Skin Tight

by Carl Hiaasen

  The high point of Chemo’s municipal career was his savvy trashing of local zoning laws to allow a Mafia-owned-and-operated dog food plant to be built in the suburbs. Three hundred new jobs were created, and there was talk of running Chemo for mayor.

  He greatly liked the idea and immediately began gouging illegal political contributions out of city contractors. Soon a campaign poster was designed, but Chemo recoiled when he saw the finished product: the four-foot photographic blowup of his face magnified the two ingrown hair follicles on the tip of his otherwise normal nose; the blemishes looked, in Chemo’s own distraught simile, “like two ticks fucking.” He ordered the campaign posters shredded, scheduled a second photo session, and drove straight to Scranton for the ill-fated electrolysis treatment.

  The grisly mishap and subsequent murder of the offending doctor put an end to Chemo’s political career. He swore off public service forever.

  THEY rented an Aquasport and docked it at Sunday’s-on-the-Bay. They chose a table under the awning, near the water. Chemo ordered a ginger ale and Chloe Simpkins Stranahan got a vodka tonic, double.

  “We’ll wait till dusk,” Chemo said.

  “Fine by me.” Chloe slurped her drink like a parched coyote. She was wearing a ridiculous white sailor’s suit from Lord & Taylor’s; she even had the cap. It was not ideal boatwear.

  “I used to work in this joint,” Chloe said, as if to illustrate how far she’d come.

  Chemo said, “This is where you met Mick?”

  “Unfortunately.”

  The bar was packed for ladies’ night. In addition to the standard assembly of slick Latin studs in lizard shoes, there were a dozen blond, husky mates off the charter boats. In contrast to the disco Dannies, the mates wore T-shirts and sandals and deep Gulf Stream tans, and they drank mostly beer. The competition for feminine attention was fierce, but Chemo planned to be long gone before any fights broke out. Besides, he didn’t like sitting out in the open, where people could stare.

  “Have you got your plan?” Chloe asked.

  “The less you know, the better.”

  “Oh, pardon me,” she said caustically. “Pardon me, Mister James Fucking Bond.”

  He blinked neutrally. A young pelican was preening itself on a nearby dock piling, and Chemo found this infinitely more fascinating than watching Chloe Simpkins Stranahan in a Shirley Temple sailor cap, sucking down vodkas. It offended him that someone so beautiful could be so repellent and obnoxious; it seemed damned unfair.

  On the other hand, she had yet to make the first wisecrack about his face, so maybe she had one redeeming quality.

  “This isn’t going to get too heavy?” she said.

  “Define heavy.”

  Chloe stirred her drink pensively. “Maybe you could just put a good scare in him.”

  “Bet on it,” Chemo said.

  “But you won’t get too tough, right?”

  “What is this, all of a sudden you’re worried about him?”

  “You can hate someone’s guts and still worry about him.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  Chloe said, “Chill out, okay? I’m not backing down.”

  Chemo toyed with one of the infrequent black wisps attached to his scalp. He said: “Where does your husband think you are?”

  “Shopping,” Chloe replied.

  “Alone?”

  “Sure.”

  Chemo licked his lips and scanned the room. “You see anybody you know?”

  Chloe looked around and said, “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Just making sure. I don’t want any surprises; neither do you.”

  Chemo paid the tab, helped Chloe into the bow of the Aquasport, and cast off the ropes. He checked his wristwatch: 5:15. Give it maybe an hour before nightfall. He handed Chloe a plastic map of Biscayne Bay with the pertinent channel markers circled in red ink. “Keep that handy,” he shouted over the engine, “case I get lost.”

  She tapped the map with one of her stiletto fingernails. “You can’t miss the goddamn things, they’re sticking three stories out of the water.”

  Fifteen minutes later, they were drifting through a Stiltsville channel with the boat’s engine off. Chloe Simpkins Stranahan was complaining about her hair getting salty, while Chemo untangled the anchor ropes. The anchor was a big rusty clunker with a bent tongue. He hauled it out of the Aquasport’s forward hatch and laid it on the deck.

  Then he took some binoculars from a canvas duffel and began scouting the stilt houses. “Which one is it?” he asked.

  “I told you, it’s got a windmill.”

  “I’m looking at three houses with windmills, so which is it? I’d like to get the anchor out before we float to frigging Nassau.”

  Chloe huffed and took the binoculars. After a few moments she said, “Well, they all look alike.”

  “No shit.”

  She admitted she had never been on her ex-husband’s house before. “But I’ve been by there in a boat.”

  Chemo said, “How do you know it was his?”

  “Because I saw him. He was outside, fishing.”

  “How long ago was this?”

  “Three, maybe four months. What’s the difference?”

  Chemo said, “Did Mick know it was you in the boat?”

  “Sure he did, he dropped his damn pants.” Chloe handed Chemo the binoculars and pointed. “That’s the one, over there.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes, Captain Ahab, I am.”

  Chemo studied the stilt house through the field glasses. The windmill was turning and a skiff was tied up under the water tanks, but no one was outside.

  “So now what?” Chloe said.

  “I’m thinking.”

  “Know what I wish you’d do? I wish you’d do to him what he did to my male friend. Krazy Glue the bastard.”

  “That would settle things, huh?”

  Chloe’s tone became grave. “Mick Stranahan destroyed a man without killing him. Can you think of anything worse?”

  “Well,” Chemo said, reaching for the duffel, “I didn’t bring any glue. All I brought was this.” He took out the .22 pistol and screwed on the silencer.

  Chloe made a gulping noise and grabbed the bow rail for support. So much for poise, Chemo thought.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Stranahan, this is my just-in-case.” He laid the pistol on top of the boat’s console. “All I really need is a little friction.” Smiling, he held up a book of matches from Sunday’s bar.

  “You’re going to burn the house down? That’s great!” Chloe’s eyes shone with relief. “Burning the house, that’ll freak him out.”

  “Big-time,” Chemo agreed.

  “Just what that dangerous lunatic deserves.”

  “Right.”

  Chloe looked at him mischievously. “You promised to tell me who you really are.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “At least tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “I’m being paid,” Chemo said.

  “By who?”

  “Nobody you know.”

  “Another ex-wife, I’ll bet.”

  “What did I say?”

  “Oh, all right.” Chloe stood up and peered over the gunwale at the slick green water. Chemo figured she was checking out her own reflection.

  “Did you bring anything to drink?”

  “No,” Chemo replied. “No drinks.”

  She folded her arms to show how peeved she was. “You mean, I’ve got to stay out here till dark with nothing to drink.”

  “Longer than that,” Chemo said. “Midnight.”

  “But Mick’ll be asleep by then.”

  “That’s the idea, Mrs. Stranahan.”

  “But how will he know to get out of the house?”

  Chemo laughed gruffly. “Now who’s the rocket scientist?”

  Chloe’s expression darkened. She pursed her lips and said, “Wait a minute. I don’t want you to kill him.”

  “Who asked you?”

&nb
sp; A change was taking place in Chloe’s attitude, the way she regarded Chemo. It was as if she was seeing the man for the first time, and she was staring, which Chemo did not appreciate. Her and her tweezered eyebrows.

  “You’re a killer,” she said, reproachfully.

  Chemo blinked amphibiously and plucked at one of the skin tags on his cheek. His eyes were round and wet and distant.

  “You’re a killer,” Chloe repeated, “and you tricked me.”

  Chemo said, “You hate him so much, what do you care if he’s dead or not?”

  Her eyes flashed. “I care because I still get a check from that son of a bitch as long as he’s alive. He’s dead, I get zip.”

  Chemo was dumbstruck. “You get alimony? But you’re remarried! To a frigging CPA!”

  “Let’s just say Mick Stranahan didn’t have the world’s sharpest lawyer.”

  “You are one greedy twat,” Chemo said acidly.

  “Hey, it’s one-fifty a month,” Chloe said. “Barely covers the lawn service.”

  She did not notice the hostility growing in Chemo’s expression. “Killing Mick Stranahan is out of the question,” she declared. “Burn up the house, fine, but I don’t want him dead.”

  “Tough titties,” Chemo said.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are—”

  “Sit,” Chemo said. “And keep your damn voice down.”

  The wind was kicking up, and he was afraid the argument might carry across the flats to the house.

  Chloe sat down but was not about to shut up. “You listen to me—”

  “I said, keep your damn voice down!”

  “Screw you, Velcro-face.”

  Chemo’s brow crinkled, his cheeks fluttered. He probably even flushed, though this was impossible to discern.

  Velcro-face—there it was, finally. The insult. The witch just couldn’t resist after all.

  “Now what’s the matter?” Chloe Simpkins Stranahan said. “You look seasick.”

  “I’m fine,” Chemo said, “But you shouldn’t call people names.”

  Then he heaved the thirty-pound anchor into her lap, and watched her pitch over backward in her silky sailor suit. The staccato trail of bubbles suggested that she was cursing him all the way to the bottom of the bay.

  CHAPTER 9

  TINA woke up alone in bed. She wrapped herself in a sheet and padded groggily around the dark house, looking for Mick Stranahan. She found him outside, balanced on the deck rail with his hands on his hips. He was watching Old Man Chitworth’s stilt house light up the sky; a cracking orange torch, visible for miles. The house seemed to sway on its wooden legs, an illusion caused by blasts of raw heat above the water.

  Tina thought it was the most breathtaking thing she had ever seen, even better than Old Faithful. In the glow from the blaze she looked up at Stranahan’s face and saw concern.

  “Somebody living there?” she said.

  “No.” Stranahan watched Old Man Chitworth’s windmill fall, the flaming blades spinning faster in descent. It hit the water with a sizzle and hiss.

  “What started the fire?” Tina asked.

  “Arson,” Stranahan said matter-of-factly, “I heard a boat.”

  “Maybe it was an accident,” she suggested. “Maybe somebody tossed a cigarette.”

  “Gasoline,” Stranahan said. “I smelled it.”

  “Wow. Whoever owns that place has some serious enemies, I guess.”

  “The man who owns that place just turned eighty-three,” Stranahan said. “He’s on tubes in a nursing home, all flaked out. Thinks he’s Eddie Rickenbacker.”

  A gust of wind prompted Tina to rearrange her sheet. She got a shiver and edged closer to Mick. She said, “Some harmless old geezer. Then I don’t get it.”

  Stranahan said, “Wrong house, that’s all.” He hopped off the rail. “Somebody fucked up.” So much for paradise, he thought; so much for peace and tranquility.

  Across the bay, from Dinner Key, came the whine of toy-like sirens.

  Stranahan didn’t need binoculars to see the flashing blue dots from the advancing police boats.

  Tina clutched his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes off the fire. “Mick, have you got enemies like that?”

  “Hell, I’ve got friends like that.”

  BY midmorning the Chitworth house had burned to the waterline, and the flames died. All that remained sticking out were charred tips of the wood pilings, some still smoldering.

  Tina was reading on a deck chair and Stranahan was doing push-ups when the marine patrol boat drove up and stopped. It was Luis Córdova and another man whom Stranahan did not expect.

  “Now, there’s something you don’t see every day,” Stranahan announced, plenty loud. “Two Cubans in a boat, and no beer.”

  Luis Córdova grinned. The other man climbed noisily up on the dock and said, “And here’s something else you don’t see every day: An Irishman up before noon, and still sober.”

  The man’s name was Al García, a homicide detective for the Metro-Dade police. His JCPenney coat jacket was slung over one arm, and his shiny necktie was loosened halfway down his chest. García was not wild about boat rides, so he was in a gruff and unsettled mood. Also, there was the matter of the dead body.

  “What dead body?” Mick Stranahan said.

  Badger-like, García shuffled up the stairs to the house, with Stranahan and Luis Córdova following single file. García gave the place the once-over and waved courteously to Tina on her lounge chair. The detective half-turned to Stranahan and in a low voice said, “What, you opened a halfway house for bimbos! Mick, you’re a freaking saint, I swear.”

  They went inside the stilt house and closed the door. “Tell me about the dead body,” Stranahan said.

  “Sit down. Hey, Luis, I could use some coffee.”

  “A minute ago you were seasick,” Luis Córdova said.

  “I’m feeling much better, okay?” García scowled theatrically as the young marine patrol officer went to the kitchen. “Interdepartmental cooperation, that’s the buzzword these days. Coffee’s a damn good place to start.”

  “Easy, man, Luis is a sharp kid.”

  “He sure is. I wish he was ours.”

  Stranahan said, “Now about the body . . .”

  García waved a meaty brown hand in the air, as if shooing an invisible horsefly. “Mick, what are you doing way the fuck out here? Somehow I don’t see you as Robinson Crusoe, sucking the milk out of raw coconuts.”

  “It’s real quiet out here.”

  Luis Córdova brought three cups of hot coffee.

  Al García smacked his lips as he drank. “Quiet—is that what you said? Jeez, you got dead gangsters floating around, not to mention burning houses—”

  “Is this about Tony the Eel?”

  “No,” Luis said seriously.

  García put down his coffee cup and looked straight at Stranahan. “When’s the last time you saw Chloe?”

  Suddenly Mick Stranahan did not feel so well.

  “A couple months back,” he said. “She was on a boat with some guy. I assumed it was her new husband. Why?”

  “You mooned her.”

  “Can you blame me?”

  “We heard about it from the mister this morning.”

  Stranahan braced to hear the whole story. Luis Córdova opened a spiral notebook but didn’t write much. Stranahan listened somberly and occasionally looked out the window toward the channel where Al García said it had happened.

  “A rusty anchor?” Stranahan said in disbelief.

  “It got tangled in this silky thing she was wearing,” the detective explained. “She went down like a sack of cement.” Sensitivity was not García’s strong suit.

  “The rope is what gave it away,” added Luis Córdova. “One of the guys coming out to the fire saw the rope drifting up out of the current.”

  “Hauled her right in,” García said, “like a lobster pot.”

  García said, “Fact is, we really shouldn’t be tellin
g you all this.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you’re the prime suspect.”

  “That’s very funny.” Stranahan looked at Luis Córdova. “Is he kidding?”

  The young marine patrolman shook his head.

  García said, “Mick, your track record is not so hot. I mean, you already got a few notches on your belt.”

  “Not murder.”

  “Chloe hated your guts,” Al García said, in the tone of a reminder.

  “That’s my motive? She hated my guts?”

  “Then there’s the dough.”

  “You think I’d kill her over a crummy one-hundred fifty dollars a month?”

  “The principle,” Al García said, unwrapping a cigar. “I think you just might do it over the principle of the thing.”

  Stranahan leaned back with a tired sigh. He felt bad about Chloe’s death, but mostly he felt curious. What the hell was she doing out here at night?

  “I always heard good things about you,” Al García said, “mainly from Timmy Gavigan.”

  “Yeah, he said the same for you.”

  “And the way Eckert dumped you from the State Attorney’s, that was low.”

  Stranahan shrugged. “They don’t forget it when you shoot a judge. It’s bound to make people nervous.”

  García made a great ceremony of lighting the cigar. Afterward, he blew two rings of smoke and said, “For what it’s worth, Luis here doesn’t think you did it.”

  “It’s the anchor business,” Luis Córdova explained, “very strange.” He was trying to sound all business, as if the friendship meant nothing.

  Stranahan said, “The murder’s got to be connected to the fire.”

  “The fire was an arson,” Luis said. “Boat gas and a match. These houses are nothing but tinder.” To make his point, he tapped the rubber heel of his shoe on the pine floor.

  Stranahan said, “I think you both ought to know: Somebody wants to kill me.”

  García’s eyebrows shot up and he rolled the cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. “Who is it, chico? Please, make my job easier.”