Skin Tight

15

George Graveline was sun-tanned and gnarled and sinewy, with breadloaf arms and wide black Elvis sideburns. The perfect tree trimmer.

George was not at all jealous of his younger brother, the plastic surgeon. Rudy deserved all the fine things in life, George reasoned, because Rudy had gone to college for what seemed like eternity. In George’s view, no amount of worldly riches was worth sitting in a stuffy classroom for years at a stretch. Besides, he loved his job as a tree trimmer. He loved the smell of sawdust and fresh sap, and he loved gassing yellow jacket nests; he loved the whole damn outdoors. Even Florida winters could get miserably hot, but a person could adjust. George Graveline had a motto by which he faithfully lived: Always park in the shade.

He did not often see his wealthy brother, but that was all right. Dr. Rudy was a busy man, and for that matter so was George. In Miami a good tree trimmer always had his hands full: year-round growth, no real seasons, no time for rest. Mainly you had your black olives and your common ficus tree, but the big problem there wasn’t the branches so much as the roots. A twenty-year-old ficus had a root system could swallow the New York subway. Digging out a big ficus was a bitch. Then you had your exotics: the Australian pines, the melaleucas, and those God-forsaken Brazilian pepper trees, which most people mistakenly called a holly. Things grew like fungus, but George loved them because the roots weren’t so bad and a couple good men could rip one out of the ground, no sweat. His favorite, though, was when people wanted their Brazilian pepper trees trimmed. Invariably these were customers new to Florida, novice suburbanites who didn’t have the heart or the brains to actually kill a living tree. So they’d ask George Graveline to please just trim it back a little, and George would say sure, no problem, knowing that in three months it’d shoot out even bushier than before and strangle their precious hibiscus as sure as a coat-hanger. No denying there was damn good money in the pepper-tree racket.

On the morning of February tenth, George Graveline and his crew were chopping a row of Australian pines off Krome Avenue to make room for a new medium-security federal prison. George and his men were not exactly busting their humps, since it was a government contract and nobody ever came by to check. George was parked in the shade, as usual, eating a roast-beef hoagie and drinking a tall Budweiser. The driver’s door of the truck was open and the radio was on a country-music station, though the only time you could hear the tunes was between the grinding roars of the wood chipper, which was hooked to the bumper of George Graveline’s truck. The intermittent screech of the machine didn’t disturb George at all; he had grown accustomed to hearing only fragments of Merle Haggard on the radio and to letting his imagination fill in the musical gaps.

Just as he finished the sandwich, George glanced in the rear-view and noticed a big blond man with one arm in a sling. The man wore blue jeans, boots, and a flannel shirt with the left sleeve cut away. He was standing next to the wood chipper, watching George’s crew chief toss pine stumps into the steel maw.

George swung out of the truck and said, “Hey, not so close.”

The man obligingly took a step backward. “That’s some machine. “ He gestured at the wood chipper. “Looks brand new.”

“Had her a couple years,” George Graveline said. “You looking for work?”

“ Naw,” the man said, “not with this bum wing. Actually I was looking for the boss. George Graveline.”

George wiped the hoagie juice off his hands. “That’s me,” he said.

The crew chief heaved another pine limb into the chipper. The visitor waited for the buzzing to stop, then he said, “George, my name is Mick Stranahan.”

“Howdy, Mick.” George stuck out his right hand. Stranahan shook it.

“George, we don’t know each other, but I feel like I can talk to you. Man to man.”

“Sure.”

“It’s about your little brother.”

“Rudolph?” Warily George folded his big arms.

“Yes, George,” Stranahan said. “See, Rudy’s been trying to killme lately.”

“Huh?”

“Can you believe it? First he hires some mobster to do the hit, now he’s got the world’s tallest white man with the world’s worst case of acne. I don’t know what to tell you, but frankly it’s got me a little pissed off.” Stranahan looked down at his sling. “This is from a.45-caliber machine gun. Honestly, George, wouldn’t you be upset, too?”

George Graveline rolled the tip of his tongue around the in-sides of his cheeks, like he was probing for a lost wad of Red Man. The crew chief automatically kept loading hunks of pine into the wood chipper, which spit them out the chute as splinters and sawdust. Stranahan motioned to George that they should go sit in the truck and talk privately, where it was more quiet.

Stranahan settled in on the passenger side and turned down the country music. George said, “Look, mister, I don’t know who you are but-”

“I told you who I am.”

“Your name is all you said.”

“I’m a private investigator, George, if that helps. A few years back I worked for the State Attorney. On murder cases, mostly.”

George didn’t blink, just stared like a toad. Stranahan got a feeling that the man was about to punch him.

“Before you do anything incredibly stupid, George, listen for a second.”

George leaned out the door of the truck and hollered for the crew chief to take lunch. The whine of the wood chipper died, and suddenly the two men were drenched in silence.

“Thank you,” Stranahan said.

“So talk.”

“On March 12, 1986, your brother performed an operation on a young woman named Victoria Barletta. Something terrible happened, George, and she died on the operating table.”

“No way.”

“Your brother Rudy panicked. He’d already been in a shitload of trouble over his state medical license-and killing a patient, well, that’s totally unacceptable. Even in Florida. I think Rudy was just plain scared.”

George Graveline said, “You’re full of it.”

“The case came through my office as an abduction-possible-homicide. Everybody assumed the girl was snatched from a bus bench in front of your brother’s clinic because that’s what he told us. But now, George, new information has come to light.”

“What kind of information?”

“The most damaging kind,” Mick Stranahan said. “And for some reason, your brother thinks that I am the one who’s got it. But I’m not, George.”

“So I’ll tell him to leave you alone.”

“That’s very considerate, George, but I’m afraid it’s not so simple. Things have gotten out of hand. I mean, look at my damn shoulder.”

“ Mmmm,” said George Graveline.

Stranahan said, “Getting back to the young woman. Her body was never found, not a trace. That’s highly unusual.”

“It is?”

“Yes, itis.”

“So?”

“So, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about what happened, would you?”

George said, “You got some nerve.”

“Yes, I suppose I do. But how about answering the question?”

“How about this,” said George Graveline, reaching for Mick Stranahan’s throat.

With his good arm Stranahan intercepted George’s toad-eyed lunge. He seized one of the tree-trimmer’s stubby thumbs and twisted it clean out of the socket. It made a faintly audible pop, like a bottle of flat champagne. George merely squeaked as the color flooded from his face. Stranahan let go of the limp purple thumb, and George pinched it between his knees, trying to squeeze away the pain.

“Boy, I’m really sorry,” Stranahan said.

George grabbed at himself and gasped, “You get out of here!”

“Don’t you want to hear the rest of my theory, the one I’m going to tell the cops? About how you tossed that poor girl’s body into the wood chipper just to save your brother’s butt?”

“Go on,” George Graveline cried, “before I shoot you myself.”

Mick Stranahan got out of George’s truck, shut the door and leaned in through the open window. “I think you’re over-reacting,” he said to the tree trimmer. “I really do.”

“Eat shit,” George replied, wheezing.

“Fine,” Stranahan said. “I just hope you’re not this rude to the police.”

Christina Marks was dreading her reunion with Reynaldo Flemm. They met at twelve-thirty in the lobby of the Sonesta. She said, “You’ve done something to your hair.”

“I let it grow,” Flemm said self-consciously. “Where’ve you been, anyway? What’s the big secret?”

Christina couldn’t get over the way he looked. She circled him twice, staring.

“Ray, nobody’s hair grows that fast.”

“It’s been a couple weeks.”

“But it’s all the way to your shoulders.”

“So what?”

“And it’s so yellow.”

“Blond, goddammit.”

“And so… kinky.”

Stiffly, Reynaldo Flemm said, “It was time for a new look.”

Christina Marks fingered his locks and said, “It’s a bloody wig.”

“Thank you, Agatha Christie.”

“Don’t get sore,” she said. “I kind of like it.”

“Really?”

Despairing of his physical appearance since his visit to Whispering Palms, Reynaldo Flemm had flown back to New York and consulted a famous colorologist, who had advised him that blond hair would make him look ten years younger. Then a makeup man at ABC had told Reynaldo that long hair would make his nose look thinner, while kinked long hair would take twenty pounds off his waist on camera.

Armed with this expert advice, Reynaldo had sought out Tina Turner’s wig stylist, who was booked solid but happy to recommend a promising young protege in the SoHo district. The young stylist’s name was Leo, and he pretended to recognize Reynaldo Flemm from television, which was all the salesmanship he needed. Reynaldo told Leo the basics of what he wanted, and Leo led him to a seven-hundred-dollar wig that looked freshly hacked offthe scalp of Robert Plant, the rock singer. Or possibly Dyan Cannon.

Reynaldo didn’t care. It was precisely the look he was after.

“I do kind of like it,” Christina Marks said, “only we’ve got to do something about the Puerto Rican mustache.”

Flemm said, “The mustache stays. I’ve had it since my first local Emmy.” He put his hands on her shoulders. “Now, suppose you tell me what the hell’s been going on.”

Christina hadn’t talked to Reynaldo since the day Mick Stranahan was shot, and then she had told him next to nothing. She had called from the emergency room at Mercy Hospital, and said something serious had happened. Reynaldo had asked if she were hurt, and Christina said no. Then Reynaldo had asked what was so damn serious, and she said it would have to wait for a few weeks, that the police were involved and the whole Barletta story would blow up if they didn’t lay low. She had promised to get back to him in a few days, but all she did was leave a message in Reynaldo’s box at the hotel. The message had begged him to be patient, and Reynaldo had thought what the hell and gone back to Manhattan to hunt for some new hair. “So,” he said to Christina, “let’s hear it.”

“Over here,” she said, and led him to a booth in the hotel coffee shop. She waited until he’d stuffed a biscuit in his mouth before telling him about the shooting.

“ Theesus!” Flemm exclaimed, spitting crumbs. He looked as if he were about to cry, and in fact he was. “You got shot at? Really?”

Christina nodded uneasily.

“With a machine gun? Honest to God?” Plaintively he added, “Was it an Uzi?”

“I’m not sure, Ray.”

Christina knew his heart was breaking; Reynaldo had been waiting his entire broadcast career for an experience like that. Once he had drunkenly confided to Christina that his secret dream was to be shot in the thigh-live on national television. Not a life-threatening wound, just enough to make him go down. “I’m tired of getting beat up,” he had told Christina that night. “I want to break some new ground.” In Reynaldo’s secret dream, the TV camera would jiggle at the sound of gunshots, then pan dramatically to focus on his prone and blood-splattered form sprawled on the street. In the dream, Reynaldo would be clutching his microphone, bravely continuing to broadcast while paramedics worked feverishly to save his life.

The last clip, as Reynaldo dreamed it, was a close-up of his famous face: the lantern jaw clenched in agony, a grimace showcasing his luxurious capped teeth. Then the trademark sign-off: “This is Reynaldo Flemm, reporting In Your Face!”-just as the ambulance doors swung shut.

“I can’t believe this,” Reynaldo moaned over his breakfast. “Producers aren’t supposed to get shot, the talent is.”

Christina Marks sipped a three-dollar orange juice. “In the first place, Ray, I wasn’t the one who got shot-”

“Yeah but-”

“In the second place, you would’ve pissed your pants if you’d been there. This is no longer fun and games, Ray. Somebody is trying to murder Stranahan. Probably the same goon who killed his ex-wife.”

Flemm was still pouting. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out to Stiltsville?”

“You were locked in your room, remember? Measuring your body parts.” Christina patted his arm. “Have some more marmalade.”

Worriedly, Reynaldo asked, “Does this mean you get to do the stand-up? I mean, since you eyewitnessed the shooting and notme.”

“Ray, I have absolutely no interest in doing a stand-up. I don’t want to be on camera.”

“You mean it?” His voice dripped with relief. Pathetic, Christina thought; the man is pathetic.

Clearing his throat, Reynaldo Flemm said, “I’ve got some bad news of my own, Chris.”

Christina dabbed her lips with the corner of the napkin.”Does it involve your trip to New York?”

Flemm nodded yes.

“And, perhaps, Maggie Gonzalez?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said.

“She’s missing again, isn’t she, Ray?”

Flemm said, “We had a dinner set up at the Palm.”

“And she never showed.”

“Right,” he said.

“Was this before or after you wired her the fifteen thousand?” Christina asked.

“Hey, I’m not stupid. I only sent half.”

“Shit.” Christina drummed her fingernails on the table.

Reynaldo Flemm sighed and turned away. Absently he ran a hand through his new golden tendrils. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You still want to dump this story?”

“No,” Christina said. “No, I don’t.”

Mick Stranahan looked through mug shots all morning, knowing he would never find the killer’s face.

“Look anyway,” said Al Garcia.

Stranahan flipped to another page. “Is it just my imagination, “ he said, “or are these assholes getting uglier every year?”

“I’ve noticed that, too,” Garcia said.

“Speaking of which, I got a friendly visit from Murdock and Salazar at the hospital.” Stranahan told Garcia what had happened.

“I’ll report it to I.A., if you want,” Garcia said., I.A. was Internal Affairs, where detectives Murdock and Salazar probably had files as thick as the Dade County Yellow Pages.

“Don’t push it,” said Stranahan. “I just wanted you to know whatthey’reupto.”

“Pricks,” Garcia grunted. “I’ll think of something.”

“I thought you had clout.”

“Clout? All I got is a ten-cent commendation and a gimp arm, same as you. Only mine came from a sawed-off.”

“I’m impressed,” said Mick Stranahan. He closed the mug book and pushed it across the table. “He’s not in here, Al. You got one for circus freaks?”

“That bad, huh?”

Stranahan said, “Bad’s not the word.” It wasn’t.

“Want to try a composite? Let me call one of the artists.”

“No, that’s all right,” Stranahan said. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Al, you wouldn’t believe this guy.”

The detective gnawed the tip off a cigar. “He’s got to be the same geek who did Chloe. Thing is, I got witnesses saw them out at the marina having a drink, chatting like the best of friends. How do you figure that?”

“She always had great taste in men.” Stranahan stood up, gingerly testing the strap of his sling.

“Where you going?”

“I’m off to do a B-and-E.”

“Now don’t say shit like that.”

“It’s true, Al.”

“I’m not believing this. Tell me you’re bullshitting, Mick.”

“If it makes you feel better.”

“And call me,” Garcia said in a low voice, “if you turn up something good.”

At half-past three, Mick Stranahan broke into Maggie Gonzalez’s duplex for the second time. The first thing he did was play back the tape on the answering machine. There were messages from numerous relatives, all demanding to know why Maggie had missed her cousin Gloria’s baby shower. The only message that Mick Stranahan found interesting was from the Essex House hotel in downtown New York. A nasal female clerk requested that Miss Gonzalez contact them immediately about a forty-three-dollar dry-cleaning bill, which Maggie had forgotten to pay before checking out. The Essex House clerk had efficiently left the time and date of the phone message: January twenty-eighth at ten o’clock in the morning.

The next thing Mick Stranahan did was to sift through a big stack of Maggie’s mail until he found the most recent Visa card bill, which he opened and studied at her kitchen table. That Maggie was spending somebody else’s money in Manhattan was obvious: She had used her personal credit card only twice. One entry was $35.50 at Ticketron, probably for a Broadway show; the other charge was from a clothing shop for $179.40, more than Maggie was probably carrying in cash at the time. The clothing store was in the Plaza Hotel; the transaction was dated February 1.

Mick Stranahan was getting ready to leave the duplex when Maggie’s telephone rang twice, then clicked over to the machine. He listened as a man came on the line. Stranahan thought he recognized the voice, but he wasn’t certain. He had only spoken with the man once.

The voice on the machine said: “Maggie, it’s me. I tried the Essex but they said you checked out… Look, we’ve really got to talk. In person. Call me at the office right away, collect. Wherever you are, okay? Thanks.”

As the man gave the number, Stranahan copied it in pencil on the Formica counter. After the caller hung up, Stranahan dialed 411 and asked for the listing of the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center in Bal Harbour. A recording gave the main number as 555-7600. The phone number left by Maggie’s male caller was 555-7602.

Rudy Graveline, Stranahan thought, calling on his office line.

The next number Stranahan dialed was 1-212-555-1212. Information for Manhattan. He got the number of the Plaza, dialed the main desk, and asked for Miss Maggie Gonzalez’s room. A woman picked up on the fourth ring.

“ Is this Miss Gonzalez?” Stranahan asked, trying to mimic a Brooklyn accent.

“Yes, itis.”

“This is the concierge downstairs.” Like there was an upstairs concierge. “We were just wondering if you had any dry cleaning you needed done this evening.”

“What are you talking about, I’m still waiting for those three dresses I sent out Sunday,” Maggie said, not pleasantly.

“Oh, I’m very sorry,” Mick Stranahan said. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

Then he hung up, grabbed the white pages off the kitchen counter, and looked up the number for Delta Airlines.