Bad Monkey (37 page)

“You think they’re recording us?” she said, looking around for a video camera.

Yancy said no. The phone calls usually got taped but he wasn’t sure about visitations.

“Cody wants to come see me, too, but Mr. Montenegro says absolutely not.”

“Why did you do this, Bonnie? So much drama.”

“Oh please. It was all for you. Don’t pretend like you don’t get it, or I’ll really be upset.”

“But I truly
don’t
get it.”

“You were right about Cody,” she said. “He was keeping a secret journal of everything we did, just like before. His notion is to do a book and get rich. He thinks he can write, which I suppose is my fault for building him up so much in class. But isn’t that what teachers are supposed to do? I didn’t know he would peak in eleventh grade! At first I was livid about the new diary, but then Mr. Montenegro said it’s good for my case in Oklahoma because they’d have to charge him with aiding a fugitive, which would be messy for the prosecutors.”

“Because he’s supposed to be the victim,” Yancy said.

“Exactly, Andrew. The boy I supposedly corrupted.”

“Here’s the thing: They don’t need Cody’s testimony to convict you for bail jumping. Also, Bonnie, this arson? Major felony. Nobody gets a free pass if they torch a home.”

“Insane people do. Eighteen months of treatment, then we can be together again. I’ve done my research.”

“Insanely jealous isn’t the same as clinically insane.” Yancy impatiently drummed two fingers on the table. “Why am I even bothering with this conversation? You
are
somewhat nuts, I’ll give you that. But no judge in Florida would let you walk.”

“I miss you so much, darling. Did you hear about Cliff strangling himself?”

“Yes, it was an inconsiderate choice of venue. The Kiwanians do good work.”

“He probably took me out of his will when I ran off with Cody. Not that I care about the money.”

“You and the doctor are still legally married. He dies tomorrow, you’ll get half the estate.” Yancy winked at her. “Not that you care.”

“God, when did you get so mean?”

“Ever since I drove down my street and saw flames shooting into the sky.”

She reached across the table and pinched him hard. “Why are you being like this? It was your idea—don’t you dare say you don’t remember. I did this for you!”

Yancy said, “Okay, now you are officially in lunar orbit.”

“It was that night at your place when we were lying out on the deck. You put the blanket down—that wool blanket that smelled like a wet puppy—then we smoked a number and drank a bottle of cabernet.” Bonnie’s jaw was working and she was squeezing her hands together.

“We went out there to make love and watch the moon set over the Gulf, right? You said it was the most peaceful sight imaginable, a golden spring moon. But then it turned out that guy’s new house was in the way.”

Yancy lowered his forehead to the table. “You can’t be serious.”

“It was so tall it blocked out the whole arc of the moon,” she went on. “You got real sad and then super angry, and that’s when you turned to me and said—”

“I oughta burn that fucking house down.”

“See, you
do
remember!”

“Word for word,” Yancy muttered to the tabletop.

The worst day of Evan Shook’s existence began when he sent a text message to his wife that read: “See you in Miami tonight. Don’t forget to bring our little friend!”

Mrs. Evan Shook was perplexed because she had no plans to visit him in Florida, engrossed as she was with hosting a cocktail party (including finger food) for the Republican Women’s Club of Greater Syracuse. Nor did she understand her husband’s reference to “our little friend,” which was actually a jackrabbit vibrator belonging to his mistress, the intended recipient of the text.

Only when his wife called to accuse him of arranging illicit threesomes did Evan Shook realize his calamitous typing mistake. She said she’d been hearing lurid rumors of his cheating ways, and now she had proof! It so happened that one of the most feared divorce lawyers in
the tri-state region would be attending that night’s fund-raiser, and Evan Shook’s wife said she planned to fuck him and then hire him.

Against such a blindsiding Evan Shook rustled up what he regarded as a passable defense: The text had been meant for Ford Lipscomb, the “little friend” being a cashier’s check to cover construction overruns on the Keys house. This yarn was rejected with savage derision. Evan Shook’s wife advised him to hang on to his shriveled little nuts because she and her new attorney were coming with a blowtorch.

“And a Brink’s truck,” she added, and hung up.

So it was understandable that Evan Shook was preoccupied as he headed to Big Pine for a meeting with a landscape architect retained by Mrs. Lipscomb, also en route. On the highway his Suburban was passed by two speeding fire engines that normally would have aroused his curiosity, but he remained fogged with gloom. No internal alarms went off as he turned onto Key Deer Boulevard and saw the smoke; he thought it was just some redneck burning tires.

A green Sebring convertible went flying past in the opposite direction, and that’s when Evan Shook’s senses stirred: The woman at the wheel of the car was his next-door neighbor’s stalker. Suddenly the billowing plume held promise, and Evan Shook drove faster. He’d never made that pledged phone call to Agent John Wesley Weiderman, never reported his encounter with the pretty fugitive on Yancy’s backyard deck.

And he never would.

By the time he came around the corner of the block, Evan Shook was completely prepared to see a house on fire. He was not, however, expecting the house to be his own.

The first words from his lips were “Fuck me!” It was not an unapt metaphor for what had occurred, and he would repeat it often to no one in particular. The spec house was, in the parlance of professional firefighting, fully engulfed.

Impressive were the efforts to save it but everything except the slab was raw fuel, from the wooden baseboards to the wooden trusses. Evan Shook positioned himself upwind, leaning against one of the fire trucks and watching in a funereal stupor as the walls of his island investment buckled and turned to ash.

Mrs. Lipscomb showed up sobbing in the company of her landscaper, whose shared grief was triggered by the loss of a lucrative contract. Next to arrive on scene was Agent Weiderman, who provided the police with the name, description and automobile information of the suspected arsonist. Twenty minutes later Evan Shook was informed by a sweaty road sergeant that Plover Chase had been captured at a roadblock on Summerland Key. Four empty jerry cans smelling of gasoline were recovered from the trunk of her rental.

In the growing crowd Evan Shook recognized his insurance agent, who was scampering around snapping photographs. Although the site was covered for fire loss, Evan Shook couldn’t recall the numerical terms of the policy, specifically the payoff limits. He was morbidly aware of how much of his own money he’d sunk into the property, and additionally what he owed on the mortgage and construction loan. Even with the insurance check he could lose his ass. All that remained would be a pile of charred rubble and a bare lot, which Evan Shook undoubtedly would be forced to surrender in the divorce.

The future was nauseating to contemplate. Evan Shook wished he were a clueless bystander, not the victim, so he could enjoy the blaze for the crackling spectacle it was. At some point Agent Weiderman asked if Evan Shook could think of a reason why Plover Chase would torch his house instead of Andrew Yancy’s.

“No idea,” said Evan Shook. “Only thing I ever did to the lady was rent a hotel room for her and her deadbeat boyfriend.”

“Strange. Wonder why she picked you.”

“There’s the one you should ask!” Evan Shook was pointing at Yancy, who’d just stepped out of his car. He looked genuinely astounded by the sight of the fire.

Evan Shook squirted past the much taller Agent Weiderman and rushed toward Yancy yelling, “This is all your motherfucking fault! Your lunatic girlfriend burned down my house!”

Yancy surprised his neighbor by pinning him somewhat forcefully to the hood of the Subaru. “In the first place,” Yancy said nose to nose, “she couldn’t possibly have done this because she’s in Miami. Secondly, she’s not a lunatic, but on her behalf I’ll accept your heartfelt apology.”

“Not the doctor girlfriend,” Evan Shook wheezed. “The fucked-up blonde. You know which one.”

Yancy righted Evan Shook and set him on the ground like a lawn jockey. Agent Weiderman wedged the men apart and led Yancy away to brief him on the improbable particulars of the crime. Evan Shook was so upset that when the phone vibrated in his pants, he pulled out the stun gun by mistake and nearly Tazed his own ear.

After successfully extracting his cell he heard the voice of Ford Lipscomb:

“Jayne told me what happened, Evan. It’s so terrible, truly awful.” He was calling from the Gulf Stream aboard the
Misty Momma IV
, which he’d chartered for the day.

“It’s heartbreaking for us,” he continued, “but poor you! Good God, man, you must be in shock.”

“Something like that,” said Evan Shook.

“Jayne’s completely devastated. I just spoke with her and she says the place is still burning—they couldn’t save anything.”

Evan Shook whimpered to himself. Three firefighters were chopping at a smoldering portico. “Is this about your deposit, Mr. Lipscomb?”

“No rush,” he said. “Tomorrow’s fine. Whenever the banks open.”

Twenty-seven

Claspers didn’t come back. The following day, the Striplings enlisted another pilot to fly them out of Andros—a local guy with a dubiously maintained twin Beech, but Nick said go for it. The new pilot advised them to be ready at noon.

Cell service on the island was working again, so Eve phoned British Air in Nassau and booked two business-class seats to London. Her next call was to a spinal surgeon on Devonshire Street whose patients had awarded him four and a half stars on the Internet, which was insufficiently stellar for Nick but Eve made an appointment anyway.

While she was repacking for a longer, possibly permanent stay, Egg showed up. He was haggard and limping; Nick chewed him a new one anyway. The goon offered no apology for disappearing the night of the storm. He said he’d had a medical problem, so he’d brought back the Jeep and walked to the trailer at Curly Tail Lane. He didn’t say what had been done with Yancy’s girlfriend, and the Striplings didn’t ask.

Eve told Egg to look at the Super Rollie, which had been malfunctioning since Nick crashed it into the wall. Egg said the automatic steering was fucked up. Nick started hollering and cussing again because how else was he supposed to get through Heathrow if he couldn’t walk. Eve said all airports offered wheelchairs.

“Not with motors!” her husband railed. “Not with a goddamn iPod dock!”

He was in ragged shape despite the painkillers. Eve told Egg to roll
him outside while she finished filling the suitcases. In the hurricane’s aftermath Bannister Point was an obstacle course—branches and coconuts and two-by-fours all over the place. Egg in his hobbled condition did a poor job of dodging the rubble, and even the Rollie’s pneumatic suspension couldn’t spare Nick from the bumps. Between groans he rehashed for Egg the saga of his ambush.

Then he asked: “It wasn’t you who tried to kill me, was it?”

“No, mon. Why I do sum ting like dot?”

“You’d have to be brain-dead,” Stripling agreed. “But who could it be? I don’t have any enemies on this fuckin’ island. I don’t
know
anybody on this fuckin’ island.”

Egg reminded him about the vandal who’d peed on the backhoes at the construction site.

“I thought you took care of that sonofabitch,” Nick snapped.

“Yah, I hoyt ’im putty bod but he ain’t dead. I saw ’im utter night.”

Stripling wondered aloud if the stealth urinator was the same man he’d caught snooping outside the house, the old beach nigger he’d run off with the shotgun. Which, who’d be crazy enough to come back after somebody fired a twelve-gauge over your head?

Egg made no response. It wasn’t a daily occurrence that a sober white person used the n-word in his presence, but the boss man seemed clueless.

“You gotta find out who crippled me,” Nick went on. “That’s your number one job.”

Egg said he’d ask around town.

“Yeah, right. Be careful not to work up a goddamn sweat.” Nothing annoyed Stripling as much as lack of initiative. “Maybe your woman can help,” he needled Egg. “Do some of her voodoo shit and pull a name out of some dead chicken’s asshole.”

“Dot ain’t funny.”

“What’s with the limp?” Nick could see that the brute was hurting.

“Monkey fucked me up bod.”

“No shit?” It was Stripling’s first laugh in days.

Eve caught up with them on the road. When her husband saw she was out of breath, he asked what was wrong.

“You-know-who at Immigration just called,” she said. “Honey, it’s already in the computer—somebody in Miami flagged your passport!”

Stripling deflated in the scooter chair. “That fuckin’ Yancy got to the feds.”

Eve was jumpy and distraught. “So what now, Nicky? You-know-who said they won’t let you out of the country, and there’s nothing she can do. She said don’t go near the Nassau airport.”

“So screw Nassau. We’ll stay right here until I line up another way out. The Bahamians can’t arrest us till they get a warrant from the States, and that could take weeks. Months even. Meantime Mr. Ecclestone’ll keep an eye on Moxey’s for us, right? In case a chopper full of uniforms shows up.”

Egg sniffed noncommittally.

Eve said, “Arrest
us
? My passport’s clean. You’re the one with the fake.”

Sometimes she could be so thick it drove Nick nuts. “Yes, baby, ‘us’ as in Mr. and Mrs. Stripling, co-conspirators. You think Yancy left you out of the story? Like maybe he didn’t hear you telling me to go ahead and blow his brains out? Or maybe the Cuban babe forgot you were the one told Egg to put a gag in her mouth and get rid of her?”

“Yeah, but, Nicky—”