Skin Tight

by Carl Hiaasen

  “Theesus!” Flemm exclained, spitting crumbs. He looked as if he were about to cry, and in fact he was. “You got shot at? Really?”

  Christina nodded uneasily.

  “With a machine gun? Honest to God?” Plaintively he added, “Was it an Uzi?”

  “I’m not sure, Ray.”

  Christina knew his heart was breaking; Reynaldo had been waiting his entire broadcast career for an experience like that. Once he had drunkenly confided to Christina that his secret dream was to be shot in the thigh—live on national television. Not a life-threatening wound, just enough to make him go down. “I’m tired of getting beat up,” he had told Christina that night. “I want to break some new ground.” In Reynaldo’s secret dream, the TV camera would jiggle at the sound of gunshots, then pan dramatically to focus on his prone and blood-splattered form sprawled on the street. In the dream, Reynaldo would be clutching his microphone, bravely continuing to broadcast while paramedics worked feverishly to save his life. The last clip, as Reynaldo dreamed it, was a close-up of his famous face: the lantern jaw clenched in agony, a grimace showcasing his luxurious capped teeth. Then the trademark sign-off: “This is Reynaldo Flemm, reporting In Your Face!”—just as the ambulance doors swung shut.

  “I can’t believe this,” Reynaldo moaned over his breakfast. “Producers aren’t supposed to get shot, the talent is.”

  Christina Marks sipped a three-dollar orange juice. “In the first place, Ray, I wasn’t the one who got shot—”

  “Yeah but—”

  “In the second place, you would’ve pissed your pants if you’d been there. This is no longer fun and games, Ray. Somebody is trying to murder Stranahan. Probably the same goon who killed his ex-wife.”

  Flemm was still pouting. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going out to Stiltsville?”

  “You were locked in your room, remember? Measuring your body parts.” Christina patted his arm. “Have some more marmalade.”

  Worriedly, Reynaldo asked, “Does this mean you get to do the stand-up? I mean, since you eyewitnessed the shooting and not me.”

  “Ray, I have absolutely no interest in doing a stand-up. I don’t want to be on camera.”

  “You mean it?” His voice dripped with relief. Pathetic, Christina thought, the man is pathetic.

  Clearing his throat, Reynaldo Flemm said, “I’ve got some bad news of my own, Chris.”

  Christina dabbed her lips with the corner of the napkin. “Does it involve your trip to New York?”

  Flemm nodded yes.

  “And, perhaps, Maggie Gonzalez?”

  “I’m afraid so,” he said.

  “She’s missing again, isn’t she, Ray?”

  Flemm said, “We had a dinner set up at the Palm.”

  “And she never showed.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “Was this before or after you wired her the fifteen thousand?” Christina asked.

  “Hey, I’m not stupid. I only sent half.”

  “Shit.” Christina drummed her fingernails on the table.

  Reynaldo Flemm sighed and turned away. Absently he ran a hand through his new golden tendrils. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “You still want to dump this story?”

  “No,” Christina said. “No, I don’t.”

  MICK Stranahan looked through mug shots all morning, knowing he would never find the killer’s face.

  “Look anyway,” said Al García.

  Stranahan flipped to another page. “Is it just my imagination,” he said, “or are these assholes getting uglier every year?”

  “I’ve noticed that, too,” García said.

  “Speaking of which, I got a friendly visit from Murdock and Salazar at the hospital.” Stranahan told García what had happened.

  “I’ll report it to I.A., if you want,” García said.

  I.A. was Internal Affairs, where detectives Murdock and Salazar probably had files as thick as the Dade County Yellow Pages.

  “Don’t push it,” said Stranahan. “I just wanted you to know what they’re up to.”

  “Pricks,” García grunted. “I’ll think of something.”

  “I thought you had clout.”

  “Clout? All I got is a ten-cent commendation and a gimp arm, same as you. Only mine came from a sawed-off.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Mick Stranahan. He closed the mug book and pushed it across the table. “He’s not in here, Al. You got one for circus freaks?”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Stranahan said, “Bad’s not the word.” It wasn’t.

  “Want to try a composite? Let me call one of the artists.”

  “No, that’s all right,” Stranahan said. “I wouldn’t know where to start. Al, you wouldn’t believe this guy.”

  The detective gnawed the tip off a cigar. “He’s got to be the same geek who did Chloe. Thing is, I got witnesses saw them out at the marina having a drink, chatting like the best of friends. How do you figure that?”

  “She always had great taste in men.” Stranahan stood up, gingerly testing the strap of his sling.

  “Where you going?”

  “I’m off to do a B-and-E.”

  “Now don’t say shit like that.”

  “It’s true, Al.”

  “I’m not believing this. Tell me you’re bullshitting, Mick.”

  “If it makes you feel better.”

  “And call me,” García said in a low voice, “if you turn up something good.”

  AT half-past three, Mick Stranahan broke into Maggie Gonzalez’s duplex for the second time. The first thing he did was play back the tape on the answering machine. There were messages from numerous relatives, all demanding to know why Maggie had missed her cousin Gloria’s baby shower. The only message that Mick Stranahan found interesting was from the Essex House hotel in downtown New York. A nasal female clerk requested that Miss Gonzalez contact them immediately about a forty-three-dollar dry-cleaning bill, which Maggie had forgotten to pay before checking out. The Essex House clerk had efficiently left the time and date of the phone message: January twenty-eighth at ten o’clock in the morning.

  The next thing Mick Stranahan did was to sift through a big stack of Maggie’s mail until he found the most recent Visa card bill, which he opened and studied at her kitchen table. That Maggie was spending somebody else’s money in Manhattan was obvious: She had used her personal credit card only twice. One entry was $35.50 at Ticketron, probably for a Broadway show; the other charge was from a clothing shop for $179.40, more than Maggie was probably carrying in cash at the time. The clothing store was in the Plaza Hotel; the transaction was dated February 1.

  Mick Stranahan was getting ready to leave the duplex when Maggie’s telephone rang twice, then clicked over to the machine. He listened as a man came on the line. Stranahan thought he recognized the voice, but he wasn’t certain. He had only spoken with the man once.

  The voice on the machine said: “Maggie, it’s me. I tried the Essex but they said you checked out. . . . Look, we’ve really got to talk. In person. Call me at the office right away, collect. Wherever you are, okay? Thanks.”

  As the man gave the number, Stranahan copied it in pencil on the Formica counter. After the caller hung up, Stranahan dialed 411 and asked for the listing of the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center in Bal Harbour. A recording gave the main number as 555-7600. The phone number left by Maggie’s male caller was 555-7602.

  Rudy Graveline, Stranahan thought, calling on his office line.

  The next number Stranahan dialed was 1-212-555-1212. Information for Manhattan. He got the number of the Plaza, dialed the main desk, and asked for Miss Maggie Gonzalez’s room. A woman picked up on the fourth ring.

  “Is this Miss Gonzalez?” Stranahan asked, trying to mimic a Brooklyn accent.

  “Yes, it is.”

  “This is the concierge downstairs.” Like there was an upstairs concierge. “We were just wondering if you had any dry cleaning you needed done this evening.”
>
  “What are you talking about, I’m still waiting for those three dresses I sent out Sunday,” Maggie said, not pleasantly.

  “Oh, I’m very sorry,” Mick Stranahan said. “I’ll see to it immediately.”

  Then he hung up, grabbed the white pages off the kitchen counter, and looked up the number for Delta Airlines.

  CHAPTER 16

  ON his way to Miami International, Mick Stranahan stopped at his brother-in-law’s law office. Kipper Garth was on the speaker phone, piecing out a slip-and-fall to one of the Brickell Avenue buzzards.

  Mick Stranahan walked in and said, “The files?”

  Kipper Garth motioned to a wine-colored chair and put a finger to his waxy lips. “So, Chuckie,” he said to the speaker phone, “what’re you thinking?”

  “Thinking maybe two hundred if we settle,” said the voice on the other end.

  “Two hundred!” Kipper exclaimed. “Chuckie, you’re nuts. The woman tripped over her own damn dachshund.”

  “Kip, they’ll settle,” the other lawyer said. “It’s the biggest grocery chain in Florida, they always settle. Besides, the dog croaked—that’s fifty grand right there for mental anguish.”

  “But dogs aren’t even allowed in the store, Chuckie. If it was somebody else’s dachshund she tripped on, then we’d really have something. But this was her own fault.”

  Sardonic laughter crackled over the speaker box. “Kip, buddy, you’re not thinking like a litigator,” the voice said. “I went to the supermarket myself and guess what: No signs!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean no No Dogs Allowed-type signs. Not a one posted in Spanish. So how was our poor Consuelo to know?”

  “Chuckie, you’re beautiful,” said Kipper Garth. “If that ain’t negligence—”

  “Two hundred thou,” Chuckie said, “that’s my guess. We’ll split sixty-forty.”

  “Nope,” Kipper Garth said, staring coldly at the speaker box. “Half-and-half. Same as always.”

  “Excuse me.” It was Mick Stranahan. Kipper Garth frowned and shook his head; not now, not when he was closing the deal.

  The voice on the phone said: “Kip, who’s that? You got somebody there?”

  “Relax, Chuckie, it’s just me,” Stranahan said to the box. “You know—Kipper’s heroin connection? I just dropped by with my briefcase full of Mexican brown. Can I pencil you in for a kilo?”

  Frantically Kipper Garth jabbed two fingers at the phone buttons. The line went dead and the speaker box hummed the dial tone. “You’re fucking crazy,” he said to Mick Stranahan.

  “I’ve got a plane to catch, Jocko. Where are the Graveline files?”

  “You’re crazy,” Kipper Garth said again, trying to stay calm. He buzzed for a secretary, who lugged in three thick brown office folders.

  “There’s a conference room where you can read this shit in private.”

  Mick Stranahan said, “No, this is fine.” With Kipper Garth stewing, Stranahan skimmed quickly through the files on Rudy Graveline. It was worse than he thought—or better, depending on one’s point of view.

  “Seventeen complaints to the state board,” Stranahan marveled.

  “Yeah, but no action,” Kipper Garth noted. “Not even a reprimand.”

  Stranahan looked up, lifting one of the files. “Jocko, this is a gold mine.”

  “Well, Mick, I’m glad I could help. Now, if you don’t mind, it’s getting late and I’ve got a few calls to make.”

  Stranahan said, “You don’t understand, I wanted this stuff for you, not me.”

  Peevishly Kipper Garth glanced at his wristwatch. “You’re right, Mick, I don’t understand. What the hell do I want with Graveline’s files?”

  “Names, Jocko.” Stranahan opened the top folder and riffled the pages dramatically. “You got seventeen names, seventeen leads on a silver platter. You got Mrs. Susan Jacoby and her boobs that don’t match. You got Mr. Robert Mears with his left eye that won’t close and his right eye that won’t open. You got, let’s see, Julia Kelly with a shnoz that looks like a Phillips screwdriver—Jesus, you see the Polaroid of that thing? What else? Oh, you got Ken Martinez and his lopsided scrotum. . . .”

  Kipper Garth waved his arms. “Mick, that’s enough! What would I want with all this crap?”

  “I figured you’ll need it, Jocko.”

  “For what?”

  “For suing Dr. Rudy Graveline.”

  “Very funny,” Kipper Garth said. “I told you, the man’s in my yacht club. Besides, he’s been sued before.”

  “Sue him again,” Mick Stranahan said. “Sue the mother like he’s never been sued before.”

  “He’d settle out. Doctors always settle.”

  “Don’t let him. Don’t settle for anything. Not for ten million dollars. Sign up one of these poor misfortunate souls and go to the frigging wall.”

  Kipper Garth stood up and adjusted his necktie, suddenly on his way to some important meeting. “I can’t help you, Mick. Get yourself another lawyer.”

  “You don’t do this favor for me,” said Stranahan, “and I’ll go tell Katie about your trip to Steamboat next month with Inga or Olga or whatever the hell her name is, I got it written down here somewhere. And for future reference, Jocko, don’t ever put your ski bunny’s plane tickets on American Express. I know it’s convenient and all, but it’s very, very risky. I mean, with the computers they got these days, I can pull out your goddamned seat assignments—5A and 5B, I think it is.”

  All Kipper Garth could say was: “How’d you do that?”

  “I told you before, I’m still plugged in.” A travel agent in Coral Gables who owed him one. It was so damn easy Stranahan couldn’t bear to tell his brother-in-law.

  “What’s the point of all this?” Kipper Garth asked.

  “Never mind, just do it. Sue the asshole.”

  The lawyer lifted his pinstriped coat off the back of the chair and checked it for wrinkles. “Mick, let me shop this around and get back to you.”

  “No, Jocko. No referrals. You do this one all by yourself.”

  The lawyer sagged as if struck by a brick.

  “You heard me right,” Stranahan said.

  “Mick, please.” It was a pitiable peep. “Mick, I don’t do this sort of thing.”

  “Sure you do. I see the billboards all over town.”

  Kipper Garth nibbled on a thumbnail to mask the spastic twitching of his upper lip. The thought of actually going to court had pitched him into a cold sweat. A fresh droplet made a shiny trail from the furrow of his forehead to the tip of his well-tanned nose.

  “I don’t know,” he said, “it’s been so long.”

  “Aw, it’s easy,” Stranahan said. “One of your paralegals can draw up the complaint. That’ll get the ball rolling.” With a thud he stacked the Graveline files on Kipper Garth’s desk; the lawyer eyed the file as if it were nitroglycerine.

  “A gold mine,” Stranahan said encouragingly. “I’ll check back in a few days.”

  “Mick?”

  “Relax. All you’ve got to do is go down to the courthouse and sue.”

  Wanly, Kipper Garth said, “I don’t have to win, do I?”

  “Of course not,” Stranahan said, patting his arm. “It’ll never get that far.”

  DR. Rudy Graveline lived in a palatial three-story house on North Biscayne Bay. The house had Doric pillars, two spiral staircases, and more imported marble than the entire downtown art museum. The house had absolutely no business being on Miami Beach, but in fairness it looked no more silly or out of place than any of the other garish mansions. The house was on the same palm-lined avenue where two of the Bee Gees lived, which meant that Rudy had been forced to pay about a hundred thousand more than the property was worth. For the first few years the women whom Rudy dated were impressed to be in the Bee Gees’ neighborhood, but lately their star value had worn off and Rudy had quit mentioning it.

  It was Heather Chappell, the actress, who brought it up fi
rst.

  “I think Barry lives around here,” she said as they were driving back to Rudy’s house after dinner at the Forge.

  “Barry who?” Rudy asked, his mind off somewhere.

  “Barry Gibb. The singer. Staying alive, staying alive, ooh, ooh, ooh.”

  As much as he loved Heather, Rudy wished she wouldn’t try to sing.

  “You know Barry personally?” he asked.

  “Oh sure. All the guys.”

  “That’s Barry’s place there,” Rudy Graveline said, pointing. “And Robin lives right here.”

  “Let’s stop over,” Heather said, touching his knee. “It’ll be fun.”

  Rudy said no, he didn’t know the guys all that well. Besides, he never really liked their music, especially that disco shit. Immediately Heather sank into a deep pout, which she heroically maintained all the way back to Rudy’s house, up the stairs, all the way to his bedroom. There she peeled off her dress and panties and lay facedown on the king-sized bed. Every few minutes she would raise her cheek off the satin pillow and sigh disconsolately, until Rudy couldn’t stand it anymore.

  “Are you mad at me?” he asked. He was in his boxer shorts, standing in the closet where he had hung his suit. “Heather, are you angry?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are. Did I say something wrong? If I did, I’m sorry.” He was blubbering like a jerk, all because he wanted to get laid in the worst way. The sight of Heather’s perfect bare bottom—the one she wanted contoured—was driving him mad.

  In a tiny voice she said, “I love the Bee Gees.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rudy said. He sat on the corner of the bed and stroked her peachlike rump. “I liked their early stuff, I really did.”

  Heather said, “I loved the disco, Rudy. It just about killed me when disco died.”

  “I’m sorry I said anything.”

  “You ever made love to disco music?”

  Rudy thought: What is happening to my life?

  “Do you have any Village People tapes?” Heather asked, giving him a quick saucy look over the shoulder. “There’s a song on their first album, I swear, I could fuck all night to it.”