The lawyer’s newest TV commercial had begun airing on ESPN, strategically slotted between ads for Cialis and Flomax. Trebeaux was back in his hotel room, watching the Miami Heat blow a twenty-point lead to the Bulls when Richardson’s Pitrolux pitch came on, ending with a killer tag line: “And remember, I’m not just your lawyer, I’m a fellow victim!”
Trebeaux immediately called to congratulate him. “Where’d you come up with that one?”
“It just hit me one night,” Richardson replied without elaboration. “I’m glad you called. I’ve been waiting to hear how it went with your guys.”
“My guys? Oh, yeah. Those guys.”
“Did they go visit my asshole neighbor?”
“Yeah, but bad news. They didn’t find your pretty lady’s diamond,” Trebeaux said. One of Big Noogie’s crew had phoned to tell him the rock wasn’t there.
Richardson groaned and said, “Shit.”
“They turned the whole house inside-out. These were pros.”
“Was Yancy there when they showed up?”
“You bet. That was the whole point, right? Let him know who he’s messin’ with.”
“For sure,” said the lawyer. “Did they say he’s ready to sell?”
“You should go see him. Bring a contract.”
“Get this: The geek-ass archeologist dug up another fucking tooth on my lot. He’s all stoked because this one’s an incisor.”
“Also from a dead Indian? That sucks.” Trebeaux stood in his boxers at the window, watching a mammoth cruise liner leave the port. Illuminated from bow to stern, it looked like a floating shopping mall. Destination: San Juan, Negril, or maybe the BVI. One thing was certain—all those passengers, thousands of sun-seeking zombies, had paid good money to go somewhere that had a beach.
“Thanks just the same,” Richardson was saying, “for making that phone call. Your guys—when they went to see Yancy, how’d they get the message across? I’m just curious.”
“These things I don’t ask. For all I know it was a calm, friendly chat.”
“Right.” Richardson chuckled dryly on the other end. “I’ll keep you up to speed on the Pitrolux litigation. They’ll never risk a jury trial, so we’ll get a lump-sum settlement, for sure.”
“Any guess on how much?”
“Eight figures at least.”
“Nice,” Trebeaux said. “Split how many ways?”
“Depends on the number of plaintiffs. No worries, you’ll be taken care of.”
“Much appreciated, friend.” Trebeaux cracked open the window. A sea breeze brought a sweet steel-drum version of “One Love.” The sand man couldn’t think of one good reason to drive back to Miami Beach in the morning.
“What’d the doc say?” he asked Richardson.
“Um…”
“When I saw you at Louie’s, you were on your way to the proctologist.”
“Dermatologist. And everything’s fine,” Richardson said brusquely.
“I get basal cells from time to time. It’s the curse of living a sun-kissed life.”
“This is just a little skin tag.”
“Word to the wise. Keep an eye on it.”
“Oh, I am,” said the lawyer.
—
Merry took Yancy to Petronia Street where they found Blister’s apartment cleaned out except for an untouchable queen mattress and a cracked hallway mirror. Yancy noticed half-scrubbed stains from his own blood on the floor, and mongoose tracks in the bathtub. The landlord said the Krills had moved out in the middle of the night. Other tenants had complained of a Ryder truck double-parked in front of the building.
Back in the car Yancy’s phone began ringing. He saw it was Burton and let the call go to voicemail. Yancy had been dodging his friend in case he’d caught wind of Yancy’s messy visit to the emergency room. Burton would never fall for the rake-mishap story.
Most criminals would have fled the county after knifing what they believed was a cop, but Benny the Blister seemed exceptionally thick. Yancy asked Merry to drive over to Stock Island, where the rents were lower. Sure enough, they came upon a Ryder truck parked at a duplex that hadn’t seen a coat of fresh paint since Hurricane Donna. The truck’s back door was rolled up and the cargo space had been emptied. There was no activity at the duplex.
Yancy told Merry to keep driving.
She said, “No disrespect, Andrew, but I don’t get what’s so fun about the cop life. You spend all day in the damn car. Where’s the high?”
“When something big finally happens.”
“Like getting stabbed by a random dirtbag. What am I missing here?”
“It’s all about catching the bad guys. Very primal.”
“Well, I’m primally hungry,” Merry said.
“You want excitement? I know just where to go.”
The nearest restaurant happened to be Stoney’s Crab Palace, where Yancy had issued reams of gag-inducing citations. More than once he’d shut the place down. The owner, Brennan, darted for the kitchen as soon as he saw Yancy walk in the front door.
“Don’t order the fish,” Yancy advised Merry when they sat down.
“But it’s a seafood joint.”
“More like a petri dish with menus. When they say ‘catch of the day,’ they mean infection.”
Brennan emerged wearing a hastily donned hair cap and two left-handed disposable gloves. With a taut smile he approached Yancy asking, “What brings you here, Inspector?”
“Lack of options. We’ll both have the chicken, no gravy on the potatoes.”
“So…this isn’t official business?” Brennan glowed with relief. “How about a cup of conch chowder, on me?”
“That’s exactly where it’ll end up, if I eat it.”
“Jesus, Andrew, not so loud.”
“He got thirty-two stitches,” Merry told Brennan, “so he’s cranky today.”
“What happened?”
“Nineteen stitches,” said Yancy. He was eyeing the baseboard beneath the table, where a hale cockroach stood glossy and fearless. “Does that one have a name?”
“Aw, fuck.” Brennan whipped off a shoe and began whaling at the insect, which escaped easily.
Merry excused herself and went to the ladies’ room. After Brennan re-tied his shoe, he placed a greasy fifty-dollar bill beneath the spoon at Yancy’s table setting. “Andrew, don’t write me up for one lousy roach, ’kay?”
The bribe offer was a Stoney’s ritual. Yancy made Brennan pick up the fifty and asked him if he knew a man called Blister. Brennan said no.
“Then where’d you get that thing?” Yancy pointed at a doll-sized tunic hanging on a wall hook.
“I bought it from some lady come in last night and tried to sell me a friggin’ mink.”
“That was a mongoose,” said Yancy.
“I told her I had no use for such a varmint but I’d pay ten bucks for the purple jacket. She said okay, it’s a deal.”
“That’s Blister’s wife.”
“The jacket’s for my dog,” Brennan seemed obliged to explain.
Yancy heard Merry calling from the restroom and he went to investigate, Brennan tight on his heels. Merry opened the door for them and said, with breezy satisfaction, “Gentlemen, look what I spied.”
A trail of small dark pellets lined the dingy tile near a broken tampon machine.
“Capers!” Brennan squawked indignantly. “Some jackass from the kitchen must’ve spilled ’em there!”
Merry turned to Yancy and said, “This I find unacceptable.”
They departed before their chicken entrées arrived. Yancy’s midsection was on fire from the stitches; in the car he doubled over, arms tight across his waist. Merry fed him another pain pill.
Back at the duplex, the Ryder truck was gone. Yancy told Merry to park on the next block over. He selected a spot from which they could surveil Blister’s new backyard, where the restless Clee Roy was tethered to a crooked swing set.
Merry said, “We should set it free, the poor
thing.” She grabbed one of her energy drinks and downed it like a shooter. “How’d I do back there at the restaurant? Spotting those teeny mouse poops all by myself.”
“Great eyes. You’re a natural,” Yancy said. “Do me a favor.”
“What—go down on you? I’m not sure that’s proper stakeout procedure.”
“Pin your hair, zip up the fleece and take a stroll past the duplex. See if anybody’s home. And not a sexy walk, all right? A plain dull walk, like you’re on your way to the post office.”
Merry said, “What if I don’t have a dull walk?”
“Try to blend in with the neighborhood is all I’m saying.”
She clicked her teeth. “Challenging.”
“Yes, I’m well aware.”
She set off in a flat-footed stride, arms swinging, head down. Yancy would have laughed but his eyes were elsewhere, watching for Benny the Blister. He had a hunch that the man who stabbed him was the same one who fatally accosted the late Abdul-Halim Shamoon.
A gray bank of knife-edged clouds overtook the sun, flattening the afternoon light. Yancy got out and leaned against the car, waiting for the Percocet to kick in. He’d always loved the breeze from the Stock Island docks, the sharp tang of salt, iced fish and diesel. A pair of gray doves trilled from their perch on a telephone wire, and Yancy whistled back.
Looking between the houses he saw Merry coming down Blister’s street—despite her best acting she still stood out, like most beautiful women when they try not to be noticed. Nearing the duplex she shortened her steps.
“No, no, keep going,” Yancy coached under his breath.
Unexpectedly she slipped out of sight. He struggled back into the car and started the engine. Moments later the mongoose began yipping, and Yancy saw Merry sprint in her rhinestone flip-flops across the barren lawn. Somehow she climbed the fence hauling an object that looked like an oversized toilet seat. The instant she was back in the car, he hit the gas, heading for Highway 1.
“Nobody home,” she reported breathlessly. “Boxes all over the place. Are you good to drive?”
As Yancy spun the steering wheel he experienced a bolt of pain just shy of agonizing. “Whatcha got there?” he asked.
Merry showed him. “It was lyin’ on the ground near Clee Roy. I found it when I went to pet him.”
“Did I not mention he was a fucking mongoose?”
“I felt super-sorry for him, Andrew, all lonely and tangled in his rope. Anyway, I thought this thing might be a clue.”
“Looks more like Clee Roy’s chew toy.”
Merry made a snarky face. “You’re welcome, Inspector.”
The item she’d taken from Blister’s backyard was a lifebuoy of the donut style customarily hung on boat cabins. The Styrofoam was pocked with animal tooth marks, but the name on the lifebuoy was still legible:
Wet Nurse.
Yancy said, “Stop pouting. We’ll check it out first thing tomorrow.”
“Gosh, I feel so honored.” Merry flung the life ring into the backseat, pulled off her flips and planted her bare feet on the dashboard.
—
Mona unpacked the rest of the boxes before walking to the Comcast office to sort out a credit issue. Blister expected full cable and Wi-Fi when he came back from wherever the hell he went every day. Mona wasn’t in love with the duplex, but she was glad they weren’t on the run from the law. Blister swore up and down that nobody had seen him spook the Muslim off the Conch Train. As for the dude he stabbed, Blister said it couldn’t possibly have been a real cop or he’d already be locked up at county, no bail. That made sense to Mona; it also explained why the dude didn’t have a gun. He probably got sent by somebody Blister owed money to, a list that included half the dirtbags in Monroe County. Mona didn’t dwell on it; she was simply glad that Blister had decided to stay put. Island life suited her.
Upon returning from Comcast she peeked in the backyard hoping the mongoose had gnawed through the rope and run away—but no such luck. The night before, Blister had searched the apartment for the critter’s silly purple jacket. Mona didn’t tell him she’d sold it at Stoney’s; her husband was aware she didn’t adore his unusual housepet.
“Look on the bright side of the penny. We won’t never have no snake problem with Clee Roy ’round,” Blister would say.
“Hell, I’d rather have snakes,” Mona would fire back. “Least a snake won’t get into my fuckin’ Froot Loops.”
The Stock Island duplex was cheaper than the apartment on Petronia, though Blister had to burglarize a Dollar Store for the cash to cover their first, last and security. The Ryder truck he had hotwired at Trumbo Point. Mona had quit asking where he disappeared to all day long (sometimes even overnight). She wasn’t the jealous type and, besides, he always came home salty and rank. No woman worth worrying about would go near such a man.
Mona had met Blister while working at a massage parlor in Central Florida where she drew the line at hand jobs and even then insisted on wearing an oven mitt. Blister had invited her to accompany him to Key West, his grand plan being to outrun a bench warrant for undisclosed felonies in St. Augustine. Halfway down the turnpike Blister had let on that he was driving a motorcycle that wasn’t technically his, but Mona had been a good sport about it. They ditched the bike in the Aerojet Canal and hitchhiked the rest of the way.
Blister’s first decent score in Key West was a 48-inch flat-screen that became their domestic epicenter. They shared an addiction to daytime game shows, Ellen, Maury, Steve Harvey, all the CSIs, beauty pageants, cage fights and documentaries about polar bears. However, their tastes diverged radically when it came to Blister’s favorite reality program, Bayou Brethren, which Mona thought was bogus and stupid. She didn’t care for Buck Nance and couldn’t wait for Krystal to get wise and dump him. His shit-heel brothers were just as worthless, in Mona’s sulfurous view. Brethren had triggered loud arguments in the apartment on Petronia because it was broadcast during the same time slot as Learjet Vet, Mona’s beloved animal-rescue show, which they couldn’t record because Blister had broken their DVR in the process of shoplifting it.
Mona hoped her husband’s juvenile worship of the Nance clan had peaked with the idiotic tattoos, which he’d hidden from her by living for days in the same rancid shirt. One afternoon she’d peeled off the garment after Blister fell asleep during a Maury rerun, and was mortified to see the words “Hail Captain Cock” stenciled garishly across his grimy shoulder blades. In a fury she rolled him over, only to be confronted by the cycloptic rooster.
It was about the same time when Blister began spending more days at large. The main reason Mona didn’t bust his balls for being away so much was that it left the TV under her sole control; she could catch up on all her missed episodes of Learjet Vet.
When Blister returned home on this night, she was watching the one where Dr. Zeke Nekrotos lands his surgically outfitted Lear 60 in foggy northern Greenland to set the fractured femur of a yearling caribou. Blister snatched up the remote and pressed the Mute button.
Mona rose up saying, “I will kick your ass, Benny Krill.”
“Hold on now—this here’s important. A game changer.”
“Put the fuckin’ sound back on.”
“Baby Buns,” he said, “listen to me. I’m gone be on TV!”
Mona rolled her eyes. “Lord, you’re drunk. Gimme the damn remote.”
“I ain’t had one sip. You are lookin’ at Buck Nance’s new twin brother!”
“Oh. So you lost your mind is all.”
“No, no, I’m joinin’ the family. It’s official.”
“My ass,” Mona said. “Not even a dog your age could get adopted.”
“Tune in and see. We’re gone be rich.”
“That ain’t funny, Benny. That’s just mean.”
He shivered with excitement. “It’s the God’s truth, Baby Buns. I even got me a agent.”
SIXTEEN
Yancy heard the Porsche coming from a mile away. When it stopped
in front of his house, he stood at the doorway beckoning.
Deb’s bandage was gone though her beak was still scabby from the flaming e-cig. She had dressed low-key in a tailored dark pants suit and black flats. The lawyer boyfriend wore cream-colored slacks, a light blue golf shirt and a cranberry blazer. Yancy no longer had the energy to call him anything but Brock. For some reason he looked tenser than Deb.
The couple was under the impression their diamond engagement ring was still missing, which meant that the thugs who’d removed it from Yancy’s kitchen had pocketed it. He shouldn’t have been surprised, yet he was. He should have felt responsible, yet he didn’t. The stone would still be safe in his refrigerator if Richardson hadn’t sent the two Jersey boys.
Now the lawyer was bitterly recapping the discovery of tribal teeth on his property, and his travails with the pesky state archeologist. Yancy made a mental note to deliver a five-pound sack of stone crabs to his helpful dentist and also to “Dr. Whitmore,” his teacher/actor friend.
“They’re saying the excavation work might take years,” Richardson said, “and we don’t want to wait that long to build. Deb and I don’t.”
“That’s right,” Deb murmured, distracted by intimate articles of apparel scattered on the disemboweled sofa. Richardson noticed them, too.
“You have company?”
“She’s at the gun range,” Yancy said. “Practicing.” In truth Merry had gone to the drugstore for more gauze and sterile tape. Yancy’s swathed midsection was concealed by an XXL Florida Gators sweatshirt.
Richardson said, “Let’s cut to the chase. I want to buy your house, Mr. Yancy.”
“It’s not for sale. You can call me Andrew.”
“The offer is two-fifty.”
Yancy crowed at the insult.
“Take the money,” said Deb, “if you know what’s good for you.”
Richardson added: “We’re going to bulldoze this shitbox and put up something fabulous.”
Yancy was in a contemplative drift, possibly due to the medication. He said, “I’m curious—what on earth do you two see in each other?”