Bad Monkey (41 page)

“Oh. Yo!” Cody lifted one hand off the brown bag to wave, sort of.

John Wesley Weiderman crossed the parking lot unknotting his tie. The heat shimmered off the pavement like a vapor.

“I just had a visit with Ms. Chase,” he said.

Cody was antsy, shuffling in his flip-flops. “Yeah? That’s where I’m goin’ now.”

“Bet you’re wondering how all this will turn out.”

“Sure, dude. Absolutely.” His cheeks were flushed and his chubby neck was moist.

“Okay, here it is,” said John Wesley Weiderman. “Ms. Chase is going back to Tulsa, no matter what she thinks. The prosecutors here will drag out the arson case for months and she’ll wake up one day understanding that she’s basically rotting in that cell, that Mr. Yancy is no longer infatuated with her, and that she might as well be in Oklahoma working off her sentence. Her lawyer here will be relieved that she came to her senses, and the very next day we’ll be on a plane home, she and I.”

Cody looked as if his face had locked in the middle of a sneeze. “Huh,” was all he said.

“You all right?”

“Yeah, I’m … I’m good. Holy shit, it’s like two hundred friggin’ degrees out here.”

“What’s in the bag?”

“Books and stuff. She’s a major reader.”

“Me, too. May I have a look?” John Wesley Weiderman took the bag from Cody and opened it. He said, “See, this is what I was afraid of.”

“Dude, come on. Don’t, please …”

“Oh, I’m not about to touch anything,” the agent said. “Neither are you.”

There was a rubber Liberace mask and a chrome cap pistol. Cody had intended to bust his true love out of jail.

“I thought it’d be a super-cool thing for my diary, for when they make the book and movie. Her breaking out with some mystery man,” he whispered. “See, all I got so far is fifty-three pages and this agent I called in New York? She said that’s not enough. She said I need more material.”

The lawman closed the paper bag and handed it back.

“And that taxi would be your getaway car?”

“I know, right?” Cody was about to break down. “Sometimes I can be, like, a total fucking idiot.”

“That doesn’t begin to cover it,” said John Wesley Weiderman. “Get back in the cab and go straight to the bus station.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Buy yourself a ticket to anywhere.”

“Okay, dude. Thanks, like, so much. I totally mean it.” As Cody was stepping backward, he dropped the brown bag and kicked it away from his feet. “Yo, would you tell Ms. Chase I still love her like crazy?”

“If it ever comes up,” said John Wesley Weiderman.

Yancy lay out watching a thunderhead bloom in the Gulf. Every afternoon it was a new show, now that the house next door was gone. Earlier a convoy of dump trucks had hauled away the rubble and ashes, Evan Shook watching blankly from his Suburban. He’d told Yancy that the insurance payoff was tied up in his divorce, as was the property.
He and his future ex-wife couldn’t even agree on a real estate broker. Meanwhile his mistress had dumped him for a bluegrass player who had his own fucking website. Yancy couldn’t make himself feel sorry for Evan Shook. Bonnie shouldn’t have burned down the man’s house, but the house shouldn’t have been built to start with.

Not nine feet over code.

Not big enough to block out a setting moon.

Rosa was caught in Miami traffic, so Yancy put in his earbuds and smoked half a joint and opened a new bottle of Barbancourt. His name was in the papers again, thanks to Bonnie’s birdbrain interview with the
Citizen
. The headline:
FIERY CLIMAX TO SEX FUGITIVE’S ROMANCE
. To the reporter Bonnie had decoded the arson as a misguided act of love for Yancy. Then she’d rehashed their whole affair, a lowlight being the foolishness at Mallory Square.

The article made a racy splash, and Yancy could hardly blame Sheriff Sonny Summers for not taking his calls. He would be more approachable after Nick Stripling was arrested and returned to Florida, and there was credit to be claimed.

Meanwhile, the toxic new publicity had demolished Yancy’s chances of testifying at the grand jury; his role in the capture and prosecution of Stripling would have to be strictly invisible. Under no other circumstances would Yancy have enlisted the thieving though adroit Johnny Mendez. It was a backdoor move, using Crime Stoppers, but Yancy had grown impatient with the deliberate, overcautious duo at the FBI.

He downloaded the new Steve Earle and watched the high-stacked clouds turn purple. By the time Rosa arrived the bugs were insane, but she wanted to stay outside and see the crime scene next door. It had been a regular day at work, all grown-ups on the table, and Rosa was in a fair mood. The squall stalled offshore, so Yancy fired up the grill. Burton had dropped off some lobsters, most of them legal.

“Some men would be flattered,” Rosa said playfully, “if a sexy woman did something that dramatic to win back their love.”

“Oh yes, torching a stranger’s house. Hallmark should do a valentine.”

“Obviously she still cares for you, Andrew.”

“All I want out of a relationship is neutral buoyancy. Is that asking too much?” He was lightly buzzed.

“Maybe she just missed being the center of attention during those boring years as the doctor’s wife. Once you’re in the headlines it’s like a drug. That’s what they say.”

“Oh, is that what they say?” Yancy was grinning.

“Hey, I’m serious,” Rosa said.

“You’re adorable is what you are.”

“Wow, how much did you smoke?”

The lobsters were excellent. After dinner they tossed the shells into the canal and watched a swarm of mangrove snappers go berserk. Then Yancy walked Rosa back to the house and in the dark they took a long bath, the faraway weather strobing through the windowpanes. While she was moving on top of him, her hair flying, Yancy spied a palmetto bug on the shower curtain. For once he kept quiet and stayed in the moment. Deep space was what it seemed like, weightless and slow motion.

At midnight he and Rosa were dancing in their towels when his cell phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, so he didn’t answer it. Early the next morning it began ringing again; this time he picked up. It was Neville Stafford calling from Lizard Cay.

“Are you okay?” Yancy asked thickly.

“Yah, mon. How soon you come?”

“Why? What happened?”

Neville said, “Wot hoppen is Chrissofer gone.”

“What do you mean ‘gone’? Define ‘gone.’ ”

“I try’n call loss night.”

Yancy said, “This is un-fucking-believable.” Except it wasn’t.

“Tink you should come, mon.”

“Right away.” He put down the phone and looked hopefully at Rosa.

“Andrew, I love you,” she said, “but not enough to go back.”

Thirty

Key West homicide detectives reacted to the anonymous Crime Stoppers tip the way Yancy had expected they would. They didn’t go through diplomatic channels in Nassau, as was required of the FBI, but chose the more direct and efficient approach. They picked up the phone and called Lizard Cay.

There the Bahamian police contingent consisted of a single easygoing officer named Darrick. He was rattled to learn that the reclusive American developer of the Curly Tail Lane Resort was a fugitive murderer. As soon as Darrick got off the line with Key West, he made an agitated call to his superior at Andros Town, who made a more agitated call to a nephew of high rank on the Royal Bahamas Defence Force. A patrol boat refueling at Fresh Creek was dispatched to Rocky Town, triggering events that neither Yancy nor Neville Stafford could have foreseen.

The authority to detain foreign nationals rested at higher levels of the Bahamian government and required a tedious exchange of paperwork. In the meantime, Nicholas Joseph Stripling was put under a military surveillance that was highly visible, the purpose being to discourage thoughts of flight. The presence of the Defence Force commandos produced in Stripling round-the-clock anxiety and improvident behavior, including the constant berating of his wife, Eve. In actuality she’d had little to do with the hell-bound spiraling of his fortunes.

On the deciding night, Neville went snapper fishing at the mouth of the bight. The sea was velvet, the stars tucked behind thick clouds.
He carried a large flashlight that connected with rusty alligator clips to the boat’s battery. Driggs was a reluctant crew; huddled in the bow, he crossly labored to peel off a nicotine patch Neville had affixed to a bald spot on his chest.

Near one of the navigational markers the channel bottom dropped off into a deep gouge. There were giant cuberas, too powerful for Neville’s tackle, and also hogfish, excellent to eat but difficult to fool with a baited hook. Neville missed several strikes because he was too distracted, replaying in his mind a frightful finishing skirmish with the Dragon Queen.

It had happened on the road to the docks. The voodoo woman was drunk, slumped in her electric scooter chair and attended as usual by her murmuring matrons. At the sight of the monkey she began to keen, reaching for him with stained crooked fingers. Driggs yeeped and ducked behind Neville.

This rejection brought from the Dragon Queen a mortifying wail. Neville tried to dart past but she nimbly manipulated the joystick to keep the wheelchair in his path. She said Egg had gotten sick and she needed a new boyfriend, and she commanded Neville to come see her later for sex.

“You owe me, bey,” she said.

“Fuh wot I owe you?”

The Dragon Queen huffed. “Fuh dot woo-doo. Ha! You’ll see.” She held up a gold chain strung through a small, diamond-studded anchor. “Dis here fuh my lil’ pink boy.”

“No need, madam.”

“Take it, mon, ’less you hungry fuh pain.”

Neville was ashamed that he still feared her dark magic. He accepted the chain and handed it to Driggs, who began scratching at a scab with the prongs of the anchor charm. The Dragon Queen frowned and levered herself from the scooter. From the depths of her dress she produced a small meerschaum, which she waggled like a lollipop at Driggs.

“Don’t!” Neville warned, but the monkey wore a rictus leer as it flew toward the old woman’s ankles swinging the anchor necklace like a mace. She commenced a queer jig, kicking left and right at the frenetic creature while chanting in a voice as deep as pure evil.

Neville was not too preoccupied to notice Philip’s taxi van jouncing at a loose clip down the hill. He tackled Driggs and in a tangle they rolled clear. The Dragon Queen’s supplicants had also seen the speeding van and—rotund as they were—parted as fleetly as sparrows. Their excited shouts, loud enough for a tent revival, failed to pierce the voodoo woman’s boozy trance.

The taxi slammed hard into her bony frame as Philip stomped uselessly on the brake pedal. In a sinusoidal path the van petered on down the road. Through its punctured windshield jutted the Dragon Queen’s legs, her vivid raiments flapping like a broken beach umbrella. Terrified, Neville lowered a shoulder and barreled through her cow-like retinue, Driggs galloping after him.

Now they sat in the boat solemnly waiting for a fish to bite. On shore Rocky Town looked smaller than usual because half the lights were still out from the hurricane. As the tide rose, the current grew stronger and the ripples ticked against the bow. Neville’s rod bent, and he reeled in a good five-pound hogfish. He placed it inside a Styrofoam cooler, where it flapped loudly, startling Driggs. With a sigh the monkey pantomimed a pipe-smoking motion, which Neville ignored.

An hour passed without another nibble. Neville was preparing to move to a different spot when he heard high-powered engines. Initially he believed it was the Royal Defence Force patrol boat he’d seen earlier near the public wharf. Then he saw a bright light moving rapidly up the shoreline from Bannister Point—a foolhardy route in darkness across tricky water. The danger was grounding on the flats or smashing into a coral head. Nobody in the government fleet would make such a run, even with a spotlight.

Neville figured it must be drug smugglers, so he lay down flat on his seat. He groped for Driggs’s silhouette and pulled the monkey to his chest. The sound of the fast boat got louder and louder. Driggs smelled awful but Neville didn’t let go. He knew that his own small boat, with its low profile and dark hull, would be difficult to see on a starless night.

Abruptly the oncoming engines shut down. Neville waited a few minutes before peeking over the gunwale. Anchored on the edge of the shallows, perhaps two hundred yards away, was a sleek light-colored boat. Neville guessed the length at thirty-five, maybe thirty-six feet. It
had a V-hull, three big outboards, and a pair of tall outriggers for trolling. The finish on the sides of the craft looked bright and new.

A faint light glowed in the cockpit, and Neville discerned movement—a hunched figure emptying a bucket over the transom again and again. There was no conversation rising from the deck and no two-way radio crackle, which seemed odd. Voices carried a long way across open water and, in Neville’s experience, dopers were always yakking to each other.

At Neville’s feet, Driggs issued a sequence of warning chirps. Neville hastily snatched up the monkey and held him over the side for a pee. It was a small milestone in Neville’s dogged campaign to house-break his unruly pet, and his hushed praise for Driggs was heartfelt. He set the animal in the bottom of his skiff and returned his attention to the gleaming boat across the channel, where there was finally noise.

The person on the aft deck was grunting as if moving bales. Something heavy made a splash near the stern. Neville figured the smugglers were dumping their load, yet he counted no other splashes. Soon the triple outboards thundered and the boat sped away, cutting a long, foamy stitch in the sea.

Neville struggled to pull up his anchor, which had snagged on the ledge of the hogfish hole. He started the motor and backed upcurrent with the rope in one fist. When the anchor came free, Neville hauled it aboard.

Then he aimed his flashlight and chugged toward where the other vessel had been. It wasn’t clear why the smugglers had spooked, but they were a jumpy breed. Neville expected to see a fifty-pound bale of grass or a bundle of cocaine floating in the tide. What he found instead was something else, and a dread turbulence of sharks drawn to the surface by buckets of rotting fish heads.