War Lord

Seven

I went straight from Darwin International Airport to the office of the coroner, Jim Hunt, a big tired-looking guy with thick gray hair parted low on the side of his head. He wore tan Hush Puppies with knee-length off-white socks, brown dress shorts, a pink shirt and purple tie, and had a face that reminded me of one of those Chinese dogs with excess rolls of skin. He leaned forward in his chair and passed the photographs to me over his lunch, a large hamburger with enough cholesterol dripping from the bite he’d taken out of it to block a storm water drain. A blob of egg yolk had collected in a corner of his lips — a snack for later, maybe. The photos showed a couple of sharks lying on the heavy wooden slats of a pier, one two-thirds the size of the other, like it might be the larger one’s kid brother. Both had their undersides slit open from anus to chin. Spilling from the slits onto the slats were the sharks’ insides. Clearly visible in the larger one’s viscera was a human buttock and thigh, and among large sausages of guts pulled from the smaller one was a hand attached to an arm, the glint of a steel watchband on its wrist.

‘You’re a hundred percent sure you got Randy Sweetwater there?’ I asked, flicking through the photos. I didn’t know Randy well enough to positively identify his butt cheek.

‘When you get people in like this — as I’m sure you know, Mr Cooper — identification becomes a bit of a work in progress,’ Hunt answered. ‘Though, at the moment, there’s enough for me to at least believe that those bits and pieces there are your man. Had Randy Sweetwater’s wallet on him for starters. We’re waiting on a DNA profile and prints from the man’s former employer to make a positive ID.’ By ‘former employer’ he meant the USAF, where it was standard practice to keep DNA and fingerprints on file in the event that an aircrew ended up a smear.

‘In the meantime, you could provide us with an idea of his height and weight. Might as well start with the basics.’ He slid a pad and pen across the desk toward me. I jotted down my best estimate. Hunt opened a drawer and brought out a large brown envelope, which he upturned. A chrome pilot’s watch, a Breitling with a black face, slid out of the envelope onto the desk, along with a black leather wallet.

The watch’s second hand was working. I picked it up, turned it over and read the inscription, Anything, Anywhere, Anytime — it was the motto of the 17th Airlift Squadron, Randy’s outfit back when I’d met him. Now that I saw it up close, I remembered the watch being on his wrist back in Afghanistan — he’d just bought it and his co-pilot believed it was a fake. It was still ticking so maybe it was the genuine article after all. I opened the wallet. Through the plastic I could see the photo on a Nevada driver’s license. The face was blank, emotionless, but it was clearly Randy’s blank and emotionless face.

‘Bull sharks — buggers’ll eat anything,’ said Hunt. ‘Once found a steam iron and ironing board inside one of ’em. Only thing missing was the bloody Chinaman.’ He rewarded himself with a chuckle. ‘There’s only one thing more savage than a bull shark and that’s a salty.’

‘What’s a salty?’ I asked him.

‘Saltwater croc. Fucken sharks are good-natured compared to those bastards. That your bloke’s watch?’

I said I believed it was and explained the significance of the inscription.

‘Any tattoos, scars, birthmarks?’ Hunt asked.

‘He had a tattoo — Air Force wings. Here,’ I said, showing him the area, on the arm under the bicep. Unfortunately, that was one of the bits of Randy still missing.

Hunt took the photos of the remains, examined them at close range, picking a pair of glasses up off the table and putting a lens between his eye and the photo. ‘Let’s wait for the formal identification then, eh?’

‘What about getting a look at the wreckage?’

‘Yes, well, as I said on the phone when you called ahead, that might prove a bit difficult — it’s a fair way out in the bush. Anyway, Detective Inspector Grubb can fill you in on all that. And maybe after you’re done, you might like to join Grubby and me at the pub for a little ice-cold refreshment, eh?’

‘Sure,’ I said, standing. I’d come a long way on Alabama’s credit card, and I couldn’t exactly call it quits after a glance at a few photos and lunch with a head on it.

A fly buzzed around the burger. Hunt brushed it aside, eased himself up and out of his chair and held out a hand. ‘You know where you’re going?’

I remembered the address. ‘Seventy-one Smith Street.’

‘Just two minutes’ walk up the road, mate. That’s what we like about Darwin: everything’s just up the road — or down it.’

The formalities concluded, I picked up my bag and left.

Down on the street it seemed to me that the only folks going about their business in the growing mid-morning heat were seniors on electronic scooters and young moms pushing strollers. Take away those moms and I could have been somewhere in Florida in winter. The Aussies called Darwin a capital city but it felt more like a large Gulf vacation town to me. There were too many trees, the pace was too relaxed, and there weren’t enough frowns on the faces of the people walking around for this to qualify as a capital city.

Continuing the Gulf theme, Darwin’s shores were lapped by water, in this instance the Timor Sea, the ditch that kept Australia and Indonesia apart. It was also the final stretch of water over which Randy had had to fly before making landfall, having navigated a distance of roughly eighty-eight hundred miles. And that was Randy’s problem: ‘roughly’ wasn’t quite good enough. His flight plan set out a journey of 8823 miles — LA, Hawaii, Kiribati, the Solomons, Darwin — but he’d fallen short, apparently coming down in a remote shark-infested tributary 344 miles east of Darwin airport’s runway threshold markers.

I counted down the street numbers till I stood in front of Darwin police headquarters, 71 Smith Street, half a dozen stories of Lego prefab opposite a building that appeared to be a cross between a barn and a collection of large croquet hoops — the Darwin Memorial Uniting Church, so a sign said. I went into the police building, showed my ID to the security on the ground floor bench and was buzzed up to the office of Detective Inspector Gary Grubb.

A few minutes later, I came around a corridor corner to find myself beckoned into an office by a large guy with a red beard whose shorts were being pushed down off his hips by a fifty-five-gallon drum tucked under his shirt.

‘Cooper — you found us. This way, mate, this way…’ The hand that shook mine was the size of a clutch plate, and just as hard. The skin on his nose was pitted and pepperoni red. The guy had suffered badly from acne as a kid: a multitude of crescent-shaped depressions on his cheek and neck looked like someone had dug their nails repeatedly into his skin. I pulled out my credentials again; before I could show them, he clapped me on the back like we’d had some good times back in the day, and said, ‘Forget the fucken formalities, mate. You wouldn’t’a made it this far if you weren’t who you said you were. Jim called ahead. Problems with the remains, I hear — not enough of them for a formal ID.’

I went inside and put my bag on the floor. Grubb’s office was cooler than the corridor outside. Located on the corner of the floor, it was lit from two sides, the green waters of Darwin harbor clearly visible out the windows.

The phone on the desk rang. The DI picked it up and after a moment said, ‘Yeah, mate, send ’er up.’ He re-cradled the handset and excused himself. ‘Make yourself at home, mate. Got company.’ He stepped back out into the corridor, leaving the door ajar.

I took the opportunity to scope the office, get my bearings. On one wall was a gray pin board just like the ones back in my office and Bozey’s office, similarly covered in notes and printouts and mug shots of the usual resentful faces. Sharing the wall were large maps of the Northern Territory and the Darwin city area. Tucked into one corner was a personal collection of photos that mostly showed the DI on the back of a boat named The Office, holding up a variety of impressively huge fish by their silver gills. Among the images were shots of dead black hogs the size of horses, their tongues lolling in the dirt, small dogs with wide heads standing around the carcasses, grinning. The DI again featured prominently — him and his buddies, I guessed, leaning on the beasts, rifles in the crooks of elbows, grinning like the dogs. I looked closer and recognized Jim Hunt, the coroner, in several scenes.

‘Come in, come in. Join the party,’ I heard the DI say. The door swung open and a woman entered, the compact sparrow type: blonde shoulder-length hair parted a little off-center, maybe a hundred and fifteen pounds, fair skin, blue eyes, no makeup and around thirty years of age. She wore navy-blue slacks, a loose-fitting cream-colored shirt, flats on her feet: the churchgoer type. Maybe she was lost, looking for the building across the street. We shook. Her hand was tiny and clammy. The nervous churchgoer type.

‘Investigator Kim Petinski,’ she said, introducing herself. ‘US National Transportation Safety Board.’

That surprised me: the NTSB, here already? ‘Vin Cooper,’ I said.

The pause told me she was looking for more than a name, a hint DI Grubb also picked up on. ‘Mr Cooper’s here to identify the remains,’ he said, filling the gap.

‘Oh, so you’re related to the deceased?’ she asked, a blonde eyebrow just a little arched.

‘No. We served together.’

‘Don’t you have to be a relative for formal identification purposes?’

‘Friend of the family,’ I replied.

‘I thought the deceased had no family.’

When Petinski said ‘I’, it came out ‘ah’. ‘Ah thought the deceased had no family.’ A Texan, maybe, come straight from Houston. And on the way she’d done her homework, checked the records. She was looking at me, smiling a smile — if I wasn’t mistaken — that wanted to know why I was taking up her valuable time.

‘I’ve been asked to be here on behalf of Randy’s girlfriend,’ I informed her.

‘His girlfriend?’

‘Okay, de facto, if that helps.’

‘Would anyone like coffee or tea?’ Grubb asked.

‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ said Petinski. I copied that.

Nothing to do, the DI shrugged and eased into the chair behind his desk, and let the conversation between Petinski and me continue.

‘So, you said you served together?’ Petinski asked.

‘Air Force.’

‘Of the United States?’

‘Who else’s?’

The woman smiled again. Seemed to me she did that when she wasn’t pleased. ‘You retired?’ she asked.

‘Nope.’

‘If you don’t mind my asking, what’s your unit?’

I was close to minding, not being a fan of the game of twenty questions unless I’m the one asking, but I played along for the sake of civility. ‘OSI.’

The investigator set her head on a tilt. ‘What did you say your name was?’

‘Cooper.’

‘Cooper… Cooper… Hey, I remember you.’

She had me at a disadvantage there. I couldn’t recall her at all, but I could have been drunk at the time.

‘Haven’t I read about you? Yeah, you were in the Congo with…’ she clicked her fingers to jog her memory, but it only wanted to be partially jogged, ‘… with those two entertainers. Didn’t you make some list in People magazine?’

Maybe I should start wearing sunglasses and a ball cap.

She turned to Grubb and said, ‘Y’know, Mr Cooper here is famous.’

‘Famous? Then you’d better bloody well sign something for me. How about those identification papers for Sweetwater’s remains?’ He chuckled politely, unsure about whether or not there was tension in the room that required relieving. I had to admit, I was wondering the same thing, the polite interrogation giving me the impression that I was somehow stepping on Ms Petinski’s petite toes.

‘You been to see the coroner?’ I asked her.

‘My next stop. You have, obviously.’

‘Yeah. I wouldn’t hurry. There’s not much to see, remains-wise.’

‘I’m actually more interested in surveying the wreckage. Speaking of which,’ she turned to Grubb, ‘we still good to go have a look at it, Inspector?’

‘Not a problem,’ he said, relieved that the pissing contest between the two foreigners in his office seemed to be over. ‘The fishermen who caught the sharks also found the wreckage.’

‘Can we drive there?’ she asked.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it.’ He got up out of his chair and went to the territory map. ‘Came down here, near Elcho Island. Mightn’t look far on the map but it’s around eight hundred kays or so.’ He tapped the spot. He was right, it didn’t look far at all — less than a couple of inches, max. ‘I’ve been contacted by the ATSB,’ the DI informed us. ‘They’ve got a team on the way, so they reckon.’

‘The ATSB?’ I asked.

‘Australian Transport Safety Bureau,’ Petinski said.

‘Local version of you?’

She nodded.

The DI was about to add something further when his phone rang again. ‘Excuse me,’ he said, lifting the receiver. ‘Detective Inspector Grubb. Yep… Uh-huh, uh-huh… No worries, give us ten minutes, eh?’ The crow’s-feet of his smile migrated north to become frown lines on his forehead. Looked like bad news. ‘Something’s come up,’ he said to Petinski and me, putting his hand over the mouthpiece.

Two unmarked police cruisers were already on the scene, as were two plain white vans and a vehicle with the word CORONER in large lettering down the side. Jim Hunt was talking to several men in blue undershirts, shorts and flip-flops, accompanied by a pair of khaki-uniformed police. A well-used blue and white fishing trawler with a rusting A-frame behind the superstructure was lashed against the concrete pier, pushing gently against half a dozen rubber sausages with the rhythm of the calm green sea.

DI Grubb parked behind the marked police car, and we all got out into the heat of bright tropical sunshine. Jim Hunt, hands on his hips, glanced over at us and gave his buddy a friendly nod. As we came closer, I could see a man and a woman in forensics overalls, as well as another male — female team from the coroner’s office — pathologists, probably — in the back of the trawler, all wearing rubber gloves on their hands. The female from forensics was taking photos.

Grubb and Hunt exchanged brief pleasantries, which slid naturally into the introductions, Petinski not having met the coroner. When they were done, Grubb asked his buddy, ‘So, what we got here, mate?’ The DI already knew, having spoken with Hunt on his phone, but the beginning was a good place to start.

‘Catch of the day,’ the coroner replied with a wry twist of his lips, the egg he’d been saving no longer hanging in the corner. Then to me, he said, ‘Never know, mate, might get those papers signed after all, eh?’

I gave his optimism a brief smile.

We crossed the pier to the trawler as the forensics and pathologists on board were packing their respective gear into cases. In the back of the boat was a shark, a good ten to twelve feet in length, gray to black and broad across the back like a heavyweight boxer, lying in a pool of blood and seawater gently sliding back and forth with the motion of the boat. A badly mangled leg with deep puncture wounds, a Rockport shoe on the foot, extended from its bloody mouth. The shark’s belly was slit open, the viscera pulled out. Among the rolls of gut and intestines was part of a human head, including a cheek and an ear, attached to the shoulder by a flap of skin and a couple of tendons. The arm, with hand attached, all of it punctured like the leg, was joined to the shoulder, as were maybe three ribs, which were, in turn, clinging to a length of spine. A blue cotton shirt turned partially black with blood was tangled up with the body parts. This didn’t look anything like the Randy Sweetwater I’d shared a drink with in Afghanistan.

Two of the fishermen — the men in the undershirts and shorts — joined us as the forensic and pathologist teams began the grisly job of transferring the remains into large ice buckets.

‘Caught her thirteen kays north’a Maningrida,’ said the stockier of the two men, the tips missing from all four fingers on his right hand down to the first knuckle.

The taller of the two, a native guy with orange hair and a face as black as a bottomless well, nodded.

‘When’dja find out what the bastard had for tea, Clock?’ Grubb asked, producing a pad and taking notes. Petinski took out a notebook herself and likewise started jotting.

I watched the forensics and pathologists juggle the slippery remains into the ice bins and glanced at Petinski. She was craning her neck to get a look at what was going on — pretty interested in the remains after all.

‘Just bin telling yer mate over there,’ the fisherman called Clock said, nodding at one of the uniforms. ‘Pulled ’er out of the chilli bin thirty kays north, t’ give ’er time t’ thaw before we docked, ’n saw the cunt had spewed a fucken foot. Surprised the shit out of us. We opened ’er up and what you see’s what we found. Called youse blokes straight after that.’

The leg and shoe went in one ice bin, the remains of the head and body, along with his shirt, in the other.

‘More sharks in the area where you hooked him?’ Grubb asked.

‘Fucken millions.’

‘Stroke of luck hooking this one.’

‘Reckon,’ Clock said with a snort. ‘Heard a rumor some blacks jagged a couple of bulls further east. Body parts in those bastards too, I heard.’

‘Nah,’ said Grubb. ‘Bullshit.’

The fisherman nodded. ‘How long you blokes gonna be, d’y’reckon? William and I got a shitload of fish t’ get t’ market.’

William agreed, ‘Yeah, shitload, mate,’ and gestured toward the buildings at the end of the pier, DARWIN FISH MARKETS painted on the side of one of them in peeling black lettering.

‘Jim?’ Grubb pointed at the shark. ‘Ya done?’

Hunt massaged his chin. ‘Got pictures, plenty of teeth and jaw measurements: not much more of interest here for me.’

‘She’s all yours, mate.’ Grubb motioned at the gutted shark. ‘Not gonna find ’er in me sushi, am I?’

‘Nah. Gonna sell ’er to the sport fishers and the tourists — bait.’

‘Where do I reach ya if we got more questions?’

Clock gave Grubb their details.

‘So, Mr Cooper,’ said Hunt, making his way toward me. ‘Lemme get these remains back to the bench — see what they tell us. There’s more to go on, but not much more, so I reckon we’re still gonna be waiting for that DNA screen. We can lift some prints from the hand we’ve recovered. That might speed things up for us. Who knows, eh? I got your number… Where you staying while you’re in town?’

‘The A-Star.’

The look on his face suggested I’d be more comfortable in a dumpster. ‘Round here, we call that the A-Soll,’ he said drily. ‘And Ms Petinski? You’re at…?’

‘The Crowne Plaza.’

‘Nice.’ He took notes while I wondered what could be so bad about the A-Star, aside from the fact that it was cheap and had an unfortunate name. I hadn’t checked in yet.

‘Not sure what your movements are,’ the coroner said, speaking to both of us when he stopped scribbling on his pad, ‘but if you could hang around for twenty-four hours or so, I might have something for you.’

‘I need to get a look at that wreckage as soon as possible,’ Petinski insisted to Grubb. ‘Today, even.’

‘Well, it’s on the cards, I s’pose, but only if I can tee up some transport.’ Grubb rubbed the bottom of his nose with his forefinger. ‘Drop ya back at your hotels, if y’like, and give y’a call later.’

‘Okay, good,’ said Petinski. She examined her notes. ‘Um… Clock. Was that his first or last name? For the report.’

‘Neither. His name’s Clock ’cause he’s got one fucken hand shorter than th’other.’

I smiled. Petinski frowned.

‘Happened five or six years back,’ Grubb continued. ‘Hooked something big. Took him by surprise. Got tangled in the line. Next thing he knew he was looking at his fingers on the deck.’

We all stepped back up onto the pier, except for Clock and his mate, who both disappeared into the wheelhouse. An unmarked van driven by Jim Hunt’s pathologists scribed a slow one-eighty and motored off toward the fish markets, trailing one of the cruisers.

The detective inspector drove us back to our respective hotels and provided a potted history of the city along the way. He told us that in February 1942 the same Imperial Japanese naval fleet that smashed Pearl Harbor turned up and dropped even more bombs on Darwin than it did on Pearl. This slid into a story about how, on Christmas Eve 1974, a cyclone by the name of Tracy came along and completely flattened the place. ‘Darwin’s like a plantar wart,’ he said as he pulled into the crumbling asphalt forecourt of the A-Star. ‘Rip the bugger out and it pops up again, bigger and better. Well, this is you, Mr Cooper.’

From the street, my hotel appeared to be an old-fashioned three-story motel, the kind with low ceilings, rumbling air-conditioning and athlete’s foot in the shower recesses. Sitting in the front passenger seat, Petinski turned and gave me an attempt at a smile, then turned back, keen to get moving no doubt to four-star Crowne Plaza — land. I got out of the vehicle and pulled my bag from the rear seat.

Grubb waved vaguely out his open window as his vehicle crept forward, crunching on the loose gravel.

I made my way to reception where an unshaven old guy in shorts and a pajama top was sitting behind the desk, eating a toasted sandwich, watching dog racing, a cigarette smoldering in an ashtray made from half a mother-of-pearl shell. He ignored me until the race was finished, and then he ignored me some more.

‘Got a minute, Mac?’ I finally said.

‘Yeah, yeah, keep ya shirt on,’ he replied.

‘I’ve got a room booked.’

‘Smoking? Non-smoking?’

‘Non-smoking.’

‘Name,’ he said, turning from the TV to face the computer screen.

I gave him my details and credit card and filled in the usual form. In return he gave me an old brass key attached by string to a length of dirty plywood, the room number burned into it with a soldering iron. I found the room on the second story of the main wing facing the street. Inside I was greeted by two narrow single beds, an old-style TV, an old bar fridge with a motor chewing on its bearings, and a smell somewhere between mothballs and old mattress. I checked out.

Heading onto the tenth-floor pool terrace, I could see the Timor Sea sparkling emerald green beneath a tropical blue sky. I opened the door and a hotel staff member asked which lounge chair I’d care to occupy and inquired about my needs drinks-wise. This was more like it. I chose a vacant chair beside a trim blonde in a silver bikini lying on her front, reading some report opened out on the floor tiles, one smooth leg bent at right angles and her foot doing languid circles in midair above her ass.

‘A Heineken, please,’ I told the guy. ‘Wait a moment,’ I said, changing my mind. ‘What’s Darwin’s favorite beer? Whatever you guys drink here, I’ll have one of those.’ Being on the far side of the world, I told myself, I should take the opportunity to soak up some local culture. And Aussie beer — at least so the Aussies claim — is the world’s best. The guy took my room number and scooted on back in the direction of the bar.

‘Cooper…?’

The trim blonde in the silver bikini lying beside me closed the report, rolled over and turned into Petinski.

‘Hey,’ I said, as surprised as she was — more, perhaps.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, sitting up. ‘What about the A-Star?’ She hurriedly threw on a robe like I’d just caught her nude, the Plaza’s logo on its top pocket. ‘Aren’t you staying there?’

‘Not anymore.’

‘Why not?’ she said, apparently annoyed.

‘Because I like Darwin and I want to keep on liking it.’ I lay back and closed my eyes and felt the sun’s warmth wash over my skin. From Petinski’s huffy attitude I gathered she thought I was invading her personal space. I waited a minute before opening an eye and when I did I caught her staring at me — or, more accurately, at those scars of mine. She turned away suddenly and fumbled with her gear, packing up.

Squaring my face to the sun, I said, ‘Stick around, why don’t you? Let’s talk about what we’ve got here. There’s more to this Sweetwater thing than either of us realize.’ I wasn’t on a case, not officially. But what would it hurt to share, especially now that I’d seen what Petinski looked like without any clothes on, more or less. Okay, so I have shallow moments, and this was one of them. She was a petite Barbie doll: slender legs and hips, and breasts that belonged on a bigger model. It was the kind of mismatch that argues with the atheist in me that there really is a god.

‘You’ve, um, collected a few scars,’ she said. ‘Look, I… I didn’t mean to stare.’

‘Forget it.’ I was tempted to tell her to take off her robe, lie back and let me even the score with a little staring of my own, but this was a moment of moral superiority. They happen so rarely, I didn’t want to blow it.

‘You’ve been shot?’

I grunted.

‘What’s that like, to be shot?’

Petinski. If there was a question on her mind she was going to ask it. To her abruptness, I could add bluntness. Abrupt and blunt. Fun combination. ‘It hurts,’ I said. In truth, the moment of being shot, at least in my case, wasn’t so bad. The adrenalin surge took away most of the immediate pain. But the recovery was always a bitch. It went on and on, a long and arduous journey with plenty of rehab. And when a bullet passes through, even if nothing important gets hit, it takes something indefinable with it that you never get back.

‘You don’t like answering questions,’ she said.

‘Do you?’

‘No.’

‘You like asking them, though, don’t you?’

‘And you don’t?’

I grinned. ‘Well I’m glad we sorted that out.’

I detected a more relaxed Petinski, confirmed when she slipped the robe off her shoulders, deciding to stay. She lay down on the chair and presented her magnificent lungs to the sun. I thought about the last time I was poolside — at Bally’s with Sugar. ‘Hey, don’t suppose you got any sun cream on you?’ I asked on the off chance.

‘Sorry.’

I gave a mental shrug. Didn’t hurt to ask, right?

‘You’ve got a shark’s tooth around your neck,’ she said without looking over.

‘From a great white.’

‘It’s big.’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Is it significant?’

‘A memento from a past case.’

‘You know much about sharks?’

‘I know they’ve got teeth,’ I said.

She glanced at me then looked away, no doubt stunned at the depth of my general knowledge.

The pool attendant came back with an enormous half-gallon-sized brown bottle with a frosted glass on a silver tray. ‘Beer, the way we like it in Darwin.’ He grinned. ‘We don’t care about the brand, sir, just as long as there’s plenty of it. Just let me know when you want another.’

Once the attendant was gone, Petinski asked, ‘So, what do you know about Randy Sweetwater?’ Her head was back, arms along the armrests, a shapely leg bent, nice and relaxed at last.

I poured myself a glass and drank half. ‘What if that wasn’t Randy they pulled from the shark’s gullet?’

‘Who else is it going to be?’

‘Beats me.’

‘You don’t think it’s Sweetwater they found?’

‘I don’t know,’ I repeated.

‘What are you really doing here, Mr Cooper?’

‘I told you already. And you can call me Vin.’

‘I’d prefer to keep it formal, Mr Cooper, if you don’t mind.’

‘Why would I mind? At least lose the mister. You’re making me sound fifty.’

She gave a shrug that said ‘whatever’.

‘Can I get you a drink? A scotch, maybe?’ I asked her.

‘I don’t drink.’

Of course she didn’t. ‘What, never?’

‘Rarely.’ Big sigh. ‘Oh, all right. Maybe I’ll have a diet soda. A Coke. Thanks.’

I signaled and the attendant guy came over. I ordered the soda and some nuts. When he was out of earshot, I said, ‘Around a week ago, the woman I work for, Randy’s de facto, took delivery of an amputated human hand. It was FedExed to her from an address in Rio. Randy’s Air Force Academy ring was on its finger and it arrived with a ransom note demanding fifteen million bucks.’

Petinski sat up like someone had just plugged her toes into a wall socket. ‘What? You’re kidding.’

I told her I wasn’t. Meanwhile I was having my own problems digesting what I’d seen being scooped into the ice buckets. Alabama was waiting back in Vegas to hear from me, and I’d have to give her a call soon to bring her up to speed. The trouble was that I couldn’t give her any kind of satisfactory answer to the question uppermost in her mind: was the dead guy I came all the way here to identify her boyfriend, or not? If the meat found inside those sharks was indeed Randy Sweetwater, then that might be something she wouldn’t want to hear. Alternatively, if the remains weren’t Randy’s, did that mean the folks who mail body parts really were holding him hostage in Rio? Either way, things didn’t look good for Randy. He was either already chewed up, or about to be sawed up.

Meanwhile, the nuts arrived along with Petinski’s Coke. I signed and handed the investigator her drink just as a black man in a khaki policeman’s uniform pushed through the door between the elevator and the terrace and walked toward us. He didn’t look like he was here for a swim or a beer.

‘Ms Petinski,’ the uniform said. ‘Detective Inspector Grubb wants you to come with me. He also suggests that you bring a change of underwear.’ He looked at me. ‘Are you Mr Cooper, by any chance?’

I gave him a nod.

‘Aren’t you staying at the A-Star? I was going there next.’