He uprooted a cane tiki torch, unlit, and rushed through the doorway swinging like Barry Bonds. Two matching lamps and a tray of decorative sand dollars were demolished before the torch broke to pieces. Dr. Rosa Campesino stepped from the bathroom wearing lace panties and a look of consternation.
“What on earth, Andrew?”
“Oh shit. I thought you were somebody else.”
“It was supposed to be a surprise. I even brought some slutty red lipstick.”
“Babe, you look fantastic.”
“I caught the last plane in.”
“Let’s light some candles.”
“The last plane before the hurricane.”
“What?” Yancy said.
“Take off your clothes, dummy. You’re dripping all over the rug.”
Eighteen
“Are you in hedge funds?” Ford Lipscomb asked without glancing up.
Evan Shook said no. He was watching with equal measures of rapture and incredulity while Lipscomb wrote out a check.
“You say fifty grand’ll hold it? Call it good faith—we’ve still got some wrinkles to iron out.”
“Fifty’s just fine.” More than fine. Exquisite.
“Tell me the name of your lawyer again. On the escrow account?”
Evan Shook repeated it for Lipscomb. “He’s up in South Miami. Does all my real estate work.”
“Stay away from hedge funds, friend. Those giddy days are over,” Lipscomb went on. “I tasted the best of it, then I bailed in the nick of time. Where the heck is Jayne?”
“Upstairs enjoying the view,” Evan Shook said.
“Gold is the way to go. You ever listen to Glenn Beck? Maybe he’s got a few shingles loose, but that weird little crybaby is right about gold.”
Evan Shook wanted to pinch himself. After only two walkthroughs, the Lipscombs were actually buying his spec house! Ford and Jayne Lipscomb from Leesburg, Virginia, on their first-ever trip to the Florida Keys, arriving in a wine-colored Bentley convertible, its rear seat backs of hand-tooled leather splattered with fresh pelican shit—a rude souvenir from their Overseas Highway crossing.
Yet these remarkable Lipscombs, these brisk and purposeful Lipscombs, acknowledged with only the mildest of frowns the pungent bird goo on their expensive import. Handsome they were as a couple, married forever, their kids surely all grown up, well-schooled, well-bred and prospering. Evan Shook suppressed a pang of envy as Ford and Jayne approached the house hand in hand, smiling the way they might have smiled on their very first date, forty-some years ago. They were eager to tour all seven thousand square feet, and they absorbed Evan Shook’s sales pitch with a genial attentiveness that unnerved him at first.
Such anxiety was understandable given his run of black luck with the property—the bloating raccoon corpse, the deranged bees, the gory witchcraft altar and then that nut job Yancy, sprawled naked as a jaybird to greet the Turbles. Next came the squatters, a depressingly mismatched twosome who had cleared out only minutes before the Lipscombs’ first visit.
So now, on pivotal day two, Evan Shook couldn’t be faulted for anticipating another sale-killing calamity—perhaps the ghostly pack of rabid mongrels that Yancy kept nattering about. In Evan Shook’s mind flashed a gothic vision of the Lipscombs being taken down by the heels—first Jayne and then Ford—while sprinting for the Bentley. He considered himself a rational person, but part of him had begun to worry that the spec house truly was jinxed, a word used by both his wife and his girlfriend in separate conversations.
Yet there was no sign of Yancy or wild dogs, and the Lipscombs’ second tour was as uneventful as the first. Sweating, slapping at bugs, they remained at all times polite and uncomplaining. The few questions asked by the husband seemed deliriously naïve coming from an ex–Wall Street slick, until Evan Shook reminded himself that he was dealing with a man who’d never before witnessed a Gulf sunset, a man who’d habitually vacationed in Bridgehampton or Breckinridge before squandering the first act of his hard-earned retirement downwind from a goddamn horse barn.
Before long, Evan Shook had set aside his native wariness in order to nurture Ford Lipscomb’s fantasy, which was the boilerplate back-nine fantasy of so many ultra-successful, ultra-resourceful American males: to live by the sea in perpetual sunshine, in a state with no income tax.
Jayne Lipscomb came down the stairs to report a pair of ospreys diving for fish in the tidal creeks.
“They’re here every day,” Evan Shook said. “Are you a birder?”
“No, but that’s a thought.”
“We’ve got a very active Audubon chapter down here.”
“Did Ford tell you he’s selling the trotters?” Her husband broke in: “We are selling the trotters. Mutual decision.”
Jayne Lipscomb sighed. “Gorgeous animals, but so much drama. My goodness.”
“You’ll love living in the Keys,” Evan Shook said.
Ford Lipscomb handed up the check. “I’d like to buy a boat. Do a little fishing once I get the hang of it.”
“First let’s talk about window frames,” his wife said. “Also, a skylight in the master bedroom? Is that doable, Mr. Shook?”
“Anything’s doable.”
A skylight inevitably would leak during the rainy season, as did all skylights in Florida, but Evan Shook felt unmoved to mention this because every whimsical add-on served to pad his wispy profit line. By the time the silicone sealant began to disintegrate, in two or three years, he’d be back in Syracuse, probably ass-deep in divorce papers.
Recently his mistress had delivered a curdling ultimatum: Dump the wife or else.
The else being a musician-slash-poet with whom she’d shared a cannabis vaporizer at the bluegrass festival—a mandolin player, she’d informed Evan Shook, knowing he would find that more threatening than a perky banjoist. The young man was tall, his mistress had added cruelly. Six-one in his socks.
Ford Lipscomb said, “When’s the last time this island took a direct hit from a hurricane?”
Evan Shook chose to narrowly interpret the term “direct hit.”
“Never,” he declared. “Anyway, the building codes are much tougher now than in the old days. Heavy-duty glass, reinforced trusses—it’s the law.”
Jayne Lipscomb asked if he’d been keeping track of Tropical Storm Françoise on the Weather Channel. “Because this house, no offense, it’s wide open. No windows, no doors, the roof could fly off to Cuba—”
“Oh, we’d board up the place,” Evan Shook said with a patient-looking smile. “That storm isn’t coming this way, don’t you worry. It’s rolling straight up through the Bahamas.”
“Just what I told her,” said Ford Lipscomb.
“But look at what Katrina did!” The wife, tracing an elaborate S in the air.
Evan Shook inconspicuously touched the breast pocket into which he’d tucked the couple’s check, and he was comforted to feel the crisp paper rectangle beneath the fabric.
Ford Lipscomb rose. “There is one important detail we need to discuss.”
An unpleasant contraction commenced in Evan Shook’s colon.
“Fire away,” he croaked, bracing for the deal breaker.
“Sewer or septic?” Ford Lipscomb said.
Evan Shook went blank, such was his apprehension. He saw the husband’s lips moving but he heard not a word. Helplessly he shook his head.
“The house,” Jayne Lipscomb intervened, from behind tortoise-shell frames. “Is it on a sewer main?”
Evan Shook nearly gurgled with relief. “No, no, we have state-of-the-art septic, totally aerobic,” he said. “Come outside and I’ll show you where the tank’s buried!”
Neville took his boat up Victoria Creek ahead of the first band of heavy showers. He tied off in some mangroves, threw out an anchor, tested the bilge pump and crossed back to shore in a skiff run by some conch boys from the South Bight. The thought of being confined with Joyous for the storm’s duration was withering, so he decided to walk back to Rocky
Town and surprise one of his less surly girlfriends. On the way he avoided Bannister Point, feeling lucky to be alive. The white man Christopher could have shot him dead as a thief instead of firing over his head, and Neville wondered why he’d been spared. After giving it some thought, he decided there was no mercy at play; Christopher simply didn’t wish to draw attention to himself.
For an American businessman needing favors from the Bahamas government, killing a local fisherman would be foolhardy and counterproductive. Neville’s death would have brought the top police authorities from Nassau, generating an inquest that would have stalled the Curly Tail Lane development and poisoned public sentiment. All this Christopher must have known. Still, the ugly confrontation was a close call that had left Neville shaken and doubt-ridden. Never before had he been called a “beach nigger,” and he wasn’t sure what that meant beyond the obvious slur. Did Christopher know it was Neville’s home that he had leveled on Green Beach? That it was Neville who’d pissed in the fuel tank of the offending backhoe, Neville who’d been stomped by Egg?
No, he cont know dot was me, thought Neville, or he would hoff say sum ting more den juss ‘hey beach nigger.’ He would hoff warn me stay offa dot property, mon, or next time Egg, he gern break your goddamn arms and leg bones too!
The rain was falling harder by the time Neville approached the settlement. He worried about the angry look of the ocean, a deep muddy purple, the furling wave tops sheared by the rising wind. Hurriedly he hiked up the hill to the shack belonging to the Dragon Queen. The wooden shutters had been lowered and through the crooked slats came the sounds of a man and woman singing, or trying to. Neville selected the outside wall that was exposed most directly to the thumping raindrops, the noisiest wall, where his breathing wouldn’t be heard by the occupants. There he positioned himself at a window and peeked through a gap between the sagging shutter and the warped pine frame.
Inside, the Dragon Queen was astride the broad lap of Egg, who had squeezed his ebony bulk into the pilot seat of her motorized scooter chair. The vehicle was rolling in tight circles around the dank little room—doing doughnuts is what the wild boys with cars called it. Neville could tell that Christopher’s henchman and the hag were dizzy from their drunken orbits. Egg wore a sweat-soaked undershirt and possibly nothing else, his long yet oddly unmasculine feet protruding from beneath the Dragon Queen’s rainbow skirt.
Neville muffled a gasp when his eyes fell upon Driggs, his former ward and companion. The haggard primate stood on the table amid empty rum bottles and plates of half-eaten fruit that was twitching with flies. He was holding his face over the yellow flame of a candle, lighting the bowl of a pipestem clenched in dingy teeth. Neville was appalled by this coarse new habit, and his anger swelled as the monkey studiously exhaled a train of smoke rings that dissipated in a swirl as a fresh gust rattled through the shutters. Driggs extended the pipe to arm’s length and the Dragon Queen grabbed it as the scooter chair sped by, Egg cackling as he worked the joystick. The old woman got one heavy drag before losing her prize on the very next lap, Driggs reaching out to swipe it from her mottled lips.
The back of Neville’s T-shirt was drenched, but the rain was warm, hurricane rain, and he didn’t shrink from his spy post at the window. Inside the darkening room, Egg halted the motorized chair and snapped two fingers at the monkey, who blinked aloofly and spat into an upturned tambourine. A small commotion began, and bile rose in Neville’s throat—the Dragon Queen and her new boyfriend were attempting to screw!
To and fro rocked the shiny scooter, its tires carping on the smooth-worn planks. The entanglement progressed clumsily, and soon the shack filled with adenoidal moans and raspy howls that melded into a lurid, tuneless yodel. Neville slapped his palms over both ears and turned away, the raindrops slicking his cheeks.
What is the awful nature of this woman’s power? he wondered.
Thunder crashed and Neville dove to the ground as the shutter by his head banged open. Out leaped Driggs, still mouthing the pipe. Clutched in his paws were a Bic lighter and a tin of Dunhill tobacco. He never glanced Neville’s way, pausing only to shed his lumpy diaper before loping down the road through the squall. Neville called the monkey’s name but another thunderclap smothered his doleful cry. He sprang to his feet and gave chase, although in the downpour he soon lost sight of his fleet quarry. Spurred by guilt, Neville continued his blind pursuit, shouting miserably for the small friend he’d sold to the terrible voodoo priestess.
Sold for nothing.
His lungs were burning by the time he reached the old Cooper place, which had been empty ever since Virgil Cooper went to Havana and fell for a tour guide named Miguelito. Neville ducked into the carport to rest and wait out the lightning. He was dripping like a horse. In a puddle at his feet floated an empty tobacco tin, which Neville picked up and examined solemnly.
Of course the brand was Dunhill.
“Driggs?” he piped excitedly. “You come out!”
But the monkey wasn’t there. Neville checked every room, every closet, every cupboard of the dilapidated house. So leathered were the soles of Neville’s feet—he seldom wore shoes—that he was unbothered by the rubble of broken glass and splintery planks. He found no other trace of Driggs, although upon returning to the carport he spotted something he’d previously overlooked—a fly rod propped upright in a dry corner.
It was an expensive piece of fishing equipment, too fancy and specialized for the locals. There was no rust on the metal guides of the rod, and Neville tasted wet salt when he touched his tongue to the cork. He wondered if the wealthy tourist fisherman who owned the outfit had crossed paths with the bedraggled monkey, and perhaps out of pity had adopted him.
An hour passed until the wave of thunderstorms rolled by and the rain quit. With fly rod in hand, Neville set out at full stride in the deepening night.
Rosa said, “I’ve always wanted to do it in a hurricane.”
“Technically, this is pre-hurricane.”
“Don’t be a spoilsport, Andrew.”
“It’s six hours away, you said.”
“So, consider this a warm-up.”
Yancy kissed each of her nipples, then he rested a cheek on her tummy.
“If only the storm wasn’t named Françoise. That is so weak,” Rosa said. She ruffled his hair. “Hey, what was that catchy little tune you were humming earlier?”
“When?”
“While you were going down on me. You don’t remember humming?”
“Oh, that was ‘Yellow Submarine.’ ”
“So you think of me as basically your sex kazoo.”
“I only hum when I’m happy,” said Yancy. Sometimes he just floated off into a zone; it had happened once with Bonnie—a Paul Simon song—and she’d boxed his ears saying, “You and Julio get out of there!”
Rosa whistled. “Listen to that wind blow. Holy crap!”
“Andrew wasn’t the most ferocious name for a hurricane and look what happened.”
“Andrew’s a fine name, Andrew. You kidding?”
“Too preppy for a killer storm. That’s what they said before it hit Miami.”
“Who said? Some girl you were dating?”
“Her name was Mariah.”
“Oh, she was just jealous,” Rosa said. “ ‘They call the wind Ma-rye-ah’—don’t you remember that one? The poor baby wanted a storm named after herself! Tell me your age at the time of this romance.”
“Twenty-two.” Yancy was beginning to think in a serious way about Françoise, wondering if he and Rosa might possibly use the heavy weather to their advantage.
“When I was twenty-two I went to Paris,” she said. “Graduation present from the folks. One day I went to the Rodin museum and I got totally turned on by all those sexy sculptures. You ever been there? He had a thing for nymphs and minotaurs. Incredible stuff. Anyway, I meet this semi-cute exchange student from Boston and we end up having a quickie in the bathroom.”
“At the Rodin.”
&
nbsp; “There was a window. You could look out at the garden and see The Thinker.”
“I want to believe this story,” Yancy said, “with all my soul.”
“Swear to God, Andrew. First and only time in a museum.”
Yancy had never been to France. He imagined a misty rain falling at the time. “How was the flight today?” he asked Rosa.
“Not fun. The poor thing sitting next to me said two whole rosaries—one in English, one in Creole. Lord, what happened to your legs?”
“A monkey assaulted me.”
“You mean her husband assaulted you.”
“It’s no joke. This was a horrible creature.”
She remarked upon his recent travails with animals. “First some deranged dog in Miami practically chews your ass off, and now this. Lucky you’re banging a licensed health-care practitioner.”
“I did nothing to provoke the little bastard.”
“Clearly it’s all payback for abducting Johnny Mendez’s cat. Surely you believe in karma—I never met a cop who didn’t,” Rosa said. “There’s some goop in my kit bag. We should dress those wounds.”
“The least of my problems. I capped off an otherwise productive afternoon by flogging Eve Stripling’s boyfriend with a fly rod.”
“And that would be your idea of stealth. Very slick.”
“I’m pretty sure he didn’t know who I was, but still it was a tight spot.”
Rosa took a deep breath, lifting Yancy’s head.
She said, “I’m afraid I’ve got some lousy news.”
“Not right now. Please?” He blew softly into her belly button.
“I didn’t mention it earlier because I didn’t want to spoil the mood. Andrew, don’t deny that you’re susceptible to untimely distractions.”
“I am,” he said, “cursed with an overactive mind.”
“The bullet that killed O’Peele came from the same weapon that killed Charles Phinney—the .357 they found in the doctor’s condo. I saw the ballistics this morning.”