Skin Tight

3

Four days after the Mafia man came to murder him, Mick Stranahan got up early and took the skiff to the marina. There he jump-started his old Chrysler Imperial and drove down to Gables-by-the-sea, a ritzy but misnomered neighborhood where his sister Kate lived with her degenerate lawyer husband and three teenaged daughters from two previous marriages (his, not hers). The subdivision was nowhere near the ocean but fronted a series of man-made canals that emptied into Biscayne Bay. No one complained about this marketing deception, as it was understood by buyers and sellers alike that Gables-by-the-sea sounded much more toney than Gables-on-the-Canal. The price of the real estate duly reflected this exaggeration.

Stranahan’s sister lived in a big split-level house with five bedrooms, a swimming pool, a sauna, and a putting green in the yard. Her lawyer husband even bought a thirty-foot sailboat to go with the dock out back, although he couldn’t tell his fore from his aft. The sight of the sparkling white mast poking over the top of the big house made Stranahan shake his head as he pulled into the driveway-Kate’s husband was positively born for South Florida.

When Stranahan’s sister came to the door, she said, “Well, look who’s here.”

Stranahan kissed her and said, “Is Jocko home?”

“His name’s not Jocko.”

“He’s a circus ape, Katie, that’s a fact.”

“His name’s not Jocko, so lay off.”

“ Where’s the blue Beemer?”

“W e traded it.”

Stranahan followed his sister into the living room, where one of the girls was watching MTV and never looked up.

“Traded for what?”

“A Maserati,” Kate said, adding: “The sedan, not the sporty one.”

“Perfect,” Stranahan said.

Kate made a sad face, and Stranahan gave her a little hug; it killed him to think his little sister had married a sleazeball ambulance chaser. Kipper Garth’s face was on highway billboards up and down the Gold Coast-”If you’ve had an accident, somebody somewhere owes you money!!! Dial 555-TORT.” Kipper Garth’s firm was called The Friendly Solicitors, and it proved to be a marvelously lucrative racket. Kipper Garth culled through thousands of greedy complainants, dumping the losers and farming out the good cases to legitimate personal-injury lawyers, with whom he would split the fees fifty-fifty. In this way Kipper Garth made hundreds of thousands of dollars without ever setting his Bally loafers on a courtroom floor, which (given his general ignorance of the law) was a blessing for his clients.

“He’s playing tennis,” Kate said.

“I’m sorry for what I said,” Stranahan told her. “You know how I feel.”

“I wish you’d give him a chance, Mick. He’s got some fine qualities.”

If you like tapeworms, Stranahan thought. He could scarcely hear Kate over the Def Leppard video on the television, so he motioned her to the kitchen.

“I came by to pick up my shotgun,” he said.

His sister’s eyes went from green to gray, like when they were kids and she was onto him.

“I got a seagull problem out at the house,” Stranahan said.

Kate said, “Oh? What happened to those plastic owls?”

“Didn’t work,” Stranahan said. “Gulls just crapped all over ‘em.”

They went into Kipper Garth’s study, the square footage of which exceeded that of Stranahan’s entire house. His shotgun, a Remington pump, was locked up with some fancy filigreed bird guns in a maplewood rack. Kate got the key from a drawer in her husband’s desk. Stranahan took the Remington down and looked it over.

Kate noticed his expression and said, “Kip used it once or twice up North. For pheasant.”

“He could’ve cleaned off the mud, at least.”

“Sorry, Mick.”

“The man is hopeless.”

Kate touched his arm and said, “He’ll be home in an hour. Would you stay?”

“I can’t.”

“As a favor, please. I’d like you to straighten out this lawsuit nonsense once and for all.”

“Nothing to straighten out, Katie. The little monkey wants to sue me, fine. I understand.”

The dispute stemmed from a pending disbarment proceeding against Kipper Garth, who stood accused of defrauding an insurance company. One of Kipper Garth’s clients had claimed eighty percent disability after tripping over a rake on the seventeenth hole of a golf course. Three days after the suit had been filed, the man was dumb enough to enter the 26-kilometer Orange Bowl Marathon, dumb enough to finish third, and dumb enough to give interviews to several TV sportscasters.

It was such an egregious scam that even the Florida Bar couldn’t ignore it, and with no encouragement Mick Stranahan had stepped forward to testify against his own brother-in-law. Some of what Stranahan had said was fact, and some was opinion; Kipper Garth liked none of it and had threatened to sue for defamation.

“It’s getting ridiculous,” Kate said. “It really is.”

“Don’t worry, he won’t file,” Stranahan said. “He couldn’t find the goddamn courthouse with a map.”

“Will you ever let up? This is my husband you’re talking about.”

Stranahan shrugged. “He’s treating you well?”

“Like a princess. Now will you let up?”

“Sure, Katie.”

At the door, she gave him a worried look and said, “Be careful with the gun, Mick.”

“No problem,” he said. “Tell Jocko I was here.”

“Not hello? Or maybe Happy New Year?”

“No, just tell him I was here. That’s all.”

Stranahan got back to the marina and wrapped the shotgun in an oilcloth and slipped it lengthwise under the seats of the skiff. He headed south in a biting wind, taking spray over the port side and bouncing hard in the troughs. It took twenty-five minutes to reach the stilt house; Stranahan idled in on a low tide. As soon as he tied off, he heard voices up above and bare feet on the planks.

He unwrapped the shotgun and crept up the stairs.

Three naked women were stretched out sunning on the deck. One of them, a slender brunette, looked up and screamed. The others reflexively scrambled for their towels.

Stranahan said, “What are you doing on my house?”

“Are you about to shoot us?” the brunette asked.

“I doubt it.”

“We didn’t know this place was yours,” said another woman, a bleached blonde with substantial breasts.

Stranahan muttered and opened the door, which was padlocked from the outside. This happened occasionally-sunbathers or drunken kids climbing up on the place when he wasn’t home. He put the gun away, got a cold beer, and came back out. The women had wrapped themselves up and were gathering their lotions and Sony Walk-Mans.

“W here’s your boat?” Stranahan asked.

“Way out there,” the brunette said, pointing.

Stranahan squinted into the glare. It looked like a big red Formula, towing two skiers. “Boyfriends?” he said.

The bleached blonde nodded. “They said this place was deserted. Honest, we didn’t know. They’ll be back at four.”

“It’s all right, you can stay,” he said. “It’s a nice day forthe water.” Then he went back inside to clean the shotgun. Before long, the third woman, a true blonde, came in and asked for a glass of water.

“Take a beer,” Stranahan said. “I’m saving the water.”

She was back to her naked state. Stranahan tried to concentrate on the Remington.

“I’m a model,” she announced, and starting talking. Name’s Tina, nineteen years old, born in Detroit but moved down here when she was still a baby, likes to model but hates some of the creeps who take the pictures.

“My career is really taking off,” she declared. She sat down on a bar stool, crossed her legs, folded her arms under her breasts.

“So what do you do?” she asked.

“I’m retired.”

“You look awful young to be retired. You must be rich.”

“A billionaire,” Stranahan said, peering through the shiny blue barrel of the shotgun. “Maybe even a trillionaire. I’m not sure.”

Tina smiled. “Right,” she said. “You ever watch Miami Vice? I’ve been on there twice. Both times I played prostitutes, but at least I had some good lines.”

“I don’t have a television,” Stranahan said. “Sorry I missed it.”

“Know what else? I dated Don Johnson.”

“I bet that looks good on the resume.”

“He’s a really nice guy,” Tina remarked, “not like they say.”

Stranahan glanced up and said, “I think your tan’s fading.”

Tina the model looked down at herself, seemed to get tangled up in a thought. “Can I ask you a favor?”

A headache was taking seed in Mick Stranahan’s brain. He actually felt it sprouting, like ragweed, out of the base of his skull.

Tina stood up and said: “I want you to look at my boobs.”

“ I have. They’re lovely.”

“Please, look again. Closer.”

Stranahan screwed the Remington shut and laid it across his lap. He sat up straight and looked directly at Tina’s breasts. They seemed exquisite in all respects.

She said, “Are they lined up okay?”

“A ppear tobe.”

“Reason I ask, I had one of those operations. You know, a boob job. For the kind of modeling I do, it was necessary. I mean, I was about a thirty-two A, if you can imagine.”

Stranahan just shook his head. He felt unable to contribute to the conversation.

“Anyway, I paid three grand for this boob job and it’s really helped, workwise. Except the other day I did a Penthouse tryout and the photog makes some remark about my tits. Says I got a gravity problem on the left side.”

Stranahan studied the two breasts and said, “Would that be your left or my left?”

“Mine.”

“Well, he’s nuts,” Stranahan said. “They’re both perfect.”

“You’re not just saying that?”

“I’ll prove it,” he said, thinking: I can’t believe I’m doing this. He went to the pantry and rummaged noisily until he found what he was searching for, a carpenter’s level.

Tiny eyed it and said, “I’ve seen one of those.”

“Hold still,” Stranahan said.

“What are you going to do?”

“ Just watch the bubble.”

The level was a galvanized steel ruler with a clear cylinder of amber liquid fixed in the middle. Inside the cylinder was a bubble of air, which moved in the liquid according to the angle being measured. If the surface was dead level, the bubble sat at the midway point of the cylinder.

Stranahan placed the tool across Tina’s chest, so that each end rested lightly on a nipple.

“Now look down slowly, Tina.”

“ ‘Kay.”

“ Where’s the bubble?” he said.

“Smack dab in the center.”

“Right,” Stranahan said. “See-they’re lined up perfectly.”

He lifted the ruler off her chest and set in on the bar. Tina beamed and gave herself a little squeeze, which caused her to bounce in a truly wonderful way. Stranahan decided to clean the shotgun one more time.

“Well, back to the sunshine,” Tina laughed, sprinting bare-assed out the door.

“Back to the sunshine,” Mick Stranahan said, thinking that there was no sight in the world like a young lady completely at ease with herself, even if it cost three grand to get that way.

At four-thirty, the red Formula full of husky boyfriends roared up. Stranahan was reading on the sun deck, paying little attention to the naked women. The water was way too shallow for the ski boat, so the boyfriends idled it about fifty yards from the stilt house. After a manly huddle, one of them hopped to the bow and shouted at Mick Stranahan. “Hey, what the hell are you doing?”

Stranahan glanced up from the newspaper and said nothing.

Tina called out to the boat, “It’s okay. He lives here.”

“Put your clothes on!” hollered one of the guys in the boat, probably Tina’s boyfriend.

Tina wiggled into a T-shirt. All the boyfriends appeared to be fairly agitated by Stranahan’s presence among the nude women. Stranahan stood up and told the girls the water was too low for the ski boat.

“I’ll run you out there in the skiff,” he said.

“You better not, Richie’s real upset,” Tina said.

“Ri chie should have more faith in his fellow man.”

The three young women gathered their towels and suntan oils and clambered awkwardly into Stranahan’s skiff. He jacked the outboard up a couple notches, so the prop wouldn’t hit bottom, and steered out toward the red Formula in the channel. Once alongside the ski boat, he helped the girls climb up one at a time. Tina even gave him a peck on the cheek as she left.

The boyfriends were every bit as dumb and full of themselves as Stranahan figured. Each one wore a gold chain on his chest, which said it all.

“What was that about?” snarled the boyfriend called Richie, after witnessing Tina’s good-bye peck.

“Nothing,” Tina said. “He’s an all-right guy.”

Stranahan had already let go, and the skiff had drifted a few yards beyond the ski boat, when Richie slapped Tina for being such a slut. Then he pointed out at Stranahan and yelled something extremely rude.

The boyfriends were quite surprised to see the aluminum skiff coming back at them, fast. They were equally amazed at the nimbleness with which the big stranger hopped onto the bow of their boat.

Richie took an impressive roundhouse swing at the guy, but the next thing the other boyfriends knew, Richie was flat on his back with the ski rope tied around both feet. Suddenly he was in the water, and the boat was moving, and Richie was dragging in the salt spray and yowling at the top of his lungs. The other boyfriends tried to seize the throttle, but the stranger knocked them down quickly and with a minimum of effort.

After about three-quarters of a mile, Tina and the other women asked Stranahan to please stop the speedboat, and he did. He grabbed the ski rope and hauled Richie back in, and they all watched him vomit up sea water for ten minutes straight.

“You’re a stupid young man,” Stranahan counseled. “Don’t ever come out here again.”

Then Stranahan got in the skiff and went back to the stilt house, and the Formula sped away. Stranahan fixed himself a drink and stretched out on the sun deck. He was troubled by what was happening to the bay, when boatloads of idiots could spoil the whole afternoon. It was becoming a regular annoyance, and Stranahan could foresee a time when he might have to move away.

By late afternoon most of the other boats had cleared out of Stiltsville, except for a cabin cruiser that anchored on the south side of the radio towers in about four feet of water. A very odd location, Stranahan thought. On this boat he counted three people; one seemed to be pointing something big and black in the direction of Stranahan’s house.

Stranahan went inside and came back with the shotgun, utterly useless at five hundred yards, and the binoculars, which were not. Quickly he got the cabin cruiser into focus and determined that what was being aimed at him was not a big gun, but a portable television camera.

The people in the cabin cruiser were taking his picture.

This was the capper. First the Mafia hit man, then the nude sunbathers and their troglodyte boyfriends, now a bloody TV crew. Stranahan turned his back to the cabin cruiser and kicked off his trousers. This would give them something to think about: moon over Miami. He was in such sour spirits that he didn’t even peek over his shoulder to see their reaction when he bent over.

Watching the sun slide low, Mick Stranahan perceived the syncopation of these events as providential; things had changed on the water, all was no longer calm. The emotion that accompanied this realization was not fear, or even anxiety, but disappointment. All these days the tranquility of the bay, its bright and relentless beauty, had lulled him into thinking the world was not so rotten after all.

The minicam on the cabin cruiser reminded him otherwise. Mick Stranahan had no idea what the bastards wanted, but he was sorely tempted to hop in the skiff and go find out. In the end, he simply finished his gin and tonic and went back inside the stilt house. At dusk, when the light was gone, the boat pulled anchor and motored away.