by Carl Hiaasen
The sunlight warmed Cherry's cheeks. She closed her eyes and said, "I hear ya, dude."
"I mean, do you love it here or somethin'? 'Cause I already seen enough."
"Yeah?" Cherry opened her eyes and looked at the stringy, bleary-eyed skinhead. Why don't junkies ever brush their teeth? she wondered. Guy can afford a three-hundred-dollar-a-day smack habit but he can't afford some freaking floss?
Methane said, "Know what we should do? We should split--you and me."
"Wow."
"We could hop the damn wall, no problem." He winked and tapped his cigarette ashes into the koi pond. "Come on, what the hell are they gonna do?"
"Cheer, probably," Cherry Pye said.
She stood up and tossed her Camel into the ivy. She was thinking about Tanner what's-his-face back on Star Island, trying to remember if the sex was any good. She had a vague recollection of helping him put on a condom, but the rest was a fog.
She said, "I'm sure we could walk out the front door just as easy. It's not a prison, dude. It's just a spa for drunks and dopers."
Methane explained that he couldn't leave by the front entrance because his bandmates, who were a bunch of self-righteous pricks, had hired a couple of Latino gorillas to hang close and make sure he didn't bolt. It had something to do with the promoter's insurance policy--Methane was supposed to test clean before he could go on the road again.
"Bummer," said Cherry.
"So, how 'bout it? Let's jump the wall and run down to the beach and get high."
"My mom would die."
"Aw, come on, Cherish." The drummer smiled and traced a finger along her neckline.
She smiled back at him. "Sounds nice. Say it again."
"Cherish? You like that, huh?"
She stood up, dusting the seat of her pants. "Okay, let's go. Me first."
Methane boosted her over the five-foot wall, the vines abrading her palms. She came down on all fours in some dry scrub on a high slope overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway. The drummer landed with a grunt beside her, wrenching an ankle. They followed the wall to the corner of the property and took a hiking path down the hill.
When Methane said his leg hurt too badly for him to continue, Cherry told him to man up. They couldn't call for a ride because neither of them had a cell. Rainbow Bend had confiscated the devices upon admittance, due to a problem with patients secretly phoning their drug dealers, who would dutifully drive out to Malibu and lob Baggies of pills, rocks, buds and powder over the wall. On some mornings the serenity garden looked like the Customs locker at LAX.
"Just keep walkin'," Cherry told the drummer.
"But I think my damn foot is broke," he whined.
"Don't be such a twink."
The path emerged a few hundred yards from the white gatehouse that stood at the tree-lined driveway leading up to the Rainbow Bend chalet. No members of the Poon Pilots' security detail were visible, but the gatehouse attendant appeared to have taken notice of the two unlikely hikers. Cherry was dressed in a manner that wouldn't normally arouse suspicion in Malibu--Hudson jeans, Rafe sandals and a black DK top--but Methane looked like a degenerate neo-Nazi child molester. He'd been delivered to Rainbow Bend wearing unlaced combat boots, a shredded white undershirt and baggy, low-flying board shorts that displayed not only his ass crack but the tattoo of a snake-entwined swastika.
Cherry Pye said, "Know what? Let's split up, dude."
"Shit, baby, I can barely stand. Gimme an arm."
Briskly she began walking down the street. The drummer hobbled after her, cussing under his breath.
A silver four-door sedan was idling at the downhill end of the block, facing away. A heavyset civilian sat behind the steering wheel, his capped head lolling. Cherry walked up and tapped her fingernails on the trunk, startling the driver so much that he knocked the Bluetooth out of his ear.
When he rolled down the window, she said, "Can you give me a ride?"
"Me, too," chimed Methane from behind.
The man asked where she was headed.
"Holmby Hills," Cherry replied. "Then Burbank."
"Hey, what happened to the beach?" said Methane.
The driver looked curiously at Cherry. "You mean Burbank airport?"
"If it's not too big of a hassle. I'm totally good for the gas."
"No problem."
"I got, like, a major meeting in Miami."
"Sure. Hop in."
Cherry Pye slid into the front passenger seat. "Nice wheels. Is this the new C-Class?"
"S," said the driver.
"Killer." It's an expensive car to be stinking of french fries, Cherry thought. The guy looked familiar, although she couldn't place the face.
Methane rapped on the side of the Mercedes and said, "Back door's locked, bro."
"Let's roll," Cherry said to the driver.
"What about your friend?"
"Mental defective, I mean big-time. Just drive."
"Absolutely."
"Hey, Cheryl!" Methane shouted snidely. "Tell him to open the fuckin' door!"
She didn't bother to look back as they sped away, leaving the drummer gesticulating in the middle of the street. Laying an adorable smile on the paunchy driver, Cherry said, "Thanks. My name is Cherish."
"I know who you are."
"Yeah?" She glanced over the seat and saw among the crumpled McDonald's wrappers a large camera bag and a pair of binoculars. She said, "Oh, don't fucking tell me."
The man extended a greasy hand. "Claude Abbott. Big fan."
5
The real-estate crash couldn't have happened at a more inconvenient time for Jackie Sebago, whose privileged circle of investors collectively had sunk more than nine million dollars into Jackie's condominium project. To allay their concerns, the Sebago Isle Limited Partnership, LLC, invited the investors to a lavish retreat at the exclusive Ocean Reef Club on North Key Largo, a legendary haven for rich, fretful white guys. On the recreational agenda were tennis, golf, deep-sea fishing, Pilates classes, hot-stone massages, a private concert by Michael Bolton and--if necessary--a tour of the development site, located along County Road 905 only a few miles south of the club. The tour would be brief, as only two slabs had been poured.
It was Jackie Sebago's plan to keep the investors playing during the day and drinking all night, thereby minimizing the opportunities for fiscal probing. Jackie had taken their money and purchased four one-acre lots upon which he'd intended to build a total of twenty-four luxury town houses, within strolling distance of the Atlantic. The property alone had cost four million; rather than deal with a nosy bank, Jackie had paid with cash from the investors' stake. He had appropriated the remaining five mil, preferring to finance the phased construction with future down payments from eager buyers. It was a classic bit of Florida smoke that worked fine when there was an abundance of flush, gullible customers; in a busted market, it was a formula for disaster.
With reluctance Jackie Sebago had dipped into his own Luxembourg stash for the 250 G's that the Ocean Reef clambake would cost. Based on experience, he felt confident that a weekend of sun-drenched excess would derail any simmering revolt. Eight of the nine investors had RSVP'd; all would be bringing either wives or mistresses. Jackie met them in baggage claim at Miami International and escorted them outside to a plush coach-style bus with satellite TV and a wet bar. He figured the sooner he got them tanked, the better.
Still, the ride to the Keys was tense. One of the partners, a young hedge-fund hawk from Providence, refused hard liquor and loudly peppered Jackie with questions that Jackie was disinclined to answer. The man, whose name was Shea, struck an accusatory tone that alarmed his host, who waited in vain for the other investors to speak up in defense of his rectitude. Instead they fell silent, except for an occasional murmur to their female companions, and listened with disturbingly sober expressions to Shea's nasal interrogation. Jackie Sebago could hear the ice cubes clink in their glasses whenever the bus took a bump.
At issue was the bala
nce of the investors' principal, and what was being done with it. When Jackie assured Shea that the money was being safely held in California, the arrogant worm had the gall to challenge this smallish lie by demanding the name of the bank and the account number. Jackie said he was insulted and offered to return Shea's entire investment by wire transfer. He whipped out his smart phone as if to initiate the transaction, and he was rattled when Shea failed to back off. In fact, everyone on the bus was watching to see if Jackie would follow through. It was appalling--nobody spoke up to get him off the hook.
With creeping dread, Jackie stalled by pretending to be searching his contact list for his banker's private number. What a shitty way to begin a Florida vacation, he thought. These ungrateful swine did not deserve to be serenaded by Mr. Michael Bolton.
"What's the goddamn problem?" asked Shea.
Jackie continued scrolling intently. "I thought I had the number in my directory but I guess it's in my other Pearl." He made a show of checking his wristwatch. "Anyway, shit, the banks just closed in L.A."
"So do it by e-mail," Shea said.
"What exactly are you insinuating?" Jackie asked, as if he didn't know. This was a nightmare--what if all of them demanded the return of their money?
At that instant, as if by a miracle, the driver stomped the brakes. The bus swerved sharply, then shuddered to a halt. Jackie hurried up the aisle, elated to have an excuse for fleeing Shea's inquisition.
The bus driver held a death clench on the steering wheel. "Damn, I almost hit her," he gasped, pointing to a young woman who was signaling from the edge of the road, in the wash of the headlights. She wore rhinestone flip-flops and a flimsy wrap with a black-and-white checkerboard pattern.
"Everybody stay right here," Jackie Sebago said dramatically to his investors, who appeared more annoyed than concerned. Jackie regarded the injured pedestrian as a divine distraction, and bounded off the bus.
The young woman said, "Thank God you stopped."
"What happened? Are you okay?" Jackie noticed she was quite attractive, even with a puffy lip.
"It was terrible," she said. "I can't describe it. He made me put on this ... this nasty old thing." She flicked disgustedly at the silky garment.
"What is that?"
"It's from some stupid NASCAR race."
"The checkered flag?"
"Yeah, he's a real sicko." The woman swiped at a cloud of gnats.
Jackie Sebago was thinking she looked pretty tasty wrapped in a Jiffy Lube banner, but he prudently withheld the compliment. "Want me to call an ambulance?"
"First get me out of here, okay? Like right this minute."
The woman stepped toward the idling bus. Jackie intercepted her and said, "But we're going the other way, down to Ocean Reef."
"That's fine. Anywhere but here is fantastic."
"What's your name, honey?"
"Annie," the woman said.
She followed Jackie Sebago up the steps of the bus. He explained to the driver that the woman needed medical attention, and that she would be riding with them to the club.
From the rear, Shea called out, "What the hell's going on?"
"This young lady's been hurt. We're giving her a lift," Jackie announced. He felt very good about helping the woman. Her striking presence guaranteed there would be no more talk of audits or escrow accounts during the remainder of the ride.
One of the wives asked her what in the world had happened.
"It was awful, just awful," Annie said with a shiver. "I can't talk about it."
Jackie told the bus driver to get moving.
"Oh no, wait!" Annie blurted. "I forgot something."
She hopped off the bus and disappeared into the shadows of the mangroves. Jackie Sebago peered apprehensively out the window. To the impatient passengers he said, "Don't worry, she'll be right back."
The young woman returned a few moments later, but she wasn't alone. A grizzled giant with clacking red-and-green braids calmly entered the bus behind her. His eyes seemed crooked, and he was nude except for a trench coat and an ill-fitting shower cap imprinted with faded butterflies. The man had shaved his tanned body and grease-painted himself in the emphatic manner of an aboriginal.
Jackie fumbled to unholster his phone, but it was too late. When the stranger raised a sawed-off Remington to his head, Jackie was actually relieved to hear one of his investors cry out, "Don't do it, mister! He's got all our money!"
The woman named Annie took custody of Jackie's cell phone. Then she walked down the aisle with a dirty pillowcase, collecting all the other phones and saying: "I'm so sorry. He's just impossible."
In a quavering voice the bus driver begged the stranger not to shoot him. The stranger motioned for him to start driving.
"What do you want?" Jackie Sebago bleated. "Is this some kind of robbery?"
"You should be so lucky," said the man with the braids.
Janet Bunterman phoned Maury Lykes to give him the bad news: "Cherry jumped the wall at Rainbow Bend."
"Jesus."
"She chartered a G5 and flew back to Miami."
"On whose dime?" Maury Lykes asked.
"There was another passenger on the plane. We think it's the drummer from the Poon Pilots--he went missing from the clinic at the same time as Cherry."
"Beautiful. She couldn't run off with a lead singer, I suppose. Some ripped, sensitive surfer guy that every teenage girl in America wants to ball. No, your daughter goes for the scrawny no-talent scag freak with rotted teeth." Maury Lykes sighed sourly. "What a moving love story, Janet. I can't wait to read it in the tabs."
"You think Ned and I are thrilled about this?"
Maury Lykes said he would sue the Buntermans for every dollar they had if Cherry Pye took up heroin before the big concert tour.
"She would never!" said Janet Bunterman. "And even if she does, we can find a way to make it work."
"Excuse me?"
"Look at all the great musicians who've used the stuff and didn't die. Clapton, Keith Richards, David Bowie--I mean, Maury, come on! Let's not automatically assume the situation is unmanageable."
There was a long silence on the other end. Eventually Maury Lykes said, "Janet, you'd better be on the next goddamn plane to Florida. Meanwhile, I intend to track down your idiot offspring and get her on a leash."
"How?"
"That guy I told you about. The new Lev."
"But we haven't even had a chance to interview him," Janet Bunterman complained. "There's a process to be followed, Maury. He hasn't been officially hired yet."
"Consider it official," said Maury Lykes, and hung up.
Janet Bunterman was packing when her husband came in and told her that the twin publicists were waiting downstairs. Word of Cherry's admission to Rainbow Bend and subsequent escape had leaked out, and the PR team had come up with a plan.
"They're smoking in the kitchen," Ned Bunterman reported with distaste.
"Then put them outside, like we do with the cats," his wife said. "Are you coming to Miami with me, or not?"
Ned Bunterman said no. He said he was committed to play in a charity golf tournament at Palm Springs. "For lupus awareness," he added.
"I thought that was last week."
"No, honey. Colorectal was last week," he said, "at Torrey Pines."
"Fine." Janet Bunterman had no reason to believe her husband, who for several years had been carrying on a relationship with a bisexual middle-aged Danish couple who owned a consignment shop in Pasadena. Sometimes he accompanied them on long weekends to Ojai or Moab. Janet Bunterman tolerated Ned Bunterman's antics because he did a semi-competent job of managing their daughter's earnings, and because Janet herself was sweatily involved with her thirty-year-old tennis instructor.
"I've got a great idea how to kill the rumor," Ned Bunterman said.
His wife neatly stacked three bathing suits in her suitcase and said, "It's not a rumor, darling. It's reality."
"Just listen, okay? We sneak Ann DeLusi
a up to Rainbow Bend in the middle of the night. Then tomorrow, for like five minutes at lunchtime, she walks out on the sun terrace--the one on the second floor, remember? You can see it from the street. That way the paparazzis can shoot her with a long lens. We'll give her the big hat, the shades." Ned Bunterman smiled craftily. "The pictures go out all over the world, and everybody thinks it's Cherry, safe in the healing womb."
Janet Bunterman shook her head. "I already thought of that, Ned. There's one little problem: Annie's in Key West and she's not answering her bloody phone."
"You're kidding. Ann?"
"Yeah, and I'm seriously pissed. We've got a code blue here and she's wasting away in Tequilaville."
Ned Bunterman rarely attempted to correct his wife's misreferences; in their marriage she had long ago seized the role of pop-cultural authority. He said, "The Larks are waiting, Janet."
"Christ, I need a drink."
Lucy and Lila Lark sheathed their phones and stubbed out their cigarettes when Cherry Pye's parents came out on the patio deck. Because the twin publicists shared a gifted Brazilian surgeon and identical Botox regimens, few people could tell them apart. It wasn't actually necessary, as the Buntermans had learned. The two Larks spoke as one. They specialized in problem celebrities, and Cherry Pye kept them hopping. Typically, Lucy and Lila were not consulted until a career was spiraling downward full bore, which was why so many of their clients ended up dead or imprisoned. Anticipating a similar fate for Cherry, the Larks billed the Buntermans by the week.
"Listen up. Rainbow Bend never happened," Lucy said.
"Fine by me," said Cherry's mother.
"Just like the Stefano never happened," Lila added.
Ned Bunterman tentatively raised his right hand, as if he were in philosophy class. "So what's our official line?"
The twins looked at each other, then Lucy said, "Cherry is visiting friends in Florida, resting up for the concert tour."
"Which starts in Miami," said Lila, "so why wouldn't she be there?"
Lucy nodded. "Exactly. She's been at the Stefano for a week. We'll have the manager leak it to the Herald."
Again Cherry's father lifted a hand. "Somebody got a photo in Malibu when Janet checked her in at the clinic. It's all over the Globe's Web site, and TMZ, too."
