“This’ll be a cool-ass crib when it’s done,” her companion added for ingratiation.
Evan Shook nodded brusquely. “Yup. A real cool-ass crib.”
Over the phone the Lipscombs had sounded like long shots. The guy claimed to be a retired hedge funder who was now raising trotters. He said he was driving all the way to Florida because the wife refused to fly ever since their Lear 45 had clipped a cow elk on the runway at Jackson Hole. He said they already owned a seaside spread at Hilton Head and a cottage up on the Boundary Waters. Evan Shook responded with cordiality but not gushing enthusiasm. It was his experience that people with serious money didn’t broadcast their real estate portfolios to strangers who were angling to peddle them another property.
But maybe the Lipscombs were real. Maybe his luck would change.
The woman said, “I’m begging you, don’t call the police. We have nowhere else to go.”
Evan Shook opened his billfold and peeled off two, three, four hundred dollars. “Pack up your stuff and go get a room.”
When the woman leaned forward to kiss his cheek, Evan Shook caught a heartbreaking glimpse down her blouse. “God bless you,” she said.
What God? he thought. In half an hour she’ll be balling this slob in a hotel I’m paying for.
Her lump-faced boyfriend solemnly took his hand. “Thanks, dude. I mean, duuuuude.”
It’s so tragic, thought Evan Shook. So wrong.
· · ·
The phone number for Christopher Grunion obtained by Rosa—the last number dialed by Dr. Gomez O’Peele—was disconnected. Yancy had planned to call Grunion out of the blue, pretending to be an insurance broker or maybe a Republican pollster. He’d just wanted to hear what the prick who tried to kill him sounded like.
His room on Lizard Cay was fine; the AC was anemic but he had a striking view of the white flats, veined with tidal channels shining sapphire and indigo. Offshore Yancy could see a slow-chugging mail boat; otherwise the horizon was empty. He heard the Caravan lift off from Moxey’s airstrip and pass over the motel on a slow turn toward Nassau. The pilot seemed like an okay guy although his bullet-headed passenger was bad news. Apparently the thug was connected to Grunion in a capacity of sufficient importance to warrant use of the seaplane for a dental crisis.
Yancy checked his phone and found a snide message from Caitlin Cox:
“Listen, Inspector, I think you oughta know what just happened. That judge in Miami declared my dad officially dead, whatever, so can you please leave us all alone and get back to your annoying life?”
The court’s decision didn’t surprise Yancy. Nick Stripling’s mangled arm was sufficient evidence of death. That it had been unearthed later from the grave and then ejected from a stolen vehicle would have no bearing on the judge’s ruling as to whether or not Stripling was in fact deceased. How he got that way—by mishap or homicide—was likewise irrelevant. Yancy wondered how long it would take Caitlin to get her slice of the insurance payoff, and whatever else Eve Stripling had promised.
He picked out a bicycle from the motel’s rusty selection and rode to Rocky Town. It was critical to avoid Eve and her boyfriend, either of whom might recognize Yancy even in yuppie fishing garb. Unfortunately, he was the only white man on the streets, and the only white man at the seafood shack where he stopped to eat. A woman dicing conch behind the bar was so friendly that Yancy took a chance and said he was looking for a fellow American named Christopher. She gave a roll of the eyes and then one of those fabulous island laughs. Before long she was telling Yancy all about Grunion’s ambitious project, the Curly Tail Lane Resort.
“Yeah, mon, dey gon have a spa and clay tennis and a chef dot’s from some five-star hotel in Sowt Beach.”
“Sounds spectacular,” Yancy said.
“You friends with Mistuh Grunion back in Miami?”
“I am. Where does he usually hang out around here?”
“Ha, he dont hang no place. You see ’im drive sometime tru town but mostly he stay at Bannister Point. ’Im and his lady rent dot Gibson place. She come by every now ’n’ then to pick up some chowder. Wot’s your name, mon? Have another rum.”
Yancy ordered one more Barbancourt with his meal. He dealt with the conch salad painstakingly; each incoming bite was picked apart by fork and then scrutinized for insect pieces. The locals who were witnessing this dour procedure snickered among themselves, but Yancy carried on. It seemed unlikely that Rocky Town was large enough to have a full-time health inspector, if such a job even existed on Andros. The conch shack was just that, an open-air bar next to a hill of gutted mollusk shells. No government health certificate was posted on the plywood menu board, only the boozy jottings of sailboaters and tourists.
Still, the food was excellent. After he finished eating, Yancy climbed on the clattering bike and set off in the starless night for the motel. At the bottom of a hill his front tire caught a pothole and he spilled sideways, landing on his back. He was sitting on the broken pavement and swearing aloud when he heard a motor.
From the crest of the roadway a single white light descended slowly. It was too small to be the headlamp of a motorcycle. Yancy leaned his bike against a utility pole. The white light weaved on its approach, the hum of the squat vehicle growing louder. Yancy still wasn’t sure what he was looking at, though now he could hear a smoky voice, singing and laughing.
It was a woman piloting some sort of souped-up wheelchair, which she braked to a halt when its narrow beam fell upon Yancy. She was dressed flamboyantly and followed by heavy-lidded matrons who clapped softly and rolled their heads. On the steering bar of the motorized scooter perched a monkey wearing a doll’s plastic tiara and an ill-fitted disposable diaper.
“You hoyt, suh?” the throned woman asked Yancy.
“I’m good. Took a tumble off the bike is all.”
“You a white fella? Don’t lie. Where you from?”
She looked bony and harmless, yet Yancy experienced a spidery chill. The woman wore a wrap of pink batik on her head and swigged from a tall glass that barely fit in the cup holder. Although it was too dark on the road for Yancy to see her features, the gleam of a gapped smile was unmistakable. Something about her pet monkey didn’t seem right.
She said, “Dot’s Prince Driggs. He’s a movie star! You two handsome boys shake honds.”
“No, that’s okay.”
The monkey growled and thrust out a brown paw.
“Better do it,” the woman warned Yancy, “or he fuck you up bod.”
Yancy shook the moist little fist and said, “Well, I’d better be going.”
“Take a ride wit me, suh. I’ll sit on dot strong monnish lap a yours.”
“Thanks, anyway. That’s a spiffy wheelchair, though.”
“Ain’t no fuckin’ wheelchair! You tink I’m a cripple?” To display her agility she hopped up, causing her attendants to flutter and fuss.
Indignantly the woman said to Yancy, “Wot dis ting is, boy, is lux’ry transport. Even got a iPod dock!”
“Sweet.” He leaned closer to read the label on the mobile chair. It was a Super Rollie, the same brand that Nick Stripling’s company had billed to Medicare in imaginary numbers.
“Can I ask where you got this?”
“From a friend. Woman like me has plenny friends.” She resettled herself in the contoured seat and smoothed the folds of her colorful skirt.
Yancy said, “I’d really like to have a scooter like this.”
“Maybe you lucky. Let’s talk sum bidness.”
The woman seized the fly of Yancy’s pants and tugged him halfway on top of her. Zestfully she began to grope, her husky grunts reeking of rum and stale cigars. Yancy was shocked to feel the wiry old drunk fishing for his balls. He fought to get free but the monkey hooked three sinewy fingers through one of his belt loops. Only when Yancy pinched the hairless web of its armpit did the beast let go, screeching.