For Rudy Graveline, the ultimate test of sobriety. In his entire career he had never traded sex for his surgical services, never even discounted. Money was money, pussy was pussy-a credo he drilled into his sure-handed young assistants. Some things in life you don’t give away.”
To Heather Chappell, he said, “I’m afraid it’s going to be expensive.”
“Is it?” She swung one leg up and propped her foot on his right shoulder.
“All these procedures at once, yes, I’m afraid so.”
“How much, Dr. Graveline?”
Up came the other leg, and Rudy was scissored.
“Come here a second,” Heather said.
Rudy Graveline was torn between the thing he loved the most and the thing he needed most: Sex and money. The warm feel of Heather’s bare heels on his shoulders was like the weight of the world. And heaven, too.
Her toes tickled his ears. “I said, come here.”
“Where?” Rudy peeped, reaching out.
“God, areyou blind?”
Chemo bought an Ingram submachine gun to go with his.22 pistol. He got it from a man who had come to the club one night with a bunch of Jamaicans. The man himself was not a Jamaican; he was from Colombia. Chemo found this out when he stopped him at the door and told him he couldn’t come inside the Gay Bidet with a machine gun.
“But this is Miami,” the man had said with a Spanish accent.
“I’v e got my orders,” Chemo said.
The man agreed to let Chemo take the gun while he and his pals went inside, which turned out to be a smart thing. As the band was playing a song called Suck Till You’re Sore, a local skinhead gang went into a slam-dancing frenzy, and fights broke out all over the place. The Jamaicans took off, but the Colombian stayed behind to do battle. At one point he produced a pocket knife and tried to surgically remove the swastika tattoo off the proud but hairless chest of a teenaged skinhead. The band took a much-needed break while the Beach police rushed in for the arrests. Later, when Chemo spotted the Colombian in the back of the squad car, he tapped on the window and asked about the Ingram. The Colombian said keep it and Chemo said thanks, and slipped a twenty-dollar bill through me crack of the window.
The thing Chemo liked best about the Ingram was the shoulder strap. He put it on and showed it to his boss, Freddie, who said, “Get the fuck outta here with that thing!”
The next day, the eighteenth of January, Chemo got up early and drove out to Key Biscayne. He knew it would be unwise to go to the same marina where he had taken Chloe, so he looked around for another boat place. He found one near the Marine Stadium, where they race the big Budweiser speedboats. At first a kid with badly bleached hair tried to rent him a twenty-foot Dusky for a hundred ten dollars a day, plus a hundred fifty security deposit. Chemo didn’t have that kind of money.
“Got a credit card?” the kid asked.
“No,” said Chemo. “What about that thing over there?”
“That’s a jet ski,” the kid said.
It was designed like a waterbug with handlebars. You drove it like a motorcycle, only standing up. This one was yellow, with the word Kawasaki on the front.
“You don’t want to try it,” the kid with yellow hair said.
“W hy not?”
“Because,” the kid said, laughing, “you’re too tall, man. Hit a wake, it’ll snap your spine.”
Chemo figured the guy was just trying to talk him into renting something bigger, something he didn’t need.
“How much is the jet ski?” he said.
“Twenty an hour, but you got to sign a waiver.” The kid was thinking that, as tall as this guy is, he doesn’t look healthy enough to ride a jet ski; he looks kind of tapped-out and sickly, like he’s been hanging from the wall of some dungeon for a couple months. The kid was thinking maybe he ought to ask if the guy knew how to swim, just in case.
Chemo handed him two twenties.
The kid said, “I’ll still need a deposit.”
Chemo said he didn’t have any more money. The kid said he’d take Chemo’s wristwatch, but Chemo said no, he didn’t want to give it up. It was a Heuer diving watch, silver and gold links, made in Switzerland. Chemo had swiped it off a young architect who was overdosing in the men’s room at the club. While the jerk was lying there in the stall, trying to swallow his tongue, Chemo grabbed his wrist and replaced the Heuer with his own thirty-dollar Seiko with the fake alligator band.
“No jet ski without a deposit,” said the kid with yellow hair.
“How about a gun?” Chemo said.
“W hat kind?”
Chemo showed him the.22 and the kid said okay, since it was a Beretta he’d hang onto it. He stuck it in the front of his chinos and led Chemo to the jet ski. He showed Chemo how the choke and the throttle worked, and tossed him a bright red life vest.
“You can change in the shed,” the kid said.
“Change?”
“You got a swimsuit, right?” The kid hopped back on the dock and gave Chemo the keys. “Man, you don’t want to ride these things in heavy pants.”
“I guess not,” said Chemo, unbuckling his trousers.
A shrimper named Joey agreed to take Christina Marks anywhere she wanted. When she gave him a hundred-dollar bill, Joey looked at it and said, “Where you going, Havana?”
“ Stiltsville,” Christina said, climbing into the pungent shrimp boat. “And I need a favor.”
“You bet,” said Joey, tossing off the ropes.
“After you drop me off, I need you to stay close. Just in case.”
Joey aimed the bow down the canal, toward the mouth of Norris Cut. “In case what?” he asked.
“In case the man I’m going to see doesn’t want me to stay.”
Joey grinned and said, “I can’t imagine that. Here, you want a beer?”
He motored down the ocean side of Key Biscayne in amiable silence. Christina stood next to him at the wheel, guardedly watching the swarm of hungry seagulls that wailed and dove behind the stern. When the shrimp boat passed the Cape Florida lighthouse at the tip of the island, Christina saw the stilt houses to the south.
“Which one?” Joey shouted over the engines. When Christina pointed, Joey smiled and gave her a crusty wink.
“What’s that mean?”
“Him,” Joey said. “Why didn’t you say so?”
They were maybe two hundred yards off the radio towers and making the wide turn into the channel when Joey nudged Christina Marks and pointed with his chin. Up ahead, something swift and yellow was crossing one of the tidal flats, bouncing severely in the choppy water. It was an odd, gumdrop-shaped craft, and a tall pale figure appeared to be standing in the middle, holding on with both arms.
Joey eased back on the throttle to give way.
“I hate those fool things,” he said. “Damn tourists don’t know where the hell they’re going.”
They watched it cross from the starboard side, no more than thirty yards ahead of them. Joey frowned and said, “I’ll be goddamned.” He snatched a rag from his tool box and wiped the salty film from the shrimp boat’s windshield.
“Look,” he said to Christina. “Now you’ve seen it all.”
The tall pale man driving the jet ski was nude except for his soggy Jockey shorts.
And black sunglasses.
And a gleaming wristwatch.
And an Ingram.45 submachine gun strapped on his bare shoulder.
Christina Marks was astonished. “What do you suppose he’s doing out here with that?”
“Whatever the hell he wants,” said Joey the shrimper.
13
Earlier that day, Tina and two of her girlfriends had appeared at the stilt house in a borrowed Bayliner Capri. They saw Mick Stranahan sleeping on the roof beneath the windmill, the Remington shotgun at his side.
Tina’s friends were alarmed. They voted to stay in the boat while Tina went up on the dock and approached the house.
“Ri chie wants me back,” she called to Stranahan.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What?”
“I said, Richie wants me back. I wanted you to be the first to know.”