“Why?” Stranahan said, his voice thick.
“So you could change my mind.”
Stranahan noticed that a seagull had crapped all over the shotgun while he was asleep. “Damn,” he said under his breath. He took a black bandanna from the pocket of his jeans and wiped the shotgun.
“Well?” came Tina’s voice from below. “You going to change my mind or not?”
“How?”
“S leep withme.”
“I already did,” Stranahan said.
“You know what I mean.”
“Go back to Richie,” Stranahan advised. “If he hits you again, file charges.”
“Why are you so afraid?”
Stranahan slid butt-first down the grainy slope of the roof, to a spot from which Tina was visible in her tiny tangerine thong swimsuit.
“We’ve been over this,” Stranahan said to her.
“But I don’t want to marry you,” she said. “I promise. Even if you ask me afterwards, I’ll say no-no matter how great it was. Besides, I’m not a waitress. You said all the others were waitresses.”
He groaned and said, “Tina, I’m sorry. It just won’t work.”
Now she looked angry. One of the other girls in the Bayliner turned on the radio and Tina snapped at her, told her to shut off the damn music. “How do you know it won’t work?” she said to Stranahan.
“I’mtoo old.”
“Bullshit.”
“And you’re too young.”
“Double bullshit.”
“Okay,” he said. “Then name the Beatles.”
“What?” Tina forced a caustic laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Dead serious,” Stranahan said, addressing her from the edge of the roof. “If you can name all the Beatles, I’ll make love to you right now.”
“I don’t believe this,” Tina said. “The fucking Beatles.”
Stranahan had done the math in his head: She was nineteen, which meant she had been born the same year the band broke up.
“Well, there’s Paul,” Tina said.
“Last name?”
“Come on!”
“Let’s hearit.”
“ McCartney, okay? I don’t believe this.”
Stranahan said, “Go on, you’re doing fine.”
“Rin go,” Tina said. “Ringo Starr. The drummer with the nose.”
“Good.”
“And then there’s the guy who died. Lennon.”
“First name?”
“I know his son is Julian.”
“His son doesn’t count.”
Tina said, “Yeah, well, you’re an asshole. It’s John. John Lennon.”
Stranahan nodded appreciatively. “Three down, one to go. You’re doing great.”
Tina folded her arms and tried to think of the last Beatle. Her lips were pursed in a most appealing way, but Stranahan stayed on the roof. “I’ll give you a hint,” he said to Tina. “Lead guitar.”
She looked up at him, triumph shining in her gray eyes. “Harrison,” she declared. “KeithHarrison!”
Muttering, Stranahan crabbed back up to his vantage beneath the legs of the windmill. Tina said some sharp things, all of which he deserved, and then got on the boat with her friends and headed back across the bay toward Dinner Key and, presumably, Richie.
Joey the shrimper spit over the transom and said, “Well, there’s your boy.”
Christina Marks frowned. Mick Stranahan lay naked in the shape of a T on the roof of the house. His tan legs were straight, and each arm was extended. He had a bandanna pulled down over his eyes to shield them from the white rays of the sun. Christina Marks thought he looked like the victim of a Turkish firing squad.
“He looks like Christ,” said Joey. “Don’t you think he looks like Christ? Christ without a beard, I mean.”
“Take me up to the house,” Christina said. “Do you have a horn on this thing?”
“Hell, he knows we’re here.”
“He’s sleeping.”
“No, ma’am,” Joey said. “You’re wrong.” But he sounded the horn anyway. Mick Stranahan didn’t stir.
Joey idled the shrimp boat closer. The tide was up plenty high, rushing sibilantly under the pilings of the house. Clutching a brown grocery bag, Christina stepped up on the dock and waved the shrimper away.
“Thanks very much.”
Joey said, “You be sure to tell him what we saw. About the big freak on the water scooter.”
She nodded.
“Tell him first thing,” Joey said. He pulled back on the throttle and the old diesel moaned into reverse. The engine farted an odious cloud of blue smoke that enveloped Christina Marks. She coughed all the way up the stairs.
When she got to the main deck, Stranahan was sitting on the edge of the roof, legs dangling.
“What’s in the bag?”
“Cold cuts, wine, cheese. I thought you might be hungry.”
“This how they do it in New York?”
The sack was heavy, but Christina didn’t put it down. She held it like a baby, with both arms, but not too tightly. She didn’t want him to think it was a chore. “What are you talking about?” she asked.
“The wine and cheese,” Stranahan said. “There’s a sense of ceremony about it. Maybe it’s necessary where you come from, butnot here.”
“Fuck you,” said Christina Marks. “I’m on expense account, hotshot.”
Stranahan smiled. “I forgot.” He hopped off the roof and landed like a cat. She followed him into the house and watched him slip into blue jean cutoffs, no underwear. She put the bag on the kitchen counter and he went to work, fixing lunch. From the refrigerator he got some pickles and a half pound of big winter shrimp, still in the shell.
As he opened the wine, he said, “Let’s get right to it: You’ve heard something,”
“Yes,” Christina said. “But first: You won’t believe what we just saw. A man with a machine gun, on one of those water-jet things.”
“Where?”
She motioned with her chin. “Not even a mile from here.”
“W hat didhelook like?”
Christina described him. Stranahan popped the cork.
“I guess we better eat fast,” he said. He was glad he’d brought the shotgun down from the roof after Tina and her friends had left, when he went to find a fresh bandanna. Subconsciously he glanced at the Remington, propped barrel-up in the corner of the same wall with the stuffed marlin head.
Christina peeled a shrimp, dipped it tail-first into a plastic thimble of cocktail sauce. “Are you going to tell me who he is, the man in the underwear?”
“I don’t know,” Stranahan said. “I honestly don’t. Now tell me what else.”
This would be the most difficult part. She said, “I went to see your friend Tim Gavigan at the hospital.”
“Oh.”
“I was there when he died.”
Stranahan cut himself three fat slices of cheddar. “Extreme unction,” he said. “Too bad you’re not a priest.”
“He wanted me to tell you something. Something he remembered about the Vicky Barletta case.”
With a mouthful of cheese, Stranahan said, “Tell me you didn’t take that asshole up to the VA. Flemm-you didn’t let him have a crack at Timmy in that condition, did you?”
“Of course not,” she said sharply. “Now listen: Tim Gavigan remembered that the plastic surgeon has a brother. George Graveline. He saw him working outside the clinic.”
“Doing what?” Stranahan asked.
“This is what Tim wanted me to tell you: The guy is a tree trimmer. He said you’d know what that means. He was going on about Hoffa and dead bodies.”
Stranahan laughed. “Yeah, he’s right. It’s perfect.”
Impatiently Christina said, “You want to fill me in?”
Stranahan chomped on a pickle. “You know what a wood chipper is? It’s like a king-sized sideways Cuisinart, except they use it to shred wood. Tree companies tow them around like a U-Haul. Throw the biggest branches down this steel chute and they come out sawdust and barbecue chips.”
“Now I get it,” Christina said.
“Something can pulverize a mahogany tree, think of what it could do to a human body.”
“I’d rather not.”
“There was a famous murder case in New Jersey, they had everything but the corpse. The corpse was ground up in a wood chipper so basically all they found was splinters of human bone-not enough for a good forensic I.D. Finally somebody found a molar, and the tooth had a gold filling. That’s how they made the case.”
Christina was still thinking about bone splinters.
“At any rate,” Stranahan said, “it’s a helluva good lead. Hurry now, finish up.” He wedged the cork into the half-empty wine bottle and started wrapping the leftover cold cuts and cheese in wax paper. Christina was reaching for one last shrimp when he snatched the dish away and put it in the refrigerator.