Skin Tight (19 page)

He was studying a map of Brazil when Heather Chappell, the famous actress, came into the office. She wore the pink terrycloth robe and bath slippers that Whispering Palms provided to all its VIP guests. Heather's lipstick was candy apple, her skin had a caramel tan, and her frosted blond hair was thick and freshly brushed. She was a perfectly beautiful thirty-year-old woman who, for reasons unfathomable, despised her own body. A dream patient, as far as Rudy Graveline was concerned.

She sat in a low-backed leather chair and said, “I've had it with the spa. Let's talk about my operation.”

Rudy said, “I wanted you to unwind for a couple of days, that's all.”

“It's been a couple days.”

“But aren't you more relaxed?”

“Not really,” Heather said. “Your masseur, what's his name—”

“Niles?”

“Yeah, Niles. He tried to cornhole me yesterday. Aside from that, I've been bored to tears.”

Rudy smiled with practiced politeness. “But you've had a chance to think about the different procedures.”

“I didn't need to think about anything, Dr. Graveline. I was ready the first night off the plane. Have you been dodging me?”

“Of course not.”

“I heard your car got blown up.” She said it in a schoolgirl's voice, like it was gossip she'd picked up in study hall.

Rudy tried to neutralize his inflection. “There was an accident,” he said. “Very minor.”

“The night I came, wasn't it? That hunk in the parking lot, the guy who put me in the taxi. What's going on with him?”

Rudy ignored the question. “I can schedule the surgery for tomorrow,” he said.

“Fine, but I want you to do it,” Heather said. “You personally.”

“Of course,” Rudy said. He'd stay in the O.R. until they put her under, then he'd head for the back nine at Doral. Let one of the young hotshots do the knife work.

“What did you decide?” he asked her.

Heather stood up and stepped out of the slippers. Then she let the robe drop to the carpet. “You tell me,” she said.

Rudy's mouth went dry at the sight of her.

“Well,” he said. “Let's see.” The problem was, she didn't need any surgery. Her figure, like her face, was sensational. Her tan breasts were firm and large, not the least bit droopy. Her tummy was tight and flat as an iron. There wasn't an ounce of fat, a trace of a stretch mark, the slenderest serpentine shadow of a spider vein—not on her thighs, her legs, not anywhere. Nothing was out of proportion. Naked, Heather looked like an “after,” not a “before.”

Rudy was really going to have to scramble on this one. He put on his glasses and said, “Come over here, Miss Chappell, let me take a closer look.”

She walked over and, to his stupefaction, climbed up on the onyx desk, her bare feet squeaking on the slick black surface. Standing, she vamped a movie pose—one hand on her hip, the other fluffing her hair. As Rudy's eyes traveled up those long legs, he nearly toppled over backward in his chair.

“The nose, obviously,” Heather said.

“Yes,” said Rudy, thinking: She has a great straight nose. What the hell am I going to do?

“And the breasts,” Heather said, taking one in each hand and studying them. Like she was in the produce section, checking out the grapefruits.

Bravely Rudy asked, “Would you like them larger or smaller?”

Heather glared at him. “Bigger, of course! And brand-new nipples.”

Jesus, Rudy muttered under his breath. “Miss Chappell,” he said, “I wouldn't advise new nipples. There could be serious complications and, really, it isn't necessary.” Little pink rosebuds, that's what her nipples looked like. Why, Rudy wondered, would she ever want new ones?

In a pouty voice, Heather said all right, leave the nipples. Then she pivoted on the desktop and patted her right thigh. “I want two inches off here.”

“That much?” Rudy was sweating. He didn't see it, plain and simple. Two inches of what?

“Stand up,” Heather told him. “Look here.”

He did, he looked hard. His chin was about three inches from her pubic bone. “Two inches,” Heather repeated, turning to show him the other thigh, “from both sides.”

“As you wish,” the doctor said. What the hell, he'd be on the golf course anyway. Let the whiz kids figure it out.

Heather dropped to her knees on the desk, so the two of them were nearly face-to-face. “And I want my eyelids done,” she said, pointing with a long cranberry fingernail, “and my neck, too. You said no scars, remember?”

“Don't worry,” Rudy assured her.

“Good,” Heather said. “Anything else?”

“Not that I can see.”

“How about my butt?” She spun around on the desk, showing it to Rudy; looking over one shoulder, waiting for his professional opinion.

“Well,” said Rudy, running his fingers along the soft round curves.

“Hey,” said Heather, “easy there.” She squirmed around to face him. “Are you getting worked up?”

Rudy Graveline said, “Of course not.” But he was. He couldn't figure it out, either; all the thousands of female bodies he got to see and feel. This was no ordinary lust, this was something fresh and wondrous. Maybe it was the way she bossed him around.

“I saw you in
Fevers of the Heart,
” Rudy said, idiotically. He had rented the cassette for a pool party. “You were quite good, especially the scene on the horse.”

“Sit down,” Heather told him, and he did. She was bare-assed on the desk, legs swinging mischievously on either side of him. He put a clammy hand on each knee. “Maybe now's a good time to talk about money,” she said.

For Rudy Graveline, the ultimate test of sobriety. In his entire career he had never traded sex for his surgical services, never even discounted. Money was money, pussy was pussy—a credo he drilled into his sure-handed young assistants. Some things in life you don't give away.

To Heather Chappell, he said, “I'm afraid it's going to be expensive.”

“Is it?” She swung one leg up and propped her foot on his right shoulder.

“All these procedures at once, yes, I'm afraid so.”

“How much, Dr. Graveline?”

Up came the other leg, and Rudy was scissored.

“Come here a second,” Heather said.

Rudy Graveline was torn between the thing he loved the most and the thing he needed most: Sex and money. The warm feel of Heather's bare heels on his shoulders was like the weight of the world. And heaven, too.

Her toes tickled his ears. “I said, come here.”

“Where?” Rudy peeped, reaching out.

“God, are you blind?”

 

 

CHEMO
bought an Ingram submachine gun to go with his .22 pistol. He got it from a man who had come to the club one night with a bunch of Jamaicans. The man himself was not a Jamaican; he was from Colombia. Chemo found this out when he stopped him at the door and told him he couldn't come inside the Gay Bidet with a machine gun.

“But this is Miami,” the man had said with a Spanish accent.

“I've got my orders,” Chemo said.

The man agreed to let Chemo take the gun while he and his pals went inside, which turned out to be a smart thing. As the band was playing a song called “Suck Till You're Sore”, a local skinhead gang went into a slam-dancing frenzy, and fights broke out all over the place. The Jamaicans took off, but the Colombian stayed behind to do battle. At one point he produced a pocketknife and tried to surgically remove the swastika tattoo off the proud but hairless chest of a teenaged skinhead. The band took a much-needed break while the Beach police rushed in for the arrests. Later, when Chemo spotted the Colombian in the back of the squad car, he tapped on the window and asked about the Ingram. The Colombian said keep it and Chemo said thanks, and slipped a twenty-dollar bill through the crack of the window.

The thing Chemo liked best about the Ingram was the shoulder strap. He put it on and showed it to his boss, Freddie, who said, “Get the fuck outta here with that thing!”

The next day, the eighteenth of January, Chemo got up early and drove out to Key Biscayne. He knew it would be unwise to go to the same marina where he had taken Chloe, so he looked around for another boat place. He found one near the Marine Stadium, where they race the big Budweiser speedboats. At first a kid with badly bleached hair tried to rent him a twenty-foot Dusky for a hundred ten dollars a day, plus a hundred fifty security deposit. Chemo didn't have that kind of money.

“Got a credit card?” the kid asked.

“No,” said Chemo. “What about that thing over there?”

“That's a Jet Ski,” the kid said.

It was designed like a waterbug with handlebars. You drove it like a motorcycle, only standing up. This one was yellow, with the word
Kawasaki
on the front.

“You don't want to try it,” the kid with yellow hair said.

“Why not?”

“Because,” the kid said, laughing, “you're too tall, man. Hit a wake, it'll snap your spine.”

Chemo figured the guy was just trying to talk him into renting something bigger, something he didn't need.

“How much is the Jet Ski?” he said.

“Twenty an hour, but you got to sign a waiver.” The kid was thinking that, as tall as this guy is, he doesn't look healthy enough to ride a Jet Ski; he looks kind of tapped-out and sickly, like he's been hanging from the wall of some dungeon for a couple months. The kid was thinking maybe he ought to ask if the guy knew how to swim, just in case.

Chemo handed him two twenties.

The kid said, “I'll still need a deposit.”

Chemo said he didn't have any more money. The kid said he'd take Chemo's wristwatch, but Chemo said no, he didn't want to give it up. It was a Heuer diving watch, silver and gold links, made in Switzerland. Chemo had swiped it off a young architect who was overdosing in the men's room at the club. While the jerk was lying there in the stall, trying to swallow his tongue, Chemo grabbed his wrist and replaced the Heuer with his own thirty-dollar Seiko with the fake alligator band.

“No Jet Ski without a deposit,” said the kid with yellow hair.

“How about a gun?” Chemo said.

“What kind?”

Chemo showed him the .22 and the kid said okay, since it was a Beretta he'd hang on to it. He stuck it in the front of his chinos and led Chemo to the Jet Ski. He showed Chemo how the choke and the throttle worked, and tossed him a bright red life vest.

“You can change in the shed,” the kid said.

“Change?”

“You got a swimsuit, right?” The kid hopped back on the dock and gave Chemo the keys. “Man, you don't want to ride these things in heavy pants.”

“I guess not,” said Chemo, unbuckling his trousers.

 

 

A
shrimper named Joey agreed to take Christina Marks anywhere she wanted. When she gave him a hundred-dollar bill, Joey looked at it and said, “Where you going, Havana?”

“Stiltsville,” Christina said, climbing into the pungent shrimp boat. “And I need a favor.”

“You bet,” said Joey, tossing off the ropes.

“After you drop me off, I need you to stay close. Just in case.”

Joey aimed the bow down the canal, toward the mouth of Norris Cut. “In case what?” he asked.

“In case the man I'm going to see doesn't want me to stay.”

Joey grinned and said, “I can't imagine that. Here, you want a beer?”

He motored down the ocean side of Key Biscayne in amiable silence. Christina stood next to him at the wheel, guardedly watching the swarm of hungry seagulls that wailed and dove behind the stern. When the shrimp boat passed the Cape Florida lighthouse at the tip of the island, Christina saw the stilt houses to the south.

“Which one?” Joey shouted over the engines. When Christina pointed, Joey smiled and gave her a crusty wink.

“What's that mean?”

“Him,” Joey said. “Why didn't you say so?”

They were maybe two hundred yards off the radio towers and making the wide turn into the channel when Joey nudged Christina Marks and pointed with his chin. Up ahead, something swift and yellow was crossing one of the tidal flats, bouncing severely in the choppy water. It was an odd, gumdrop-shaped craft, and a tall pale figure appeared to be standing in the middle, holding on with both arms.

Joey eased back on the throttle to give way.

“I hate those fool things,” he said. “Damn tourists don't know where the hell they're going.”

They watched it cross from the starboard side, no more than thirty yards ahead of them. Joey frowned and said, “I'll be goddamned.” He snatched a rag from his tool box and wiped the salty film from the shrimp boat's windshield.

“Look,” he said to Christina. “Now you've seen it all.”

The tall pale man driving the Jet Ski was nude except for his soggy Jockey shorts.

And black sunglasses.

And a gleaming wristwatch.

And an Ingram .45 submachine gun strapped on his bare shoulder.

Christina Marks was astonished. “What do you suppose he's doing out here with
that
?”

“Whatever the hell he wants,” said Joey the shrimper.

EARLIER
that day, Tina and two of her girlfriends had appeared at the stilt house in a borrowed Bayliner Capri. They saw Mick Stranahan sleeping on the roof beneath the windmill, the Remington shotgun at his side.