Bad Monkey

Ten

Evan Shook believed that only a masochist or a moron would stay in the Keys all summer. The humidity was murderous and the insects were unshakable, yet here he was. His sons were jacking off at a soccer camp in Maryland, his wife was on an Aegean cruise with her book club and his mistress was camping at a bluegrass festival in Vermont, probably balling some goddamn banjo player.

Meanwhile the construction project on Big Pine Key loomed as one of the stickier problems in Evan Shook’s untidy world. He’d purchased the lot after the real estate market tanked and two years later he broke ground, anticipating a rebound in the demand for high-end island getaways. He was mistaken. The spec house wasn’t done and already he’d been forced to drop the price four times. Most buyers with real money wanted a place closer to Key West, so they could safely patronize the eateries and multitude of bars. The farther one had to drive from Duval Street late at night, the higher the risk of a costly DUI pullover. Big Pine was twenty-nine miles up the road.

Still, Evan Shook had gotten promising nibbles before this bizarre stretch of foul luck—first the dead raccoon, then the hive of killer bees. He stormed the county offices to complain, but he couldn’t find anybody in authority who would even write down his name. Eventually he was steered to some dweeb at the agricultural extension.

“They should spray the island to wipe out all the bees and wasps,” Evan Shook declared. “And pay some trapper to kill those fucking raccoons. Fifty bucks a tail.”

“That’s not funny,” the young agricultural agent said.

“Do you have any idea how much tax I pay on my property? More than you make in a year!”

“Here’s some advice: Do a better job of securing the job site.”

Evan Shook snapped, “Thanks for nothing, junior.”

The unfinished house suffered from the absence of windows and doors, which were essential to sealing the structure from marauding wildlife. Before ordering the expensive impact-resistant glass that was required for new construction in hurricane zones, Evan Shook had been hoping to line up a buyer who’d spring for custom hardware.

As he drove back to the property, he again considered turning the whole damn thing over to a Realtor and flying home to Syracuse. However, due to a slender and ever-dwindling profit margin, Evan Shook remained opposed to paying somebody a commission to sell his spec house. Who needed a real estate agent when you had global Internet?

Two potential buyers were coming to Big Pine that very morning—a middle-aged gay couple from Oslo. One of them owned a firm that manufactured drill equipment for deep-water oil rigs, and Evan Shook smelled a cash deal. In his e-mails he’d laid it on thick about the “balmy Florida winters” and “laid-back tropical lifestyle” and “picture-postcard sunsets.”

Typical Nords, the two men had arrived early for the showing. When Evan Shook pulled up, he saw them standing at the fence and conversing with his eccentric neighbor, Yancy. It was impossible not to notice that Yancy’s pants were bunched around his ankles, and that the Norwegian couple was soberly contemplating his bare ass.

Evan Shook experienced a flush of dread. What the fuck? He remained inside the climate-controlled Suburban to mull the possibilities.

Yancy definitely liked women but perhaps he was bi-sexual. In that case, his presence next door might be a selling point for the spec house, should the Norwegians find him attractive. Evan Shook decided not to interrupt Yancy’s private exhibition, just in case. He fiddled with the stereo dial and pretended to be talking on his cell. In the rearview mirror he inconspicuously checked his face for residual bee stings, and he was pleased to see that the welts were fading.

Soon Yancy pulled up his trousers and returned to his house. Evan Shook got out of the SUV and crossed the unsodded lot to greet his guests, whose first names were Ole and Peder. They were fit and fair-skinned, and they spoke better English than he did.

“I see you’ve met Mr. Yancy. An unusual guy.”

“Yes,” Ole said. “He is fortunate to be alive.”

“Oh?”

The Norwegians exchanged clouded glances. Peder said, “Didn’t he tell you what occurred last night?”

“No, I haven’t talked with him,” Evan Shook said, thinking: This can’t be good.

“He was attacked while jogging,” Ole reported.

“Yancy jogs?” Evan Shook decided it could be true. The man looked as scrawny as a scarecrow. “Did he get mugged or something?”

“Bitten,” said Peder, “by wild dogs.”

“A pack of them,” Ole added.

Evan Shook was speechless. He’d never heard of feral hounds roaming the Keys. The Norwegians said the animals had “mauled” Yancy’s rear end.

“He fought them off before they could reach his throat,” Peder said.

“Where did all this happen?” Evan Shook asked.

Ole pointed. “Right there. At the corner of your street.”

“That’s awful,” mumbled Evan Shook. Awful in every imaginable way.

“Mr. Yancy said it’s not the first time. Usually he carries bear spray but last night he forgot.”

Evan Shook bobbled helplessly. “Bear spray. Really?”

The Norwegians cast not a glance toward their future four-story island vacation house with the picture-postcard sunset view. They were grimly scanning the street for bloodthirsty canines.

“Let me assure you,” Evan Shook said, “I’ve never seen so much as a stray Chihuahua on this island.”

In the maddeningly neutral manner of Scandinavians, Peder shrugged. “Mr. Yancy showed us the bite wounds. It was a serious aggression.”

“Well, I hope he’s notified Animal Control. And if he hasn’t, I damn sure will. Those mutts will be rounded up and gassed, I promise. Now, please, let me give you a tour of the palace.”

Ole shook his head apologetically. “We don’t wish to waste your time, Mr. Shook.”

“You’re not wasting my time. Are you kidding?”

Peder said, “I’m afraid we’re no longer interested. This location, really, it isn’t what we had in mind.”

“Although your house looks quite airy and nice,” Ole added. “It will make an excellent vacation home for somebody, I’m sure.”

Evan Shook felt like his spine was being tapped. “Look, the price isn’t locked in stone. Let’s go inside and get out of the sun. The construction crew won’t be back till noon.”

“We have cats,” Peder said. “So, you see, this neighborhood would be out of the question.”

Ole elaborated politely. “They are too old to outrun a horde of dogs. Inge is eleven and Torhilda is thirteen.”

“That’s a pity,” said Evan Shook. He sounded like a tire going flat.

The Norwegians firmly shook his hand and departed in their rental car. Evan Shook glared across the fence, where Yancy was leaning against the rail of his cedar deck. He had what appeared to be a shotgun under one arm, as if standing guard against another wolfish onslaught. Evan Shook spat on the ground and slouched off toward the chill of his Suburban.

Dr. Rosa Campesino, who insisted on examining it for herself, said: “Andrew, that’s the nastiest-looking butt I’ve ever seen on a live person.”

“The dog was a mutant brute!”

“Just hold still.”

She swabbed the pulpy bite marks with Betadine while Yancy pondered the sublime irony of being wounded in the same nether region where he’d targeted Bonnie Witt’s husband.

“Looks like Fido got a mouthful,” Rosa remarked, “and you didn’t have much to start with.”

“I have other noteworthy attributes.” Yancy was flat on his belly in bed. When he reached out to squeeze Rosa’s leg, she swatted his hand.

“Actually, you could use a few stitches,” she said. “I brought a surgical kit, just in case.”

“To cap off a truly humiliating second date.”

“Hush, Andrew.”

The drive back from Miami had been more nerve-grinding than usual because he’d had to tilt sideways behind the wheel, in order to keep weight off his mangled left buttock. It was worse than one of Bonnie Witt’s nutty yoga positions. Contorted for nearly three hours, his brain pounding from the smack on the concrete, Yancy had emerged like an arthritic crab from the Subaru.

The next morning he’d phoned Rosa to tell her what had happened at Eve Stripling’s house. She said she’d come straight down as soon as she finished the final autopsy on her schedule, a routine suicide. Yancy passed the time on his feet, because sitting was too painful. Liquor helped somewhat. He also distracted himself by initiating a useful conversation with a pair of Norwegians who were waiting to tour the monstrous spec house next door.

Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy’s front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.

While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, “Know what? We’d make a great crime-solving duo.”

“How much have you had to drink?”

“Have mercy, woman. I ran out of Advil.”

“Well, I don’t sleep with drunken guys. Period.”

Yancy sighed. “So many rules.”

She took notice of the shotgun propped in a corner, and Yancy told her restaurant inspections could be dangerous. She informed him that for dinner she was doing blackened grouper with mashed sweet potatoes and a grilled Caesar, and that he was going to finish every bite or never see her again.

“I also stopped in Key Largo and got some homemade carrot cake,” she said.

“From where?”

“What’s the difference?”

“Rosa, you don’t understand. I see all the health reports. I know the dirt on every kitchen.”

She ordered him to be quiet while she sewed up his gnawed butt cheek. To take his mind off the intimate unpleasantries, Yancy told the story of how he was conceived during side one of Abbey Road.

“You mean side two,” Rosa said. “The medley.”

“No, side one. According to my mom, the big moment happened during ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer.’ ”

“It’s all starting to make sense,” said Rosa.

After trimming the last suture, she made Yancy stand up and drink an entire pitcher of cold water. When his head began to clear, he told her about the seaplane parked behind Eve Stripling’s house.

“I ran the tail numbers on a flight-tracking website. It’s a Cessna Caravan that’s leased from a company in Boca Raton. Flew in from Congo Town the day before and cleared Customs at Opa-locka, all legal and proper.”

“Where on earth is Congo Town?” Rosa asked.

“Bahamas.” Yancy jerked a thumb toward the east. “Andros Island.”

“Andrew, you’d make a darn good cop.”

“That dog bite still stings like hell. You sure you know what you’re doing?”

“My other patients never complain. They are, however, deceased.”

That’s when she kissed him. It was a good one, bordering on unforgettable.

“Only because you’re injured,” she said, and kissed him again.

He pulled her close. “How’s this going to work with all these stitches? Do I have to keep standing?”

“Well,” whispered Rosa, “I suppose you could kneel.”

Yancy lifted her sundress. “You’re the doctor.”

The Dragon Queen asked, “How much you take fuh dot pink boy?”

Neville said he wasn’t for sale.

“Too bod.”

“And dot’s a monkey, madam, not a boy.”

“He got a name?”

“Driggs.” Neville opened the brown bag. He handed her the fresh bottle of rum and a box of cheroots. “Dot woo-doo dint woyk on Chrissofer,” he said. “He supposa be gone but he ain’t.”

“Wot!”

“Mon tore down my house!”

“Maybe den he drop dead.”

“No, madam, he come in again dis morning. Got offa plane wit his woman and drove ’way.” Neville had received the upsetting information from a cousin who worked at the airport.

The Dragon Queen struck a match on her bare heel and lighted one of the cigars. She assured Neville that she’d put a hideous, unshakable curse on the white devil. “Juss you wait. He be gone from Andros in due time.”

“I cont wait fuh due time,” said Neville. “Soon dot fella gon start puddin’ up his damn hotel.”

Neville had been hiding in the pines while Christopher’s workers had replaced the fuel filter on the backhoe into which Neville had pissed. He asked the Dragon Queen what type of voodoo she’d used on the white American.

“Dot piece a shoyt you brought tuh me. Any minute now, his skin be fallin’ off his body. Maybe his balls, too.”

She twisted open the rum and took a husky slug, careful not to dribble. Then she sprang up from her wicker throne and began to dance, clapping her hands and swirling her long red-and-yellow dress. Neville glanced anxiously at the door, which he’d left ajar in anticipation of a speedy exit. Driggs bared his yellow teeth and bounded onto Neville’s shoulder. It was the middle of the afternoon, broiling hot and not a murmur of breeze. The windows of the woman’s shack were open and the doctor flies buzzed throughout, targeting the bald patches on the monkey’s hide.

Neville was disappointed that the Dragon Queen’s spell had failed, and increasingly skeptical of her claims. He’d returned to try once more only because of her considerable reputation for dark magic. He told her that stronger voodoo was needed to neutralize the man called Christopher. The Dragon Queen replied that she had needs of her own, and flapped the flowing dress up over her head. Neville was mortified to be flashed in such a crude manner. Driggs began to shriek and twitch and claw at his diaper.

“Madam, please,” Neville protested.

“Wot’s wrong wit dot ugly boy of yours? Am I de first grown woman he ever seen naked as God made us?”

Neville lied and said he was late to meet a boat mechanic in Rocky Town. He dug into a pocket and came up with twenty-one Bahamian dollars, which he counted out and placed on the table next to the rum. The Dragon Queen sighed, tucking the bills into her damp bony cleavage.

She said, “I will need some udder poysonal tings belonging to dis mon. Dot shoyt is all boined up.”

Neville told her he’d come back with something better. That evening he would snoop in the trash cans outside the big oceanfront house that Christopher was renting. That’s where he’d found the piece of shirt.

“Now, put dot sweet pink boy on my knee,” she said, jabbing a dirty fingernail toward Driggs. “Lemme have a squeeze.”

“No, madam, he bites.”

“Wot!” She craned forward like a buzzard, studying the face of the trembling animal. “I tink someone pudda bod coyse on dis youngstah long time ago. But, see here, I kin make ’im good as new. Juss leave ’im wit me.”

The monkey hissed and vaulted out of her reach. Neville followed him out the door.

Dinner was superb. Yancy cleaned his plate for the first time in weeks. Afterward he took Rosa out on his skiff. She asked why he hadn’t remarried after Celia left him. He told her he’d come close twice. Rosa’s own marriage had lasted three years and fizzled with nobody to blame, or so she said.

The truth was more depressing, laid bare by Google Earth. It happened on a rare slow day at the Miami-Dade morgue, when she had only one autopsy scheduled—an elderly female tourist who had straightforwardly drowned at Key Biscayne, a tragedy witnessed by fourteen blood relatives, none of whom could swim a lick. Why a family devoid of water skills chose to vacation at a seaside resort was beyond Rosa’s scope of inquiry. The postmortem was completed by lunchtime and she had the afternoon to kill.

That’s when a blood tech named Gaylord showed her the Google Earth app, which he downloaded to Rosa’s office desktop. Soon she was enjoying aerial views of the Hoover Dam, the Malecón in old Havana, and even—more impressively—her parents’ home in Union City. From thousands of feet in the sky she could still make out the old sycamores lining each side of the driveway, the rectangular outline of her mother’s flower garden and a blurred image of her backyard swing set, which her father sentimentally refused to dismantle.

Next Gaylord loaded Google Maps with a street view, which sent Rosa eagerly cruising the roadways of her youth. There was the Ferraro house—Bobby Jr. had asked her to the junior prom; the shutters were now periwinkle blue, not white like before. The two-story where Angie Fernandez and her sisters had lived looked deserted, a sign planted in the dead lawn saying the place was up for sale by some bank. Also gone were the Sotos, who’d come from Cuba with Rosa’s parents; the new owners had erected a tall wooden fence and nailed up a Beware of Dog sign embellished with the silhouette of a snarling pit bull.

It was only natural for Rosa to check out her present Miami neighborhood and the dwelling she shared with Daniel, her then spouse, who worked as a teak carpenter on yachts. The driver of the Google camera truck had chosen a sunny morning to map the streets of Morningside, and Rosa thought their small home looked tropical and welcoming—the red barrel-tile roof, the green ivy nibbling at the bright stucco walls; in the front yard, ponytail palms, crimson bougainvilleas and a birdbath carved from limestone.

The only thing out of place that day, when the Google crew with their roof-mounted cameras rolled by, was a car Rosa didn’t recognize in the driveway. The car was parked next to Daniel’s Ram pickup, and it appeared to be a late-model Camry or an Accord; who could tell the difference? Dark blue was the color, though, definitely. The car had a Florida license plate that was partially fuzzed in the video—Gaylord surmised that Google did that on purpose because of privacy concerns—although upon enlargement Rosa was able to identify the prefix, which was LRW.

She would never forget those three letters because, as events unfolded, they came to stand in her mind for Low Rent Whore. Having nothing better to do on that slow afternoon, Dr. Rosa Campesino fed the tag information to a cop friend, who ran a statewide computer check and found one and only one blue Honda Accord registered with a tag beginning with LRW. It came back to a Sandra Jane Finn, white female, age twenty-nine, who was known to Rosa as a freelance hotel lifeguard and stand-up paddleboard instructor. For Daniel’s birthday Rosa had purchased for him a ten-foot Dragonfly and three private lessons, which had evidently evolved to include floating blow jobs on the Intracoastal Waterway.

That night Daniel broke down and admitted to the affair, lamenting his wretched luck that the Google vehicle had rolled past the marital homestead on one of the rare occasions when Sandy happened to be there. Usually they met at her place, he added ineptly. Rosa evicted him at scalpel-point, and over time she’d successfully swept him into a tiny moldy corner of her memory.

“You still talk to your ex?” Yancy asked.

“He’s deceased,” Rosa said, “but even if he wasn’t, I wouldn’t call.”

A pod of dolphins rolled in the channel and Yancy patted softly on the water to draw them near. Rosa said she wasn’t sure if she wanted to have children because her job presented such a depressing outlook for the human species. Yancy understood how she felt. Bonnie Witt had once tearfully begged him to impregnate her; the fact that he’d briefly considered the request was proof that he’d been crippled by romantic self-delusions. Their offspring would have been eternally fucked up, prime fodder for Dr. Phil.

The dolphins moved on, swimming leisurely with the tide. Yancy poled the skiff up on a grassy flat and staked off from the stern. He felt all right as long as he didn’t sit down. A colossal thunderhead bloomed to the west, smothering the sun but spreading a lavender veil of light.

“Tell me about the other patient you saw today,” he said to Rosa. “The one who didn’t whine and squirm.”

“You mean the suicide? It was a doctor, believe it or not.”

Yancy briefly thought of Clifford, but he remembered that the Witts were in Sarasota. Unless there was a medical convention in Miami …

“Please tell me he didn’t strangle himself with his pecker in his fist.”

“No!” Rosa said. “And, by the way, that wouldn’t be a suicide. That would be an autoerotic miscalculation. This fellow did the job with a handgun.”

“Messy, but less embarrassing.”

“He was also drunk out of his gourd, and probably loaded on oxycodone. They found prescription bottles all over his condo. We’ll know for sure when the lab finishes the toxicology.”

Yancy had stopped admiring the sky. “He wasn’t an orthopedist, was he?”

Rosa turned in the bow and looked up at him. “How’d you know?”

“His name was Gomez O’Peele?”

“Yes, Andrew, but how on earth—”

“I went to see him yesterday, after you and I had lunch. He used to work for Nick Stripling.”

“Jesus, maybe the guy freaked out after you braced him.”

“That’s not the reaction I got. He wanted cash money for being an informant. Did they find a note?”

Rosa shook her head.

“Then how,” Yancy said, “can you be sure he killed himself?”

“Point-blank wound, right temple. His prints on the weapon. No sign of forced entry, no sign of a struggle. His brother said he’d lost his job at a clinic and had financial problems, booze issues, drug issues.” Rosa raised her hands. “It’s textbook, Andrew.”

“Except maybe it’s not.”

“Did you see a gun when you were there?”

“No. What did he use?”

“A .357 Smith.”

“Let me take a guess on the ammo,” Yancy said. “Hollow points, 158-grain.”

“Okay, stop.”

“Just like the ones that killed Charles Phinney.” Yancy unstuck the pole and started pushing the skiff off the shallows. “When did this happen?” he asked.

“One of the doctor’s neighbors heard a bang around seven-thirty, eight o’clock. She knocked on the door, got no answer. Didn’t call the police because she had company—not her husband.” Rosa was frowning. “This morning a rabbi who lives in the building found blood spots in his parking space. They’d dripped from O’Peele’s balcony, where the body was found.”

Yancy was disturbed to think his visit had in some way precipitated the doctor’s death. Had somebody been surveilling the condo? Or maybe the shooter had followed him there. He thought of Eve and her boyfriend, their hushed and agitated conversation in the backyard on Di Lido Island. Had they been talking about O’Peele? Had they already shot him?

But why bother killing the guy, since Nick Stripling was dead and unreachable by prosecutors? A murder only made sense if Eve herself feared being indicted as a conspirator in the scooter-chair scam, and if she feared O’Peele would testify against her.

“I’ll hold off signing the death certificate,” Rosa said. “It should be easy to compare the bullets that killed O’Peele and Phinney. Meanwhile you should tell the homicide cops in North Miami Beach what you know. Tell them you were at the doctor’s condo a few hours before the shooting and he seemed okay.”

“I’m not telling anybody I was there.”

“Andrew, this is serious shit.”

“So is saving my career.”

On the ride back to the boat ramp, Yancy mentally replayed his brief time inside O’Peele’s place. He was fairly certain he hadn’t left a trace of himself, besides fingerprints on a ginger ale can that the cops were not likely to dust since he’d tossed it in a Dumpster in the parking lot. Fortunately, he hadn’t given the doctor one of his expired detective cards or even a phone number.

Still, there remained a slender chance that, despite the Percocets and bourbon, O’Peele had been sufficiently alert to have noted the name when Yancy flashed his restaurant-inspector ID. What if O’Peele had scrawled it down somewhere after Yancy had gone? That could be a problem.

Back at the house, Rosa inspected his stitches and predicted scar-free healing. Yancy attributed her unwavering Hippocratic detachment to the sorry sight of his gnawed, calorie-deprived hindquarters. When he asked her to spend the night, she declined.

“I’d never make it to the morgue on time.”

“So, take the day off,” Yancy said, belting his pants. “Join me on roach patrol. Tomorrow it’s a gyro shop owned by Rastas who supposedly sell ganja out the back door. Lombardo thinks mice are nesting in the stash, which means they’re the world’s mellowest rodentia. Still, I could use a backup.”

“Sounds like a dreamy third date,” said Rosa, “but I’ll take a rain check.”

“When you talk to the homicide detectives in North Miami Beach, ask them if they found a cell phone on Dr. O’Peele.”

“They did. In a pocket of his robe.”

“I’d love to know the last number he called.”

Rosa said, “Let me see what I can do.” She delivered another toe-curling kiss and headed out the door.

Yancy took his time washing the dishes because standing was pain-free, making it easier to focus on the murder case. He was certain that Eve Stripling was responsible for her husband’s death, yet he couldn’t rule out the possibility that she’d had nothing to do with the shootings of Charles Phinney and Dr. Gomez O’Peele. Whoever said there’s no such thing as coincidence never worked as a cop. The young boat mate could have been robbed and killed by some random dirtbag who’d heard him blabbing about his windfall, just as the pathetic orthopedist could have spiraled into a drug-induced abyss and ended his own life. Smith & Wesson was a popular brand of handgun in Florida, and plenty of unreliable characters favored .357s.

Like most police officers, Yancy had never in the line of duty fired his own service pistol, a lightweight Glock .40 that he’d been forced to turn in along with his resignation. At first he’d felt naked without a holster under his arm, but that had passed with time. For home protection he maintained a double-barreled 12-gauge Beretta loaded with buckshot, a habit left over from residing in greater Miami. For life in the Keys, such a substantial weapon served mainly as a decorative fixture. Yancy would never have thought to carry it while rolling his garbage can out to the street, which is where he was ambushed by a masked bicycle rider wearing a blaze-orange poncho, no more than an hour after Rosa Campesino had kissed him good-bye.