“Holy shit.”
“-a ppeared to be wearing fright makeup, or possibly some type of Halloween mask. The waitresses couldn’t agree on what, but they all said basically the same thing about the face. Said it looked like somebody dragged it across a cheese grater.”
Mick Stranahan couldn’t recall putting anybody in jail who matched that remarkable description. He asked Garcia if he had any leads.
“We’re busy calling the circuses to see who’s escaped lately,” the detective said sarcastically. “I swear, I don’t know why I tell you anything.”
He pushed the button to unlock the doors. “We’ll be in touch,” he said to Stranahan, waving him out of the police car. “And stay away from the damn doctor, okay?”
“You bet,” said Mick Stranahan. All he could think of was: Seven feet tall. Poor Chloe.
Dr. Rudy Graveline now accepted the possibility that his world was imploding, and that he must prepare for the worst. Bitterly he thought of all the crises he had survived, all the professional setbacks, the lawsuits, the peer review hearings, the hospital expulsions, the hasty relocations from one jurisdiction to another. There was the time he augmented the breasts of a two-hundred-pound woman who had wanted a reduction instead; the time he nearly liposuctioned a man’s gall bladder right out of his abdomen; the time he mistakenly severed a construction worker’s left ear while removing a dime-sized cyst-Rudy Graveline had survived all these. He believed he’d found safe haven in South Florida; having figured out the system, and how to beat it, he was sure he had it made. And suddenly a botched nose job had come back to spoil it all. It didn’t seem fair.
Rudy sat at his desk and leafed dispiritedly through the most recent bank statements. The Whispering Palms surgical complex was raking in money, but the overhead was high and the mortgage was a killer. Rudy had not been able to siphon off nearly as much as he had hoped. Once his secret plan had been to retire in four years with six million put away; it now seemed likely that he would be forced to get out much sooner, and with much less. Having already been banned from practicing medicine in California and New York-by far the most lucrative markets for a plastic surgeon-Rudy Graveline’s thoughts now turned to the cosmopolitan cities of South America, a new frontier of vanity, sun-baked and ripe with wrinkles; a place where a Harvard medical degree still counted for something. Riffling through his CDs, he wondered if it was too late to weasel out of the Old Cypress Towers project: get liquid and get gone.
He was studying a map of Brazil when Heather Chappell, the famous actress, came into the office. She wore the pink terry-cloth robe and bath slippers that Whispering Palms provided to all its VIP guests. Heather’s lipstick was candy apple, her skin had a caramel tan, and her frosted blond hair was thick and freshly brushed. She was a perfectly beautiful thirty-year-old woman who, for reasons unfathomable, despised her own body. A dream patient, as far as Rudy Graveline was concerned.
She sat in a low-backed leather chair and said, “I’ve had it with the spa. Let’s talk about my operation.”
Rudy said, “I wanted you to unwind for a couple of days, that’s all.”
“It’s been a couple days.”
“But aren’t you more relaxed?”
“Not really,” Heather said. “Your masseur, what’s his name-”
“ Niles?”
“Yeah, Niles. He tried to cornhole me yesterday. Aside from that, I’ve been bored to tears.”
Rudy smiled with practiced politeness. “But you’ve had a chance to think about the different procedures.”
“I didn’t need to think about anything, Dr. Graveline. I was ready the first night off the plane. Have you been dodging me?”
“Of course not.”
“I heard your car got blown up.” She said it in a schoolgirl’s voice, like it was gossip she’d picked up in study hall.
Rudy tried to neutralize his inflection. “There was an accident,” he said. “Very minor.”
“The night I came, wasn’t it? That hunk in the parking lot, the guy who put me in the taxi. What’s going on with him?”
Rudy ignored the question. “I can schedule the surgery for tomorrow,” he said.
“Fine, but I want you to do it,” Heather said. “You personally.”
“Of course,” Rudy said. He’d stay in the O.R. until they put her under, then he’d head for the back nine at Doral. Let one of the young hotshots do the knife work.
“What did you decide?” he asked her.
Heather stood up and stepped out of the slippers. Then she let the robe drop to the carpet. “You tell me,” she said.
Rudy’s mouth went dry at the sight of her.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s see.” The problem was, she didn’t need any surgery. Her figure, like her face, was sensational. Her tan breasts were firm and large, not the least bit droopy. Her tummy was tight and flat as an iron. There wasn’t an ounce of fat, a trace of a stretch mark, the slenderest serpentine shadow of a spider vein-not on her thighs, her legs, not anywhere. Nothing was out of proportion. Naked, Heather looked like an “after,” nota “before.”
Rudy was really going to have to scramble on this one. He put on his glasses and said, “Come over here, Miss Chappell, let me take a closer look.”
She walked over and, to his stupefaction, climbed up on the onyx desk, her bare feet squeaking on the slick black surface. Standing, she vamped a movie pose-one hand on her hip, the other fluffing her hair. As Rudy’s eyes traveled up those long legs, he nearly toppled over backwards in his chair. “The nose, obviously,” Heather said. “Yes,” said Rudy, thinking: She has a great straight nose. What the hell am I going to do?
“And the breasts,” Heather said, taking one in each hand and studying them. Like she was in the produce section, checking out the grapefruits.
Bravely Rudy asked, “Would you like them larger or smaller?”
Heather glared at him. “Bigger, of course! And brand-new nipples.”
Jesus, Rudy muttered under his breath. “Miss Chappell,” he said, “I wouldn’t advise new nipples. There could be serious complications and, really, it isn’t necessary.” Little pink rosebuds, that’s what her nipples looked like. Why, Rudy wondered, would she ever want new ones?
In a pouty voice, Heather said “all right, leave the nipples. Then she pivoted on the desktop and patted her right thigh. “I want two inches off here.”
“That much?” Rudy was sweating. He didn’t see it, plain and simple. Two inches of what?
“Stand up,” Heather told him. “Look here.”
He did, he looked hard. His chin was about three inches from her pubic bone. “Two inches,” Heather repeated, turning to show him the other thigh, “from both sides.”
“As you wish,” the doctor said. What the hell, he’d be on the golf course anyway. Let the whiz kids figure it out.
Heather dropped to her knees on the desk, so the two of them were nearly face to face. “And I want my eyelids done,” she said, pointing with a long cranberry fingernail, “and my neck, too. You said no scars, remember?”
“Don’t worry,” Rudy assured her.
“Good,” Heather said. “Anything else?”
“NotthatIcan see.”
“How about my butt?” She spun around on the desk, showing it to Rudy; looking over one shoulder, waiting for his professional opinion.
“Well,” said Rudy, running his fingers along the soft round curves.
“Hey,” said Heather, “easy there.” She squirmed around to face him. “Are you getting worked up?”
Rudy Graveline said, “Of course not.” But he was. He couldn’t figure it out, either; all the thousands of female bodies he got to see and feel. This was no ordinary lust, this was something fresh and wonderous. Maybe it was the way she bossed him around.
“I saw you in Fevers of the Heart,” Rudy said, idiotically. He had rented the cassette for a pool party. “You were quite good, especially the scene on the horse.”
“Sit down,” Heather told him, and he did. She was bare-assed on the desk, legs swinging mischievously on either side of him. He put a clammy hand on each knee. “Maybe now’s a good time to talk about money,” she said.