"I'm sure," Chaz said.
"Could say we found the poor thing shot on the dike and we was runnin' it to the vet doctor."
Brilliant, Chaz thought. An alligator ambulance service.
"My stomach's killing me," he muttered.
"Plus, they's a leech on your face."
"That's not funny."
"Just a lil'un." Tool pinched it off and flicked it out the window. "Damn, boy, you's white as a sheet. Maybe you oughta find another job. Seriously."
If only it were so simple, Chaz thought. He touched the tender spot on his cheek and wondered disconsolately if leech slime was toxic. The cell phone rang, but he made no move to grab it. Tool checked the caller ID and announced it was a blocked number.
When Chaz picked up, the blackmailer said: "You're right. We should do a meeting."
Again with the Chuck Heston voice, though it was easier on the nerves than the Jerry Lewis.
"Anytime," Chaz said. "Tell me where and when."
"Midnight. The boat docks down at Flamingo."
"I forget where that is."
"Invest in a map," the blackmailer said curtly, "and don't bother to bring the caveman."
Chaz said, "So it was you last night at the house."
"Yep. How was your hot date?"
"Very funny."
"Still, I was impressed by how quickly you've gotten past your grief."
"See you at midnight," Chaz Perrone said.
Joey stood alone in front of the bathroom mirror and said, "Girl, now you've gone and done it."
She had tried to be good, tried to stay the course. She'd even started a list:
1. He's too old for me.
2. I'm too young for him.
3. He's got a rotten track record.
4. I've got a rotten track record.
5. He's never heard of Alicia Keyes.
6. I've never heard of Karla Bonoff.
7. He lives on an island and shoots at strangers who mess with his dog.
8. I live-
That was as far as she'd gotten with her "Ten Sensible Reasons Not to Sleep with Mick Stranahan." Surely there were more than seven, but instead of knuckling down to remember them all, Joey had gone ahead and slept with him.
"You've lost your marbles," she told herself in the mirror. To make matters worse, it had been her idea. Three in the morning, she's lying alone in bed with the windows open and the taste of the ocean breeze on her tongue. Every time she shuts her eyes she hears this weird, steady chirping noise-screek, screek, screek-and every time she opens her eyes it stops. So the noise is strictly in her mind, driving her batty, when all of a sudden she figures out what it is: bed springs. The chirping noise inside her skull was the sound made by the mattress springs while Chaz was trying to hump his hippie date and Joey was under the bed.
Recalling that surreal scene-cowering like a trespasser in what was once her own bedroom, eavesdropping on the lustful exclamations of a man who was, until only a week ago, her own husband and partner- Joey had felt degraded and lonely and pathetic. She'd gotten up and quietly made her way to the living room, where Mick Stranahan was asleep on the couch. Gently she had squeezed beside him, telling herself at the time that all she wanted was a sympathy snuggle; somebody strong to hold her for a little while.
But once she had pressed herself against him and fell into the easy rhythm of his breathing, she'd realized that sweet platonic hugging wasn't going to cut it. She needed more.
"I'm so lame," she said, and splashed her face with cold water.
When she went outside, he was sitting on the seawall, talking on the cell phone. After he hung up, he asked her to sit down.
"You look about eighteen years old this morning," he said.
"Nice try, Mick."
"It's true." He whistled for Strom, who was nose-to-nose with a grumpy pelican.
"We should talk about last night," Joey said.
"I was dog-tired. I did my best."
"That's not what I meant. You were wonderful," she said, "but I think we ought to clarify a few things."
He patted her hand. "That's the last thing on earth we ought to do. Trust me."
Joey pulled away. "Don't make fun. I'm being serious."
"Me, too," he said. "I've had more of these morning-after chats than you have, and not one has ever resulted in clarity, inner peace or mutual understanding. Let's go eat some breakfast."
"But I'm afraid it was a grudge fuck," Joey said. "That's what Rose would call it."
"Ah. More worldly wisdom from the book group."
"Well? What if I jumped your bones just because I was furious at Chaz?"
"Then I owe him one," Stranahan said. "Bless his lying, murderous, cheating, burnt cinder of a soul. Aren't you getting hungry?"
"No!"
He pulled her close and held her there, Strom nuzzling the back of her neck. "Last night you were gloating, remember? Telling me how Chaz got stuck in neutral," Stranahan said, "how his cannon had jammed, all because he smelled your perfume. You said it was priceless- that was your word. Priceless, knowing he was crippled by the thought of you."
Joey had to smile. "It -was a moment. I heard him tell her that he couldn't feel a thing. He was numb from the waist down."
"Well, there you go," Stranahan said. "That's a hundred times better than a routine grudge fuck, even saucy Rose would agree. Now, if I don't get some black coffee in my veins-"
"Mick, hold on."
"Hush." He held a finger to her lips. "Honestly, I don't want an explanation of what happened last night. Allow me the middle-aged illusion that you were overcome by my stoic, virile charms."
Joey slumped playfully against his shoulder. "Okay, cowboy, I give up."
"That's my girl."
"Was that Chaz you were calling?"
"It was," Stranahan said. "We're on for midnight."
"And what are we demanding, blackmailwise?"
"Good question. I was hoping for one of your famous lists," he said. "Meanwhile, I expect Detective Rolvaag to visit our young widower soon. There's been a surprising development in the investigation of your disappearance."
"Do tell."
"Shocking is the word for it," Stranahan said. "Simply shocking."
Karl Rolvaag turned the place upside down.
Two entire pythons, fourteen and a half linear feet of muscle, yet somehow they'd disappeared like fleas inside his puny apartment.
Incredible, Rolvaag thought. Where could they be?
The previous night he'd forgotten to latch the lid of the tank after refilling the water bowl. It had happened twice in the past, but his slug-
gish pets never noticed. Now it was springtime, when snakes become active, and the prowling pythons had taken advantage of his carelessness.
Rolvaag searched beneath the furniture, above the bookcases, behind and inside the major appliances-nothing. When he got to the bedroom, he experienced a ripple of apprehension, for he saw that he'd left a window open. Had the snakes escaped outdoors? The detective gazed seven stories down at the grid of shuffleboard courts that was the social and geographic hub of the Sawgrass Grove Condominium. Along a line of bedraggled hibiscus bushes, Nellie Shulman was walking her precious Petunia, a foul-tempered cur that appeared to be a cross between a chinchilla and a wolverine. Several of Mrs. Shulman's neighbors were occupied by the same ritual, attached by dancing leashes to manic balls of fluff. From his vantage Rolvaag counted five dogs, all of them edibly sized for a python. The detective understood the urgency of finding his missing pets before they got hungry again.
First, though, he had to nail Charles Perrone.
On the way to work he called his source at the phone company, who without much grousing agreed to help. Time was running out, and Rolvaag needed to catch Perrone in a lie that couldn't be discounted as a misread wristwatch or some other innocent mistake. Rolvaag's man at the phone company promptly called back with numbers and names, only one of which was important to the detective.
Ricca Spillman opened the door as soon as he flashed his badge. She looked as if she'd spent the night in the trunk of a car.