Bad Monkey

Twenty-eight

Caitlin Cox was in the shower when she heard the phone ring. She hoped it was her stepmother calling to report a bounteous transfer of funds into Caitlin’s checking account. Caitlin and Simon had already listed their house and were looking for a much bigger place down in Palmetto Bay.

Two hundred grand was the amount Caitlin had been led to expect from her late father’s offshore stash. A fatter chunk would be coming a bit later, when the life insurance company paid off on Nick’s $2 million policy. Half of that was going to his one and only daughter, who could expedite its delivery (Eve had explained at their reconciliation lunch) if she quit making wild accusations about the manner of her father’s death.

And Caitlin stopped, like, right away. The anticipated windfall had brightened her attitude toward all humanity; Simon said she was like a new person. When he got home from work every morning Caitlin would have two bagels thawing for him in the toaster oven. It was like being married to a geisha!

His job was night security on a movie shoot. Swill was the name of the film, about two guys and a hot vampire chick who open a juice bar on South Beach. As a surprise Simon brought Caitlin to the set, and the coolest thing happened—they asked her to play a customer who gags on a blood-and-banana smoothie. It was a short scene, no speaking lines, but still she was over the moon.

Although Simon earned a decent wage, he and Caitlin hadn’t saved enough for a down payment on a fish tank, much less a house. For upward mobility they were relying on the money from Eve. But when Caitlin stepped out of the shower, she saw Simon holding her cell phone like it was a lit stick of dynamite.

“Is it her?” she asked.

“No, sweetheart, but you better take it.”

Andrew Yancy was on the other end, and he got straight to the point:

“Caitlin, I’ve got a heart-stopping bulletin. Your dad’s not dead.”

“This is your idea of funny? You sick mother.”

“He’s hanging with Eve in the Bahamas—I tracked him down last week. He wasn’t elated to see me, I won’t lie. There were harsh words and gunplay.”

Wrapped in a towel, Caitlin perched her bottom on the edge of a sofa. Simon was making inane hand gestures attempting to elicit information.

“I don’t believe a word you’re telling me,” Caitlin said to Yancy. “Where in the Bahamas?”

“Andros Island. He’s been using a fake name. They bought a beach, he and Eve, and they’re trying to build a resort—I’ve given all this to the FBI, by the way. Don’t waste a plane ticket, because they’re going to haul your old man back here and lock his ass up. So this is sort of a good news, bad news call, but I did promise you we’d speak again.”

Caitlin experienced an odd mingling of emotions, none of which was joy. “But I saw the arm in the coffin with my own two eyes. You’re telling me it came from somebody else?”

“Oh no, the arm was definitely your father’s. He had it removed by a surgeon. That was key to the whole scam, see? So everyone would think he’s dead. The feds were getting ready to bust him, so he decided to have a quote-unquote boating accident.”

“No. Way.”

“Nick said he planned to let you in on the secret, when the time was right. But my feeling is that, being next of kin, you deserve to know now. I’m thinking you and Simon might want to scale down your financial plans.”

Caitlin said, “Who does that? Cuts off their own freaking arm!”

Her husband waved at her and whispered, “I saw a really heavy flick about that! Rock climber fell down a crack—”

“Go, Simon! Get out!”

The cell phone sailed past his ear, and Simon retreated to his mini-gym. After Caitlin calmed down, she picked up the phone and spoke Yancy’s name. He was still on the line.

“So, what about the money?” she asked. The deadness in her voice reminded her of how she used to sound in the heroin days. “The insurance part, I guess that’s history.”

“This is a lot to digest,” said Yancy. “One day you’re grieving for a lost parent, the next day for a lost inheritance.”

Caitlin could hear the annoying clank of the weight machine in the other room. “So what happens to Eve? Sneaky lying bitch. We sat down together, just her and me, and she never told me Dad was still alive. What, like I’d rat him out or something? Know what I think? I bet it was her idea for him to give up a perfectly good arm. Sounds like her.”

“Eve’s in trouble, too,” Yancy said.

“Good! You mean like jail?”

“Oh yes.”

“Awesome!”

“We’ll see.”

“Then who gets all Dad’s money?”

“The lawyers do,” Yancy said. “Good-bye, Caitlin.”

“Wait. Why are you laughing?”

Before putting his phone away he listened to a brief voice message from Neville Stafford saying Stripling was still on Lizard Cay, a big relief. Neville wanted to know when the police were coming to arrest the man. Yancy had been working to make that happen, but today he had a mundane job to do.

From the car trunk he removed his improvised roach-herding device and the portable vacuum. Alone he entered Stoney’s Crab Palace. Tommy Lombardo, the coward, had texted to say he wouldn’t be there; obviously he wanted Yancy to be the bad guy.

Brennan intercepted him at the door. “Not again. Are you kiddin’ me?”

Shrimpy-smelling fingers twirled a hundred-dollar bill under Yancy’s nose. He poked Brennan hard with the snout of the vacuum and ordered him to behave.

“But it ain’t gotta be this way. Nilsson and me was like brothers!”

“Save your cash,” Yancy advised. “I see oppressive legal fees in your future.”

The widow who’d gulped the fish hook had tragically lost her uvula. A chopper hired by her offspring had flown her back to Jacksonville for follow-up treatment at Mayo. Brennan said that overlooking the hook had been a freak accident and he insisted that Yancy inspect his current stock of whole yellowtail snappers, seven fish. None featured honed tackle in the gullet, and Yancy made a terse notation before returning to his roach hunt.

“Aw, come on, what the fuck?” Brennan whined.

“This is coming from the top.”

“Of Hotels and Restaurants? You mean like the director?”

“Higher still,” Yancy said.

The downed widow was a Tea Party patroness who’d funneled ludicrous sums to the governor’s election campaign. From her hospital room she had phoned the executive mansion and angrily warbled her story, and now Brennan was to be punished for serving barbed seafood.

Among many violations on the premises Yancy cataloged twelve live cockroaches, twenty-six dead flies, rodent droppings too abundant to count, a drum of rancid mayonnaise, a can of Comet stored beside the Parmesan cheese and, in a small bowl of slaw, one human toenail clipping. Over Brennan’s objection Yancy wrote up another emergency closure of Stoney’s.

“But we got a wedding party Saturday! Goddammit, I’m calling Lombardo.”

“Take your best shot,” Yancy said.

“It’s that skinny chick who was dating Phinney. She’s marrying that little Russian knob.”

“Madeline? Oh, perfect.”

Yancy drove to the T-shirt shop in town and saw an Out to Lunch sign on the door. Rogelio Burton met him at Pepe’s for coffee. Yancy told his friend about the many twists in the Stripling investigation, and Burton was uncharacteristically blown away.

“Christ, I’ve heard of guys doing a finger before but never an arm!”

“It’s trailblazing,” Yancy said.

“So is you chasing this asshole through a hurricane. Best part is, you brought a date.”

“That’s not for general publication, Rog.”

Burton advised him not to have high hopes for obtaining murder warrants on Stripling, as the evidence was less than overpowering. The detective also wasn’t stunned to hear that the feds were still dicking around with the Medicare indictment, and that no decision had been made about how and when Stripling should be taken into custody.

Yancy told Burton about his latest Plan B—that he intended to give Key West prosecutors an affidavit about the night Stripling socked him and dumped him in the canal.

“That’s an attempted murder, cut and dried.”

“I’m not disagreeing,” Burton said. “But, Andrew, you as the star witness? No offense, but the state attorney isn’t what you call a risk taker. I don’t see Billy Dickinson hanging a whole case on the testimony of a guy who sodomized a big-shot doctor at Mallory Square.”

“It wasn’t sodomy. It was a dry colonic.”

“And now the doctor’s wife, who you were boning behind his back, torches the house next door to yours. Please tell me you didn’t put the idea in her head, ’cause I know how much you hated that place.”

“No, that was all Bonnie,” Yancy said. “But I’ve got to say, the new view from my back deck is pretty fucking fabulous. You should swing by after work on your way home.”

Burton sipped his coffee. “Plus she’s a fugitive on sex charges. Wait’ll that turns up in the Citizen.”

“Dickinson won’t have to lift a finger,” Yancy went on. “All he’s got to do is put me in front of the grand jury. Stripling gets indicted and then there’s a warrant, which is all I care about right now. The Bahamian cops snatch his ass, put him on a plane to Miami. He’s a flight risk, so no bond, and there he sits in jail while the FBI puts the heat on Eve, who’ll eventually cave. She, not me, becomes the star witness against Nick. What?”

“Nothing. I hope that’s how it goes down.”

“They nail this fucker, Rog—the guy who shot poor Charlie Phinney on the streets of Key West, horrified tourists all over the place—what else can Sonny do? He’s got to give me back my job.”

Burton said, “I like to see you radiating positivity.”

“Go fuck yourself.”

Yancy returned to the T-shirt shop and in the thong aisle he cornered Madeline, reeking of cigarettes as usual. She explained that Pestov had offered her thirty-two hundred dollars to marry him. He’d popped the question one afternoon shortly after an Immigration officer had stopped by the store.

“Hey, I could seriously use the money,” Madeline said. “And Pestov’s an okay dude. I don’t have to ball him or nuthin’.” She was letting her hair grow, the roots showing brown and gray. “Charlie’d understand,” she added. “He was into cash flow.”

“Where’s the proud groom?” Yancy asked.

“Out the back door. He saw you coming.”

“Go get him, please. I need a favor.”

“What kinda favor? Jesus.”

“Tell him it’s very important.”

Madeline bit her lower lip. “Man, don’t screw up this deal for me.”

“Relax,” Yancy said. “This one’s for Charlie.”

So far, the retirement years of Johnny Mendez had been uneventful, full of golf and JetBlue specials. His neighbors knew nothing of his corrupt past and treated him with the respect due a former police sergeant. That was more than Mendez could say for his wife, who had selfishly scheduled herself for yet another cosmetic procedure that his insurance plan wouldn’t cover. This time it was a mentoplasty, commonly known as chin augmentation, which involved the surgical implantation of a small silicone module. In profile the face of Muriel Mendez would soon resemble a Hudson River tugboat, and her husband would once again be draining his pension account to pay for it. There was no point in arguing with her but he tried.

He was on the losing end of another shouting match when Andrew Yancy rapped on the door. It was a tailor-made opportunity to exercise the state’s Stand Your Ground law and shoot Yancy dead as an intruder, and Johnny Mendez might have done it if Muriel could have been counted on to support an embroidered account of the incident.

“Hide the fucking cat,” he said to his wife, who shooed the obese Siamese to another room.

“But Natasha loves me,” said Yancy. “Come outside, Johnny, let’s chat.”

Mendez went to the bedroom and from the nightstand got his .38 Special, which he stuck in the waist of his golf shorts. Yancy was waiting on the porch. He said he was sorry for abducting the cat and thanked Mendez for the use of his sergeant’s badge.

“I want to make it up to you,” he said.

“No, you don’t. You hate my fucking guts.”

“Well, yes, that’s impossible to deny. The truth is, I’m here because I need you to do something.”

“What now? The answer’s no effin’ way. Are you serious?” Mendez couldn’t believe this jerk showing up at his door.

“One phone call, Johnny. Five grand in your pocket.” Yancy grinned and held up five fingers.

Mendez was suspicious, but there seemed no harm in listening. His wife came out complaining that the garbage disposal was jammed again. She was heading straight to Home Depot to purchase a new one, and for the errand she’d dressed in a short canary-yellow tennis ensemble.

Yancy said, “You are lookin’ good, Muriel.”

“Thank you. This is Stella McCartney—Johnny says it cost too much but I say he’s a lucky duck.” She laughed, a jungle hooting that spooked a pair of mockingbirds from the cherry hedge.

Yancy said, “He is the luckiest of lucky ducks. Don’t let him give you any shit.”

Mendez felt like shooting both of them. After his wife drove off he showed Yancy the pistol and told him to start talking fast, or else. Yancy punched him in the gut, shoved him inside the door and whisked the .38 from his pants.

“What kind of drooling moron threatens a man who’s just offered him an easy five grand? Don’t answer, Johnny Boy, that’s rhetorical.”

Mendez was bent double, huffing to catch his breath. Yancy helped him into a BarcaLounger and laid out the arrangement.

“Tomorrow there’s going to be an item in the Key West newspaper—you should look it up online. It’ll say Crime Stoppers is offering five thousand dollars for information leading to the arrest of the person or persons who murdered a man named Charles Phinney in Key West. I’d appreciate it if you call that hotline number, Johnny, and tell them who did it. Strictly as a concerned citizen, you understand.”

Mendez, still clutching his midsection, was wary. “You know the killer, how come you don’t call up for the reward?”

“Because I might end up as a witness in the case. It wouldn’t go over so good with the jury if they knew I benefited financially from the defendant’s capture. His lawyers would cut me to ribbons, am I right?”

“Only if you’re dumb enough to tell ’em the truth.”

Yancy emptied the bullets from the gun and tossed it back to Mendez, just like in the movies.

“Johnny, I picked you for three reasons: experience, experience, experience. Nobody can work Crime Stoppers like you,” Yancy said. “The killer’s name is Nicholas Stripling. He’s hiding out in the Bahamas. It’s all right here.”

Yancy handed Mendez a paper that listed every important detail, from the suspect’s DOB to his alias to the color Jeep he was driving. It was more like a dossier than a tip. Mendez knew that the cops in the Keys couldn’t brush it off as a crackpot lead. There would have to be a follow-up.

He said, “They don’t catch him, I don’t get any money. You’re aware how that works.”

“Then what—you wasted a phone call? Big deal.”

“I’m just saying.”

“Stripling is the right man, Johnny. Everything I’m giving you is gold. Plus he’s only got one arm, which is what the Wanted posters would call a noticeable feature.”

“Okay, yeah. But I still don’t believe you won’t be takin’ a cut.”

“All I want,” Yancy said, “is to see this shithead in handcuffs. That’s it. That’s all.”

“Guy who died—he was a friend of yours or something?”

“Never met him. Just some kid worked on a fishing boat.”

Mendez thought about it from all angles, and he really couldn’t see a downside to making the call. He’d get a code number, like all the tipsters; nobody would ask his name.

And the five grand would cover most of Muriel’s chin work.

“One thing you didn’t tell me,” he said. “Who put up the reward?”

Yancy looked amused. “You never cared before.”

“Don’t be a douche. Is it the dead kid’s family came up with the money?”

“You’ll love this,” said Yancy. “It’s the Russian mob.”