He said: “Where does your husband think you are?”

“Shopping,” Chloe replied.

“Alone?”

“Sure.”

Chemo licked his lips and scanned the room. “You see anybody you know?”

Chloe looked around and said, “No. Why do you ask?”

“Just making sure. I don't want any surprises; neither do you.”

Chemo paid the tab, helped Chloe into the bow of the Aquasport, and cast off the ropes. He checked his wristwatch: 5:15. Give it maybe an hour before nightfall. He handed Chloe a plastic map of Biscayne Bay with the pertinent channel markers circled in red ink. “Keep that handy,” he shouted over the engine, “case I get lost.”

She tapped the map with one of her stiletto fingernails. “You can't miss the goddamn things, they're sticking three stories out of the water.”

Fifteen minutes later, they were drifting through a Stiltsville channel with the boat's engine off. Chloe Simpkins Stranahan was complaining about her hair getting salty, while Chemo untangled the anchor ropes. The anchor was a big rusty clunker with a bent tongue. He hauled it out of the Aquasport's forward hatch and laid it on the deck.

Then he took some binoculars from a canvas duffel and began scouting the stilt houses. “Which one is it?” he asked.

“I told you, it's got a windmill.”

“I'm looking at three houses with windmills, so which is it? I'd like to get the anchor out before we float to frigging Nassau.”

Chloe huffed and took the binoculars. After a few moments she said, “Well, they all look alike.”

“No shit.”

She admitted she had never been on her ex-husband's house before. “But I've been by there in a boat.”

Chemo said, “How do you know it was his?”

“Because I saw him. He was outside, fishing.”

“How long ago was this?”

“Three, maybe four months. What's the difference?”

Chemo said, “Did Mick know it was you in the boat?”

“Sure he did, he dropped his damn pants.” Chloe handed Chemo the binoculars and pointed. “That's the one, over there.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, Captain Ahab, I am.”

Chemo studied the stilt house through the field glasses. The windmill was turning and a skiff was tied up under the water tanks, but no one was outside.

“So now what?” Chloe said.

“I'm thinking.”

“Know what I wish you'd do? I wish you'd do to him what he did to my male friend. Krazy Glue the bastard.”

“That would settle things, huh?”

Chloe's tone became grave. “Mick Stranahan destroyed a man without killing him. Can you think of anything worse?”

“Well,” Chemo said, reaching for the duffel, “I didn't bring any glue. All I brought was this.” He took out the .22 pistol and screwed on the silencer.

Chloe made a gulping noise and grabbed the bow rail for support. So much for poise, Chemo thought.

“Don't worry, Mrs. Stranahan, this is my just-in-case.” He laid the pistol on top of the boat's console. “All I really need is a little friction.” Smiling, he held up a book of matches from Sunday's bar.

“You're going to burn the house down? That's great!” Chloe's eyes shone with relief. “Burning the house, that'll freak him out.”

“Big-time,” Chemo agreed.

“Just what that dangerous lunatic deserves.”

“Right.”

Chloe looked at him mischievously. “You promised to tell me who you really are.”

“No, I didn't.”

“At least tell me why you're doing this.”

“I'm being paid,” Chemo said.

“By who?”

“Nobody you know.”

“Another ex-wife, I'll bet.”

“What did I say?”

“Oh, all right.” Chloe stood up and peered over the gunwale at the slick green water. Chemo figured she was checking out her own reflection.

“Did you bring anything to drink?”

“No,” Chemo replied. “No drinks.”

She folded her arms to show how peeved she was. “You mean, I've got to stay out here till dark with nothing to drink.”

“Longer than that,” Chemo said. “Midnight.”

“But Mick'll be asleep by then.”

“That's the idea, Mrs. Stranahan.”

“But how will he know to get out of the house?”

Chemo laughed gruffly. “Now who's the rocket scientist?”

Chloe's expression darkened. She pursed her lips and said, “Wait a minute. I don't want you to kill him.”

“Who asked you?”

A change was taking place in Chloe's attitude, the way she regarded Chemo. It was as if she was seeing the man for the first time, and she was staring, which Chemo did not appreciate. Her and her tweezered eyebrows.

“You're a killer,” she said, reproachfully.

Chemo blinked amphibiously and plucked at one of the skin tags on his cheek. His eyes were round and wet and distant.

“You're a killer,” Chloe repeated, “and you tricked me.”

Chemo said, “You hate him so much, what do you care if he's dead or not?”

Her eyes flashed. “I care because I still get a check from that son of a bitch as long as he's alive. He's dead, I get zip.”

Chemo was dumbstruck. “You get alimony? But you're remarried! To a frigging CPA!”

“Let's just say Mick Stranahan didn't have the world's sharpest lawyer.”

“You are one greedy twat,” Chemo said acidly.

“Hey, it's one-fifty a month,” Chloe said. “Barely covers the lawn service.”

She did not notice the hostility growing in Chemo's expression. “Killing Mick Stranahan is out of the question,” she declared. “Burn up the house, fine, but I don't want him dead.”

“Tough titties,” Chemo said.

“Look, I don't know who you are—”

“Sit,” Chemo said. “And keep your damn voice down.”

The wind was kicking up, and he was afraid the argument might carry across the flats to the house.

Chloe sat down but was not about to shut up. “You listen to me—”

“I said, keep your damn voice down!”

“Screw you, Velcro-face.”

Chemo's brow crinkled, his cheeks fluttered. He probably even flushed, though this was impossible to discern.

Velcro-face
—there it was, finally. The insult. The witch just couldn't resist after all.

“Now what's the matter?” Chloe Simpkins Stranahan said. “You look seasick.”

“I'm fine,” Chemo said, “But you shouldn't call people names.”

Then he heaved the thirty-pound anchor into her lap, and watched her pitch over backward in her silky sailor suit. The staccato trail of bubbles suggested that she was cursing him all the way to the bottom of the bay.

TINA
woke up alone in bed. She wrapped herself in a sheet and padded groggily around the dark house, looking for Mick Stranahan. She found him outside, balanced on the deck rail with his hands on his hips. He was watching Old Man Chitworth's stilt house light up the sky; a cracking orange torch, visible for miles. The house seemed to sway on its wooden legs, an illusion caused by blasts of raw heat above the water.