Skinny Dip - Страница 61

"I 'gree."

"The whole five hundred, right?"

"Yup," Red Hammernut said. "The full load."

Chaz Perrone's relief almost instantly gave way to suspicion. He'd been expecting resistance or, at the least, some loony alternate plan. He knew how much Red cherished his money; dropping half a million bucks was enough to send him on a six-month bender.

"The drop is set for tonight," Chaz said, "on a house somewhere in the middle of Biscayne Bay. The guy wrote down a GPS heading."

"Yeah, Tool told me."

"You talked to Tool?"

"That's right. I already gave him the cash to hold." Red Hammer-nut took a pull from the bottle of bourbon. "Why you look so surprised, son? The man works for me."

"Yeah. So do I," Chaz reminded him.

"And you're in charge of buyin' the suitcase." Red said this with no trace of sarcasm. "I got you guys a boat for the night, a twenty-three-footer, at Bayside Marina. That's downtown Miami, acrosst from the basketball arena. Tool's good with outboards, you let him drive."

"Whatever," said Chaz.

He was thinking about the scene toward the end of GoodFellas, when everything's falling apart for the gangsters and the Ray Liotta character meets the Robert De Niro character at a diner. The two of them are sitting there, calmly talking about all the problems and all the heat-just like Red and I are talking, Chaz thought-when the De Niro character nonchalantly asks the Ray Liotta character to go down to Florida and do a job.

And right then, at that instant, the Ray Liotta character knows he's being set up for a hit.

"Son, I don't want no funny business out there on the water," Red Hammernut was saying. "I told Tool the same thing-pay the sumbitch and get the hell outta Dodge, you hear?"

Just like in the movie, Chaz thought. Once I was the partner and now I'm the problem.

He understood that Red Hammernut was looking at the big picture. The blackmailer posed a threat to Red only as long as Chaz was alive. The Hummer was the most traceable connection between them, and Red could always blame that on Chaz. He could say the biologist had hit him up for a new set of wheels. As a matter of fact, Red could say that the whole Everglades scam, faking the pollution charts, had been Chaz's idea; a shakedown from the beginning.

Once Chaz was gone, who could dispute it?

"I want you guys to get it over with, that's the main thing," Red Hammernut was saying. "Be done with it for good."

Amen, thought Chaz. The time has come.

Twenty-nine

Joey and her brother carried the dinner scraps down to the seawall to feed the fish. Stranahan sat at the picnic table, cleaning his rifle. He was relieved to be home, distant from the lunacy of the mainland. Strom lay at his feet and refused to move, even for a flock of rowdy gulls. All afternoon the dog had stayed near his side, sensing that something was in the works. If only humans were that intuitive, Stranahan thought.

With Strom at his heels, he carried the Ruger to the boat. Joey watched him wrap the gun in an oilcloth and stow it in the bow hatch.

"Mick, get this," she said. "My brother has the hots for my husband's girlfriend."

Corbett Wheeler waved an objection. "Hold on-all I said was, she didn't seem like a bimbo."

"That's what happens when you live with cloven beasts. Your standards take a dive," Joey said. "My advice is not to date anybody you meet at a funeral. Ask Chaz, if you don't believe me."

Stranahan sat down beside her on the seawall, the Doberman nosing between them. Joey clasped Stranahan's hand, the sort of knuckle-busting squeeze that takes place at 35,000 feet during heavy turbulence. She was nervous about the blackmail meeting, as any sane person would be.

Corbett asked, "What're the odds of actually collecting the dough?"

"Not too good," Stranahan conceded.

He anticipated that Samuel Johnson Hammernut would provide all or part of the five hundred grand as bait. Chaz's Neanderthal babysitter would guard the stash until they arrived at the drop site, where he'd open the suitcase and encourage Stranahan to count the bills. At the first opportunity he would then try to kill Stranahan. Later, probably on the boat trip back to the mainland, he'd do the same to Chaz Perrone.

There were a dozen unappealing variations of that scenario, and Stranahan had fretted through all of them. Initially he'd planned to make the pickup alone, but Joey and Corbett were adamant about joining him. Stranahan understood; for them it was personal. He also appreciated the tactical advantage in numbers-Hammernut's hired gorilla surely would realize that he couldn't take all three of them by surprise, and Stranahan was gambling that he wouldn't try. The man was more brute than sharpshooter.

Joey said, "If they do give up the money, we're donating it to one of the Everglades foundations."

"Anonymously, I presume," said her brother.

Stranahan felt like pouring a stiff drink but that was out of the question. There was a better-than-even chance he'd have to shoot somebody later.

Corbett Wheeler said, "I like your island very much, Mick, but it's a bit too near the city lights for me."

"Ssshh. I'm trying to persuade your little sister it's paradise."

"Little sister is already persuaded," Joey said, wiggling her toes in the water.

Corbett made a wistful pitch for New Zealand. "Once you come, you'll never want to leave."

"If tonight goes badly, we might be visiting soon," Stranahan said, "depending on the extradition policy."

Joey jabbed him in the ribs. "Stop. Think positive thoughts."

To the west, a palisade of violet clouds obscured the setting sun. The breeze died in wisps and the bay slicked off. Stranahan hurried to the boathouse and got out three suits of yellow foul-weather gear. Strom's ears pricked at the faraway roll of thunder.

"Never a dull moment," said Corbett.

Joey said, "The good news is, Chaz can't stand the rain."

Stranahan was more interested in the lightning. He could think of safer places to be than in an open skiff on a large body of water during an electrical storm. The sensible move was to call off the drop, but it was too late.

"Let's go," he said, "before the wind kicks up."

Chaz Perrone locked himself in the bathroom with a stack of smutty magazines and the framed photograph of Joey that he'd lifted from the altar of St. Conan's after the service. His habitual remedy for anxiety was to wank at himself with simian zest, but even the youthful picture of his late wife-centered beatifically amid the cheap porn-triggered only a transient tumescence. His fevered and doleful manipulations were interrupted by a heavy rap on the door.

"Where's that fuckin' gun?" Tool demanded.

"I got rid of it," Chaz lied, hastily tucking himself into his boxers.

"Lemme in."

"I'm on the can!"

"No you ain't." Tool kicked the door open and stared with overt disgust at the photos spread across the bathroom floor.

"God-a-mighty," he said.

Chaz snatched up the picture of Joey and wedged it under one arm. Then he dropped to his knees and started scooping up the magazines, saying, "You don't understand, I'm a nervous wreck. I had to do something."

Tool regarded him as if he were some sort of school-yard flasher.

"The gun, boy."

Chaz said, "I told you. I threw it away."

"Red said no funny bidness out on the water."

"I heard him."

"You done here?" Tool motioned snidely at the toilet. " 'Cause it's time we should go."

"Let me get dressed. I'll meet you outside," said Chaz.

The blue-plated.38 was hidden at the bottom of the laundry hamper. He slipped it with his cell phone into a zippered pocket of a Patagonia rain jacket, which he folded neatly and carried to the Hummer. Tool was enthroned behind the steering wheel, chewing a stick of beef jerky and tapping his stained fingers to a country song.

Chaz said, "What're you doing?"

"What's it look like?"

"You are not driving my truck."

"Red said so. Hop in, Doc."

Chaz was steamed. "What about the suitcase?"

He'd purchased a gray hard-shell Samsonite with retractable wheels.

Tool had packed the cash by himself, stack after stack of hundred-dollar bills. Although he'd refused to let Chaz anywhere near the money, the mere sight of it had been intoxicating.

Tool motioned with his thumb. "It's in the back."

Chaz climbed in on the passenger side. To remind Tool who owned the vehicle, he reached for the tuner knob on the stereo. Tool caught his hand and slammed it against the top of the dashboard. Chaz's arm went numb.

"That's Patsy Cline," Tool said simply.

"Christ, I think you broke my wrist!"

"Don't ever mess with the radio when Patsy Cline is on."

Goddamn psycho, Chaz thought. He couldn't feel any fractures, but something in his left hand was either sprained, torn or jammed.

Tool maintained a surly silence during the ride to Miami, though he turned out to be a decent driver. Chaz was holding himself together pretty well until he heard the first boom of thunder and eyeballed the blackening line of clouds ahead of them.

"What if they won't rent us the boat in this weather?" he asked.

Tool seemed entertained by the question. "Don't you worry, Red's got it all took care of."

Chaz opened the envelope and read over the blackmailer's instructions again. "You sure you know how to use a GPS?" he asked.

Tool said it was easy. "One season I had some trouble over at Immokalee, so I went down to Ramrod Key and run a crawfish boat for a feller. He had a import bidness on the side, so we spent some time in the islands, off the books. Made the crossing back and forth from Cay Sal in all kinds a storms."