Skinny Dip

Sixteen

Tool was in a more talkative mood since they'd detoured to a convalescent center so he could "pop in" on somebody named Maureen. Obviously she was his hot new drug connection; probably a rogue nurse, Chaz Perrone had surmised while watching Tool configure an array of fresh fentanyl patches on his shaven shoulders.

"Tell me about your wife," Tool said on the long drive west.

Chaz was caught off guard. "What about her?"

"What was she like before she died?" Tool asked.

"Beautiful. Blond. Smart. Funny."

It was a part of Chaz's widower script that required no rehearsal, because it was the truth. Nonetheless, he found it disquieting to speak the words aloud, as if they reminded some weak and sentimental part of him what he'd lost. Disdainfully he appraised the stubborn, useless bulge in his trousers.

"So how come you ain't all sad and blue?" Tool asked.

"Who says I'm not."

Tool gave a salacious laugh. "It's only been-what, a week?-and already you're on pussy patrol."

"If you're talking about that woman who came over last night," Chaz said, "she was a professional masseuse."

"Yeah, and I'm a fuckin' astronaut. Come on, Doc, what happened 'tween you and your old lady?"

"None of your damn business."

"Aw, relax," Tool said.

Chaz was annoyed by Tool's prying, though he realized that interpersonal sensitivity was not a signature trait among crew bosses on vegetable farms. In fact, the question posed by Tool could just as easily have come from any of Chaz's golfing buddies, and the answer- although it could never be uttered-was simple: Joey knew too much. Or if she didn't know, she certainly suspected.

What other choice did Chaz have but to kill her? If the Everglades scam was exposed, the media would have crucified him; a bribe-taking biologist would be front-page news even in a sewer of corruption like South Florida. Chaz surely would have been sent to prison or whacked by Red Hammernut, or possibly both.

He found it ironic that, if the truth ever came out, Tool more than anybody would appreciate the cojones that it took to throw Joey off the cruise liner.

As they approached the pump station, Chaz stopped on the shoulder of the levee and kept the engine running. The marsh shimmered under azure skies that stretched as far as the horizon, but Chaz would have been infinitely more relaxed in the parking garage of a shopping mall. He dreaded having to forsake the steel embrace of his Humvee for the loathsome, predator-infested wilderness.

Tool said, "Nice'n peaceful out here."

"Yeah. Paradise."

"What, you'd rather be sittin' bumper-to-bumper on 1-95? Are you sick in the head?"

Chaz leaned on the horn to frighten off lurking panthers. Ignoring Tool's puzzled scowl, he said, "Okay, let's get it over with."

Then he climbed down from the Hummer and began changing into his wading gear. Tool examined the new red seal on the left front tire and pronounced it airtight-that was how Chaz's morning had begun, with a flat. The steak knife protruding from the tread had come from the set in his own kitchen, and Chaz assumed that the culprit was the same man who'd broken into the house and tangled with Tool.

"Hey, lookit the gator." Tool pointed to a four-footer nosing curiously out of the saw grass.

"Adorable," Chaz said.

"He's a chunky little sumbitch, huh?"

"Sure is." Chaz thinking: It's like I died and woke up on the fucking Discovery Channel.

He was unsheathing die two-iron when he heard gunfire, prompting him to dive beneath the Humvee. Peeking out, he saw Tool sloshing out of the saw grass and up the embankment, dragging the limp alligator by its tail. The butt of Chaz's pawnshop.38 was visible in a front pocket of the goon's overalls.

Perfect, Chaz thought bleakly. He could see the headline: everglades BIOLOGIST BUSTED FOR POACHING.

"Ever tried one a these?" Tool was grinning as he presented the dead animal for inspection. "The way to do it, you batter the chunks and fry 'em in peanut oil."

Not so long ago, the egregious stupidity of plugging a gator would have propelled Chaz into a tirade. Now he wearily accepted such incidents as further proof that life was unraveling beyond his control. In an act of laughable futility, he tried to explain to Tool that shooting a federally protected species was a crime punishable by heavy fines and prison time. Tool chuckled and told him not to worry, the evidence would be gone after supper.

As Tool loaded the oozing corpse into the back of the Humvee, Chaz stepped aside without objection. He was well beyond his default thresholds of shock, disgust or even anger. He picked up the two-iron, clipped a sample-collection container to his waders and trudged into the brown water.

"Need a hand?" Tool, calling from the shore.

"No, sir," Chaz said.

His confidence in Tool's bodyguarding skills had been eroded by the man's lackluster performance against last night's intruder, who-by Tool's own bitter account-was eighty pounds lighter and twenty years older than Tool himself. That the prowler had fled unscathed from Chaz's home was less discouraging than the fact that Red's hired goon had been left blubbering and puking on the floor. Tool had spent the rest of the night in loud recuperation, an ice-filled towel wrapped around his throat. His description of the attacker matched no one known to Chaz Perrone, who figured it was a seasoned thug recruited by Detective Rolvaag as part of the blackmail enterprise. When Tool announced his intention to dismember the intruder the next time their paths crossed, Chaz had to restrain himself from sarcasm.

"You want the gun?" Tool yelled from the embankment.

"I'm fine," Chaz snapped irritably.

With the golf club he hacked a path through the cattails, which had grown dense since he'd last visited this particular sampling site. The lush bloom was a bad sign, indicating a copious and harmful influx of agricultural-based phosphorus. The result was what legitimate biolo-

gists would call a "loss of characteristic calcareous periphyton mat." In plain English, it meant that Red Hammernut's farms were flushing so much fertilizer into the water that it was choking part of the Everglades to death.

If any of Dr. Charles Perrone's colleagues were to drive up unexpectedly and observe the proliferation of cattails, they would know instantly that Chaz had been faking the phosphorus readings. That was why he ordinarily uprooted the incriminating fuzz-tipped stalks, but today there were so many… and he was far too preoccupied to spend hours slashing in the muck.

Chaz groped at his crotch through the thick rubber leggings and thought: If I died now, they'd never get the coffin shut.

Sixteen hours after swallowing the blue pills, he still carried a baton in his pants. There was absolutely no sensation other than bulk, a numb and obstinate stiffness that even the creeping chill of the pond could not deflate. For Chaz it was the crudest of afflictions, an enduring yet pleasureless woody.

Hurriedly he dipped up the sample and flailed back toward the levee. Droopy-eyed from the drugs, Tool commented that it was the silliest goddamn job he ever heard of, fillin' bottles with swamp water.

"Does it pay good?" he asked. "I want a gig like this."

"Help me out of these waders," Chaz said. The gnats and flies that were tormenting him displayed no appetite for Tool, whose moist carpet of body hair served as a natural pest deterrent.

"Hurry up!" Chaz said, Tool tugging listlessly at the heavy leggings.

Considering his streak of bad luck, Chaz elected not to dump out the water sample at the site, as he sometimes did to avert the risk of leakage on the Hummer's sweet-smelling upholstery. It turned out to be a prescient decision-the capped Algine-brand container was positioned fortuitously on the front seat when they unexpectedly encountered Marta, Chaz's boss. She was driving her State of Florida pickup truck down the dike in the opposite direction, toward the spillway from which Chaz and Tool had departed. Chaz's rampaging paranoia was such that he refused to consider the possibility that Marta's appearance was part of a routine patrol.

"You're already done out here?" she asked.

Chaz nodded and held up the bottle of water.

"Want me to take that? I'm heading back to the office anyway," Marta offered.

"Oh, no. That's all right." Chaz gripped the container with both hands, in case Marta tried to reach in and snatch it. If she or any other scientist at the water district tested the sample for phosphorus, Chaz would be finished. So would Red Hammernut.

Predictably, Marta was taken aback by the sight of Tool in the passenger seat.

"Grad student," Chaz blurted. "He asked to ride along for a day. I didn't see the harm."

Tool might as well have been wearing a strapless evening gown, the way Marta was staring. "Where do you go to school?" she asked.

Tool turned inquiringly to Chaz, who said, "Florida Atlantic."

"Yeah," Tool grunted. "Floor Dilantic."

Marta smiled gamely. "Well, that's a good program. But you're supposed to sign a liability waiver if you're out in the field with district staff. In case of an accident or something."

"My fault. I forgot," Chaz volunteered, thinking: Thank God I covered the dead gator with my waders.

Marta turned her truck around and waved good-bye. As they followed her down the levee toward the highway, Tool said to Chaz, "Lookit you. Your hands are shakin'."

"Have you got any idea what would've happened if she'd seen"- Chaz was jerking his chin toward the backseat-"that?"

"Oh, I had a story all ready to go."

"I'm sure," Chaz said.

"Could say we found the poor thing shot on the dike and we was runnin' it to the vet doctor."

Brilliant, Chaz thought. An alligator ambulance service.

"My stomach's killing me," he muttered.

"Plus, they's a leech on your face."

"That's not funny."

"Just a lil'un." Tool pinched it off and flicked it out the window. "Damn, boy, you's white as a sheet. Maybe you oughta find another job. Seriously."

If only it were so simple, Chaz thought. He touched the tender spot on his cheek and wondered disconsolately if leech slime was toxic. The cell phone rang, but he made no move to grab it. Tool checked the caller ID and announced it was a blocked number.

When Chaz picked up, the blackmailer said: "You're right. We should do a meeting."

Again with the Chuck Heston voice, though it was easier on the nerves than the Jerry Lewis.

"Anytime," Chaz said. "Tell me where and when."

"Midnight. The boat docks down at Flamingo."

"I forget where that is."

"Invest in a map," the blackmailer said curtly, "and don't bother to bring the caveman."

Chaz said, "So it was you last night at the house."

"Yep. How was your hot date?"

"Very funny."

"Still, I was impressed by how quickly you've gotten past your grief."

"See you at midnight," Chaz Perrone said.

Joey stood alone in front of the bathroom mirror and said, "Girl, now you've gone and done it."

She had tried to be good, tried to stay the course. She'd even started a list:

1. He's too old for me.

2. I'm too young for him.

3. He's got a rotten track record.

4. I've got a rotten track record.

5. He's never heard of Alicia Keyes.

6. I've never heard of Karla Bonoff.

7. He lives on an island and shoots at strangers who mess with his dog.

8. I live-

That was as far as she'd gotten with her "Ten Sensible Reasons Not to Sleep with Mick Stranahan." Surely there were more than seven, but instead of knuckling down to remember them all, Joey had gone ahead and slept with him.

"You've lost your marbles," she told herself in the mirror. To make matters worse, it had been her idea. Three in the morning, she's lying alone in bed with the windows open and the taste of the ocean breeze on her tongue. Every time she shuts her eyes she hears this weird, steady chirping noise-screek, screek, screek-and every time she opens her eyes it stops. So the noise is strictly in her mind, driving her batty, when all of a sudden she figures out what it is: bed springs. The chirping noise inside her skull was the sound made by the mattress springs while Chaz was trying to hump his hippie date and Joey was under the bed.

Recalling that surreal scene-cowering like a trespasser in what was once her own bedroom, eavesdropping on the lustful exclamations of a man who was, until only a week ago, her own husband and partner- Joey had felt degraded and lonely and pathetic. She'd gotten up and quietly made her way to the living room, where Mick Stranahan was asleep on the couch. Gently she had squeezed beside him, telling herself at the time that all she wanted was a sympathy snuggle; somebody strong to hold her for a little while.

But once she had pressed herself against him and fell into the easy rhythm of his breathing, she'd realized that sweet platonic hugging wasn't going to cut it. She needed more.

"I'm so lame," she said, and splashed her face with cold water.

When she went outside, he was sitting on the seawall, talking on the cell phone. After he hung up, he asked her to sit down.

"You look about eighteen years old this morning," he said.

"Nice try, Mick."

"It's true." He whistled for Strom, who was nose-to-nose with a grumpy pelican.

"We should talk about last night," Joey said.

"I was dog-tired. I did my best."

"That's not what I meant. You were wonderful," she said, "but I think we ought to clarify a few things."

He patted her hand. "That's the last thing on earth we ought to do. Trust me."

Joey pulled away. "Don't make fun. I'm being serious."

"Me, too," he said. "I've had more of these morning-after chats than you have, and not one has ever resulted in clarity, inner peace or mutual understanding. Let's go eat some breakfast."

"But I'm afraid it was a grudge fuck," Joey said. "That's what Rose would call it."

"Ah. More worldly wisdom from the book group."

"Well? What if I jumped your bones just because I was furious at Chaz?"

"Then I owe him one," Stranahan said. "Bless his lying, murderous, cheating, burnt cinder of a soul. Aren't you getting hungry?"

"No!"

He pulled her close and held her there, Strom nuzzling the back of her neck. "Last night you were gloating, remember? Telling me how Chaz got stuck in neutral," Stranahan said, "how his cannon had jammed, all because he smelled your perfume. You said it was priceless- that was your word. Priceless, knowing he was crippled by the thought of you."

Joey had to smile. "It -was a moment. I heard him tell her that he couldn't feel a thing. He was numb from the waist down."

"Well, there you go," Stranahan said. "That's a hundred times better than a routine grudge fuck, even saucy Rose would agree. Now, if I don't get some black coffee in my veins-"

"Mick, hold on."

"Hush." He held a finger to her lips. "Honestly, I don't want an explanation of what happened last night. Allow me the middle-aged illusion that you were overcome by my stoic, virile charms."

Joey slumped playfully against his shoulder. "Okay, cowboy, I give up."

"That's my girl."

"Was that Chaz you were calling?"

"It was," Stranahan said. "We're on for midnight."

"And what are we demanding, blackmailwise?"

"Good question. I was hoping for one of your famous lists," he said. "Meanwhile, I expect Detective Rolvaag to visit our young widower soon. There's been a surprising development in the investigation of your disappearance."

"Do tell."

"Shocking is the word for it," Stranahan said. "Simply shocking."

Karl Rolvaag turned the place upside down.

Two entire pythons, fourteen and a half linear feet of muscle, yet somehow they'd disappeared like fleas inside his puny apartment.

Incredible, Rolvaag thought. Where could they be?

The previous night he'd forgotten to latch the lid of the tank after refilling the water bowl. It had happened twice in the past, but his slug-

gish pets never noticed. Now it was springtime, when snakes become active, and the prowling pythons had taken advantage of his carelessness.

Rolvaag searched beneath the furniture, above the bookcases, behind and inside the major appliances-nothing. When he got to the bedroom, he experienced a ripple of apprehension, for he saw that he'd left a window open. Had the snakes escaped outdoors? The detective gazed seven stories down at the grid of shuffleboard courts that was the social and geographic hub of the Sawgrass Grove Condominium. Along a line of bedraggled hibiscus bushes, Nellie Shulman was walking her precious Petunia, a foul-tempered cur that appeared to be a cross between a chinchilla and a wolverine. Several of Mrs. Shulman's neighbors were occupied by the same ritual, attached by dancing leashes to manic balls of fluff. From his vantage Rolvaag counted five dogs, all of them edibly sized for a python. The detective understood the urgency of finding his missing pets before they got hungry again.

First, though, he had to nail Charles Perrone.

On the way to work he called his source at the phone company, who without much grousing agreed to help. Time was running out, and Rolvaag needed to catch Perrone in a lie that couldn't be discounted as a misread wristwatch or some other innocent mistake. Rolvaag's man at the phone company promptly called back with numbers and names, only one of which was important to the detective.

Ricca Spillman opened the door as soon as he flashed his badge. She looked as if she'd spent the night in the trunk of a car.

"Are you all right?" Rolvaag asked.

"Soon as I make some coffee."

Rolvaag noticed at least half a dozen empty beer bottles in the trash, and no sign of company. He said, "I'm investigating a missing-person case. I believe you know her-Joey Perrone."

Ricca appeared to wobble. Rolvaag helped her navigate toward an armchair.

"I wasn't even there," she said.

"Where?"

"On that cruise."

"I know you weren't," said Rolvaag, perplexed.

"Why are you here?" She laughed abjectly. "Somebody put my face on a milk carton, or what? Suddenly I'm Miss Popularity."

The detective said that he'd watched Charles Perrone make a call from a pay phone in a Fort Lauderdale hotel. "It was Saturday evening, the day after Mrs. Perrone disappeared. The number that Mr. Perrone called was yours. When I asked him who he was talking to, he gave the name Ricca."

She sagged. "What else did he say? No, wait, I want to call a lawyer."

Rolvaag pulled up another chair. "You don't need a lawyer, Miss Spillman. I just want to ask a few questions about Mr. Perrone's relationship with his wife. Your personal impressions and observations."

"Observations?"

"You know-did they seem happy? Did they argue a lot?"

Ricca eyed him sullenly. "Mr. Perrone and I didn't spend a whole lotta time talking about Mrs. Perrone."

"But did you notice anything… any unusual signs of tension when the two of them were together?"

"I was never with the two of them together" Ricca said sharply. "I was only with Chaz."

"Joey wasn't ever home when you were there?"

Ricca seemed genuinely insulted. "I don't know what Chaz told you, but I'm not into threesomes, okay? Not my scene."

The detective frowned. "I'm very sorry. I believe Mr. Perrone might've misrepresented the nature of your association."

"You're damn right he did."

"He said you were their cleaning lady."

"Come again?" Ricca sat forward.

"That night in the hotel lobby, he told me he was calling to give you the alarm code so you could get in to do the house."

"The cleaning lady." Ricca's voice was like wet gravel.

Rolvaag flipped through the back pages of his notebook. "Here it is-Mr. Perrone said you were the cleaning lady and I could check it out myself. He said your first name was Ricca, but he couldn't remember your last name."

Ricca swallowed hard, working her jaw.

"So I got it off the toll records from the phone company," the detective said.

Ricca rose, rubbing her eyes with a wrinkled pajama sleeve. "Listen, I gotta get ready for work."

"Is there anything else you can tell me?" Rolvaag asked.

"Yeah. I don't do houses, I do hair," she said. "And Chaz's burglar alarm was broke, so the code didn't matter anyway. You can check it out."

Not exactly a smoking gun, Rolvaag thought, but it's better than nothing.

Back at the office, he rushed to tell Captain Gallo everything that Ricca Spillman had said. Gallo shrugged.

"So, Perrone lied."

"Again," Rolvaag said.

"So, he had a secret squeeze. Doesn't make him a killer," the captain said. "Of course he lied about the phone call. What'd you expect him to say-'Yes, Officer, I was just chatting with my girlfriend. She was all broken up to hear about my wife falling overboard and drowning on our anniversary cruise.' Come on, Karl. Sometimes a lie isn't a clue to anything. It's just a reflex."

On that subject, Rolvaag could not dispute Gallo's insight. The detective pleaded for a few more days to lean on Ricca. "She's highly pissed off at Perrone. She might give us something useful."

Gallo shook his head. "If she's not wearin' a diamond engagement ring from your prime suspect, I ain't interested. We need a motive, Karl. Something more reliable than the word of a sulking bimbo- unless she was in on it, too."

"Not likely," Rolvaag said.

A courier appeared with a plain cardboard envelope zippered in plastic. Gallo automatically reached for it, but the courier said it was addressed to Rolvaag. Surprised, the detective opened the envelope and removed a legal-size document.

Gallo cracked, "What's that, a paternity suit?"

Rolvaag was so engrossed in the contents that he wasn't listening.

"What?" Gallo pressed. "And don't tell me it's another job offer."

The detective continued reading, turning the pages. "I'll be damned," he murmured to himself.

Gallo exhaled impatiently. "Karl, don't make me pull rank. What the hell is it?"

Rolvaag glanced up with bemusement. "The last will and testament of Joey Perrone," he said, "leaving thirteen million dollars to her loving, devoted husband."