Yancy rushed through the bistro inspection (one rusty dumpster plug, one dead gecko on a windowsill) and headed home to Big Pine. He wasn’t sure Merry Mansfield would still be there but she was, lying out in a killer chrome tank suit and a floppy hat.
“This is the stupidest thing a redhead can do, try for a tan,” she said when Yancy joined her. “It’s your fault, Andrew. All that crazy boat sex scrambled my senses. Was it unforgettable? Possibly. Did it mean anything? Do not haunt yourself with that question.”
“Guess who’s still in the Keys. The tres a-hole amigos we followed to the airport, they never got on that jet.”
“Tricksters, eh?” Merry said. “Here, Mr. Sensitivity, rub some of this age-defying potion on me. Clear zinc, a zillion SPF. Like it matters anymore.”
Yancy did her arms, neck and shoulders. He confided that he couldn’t stop thinking about the man that Benny Krill scared off the Conch Train. “There was an interview with the widow in the paper. Jesus, it’s so sad.”
“Let it go. The cops’ll catch up with Blister.”
“But, see, I’d like to be the one. He put a knife in me, don’t forget.”
Merry flicked him on the nose. “Here we go again, Andrew—this is where I remind you what Burton said, that the sheriff wants you out of the headlines. Unless deep down you don’t really care if you get your badge back.”
Yancy was coming around to Rosa’s view that Sonny Summers wasn’t going to bring him back on the force, no matter what. “I should clean the twelve-gauge,” he said, “just in case.”
Merry tore off her hat and slapped him with it. “What is it with guys and their guns? No wonder your brainiac doctor girlfriend ran off to Norway.”
“Harsh,” Yancy sighed.
“I’ll get dressed. Then we should go.”
The house on Fleming looked empty. Blister’s common-law wife sat on the front step rolling a beer bottle in her palms. Her sad little bicycle lay in the front yard.
She looked up and said, “Not you people again.”
“Where are Benny and the boys?” Yancy asked.
“I’m sorry he stabbed you, but that don’t mean I owe you a conversation.”
“Clee Roy ended up on Stoney’s menu, just so you know.”
Mona held up her chubby arms, crosshatched with claw marks. “Take a good look and tell me why I should be all boo-hoo sad.”
Merry said, “Benny didn’t tell you where he was going, did he? Now he won’t even pick up his phone, I bet.”
“How’d you know?” Mona asked glumly.
“Been there, honey.”
To Yancy, Mona said, “I gotta ask you somethin’—is that the real Buck Nance my husband’s hangin’ out with? Without the beard it could be any damn jackoff.”
“No, that’s Buck. The one and only.”
“Okay, but the fifty grand a week—that’s total bullshit, right? Benny was lyin’ ’bout that part, for sure.”
“Fifty grand a week for doing what?” Merry asked. She sat down beside Mona. “Hey, I like your flips.”
“Thanks,” said Mona. “You a cop, too?”
Merry patted her hand. Sheepishly Mona related Blister’s wild yarn about joining the cast of Bayou Brethren.
“He said they was gonna pay him fifty thousand for every show, and he was gonna be worldwide famous. I tole him he had shit up to his eyeballs, so then he says, ‘I can prove it, Baby Buns!’ Few days later he calls to say his Hollywood ‘agent’ rented a ‘bungalow’ on Fleming, I gotta come right away. So I hump over here on my bike, and there’s Benny and his so-called agent man and the dude they said was Buck Nance. And the three of ’em sit here all serious-faced givin’ me a rundown on the big TV deal, how rich we’re gonna be—and now, today, they’re all gone.” She sucked a gloomy breath through the gaps in her teeth. “What’s a normal woman s’posed to think?”
Merry said, “Benny’s not going to be a television star. He’s going to prison.”
“With ‘Captain Cock’ wrote in giant ink all over his back. Dear God Almighty.”
“No kidding. You need to put that man in your rearview.”
“If only I could,” said Mona.
Yancy went through the house and saw that the men had cleared out. The kitchen trash revealed that Buck remained faithful to the faves on his Green Room rider—empty PBR cans, a Jack Daniel’s bottle, crumpled Fritos bags, Reese’s wrappers and handfuls upon handfuls of discarded non-green M & M’s. The only sign of Blister was a grimy red bandanna on the floor.
“They’ve definitely vacated,” Yancy said to Mona when he emerged. “What are your plans?”
“He was my plan. Benny.”
Merry said, “He’ll call eventually. There’s no way he won’t reach out to his Baby Buns.”
“Yeah, but then what?”
“Tell him the ride’s over, honey. Tell him to give up.”
“Better yet,” said Yancy, “tell him to call me.”
Mona heaved the beer bottle into some shrubs, righted her bicycle and pedaled away. Merry drove Yancy to Mel Fisher’s treasure museum, where she impressed him with her knowledge of shipwreck booty. She said she’d studied up on the Spanish fleets in preparation for a bogus artifacts hustle that she later scuttled: “It was a boyfriend’s idea. Not Chip but a different one. I was on quite a streak for a while. The dude scored a bunch of fake doubloons online from China and sold them as the real deal at these ‘investment seminars’ in West Palm. But his favorite target was old retired couples, so I bailed on the scam—and on him, too. I hear he’s into reverse mortgages now.”
Yancy said, “You want to go make out somewhere?”
“Well, aren’t you the frisky one.”
He found a secluded parking spot under some trees near the cemetery. The car’s backseat wasn’t spacious enough for a horizontal fit, and the result was Yancy kicking out an armrest during a strenuous sequence of moves. Merry said she’d take it as a compliment. Afterward they went to the Turtle Kraals for ceviche and boiled shrimp. Merry was in rare form, funny and flirty, keeping it light. To Yancy she seemed happy—but then so had Rosa.
Later, looking back on the afternoon, he couldn’t think of anything he did or said that might have spooked Merry off. At the restaurant she laughed so hard at one of his raunchy cop stories that her eyes were streaming. And she was definitely still smiling when she kissed him and told him she was going for a walk on the waterfront. She promised to meet him in an hour at Mallory Square. She told him to look for the Iguana Man.
Yancy drove to the Stock Island jail to chat with the two South Beach bouncers, but they’d already made bail. He swung by Blister’s duplex and wasn’t surprised not to see the black Yukon. His final stop was a drop-in at Stoney’s Crab Palace, where a wake of sorts was being held for a local biker who’d bought the farm at Mile Marker 19. Yancy wasn’t cold-hearted enough to disrupt the ceremony with a kitchen inspection. He went back to town and left the car on Front Street.
The original Iguana Man had died years earlier, but there was always at least one crusty imitator on the scene. He was easy to find, not only because he was cloaked with green lizards but also because he was flocked by tourists who perceived the scaly creatures as exotic. In reality, South Florida was so overrun with the damn things that homeowners used high-powered pellet rifles to thin the herd. The local unpopularity of the reptiles was due to their appetite for delicate garden flowers and also their habit of prodigiously shitting in swimming pools.
Yancy tracked down the Iguana Man du jour and scanned the selfie-snapping throng for Merry’s face. Something poked him bluntly below the waist, and he looked down. An Irish setter was sociably nosing his crotch. When Yancy reached for its leash, the animal bolted with an air of goofy elation toward Whitehead, and heavy traffic. Heedless of his stitches, Yancy ran after the dog. When he was a boy, he’d owned a golden retriever named Bowie that got run over by a delivery truck. Yancy still choked up whenever he thought about it. He sprinted
as hard as he could after the footloose setter, which zigzagged crazily between honking taxis and tour buses. The chase went on until the fugitive veered down a dead-end alley, where Yancy was able to corner and calm the animal. He beheld a pleasing vision of himself strolling through Mallory Square with a red-haired dog and a red-haired woman.
But when he returned, there was no sign of Merry in the Iguana Man’s crowd. Yancy called her phone but she didn’t answer. From behind him rose a cement-mixer voice: “Yo, that’s my fuckin’ mutt.”
Yancy turned and saw a burly neckless figure carrying a suede shoulder bag. The man wore a new pastel fishing shirt and khaki hiking shorts that displayed to no one’s benefit a bowed pair of pallid, hairy legs.
Yancy handed over the leash. “That’s a good-looking dog. What’s his name?”
“John.”
“Just plain old John?”
“I didn’t fuckin’ come up with it. That’s what he answers to.” The man sounded weary of defending his pet’s bland name. “He must’ve took off while I was in the toilet. Thanks.”
Yancy said, “No problem. I needed the exercise.”
The man had a New York accent. He said he was visiting Key West on business. “This park is where everybody comes, right? To see the freaks and the sunset.”
“You’re in the right place.”
“My girlfriend’s floatin’ around here somewheres.”
“Mine, too,” said Yancy, adding: “A girl who’s a friend.”
“They got phones, they know how to find us. You look like you could use a cold one.”
Yancy was glad to leave the square, which had filled with meandering cruise-ship googans. He told the man there was a pet-friendly bar on Simonton.
“Fuck that. John goes where I go.” The man opened his shoulder bag and removed a blaze-orange vest emblazoned with the words WORKING SERVICE ANIMAL. He snapped the garment on the Irish setter and said, “Now you’re legal, dumbass.”
Yancy started laughing. “I thought those dogs were trained not to run away.”
“John’s got what you call impulse issues. Thank God I ain’t blind, he’d drag my ass in front of a train.”
Yancy took the man with the dog to the top of the La Concha. Merry still wasn’t picking up her phone. After a couple of Heinekens the man with the dog told Yancy that his name was Dominick, and that he owned a document-shredding business in Miami. It might have been true, though Yancy was doubtful. He told the man he was a health inspector. The rest was more small talk, two guys killing time. Despite the meatiness of his fingers, Dominick showed himself to be a nimble texter. He was visibly irritated because his girlfriend wasn’t responding. Yancy changed the subject by inquiring if Dominick’s family was involved in the shredding business. Dominick said only his son, Dom Jr., had shown any interest.
“He’s gettin’ married in a few months in Staten Island,” Dominick said. “Great girl. He lucked out big-time.”
On his phone Dominick proudly scrolled up a photograph of the couple, young Dom a wide-bodied spitting image of his old man. The raven-haired bride-to-be was all bosom and teeth, impossibly happy.
“Check out the rock on her finger,” said Dominick, enlarging the screen image with his salami thumbs.
Yancy looked closely at the engagement ring in the photo. He smiled and said, “I’ll be damned.”
“I gave it to Dommie to give to her. Take a guess what that thing’s worth.”
“Two hundred grand?” said Yancy.
The man named Dominick sat back, surprised. “Motherfucker, you’re good.”
“Funny story about that diamond.” Yancy told Dominick how it had come to end up in his refrigerator on Big Pine.
Dominick slapped a hand on the bar and said, “Small fuckin’ world!”
“Can I ask how you know that lawyer in Miami? Richardson.”
“Never met him. It was just a favor for a guy I’m sorta in business with.”
Yancy said, “Look, I don’t want the ring back. It’s not mine, anyway. But, can I say, the gentlemen you sent to my house really didn’t have to kick me on their way out the door.”
“They told me you was a real smartass.”
“Man, I’d just gotten out of the hospital.” Yancy lifted his shirt to show Dominick his belly wound.
“Who the hell did that to you? Was it my guys?”
“No, not them.”
“They don’t like the smartass routine, my guys. But, tell you what”—Dominick glanced crossly at the dog, farting in its sleep between the barstools—“you saved me some world-class poon by catchin’ that runaway retard right there. My goomah, she’d never let me touch her again if I lost poor dumb adorable John. So I owe you one is what I’m sayin’.” He handed Yancy a business card for a company called Rocko Gibralter Document Disposal. “You ever need somethin’, here’s where to call.”
“Thanks for the beer,” Yancy said.
He felt better about the ring situation knowing that Brock Richardson’s diamond was a source of romantic joy for Dom Jr.’s fiancée, more joy than it had brought to either of the lawyer’s fiancées.
Yancy said goodbye to the mobster and walked to the elevator. When the doors opened, a woman who could only be Dominick’s girlfriend emerged. Her lips were cardinal red, her bleached platinum hair was trimmed severely short, and the cheeks of her formidable ass appeared to have been shaped with a helium nozzle. Despite her forward presentation the woman seemed preoccupied as she brushed past Yancy on a high-heeled track to the bar. She was hurriedly repositioning a papaya scarf, though not before Yancy glimpsed upon her neck a florid mouth-shaped mark that was too fresh to have been made by Dominick.
Yancy stepped into the elevator and mashed the Lobby button half a dozen times. Back at Mallory Square he couldn’t find Merry anywhere; her phone went straight to voicemail. On a whim he walked down to the treasure museum. She wasn’t there.
At dark he drove back to Big Pine knowing what he’d find. Merry’s clothes and sandals and travel bag were gone from the house. Same for her toothbrush and scrunchies and the one-piece chrome swimsuit that drove him wild. He checked the refrigerator and saw that she’d also cleaned out her stash of energy drinks.
Yancy felt worse about her leaving than he’d expected. He put on some Charlie Parker, smoked half a fattie and fell asleep on his new couch. Early the next morning he got up to go fishing, and that’s when he found the square pink envelope she had placed on the casting deck of his boat.
The note inside said, “I’m going to miss you, A.Y. Now quit dicking around and call Rosa.”
TWENTY-ONE
Martin Trebeaux, recklessly seeking to impress Big Noogie’s girlfriend, bragged about his epic scheme to corner the market on Cuban beach sand. “They’ll jump all over this deal,” he bubbled, sprawled on his bed at the La Concha. “They’re going capitalist even faster than the damn Chinese!”
Juveline told him to lie still. She was using a black Sharpie on his nut sack. It felt like she was drawing little hearts.
“There’s a big meeting down in Havana,” Trebeaux said. “Muy importante!”
“Yeah? Take me with ya.”
Trebeaux thought she was joking.
“I never been to a real island,” she said. “I wanna go. Long Island doesn’t count.”
Looking down, Trebeaux saw only the tinted crown of Juveline’s noggin. He heard the felt tip of the Sharpie squeaking on his skin.
“Don’t it tickle when I do this?” she asked.
“Sweetie, listen to me—Big Noogie will get suspicious if you’re gone. This would never work. He’ll kill the both of us.”
“You serious? I been on lotsa trips and the Noog don’t care. Two, three days sometimes he don’t even call. Hey, what’s that weird mark down here? That little purple V.”
“Ouch! Hey, careful.”
“What is it, Marty? Tell me.”
“That’s where the Noog pinched me with hemostats.”
“He
mo-what?”
“Pliers. The kind they use in surgery.”
“Holy shit, Marty. I bet that really hurt.”
“That’s the whole point of torture. Ask your boyfriend.”
“Well,” Juveline said, “if this don’t cheer ya up, nuthin’ will.”
She stood Trebeaux in front of a full-length mirror and lifted his pecker to display her scrotal artwork.
“What exactly am I looking at?” the sand man asked.
“Emojis, ya big dork.”
“You mean like smiley faces?”
“One for each ball. See, they’re blowin’ kisses,” said Juveline. “Don’t ya ever text with emojis?”
At that moment a more circumspect man might have paused to review the train of bad decisions that had brought him to such a precipice—screwing the girlfriend of a homicidal gangster while the gangster was out walking her dog. Trebeaux, however, wasn’t one to beat himself up. He truly believed he was cunning enough to snake through any brand of trouble; regret was for suckers. Of course it was foolhardy to fall for the crude charms of a high-maintenance flake like Juveline. Yet now that the dangerous line had been crossed, Trebeaux was growing excited about the logistical challenges of long-term deceit. Dominick Aeola didn’t seem like the brightest bulb in the chandelier.
If I want to, thought the sand man, I can pull this off.
A wolf began howling—Big Noogie’s ring tone on Juveline’s phone. He left another message saying he was waiting in the hotel bar. Juveline played it back while she hurriedly put her clothes on. When Trebeaux pointed out a florid hickey that he’d imprinted on her neck during lovemaking, she gave an airy shrug and reached for a scarf.
Trebeaux said, “Maybe you should cover that suck mark with makeup.”
“Do I look like the fuckin’ Avon lady? All I got in my bag is lipstick.”
“You’re right, you’re right. The scarf works.”
Halfway out the door, Juveline turned and said, “Text me tomorrow about Cuba, Marty. I need to know what to wear.”