It wasn’t the reaction Richardson had been hoping for. “I’ve got information,” he said, “fairly solid information that the men you sent to Yancy’s house? They did find the diamond. Now, maybe they were under the misimpression they could keep it, and that’s why they didn’t tell you, but they definitely walked out with that ring.”
“How come you think so?”
“I sent guys of my own, Dominick. They were awful rough on Yancy. He spilled everything.”
“You must mean the guys that ended up in the medical ward at the jail. The guys Yancy beat the holy shit out of.” Big Noogie was grinning like a moray eel. The wind had kicked up, fluffing the ocean with whitecaps.
“But Martin said you told him your guys didn’t find the rock—”
“Thing about Marty and me,” Big Noogie said, “I don’t tell him what he doesn’t need to know, and I’m sure there’s things he don’t tell me. Fact, I’m positive.”
The lawyer appeared uneasy and not nearly so crisp. His cheeks were flushed, his forehead shiny. “Dominick, I certainly hope Martin told you how grateful I was that you sent those men to see Yancy. How much I value the favor.”
“Your theory, it’s horseshit. My guys do what I tell ’em to do, always. They don’t have your rock.”
Big Noogie pulled out his cell phone and showed the photo to Richardson.
“My future daughter-in-law,” he said. “Take a good look at her hand, counselor.”
Richardson wilted when he saw what the mobster wanted him to see. John the fake service dog began whining and fidgeting on the leash.
“He’s gotta pee again,” Big Noogie muttered.
“Know what? Forget I said anything. I’ll just buy Deb another ring.”
“This time get one that fits.”
“Pleasure meeting you, sir. Thanks again for your time.” Richardson held out his hand.
The mobster laughed and said, “You think we’re done? We ain’t done.”
—
The Doubletree was near the airport but Yancy didn’t hear the Gulfstream land. He was in the bathroom, talking on the phone with Rosa. She still wanted him to meet her in Norway, only now with the possibility of moving there. He listened patiently while she extolled the mountains and fjords, the civility of the culture, the infrequency of violence, and also (as a low-blow teaser) the spectacular salmon fishing.
Yancy didn’t bite. He reminded her that the Vikings practically invented rape-and-pillage.
“That’s my point. These people have evolved in a positive way,” Rosa said. “Americans are heading the other direction.”
“Way too cold over there for me.”
“You get used to it, Andrew. Please keep an open mind.”
When he came out of the bathroom, Merry was asleep. He turned off the television, pulled the covers to her chin and lay down on the other bed. In the morning she took him to get his car on Flagler and followed him up the main highway back to Big Pine.
Before entering the house he warned her about the Gambian pouchies. Merry said it was no big deal.
“They got rats in the palm trees on South Beach,” she said.
Yancy shook his head. “Not like these.”
He had baited Clippy’s trap with banana slices and Nutella. When he opened the door, Merry said, “Ho-leeee shit, Andrew.”
“They’re pretty chill, but I’ll go first, just in case.”
One pouchie was inside the trap. The other stood on top, a chocolate sheen visible on its whiskers. It was munching a chunk of Chiquita.
“Look! She’s feeding him through the wires,” Merry said. “I love the commitment!”
Yancy tugged her toward the kitchen, saying, “I’m gonna need your help.”
After a harried pursuit using a laundry basket, they cornered and captured the escapee, which they put in the trap with its mate. Yancy was pleased that neither he nor Merry was bitten during the transfer. The trap barely fit in the back of his car. Merry insisted on cutting up a peach to feed the animals on the drive back to Key West.
“Are we taking ’em to the pound?” she asked. “We can say they’re gerbils with a thyroid problem.”
Yancy wouldn’t tell her where they were going. In town he stopped at Fast Buck Freddie’s and bought a straw shopping basket with dolphins drawn on the sides. Next he parked outside a laundromat and sent Merry to swipe a pillowcase from one of the dryers. The pouchies were drowsy and cooperative.
Two blocks away, a divorcee from Dallas was prowling Duval Street in search of a skanky swimsuit. Nicole Braswell wanted something that would excite her new cruise companion, a Plano road contractor named Jared who was overweight though nimble in the sack. Currently he was sleeping off a savage hangover on Premier Deck number eleven of the Azure Countess Royale. Nicole had met him two nights earlier at the floor show, “Les Misérables on Ice,” an ambitious reimagining of the venerable Broadway hit. Thrilled to find a Texas man who loved both skating and musicals, Nicole planned to ditch her schoolteacher friends and move into Jared’s spacious cabin for the remainder of the voyage.
As a shopper she was tireless though undisciplined, returning to the docks with a fishnet bikini, an orange one-piece that unzipped from cleavage to crotch, two bottles of coconut schnapps, numerous raunchy tee-shirts, nine reggae-themed beach towels, at least four cowrie necklaces manufactured in Shanghai, an ashtray made to look like a baby hawksbill turtle, sunglasses for every member of her book club, and a $29 conch shell that called you a “sucker” when you held it to your ear.
Nicole was aware that she sometimes got carried away. After lugging her purchases up the long ramp, she was chased down by a uniformed attendant whose accent she couldn’t place. Filipino, maybe? She recognized him as the same nice kid who’d helped her find the advanced spin class on the first day of the cruise.
“Excuse me,” he said. “A gentleman down there, he told me you dropped this.”
It was a straw bag with leaping dolphins on the side. Nicole didn’t remember buying it, but that occasionally happened when she was in one of her souvenir frenzies. She thanked the attendant and wiggled a free finger upon which he could hook the straw bag, which was surprisingly heavy.
He said, “Let me take all these things to your cabin.”
“Aren’t you a sweetheart? Tell me again who found this one.”
“He’s right down there. That’s him in the hat.”
Nicole saw a man in a Panama hat at the foot of the boarding ramp. He looked tall, very tan—and taken. At his side stood a pretty ginger-haired woman.
“How nice of him to do that,” Nicole said, waving.
“Let’s take the elevator,” the attendant suggested as she piled the purchases in his arms. He detected movement among the shopping bags and thought it was the woman’s hand, perhaps reaching for her purse.
Walking from the docks, Yancy didn’t look back. The Azure Countess Royale was boarding for departure. A crewman had told him the ship was heading to Galveston. Merry asked Yancy what that meant for the stowaway rats.
He said, “They’re together. What else matters?”
“Too bad they’re not doing Nassau. They’d rock Nassau.”
“Galveston’s fine. Vermin make their own fun.”
“You could get your ass fired for what you just did, right?”
“Yes, but I can still look myself in the mirror.”
“You are,” Merry sang out, “so full of shit!”
“I really am. I absolutely am.”
They stopped at an upscale fly-fishing shop because Yancy wanted to show her a tarpon streamer made with hackle feathers from a genuine Nance rooster. “As Featured on Bayou Brethren!” promised a sticker on the plastic sleeve.
He said, “It’s a thing of beauty, you’ve got to admit.”
Merry sighed. “Once again, Andrew, you’ve opened my eyes. To what, I’m not sure.”
After purchasing three of the flies, he took her to the harbor for oysters and beer. She kep
t him smiling while he waited for Lane Coolman, the lying sack of scum, to call back.
“Why didn’t you pounce on me last night?” she said. “At least cop a feel. I even took my bra off.”
“I thought you were sleeping.”
“Well, I wasn’t. It was a test. Maybe you need Bird music to put you in the mood.”
“Are you ever going to tell me your real name?”
“I bet I’m your first redhead. Is that right, Andrew?”
His phone rang. It was Coolman.
“What the fuck? We had a deal,” Yancy snapped.
“Still do.”
“What’ve you done with Benny the Blister?”
“Nothing,” said Coolman.
“I’m coming to L.A. to get him. Next flight out.”
“That’s a brilliant idea, except we’re not there.”
“I watched the goddamn jet take off last night.”
“Deerbone and his lady wanted an airplane ride.”
“Who and what is a Deerbone?”
“Your boy,” Coolman said. “It’s his nom de TV.”
The band at the restaurant was mauling Neil Young, so Yancy was having trouble hearing the other end of the conversation. Merry motioned for him to go out on the patio. After finding a quiet place, he angrily laid into Buck’s cocky manager.
“You think you’re safe in California? What you and those peckerwoods did to me at the Moorings, starting with false imprisonment, that’s an extraditable felony. Which means all of you get a free ride back to Florida, in handcuffs.”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
“Just tell me where you are.”
“Key West,” Coolman whispered, “in the parking lot of the Pier House.”
Yancy took a slow, very deep breath. “Okay, give me a timeline.”
“One more hour, and he’s all yours.”
“I’m counting the minutes. No more games.”
“Aw, shit…”
“Now what? Coolman, are you still there?”
“The fuck are you guys doing? Stop!” the agent cried out, before the line went dead.
Yancy took off running. Merry watched curiously through the window, an empty oyster shell in each of her hands.
TWENTY-SIX
Prawney was confident he could disarm the tattooed redneck, whose behavior was increasingly erratic. “Deerbone” had demanded to do the meet inside the Sprinter van instead of the hotel, because he didn’t want to be seen in public. The Key West cops, he kept saying, were hunting everywhere for him.
Jon David Ampergrodt told Prawney he wasn’t comfortable bargaining with a paranoid bumblefuck who had a loaded pistol on his lap. Prawney promised to take care of it. He outweighed the dumb cracker by a hundred pounds.
Nobody in the group had gotten much sleep. After the Gulfstream landed, Amp and Prawney had returned to the Pier House while Blister Krill ordered the driver of the Sprinter to top off the gas tank. He said there was a roadside motel way up in Key Largo where they’d be safe for the night. When Buck Nance objected, Blister said tough shit.
And this was his idol he was talking to.
Along the way they stopped on Stock Island to drop Mona at the duplex. Ninety-two miles later, Blister was still pounding the bourbon and Reese’s Cups, and rhapsodizing about the plane ride on the G5 and the new Ford dualie he was going to buy with his TV money. Buck had tuned him out early in the trip. Coolman had stayed busy answering emails on his phone.
The motel Blister chose hadn’t been renovated since the Nixon presidency. Coolman rented four rooms, including one for the driver, who was swayed by a thousand-dollar tip to stay for the night. At three a.m. Buck knocked on Coolman’s door complaining that Blister was howling like a bobcat in a stump grinder.
“It only gets worse when I bang on the wall,” Buck said.
“Christ, don’t do that! He’s so wasted, he’ll start shooting everywhere.”
With a slump Buck paced back and forth in Coolman’s room. He was holding a bag of ice cubes on his sore elbow. “This whole damn plan,” he said, “what a nightmare.”
Coolman promised it was almost over. “By this time tomorrow your phony twin bro will be in jail, and you’ll have a deal that’s going to make you crazy rich. Soon as Amp signs off, we’re golden.”
“Even though the Deerbone thing isn’t real? Amp’s gonna figure that out.”
“Buck, he already knows the guy’s not your brother. The part he doesn’t know, that Blister’s going to jail, trust me—Amp will thank me later for getting that dickweed out of his hair. So will the network.”
“Why are you so sure he’s getting busted?”
“One phone call and it’s over,” Coolman said. “This is what I do, okay? Calm the waters. Now please go get some rest.”
“What about Miracle?”
“You want her back?” Coolman’s tone was forebearing. “All right, let me work on that, too.”
“Never mind. I’d have to be insane.”
“Sad but true.”
“It’s Krystal I want,” Buck admitted dolefully. “I want us to be Rombergs again.”
“Get a grip. Please.”
In the morning they made the slog through high-season traffic back to Key West, where Blister refused to leave the Sprinter because he thought he heard police sirens. Negotiations with Amp commenced inside the vehicle at the Pier House parking lot. Every time Amp turned hardass, Coolman played the “Bayou Blood” card. It worked. Buck got his salary doubled, a bigger cut of the Brethren reruns and guaranteed helicopter service back and forth to the chicken farm. Coolman would be crowned “senior executive producer,” Amp grudgingly accepting a standard producer credit as long as his name came first in the opening scroll.
The trouble in the van erupted while Coolman was on the phone with Andrew Yancy, moments after Amp had initialed and signed Buck’s deal memo. Amp was skimming through the terms of Blister’s contract when Blister suddenly declared he wanted more than fifty thousand an episode, and also 24/7 access to a jet. It didn’t have to be the Gulfstream, but it had to be the same color.
“Those green stripes are sick,” he said.
Amp never lifted his gaze from the document. “No jet, Deerbone. Not even Buck gets a jet, and he’s the bloody star of the show.”
Out came Blister’s gun and Prawney went into action, hurling himself upon the stringy redneck. In the cramped confines they tangled clumsily, Prawney unable to separate Blister from the weapon. The driver hopped out and bolted.
“Aw, shit,” Coolman said.
Amp and Buck clambered to the rear of the van ducking behind the seats. Prawney drew his Glock, setting up a taut stare-down with Blister. Neither looked exceptionally steady.
“The fuck are you guys doing? Stop!” cried Coolman, who correctly perceived he was in the presence of two rank amateurs with firearms.
Blister was the first to pull the trigger, with inconclusive results. The slug entered Prawney’s open mouth and exited his left cheek before demolishing the phone in Coolman’s hand. Prawney’s long-neglected Glock misfired twice, so he employed it as a mallet on Blister’s midsection, replicating the same compact stroke he had mastered pounding beef for the Thai salad at Morton’s. The redneck’s pistol fired again and Prawney felt a searing pain in his shoulder, the Glock falling from his fist.
He passed out while Amp was yelling, “Knock this shit off, Deerbone, or the deal’s off!”
Buck and Coolman were yelling, too. Everyone in the parking lot would have heard the men, had they not been inside a vehicle with superior soundproofing. They fell silent when the sliding door of the Sprinter was flung open.
Yancy looked inside and took a cop-style head count.
Buck Nance was cowering in the back of the van. Beside him crouched a glossy white male in his thirties. Lane Coolman sat pale and shaken in one of the middle rows. Out cold on the floor: a heavyset African American male bleeding from the mouth and upper body.
Finally, there was Benny the Blister—disheveled and gasping, though erect on his feet. The buttons of his absurd tropical shirt had been torn off, the rooster tattoo on his belly pulped to a crimson gargoyle. Gripped crookedly in one of Blister’s hands was the semiautomatic.
“Just in time!” he yukked at Yancy, and waggled the gun barrel toward the front seat. “Drive, asshole. Me and my team got a plane to catch.”
—
The sand man also had a plane to catch, an American Airlines charter from Miami to Havana. Juveline was ticketed on a later flight, a precaution at which she’d scoffed. To tease Martin Trebeaux she arrived early at the airport flaunting Tropicana-worthy cleavage. In flame-colored heels she clacked into the gate area and sat down beside a startled Roman Catholic priest. Soon they were engaged in earnest conversation, Juveline shooting a smoky glance at Trebeaux while her painted fingernails feathered a sleeve of the old cleric’s cassock.
It was more than Trebeaux could endure, and he signaled heatedly for Juveline to switch to the chair beside his. She did, saying, “Do I know you, mister?”
“Behave yourself, okay? Until we get there.”
“Guys in black really turn me on. Plus he talks like a cute old leprechaun.”
“That would be Irish,” Trebeaux said thinly. “Sweetie, what’d you tell Big Noogie?”
“He thinks I’m goin’ to see my sister Kimmy. She lives in St. Louis.”
“But what happens when he tries to call and you don’t answer? Your cell phone won’t work in Cuba.”
Juveline said, “The Noog won’t call ’cause he can’t stand Kimmy. Plus he’ll be too busy. Some of his New York peeps are comin’ down to hang at the Pyrenees—so thank God you put in that sweet new beach, right?”
The morning Herald was open on Trebeaux’s lap. Juveline slithered a hand beneath the newspaper and favored him with an intimate tickle. At this point he became immune to rational thought. She showed him her neck saying, “See? I made it so you can’t even tell there’s a mark.”
“My bad. I got carried away,” he said.
“Well, I think it’s kinda hot. They got Internet where we’re goin’?”
“Here and there. But you can’t post any pictures, okay? Havana doesn’t look anything like St. Louis.”