Coolman envisioned “Hell Island” as a career-saving parachute, in case Amp axed him from Platinum Artists. The money from a miniseries could be semi-decent, especially if Coolman started the ball rolling with a bestselling book about his back-to-back hostage ordeals. Hire some slick ghostwriter and spend a week at the W yakking into a tape recorder. How tough could that be?
Dwelling on this vainglorious project was mental therapy, for Coolman had no logical reason to be upbeat. Mornings on the boat were pierced by the basso horns of cruise ships in the harbor and the high whine of passenger jets on final approach to the airport—melancholy reminders of how close he was to freedom. Whenever the wind clocked out of the north, the temperature plummeted, the old boat pitched, and the windows whistled. Coolman had never been an avid sailor, never understood the so-called romance of the high seas. Yachts were tolerable, yachts he could do, but anything under a hundred feet—forget it. Although he didn’t get seasick, he was miserable in other ways. The kidnapper had thrown his cell phone overboard, a traumatizing blow for any agent. It made Coolman feel small and helplessly out of touch with his world. The Wet Nurse was cramped, rank, gloomy. When the seas got rough he couldn’t fall sleep, unlike the other hostage, who was cuffed to the opposite bunk. The all-night snoring and fart-fest drove Coolman batshit, though he didn’t complain. The mood down below already was sour and tense.
“You’re useless,” the other captive would bark, upon waking.
“You told me about a hundred times.”
“I’m tellin’ you again. You suck at your job.”
“Take it easy—”
“No, man, I’m done with you. You are motherfuckin’ fired!”
Then Lane Coolman would patiently say, “Chill out, Buck. We’re in this together.”
THIRTEEN
Brock Richardson interrupted with a question: “What the hell’s a Calusa?”
“An extinct Native American tribe,” the state archeologist replied. In one hand he cupped the molar at issue. “I would say this find dates from about 3,500 BC.”
“Which means…?”
“Your property might be an ancient settlement. Or even a burial ground.”
“Oh, terrific.” Richardson wanted to strangle this fucking pinhead and also the three salvors who’d let him on the property. The men said they’d had no choice but to cooperate. Human teeth are bones, they’d said, and bones are body parts. You can go to jail for concealing the discovery of a body part, they had explained, no matter how tiny.
“Bottom line,” the archeologist said to Richardson, “this site must be preserved until we can determine if the Calusa once lived here.”
“Whoa there—what about my house? They’re pouring the slab next week.”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Are you kidding me? Where do you get off?”
The archeologist’s name was Dr. Whitmore. He put up a “Posted” sign while Richardson paid off the salvors saying, “Thanks for nothing, shitheads.”
Dr. Whitmore took photographs and jotted studiously in his notebook. Richardson phoned his real-estate lawyer and told him about the potential Calusa problem. The lawyer said, “You might be screwed, buddy boy.”
“That’s helpful. Remind me again how much I’m paying you.”
“Want my advice? Bribe somebody.”
Richardson had been mulling the same approach. He walked up to the archeologist and offered him five hundred dollars to forget he ever laid eyes on the dead Indian’s tooth.
“Oh, I could never do that,” Dr. Whitmore said.
“Say you found it somewhere else. I’ll give you a thousand bucks, cash.”
“Keep your money, Mr. Richardson. There’s important work to be done here.”
“At least can I see the damn thing?”
Dr. Whitmore wouldn’t allow Richardson to touch the molar but he held it up for viewing. The crown portion was chipped and brown-stained. “Probably from wild coffee beans,” the archeologist surmised. “The Calusas chewed them for energy.”
“Fascinating,” muttered Richardson. “Let’s call National Geographic.”
“Check out the root prong. Notice the decay?”
“So somehow it’s my fault they didn’t floss. Guy’s tooth falls out and five thousand years later I’m not allowed to build my house?”
“In the event we don’t find any more bones or artifacts on your land,” said Dr. Whitmore, “you’ll be free to proceed.”
“And how long will it take you dweebs to finish?”
“The site’s been disturbed by previous construction, so we’ll need to do some excavating. Still I can’t imagine the project lasting more than two years. Three tops.”
Richardson cursed hotly. “This is unfuckingbelievable! It looks like an ordinary goddamn molar.”
“Oh no, Mr. Richardson.”
Yet in fact it was an ordinary molar. It had been yanked from the gums of a taxi driver named Kupnick and provided to Andrew Yancy by Kupnick’s dentist, who also happened to be Yancy’s dentist and occasional fishing companion. Yancy had strategically positioned the Kupnick extraction on Richardson’s property shortly before the hired salvors began their diamond hunt.
The molar’s discoloration came from twenty-eight years of chewing tobacco, not wild coffee beans. This would have been evident to a legitimate archeologist, which “Doctor” Jimmy Whitmore was not. In real life he was a drama teacher at Key West High and a weekend boat mechanic. He’d done all the rigging on Yancy’s bonefish skiff, and he was glad to volunteer when Yancy called up looking for an actor. The coffee-bean line that Whitmore lobbed at Brock Richardson was pure improv, for Whitmore knew essentially nothing about the ancient Calusan diet. Likewise he was winging it when he dated the molar at 3,500 BC, though he’d found an article online saying Paleo-Indian tribes had settled South Florida long before then.
“One more thing,” said Richardson, watching Whitmore deposit the molar in a square brown envelope. “When you start digging, could you keep an eye out for something my girlfriend lost? I mean my fiancée. It was her engagement ring—not cheap, either.”
Whitmore nodded. “I’ll be sure to alert my team. Can you describe it for me?”
“A humongous diamond mounted on a platinum band, okay? A gigantic mo-fo diamond. Impossible to mistake for an Indian trinket. But what I’m wondering is can I trust your people not to keep it? Because, swear to Christ, if that happens—”
“You’ve got my word, Mr. Richardson. Our only interest is preserving the remnants of a lost native culture. Anything else we might find here belongs to you,” said Whitmore, “or, in this case, your fiancée.”
Like she was the one who paid for that rock, thought Richardson.
“Call me right away if it turns up,” he said. “Did I mention I’m an attorney? Because you should be aware, I don’t intend to eat this mortgage for two or three years while you pick over my property with goddamn tweezers. I’ll be calling your boss in Tallahassee first thing tomorrow.”
Whitmore said, “I truly appreciate your frustration.”
“No, you truly do not.”
Richardson boiled and grumbled all the way to Key West, where he had an appointment with a cosmetic surgeon to discuss the odd penis-shaped growth under his left arm. At the office he learned the surgeon had been summoned to the hospital to remove a treble hook from a tourist’s eyelid, so Richardson drove to Louie’s for an early cocktail. At the bar he sat next to a gregarious light-haired man with flushed cheeks and prehensile lips. The man said he owned a company called Sedimental Journeys, which supposedly rebuilt entire beachfronts that had been lost to erosion. He gave his name as Martin Trebeaux and said, “I recognize you from somewhere, don’t I?”
“My law firm does lots of advertising.”
“You’re the Pitrolux guy from TV!”
“Guilty,” said Richardson. It was a topic he normally didn’t mind discussing, but not now. Not with delicate skin-tag surgery on his mind.
>
Trebeaux said, “I tried that stuff, but it gave me a rash that smelled like rotten burritos.”
Richardson handed him a business card. “Call my office tomorrow, Martin. We’ll sign you up for the class-action.”
They raised a toast to the American justice system, and then bought each other several rounds. Richardson was the first to get drunk and blab too much. Martin Trebeaux seemed sincerely outraged by what he heard.
“All because your fiancée dropped her engagement ring?” he said. “Let me get this straight: You hire some pro treasure hunters but all they come up with is a moldy old tooth. Then the government marches in and says your property is a sacred burial ground, so now you can’t build your island dream house. Friend, that’s just wrong. There’s no other word for it. Wrong, wrong, wrong. How much did you lay out for that diamond?”
“Two hundred K. It just fell off her damn finger, so she says. I think the asshole who lives next door might’ve ganked it. If he wasn’t an ex-cop, I’d send some guys down to turn his house inside-out.”
“You have guys like that?”
“I know some people, yeah,” said Richardson.
“Me, too. That’s funny.”
“My guys are club bouncers on South Beach. Ex-NFL.”
Martin Trebeaux raised his martini glass. “My guys are Mafia.”
“Do not even joke about that shit.”
“Friend, I’m not joking. I gave ’em a piece of my beach business, but I’m still the head honcho. Google the Calzone crime family, you want some cozy bedtime reading. Look up a gentleman named Dominick Aeola, AKA Big Noogie. I’m dead serious.”
Richardson had heard of the Calzone organization, but that didn’t mean Trebeaux wasn’t blowing smoke. Richardson asked him how he got connected.
“Long story. Not important.” The sand man’s words were a bit slurred but his brain was clicking. “Hey, were you serious about cutting me in on the Pitrolux case, or was that just the usual Miami bullshit?”
“No bull, Martin. You still got the rash?”
“Naw. Went away in like a day and a half.”
“Tell me you got some pictures,” Richardson said.
“On my phone, sure.”
“Good enough. You’re in.”
“Brilliant!” Trebeaux pinky-fingered the bright olive out of his drink and flicked it into his mouth. “Listen, maybe I can return the favor. Your situation? It’s very possible I can help.”
“Nobody can help,” mumbled Richardson.
“What would it hurt—I’m just saying—if I sent my guys to visit your asshole neighbor?”
“But I told you, he’s an ex-cop.”
“So what?” Trebeaux said. “Now, if he’s ex-FBI then I see your point, because that’s like a blood fraternity. But ex-cops lose their juice about ten seconds after giving up the badge. Your sweetheart—what’s her name again. Donna?”
“It’s Deborah. Deb.”
“So Deb’s got her heart set on a house in the Keys, right? For now you can’t touch your land, but what if your ex-cop neighbor suddenly decided to sell his place? What if he’s willing to go low? I mean insanely low.”
“His house is a fucking shoebox.”
“So bulldoze the damn thing and build whatever you want. You can unload your other lot for a profit, soon as they’re done scooping up all the Indian dentures.”
Richardson turned to gaze at the ocean, which was blurry. So were the birds on the shore and the clouds in the sky. Had he and Deb been on more intimate terms, buying out Yancy would have been an appealing option—same quiet neighborhood, same amazing sunset views. Deb would have been impressed by her future husband’s resourcefulness, rewarding him with silky favors. Given the current chill in their relationship, though, Richardson wasn’t sure he wanted to sink another nickel into Big Pine real estate.
Trebeaux scribbled a phone number on a cocktail napkin. “Think about it, and let me know. Here’s my private line.”
“Yancy won’t sell cheap,” Richardson said. “He’ll play the hardass.”
“Well, my guys can make miracles happen.” The sand man called for his check.
Richardson paid his own tab at the same time. Checking the phone he saw that he’d missed a couple calls from the surgeon’s office. There was nothing from Deb.
Outside Louie’s, Trebeaux hovered uncertainly, peering up and down the street. “You hear a dog bark?” he whispered to Richardson.
“That was a rooster, I’m pretty sure.”
A pink cab cruised by and Richardson waved it down. He was too bombed to drive himself to the hotel.
“Want a lift?” he asked Trebeaux, who said sure and practically dove into the backseat.
On the ride through Old Town Richardson thought it would be polite to ask Trebeaux about his business. “Where do you get all the sand for your projects, Martin? How does that work?”
“Mega-dredges and barges, friend. Mother Nature provides the product. Right now I’m lining up an epic deal in Havana. It’s all on the hush.”
“Viva Coo-ba,” said Richardson, touching a finger to his lips. He’d done his part; he’d pretended to be interested.
Trebeaux climbed out of the taxi across from the La Concha. “We’ll talk soon, friend,” he said, and walked off swaying among the throngs. He didn’t look like a man who was tight with hardcore New York mobsters, but the possibility couldn’t be ruled out.
“Hey!” Richardson called after him. “Don’t forget to send me those pictures of your rash!”
Only on Duval Street would such a line fail to turn any heads.
—
Yancy elected to believe Merry Mansfield’s story about the car-crashing scam. It was too richly layered to be one of her lies. The fact she was a con artist didn’t concern him that much. At least she wasn’t a killer, bank robber, or (like his girlfriend before Rosa) an arsonist. The pride with which she described the precision of her collisions was oddly touching. Yancy couldn’t resist being impressed by the audacity of the razor ploy, and also by the dexterity required to groom between one’s legs while operating a motor vehicle at high speed. Merry was a most uncommon criminal.
The proper thing was to hand her over to Rogelio Burton, but that would be wasting the detective’s time. Merry would deny everything she’d told Yancy, and there was slim chance of prosecution, with Zeto deceased and the “victims” so shady.
So, when Burton stopped by the next morning, Yancy kept quiet about Merry’s unusual occupation. Burton remembered her—who wouldn’t?—from the scene of the Conch Train attack, where she’d appeared at the side of Buck Nance’s manager.
“Where is Mr. Coolman these days? I need to speak with him,” the detective said.
“Who knows.” Merry smiled coolly. “Not my circus, not my monkey.”
Yancy felt that Burton deserved an explanation for Merry’s presence. “She’s staying here for a few days—in the guest room, Rog. We’re just friends.”
“The guest room’s disgusting. There’s not even a mattress,” said Burton.
“On the couch, I meant.”
“That’s the story you should stick with.”
Yancy said he had a solid lead on the Conch Train homicide. “A man using the name Krill got a ‘Captain Cock’ ink job shortly before that tourist was killed. There’s a Benjamin Krill on Petronia, but he wasn’t home when I went by. His wife didn’t have much to say.”
Burton crossed his arms. “First, goddammit, you’re not supposed to be working the case. Sonny made that crystal clear. So, as your life coach, I’m telling you to cease and desist.”
“Objection noted, and overruled.”
“Second, Homicide still sees Buck Nance as the main suspect on account of his extreme anti-Muslim sentiments and recent sketchy behavior.”
“I’m not so sure he did it,” said Yancy. “You should—”
Burton cut him off. “Third, I know Krill. On the street he’s Benny the Blister, which fits his personality.
Lifelong burglar, hopelessly incompetent, nothing violent on his rap sheet—I can’t see him going after a total stranger.”
Yancy said, “For what it’s worth, he keeps a pet mongoose.”
“Yes, generating numerous complaints and citations. The damn thing tried to eat a psychic’s cockatiel on Whitehead.”
Merry whistled. “This parallel universe of yours, Andrew, I love it.”
Burton said Benny Krill was unexceptional for Key West. “Also, as I say, a terrible burglar. Last time we busted him he was climbing out the window of an art gallery. He didn’t break in to steal the art, he went to steal cash. Know how much cash they keep at art galleries? Basically zero dollars, since everybody pays for paintings with plastic or personal checks. So Blister’s basically an idiot.”
“Still, I bet the sheriff would prefer for a career felon and not Buck Nance to be the Conch Train killer,” said Yancy. “He’d be eternally relieved if I cleared Captain Cock’s name.”
“The sheriff would prefer that you continue to excel on roach patrol.”
“Rog, this would be the second homicide I’ve solved in my spare time since leaving the department. There’s no way Sonny could not give me my badge back.”
“It’s sad, really, this detachment from reality.”
Merry said, “You guys are like two old married people.”
Burton headed for the door. “Andrew suffers from these wild delusions. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”
Later that afternoon Irv Clipowski called to say he was flying in an exterminator from Marrakesh who claimed to have unparalleled experience battling Gambian pouched rats. “Soldier on, Clippy,” said Yancy, who planned to avoid the besieged restaurant until the invasives were vanquished.