"So, that's your gun," Joey said.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I'm impressed."
"They were, too."
"What you did just now, was it legal?"
Mick Stranahan turned to look at her. "Please don't ask me that question again."
Eleven
Tool twisted the AC knob to maximum high and it still felt like a hundred damn degrees inside the minivan. American-made, too, which he thought was disgraceful. Florida, of all places, you don't rent out vehicles with cheap-ass air conditioners.
Not even nine in the morning and already Tool was sweating off the fentanyl patches. To cool down, he removed his boots and overalls, then chugged a liter of Mountain Dew that he'd picked up at the Circle K on Powerline. Fiddling with the radio, he miraculously located a decent country station. Shania Twain was singing about how much fun it was to be a woman, though Tool couldn't see how that could be true. Just about every female he'd ever known, starting with his mother, seemed perpetually pissed off at the human race. Or could be it was just me in particular, Tool thought.
At half-past nine, the man he was bodyguarding emerged from the house and hurried up the street toward the minivan. Up close he looked shiny and clean-cut-awful damn young to be a widower, Tool mused. You couldn't help but wonder what had happened to the guy's old lady.
Charles Perrone motioned him to roll down the window. "Have you seen anybody strange hanging around?"
"Whole goddamn place is strange, you want my opinion," Tool said. "But no, I ain't seen nobody ain't supposed to be here."
"You sure? Because I think they got into my house again."
"Not while I was here they didn't."
The man looked as if he hadn't slept all night. "Somebody mutilated one of my favorite pictures," he said.
Tool was skeptical. "You want, I'll follow you to work and hang close today. Just in case."
Charles Perrone said he wasn't going to work. "How come you're not wearing any clothes?" he asked Tool.
" 'Cause inside this van it's hotter'n a elephant fart. Hey, Red says you're a doctor."
Charles Perrone seemed pleased. "That's right."
Tool pivoted his immense mass to display the two remaining patches on his back. "Can you get me some more a these?" he asked.
The doctor seemed put off by the damp wall of flesh before him.
"Stick-ons," Tool said. "They's medicine."
"I know, but-"
"Duragesic's the brand name. Can you write me a scrip?"
"No, I'm afraid not," Charles Perrone said.
"It's for super bad pain," Tool explained. "See, there's this bullet slug up the crack a my ass-I'm dead serious."
Charles Perrone blanched and stepped back from the minivan. "Sorry. I don't do prescriptions."
"Now hold on a second."
"I'm not that kind of doctor." He spun around and strode back to his house at an accelerated pace.
Tool grunted. That's one lame-ass quack, he can't even write scrips.
Two doors down, a middle-aged woman in a yellow linen robe came outside, leading two small animals on leashes. Tool guessed that they were dogs, although they resembled none he'd ever seen. Their roundish wrinkled faces were flattened, as if they'd run full bore into a cement truck. The woman herself had a fairly spooky mug, all slick and stretched out like a Halloween mask that was too small for her head. Tool was treated to a close-up view as she walked the strange pinch-faced dogs down the sidewalk. The woman must not have spotted him inside the minivan, for she nonchalantly allowed her critters to pee all over the right front tire.
Tool's instant response was to punch out the passenger window, raining glass upon the woman's sandaled feet. She bleated in fear as he stuck his head out the window and instructed her in the crudest terms to clean up the damn mess.
"What!" She yanked the dogs away from the van and gathered them into her arms. "Just who do you think you are, mister?"
"I'm the sumbitch gonna butt-fuck those puppies, you don't clean the piss off my tar."
He cracked the door enough for the woman to see all she needed. In a heartbeat she was on her knees, furiously dabbing at the wet tire with a wad of pink tissue while her pets whined and scrapped nearby.
When she was finished, Tool said, "I didn't hear no 'pology."
The woman made a spiteful sound and her cheeks turned red, yet her expression never changed. The skin from her forehead to her chin was so tight and glossy that Tool wondered if she might split open like a bad mango.
"Beat it," he said, and she did, sandals slapping in retreat. The accordion-faced dogs could barely keep up.
Minutes later, the doctor reappeared.
"What did you do to Mrs. Raguso?" he demanded.
"She let her damn mutts take a leak on my tar!" Tool protested. "I thought this was 'posed to be a class neighborhood, what they call 'upscale.' Hell, I live in a trailer and I wouldn't let my dogs pee on summon else's personal vee-hicle."
Charles Perrone said, "You'd better get out of here. Carmen Raguso is probably calling the police right this minute."
"What for? She's the one started it."
"You flashed her! I was watching from the living room." Charles Perrone had got himself quite worked up. "I don't want to deal with any more cops, you understand? Now hurry up, before she gets your license tag."
"But who's gonna watch your house?"
"Just keep driving," Charles Perrone said, "until you hear from Mr. Hammernut. He'll tell you what to do next."
"Shit," said Tool, and started backing down the street. At the corner he wheeled the minivan around, then shot forward at high speed toward the exit of West Boca Dunes Phase II. More than an hour passed before the cell phone rang, but by then Tool had scored two more fatality markers from the grass median of the Sawgrass Expressway. The flowers had rotted down to the ribbons, yet the crosses themselves were in mint condition. Consequently, Tool's outlook was much improved by the time Red Hammernut called.
"On this bodyguard thing," Red said, "the trick is, you gotta blend in."
"I never been too good at that."
"Okay. Lemme work up another plan."
"Meantime, can I swap out the minivan?" Tool asked.
"By all means."
"Get me somethin' with a decent AC."
"You bet."
"By the way, your boy ain't much of a doctor."
Red Hammernut chuckled. "Don't you dare tell a soul."
Mick Stranahan and Joey Perrone were surprised to see Chaz's yellow Humvee when they came around the corner at ten-thirty.
"Guess who's taking a sick day," Joey said.
Stranahan positioned the Suburban in the driveway of the fugitive telemarketers, same as the last time. Moments later, a panel truck turned onto the street and drove past the Perrone house, then braked, reversed and pulled in beside the Hummer. Painted in red lettering on the sides of the truck: sunshine locksmith.
"Damn," Stranahan said. "He's changing the locks."
"So what?"
"So the spare key in the bird feeder won't fit."
Joey raised an eyebrow. "Wait and see."
Soon another truck appeared. It was a small white pickup with magnetic signs on the doors: gold coast security systems.
"Now what?" Stranahan grumbled.
"He's reconnecting the alarm."
"Terrific."
"Would you please stop worrying?" Joey said.
"Just so you know, I'm not keen on B-and-E's."
"Translation?"
"Break-ins. They're messy," Stranahan said, "and very hard to explain if the cops show up. Are your window screens wired?"
"No, but there are motion detectors in the hallway and bedrooms. I suppose Chaz could put in more, depending on how spooked he is."
"I would say plenty spooked," said Stranahan, "based on what we're seeing."
"It was your phone call, Mick. The Moses impersonation."
"Let's not forget the snapshot under his pillow."
"Oh yeah." Joey would have given anything to see her husband's face when he found it.