Skin Tight

  Stranahan was always grateful for a clean ocean breeze. He sprawled on the eastern slope of the roof, facing the Atlantic. A DC-10 took off from Miami International and passed over Stiltsville, rattling the windmill on Stranahan’s house. He wondered what it would be like to wake up and find the city vaporized, the skies clear and silent, the shoreline lush and virginal! He would have loved to live here at the turn of the century, when nature owned the upper hand.

  The cool wind tickled the hair on his chest and legs. Stranahan tasted salt on his lips and closed his eyes. One of his ex-wives, he couldn’t remember which, had told him he ought to move to Alaska and become a hermit. You’re such an old grump, she had said, not even the grizzly bears’d put up with you. Now Stranahan recalled which wife had said this: Donna, his second. She had eventually grown tired of all his negativity. Every big city has crime, she had said. Every big city has corruption. Look at New York, she had said. Look at Chicago. Those are great goddamn cities, Mick, you gotta admit. Like so many cocktail waitresses, Donna steadfastly refused to give up on humanity. She believed that the good people of the world outnumbered the bad, and she got the tips to prove it. After the divorce, she had enrolled in night school and earned her Florida real estate license; Stranahan had heard she’d moved to Jacksonville and was going great guns in the waterfront condo market. Bleakly it occurred to him that all his former wives (even Chloe, who had nailed a CPA for a husband) had gone on to greater achievements after the divorce. It was as if being married to Stranahan had made each of them realize how much of the real world they were missing.

  He thought of Christina Marks. How did he get mixed up with such a serious woman? Unlike the others he had loved and married, Christina avidly pursued that which was evil and squalid and polluted. Her job was to expose it. There was not a wisp of true innocence about her, not a trace of cheery waitress-type optimism . . . yet something powerful attracted him. Maybe because she slogged through the same moral swamps. Crooked cops, crooked lawyers, crooked doctors, crooked ex-wives, even crooked tree trimmers—these were the spawn of the city bog.

  Stranahan’s fingers found the stock of the shotgun, and he moved it closer. Soon he fell asleep, and he dreamed that Victoria Barletta was alive. He dreamed that he met her one night in the Rathskellar on the University of Miami campus. She was working behind the bar, wearing a pink butterfly bandage across the bridge of her nose. Stranahan ordered a beer and a cheeseburger medium, and asked her if she wanted to get married. She said sure.

  THE boat woke him up. It was a familiar yellow skiff with a big outboard. Stranahan saw it a mile away, trimmed up, running the flats. He smiled—the bonefish guide, his friend. With all the low dirty clouds it was difficult to estimate the time, but Stranahan figured the sun had been up no more than two hours. He dropped from the roof, stowed the Remington inside the house, and pulled on a pair of jeans so as not to startle the guide’s customers, who were quite a pair. The man was sixty-five, maybe older, obese and gray, with skin like rice parchment; the woman was twenty-five tops, tall, dark blond, wearing bright coral lip gloss and a gold choker necklace.

  The guide climbed up to the stilt house and said, “Mick, take a good look. Fucking lipstick on a day like this.”

  From the skiff, tied up below, Stranahan could hear the couple arguing about the weather. The woman wanted to go back, since there wasn’t any sun for a decent tan. The old man said no, he’d paid his money and by God they would fish.

  Stranahan said to his friend, “You’ve got the patience of Job.”

  The guide shook his head. “A killer mortgage is what I’ve got. Here, this is for you.”

  It was an envelope with Stranahan’s name printed in block letters on the outside. “Woman with two black eyes told me to give it to you,” the guide said. “Cuban girl, not bad looking, either. She offered me a hundred bucks.”

  “Hope you took it.”

  “I held out for two,” the guide said.

  Stranahan folded the envelope in half and tucked it in the back pocket of his jeans.

  The guide said, “You in some trouble?”

  “Just business.”

  “Mick, you don’t have a business.”

  Stranahan grinned darkly. “True enough.” He knew what his friend was thinking: Single guy, cozy house on the water, a good boat for fishing, a monthly disability check from the state—how could anybody fuck up a sweet deal like that?

  “I heard some asshole shot hell out of the place.”

  “Yeah.” Stranahan pointed to a sheet of fresh plywood on the door. The plywood covered two of Chemo’s bullet holes. “I’ve got to get some red paint,” Stranahan said.

  The guide said, “Forget the house, what about your shoulder?”

  “It’s fine,” Stranahan said.

  “Don’t worry, it was Luis who told me.”

  “No problem. You want some coffee?”

  “Naw.” The bonefish guide jerked a thumb in the direction of his skiff. “This old fart, he’s on the board of some steel company up North. That’s his secretary.”

  “God bless him.”

  The guide said, “Last time they went fishing, I swear, she strips off the bottom of her bathing suit. Not the top, Mick, the bottom part. All day long, flashing her bush in my face. Said she was trying to bleach out her pubes. Here I’m poling like a maniac after these goddamn fish, and she’s turning somersaults in front of the boat, trying to keep her bush in the sun.”

  Stranahan said, “I don’t know how you put up with it.”

  “So today there’s no sunshine and of course she’s throwin’ a fit. Meanwhile the old fart says all he wants is a world-record bonefish on fly. That’s all. Mick, I’m too old for this shit.” The guide pulled on his cap so tightly that it crimped the tops of his ears. Lugubriously he descended the stairs to the dock.

  “Good luck,” Stranahan said. Under the circumstances, it sounded ridiculous.

  The guide untied the yellow skiff and hopped in. Before starting the engine, he looked up at Stranahan and said, “I’ll be out here tomorrow, even if the weather’s bad. The next day, too.”

  Stranahan nodded; it was good to know. “Thanks, Captain,” he said.

  After the skiff was gone, Stranahan returned to the top of the house and took the envelope out of his pocket. He opened it calmly because he knew what it was and who it was from. He’d been waiting for it.

  The message read: We’ve got your girlfriend. No cops!

  And it gave a telephone number.

  Mick Stranahan memorized the number, crumpled the paper, and tossed it off the roof into the milky waves. “Somebody’s been watching too much television,” he said.

  THAT afternoon, Mick Stranahan received another disturbing message. It was delivered by Luis Córdova, the young marine patrol officer. He gave Stranahan a lift by boat from Stiltsville to the Crandon Marina, where Stranahan got a cab to his sister Kate’s house in Gables-by-the-Sea.

  Sergeant Al García was fidgeting on the front terrace. Over his JCPenney suit he was wearing what appeared to be an authentic London Fog trenchcoat. Stranahan knew that García was upset because he was smoking those damn Camels again. Even before Stranahan could finish paying the cabbie, García was charging down the driveway, blue smoke streaming from his nostrils like one of those cartoon bulls.

  “So,” the detective said, “Luis fill you in?”

  Stranahan said yes, he knew that Kipper Garth had been gravely injured in a domestic dispute.

  García blocked his path up the drive. “By a client, Mick. Imagine that.”

  “I didn’t know the client, Al.”

  “Name of Nordstrom, John Nordstrom.” García was working the sodden nub of the Camel the same way he worked the cigars, from one side of his mouth to the other. Stranahan found it extremely distracting.

  “According to the wife,” García said, “the assailant returned home unexpectedly and found your brother-in-law, the almost deceased—”

  “Thank
you, Al.”

  “—found the almost deceased fondling his wife. Whereupon, the assailant attempted to strike the almost deceased at least three times with pelotas. That’s a jai-alai ball, Mick. The third shot struck your brother-in-law at the base of the skull, rendering him unconscious.”

  “The dumb shit. How’s Kate?”

  “Puzzled,” García said. “But then, aren’t we all?”

  “I want to see her.” Stranahan sidestepped the detective and made for the front door. His sister was standing by the bay window of the Florida room and staring out at Kipper Garth’s sailboat, the Pain-and-Suffering, which was rocking placidly at the dock behind the house. Stranahan gave Kate a hug and kissed her on the forehead.

  She sniffled and said, “Did they tell you?”

  “Yes, Kate.”

  “That he was groping a client—did they tell you?”

  Stranahan said, “That’s the woman’s story.”

  Kate gave a bitter chuckle. “And you don’t believe it? Come on, Mick, I believe it. Kipper was a pig, let’s face it. You were right, I was wrong.”

  Stranahan didn’t know what to say. “He had some good qualities.” Jesus, how stupid. “Has some good qualities, I mean.”

  “The doctors say it’s fifty-fifty, but I’m ready for the worst. Kipper’s not a fighter.”

  “He might surprise you,” Stranahan said without conviction.

  “Mick, just so you know—I was aware of what he was up to. Some of the excuses, God, you should have heard them. Late nights, weekends, trips to God knows where. I pretended to believe him because . . . because I liked this life, Mick. The house . . . this great yard. I mean, it sounds selfish, but it felt good here. Safe. This is a wonderful neighborhood.”

  “Katie, I’m sorry.”

  “Neighborhoods like this are hard to find, Mick. You know, we’ve only been burglarized twice in four years. That’s not bad for Miami.”

  “Not at all,” Stranahan said.

  “See, I had to weigh these things every time I thought about leaving.” Kate put a hand on his arm and said, “You knew about all his fooling around.”

  “Not everything.”

  “Thanks for not mentioning it.” She was sincere.

  Stranahan felt like a complete shit, which he was. “This is my fault,” he said. “I told Kipper to take this case. I made him take it.”

  “How?” she asked. “And why?”

  “Whatever you’re thinking, it’s even worse. I can’t tell you all the details, Kate, because there’s going to be trouble and I want you clear of it. But you ought to know that I’m the one who got Kipper involved.”

  “But you’re not the one who played grab-the-tittie with your client. He did.” She turned back to the big window and folded her arms. “It’s so . . . tacky.”

  “Yes,” Stranahan agreed. “Tacky’s the word.”

  WHEN he came out of the house, García was waiting.

  “Wasn’t that courteous of me, not barging in and making a big Cuban scene in front of your sister?”

  “Al, you’re a fucking prince among men.”

  “Know why I’m wearing this trenchcoat? It’s brand-new, by the way. I hadda go to another funeral: Bobby Pepsical, the county commissioner. Dropped dead in confession.”

  “Good place for it. He was a stone crook.”

  “Course he was, Mick. But I got a feeling he didn’t get his penance.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because there wasn’t a priest in there. Bobby’s confessing to an empty closet—that’s pretty weird, huh? Anyway, they make a bunch of us go to the fucking funeral, because of who he was. That’s why I’ve got the new coat. It was raining.”

  Stranahan said, “How was it? Did they screw him into the ground? That’s about how crooked he was.”

  “I know but, Christ, have some respect for the dead.” García rubbed his temples like he was massaging a cramp. “See, this is what’s got me so agitated, Mick. Ever since I got into this thing with you and the doctor, so many people are dying. Dying weird, too. There’s your ex, and Murdock and Salazar—another funeral! Then the business with that goddamn homicidal tree man. So after all that, here I am standing in the rain, watching them plant some scuzzbucket politician who croaks on his knees in an empty confessional, and my frigging beeper goes off. Lieutenant says some big-shot lawyer got beaned by a jai-alai ball and could be a homicide any second. A jai-alai ball! On top of which the big-shot lawyer turns out to be your brother-in-law. It’s like a nightmare of weirdness!”

  “It’s been a bad month,” Stranahan conceded.

  “Yeah, it sure has. So what about these Nordstroms?”

  “I didn’t know them, I told you.”

  García lit up another cigarette and Stranahan made a face. “Know why I’m smoking these things? Because I’m agitated. I get agitated whenever I get jerked around, and I hate to waste a good cigar on agitation.”

  Stranahan said, “Can you please not blow it in my face? That’s all I ask.”

  The detective took the cigarette out of his mouth and held it behind his back. “There, you happy? Now help me out, Mick. The assailant’s wife, she says Kipper Garth phones her out of the blue and asks if she wants to sue—guess who—Rudy Graveline! Since he’s the quack who gave her the encapsulated whatchamacallits.”

  “If that’s what she says, fine.”

  “But lawyers aren’t supposed to solicit.”

  “Al, this is Miami.”

  García took a quick drag and hid the Camel again. “My theory is you somehow got your sleazy, almost-deceased brother-in-law to sue Graveline, just to bust his balls. Shake things up. Maybe flush the giant Mr. Blondell Tatum out of his fugitive gutter. I don’t expect you to open up your heart, Mick, but just tell me this: Did it work? Because if it did, you’re a fucking genius and I apologize for all the shitty things I’ve been saying about you in my sleep.”

  “Did what work?”

  García grinned venomously. “I thought we were buddies.”

  “Al, I’m not going to shut you out,” Stranahan said. “For God’s sake, you saved my life.”

  “Aw, shucks, you remembered.”

  Stranahan said: “Which one do you want, Al? The freaky hit man or the doctor?”

  “Both.”

  “No, I’m sorry.”

  “Hey, I could arrest your ass right now. Obstruction, tampering, I’d think of something.”

  “And I’d be out in an hour.”

  García’s jaw tightened for a moment and he turned away, stewing. When he turned back, he seemed more amused than angry.

  “The problem is, Mick, you’re too smart. You know the system too damn well. You know there’s only so much I can get away with.”

  “Believe me, we’re on the same side.”

  “I know, chico, that’s what scares me.”

  “So, which of these bastards do you want for yourself—the surgeon or the geek?”

  “Don’t rush me, Mick.”

  CHAPTER 30

  EARLY on the morning of February nineteenth, Reynaldo Flemm, the famous Shock Television journalist, arrived at the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center for the most sensational interview of his sensational career. A sleepy receptionist collected the $15,000 cash and counted it twice; if she was surprised by the size of the surgeon’s fee, she didn’t show it. The receptionist handed Reynaldo Flemm two photocopied consent forms, one for a rhinoplasty and one for a suction-assisted lipectomy. Reynaldo skimmed the paperwork and extravagantly signed as “Johnny LeTigre.”

  Then he sat down to wait for his moment. On a buff-colored wall hung a laminated carving of one of Rudy Graveline’s pet sayings: TO IMPROVE ONE’S SELF, IMPROVE ONE’S FACE. That wasn’t Reynaldo’s favorite Rudyism. His favorite was framed in quilted Norman Rockwell-style letters above the water fountain: VANITY IS BEAUTIFUL. That’s the one Reynaldo had told Willie about. Be sure to get a quick shot on your way in, he had told him. What for? Willie had asked. For
the irony, Reynaldo Flemm had exclaimed. For the irony! Reynaldo was proud of himself for thinking up that camera shot; usually Christina Marks was in charge of finding irony.

  Soon an indifferent young nurse summoned Reynaldo to a chilly examining room and instructed him to empty his bladder, a tedious endeavor that took fifteen minutes and produced scarcely an ounce. Reynaldo Flemm was a very nervous man. In his professional life he had been beaten by Teamsters, goosed by white supremacists, clubbed by Mafia torpedoes, pistol-whipped by Bandito bikers, and kicked in the groin by the Pro-Life Posse. But he had never undergone surgery. Not even a wart removal.

  Flemm stiffly removed his clothes and pulled off his hightop Air Jordans. He changed into a baby-blue paper gown that hung to his knees. The nurse gave him a silly paper cap to cover his silly dyed hair, and paper shoe covers for his bare feet.

  A nurse anesthetist came out of nowhere, brusquely flipped up the tail of Reynaldo’s gown and stuck a needle in his hip. The hypodermic contained a drug called Robinul, which dries up the mouth by inhibiting oral secretions. Next the nurse seized Reynaldo’s left arm, swabbed it, and stuck it cleanly with an I.V. needle that dripped into his veins a lactated solution of five percent dextrose and, later, assorted powerful sedatives.