Skinny Dip - Страница 40

Chaz swore and slapped himself again on the head.

"Nice shot." Stranahan turned off the flashlight. "I guess the only way to prove I'm not bullshitting is to tell you exactly what happened on the Sun Duchess. Listen carefully."

"I am," Chaz said with a grunt.

"It was a week ago tonight," Stranahan began. "You and your wife came on deck shortly before eleven and walked toward the stern. Nobody was outside because it was raining. Oh, I almost forgot: You were wearing a dark blue blazer and charcoal slacks. Mrs. Perrone had on a cream-colored skirt, white sandals and, I believe, a gold watch on her wrist."

Joey had also told Stranahan the color of her blouse, but he'd forgotten. He flicked on the flashlight and saw that Chaz looked drained and unsteady.

"You want me to keep going?"

"Suit yourself," Chaz croaked.

"So the two of you were standing alongside the rail, Mrs. Perrone just staring out to sea, when you pulled a really clever move," Stranahan said. "You took something from your pocket and dropped it. A coin, a key, something that made a sharp noise. Then you pretended like you were bending down to pick it up-remember?"

From the bow of the canoe, nothing.

"But instead you grabbed your wife by the legs and flipped her overboard. It happened so fast, she didn't have time to fight back. You still with me?"

When Stranahan zapped Joey's husband again with the flashlight, his eyes were wide and glassy. Stranahan had seen similar expressions in the studio of an amateur taxidermist.

"You look like you're coming down with something," he said. "Did you ever get vaccinated against that icky Nile virus?"

Chaz coughed violently. "There's a vaccine?"

If it had been almost anyone else, Stranahan might have felt sorry for the wretched fool.

"Why'd you do it, Chaz?"

"I didn't."

"You're calling me a liar? Ouch."

Chaz said, "Just tell me how much you want."

"Half a million bucks."

"Man, you're fucking crazy."

"Cash," the blackmailer said. "Hundreds are fine."

A light breeze had sprung up from the southeast, nudging the small canoe farther into the vast black bay. The mild rocking motion that Stranahan found so calming seemed to have the opposite effect on Joey Perrone's husband.

He said, "Where'm I supposed to come up with five hundred grand?"

"Hey, Chaz, I've got an idea." Stranahan thinking: It's like shooting fish in a barrel. "You could ask your pal Hammernut!"

No flashlight was required to gauge Dr. Charles Perrone's reaction. The raucous whoop of his vomiting incited a lusty reply from a male heron wading the shoreline a quarter of a mile away.

Mick and Chaz had been gone only twenty minutes when Joey made up her mind to leave the motel room. She put on a baggy cotton jersey and tucked her hair under her Marlins cap and walked down to the docks. In the parking lot she spotted a big black sedan that looked like the one parked in front of Chaz's house the night before. Leaning against the car was a tall, wide man wearing dark overalls over a fuzzy shirt. When Joey got closer, she saw that the shirt was actually a coat of dense body hair.

The man spotted her and said, "Come here, boy." Joey positioned herself beneath one of the light stanchions, in the hope he would see that she wasn't a threat.

The man said, "You deaf, or what? I said to come here."

"You're the bodyguard, aren't you?" Joey asked.

He swatted her with the back of his hand and she went down. With a twist of her jersey he yanked her up off the pavement and dropped her on the trunk of the sedan.

"You ain't no damn boy," he said. "You's a girl."

Joey fumbled to pull down her jersey, which had bunched up around her bra. She faintly tasted blood.

"Hey, don't get freaked. I'm here with the blackmailer."

"No shit?" the man said curiously.

"He's my boyfriend."

The man seemed to want to think about that. Joey let him.

Then he grabbed the back of her neck and said, "I could kill ya right now. Feed ya to the goddamn gators and by dawn there wouldn't be nuthin' left, not even bones."

He was squeezing so hard that Joey feared she would pass out. The man was strong enough to pinch off her head with his fingers.

"And killing me," she said, "would accomplish… what exactly?"

After a moment's contemplation, he let go. "Yeah. It's your boyfriend is the problem."

Joey rubbed her neck. "I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, but if anything happens to him, the cops will be getting a package containing all kinds of interesting tidbits about your client."

"Client?"

"The guy you're guarding. Charles Perrone," Joey said. "Can I ask your name?"

"They call me Tool."

"I'm Anastasia." Ever since she was a little girl, she'd wanted to call herself that. It sounded so much more feminine and elegant than Joey.

The man named Tool said, "Your boyfriend, what's he want from the doc?"

Joey said she didn't know. "I'm just the lookout. He handles the business end."

The man turned halfway and looked toward the boat ramp. "Where's that canal go to?"

"Beats me. Whatcha got stuck on your back?"

"Nuthin'."

Joey stepped forward and placed a hand on each arm. She had never in her life seen so much hair on a human being. "You turn around," she said. "Come on, Mr. Tool."

Pulling him into the pale circle of light, she noticed that irregular swaths had been crudely shaved across his shoulder blades. Several tan patches had been attached in no particular configuration.

"They's medicine stick-ems," Tool explained.

"For what?"

"Ellin' pain."

"Uh-oh. You're sick?" Joey asked.

"I got me a bullet in a real bad spot."

A truck pulled into the parking lot; a cab pickup with blue police lights mounted on the cab.

"That's a park ranger," Joey whispered.

They watched the truck make a slow pass through the marina area. When it was gone, Tool said, "Where's that damn canoe? This is takin' way too long."

"Well, the two boys have lots to talk about."

Tool patted the front pockets of his overalls. "Damn," he said. "My cell phone. Be right back."

He stomped down the docks and disappeared inside a dark houseboat. When he returned, he was swearing at the portable phone in his hand.

"I can't get no signal down here," he complained.

"Who're you calling?" Joey asked.

"None a your bidness."

"Who's paying you, anyway? Not Chaz Perrone, I know."

Tool snatched the front of her jersey and yanked her face close to his. "Stop with the goddamn questions, y'hear?"

His breath smelled oniony and a sickly damp heat rose from his skin. "I don't feel right," he said.

"Maybe it's the medicine. How about I grab you a Coke?"

"How 'bout if you shut up?"

"Okeydoke," Joey said.

Tool sat on the fender of the car, which sagged under his heft. For ten minutes he poked angrily at the keypad of his cell phone while Joey leaned against a piling and watched a school of electric-blue baitfish race in and out of the shadows. She thought of the little canoe somewhere out in the darkness and wondered if Mick was sticking to the script, or if he'd blown a fuse and done something unforgettable to her husband.

"Fuck it. I give up," Tool said at last, shoving the phone into his pocket.

"May I speak now?" Joey asked archly.

"Sing and dance if you want."

"You ever been married?"

"Yeah. Common-law," said Tool. "Six years. No, seven."

"What happened?"

"She went home to Valdosta for a funeral and never come back. I heard later she run off with the boy from the undertaker's."

Joey said, "Did you know that Mr. Perrone pushed his wife off an ocean liner?"

"I figgered it must be somethin' like that."

"Could you imagine ever doing that to somebody?"

"All depends," Tool said. "I hurt my share a people, but never no women unless they lit after me first. Maybe she started it, his old lady. Maybe the guy was self-defendin' hisself."

"Does he ever talk about her?"

"Not hardly. When I ast him, he said she was pretty and smart and all. But he didn't say what happened, only that she's dead. The rest ain't none a my bidness."

"He didn't tell you why he did it?"

"You don't lissen worth a damn, know that?" Tool hoisted himself off the fender, as if he were going to grab her again.

She took a step backward. Pretty and smart and all. That's what Chaz was saying about her now that she was gone. "I wonder if he loved her," she said quietly.

It made Tool laugh. "You say 'love'?"

"The whole thing bothers me, I can't help it." Joey sensed that Tool was telling the truth about how little he knew.

"What I seen," he said, "the man loves hisself more'n anything on this earth. He sure ain't one to cry and mope around and such."

Wait until Chaz hears what Mick Stranahan has to say, Joey thought, then you'll see some moping.

She said, "You think he did it, too. I can tell you do."

"Makes no difference in my pay either way."

"Your line of work, you can probably look once in somebody's eyes and know right off if they're lying. Mr. Perrone didn't fool you for a second, I bet."

Tool seemed immune to female flattery, a rare trait among men, in Joey's experience. She tried a different approach.

"How long have you been a bodyguard?"

"This here's my first crack at it."

"No wonder you're jumpy," Joey said. "Don't worry, Chaz will get back safe and sound, as long as he doesn't do anything stupid."