Al Garcia was feeling slightly guilty about lying to Mick Stranahan until Luis Cordova’s patrol boat conked out. Now Luis was hanging over the transom, poking around the lower unit; Garcia stood next to him, aiming a big waterproof spotlight and cursing into the salt spray.
Garcia thought: I hate boats. Car breaks down, you just walk away from it. With a damn boat, you’re stuck.
They were adrift about half a mile west of the Seaquarium. It was pitch black and ferociously choppy. A chilly northwesterly wind cut through Garcia’s plastic windbreaker and made him wish he had waited until dawn, as he had promised Stranahan.
It did not take Luis Cordova long to discover the problem with the engine. “It’s the prop,” he said.
“W hat about it?”
“It’s gone,” said Luis Cordova.
“We hit something?”
“No, it just fell off. Somebody monkeyed with the pin.”
Garcia considered this for a moment. “Does he know where you keepthe boat?”
“Sure,” said Luis Cordova.
“Shit.”
“I better get on the radio and see if we can get help.”
Al Garcia stowed the spotlight, sat down at the console and lit a cigarette. He said, “That bastard. He didn’t trust us.”
Luis Cordova said, “We need a new prop or a different boat. Either way, it’s going to take a couple hours.”
“Do what you can.” To the south Garcia heard the sound of another boat on the bay; Luis Cordova heard it, too-the hull slapping heavily on the waves. The hum of the engine receded as the craft moved farther away. They knew exactly where it was going.
“Goddamn,” said Garcia.
“You really think he did this?”
“I got no doubt. The bastard didn’t trust us.”
“I can’t imagine why,” said Luis Cordova, reaching for the radio.
Driving across the causeway to the marina, Chemo kept thinking about the stilt house and the monster fish that had eaten off his hand. As hard as he tried, he could not conceal his trepidation about going back.
When he saw the boat that Rudy Graveline had rented, Chemo nearly called off the expedition. “What a piece of shit,” he said.
It was a twenty-one-foot outboard, tubby and slow, with an old sixty-horse Merc. A cheap hotel rental, designed for abuse by tourists.
Chemo said, “I’m not believing this.”
“At this hour I was lucky to find anything,” said Rudy.
Maggie Gonzalez said, “Let’s just get it over with.” She got in the boat first, followed by Rudy, then Christina Marks.
Chemo stood on the pier, peering across the bay toward the amber glow of the city. “It’s blowing like a fucking typhoon,” he said. He really did not want to go.
“Come on,” Rudy said. He was frantic about Heather; more precisely, he was frantic about what he would have to do to get her back. He had a feeling that Chemo didn’t give a damn one way or another, as long as Mick Stranahan got killed.
As Chemo was unhitching the bow rope, Christina Marks said, “This is really a bad idea.”
“Shut up,” said Chemo.
“I mean it. You three ought to get away while you can.”
“I said shutup.”
Maggie said, “She might be right. This guy, he’s not exactly a stable person.”
Chemo clumped awkwardly into the boat and started the engine. “What, you want to spend the rest of your life in jail? You think he’s gonna forget about everything and let us ride off into the sunset?”
Rudy Graveline shivered. “All I want is Heather.”
Christina said, “Don’t worry, Mick won’t hurt her.”
“Who gives a shit,” said Chemo, gunning the throttle with his good hand.
By the time they made it to Stiltsville, Chemo felt like his face was aflame. The rental boat rode like a washtub, each wave slopping over the gunwale and splashing against the raw flesh of his cheeks. The salt stung like cold acid. Chemo soon ran out of profanities. Rudy Graveline was no help, nor were the women; they were all soaking wet, queasy, and glum.
As he made a wide weekend-sailor’s turn into the Biscayne Channel, Chemo slowed down and pointed with the Weed Whacker. “What the fuck?” he said. “Look at that.”
Across the bonefish flats, Stranahan’s stilt house was lit up like a used car lot. Lanterns hung oif every piling, and swung eerily in the wind. The brown shutters were propped open and there was music, too, fading in and out with each gust.
Christina Marks laughed to herself. “The Beatles,” she said. He was playing “Happiness Is a Warm Gun.”
Chemo snorted. “What, he’s trying to be cute?”
“No,” Christina said. “Not him.”
Maggie Gonzalez swept a whip of wet hair out of her face. “He’s nuts, obviously.”
“And we’re not?” Rudy said. He got the binoculars and tried to spot Heather Chappell on the stilt house. He could see no sign of life, human or otherwise. He counted a dozen camp lanterns aglow.
The sight of the place brought back dreadful memories for Chemo. Too clearly he could see the broken rail where he had fallen to the water that day of the ill-fated jet ski assault. He wondered about the fierce fish, whatever it was, dwelling beneath the stilt house. Inwardly he speculated about its nocturnal feeding habits.
Maggie said, “How are we going to handle this?”
Rudy looked at her sternly. “We don’t do anything until Heather’s safe in this boat.”
Chemo grabbed Christina’s arm and pulled her to the console. “Stand here, next to me,” he said. “Real close, in case your jerkoff boyfriend gets any ideas.” He pressed the barrel of the Colt.38 to her right breast. With the stem of the Weed Whacker he steadied the wheel.
As the boat bucked and struggled across the shallow bank toward Mick Stranahan’s house, Christina Marks accepted the probability that she would not live through the next few moments. “For the record,” she said, “he’s not my boyfriend.”
Maggie nudged her with an elbow and whispered, “You could’ve done worse.”
Chemo stopped the boat ten yards from the dock.
The stereo had died. The only sound was the thrum of the windmill and the chalkboard squeak of the Colemans, swinging in the gusts. The house scorched the sky with its watery brightness; a white torch in the blackest middle of nowhere. Christina wondered: Where did he get so many bloody lanterns?
Chemo looked down at Rudy Graveline. “Well? You’re the one who got the invitation.”
Rudy nodded grimly. On rubbery legs he made his way to the bow of the boat; the rough, wet ride had drubbed all the nattiness out of his L. L. Bean wardrobe. The doctor cupped both hands to his mouth and called out Stranahan’s name.
Nothing.
He glanced back at Chemo, who shrugged. The.38 was still aimed at Christina Marks.
Next Rudy called Heather’s name and was surprised to get a reply.
“Up here!” Her voice came from the roof, where it was darker.
“Come on down,” Rudy said excitedly.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“A reyouall right?”
“I’m fine,” said Heather. “No thanks to you.”
Chemo made a sour face a Rudy. “Now what?”
“Don’t look at me,” the doctor said.
Chemo called out to Heather: “We’re here to save you. What’s your fucking problem?”
Suddenly Heather appeared on the roof. For balance she held onto the base of the windmill. She was wearing a gray sweatsuit with a hood. “My problem? Ask him.” She pulled the hood off her head, and Rudy Graveline saw the bandages were gone.
“Damn,” he said.
“Let’s hear it,” Chemo muttered.
“I was supposed to do some surgery, but I didn’t. She thought-see, I told her I did it.”
Maggie Gonzalez said, “You’re right. Everybody out here is crazy.”
“I paid you, you bastard!” Heather shouted.
“Please, I can explain,” Rudy pleaded.
Chemo was disgusted. “This is some beautiful moment. She doesn’t want to be rescued, she hates your damn guts.”
Heather disappeared from the roof. A few moments later she emerged, still alone, on the deck of the stilt house. Rudy Graveline tossed her the bow rope and she wrapped it around one of the dock cleats. The surgeon stepped out of the boat and tried to give her a hug, but Heather backed up and said, “Don’t you touch me.”
“ Where’s Stranahan?” Chemo demanded.
“He’s around here somewhere,” Heather said. “Can he hearus?”
“I’m sure.”
Chemo’s eyes swept back and forth across the house, the deck, the roof. Every time he glanced at the water he thought of the terrible fish and how swiftly it had happened before. His knuckles were blue on the grip of the pistol.
A voice said: “Look here.”
Chemo spun around. The voice had come from beneath the stilt house, somewhere in the pilings, where the tide hissed. Mick Stranahan said: “Drop the gun.”
“Or what?” Chemo snarled.
“Or I’ll blow your new face off.”
Chemo saw an orange flash, and instantly the lantern nearest his head exploded. Maggie shrieked and Christina squirmed from Chemo’s one-armed clasp. On the deck of the house, Rudy Graveline dropped to his belly and covered his head.
Chemo stood alone with his lousy pistol. His ears were roaring. Shards of hot glass stuck to his scalp. He thought: That damn shotgun again.
When the echo from the gunfire faded, Stranahan’s voice said: “That’s buckshot, Mr. Tatum. In case you were wondering.”
Chemo’s face was killing him. He contemplated the damage that a point blank shotgun blast would do to his complexion, then tossed the Colt.38 into the bay. Perhaps a deal could be struck; even after splurging on the car phone, there was still plenty of money to go around.
Stranahan ordered Chemo to get out of the boat. “Carefully.”
“No shit.”
“Remember what happened last time with the “cuda.”
“So that’s what it was.” Chemo remembered seeing pictures of barracudas in sports magazines. What he remembered most were the incredible teeth. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said.
Stranahan didn’t mention that the big barracuda was long gone-off to deeper water to wait out the cold. Probably laid up in Fowey Rocks.
Chemo moved with crab-like deliberation, one gangly limb at a time. Between the rocking of the boat and the lopsided weight of his prosthesis, he found it difficult to balance on the slippery gunwale. Maggie Gonzalez came up from behind and helped boost him to the dock. Chemo looked surprised.
“Thanks,” he said.
From under the house, Stranahan’s voice: “All right, Heather, get in the boat.”
“Wait a second,” said Rudy.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be all right.”
“Heather, don’t!” Rudy was thinking about that night in the fireplace, and that morning in the shower. And about Costa Rica.
“Hands off,” said Heather, stepping into the boat.
By now Christina Marks had figured out the plan. She said, “Mick, I want to stay.”
“Ah, you changed your mind.”
“What-”
“You want to get married after all?”
The words hung in the night like the mischievous cry of a gull. Then, from under the stilt house, laughter. “Everything’s just a story to you,” Stranahan said. “Even me.”
Christina said, “That’s not true.” No one seemed particularly moved by her sincerity.
“Don’t worry about it,” Stranahan said. “I’ll still love you, no matter what.”
Rudy cautiously got to his feet and stood next to Chemo. In the flickering lantern glow, Chemo looked more waxen than ever. He seemed hypnotized, his puffy blowfish eyes fixed on the surging murky waves.
Heather said, “Should I untie the boat now?”
“Not just yet,” Stranahan called back. “Check Maggie’s jacket, would you?”
Maggie Gonzalez was wearing a man’s navy pea jacket. When Heather reached for the pockets, Maggie pushed her away.
There was a metallic clunking noise under the house: Stranahan, emerging from his sniper hole. Quickly he clambered out of the aluminum skiff, over the top of the water tank, pulling himself one-handed to the deck of the house. His visitors got a good long look at the Remington.
“Maggie, be a good girl,” Stranahan said. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Christina took one side of the coat and Heather took the other. “Keys,” Christina announced, holding them up for Stranahan to see. One was a tiny silver luggage key, the other was from a room at the Holiday Inn.
Chemo blinked sullenly and patted at his pants. “Jesus H. Christ,” he said. “The bitch picked my pockets.”
He couldn’t believe it: Maggie had lifted the keys while helping him out of the boat! She planned to sneak back to the motel and steal all the money.
“I know how you feel,” Stranahan said to Chemo. He reached into the boat and plucked the keys from Christina’s hand. He put them in the front pocket of his jeans.
“What now?” Rudy whined, to anyone who might have a clue.
Chemo’s right hand crept to his left armpit and found the toggle switch for the battery pack. The Weed Whacker buzzed, stalled once, then came to life.
Stranahan said, “I’m impressed, I admit it.” He aimed the Remington at Chemo’s head and told him not to move.
Chemo paid no attention. He took two giraffe-like steps across the dock and, with a vengeful groan, dove into the stern of the boat after Maggie. They all went down in a noisy tangle-Chemo, Maggie, Heather and Christina-the boat listing precariously against the pilings.
Mick Stranahan and Rudy Graveline watched the melee from the lower deck of the stilt house. One woman’s scream, piercing and feline, rose above the uproar.
“Do something!” the doctor cried.
“All right,” said Stranahan.
Later, Stranahan gathered all the lanterns and brought them inside. Rudy Graveline lay in his undershorts on the bed; he was handcuffed spread-eagle to the bedposts. Chemo was unconscious on the bare floor, folded into a corner. With the shutters latched, the lanterns made the bedroom as bright as a television studio.
Rudy said, “Are they gone?”
“They’ll be fine. The tide’s running out.”
“I’m not sure if Heather can swim.”
“The boat won’t sink. They’ll all be fine.”
Rudy noticed fresh blood on Stranahan’s forehead, where he had been grazed by the Weed Whacker. “You want me to look at that?”
“No,” Stranahan said acidly. “No, I don’t.” He left the bedroom and returned with the red Sears Craftsman toolbox. “Look what I’ve got,” he said to Rudy.
Rudy craned to see. Stranahan opened the toolbox and began to unpack. “Recognize any of this stuff?”
“Yes, of course… what’re you doing?”
“Before we get started, there’s something I ought to tell you. The cops have Maggie’s videotape, so they know about what you did to Vicky Barletta. Whether they can convict you is another matter. I mean, Maggie is not exactly a prize witness. In fact, she’d probably change her story again for about twenty-five cents.”
Rudy Graveline swallowed his panic. He was trying to figure out what Stranahan wanted and how to give it to him. Rudy could only assume that, deep down, Stranahan must be no different than the others: Maggie, Bobby Pepsical, or even Chemo. Surely Stranahan had a scam, an angle. Surely it involved money.
Stranahan went out again and returned with the folding card table. He placed it in the center of the room, covered with the oilskin cloth.
“What is it?” the doctor said. “What do you want?”
“ I want you to show me what happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“To Vicky Barletta. Show me what went wrong.” He began placing items from the toolbox on the card table.
“You’re insane,” said Rudy Graveline. It seemed the obvious conclusion.
“Well, if you don’t help,” Stranahan said, “I’ll just have to wing it.” He tore open a package of sterile gloves and put them on. Cheerily he flexed the latex fingers in front of Rudy’s face.
The surgeon stared back, aghast.
Stranahan said, “Don’t worry, I did some reading up on this. Look here, I got the Marcaine, plenty of cotton, skin hooks, a whole set of new blades.”
From the toolbox he selected a pair of doll-sized surgical scissors and began trimming the hairs in Rudy Graveline’s nose.
“Aw no!” Rudy said, thrashing against the bedposts.
“Hold still.”
Next Stranahan scrubbed the surgeon’s face thoroughly with Hibiclens soap,
Rudy’s eyes began to water. “What about some anesthesia?” he bleated.
“Oh yeah,” said Stranahan. “I almost forgot.”
Chemo awoke and rolled over with a thonk, the Weed Whacker bouncing on the floor planks. He sat up slowly, groping under his shirt. The battery sling was gone; the Weed Whacker was dead.
“Ah!” said Mick Stranahan. “The lovely Nurse Tatum.”
A knot burned on the back of Chemo’s head, where Stranahan had clubbed him with the butt of the Remington. Teetering to his feet, the first thing Chemo focused upon was Dr. Rudy Graveline-cuffed half-naked to the bed. His eyes were taped shut and a frayed old beach towel had been tucked around his neck. A menacing tong-like contraption lay poised near the surgeon’s face: a speculum, designed for spreading the nostrils. It looked like something Moe would have used on Curly.
Stranahan stood at a small table cluttered with tubes and gauze and rows of sharp stainless-steel instruments. In one corner of the table was a heavy gray textbook, opened to the middle.
“What the fuck?” said Chemo. His voice was foggy and asthmatic.
Stranahan handed him a sterile glove. “I need your help,” he said.
“No, not him,” objected Rudy, from the bed.
“This is where we are,” Stranahan said to Chemo. “We’ve got his nose numb and packed. Got the eyes taped to keep out the blood. Got plenty of sponges-I’m sorry, you look confused.”
“Yeah, you could say that.” Scraggles of hair rose on the nape of Chemo’s scalp. His stomach heaved against his ribs. He wanted out-but where was the goddman shotgun?
“Put the glove on,” Stranahan told him.
“W hat for?”
“The doctor doesn’t want to talk about what happened to Victoria Barlerta-she died during an operation exactly like this. I know it’s been four years, and Dr. Graveline’s had hundreds of patients since then. But my idea was that we might be able to refresh his memory by re-enacting the Barletta case. Right here.”
Rudy fidgeted against the handcuffs.
Chemo said, “For Christ’s sake, just tell him what he wants to hear.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” said Rudy. By now he was fairly certain that Stranahan was bluffing. Already Stranahan had skipped several fundamental steps in the rhinoplasty. He had not attempted to file the bony dorsum, for example. Nor had he tried to make any incisions inside of Rudy’s nostrils. This led Rudy to believe that Stranahan wasn’t serious about doing a homemade nose job, that he was merely trying to frighten the doctor into a cheap confession.
To Chemo, of course, the makeshift surgical suite was a gulag of horrors. One glimpse of Rudy, blindfolded and splayed like a pullet on a bed, convinced Chemo that Mick Stranahan was monstrously deranged.
Stranahan was running a forefinger down a page of the surgical text. “Apparently this is the most critical part of the operation-fracturing the nasal bones on both sides of the septum. This is very, very delicate.”
He handed Chemo a small steel mallet and said, “Don’t worry, I’ve been reading up on this.”
Chemo tested the weight of the mallet in his hand. “This isn’t funny,” he said.
“Is it supposed to be? We’re talking about a young woman’s death.”
“Probably it was an accident,” Chemo said. He gestured derisively at Rudy Graveline. “The guy’s a putz, he probably just fucked up.”
“But you weren’t there. You don’t know.”
Chemo turned to Rudy. “Tell him, you asshole.”
Rudy shook his head. “I’m an excellent surgeon,” he insisted.
Stranahan foraged through the toolbox until he found the proper instrument.
“What’s that, a chisel?” Chemo asked.
“Very good,” Stranahan said. “Actually, it’s called an osteotome. A Storz number four. But basically, yeah, it’s just a chisel. Look here.”
He leaned over the bed and pinched the bridge of Rudy Graveline’s nose. With the other hand he gingerly slipped the osteotome into the surgeon’s right nostril, aligning the instrument lengthwise along the septum. “Now, Mr. Tatum, I’ll hold this steady while you give it a slight tap-”
“ Nuggghhh,” Rudy protested. Thedull pressure of the chisel reawakened the fear that Stranahan was really going to do it. “Did you say something?” Stranahan asked. “You were right,” the surgeon said. His voice came out in a wheeze. “About theBarlettagirl.” “You killed her?”
“I didn’t mean to, I swear to God.” Between the pinch of Stranahan’s fingers and the poke of the osteotome, Rudy Graveline talked like he had a terrible cold. He said, “What happened was, I let go of her nose. It was … terrible luck. I let go just when the nurse hit the chisel, so-”
“So it went all the way up.”
“Yes. The radio was on, I lost my concentration. The Lakers and the Sonics. I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Stranahan said, “And afterwards you got your brother to destroy the body.”
“ Uh-huh.” Rudy couldn’t nod very well with the Number 4 osteotome up his nostril.
“And what about my assistant?” Stranahan glanced over at Chemo. “You hired him to kill me, right?”
Rudy’s Adam’s apple hopped up and down like a scalded toad. Sightless, he imagined the scene by what he could hear: The plink of the instruments, the two men breathing, the wind and the waves shaking the house, or so it seemed.
Stranahan said, “Look, I know it’s true. I’d just like to hear the terms of the deal.”
Rudy felt the chisel nudge the bony plate between the eye sockets, deep in his face. He was, understandably, reluctant to give Mick Stranahan the full truth-that the price on his head was to be paid in discount dermatological treatments.
Rudy said, “It was sort of a trade.”
“This I gotta hear.”
“Tell him,” Rudy said blindly to Chemo. “Tell him the arrangement with the dermabrasion, tell-”
Chemo reacted partly out of fear of incrimination and partly out of embarrassment. He let out a feral grunt and swung the mallet with all his strength. It was a clean blow to the butt of the osteotome, precisely the right spot.
Only much too hard. So hard that it knocked the chisel out of Stranahan’s hand.
So hard the instrument disappeared entirely, as if inhaled by Rudy Graveline’s nose.
So hard that the point of the chisel punched through the brittle plate of the ethmoid bone and penetrated Rudy Graveline’s brain.
The hapless surgeon shuddered, kicked his left leg, and went limp. “Damn,” said Stranahan, jerking his hand away from the blood.
This he hadn’t planned. Stranahan had anticipated having to kill Chemo, at some point, because of the man’s stubborn disposition to violence. He had figured that Chemo would grab for the shotgun or maybe a kitchen knife, something dumb and obvious; then it would be over. But the doctor, alive and indictable, Stranahan had promised to Al Garcia.
He looked up from the body and glared at Chemo. “You happy now?”
Chemo was already moving for the door, wielding the mallet and neutered Weed Whacker as twin bludgeons, warning Stranahan not to follow. Stranahan could hear the seven-foot killer clomping through the darkened house, then out on the wooden deck, then down the stairs toward the water.
When Stranahan heard the man coming back, he retrieved the Remington from under the bed and waited.
Chemo was panting as he ducked through the doorway. “The fuck did you do to your boat?”
“I shot a hole in it,” Stranahan said.
“Then how do we get off this goddamn place?”
“Swim.”
Chemo’s lips curled. He glowered at the bulky lawn appliance strapped to the stump of his arm. He could unfasten it, certainly, but how far would he get? Paddling with one arm at night, in these treacherous waters! And what about his face-it would be excruciating, the stringent salt water scouring his fresh abrasions. Yet there was no other way out. It would be lunacy to stay.
Stranahan lowered the gun and said, “Here, I think this belongs to you.”
He took something out of his jacket and held it up, so the gold and silver links caught the flush of the lantern lights. Che-mo’s knees went to rubber when he saw what it was.
The Swiss diving watch. The one he lost to the barracuda.
“Still ticking,” said Mick Stranahan.