It was Mary Andrea’s habit to begin each morning with an update of entertainment and celebrity happenings, of which several were capsulized in The Missoulian. Tom Cruise was being paid $22 million to star in a movie about a narcoleptic heart surgeon who must attempt a six-hour transplant operation on his girlfriend (Mary Andrea wondered which of Hollywood’s anorexic blow-job artists had won the part). Also, it was reported that one of Mary Andrea’s least-favorite television programs, Sag Harbor Saga, was being canceled after a three-year run. (Mary Andrea feared it wasn’t the last America would see of Siobhan Davies, the insufferable Irish witch who’d beaten her out for the role of Darien, the predatory textile heiress.) And, finally, a drug-loving actor with whom Mary Andrea once had done Shakespeare in the Park was under arrest in New York after disrobing in the lobby of Trump Tower and, during his flight to escape, headbutting the beefeater at the Fifth Avenue entrance. (Mary Andrea took no joy from the actor’s plight, for he had shown her nothing but kindness during The Merchant of Venice, when a disoriented june bug had flown into Mary Andrea’s right ear and interrupted for several awkward moments Portia’s famous peroration on the quality of mercy.)
Having digested, and sagely commented upon, each item in the “People” column, Mary Andrea Finley Krome then turned to the weightier pages of The Missoulian. The headline that caught her attention appeared on page three of the front section: NEWS REPORTER BELIEVED DEAD IN MYSTERY BLAZE. It wasn’t the slain-journalist angle that grabbed Mary Andrea so much as the phrase “mystery blaze,” because Mary Andrea adored a good mystery. The sight of her estranged husband’s name in the second paragraph was a complete shock. The newspaper drifted from Mary Andrea’s fingertips, and she emitted an oscillating groan that was mistaken by fellow coffee drinkers for a New Age meditative technique.
“Julie, you OK?” asked Lorie, or Loretta.
“Not really,” Mary Andrea rasped.
“What is it?”
Mary Andrea pressed her knuckles to her eyes and felt genuine tears.
“You need a doctor?” asked her new friend.
“No,” said Mary Andrea. “A travel agent.”
Joan and Roddy got a copy of The Register at the Grab N’Go and brought it to Sinclair at the shrine. He refused to read it.
“You’re mentioned by name,” Joan beseeched, holding up the newspaper for him to see, “as Tom Krome’s boss.”
Roddy added: “It explains how you’re out of town and not available for comment.”
“Nyyah nimmy doo-dey!” was Sinclair’s response.
The yammering sent a sinusoidal murmur through the Christian tourists gathering along the narrow moat. Some knelt, some stood beneath umbrellas, some perched on folding chairs and Igloo coolers. Sinclair himself lay prone at the feet of the fiberglass Madonna.
Joan was so concerned about her brother’s behavior that she considered notifying their parents. She’d read about religious fanatics who fondled snakes, but a turtle fixation seemed borderline deviant. Roddy said he hadn’t heard of it either. “But personally,” he added, “I’m damn glad it’s cooters and not diamondbacks. Otherwise we’d be coffin-shopping.”
Sinclair had cloaked himself toga-style in a pale bedsheet, upon which a confetti of fresh lettuce was sprinkled. With surprising swiftness the apostolic turtles scrambled from their sunning stones to ascend the gleaming buffet. Zestfully they traversed Sinclair from head to toe, while he cooed and blinked placidly at the passing clouds. Cameras clicked and video cameras whirred.
Trish and Demencio monitored the visitation from the living room window. She said, “He’s really something. You gotta admit.”
“Yeah. A fruit basket.”
“But aren’t you glad we let him stay?”
Demencio said, “A buck’s a buck.”
“He must’ve snapped. Stripped a gear.”
“Maybe so.” Demencio was distracted by a sighting of Dominick Amador, clumping unscrupulously among the pilgrims.
“Sonofabitch. He got him some crutches!”
Trish said, “You know why?”
“I can sure guess.”
“Yeah, he finally got his feet drilled. I heard he paid the boy at the muffler shop, like, thirty bucks.”
“Psycho,” said Demencio.
Then Dominick Amador spotted him in the window and timorously waved a Crisco-filled mitten. Demencio did not return the greeting.
Trish said, “You want me to chase him off?”
Demencio folded his arms. “Now what—who the hell’s that?” He pointed at a slender person in a hooded white robe. The person carried a clipboard and moved with clerical efficiency from one tourist to the next.
“The lady from Sebring Street,” Trish explained, “the one with the Road-Stain Jesus. She’s working on a petition to the highway department.”
“Like hell. She’s workin’ on my customers!”
“No, honey, the state wants to pave over her shrine—”
“Is that my problem? I got a business going here.”
“All right,” Trish said, and went outside to have a word with the woman. Demencio had always been leery of his competition—he liked to stay ahead of the pack. It bothered him when Dominick or the others came snooping. Trish understood. The miracle racket was no picnic.
And the queer histrionics of the visiting newspaperman had made Demencio edgier than usual. He could cope with hydraulic malfunctions in a weeping statue; a flesh-and-blood lunatic was something else. For the time being, the recumbent and incoherent Sinclair was drawing plenty of customers. But what if he freaked out? What if his marble-mouthed gibberish turned to violent rant?
Demencio fretted that he might lose control of his shrine. He sat down heavily and contemplated the aquarium, where the unpainted baby turtles eagerly awaited breakfast. JoLayne Lucks had phoned to check on the smelly little buggers, and Demencio reported that all forty-five were healthy and fit. He hadn’t told her about the apostle scam. JoLayne had promised she’d be home in a few days to collect her “precious babies.”
They’re precious to me, too, thought Demencio. I’ve got to milk ’em for all they’re worth.
When Trish returned he said: “Let’s do the rest.”
“What?”
“Them.” He nodded at the tank.
“How come?”
“More painted cooters, more money. Think of how happy Mister Born Again’ll be.” Demencio cut a glance toward the front window. “Crazy dork can bury himself under the damn things.”
Trish said, “But, honey, there’s only twelve apostles.”
“Who says it’s gotta be just apostles? Go find that Bible. All we need is thirty-three more saint types. Most anybody’ll do—New Testament, Old Testament.”
How could Trish say no? Her husband’s instincts on such matters were invariably sound. As she gathered the brushes and paint bottles, she showed Demencio the front page of The Register, which had been given to her by Joan and Roddy. “Isn’t that the fella went to Miami with JoLayne?”
“Yeah, only he ain’t dead.” With a forefinger, Demencio derisively flicked the newspaper. “When she called up this morning, this Tom guy was with her. Some phone booth down in the Keys.”
“The Keys!”
“Yeah, but don’t go tellin’ the turtle boy. Not yet.”
“I suppose you’re right,” Trish said.
“He finds out his man’s still alive, he might quit prayin’. We don’t want that.”
“No.”
“Or he might stop with them angel voices.”
“Tongues. Speaking in tongues,” Trish corrected.
“Whatever. I won’t lie,” Demencio said. “That crazy dork is good for business.”
“I won’t say a thing. Look here, he’s mentioned in the same article.”
Demencio skimmed the first few paragraphs while he struggled to uncap a bottle of thinner. “You see this? ‘Assistant Deputy Managing Editor of Features and Style.’ Hell kinda job is that? Ha, no w
onder he’s rolling in the mud.”
Trish handed him a bouquet of paintbrushes. “What do you think about Holy Cooter T-shirts? And maybe key chains.”
Her husband looked up. “Yeah,” he said, with the first smile of the day.
When Tom Krome got his turn on the pay phone, he called his parents on Long Island to tell them not to believe what they saw in the papers.
“I’m alive.”
“As opposed to what?” his father asked.
Newsday had run the story somewhere other than the sports section, so Krome’s old man had missed it.
Tom gave a sketchy explanation of the arson, instructed his folks on fielding future media inquiries, then called Katie. He was genuinely touched to hear she’d been crying.
“You should see the front page, Tommy!”
“Well, it’s wrong. I’m fine.”
“Thank God,” Katie sniffled. “Arthur also insists you’re dead. He even bought me a diamond solitaire.”
“For the funeral?”
“He thinks I think he had something to do with killing you—which I did think, until now.”
Krome said, “I’m assuming he’s the one who burned down my house.”
“Not personally.”
“You know what I mean. The dead body in the kitchen must have been his law clerk, faithful but careless.”
“Champ Powell. I guess so,” Katie said. “Tom, what’m I going to do? I can’t stand the sight of Arthur but I honestly don’t believe he meant for anyone to get hurt….”
“Pack a bag and go to your mother’s.”
“And the diamond is beautiful. God knows what it cost. So, see, there’s a part of him that wants to be true—”
“Katie, I gotta go. Please don’t tell anyone you spoke with me, OK? Keep it a secret for now, it’s important.”
“I’m so glad you’re all right. I prayed so hard.”
“Don’t stop now,” Tom Krome said.
It was a bright and breezy fall morning. The sky was cloudless and full of gulls and terns. The marina stirred but didn’t bustle, typical of the dead season between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, when the tourists were still up North. For the locals it was a glorious and special time, despite the wane of revenues. Many charter captains didn’t even bother to go down to the docks, the chance of walk-ons was so remote.
JoLayne Lucks had dozed off in the car. Krome touched her arm and she opened her eyes. Her mouth was sour, her throat scratchy.
“Yekkk,” she said, yawning.
Krome handed her a cup of coffee. “Long night.”
“Where are our boys?”
“Still in the truck.”
JoLayne said, “What d’you think—they meeting somebody?”
“I don’t know. They’ve been up and down, scoping out the boats.”
Squinting at the windshield’s glare, JoLayne groped for her sunglasses. She saw the red Dodge pickup at the opposite end of the marina, parked by the front door of the tackle shop.
“Again with the wheelchair zone?”
“Yep.”
“Assholes.”
They’d decided that the man driving the truck must be Bodean Gazzer, because that was the name on the registration, according to Tom’s source at the highway patrol. Bullet holes notwithstanding, the pristine condition of the vehicle suggested an owner who would not casually loan it to fleeing felons. Tom and JoLayne still had no name for Gazzer’s partner, the one with the ponytail and the bad eye.
And now a new mystery: a third man, who’d been abruptly put out along the road in the pitch dark of the night—JoLayne and Tom watching from the parking lot of a video store, where they’d pulled over to wait. Something in the bearing of the third man had looked familiar to JoLayne, but in the blue-gray darkness his facial features were indiscernible. The headlights of a passing car had revealed a chubby figure with a disconsolate trudge. Also: An Australian bush hat.
There was no sign of him in the morning, at the marina. Krome didn’t know what to make of it.
JoLayne asked if he’d phoned his folks.
“They didn’t even know I was dead. Now they’re really confused,” Krome said. “Whose turn on the radio?”
“Mine.” She reached for the dial.
During the long hours in the car, the two of them had encountered a potentially serious divergence of musical tastes. Tom believed that driving in South Florida required constant hard-rock accompaniment, while JoLayne favored songs that were breezy and soothing to the nerves. In the interest of fairness, they’d agreed to alternate control of the radio. If she lucked into a Sade, he got a Tom Petty. If he got the Kinks, she got an Annie Lennox. And so on. Occasionally they found common ground. Van Morrison. Dire Straits. “The Girl with the Faraway Eyes,” which they sang together as they rode through Florida City. There were even a few mutual abominations (a Paul McCartney-Michael Jackson duet, for instance) that propelled them to lunge simultaneously for the tuning button.
“Here’s what I noticed,” said JoLayne, adjusting the volume.
“Who’s that?” Krome demanded.
“Cèline Dion.”
“Geez, it’s Saturday morning. Have some mercy.”
“You’ll get your turn.” JoLayne wore a shrewd, schoolteacher smile. “Now, Tom, here’s what I noticed: You don’t like many black musical artists.”
“Oh, bullshit.” He was truly stung.
“Name one.”
“Marvin Gaye, Jimi Hendrix—”
“A live one.”
“B.B. King, Al Green, Billy Preston. The Hootie guy, what’s his name—”
“You’re pushing it,” JoLayne said.
“Prince!”
“Oh, come on.”
Krome said, “Damn right. ‘Little Red Corvette.’”
“I guess it’s possible.”
“Christ, what if I said something like that to you?”
“You’re right,” said JoLayne. “I take it all back.”
“‘A live one.’ Gimme a break.”
She eyed him over the rims of her peach-tinted shades.
“You’re pretty touchy about this stuff, aren’t you? I suppose that’s the white man’s burden. At least the liberal white man.”
“Who said I was liberal.”
“You’re cute when you’re on the defensive. Want the rest of my coffee? I gotta pee.”
“Not now,” Tom Krome said. “Take off your hat and duck.”
The red pickup was rolling toward them, in reverse. The driver backed up to a slip where a twenty-foot boat was tied. It had twin outboards, a flecked blue-and-gray finish and a folding Bimini top. From the tackle shop you couldn’t have seen it, moored between a towering Hatteras and a boxy houseboat.
Peering over the dashboard, Krome watched a tall, unshaven passenger get out of the truck: the ponytailed man. He carried a bottle of beer and some tools—a screwdriver, a wire cutter, a socket wrench. The man climbed somewhat unsteadily into the boat and disappeared behind the steering console.
“What’s going on?” JoLayne, inching up in the seat.
Krome told her to stay down. He saw a puff of blue smoke, then heard the outboards start. The ponytailed man stood up and signaled laconically at the driver of the pickup truck. Then the ponytailed man untied the lines and with both hands pushed the boat away from the pilings.
“They’re stealing it,” Krome reported.
JoLayne said: “My neck hurts. May I sit up?”
“In a second.”
Barely fifty yards from the dock, the ponytailed man shoved forward the throttle of the stolen boat. Momentarily the bow rose upward like a gaily striped missile, then leveled off under a collar of foam as the boat took out across the shallows of Florida Bay. At the same instant, and with a sudden yelp of rubber, the red pickup truck shot toward the marina exit.
“Now?” asked JoLayne.
“All clear,” Krome told her.
She rose, glancing first at the departing truck and then at t
he receding gray speck on the water. “All right, smart guy. Which one’s got my ticket?”
“Beats me,” Krome said.
17
It was Shiner’s first kidnapping, and despite a shaky start it came off pretty well.
He had hitchhiked to the Grove, where he’d fallen asleep in Peacock Park. In midafternoon he’d awakened and wandered down Grand Avenue to buy a handgun. His street-corner inquiries had been so poorly received that he’d been chased from the neighborhood by a group of black and Hispanic teenagers. Naturally he’d lost his bush hat and the golf spikes, which were ill-suited for a footrace.
Armed only with a stubby Phillips-head screwdriver he’d found beneath a banyan tree, Shiner arrived at Hooters shortly before five o’clock. Remembering Chub’s instructions, he struck up a conversation with the bartender, who was glad to point out Amber among the servers. Shiner scoped her out—hot-looking, like Chub had said, but as a rule most waitresses were hot-looking to Shiner. And while Chub had made a great point of detailing Amber’s uncanny resemblance to Kim Basinger, the information was useless to Shiner. He didn’t know who Kim Basinger was. While preparing for the crime, Shiner became apprehensive over the possibility of snatching the wrong girl. What if Hooters had more than one Amber? Chub would shoot him dead, that’s what.
Hours later, Shiner was crouched behind a hedgerow when the waitress identified by the bartender left work. She slipped behind the wheel of a giant Ford sedan, which momentarily rattled Shiner (who’d been expecting a sports car—in his mind, all hot-looking babes belonged in sports cars). He recovered his composure, flung himself in the passenger side and placed the tip of the screwdriver against Amber’s soft and flawless neck.
“Whoa,” she said.
Not a scream, but whoa.
“You Amber?”
She nodded carefully.
“The one looks like the actor—Kim something?”
Amber said, “You’re the second guy this week who’s told me that.”