Bad Monkey (13 page)

O’Peele bared his grungy implants. “Who are you to judge?”

“A voice of experience,” Yancy said. “Go back to bed.”

He had one more stop before heading back to the Keys.

The phantom power-chair racket had been good to the Striplings. Their house was a Spanish-style remodel on Di Lido Island off the Venetian Causeway. It had four bedrooms, four baths, a heated lap pool, a dock on Biscayne Bay and a view of the city skyline. The landscaper was an overzealous admirer of sea grape trees and Malaysian palms.

According to the MLS website, also easily accessed by Yancy’s phone, the property was listed for $2 million and had been on the market only a short time. As was sometimes the case in such upscale neighborhoods, no For Sale sign had been planted in front of the Striplings’ home. This was a Realtor’s ploy designed to make prospective buyers believe that they were privy to an exclusive showing, and that the owners weren’t especially motivated to sell.

Yancy drove twice past the entrance and then parked in some shade down the street. While he might have been dressed like a working detective, the motley Subaru betrayed him as a civilian. He had no itch to explain his presence on Di Lido to the real police, who wouldn’t be impressed by his roach-patrol ID. And although he still had good friends in Miami-Dade law enforcement, none of them were placed highly enough to spring him from a jam.

What Yancy should have done was drive home, but he loathed the evening rush hour and knew the southbound turnpike would be, in the parlance of hard-core commuters, a goat fuck. Therefore he had some time to kill. Enough time to get lucky.

It was easy to find a house that had been shuttered for the summer, and that’s where Yancy left the car. He removed his coat and tie and donned a yellow hard hat that he was supposed to wear while probing the storage lofts and crawl spaces of pest-infested restaurants. Add the toolbelt and he looked somewhat like a utility-company employee.

Walking down the street, he tried to simulate the gait of an overworked stiff who’d been busting his hump all day in the blazing sun and had one last job on his ticket sheet. As he approached the Stripling residence, he spotted a cable-TV service box halfway up the property line. Each corner of the house was equipped beneath the eaves with a security camera, so Yancy pushed the hard hat low on his head in order to obscure his face while he dismantled the cable box and pretended to repair the wires.

He was hoping to catch a glimpse of the widow’s boyfriend, or at least a sign of male presence—swimming trunks tossed on a patio chair, a cigar butt in a poolside ashtray, whatever. It was possible that Eve Stripling was too careful to bring her lover to the house, but in Yancy’s experience lust usually triumphed over prudence. Besides, Eve would have no reason to believe she was suspected of murder unless Nick’s daughter had confronted her, which seemed unlikely.

From the back of the property wafted pleasant fragments of an old song. To Yancy it sounded like the Eagles or maybe Poco, piped through outdoor speakers. He was kneeling near the concrete pad for the air-conditioning unit and pool pump, and the motor noises made it hard to follow the melody. Unfortunately for Yancy, the motors also drowned out the low-frequency growl of the neighbor’s chow-cocker-rottweiler mix, which charged from behind and clamped its jaws on his left buttock.

Later he’d recall twisting his torso while spastically attempting to whack the animal with his hard hat, at which point he must have toppled sideways and struck his head on the slab. It was dark when he awoke with a roaring skull, his pants seat shredded and sticky with blood. The Satan-hound, having lost interest, was nowhere in sight.

Yancy lay there for a while, staring up at the sky. It was a clear night, though the starlight was washed out by the vast amber glow from the city. He remembered camping many times in Everglades National Park with his father; they’d arrange their sleeping bags to face west, 180 degrees away from Miami, so they could scout for constellations on a backdrop of natural darkness. Yancy decided that, once he got back his regular job, he’d invite his dad to fly down and they could paddle kayaks along the Shark River, or maybe through the backcountry of Chokoloskee. Winter was a better season, anyway; the nights cooled off, and there was plenty of dry tinder for a fire. And no goddamn bugs! Yancy recalled his mother’s aversion to insects, which made his dad’s posting in the Glades somewhat of a tribulation. But she’d hung in there, even through the blast-furnace days of summer when the mosquitoes were so thick you could inhale them into your lungs.

A door slammed and Yancy blinked himself back into the present. He was surprised to feel a tear slipping down his cheek. He rolled over and crawled through a bed of manicured bushes and then along the base of a stucco wall, toward the pool patio. Peeking around a corner, he saw Eve Stripling, crammed like a pepperoni into her white skinny jeans, standing on a lighted stone path leading to the boat dock. She was speaking to a taller hatless man beside her, his features obscured by the shadows. Although Yancy couldn’t hear their conversation, the elevated pitch of both voices suggested a crisis in progress.

No more than a hundred yards away, rafting like a ghost pelican in the water, was a seaplane.

Ten

Evan Shook believed that only a masochist or a moron would stay in the Keys all summer. The humidity was murderous and the insects were unshakable, yet here he was. His sons were jacking off at a soccer camp in Maryland, his wife was on an Aegean cruise with her book club and his mistress was camping at a bluegrass festival in Vermont, probably balling some goddamn banjo player.

Meanwhile the construction project on Big Pine Key loomed as one of the stickier problems in Evan Shook’s untidy world. He’d purchased the lot after the real estate market tanked and two years later he broke ground, anticipating a rebound in the demand for high-end island getaways. He was mistaken. The spec house wasn’t done and already he’d been forced to drop the price four times. Most buyers with real money wanted a place closer to Key West, so they could safely patronize the eateries and multitude of bars. The farther one had to drive from Duval Street late at night, the higher the risk of a costly DUI pullover. Big Pine was twenty-nine miles up the road.

Still, Evan Shook had gotten promising nibbles before this bizarre stretch of foul luck—first the dead raccoon, then the hive of killer bees. He stormed the county offices to complain, but he couldn’t find anybody in authority who would even write down his name. Eventually he was steered to some dweeb at the agricultural extension.

“They should spray the island to wipe out all the bees and wasps,” Evan Shook declared. “And pay some trapper to kill those fucking raccoons. Fifty bucks a tail.”

“That’s not funny,” the young agricultural agent said.

“Do you have any idea how much tax I pay on my property? More than you make in a year!”

“Here’s some advice: Do a better job of securing the job site.”

Evan Shook snapped, “Thanks for nothing, junior.”

The unfinished house suffered from the absence of windows and doors, which were essential to sealing the structure from marauding wildlife. Before ordering the expensive impact-resistant glass that was required for new construction in hurricane zones, Evan Shook had been hoping to line up a buyer who’d spring for custom hardware.

As he drove back to the property, he again considered turning the whole damn thing over to a Realtor and flying home to Syracuse. However, due to a slender and ever-dwindling profit margin, Evan Shook remained opposed to paying somebody a commission to sell his spec house. Who needed a real estate agent when you had global Internet?

Two potential buyers were coming to Big Pine that very morning—a middle-aged gay couple from Oslo. One of them owned a firm that manufactured drill equipment for deep-water oil rigs, and Evan Shook smelled a cash deal. In his e-mails he’d laid it on thick about the “balmy Florida winters” and “laid-back tropical lifestyle” and “picture-postcard sunsets.”

Typical Nords, the two men had arrived early for the showing. When Evan Shook pulled up, he saw them standing at the fence and conversing with his eccentric neighbor, Yancy. It was impossible not to notice that Yancy’s pants were bunched around his ankles, and that the Norwegian couple was soberly contemplating his bare ass.

Evan Shook experienced a flush of dread.
What the fuck?
He remained inside the climate-controlled Suburban to mull the possibilities.

Yancy definitely liked women but perhaps he was bi-sexual. In that case, his presence next door might be a selling point for the spec house, should the Norwegians find him attractive. Evan Shook decided not to interrupt Yancy’s private exhibition, just in case. He fiddled with the stereo dial and pretended to be talking on his cell. In the rearview mirror he inconspicuously checked his face for residual bee stings, and he was pleased to see that the welts were fading.

Soon Yancy pulled up his trousers and returned to his house. Evan
Shook got out of the SUV and crossed the unsodded lot to greet his guests, whose first names were Ole and Peder. They were fit and fair-skinned, and they spoke better English than he did.

“I see you’ve met Mr. Yancy. An unusual guy.”

“Yes,” Ole said. “He is fortunate to be alive.”

“Oh?”

The Norwegians exchanged clouded glances. Peder said, “Didn’t he tell you what occurred last night?”

“No, I haven’t talked with him,” Evan Shook said, thinking:
This can’t be good
.

“He was attacked while jogging,” Ole reported.

“Yancy jogs?” Evan Shook decided it could be true. The man looked as scrawny as a scarecrow. “Did he get mugged or something?”

“Bitten,” said Peder, “by wild dogs.”

“A pack of them,” Ole added.

Evan Shook was speechless. He’d never heard of feral hounds roaming the Keys. The Norwegians said the animals had “mauled” Yancy’s rear end.

“He fought them off before they could reach his throat,” Peder said.

“Where did all this happen?” Evan Shook asked.

Ole pointed. “Right there. At the corner of your street.”

“That’s awful,” mumbled Evan Shook.
Awful in every imaginable way
.

“Mr. Yancy said it’s not the first time. Usually he carries bear spray but last night he forgot.”

Evan Shook bobbled helplessly. “Bear spray. Really?”

The Norwegians cast not a glance toward their future four-story island vacation house with the picture-postcard sunset view. They were grimly scanning the street for bloodthirsty canines.

“Let me assure you,” Evan Shook said, “I’ve never seen so much as a stray Chihuahua on this island.”

In the maddeningly neutral manner of Scandinavians, Peder shrugged. “Mr. Yancy showed us the bite wounds. It was a serious aggression.”

“Well, I hope he’s notified Animal Control. And if he hasn’t,
I
damn sure will. Those mutts will be rounded up and gassed, I promise. Now, please, let me give you a tour of the palace.”

Ole shook his head apologetically. “We don’t wish to waste your time, Mr. Shook.”

“You’re not wasting my time. Are you kidding?”

Peder said, “I’m afraid we’re no longer interested. This location, really, it isn’t what we had in mind.”

“Although your house looks quite airy and nice,” Ole added. “It will make an excellent vacation home for somebody, I’m sure.”

Evan Shook felt like his spine was being tapped. “Look, the price isn’t locked in stone. Let’s go inside and get out of the sun. The construction crew won’t be back till noon.”

“We have cats,” Peder said. “So, you see, this neighborhood would be out of the question.”

Ole elaborated politely. “They are too old to outrun a horde of dogs. Inge is eleven and Torhilda is thirteen.”

“That’s a pity,” said Evan Shook. He sounded like a tire going flat.

The Norwegians firmly shook his hand and departed in their rental car. Evan Shook glared across the fence, where Yancy was leaning against the rail of his cedar deck. He had what appeared to be a shotgun under one arm, as if standing guard against another wolfish onslaught. Evan Shook spat on the ground and slouched off toward the chill of his Suburban.

Dr. Rosa Campesino, who insisted on examining it for herself, said: “Andrew, that’s the nastiest-looking butt I’ve ever seen on a live person.”

“The dog was a mutant brute!”

“Just hold still.”

She swabbed the pulpy bite marks with Betadine while Yancy pondered the sublime irony of being wounded in the same nether region where he’d targeted Bonnie Witt’s husband.

“Looks like Fido got a mouthful,” Rosa remarked, “and you didn’t have much to start with.”

“I have other noteworthy attributes.” Yancy was flat on his belly in bed. When he reached out to squeeze Rosa’s leg, she swatted his hand.

“Actually, you could use a few stitches,” she said. “I brought a surgical kit, just in case.”

“To cap off a truly humiliating second date.”

“Hush, Andrew.”

The drive back from Miami had been more nerve-grinding than usual because he’d had to tilt sideways behind the wheel, in order to keep weight off his mangled left buttock. It was worse than one of Bonnie Witt’s nutty yoga positions. Contorted for nearly three hours, his brain pounding from the smack on the concrete, Yancy had emerged like an arthritic crab from the Subaru.

The next morning he’d phoned Rosa to tell her what had happened at Eve Stripling’s house. She said she’d come straight down as soon as she finished the final autopsy on her schedule, a routine suicide. Yancy passed the time on his feet, because sitting was too painful. Liquor helped somewhat. He also distracted himself by initiating a useful conversation with a pair of Norwegians who were waiting to tour the monstrous spec house next door.

Rosa looked irresistible as she walked up Yancy’s front steps, but he was in too much discomfort to make a move, even after she changed into a devastating sundress.

While she inspected the knot on his skull, he said, “Know what? We’d make a great crime-solving duo.”