Coolman put a hand on his shoulder. “No worries, Deerbone. I’ve got this.”
Blister smiled at the sound of his new name. Buck sullenly scratched at the thickening stubble on his chin.
The bartender came over and said, “That gentleman back in the corner says you boys owe him a drink.”
Coolman worriedly scanned the room. “What gentleman?”
“The tan dude with the hot blonde. They’re sitting near the guitar player.”
Andrew Yancy rose and parted the fronds of the potted palm, so that the men at the bar could see his face.
“You gotta be shittin’ me,” Blister said. “I’m gonna kick that mother’s ass.”
Buck Nance muttered, “Nice job on those knots, Deerbrain.”
Yancy saluted the trio with an erect middle digit, raised high.
“What’s he drinking?” Lane Coolman asked the bartender. “Get one for the girl, too.”
TWENTY-THREE
Martin Trebeaux told Juveline he was meeting Big Noogie at Higgs Beach.
“Just don’t show him your prize jewels,” she said.
They were in the bathtub, Juveline soaking on her back. Trebeaux was curled like a comma on top of her, his head pillowed by her breasts. There was water all over the floor. Gentle scrubbing had failed to remove the kiss-blowing emojis from his testicles.
“Are you positively positive he doesn’t know about us?” Trebeaux asked.
Juveline flicked his soapy earlobe. “The Noog don’t have a clue. You must think I’m dumber than a mud fence. Is that whatchu think?”
“What about the hickey?”
“I told him it was a love nip from John.”
“The dog? And he believed that?”
“ ’Course he did. I could make you believe it, too.”
The sand man climbed out of the tub. “Where are you supposed to be right now?”
“I dunno. Shoppin’.”
“Then that’s where you need to be.”
“I already bought two new hats for Havana,” she said, “and panties with little green parrots all over—but you’re not allowed to see ’em till we get there.”
“Sweetie, I can’t wait.”
The weather had warmed so Higgs Beach was crowded. Trebeaux searched awhile before he located Big Noogie, enthroned under a rainbow-striped umbrella with John the First. Exuberantly the setter began sniffing Trebeaux, who backed off in fear that his clothes bore incriminating scents.
Big Noogie said, “Juveline lets him sleep in the same bed as us—you believe that? Dog hairs all over the goddamn duvet.”
Trebeaux couldn’t change the subject fast enough. “Great news!” he said. “Cuba approved my visa.”
“You set up that meeting with your connection?”
“The deputy minister’s very pragmatic, for a socialist. I wish you could come with me.” Trebeaux held his breath, praying that the federal judge who had confiscated Big Noogie’s passport hadn’t suddenly changed his mind.
“Another time,” said the mobster. Having never seen the second Godfather, he knew next to nothing about Havana. Scooping a handful of sand, he asked, “Is the shit over there as good as this?”
“Way better.” Trebeaux smiled. “And it’s pink, Dominick.”
“No fuckin’ way.”
“The beach at Playa Ramera, you bet your ass. Miles and miles of it.”
“You mean pink like…”
“Oh yeah.” Trebeaux offered a knuckle-bump that went unreciprocated.
Big Noogie was watching the grains drizzle through his fingers. “Your oceanfront hotels here in the States, your four-star properties,” he mused, “they’d pay a goddamn fortune for pink.”
“We’re gonna kill it, Dominick. Kill. It.”
Two lanky young women walked up and asked if they could pet Big Noogie’s service dog. John the First rolled over, reveling in the sweet-smelling attention. The women said they were visiting Key West on spring break with their college sorority. They said they were playing a volleyball match with some off-duty firefighters. From the way the women looked at him, Trebeaux sensed they were trying to figure out whether it was he or Big Noogie that needed a special canine companion. The women said they attended Washington and Lee, which sounded like a serious school.
“What do you think of this beach?” Big Noogie asked. “On a scale of, like, one to ten.”
“Eleven!” the women answered together, laughing.
“Okay, what if the sand was pink?”
“Bullshit,” one of them said. “Pink sand?”
“I’d give that a fifteen!” the other one chortled. “No, twenty!”
They hugged John the First and called out goodbye as they scampered back to their sorority gathering. Trebeaux clapped and said, “This Cuba deal’s gonna be mega-mega. We ought to change the company name to Global Sedimental Journeys.”
“I think those two girls were tanked.”
“Who cares, Dominick? We don’t need a damn focus group to tell us pink beaches kick ass.”
Big Noogie opened a sports canteen and poured some water into a plastic bowl. He placed it in front of the fake service dog, which commenced slurping like a horse.
“When are you going back North?” Trebeaux asked with a nonchalant lilt.
“Why do you give a shit? I like it here. Today is forty-seven fuckin’ degrees back home.” Big Noogie flapped his flimsy tank top to demonstrate how comfortable he felt in South Florida. “Now, what’s this other favor you want from me? The first bein’ not feedin’ your ass to the hammerheads.”
“It’s nothing, really. No pressure.”
“Do I look fuckin’ pressured?”
“So, it’s the dude whose girl lost that big diamond ring. The Miami lawyer. He wants a sit-down to talk about what happened when your guys went to his crazy neighbor’s house.”
“I told you what happened. My guys didn’t find no rock.’ ’
“He’s got a theory. What can I say?”
“A theory. That’s rich.”
“More like a scenario,” the sand man said. “Listen, Dominick, you don’t need to bother with this. I’ll tell him you’re too busy to meet, end of story. What’s he going to do?”
Grunting like a hog in quicksand, Big Noogie dragged himself from the shade of the beach umbrella into the sunlight. He rose up, squinting behind his sunglasses and brushing off the seat of his tent-sized board shorts.
“Now you got me curious,” he said to Trebeaux. “Go on. Set it up.”
“Seriously? Just you and him?”
“Tell me again the name of this douche.”
“Brock Richardson.”
“The one on TV does all the dick deodorant cases. I seen his commercials.”
Trebeaux said, “You don’t put the stuff on your dick. It goes under your arms.”
“How the fuck does that get you hard?”
“I have no clue, Dominick. But from what I hear, that shit will definitely mess you up.”
“Tell the lawyer to come tomorrow morning. Ten sharp, same place.”
John the First started barking at a trio of tourists hanging from a fluorescent parachute being towed by a speedboat offshore. Big Noogie stepped on the setter’s leash to prevent another manic breakaway.
“That’s a sharp vest he’s got,” the sand man remarked. “How much?”
“Twenty-nine bucks off Amazon.”
“Did I not tell you it was easy?”
“It’s still a scum move. Only reason I did it, Juveline don’t want her little buddy catchin’ pneumonia down in cargo. She wants him sittin’ on the plane with us.”
“Hey, that doggie vest also got you onto this beach. It says right there that only service animals are allowed.” Trebeaux pointed at the sign. “You should thank me!”
Big Noogie closed the rainbow umbrella and tucked it under one arm. “Be that as it may,” he said, “John and me are gonna go watch a volleyball game.”
—
Rosa emailed a photo of herself carving a reindeer shank at the butcher shop in Oslo. A few minutes later, Merry Mansfield sent a picture of a gold earwax spoon recovered from the wreck of the Santa Margarita, a treasure-laden galleon that sank off the Marquesas during a hurricane in 1622. Yancy wasn’t sure how to respond to either of the women, so he didn’t.
He was back in Key West, parked at the cemetery waiting for Irv “Clippy” Clipowski. The restaurant owner had made him promise to come alone.
Yancy sent him a text: “Could you pick a creepier place to meet?”
“Be there in 15,” Clippy texted back.
In the meantime Miso the vodka model called to thank Yancy for a fun time the night before. She’d been a very good sport. Yancy had given her contact info to Lane Coolman, Buck Nance’s manager, during an impromptu meeting on the porch at Pierre’s. Miso had remained inside at the wooden bar, expertly mesmerizing Buck Nance and Benny the Blister.
Outside, Coolman was offering Yancy seventy-five thousand dollars to forget Blister had pointed a loaded firearm at his head, tied him up and shoved him under a bed. When Yancy had turned down the payoff, Coolman got aggravated.
“Then what the hell do you want from us?”
“I want Benny Krill,” Yancy had replied, “soon as you’re done with him.”
“Are you going to kill him? Because here’s the thing: We prefer him to be in jail, not deceased. The story line we have in mind, jail would work better.”
“That’s where he’ll be.”
“And we can be assured of that…how?” Coolman had said.
“Because I keep my word, which I realize is freak behavior where you come from.”
“Why don’t you just take the damn money? We’ll do the wire transfer first thing tomorrow.”
“I’m not going away,” Yancy had said. “When you guys finish with Blister, call me—not Crime Stoppers. If that’s not how it goes down, meaning he ends up somewhere other than my custody, I’ll be submitting a sordidly detailed affidavit describing what you and your deranged clients did to me inside that cottage at the Moorings. The whippings and fondling and so forth.”
“Oh, come on!”
“I don’t think you appreciate my ragged state of mind.”
“Fine. Whatever. We’ll give you Krill.”
“When?”
“Two days. Three tops,” Coolman had said.
“Here’s my phone number. One more thing.”
“Jesus, I fucking knew it—”
“My beautiful companion at the bar, she wants to be an actress.”
“Imagine that.”
“Find her some work,” Yancy had said.
His state of mind was, in fact, not good. Watching Bayou Brethren in the company of Buck Nance and Blister had been a setback, morale-wise. Yancy might have found humor in the bourbon-soaked TV version of rural Southern life if Buck was just another harmless stooge, but he wasn’t. He was a septic inspiration to impressionable mouth-breathers such as Benny the Blister, who had accosted an innocent Muslim man only because he imagined that’s what his hero Captain Cock would have done.
Yancy looked forward to handing over Blister Krill to Sheriff Sonny Summers, though he knew the Conch Train case was weak due to the conflicting witness accounts. The odds were at least fifty-fifty that Blister would get acquitted, leaving unpunished the death of Abdul-Halim Shamoon. As for the stalker-style kidnapping of Buck Nance and his manager, Coolman had informed Yancy that neither he nor his star client planned to cooperate with prosecutors. Once Buck returned to the Brethren, there would be no window in his hectic shooting schedule for a lengthy—and embarrassing—trial.
Even if delivering Blister to the sheriff got Yancy reinstated, it would be sickening to see the man walk free later. Yancy felt sick now, thinking about it. The best hope for sending that crazy dirtbag back to prison was to prosecute him for the stabbing. As the victim, Yancy would be compelled to take the witness stand, where his character would receive a battering by Blister’s defense lawyer. There was rich material to work with.
Rosa emailed Yancy another picture—snow flurries, bare trees and glowing street lamps. It made Yancy want to drive home, gas up his boat and go fishing in the sunshine.
But first here was Clippy, arriving in a dingy truck that belonged to a carpet company. He pulled up next to Yancy’s Subaru, lowered a window and said:
“I put in a good word for you at Sonny’s fundraiser, Andrew. Just so you’re aware, Neil and I forked out the max for his campaign. Meaning we had his full, undivided attention when I told him he should hire you back on the force. I said you were a solid guy, a brilliant detective.”
“I sincerely appreciate that. Thank you.”
“Happy to do what I can. Happy to help.”
“Clippy, why are you driving that truck?”
“You’ll see.”
“And why are we here at the graveyard?”
“Get in, Andrew. Please.”
Stacked behind the front seats of the truck were rolls of Berber carpet and foam padding. Yancy heard something move and wondered if a person was tied up in the back. Perhaps Clippy and Neil were having a falling-out.
“I know I can trust you,” Clippy said. “Right?”
He drove without elaboration to the landfill on Stock Island. The porcelain sky was full of buzzards and seagulls. A sickly tang rose from the steep hill of garbage, where Yancy and Rogelio Burton once spent seven wretched hours searching for a carrot peeler that had been used as a murder weapon. They never found it, but the experience bonded the two for life.
At the top of the mound lay the ripest waste, bagged and unbagged, awaiting the county backhoes. On windy afternoons you could almost breathe without covering your face, but today there was no breeze off the Gulf. The smell was awful, even with the truck windows rolled up.
“Oh dear God Almighty,” gasped Clippy, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“Please tell me we’re not here to bury the mayor.”
“What a hideous thing to say! The two of us couldn’t be happier, Neil and I. Are you kidding? We’re getting married on June 23. That’s Clarence Thomas’s birthday!”
“I’ll save the date,” Yancy said. “What’s in the back of the truck?”
Clippy shakily uncapped a bottle of Valium and gulped two pills. “You don’t understand how difficult this is for me,” he said.
Yancy got out and opened the rear doors, Clippy posted behind him.
“Holy shitfire,” Yancy said. “A doubleheader.”
“They’re not hurt. They’re just fine.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
“It’s a live-catch trap,” Clippy explained. “The same kind they use on coyotes.”
“I would greatly prefer coyotes.”
“They must be boyfriend and girlfriend, right? The way they’re acting.”
“Their relationship doesn’t interest me,” said Yancy. “It’s their size.”
They were the biggest fucking rats he’d ever seen. Inside the wire caging, two Gambian pouchies copulated frenetically, oblivious to their audience.
“I caught ’em last night behind the main bar,” Clippy said.
“On what?”
“Cantaloupe slices drizzled with organic peanut crumbs.”
“Heart-healthy,” Yancy murmured.
“Two at once! I almost freaking peed my pants. Afterward, Jordie, the busboy, helped me load the trap into the truck. His step-uncle has a carpet store.”
The rats looked to be solid six-pounders. They finished screwing, disengaged and rose inquisitively on their hind legs. Eyes aglow, whiskers twitching, they seemed intoxicated by the sweet reek of the dump.
Clippy said, “You cannot tell Tommy Lombardo about this. If news gets out, they’ll shut us down so damn fast. Please, Andrew, TripSwami will destroy us! We might as well just give the restaurant to the bank.”
“You’re putting me in a tough spot.”
“Hey, it’s no
t like you found them during a regular inspection. For all you know, these animals could be personal pets of mine, just two rats in a truck.”
“I see where this is going,” Yancy said.
“And don’t forget I did you a major major solid, talking to Sonny.”
“Indeed you did.”
“Bottom line,” Clippy said, “I don’t have the heart to euthanize these two. I figured this was the best place to let ’em go. Rat heaven, right?”
“Okay, but why’d you call me?”
“A, because I trust you. And B, are you kidding? I can’t do this alone! These things are huge. You’re the rodent guy, Andrew.”
“I am not the rodent guy. Don’t ever say that.”
“You know what I mean.” Clippy admitted he didn’t want to touch the trap. He claimed to have a pathological fear of hantavirus. “Goes back to when I was a kid up North. One summer my brothers locked me in a horse barn—”
“Know what? I believe you,” Yancy said.
“So, I’ll just stand back while you do your Rat Whisperer thing.”
“I can’t just turn ’em loose, Clippy. They’re from West Africa. They don’t belong here.”
“This is a landfill, for Christ’s sake, not a nature preserve.”
“The word biologists use for them is ‘invasive,’ Clippy. Want to know why? Because one female pouchie pops out a new batch every five weeks. By summer, Stock Island will be covered up with these fuckers. Think Old Testament.”
“Tell me the worst that can happen. What—they chase off all the regular rats? I say good riddance.”
Yancy observed both animals tinkering with the hinges of the trap, trying to spring the door. Their bony pallid paws were as nimble as a monkey’s.
“So, what’re you going to do with ’em?” Clippy asked pitifully. “I think they’re kind of cute together.”
“They’ve got jowls,” Yancy said. “There’s nothing cute about rats with jowls—”
“You’re right, you’re right.”
“—especially when they’re galloping through the rafters of your bistro. Remember that night?”
Clippy nodded somberly. “Do what you must. I’ll wait in the truck.”
Yancy rummaged through the carpet-laying gear until he came across a cordless nail gun. This can’t really be my life, he thought. I couldn’t possibly have screwed it up this bad.