Skin Tight (31 page)

Later, waiting in the boarding area, Maggie asked Chemo if his name was Rogelio Luz Sanchez.

“Oh sure.”

“That's what it says on your ticket.”

“Well, there you are,” Chemo said. He couldn't even
pronounce
Rogelio Luz Sanchez—some alias cooked up by Rudy Graveline, the dumb shit. Chemo looked about as Hispanic as Larry Bird.

After they took their seats on the airplane, Maggie leaned close and asked, “So, can I call you Rogelio? I mean, I've got to call you
something.
”

Chemo's hooded lids blinked twice very slowly. “The more you talk, the more I want to spackle the holes in that fucking mask.”

Maggie emitted a reedy, birdlike noise.

“I think we can do business,” Chemo said, “but only on two conditions. One, don't ask any more personal questions, is that clear? Two, don't ever puke on me again.”

“I said I was sorry.”

The plane had started to taxi and Chemo raised his voice to be heard over the engines. “Once I get some decent bullets I'll be using that gun, and God help you if you toss your cookies when I do.”

Maggie said, “I'll do better next time.”

One of the flight attendants came by and asked Maggie if she needed a special meal because of her medical condition, and Maggie remarked that she wasn't feeling particularly well. She said the coach section was so crowded and stuffy that she was having trouble breathing. The next thing Chemo knew, they were sitting up in first class and sipping red wine. Having noticed his disability, the friendly flight attendant was carefully cutting Chemo's surf-and-turf into bite-sized pieces. Chemo glanced at Maggie and felt guilty about coming down so hard.

“That was a slick move,” he said, the closest he would come to a compliment. “I never rode up here before.”

Maggie exhibited no surprise at this bit of news. Her eyes looked sad and moist behind the white husk.

Chemo said, “You still want to be partners?”

She nodded. Carefully she aimed a forkful of lobster for the damp hole beneath her nostrils in the surgical bandage.

“Graveline's gonna scream when he learns about your videotape,” Chemo said with a chuckle. “Where is it, anyway?”

When Maggie finished chewing, she said, “I've got three copies.”

“Good thinking.”

“Two of them are locked up at a bank. The third one, the original tape, that's for Rudy. That's how we get his attention.”

Chemo smiled a yellow smile. “I like it.”

“You won't like this part,” Maggie said. “Stranahan swiped the tape from the hotel room. We can't show it to Rudy until we get it back.”

“Hell,” Chemo said. This was terrible—Mick Stranahan and that TV bitch loose with the blackmail goodies. Just terrible. He said, “I've got to get to them before they get to Graveline, otherwise we're blown out of the water. He'll be on the first flight to Panama and we'll be holding our weenies.”

From Maggie came a muffled, disapproving noise.

“It's just an expression,” Chemo said. “Lighten up, for Chrissakes.”

After the flight attendants removed the meal trays, Chemo lowered the seat back and stretched his endless legs. Almost to himself, he said, “I don't like this Stranahan guy one bit. When we get to Miami, we hit the ground running.”

“Yes,” Maggie agreed, easing into the partnership. “we've got to get the tape.”

“That, too,” said Chemo, tugging his hat down over his eyes.

 

 

THE
news of gunshots and a possible kidnapping at the Plaza Hotel rated five paragraphs in the
Daily News,
a page of photos in the
Post
and nothing in the
Times.
That morning New York detectives queried a Teletype to the Metro-Dade Police Department stating that the victim of the abduction was believed to be a Miami woman named Margaret Orestes Gonzalez, a guest at the hotel. The police Teletype described her assailant as a white male, age unknown, with possible burn scars on his face and a height of either six foot four or eight foot two, depending on which witness you believed. The Teletype further noted that a Rapala fishing knife found on the carpet outside the victim's room was traced to a shipment that recently had been sold to a retail establishment known as Bubba's Bait and Cold Beer, on Dixie Highway in South Miami. Most significantly, a partial thumbprint lifted from the blade of the knife was identified as belonging to one Blondell Wayne Tatum, age thirty-eight, six foot nine, two hundred two pounds. Mr. Tatum, it seemed, was wanted in the state of Pennsylvania for the robbery-at-pitchfork of a Chemical Bank, and for the first-degree murder of Dr. Gunther MacLeish, an elderly dermatologist. Tatum was to be considered armed and dangerous. Under AKAs, the police bulletin listed one: Chemo.

“Chemo?” Sergeant Al García read the Teletype again, then pulled it off the bulletin board and took it to the Xerox machine. By the time he got back, a new Teletype had been posted in its place.

This one was even more interesting, and García's cigar bobbed excitedly as he read it.

The new Teletype advised Metro-Dade police to disregard the kidnap query. Miss Margaret Gonzalez had phoned the New York authorities to assure them that she was in no danger, and to explain that the disturbance at the Plaza Hotel was merely a dispute between herself and a male companion she had met in a bar.

Maggie had hung up before detectives could ask if the male companion was Mr. Blondell Wayne Tatum.

 

 

COMMISSIONER
Roberto Pepsical arranged to meet the two crooked detectives at a strip joint off LeJeune Road, not far from the airport. Roberto got there early and drank three strong vodka tonics to give him the courage to say what he'd been told to say. He figured he was so far over his head that being drunk couldn't make it any worse.

Dutifully the commissioner had carried Detective Murdock's proposal to Dr. Rudy Graveline, and now he had returned with the doctor's reply. It occurred to Roberto, even as a naked woman with gold teeth delivered a fourth vodka, that the role of an elected public servant was no longer a distinguished one. He found himself surrounded by ruthless and untrustworthy people—nobody played a straight game anymore. In Miami, corruption had become a sport of the masses. Roberto had been doing it for years, of course, but jerks like Salazar and Murdock and even Graveline—they were nothing but dilettantes. Moochers. They didn't know when to back off. The word
enough
was not in their vocabulary. Roberto hated the idea that his future depended on such men.

The crooked cops showed up just as the nude Amazonian mud-wrestling match began on stage. “Very nice place,” Detective John Murdock said to the commissioner. “Is that your daughter up there?”

Joe Salazar said, “The one on the right, she even looks like you. Except I think you got bigger knockers.”

Roberto Pepsical flushed. He was sensitive about his weight. “You're really funny,” he said to the detectives. “Both of you should've been comedians instead of cops. You should've been Lawrence and Hardy.”

Murdock smirked. “Lawrence and Hardy, huh? I think the commissioner has been drinking.”

Salazar said, “Maybe we hurt his feelings.”

The vodka was supposed to make Roberto Pepsical cool and brave; instead it was making him hot and dizzy. He started to tell the detectives what Rudy Graveline had said, but he couldn't hear himself speak over the exhortations of the wrestling fans. Finally Murdock seized him by the arm and led him to the restroom. Joe Salazar followed them in and locked the door.

“What's all this for?” Roberto said, belching in woozy fear. He thought the detectives were going to beat him up.

Murdock took him by the shoulders and pinned him to the condom machine. He said, “Joe and I don't like this joint. It's noisy, it's dirty, it's a shitty fucking joint to hold a serious conversation. We are offended, Commissioner, by what we see taking place on the stage out there—naked young females with wet mud all over their twats. You shouldn't have invited us here.”

Joe Salazar said, “That's right. Just so you know, I'm a devoted Catholic.”

“I'm sorry,” said Roberto Pepsical. “It was the darkest place I could think of on short notice. Next time we'll meet at St. Mary's.”

Someone knocked on the restroom door and Murdock told him to go away if he valued his testicles. Then he said to Roberto: “What is it you wanted to tell us?”

“It's a message from my friend. The one with the problem I told you about—”

“The problem named Stranahan?”

“Yes. He says five thousand each.”

“Fine,” said John Murdock.

“Really?”

“Long as it's cash.”

Salazar added, “Not in sequence. And not bank-wrapped.”

“Certainly,” Roberto Pepsical said. Now came the part that made his throat go dry.

“There's one part of the plan that my friend wants to change,” he said. “He says it's no good just arresting this man and putting him in jail. He says this fellow has a big mouth and a vivid imagination.” Those were Rudy's exact words; Roberto was proud of himself for remembering.

Joe Salazar idly tested the knobs on the condom machine and said, “So you got a better idea, right?”

“Well . . .” Roberto said.

Murdock loosened his grip on the commissioner and straightened his jacket. “You're not the idea man, are you? I mean, it was your idea to meet at this pussy parlor.” He walked over to the urinal and unzipped his trousers. “Joe and I will think of something. We're idea-type guys.”

Salazar said, “For instance, suppose we get a warrant to arrest the suspect for the murder of his former wife. Supposing we proceed to his residence and duly identify ourselves as sworn police officers. And supposing the suspect attempts to flee.”

“Or resists with violence,” Murdock hypothesized.

“Yeah, the manual is clear,” Salazar said.

Murdock shook himself off and zipped up. “In a circumstance such as that, we could use deadly force.”

“I imagine you could,” said Roberto Pepsical, sober as a choirboy.

The three of them stood there in the restroom, sweating under the hot bare bulb. Salazar examined a package of flamingo-pink rubbers that he had shaken loose from the vending machine.

Finally Murdock said, “Tell your friend it sounds fine, except for the price. Make it ten apiece, not five.”

“Ten,” Roberto repeated, though he was not at all surprised. To close the deal, he sighed audibly.

“Come on,” said Joe Salazar, unlocking the door. “We're missing the fingerpaint contest.”

OVER
the whine of the outboard Luis Córdova shouted: “There's no point in stopping.”

Mick Stranahan nodded. Under ceramic skies, Biscayne Bay unfolded in a dozen shifting hues of blue. It was a fine, cloudless morning: seventy degrees, and a northern breeze at their backs. Luis Córdova slowed the patrol boat a few hundred yards from the stilt house. He leaned down and said: “They tore the place up pretty bad, Mick.”

“You sure it was cops?”

“Yeah, two of them. Not uniformed guys, though. And they had one of the sheriff boats.”

Stranahan knew who it was: Murdock and Salazar.

“Those goons from the hospital,” said Christina Marks. She stood next to Luis Córdova at the steering console, behind the Plexiglas windshield. She wore a red Windbreaker, baggy knit pants, and high-top tennis shoes.

From a distance Stranahan could see that the door to his house had been left open, which meant it had probably been looted and vandalized. What the cops didn't wreck, the seagulls would. Stranahan stared for a few moments, then said: “Let's go, Luis.”

The trip to Old Rhodes Key took thirty-five minutes in a light, nudging sea. Christina got excited when they passed a school of porpoises off Elliott Key, but Stranahan showed no interest. He was thinking about the videotape they had watched at Christina's apartment—Maggie Gonzalez, describing the death of Vicky Barletta. Twice they had watched it. It made him mad but he wasn't sure why. He had heard of worse things, seen worse things. Yet there was something about a doctor doing it, getting away with it, that made Stranahan furious.

When they reached the island, Luis Córdova dropped them at a sagging dock that belonged to an old Bahamian conch fisherman named Cartwright. Cartwright had been told they were coming.

“I got the place ready,” he told Mick Stranahan. “By the way, it's good to see you, my friend.”

Stranahan gave him a hug. Cartwright was eighty years old. His hair was like cotton fuzz and his skin was the color of hot tar. He had Old Rhodes Key largely to himself and seldom entertained, but he had happily made an exception for his old friend. Years ago Stranahan had done Cartwright a considerable favor.