Bad Monkey

Twenty-four

By dawn the weather had broken and the wind dropped to nine knots. Hurricane Françoise was gone. The landing strip at Lizard Cay was littered with trees, coconuts, plywood, two-by-fours and sheets of brittle plastic roofing from a nearby chicken farm.

Along with the other debris Claspers removed two dead roosters as he walked the runway with a couple of other pilots and some neighborhood kids. Three small planes had flipped during the heavy winds, but Claspers had done a good job securing the Caravan, anchoring the tie-down stakes in a rocky patch off the edge of the tarmac. The aircraft was untouched by Françoise except for a goatee of shredded palm fronds on the propeller.

By invitation the other pilots had spent the storm inside the well-built vacation homes of their wealthy clients, while Claspers in his underwear had huddled in the shower stall of a leaky motel room expecting the entire structure to implode. Although his gutsy aviating was extremely valuable to Christopher Grunion—who these days would fly a floatplane under the radar into South Florida?—Claspers never got the call from Bannister Point inviting him to come take shelter with Grunion and his girlfriend.

Assholes.

Like they don’t have a spare fucking bedroom.

Even when Claspers had delivered a potential customer for their unbuilt condos—that pretty Cuban woman, the doctor—he didn’t get past the front door. Grunion’s girlfriend had handed him a Heineken and said: “Here, K.J., take one for the road.”

Had the motel walls crumbled during the hurricane, good luck finding another pilot who would do for Grunion what Claspers did. For the risks he’d taken he could lose his certification, or even go to prison. And where was the appreciation for all those daring moves? Where was the respect?

Claspers didn’t know exactly what type of scam Grunion was running, but he knew enough to sink the man if it came to that. Like most good pilots Claspers kept a detailed log of his flights in and out, where and when—solid tracking information that could be handed over to authorities if ever he were questioned about his work for Grunion.

Because you don’t earn loyalty by treating your best people like peons, not the man who flies your motherfucking airplane.

So long, K. J., have a nice hurricane!

Well, screw you, thought Claspers.

His nerves were wrung from the storm. Even half-stoned he’d been terrified to hear the windows buckle and moan. Back home he would’ve swallowed some pills and gone to sleep, but back home there were custom-fitted aluminum shutters and impact-resistant glass and strapped trusses. The building code on Lizard Cay was more lax, which was to say it existed only on paper. Consequently, Claspers spent the night hugging the tiles in the shower. After Françoise passed he stumbled to his bed and found the mattress soaked, clammy rain dripping from a crooked seam in the plaster ceiling. At the first light of day Claspers was out the door.

Without electricity he was unable to recharge his cell phone, and at any minute he expected to see the yellow Jeep speeding up to the airstrip, Grunion primed to bitch him out for not taking his calls. The man would want to go to Miami until Andros Island was up and running, or maybe he’d just send Claspers back for groceries and DVDs. Grunion’s girlfriend was a major fan of Matt Damon and once directed Claspers to fly low over the actor’s house on Miami Beach so she might catch a glimpse. Claspers had no clue where the guy lived, so he’d randomly chosen a bayside spread with an infinity pool and buzzed the place at four hundred feet. Grunion’s girlfriend had been thrilled—she couldn’t wait to tell Grunion that she’d seen Matt Damon’s Irish setter taking a dump on the putting green.

As Claspers removed the straps from the Caravan he thought about quitting and finding another gig. In the old days even his hard-ass cartel bosses would ask him to swing by the finca for drinks. Great food, late-night guitars, good times—that’s how Claspers remembered it. That’s how he’d first met Donna, one of the wives. The Colombians treated Claspers like an important member of the enterprise, which he was, because bales need wings. Never would they have let him hunker alone in a crackerbox motel during a hurricane.

The only bad thing about dumping Grunion—that seaplane was really fun to fly. Claspers loved it.

“You fueled up?” somebody called.

Claspers turned and saw Andrew, the American trust-fund fisherman, walking with his handsome Latina wife across the tarmac. They were carrying their bags.

“How’d the real estate meeting go?” Claspers asked.

The wife said, “Not too good. We were hoping to hitch a ride home with you.”

“If I got two open seats, no problem. All depends on who else is coming. And if it’s cool with the boss.”

“Nobody else is coming,” the fly fisherman said.

“Is that from Grunion direct?”

“We’d like to leave right now,” the wife said. “Basically as soon as you can pull those chocks.”

Claspers was amused by the couple’s boldness. Maybe they’d been rattled by the hurricane, or maybe they’d had a brush with that caveman Egg.

He said, “It ain’t my airplane, señora. Wish it was.”

The fisherman took out a gold police badge and held it in front of Claspers’s nose. “So you can appreciate the sense of urgency, Mr. Claspers. We’ll pay for your gas, but the earliest possible departure is what we need. Like in five minutes.”

“You’re a cop?”

“The clock is ticking. Seriously,” said the woman.

“You, too?”

“She’s a forensic specialist,” the fake fisherman explained. “We’re working two homicides in which your employer is suspect numero uno. Also an attempted homicide, I almost forgot. Plus there’s a pile of heavy federal charges that I can tell you about on the flight back. Unlike Mr. Grunion, the doctor and I don’t mind the lines at Customs and Immigration, so you can take us straight to Miami International.”

Claspers was feeling off balance. “I dunno what the hell you’re talking about.”

“It’s simple. You either get this fucking plane in the air right now, or your license gets yanked back in the States and you find another profession, like driving an ice-cream truck. That’s not too ambiguous, is it? Nothing fuzzy about the scenario I’m presenting. The man you call Grunion and his female companion? On several occasions you flew them nonstop from here to Monroe County, Florida—in this very same aircraft—without officially clearing at Tamiami or Key West. That’s a crime, and the look in your eyeballs tells me you’re aware of the possible shitstorm in your future. If you’ve never had the opportunity to interact with Homeland Security, you’re in for a treat. I’m Inspector Yancy, by the way, and this is Dr. Campesino.”

All the pilot could say was: “Grunion killed somebody?”

The pretty doctor patted his arm. “We really need to get moving.”

The hurricane stayed out over the Bahamas until meandering away. It rained heavily for a day in the Lower Keys but now the sun was shining and Evan Shook’s construction crew had returned to the job site. He was parked in front of the spec house talking on the phone with Mrs. Lipscomb. The topic was crown moldings.

A green Sebring convertible driven by a blonde pulled up next door at Yancy’s place. Evan Shook told Jayne Lipscomb he’d call her back.

“Will you check those prices? Ford thinks we can do better.”

“Sure. Right away,” Evan Shook said absently.

From the glove compartment he removed a stun gun he’d purchased just in case Andrew Yancy hadn’t hallucinated the wild dogs. Agent John Wesley Weiderman had said the woman didn’t have a violent past, but Evan Shook pocketed his new Taser, just in case.

Before stepping from the Suburban he looked at the photo once more—there was no doubt it was the same person. She entered Yancy’s house and Evan Shook moved closer to the fence separating the properties. His phone was in one hand; in the other was Agent Weiderman’s card. Evan Shook knew he should make the call immediately; it would be the responsible thing to do.

Before Plover Chase burned his neighbor’s house to the ground.

What a sight that would be, he thought. A bona fide inferno.

The fugitive came out the back door and stood on Yancy’s deck. She noticed Evan Shook watching as she tied her hair in pigtails. He waved and she nodded back pleasantly. Evan Shook couldn’t help wondering what sort of elaborate sex crime she’d committed—ropes? whips? manacles?—and what man in his right mind would press charges.

Back home at his club, Evan Shook was dependably conservative during law-and-order discussions: Lock up the bastards and throw away the key! Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time! One quick phone call and Miss Plover Chase would be prison-bound. Possibly there was a cash reward. Agent Weiderman would know.

Then again, it was difficult for Evan Shook to imagine how such a sunny-looking soul could be a menace to society. That was his dilemma as he tapped Agent Weiderman’s number into his smartphone. He was about to press Call when Plover Chase took off her cotton beach dress, under which was revealed a candy-striped two-piece swimsuit—not a bikini, yet still …

After dabbing sunblock on her nose, she stretched out on a plastic lounge chair that must’ve cost Yancy all of eleven dollars. To Evan Shook she seemed extremely laid-back for a would-be arsonist.

“Hi, there! I remember you!” Now she gave him a full-on wave.

Evan Shook tucked away the phone and Agent Weiderman’s card as he approached the fence. Conscious of his shortness, he stood straight as an aspen. The heel lifts in his loafers helped.

“Where’s your boyfriend?” he asked.

“We broke up,” she said, “but thanks for the motel room.”

“No problem.”

“I didn’t break into this place, don’t worry. I’ve got a key.” Her lips were a faint shade of pink but her toenails were the color of tangerines.

“Have you seen Andrew?” she asked.

“Not for a few days. Maybe he’s out of town.”

“I’m a friend of his. Really I am.”

“Then he’s a lucky guy. What’s your name, friend of Andrew?”

“Bonnie,” she said. “I tried his cell but he didn’t call back. Usually he’s good about returning his messages.”

“My name’s Evan. You want some water or a soda? It’s hot as blazes out here.”

“No, thanks. There’s beer in the fridge.”

Plover Chase had a nice figure and her legs looked naturally tanned, a feature Evan Shook appreciated. His wife got herself sprayed twice a month at a salon in downtown Syracuse, and she came out looking vinyl. Also, the stuff tasted like insecticide.

“Andrew’s the one who told us it was okay to crash at your house,” the fugitive confided. “Sorry about that.”

“I think he likes to play practical jokes.”

“Have you met his new girlfriend? The surgeon?”

Evan Shook heard himself say, “Yes, she’s down here a lot.”

Which was untrue.

“What’s she look like?” Plover Chase asked. “Good. She looks good.” Evan Shook had never set eyes on the woman, but he said it anyway. “She’s got long brown hair.”

“Scale of one to ten?”

“Eleven.”

“Whoa, daddy.”

“They seem pretty serious,” Evan Shook added.

The fugitive was looking at him over the tops of her sunglasses. “Like, how do you mean? Move-in-together serious, or get-married serious?”

“Well, you know Andrew.”

“Yes, I certainly do know Andrew,” she said.

Behind them, the construction site was a cacophony of hammers and table saws and sanders—even a boom box playing salsa music from Miami, heavy on the horns.

“Where you from, Emmett?”

“It’s Evan.” He spelled it. “I live in New York State.”

“So you’re down here really just to get that house built,” Plover Chase said. “All by your lonesome.”

“My family’s up north, that’s right. I fly back and forth most weekends.”

Yancy’s stalker crossed her killer legs, and Evan Shook found himself sidetracked by unwholesome fantasies.

“So this mansion you’re putting up, Evan, it’s basically a real estate investment?”

“When I’m here, I stay at the Casa Marina. That’s down in Key West.”

“And that’s where you go at night,” she said, smiling, “after a long hard day at the job site.”

“They have a nice bar. Cool and private.” He pointed. “Watch out, there’s a horsefly on … well, right there.”

“That would be my décolletage.” She flicked the insect away, and with a knuckle wiped the blood dot. “How old do you think Andrew’s girlfriend is?”

“I don’t know. Young for a doctor,” Evan Shook said. “Want to come by the Casa later for a drink? They’ve got a country band that’s not bad.”

Plover Chase sat up and swung her lovely feet to the deck. “Andrew’s somewhat famous around Key West. But you probably know that already. Infamous, I should say.”

“For what?”

“You don’t read the papers when you’re in town? Shame on you.”

“There’s a place on Duval where I buy the Times. But, really, I don’t pay much attention to the local news,” Evan Shook said. “So tell me what Andrew did to get his name in the headlines.”

The woman laughed and said never mind, it’s water under the bridge. Then she said good-bye and picked up her beach dress and disappeared into Yancy’s house.

Evan Shook walked back to the Suburban thinking about the justice system. The prisons of America had become so overcrowded that hard-core cutthroats were being turned loose daily, only to strike again. Where was the logic of locking up a hot-looking babe like Plover Chase for a crime of “exploitation,” whatever that might be?

So Evan Shook didn’t dial Agent Weiderman. He still had some mulling to do.

In the meantime he called Mrs. Lipscomb back at the Pier House. He told her that the price for the carved poplar moldings was as low as he could go, regretfully, without taking a loss on the order. She put her husband on the line, and Evan Shook listened to him whine and huff about switching to fiberboard before he eventually surrendered and said okay, what the hell.

“Give her what she wants,” Ford Lipscomb sighed.

“Sir, I feel your pain. But it’s gonna look special when we’re done.”

After hanging up, Evan Shook made a U-turn in the Suburban and drove past the house next door, where the pigtailed fugitive was unloading from her car’s trunk a set of red jerry cans that are normally used to transport gasoline.

Clearly she was struggling with the fact that Yancy had a brainy, beautiful new girlfriend.

Evan Shook pretended not to look at Plover Chase as he rolled by, goosing the accelerator. Sometimes it was best to let nature take its course.

Eve Stripling removed from her prone, moaning husband a broken piece of a composite-fiberglass rod blank manufactured by the Sage company. The jagged point had perforated the disc sac between the fifth lumbar vertebrae and first sacral vertebrae, at the base of Nick Stripling’s spine, leaving him in bald agony, unable to stand.

Eve rushed inside to fetch the Rollie scooter chair, into which Nick one-armedly hauled himself, spitting mud and cursing his wife for not letting him shoot Andrew Yancy in the den. She guided Nick into the house and spent an hour icing his wound, which failed to restore the functionality of his legs. There followed an animated discussion that ricocheted between the subjects of urgent medical care and Eve’s gross culpability for Stripling being ambushed.

Which, the guy who attacked him? Nick had no goddamn idea who it was. Never saw the man’s face. Eve insisted she didn’t get a good look, either.

Some black dude, is what she said—a gem of a clue, here in the Bahamas. Very fucking useful.

Eve told Nick to quit yelling and let’s figure out where to find a rock-star spinal surgeon, soon as we get off this stupid island. Miami was out of the question because Yancy might beat them there and tip the feds that Stripling wasn’t dead, triggering a full-on manhunt.

Yancy, who should have been safely out of the picture, a steaming pile of guts. Instead he was likely hunkered somewhere nearby on Lizard Cay, waiting for the weather to clear.

One thing Stripling had in his favor was a counterfeit U.S. passport bearing the name of Christopher Joseph Grunion. It was a superior counterfeit that had cost him nine grand—some wiseguy who ran a lunch truck in Little Haiti. The passport would remain usable for maybe three days max, depending on how long it took Homeland Security to process Yancy’s information and enter Stripling’s alias in the computer.

“We’re going to England,” Nick declared hoarsely to Eve.

“All right, honey. There’s a nonstop from Nassau.”

“They’ve got fantastic doctors. Good as New York.”

Eve agreed. “I’ll call British Air soon as we get cell service.”

This was during the heavy part of the storm, rain hammering the roof, the electric generator grinding like a cement mixer.

To his wife Stripling said, “I better not be fuckin’ paralyzed. This is all on you.”

“Knock it off, Nicky.”

“You know I’m right.”

He couldn’t stop railing about what had happened. Which, what are the odds of getting randomly stabbed in your own yard during a hurricane?

While holding a loaded shotgun.

The pain was worse than anything Stripling had ever experienced, worse even than post-amputation. Breathing hurt. Blinking hurt. Talking hurt even more.

His suspicions turned to a certain sketchy freelance employee, Mr. Carter Ecclestone, otherwise known as Egg. The meathead was supposed to return to the house after taking care of Yancy’s girlfriend. However, Egg hadn’t been seen since before the hurricane struck. The Jeep, however, was back in the driveway …

Maybe Egg was here, Nick thought, only now he was working with somebody else. Like that nutty old crone he’d been balling—what if she’d talked him into killing Stripling and robbing the place? Maybe she put a voodoo spell on that pea-brained motherfucker.

Or maybe it was Eve who’d made Egg a better offer. Lately she’d been riding Nick’s case about how boring it was on Lizard Cay, how she’d go batshit crazy living here all the time with nothing to do. She’d gotten downright surly when Nick had told her to quit bitching and get a hobby, take up snorkeling or kiteboarding. He’d said the two of them were in this thing together, up to their shiny white asses, only maybe Eve was thinking: Not necessarily.

Except the Egg theory didn’t add up. He wouldn’t have tried to murder Nick with a spindly goddamn fishing rod. He would have disemboweled him with a knife, or cracked his skull with that fish billy, or snapped his neck with those gorilla paws.

Everything about the night ambush seemed unplanned and frantic. A total amateur, but who? Stripling had made a point not to know a soul on the island.

“Oh great,” he muttered. “Now I gotta take a leak.”

“You can still void?” Eve said buoyantly. “That’s a super healthy sign, Nicky. And I see your toes moving, too!”

“Yeah, that’s right, they’re dancing a tango. Now bring me something—a jar or a bowl, I don’t care.”

Eve went to the kitchen and came back with an empty wine bottle.

Stripling scowled. “Get serious. My dick won’t fit in there.”

“Sure it will.”

“It’s bigger than a goddamn cork!” Wretchedly he pounded on the armrests of the Rollie.

“Honey, chill. I didn’t mean anything,” his wife said.

“Gimme your glass before I wet my pants!”

She was holding a Waterford tumbler full of ice, peach vodka and soda. It came from a table set belonging to her maternal grandparents, now deceased. Nick could sense that Eve was reluctant to deploy the sentimental heirloom for urine collection.

Or possibly she just didn’t want to pour out her cocktail.

Stripling was better at forging orders for Rollies than he was at driving one. Impatiently he toggled the joystick until the motorized chair clicked and surged forward. As it passed by Eve he made a swipe at her precious tumbler but she pulled it away. The scooter thudded hard into a wall, jarring Nick’s damaged spine and also his distended bladder, which yielded a warm sour flood. With it came well-founded gloom.

Once the FBI learned he was alive, his days of freedom on Andros Island were numbered. The Curly Tail Lane project would be done, of course, as would Grunion Global Realty, Nick’s mishandled stab at legitimacy. Although he still had a few million liquid, he could easily waste every penny on lawyers and bribes trying to fight extradition to the United States.

Or he could pack up and run. Purchase a new identity, find another place to hide and start over as an international fugitive. Which, talk about exhausting. He didn’t want his face on the Interpol website. He wanted to stay dead.

It wasn’t impossible for a clever person to get lost and stay lost in the Bahamian out-islands—if you were blessed with a spouse who was content to sit around weaving straw handbags or painting kindergarten faces on coconut husks. Keeping Eve settled would require a locale that offered shoe shopping, Pilates, sushi bars, a hair salon and a dog groomer.

A city, in other words. And living in a city would be risky.

Plus, Stripling had already ordered another Contender to replace the one he sank in the Keys. The new boat was a thirty-six-footer, sky blue, with beast triple Mercs and a sixty-gallon bait well. Delivery was due any day. He was naming it Lefty’s Revenge, in honor of his lost arm. A goddamn fish-slaughtering machine is what it was—Nick would be able to run from the east side of Andros all the way to Cay Sal and back on a single tank.

But not if he was hiding out in Geneva or São Paulo.

He could think of just one major move that would solve everything and keep the status quo: Silence Andrew Yancy before he got to Florida and met with the feds.

It was the only way Stripling could stay officially deceased, safe on Lizard Cay. Yancy and his Cuban girlfriend, or whatever she was—they were the only ones besides Eve who knew enough to bring Nick down.

“We gotta find that cocksucker,” he said to his wife.

“You can’t even walk, Nicky. And, please, it’s a hurricane outside!”

“In the morning I’m talkin’ about. First thing.”

She said, “You’re hurt. We’ll need to get out of here.”

“Where the hell is Egg? That’s who we get on Yancy’s ass. Call Egg, okay?”

“He’s not answering the two-way. Here, let me find you some dry pants. Not even the radio’s working, honey. We should get some sleep and wait for the storm to blow through.”

Stripling said, “It’s all your fault, this whole clusterfuck. Now put down your drink and roll me to the damn bathroom.”

In the morning Nick felt even worse. The puncture in his lower back was oozing a fluid that didn’t resemble blood. So severe was the pain that his facial muscles had seized into a grimace. But the cell phones still weren’t working and there was no Internet connection, making it impossible to contact British Air. Eve proposed that Claspers should fly them to Nassau right away, so they’d be certain to get seats on the first flight to London.

But all Nick could talk about was hunting down Yancy before he escaped. Which, no way was that shithead going to sneak out of Andros today. Bahamasair was still grounded from the storm, and none of the local boats were crossing to Florida, not with the Gulf Stream running fourteen feet.

As long as Yancy was stuck on the island, Nick said, Egg would be able to track him down and kill him. Now just find Egg!

Eve said, “First things first, honey.”

She dosed her husband with Clorazepams and Tylenol 2s, left over from a knee operation, before assisting him from the Rollie to the Jeep. On the back seat sat a pair of Louis Vuitton suitcases and Tillie the dog, fussing inside her tartan travel case. During the ride to the airfield Stripling sustained a bitter monologue about people who said white-collar criminals were soft, pussies, when here he was an amputee, possibly crippled from the waist down, staring at life with no parole if he got busted.

Say the word “outlaw” and everyone thinks bank robber, but did John Dillinger cut off a limb to trick the FBI into thinking he was dead? No, sir, he went to the movies and got shot full of lead. Which, these days, any fuckwit with a ballpoint pen and a Halloween mask could rob a bank. The average take was a whopping four grand, less than Stripling spent every year on periodontics.

Despite the hordes of health-care scammers working in South Florida, Nick rated his felonious speciality as elite. Defrauding the United States government of millions of dollars was no job for morons, he said. The Medicare system was chaos times ten.

Faking all those claims required cunning and precision that was foreign to the thug world. Every patient name and Social Security number had to belong to some real person, which meant hacking a medical data bank or paying off a clerk. Then the stolen names had to be transcribed correctly down to the middle initial, no typos! Same with the Socials, otherwise a government computer in Atlanta or Bethesda would spit the forms right back. Just the paperwork would make you nuts, sixteen fucking copies of everything—and, Jesus, you had to be sharp with the math.

Stripling, growing fuzzy from the pills, rambled on to Eve. Said he’d proved himself a heavy hitter. Reminded her that he wasn’t some gutless boiler-room hack who’d copped a plea, paid back the money and ratted out his brother scammers. No, he’d given up a healthy arm and committed two cold-blooded murders so he could keep his riches and stay clear of prison.

He was the real deal, an epic badass!

Yet when they pulled up to Moxey’s airstrip and he saw the white seaplane rolling toward a takeoff, Yancy blowing a kiss from behind a port window, Stripling pitched sideways out of the Jeep and began to jabber.