Skin Tight

  Curiously Al García bent over the wood chipper and peered at a decal on the engine mount. The decal was in the cartoon likeness of a friendly raccoon. “Brush Bandit—is that the name of this mother?”

  “That’s right,” said George Graveline.

  “How does it work exactly?”

  George motioned sullenly. “You throw the wood into that hole and it comes out here, in the back of the truck. All grinded up.”

  García whistled over his cigar. “Must be some nasty blade.”

  “It’s a big one, yessir.”

  García took his foot off the truck bumper. He held up the drawing of Chemo one more time. “You see this guy, I want you to call us right away.”

  “Surely,” said George Graveline. The detective gave him a business card. The tree trimmer glanced at it, decided it was authentic, slipped it into the back pocket of his jeans.

  “And warn your brother,” García said. “Just in case the guy shows up.”

  “You betcha,” said George Graveline.

  BACK in the unmarked county car, parked a half mile down the boulevard at the Key Biscayne fire station, Mick Stranahan said: “So how’d it go?”

  “Just like we figured,” García replied. “Nada.”

  “What do you think of Timmy’s theory? About how they got rid of the body?”

  “If the doctor really killed her then, yeah, it’s possible. That’s quite a machine brother George has got himself.”

  Stranahan said, “Too bad brother George won’t flip.”

  García rolled up the windows and turned on the air-conditioning to cool off. He knew what Stranahan was thinking and he was right: Brother George could blow the whole thing wide open. If Maggie were dead or gone, the videotape alone would not be enough for an indictment. They would definitely need George Graveline to talk about Vicky Barletta.

  “I’m going for some fresh air,” Stranahan said. “Why don’t you meet me back here in about an hour?”

  García said, “Where the hell you off to?”

  Stranahan got out of the car. “For a walk, do you mind? Go get some coffee or flan or something.”

  “Mick, don’t do anything stupid. It’s too nice a day for being stupid.”

  “Hey, it’s a lovely day.” Stranahan slammed the car door and crossed the boulevard at a trot.

  “Shit,” García muttered. “Mierda!”

  He drove down to the Oasis restaurant and ordered a cup of overpowering Cuban coffee. Then he ordered another.

  GEORGE Graveline was still alone when Mick Stranahan got there. He was leaning against the truck fender, staring at his logger boots. He looked up at Stranahan, straightened, and said, “You put that damn cop on my ass.”

  “Good morning, George,” said Stranahan. “It’s certainly nice to see you again.”

  “Fuck you, hear?”

  “Are we having a bad day? What is it—cramps?”

  George Graveline was one of those big, slow guys who squint when they get angry. He was squinting now. Methodically he clenched and unclenched his fists, as if he were practicing isometrics.

  Stranahan said, “George, I’ve still got that problem I told you about last time. Your brother’s still got some goon trying to murder me. I’m really at the end of my rope.”

  “You got that right.”

  “My guess,” continued Stranahan, “is that you and Rudy had a brotherly talk after last time. My guess is that you know exactly where I can locate this goony hit man.”

  “Screw you,” said George Graveline. He kicked the switch on the wood chipper and the motor growled to life.

  Stranahan said, “Aw, what’d you do that for? How’m I supposed to hear you over all that damn racket?”

  George Graveline lunged with both arms raised stiff in fury, a Frankenstein monster with Elvis jowls. He was clawing for Stranahan’s neck. Stranahan ducked the grab and punched George Graveline hard under the heart. When the tree trimmer didn’t fall, Stranahan punched him twice in the testicles. This time George went down.

  Stranahan placed his right foot on the husky man’s neck and applied the pressure slowly, shifting his weight from heel to toe. By reflex George’s hands were riveted to his swollen scrotum. He was helpless to fight back. He made a noise like a tractor tire going flat.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” Stranahan muttered. “Isn’t it possible to have a civilized conversation in this town without somebody trying to kill you?”

  It was a rhetorical question but George Graveline couldn’t hear it over the wood chipper, anyway. Stranahan leaned over and shouted: “Where’s the goon?”

  George did not answer promptly, so Stranahan added more weight on the Adam’s apple. George was not squinting anymore; both eyes were quite large.

  “Where is he?” Stranahan repeated.

  When George’s lips started moving, Stranahan let up. The voice that came out of the tree trimmer’s mouth had a fuzzy electronic quality. Stranahan knelt to hear it.

  “Works on the beach,” said George Graveline.

  “Can we be more specific?”

  “At a club.”

  “What club, George? There’s lots of nightclubs on Miami Beach.”

  George blinked and said, “Gay Bidet.” Now it was done, he thought. His brother Rudy was a goner.

  “Thank you, George,” said Stranahan. He removed his shoe from the tree trimmer’s throat. “This is a good start. I’m very encouraged. Now let’s talk about Vicky Barletta.”

  George Graveline lay there with his head in the moist dirt, his groin throbbing. He lay there worrying about his brother the doctor, about what horrible things would happen to him all because of George’s big mouth. Rudy had confided in him, trusted him, and now George had let his brother down. Lying there dejectedly, he decided that no matter how much pain was inflicted upon him, he wasn’t going to tell Mick Stranahan what had happened to that college girl. Rudy had made a mistake, everybody makes mistakes. Why, one time George himself got a work order mixed up and cut down a whole row of fifty-foot royal palms, when it was mangy old Brazilians he was supposed to chop. Still, they didn’t put him in jail or anything, just made him pay a fine. Hundred bucks a tree, something like that. Why should a doctor be treated any different? As he reflected upon Rudy’s turbulent medical career, George Graveline removed one of his hands from his swollen scrotum. The free hand happened to settle on a hunk of fresh-cut mahogany concealed by his left leg. The wood was heavy, the bark coarse and dry. George closed his fingers around it. It felt pretty good.

  Still kneeling, Mick Stranahan nudged George Graveline’s shoulder and said, “Penny for your thoughts.”

  And George hit him square on the back of the skull.

  Stranahan didn’t see the blow, and at first he thought he’d been shot. He heard a man shouting and what sounded like an ambulance. The rescue scene played vividly in his imagination. He waited to feel the paramedics’ hands ripping open his shirt. He waited for the cold clap of the stethoscope on his chest, for the sting of the I.V. needle in his arm. He waited for the child-like sensation of being lifted onto the stretcher.

  None of this came, yet the sound of the ambulance siren would not go away. In his crashing sleep, Stranahan grew angry. Where were the goddamn EMTs? A man’s been shot here!

  Then, blessedly, he felt someone lifting him. Lifting him under the arms, someone strong. It hurt, oh, God, how it hurt, but that was all right—at least they had come. But then he was falling again, falling or dying, he couldn’t be sure. And in his crashing sleep he heard the moan of the siren rise to such a pitch that he wanted to cover his ears and scream for it to stop, please God.

  And it did stop.

  Somebody shut off the wood chipper.

  Stranahan awoke to the odd hollow silence that follows a sharp echo. His eardrums fluttered. The air smelled pungently of cordite. He found himself on his knees, weaving, a drunk waiting for communion. His shirt was damp, his pulse rabbity. He checked himself and saw he was
mistaken, he hadn’t been shot. There was no ambulance, either, just the tree truck.

  Al García sat on the bumper. His gun was in his right hand, which hung heavily at his side. He was as pale as a flounder.

  There was no sign of George Graveline anywhere.

  “You all right?” Stranahan asked.

  “No,” said the detective.

  “Where’s the tree man?”

  With the gun García pointed toward the bin of the tree truck, where the wood chipper had spit what bone and jelly was left of George Graveline.

  After he had tried to feed Mick Stranahan into the maw.

  And Al García had shot him twice in the back.

  And the impact of the bullets had slammed him face-forward down the throat of the tree-eating machine.

  CHAPTER 26

  CHEMO got the Bonneville out of the garage and drove out to Whispering Palms, but the receptionist said that Dr. Graveline wasn’t there. Noticing the dramatic topography of Chemo’s face, the receptionist told him she could try the doctor at home for an emergency. Chemo said thanks, anyway.

  After leaving the clinic, he walked around to the side of the building where the employees parked. Dr. Graveline’s spiffy new Jaguar XJ-6 was parked in its space. This was the Jaguar that the doctor had purchased immediatley after Mick Stranahan had blown up his other one. The sedan was a rich shade of red; candy apple, Chemo guessed, though the Jaguar people probably had a fancier name for it. The windows of the car were tinted gray so that you couldn’t see inside. Chemo assumed that Dr. Graveline had a burglar alarm wired on the thing, so he was careful not to touch the doors or the hood.

  He ambled to the rear of the clinic, by the water, and peeked through the bay window into Rudy’s private office. There was the doctor, yakking on the phone. Chemo was annoyed; it was rude of Graveline to be ducking him this way. Rude, hell. It was just plain stupid.

  When Chemo turned the corner of the building, he saw a short man in an ill-fitting gray suit standing next to Rudy’s car. The man wore dull brown shoes and black-rimmed eyeglasses. He looked to be in his mid-fifties. Chemo walked up to him and said, “Are you looking for Graveline?”

  The man in the black-rimmed glasses appraised Chemo skittishly and said, “Are you him?”

  “Fuck no. But this is his car.”

  “They told me he wasn’t here.”

  “They lied,” Chemo said. “Hard to believe, isn’t it?”

  The man opened a brown billfold to reveal a cheap-looking badge. “I work for the county,” he said. “I’m trying to serve some papers on the doctor. I been trying two, three days.”

  Chemo said, “See that side door? You wait here, he’ll be out soon. It’s almost five o’clock.”

  “Thanks,” said the process server. He went over and stood, idiotically, by the side entrance to the clinic. He clutched the court papers rolled up in one hand, as if he were going to sap the doctor when he came out.

  Chemo slipped the calfskin sheath off the Weed Whacker and turned his attention to Rudy’s new Jaguar. He chose as his starting place the left front fender.

  Initially it was slow going—those British sure knew how to paint an automobile. At first the Weed Whacker inflicted only pale stripes on the deep red enamel. Chemo tried lowering the device closer to the fender and bracing it in position with his good arm. It took fifteen minutes for the powerful lawn cutter to work its way down to the base steel of the sedan. Chemo moved its buzzing head back and forth in a sweeping motion to enlarge the scar.

  From his waiting post outside the clinic door, the process server watched the odd ceremony with rapt fascination. Finally he could stand it no longer, and shouted at Chemo.

  Chemo turned away from the Jaguar and looked at the man in the black-rimmed glasses. He flicked the toggle switch to turn off the Weed Whacker, then cupped his right hand to his ear.

  The man said, “What are you doing with that thing?”

  “Therapy,” Chemo answered. “Doctor’s orders.”

  LIKE many surgeons, Dr. Rudy Graveline was a compulsive man, supremely organized but hopelessly anal retentive. The day after the disturbing phone call from Commissioner Roberto Pepsical, Rudy meticulously wrote out a list of all his career-threatening problems. By virtue of the scope of his extortion, Roberto Pepsical was promoted to the number three spot, behind Mick Stranahan and Chemo. Rudy studied the list closely. In the larger context of a possible murder indictment, Roberto Pepsical was chickenshit. Expensive chickenshit, but chickenshit just the same.

  Rudy Graveline dialed the number in New Jersey and waited for Curly Eyebrows to come on the line.

  “Jeez, I told you not to call me here. Let me get to a better phone.” The man hung up, and Rudy waited. Ten minutes later the man called back.

  “Lemme guess, your problem’s got worse.”

  “Yes,” said Rudy.

  “That local talent you hired, he wasn’t by himself after all.”

  “He was,” Rudy said, “but not now.”

  “That’s pretty funny.” Curly Eyebrows laughed flatulently. Somewhere in the background a car blasted its horn. The man said, “You rich guys are something else. Always trying to do it on the cheap.”

  “Well, I need another favor,” Rudy said.

  “Such as what?”

  “Remember the hunting accident a few years ago?”

  Curly Eyebrows said, “Sure. That doctor. The one was giving you a hard time.”

  The man in New Jersey didn’t remember the name of the dead doctor, but Rudy Graveline certainly did. It was Kenneth Greer, one of his former partners at the Durkos Center. The one who figured out what had happened to Victoria Barletta. The one who was trying to blackmail him.

  “That was a cinch,” said Curly Eyebrows. “I wish they all could be hunters. Every deer season we could clean up the Gambinos that way. Hunting accidents.”

  The man in New Jersey had an itch—on the line Rudy Graveline heard the disgusting sound of fat fingers scratching hairy flesh. He tried not to think about it.

  “Somebody new is giving me a hard time,” the doctor said. “I don’t know if you can help, but I thought I’d give it a shot.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “It’s the Dade County Commission,” Rudy said. “I need somebody to kill them. Can you arrange it?”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “All of them,” Rudy said, evenly.

  “Excuse me, Doc, but you’re fucking crazy. Don’t call me no more.”

  “Please,” Rudy said. “Five of them are shaking me down for twenty five grand each. The trouble is, I don’t know which five. So my idea is to kill all nine.”

  Curly Eyebrows grunted. “You got me confused.”

  Patiently Rudy explained how the bribe system worked, how each commissioner arranged for four crooked colleagues to go along on each controversial vote. Rudy told the man in New Jersey about the Old Cypress Towers project, about how the commissioners were trying to pinch him for the zoning decision he no longer needed.

  “Hey, a deal is a deal,” Curly Eyebrows said unsympathetically. “Seems to me you got yourself in a tight situation.” Now it sounded like he was picking his teeth with a comb.

  Rudy said, “You won’t help?”

  “Won’t. Can’t. Wouldn’t.” The man coughed violently, then spit. “Much as the idea appeals to me personally—killing off an entire county commission—it’d be bad for business.”

  “It was just an idea,” Rudy said. “I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Want some free advice?”

  “Why not.”

  Curly Eyebrows said, “Who’s the point man in this deal? You gotta know his name, at least.”

  “I do.”

  “Good. I suggest something happens to the bastard. Something awful bad. This could be a lesson to the other eight pricks, you understand?”

  Rudy Graveline said yes, he understood.

  “Trust me,” said the man in New Jersey. “I been in this e
nd of it for a long time. Sort of thing makes an impression, especially dealing with your mayors and aldermen and those types. These are not exactly tough guys.”

  “I suppose not.” Rudy cleared his throat. “Listen, that’s a very good idea. Just do one of them.”

  “That’s my advice,” said the man in New Jersey.

  “Could you arrange it?”

  “Shit, I ain’t risking my boys on some lowlife county pol. No way. Talent’s too hard to come by these days—you found that out yourself.”

  Rudy recalled the newspaper story about Tony the Eel, washed up dead on the Cape Florida beach. “I still feel bad about that fellow last month,” the doctor said.

  “Hey, it happens.”

  “But still,” said Rudy morosely.

  “You ought to get out of Florida,” advised Curly Eyebrows. “I been telling all my friends, it’s not like the old days. Fuck the pretty beaches, Doc, them Cubans are crazy. They’re not like you and me. And then there’s the Jews and the Haitians, Christ!”

  “Times change,” said Rudy.

  “I was reading up on it, some article about stress. Florida is like the worst fucking place in America for stressing out, besides Vegas. I’m not making this up.”

  Dispiritedly, Rudy Graveline said, “It seems like everybody wants a piece of my hide.”

  “Ain’t it the fucking truth.”

  “I swear, I’m not a violent person by nature.”

  “Costa Rica,” said the man in New Jersey. “Think about it.”

  COMMISSIONER Roberto Pepsical got to the church fifteen minutes early and scouted the aisles: a bag lady snoozing on the third pew, but that was it. To kill time Roberto lit a whole row of devotional candles. Afterward he fished through his pocket change and dropped a Canadian dime in the coin box.

  When the doctor arrived, Roberto waddled briskly to the back of the church. Rudy Graveline was wearing a tan sports jacket and dark, loose-fitting pants and a brown striped necktie. He looked about as calm as a rat in a snake hole. In his right hand was a black Samsonite suitcase. Wordlessly Roberto brushed past him and entered one of the dark confessionals. Rudy waited about three minutes, checked over both shoulders, opened the door, and went in.