by Carl Hiaasen
Which is why he came to enjoy guarding Kara Lynn Shivers. The first couple days she’d treated him with the same frostiness and suspicion she held for most men, but gradually she had warmed up. The less they talked about the beauty-queen racket, the happier Kara Lynn seemed. She was good company, nothing like Keyes had expected. It seemed a miracle that she had emerged from the cloying parentage of Reed Shivers so independent, unspoiled, and classy. It also was amazing that her sense of humor had survived, as had some soft and thoughtful edges. Talking to Kara Lynn was so easy that Keyes had to remind himself that this was not prom week, it was a serious assignment, and the package did not include true confessions. He was getting paid a small truckload of money to do one job: deliver Kara Lynn Shivers safe, pristine, and magnificent aboard the queen’s float.
Two days after Christmas, five days before the big parade, Kara Lynn came downstairs wearing a sassy lemon-yellow tennis skirt and a matching knit vest. She handed Brian Keyes one of her father’s expensive boron tennis rackets and said, “Come on, Marlowe, we’re going to the club.”
Keyes wasn’t in a clubby mood. He’d spent a second straight morning at the airport, watching Customs in case Wiley tried to slip through. As usual, Miami International was a zoo—and there’d been no sign of Skip.
“I’m beat,” Keyes told Kara Lynn. “Besides, I’m lousy at tennis.”
“Not with those legs,” Kara Lynn said. “Now, come on.”
They took her VW. It was only a ten-block ride, a winding circle around the Coral Gables golf course. Keyes drove. In the rearview, two cars back, was a Cadillac Seville with tinted windows. It was the worst tail job Keyes had ever seen—if that’s what it was. On an open stretch Keyes coasted the VW and the Caddy backed off by half a mile. Then it turned off and disappeared.
Kara Lynn was very cool; she hadn’t turned around once.
“Do you have your own gun?” she asked casually.
“It’s in the trunk.”
“There is no trunk.”
“There is too,” Keyes said, “in the MG.”
“Brilliant,” she said. “How much did you say they were paying you?”
Keyes gave her a that’s-very-funny look.
“Who do you think was following us?”
“Maybe nobody. Maybe the bad guys.”
“They wouldn’t try anything now, not before the parade.”
“Who knows,” Keyes said. “We’re dealing with a special brand of fruitcake.” He pulled into the clubhouse parking lot.
Kara Lynn asked, “How are you going to play tennis in those ratty sneakers?”
“Badly, I’m sure.” The shoes weren’t the worst of it. Keyes was wearing raggedy cutoff jeans and a Rolling Stones concert T-shirt.
“Take my arm,” Kara Lynn said, “otherwise they’ll think you’re a caddy.”
Keyes dragged himself around the tennis court for a solid hour, volleying like a madman, all speed and no finesse. His stitches throbbed constantly and his right lung was on fire. The only thing that kept him going was the long-legged sight of Kara Lynn rushing the net, her lips set intently, cheeks flushing pink, blond hair shimmering with each step. When it came to tennis, she was a very serious young lady. Nothing fancy, no power to speak of, but clean precise strokes. Tricky, too.
She beat him 6-4, 3-6, 7-6. A drop shot got him. He made a valiant stab, but wound up straddling the net. He was too exhausted to feel embarrassed.
Afterward Kara Lynn led him into the clubhouse lounge. Keyes took a quick survey and concluded that he was the only person in the whole joint without an alligator on his shirt. Even the bartender had one. Keyes thought he’d died and gone to Preppie Heaven.
Several fragrant young men stopped Kara Lynn for a peck on the cheek. Kiss, kiss. Howya doing. Looking great. Bye now. Keyes himself got a few curious stares.
“You ever see Goodbye, Columbus?” he said to Kara Lynn when they sat down. “I feel just like the shmuck in that movie, and you’re the Ali MacGraw part.”
“Oh please.”
“It was before your time. Forget about it.”
“I like the Rolling Stones,” Kara Lynn volunteered.
“Yeah?”
“Your T-shirt’s pretty pitiful, but the Stones are all right.”
She ordered a club soda. Keyes asked for a draft.
“I was kidding about the shirt,” Kara Lynn said.
“And my sneakers.”
“No, I was serious about the sneakers.” She gave his arm a little pinch. Keyes grinned. He was starting to feel warm and comfortable and incredibly witty. Time to watch out. Book of Jenna, Chapter One.
“Why’d you leave the newspaper?” Kara Lynn asked. Some weight-lifter-type with an enormous head of curly blond hair waved at her from across the lounge and pointed to his drink. She shook her head no, and turned away.
“You want to join him, it’s okay,” Keyes said. “I’ll sit up at the bar.”
“Oh no you won’t. Tell me why you quit the newspaper.”
Keyes gulped the beer. “Because I made a mistake.”
“Everybody makes mistakes.”
“Not big ones. Not in that business.”
“Oh, come on. How bad could it be?”
“The worst.” Keyes set down the mug and leaned forward. “Let me explain something. Your dad’s a bigshot lawyer. If he goofs up, he waltzes into court, files a new motion, and fixes it. The client never knows. If a surgeon screws up, he digs a little deeper, adds a few extra stitches, and makes it all right. In most jobs it’s like that—there’s always a way out. But what I did, I can’t fix. It’s done forever. Once the paper rolls off the press, that’s it. Sure, you can publish a correction or a bloody apology, but there’s no guarantee that the right people will see it. Some folks will only remember what you wrote the first time, and if what you wrote was wrong, that’s how they’ll remember it.”
“Did you get fired?”
“I resigned. My boss never knew why.”
“You were scared to tell him.”
“No, I was scared to hurt him.”
Kara Lynn twirled the ice cubes in her club soda.
“Do you miss it?”
“Sometimes,” he said, “I miss the people. Some of the smartest people I know work in that business. And some of the screwiest. That’s what happens when you chase the truth for too long; you finally catch up with it and you’re never the same. Screwed up for life.” He was thinking of Skip Wiley.
Kara Lynn was a terrific listener. She was too good. Keyes wondered if she was petrified with boredom.
But then she said: “Tell me about being a private eye.”
“One thrill after another: Mr. Keyes, here’s two grand. Find out if my wife’s sleeping with her psychiatrist. Take some pictures, too.”
“Still chasing the truth,” said Kara Lynn.
“Yeah. But it’s a cheap grimy truth. Gets in your hair, your clothes. Under your goddamn fingernails. I never felt like this when I was a reporter, honest to God.”
“You’re pretty unhappy, Brian.”
“That makes two of us, Cinderella.”
“Why, whatever do you mean? I’m the Orange Bowl queen, remember? I’ve got a thousand-dollar savings bond, a new wardrobe, a singing coach, and a four-year scholarship.” Kara Lynn shook loose her ponytail and struck a haughty profile. “What more could a girl want?” Then she cracked up laughing.
Keyes laughed too.
The gorilla with the curly blond hair was waving again.
“I think Hercules wants to buy you a drink,” Keyes said.
“Yeah, time to go.” Kara Lynn signed the tab. Keyes didn’t feel the least bit odd about it; Reed Shivers would find a way to write it off.
“Do me a favor, Brian.”
“Sure.”
“When we walk out of here, would you hold my hand?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s more polite than saying, ‘fuck off.’ Which is what I’d like really to tel
l these jerks, but I can’t. Not here at Dad’s club.”
As they rose from the table, Keyes tucked the tennis racket under his left arm and put his right arm around Kara Lynn’s shoulders. They walked out that way, right past the Old Spice preppies. It felt just fine.
“You’re a good sport,” Kara Lynn said when they got to the car. “and I was right about your legs. You ran me ragged out there.”
Brian Keyes wasn’t listening.
The Seville was parked across the street, in the shade of a banyan tree. A thin dark man in an undershirt sat on the fender, drumming his hands on the side of the car. The man wasn’t paying attention; he wasn’t doing what he’d been told.
“Get in the car,” Keyes said to Kara Lynn. “The police radio’s under the front seat. Try to call García.”
Kara Lynn got in the driver’s side of the VW and rolled down the window. “Where are you going?”
“That’s the asshole who stabbed me.”
“Brian—”
But he was already gone, strolling across the parking lot. He looked perfectly calm, a tennis bum on his way home. Kara Lynn could hear him whistling a song. “Yesterday,” it sounded like. She saw Keyes slip the leather sheath off her father’s tennis racket.
“Oh no,” Kara Lynn said.
Jesus Bernal did not recognize Brian Keyes immediately. He wouldn’t have been looking for him, anyway. Jesus Bernal’s mission was to scout for cops; Skip Wiley had wanted to know if there were policemen assigned to the girl. So far, Bernal hadn’t seen the first patrol car; the lunatic Wiley was wrong again, as usual. Bernal was just about ready to call it quits and cruise back to the warehouse when the tennis player ambled up to him.
“Hey, muchacho, remember me?”
Bernal looked hard at the boyish face and, after a moment or two, remembered.
But not fast enough.
Keyes swung the tennis racket and hit Jesus Bernal flush in the face. A nicely timed forehand smash. Broke three strings on the racket.
The Cuban’s head bounced off the Cadillac’s bumper. He landed faceup on the pavement, snorkeling his own blood. The undershirt hung in shreds from the hood ornament.
Keyes bent over Jesus Bernal and whacked him again, this time a solid backhand to the throat. The Cuban kicked his legs and made a sound like a garbage disposal.
“Gggrrrnnnn,” he burbled.
“You should see my serve,” said Brian Keyes.
Kara Lynn Shivers pulled the VW alongside the Cadillac. Keyes got in and she stomped the accelerator.
“God Almighty, you killed him!”
“No such luck. You get hold of the cops?”
“No, the radio—” She was too excited to talk.
“Find a phone booth,” Keyes said.
“Brian, he looked ... really ... dead!”
“He wasn’t. Not by a long shot. I gotta call garcía. Find a goddamn phone booth.”
She nodded, and kept nodding, like a dashboard puppy. She was scared as hell.
“Was he one ... of... them?” Kara Lynn spoke in breathless gulps, as if she’d been crying, but she hadn’t. Her knuckles were red on the steering wheel.
Keyes touched her arm, felt her flinch.
“Kara Lynn, it’ll be all right.” But he was thinking: Maybe this means Wiley’s back.
“It’s scary,” Kara Lynn said shakily, staring hard at the road ahead. “It’s insane.”
“Honest to God, it’ll be all right.”
23
When Sergeant Al García’s squad finally got to the country club, all they found beneath the banyan tree were radial tire tracks, a syrupy puddle of blood, and several kernels of corn, which turned out to be human teeth. The police searched all night for the Seville. They roared in convoys through Coral Gables and Little Havana, stopping every Cadillac in sight, rousting every poor sap in an undershirt.
Yet the Fuego One Task Force did not find the injured Jesús Bernal, and by eight o’clock the next morning Al García’s phone was ringing off the hook. Reed Shivers. The chief. The Orange Bowl chairman. Ricky Bloodworth. The Chamber of Commerce. Even NBC, for Christ’s sake.
García carried three Styrofoam cups of black coffee to his office and locked the door behind him. He dialed the Shivers house and Brian Keyes picked up on the first ring.
“He got away,” the detective said.
“You don’t say.”
“Hey, it’s not our fault Shirley Temple couldn’t figure out the police radio.”
“She was scared stiff,” Keyes said. “I was on the phone five minutes later. Five lousy minutes.”
“That’s all it takes,” Garcia said. “If it makes you feel any better, the sonofabitch leaked pretty good. He’s got to be hurting.”
Hurt or not, it was unimaginable that Jesus Bernal would turn up at a hospital; he was probably out in the Glades drinking Tommy Tigertail’s home-brewed medicines. Which meant he was probably going to recover.
Brian Keyes figured Jesus Bernal probably could make a career out of getting revenge.
“Al, they’ve got to call off the parade.”
“Not in a billion years,” García said.
“But this clinches it—it proves these idiots are serious about taking Kara Lynn. After yesterday they’re going to try twice as hard.”
“We’ll be ready.” García slugged down the coffee; he figured he’d need a gallon of caffeine to brave the waiting shitstorm.
“How’s the queen holding up?” he asked.
“Mildly terrified. All of a sudden she’s not sure who’s more dangerous, Las Noches or me. She wants to call the whole thing off but Daddy’s leaning hard. It’s been a very lively morning.”
García asked, “Did you call your Shriner pals up North?”
“Yeah. They’re on board.”
“Excellent! Remember, chico, not a word to a soul.”
“You got it.”
“The dudes in the orange blazers, they’d have a stroke.”
“Not to mention your badge,” Keyes said.
Jesus Bernal lay shirtless on a blue shag carpet remnant. His eyes were shut and his breath whistled through raw gums. His throat shone purple and swollen. Every once in a while his hands tremored and drew into bony fists. Macho dreaming, Viceroy Wilson thought. Intermittently he checked on Bernal, then went ahead hammering and sawing and drilling as if he were alone in the warehouse, which was no bigger than a garage.
Time was running out. The Indian had sent lumber and palmetto trimmings, but no manpower. Wilson had been working like hell, living on wheat germ milkshakes; he’d dropped five pounds in two days.
The sound of an automobile outside startled him. It wasn’t the Seville, either; Wilson knew the hum of the Caddy like he knew his own mother’s voice. Stealthily he set down the tools and picked up a sawed-off shotgun. He heard footsteps at the warehouse door. The lock rattled. Wilson brought the gun to his shoulder.
The door opened and Skip Wiley stalked in.
“A little jumpy, aren’t we?” he said.
Tommy Tigertail stood behind him.
They stared at Viceroy Wilson until he lowered the sawed-off. Wiley came up and gave him a hug. “You’re doing damn fine,” he said. “Damn fine.”
Viceroy Wilson was not wild about hugs; a handshake would have sufficed. “So you’re back from the tropics,” he said to Wiley, “looking tan and tough.”
“Horseshit. I look like hell.” But he didn’t. Wiley’s face was bronze and his beard was golden-red from the sun. He was wearing a brightly striped soccer jersey with the words “Cap Haitien” printed across the front pocket.
“D’you join a fucking spa?” Wilson said.
“Hardly.” Wiley stooped over the snoring, sawdust-sprinkled form of Jesus Bernal. “Looks meaner with no teeth, doesn’t he?”
“Sorry sack of shit,” Wilson said.
“I know, I know. That’s Item One on the agenda.”
Skip Wiley removed his panama hat and prowled t
he small warehouse, examining Viceroy Wilson’s creation in the bleak light of the bare sixty-watt bulb. Tommy Tigertail stood in a corner, his features unreadable in the shadow. Viceroy Wilson popped a can of Heineken and waited for the fun to begin; he needed a breather, anyway.
Wiley sat down on a sawhorse and folded his arms. “Wake him up,” he told the Indian.
Tommy prodded Jesus Bernal with the hard toe of his boot. The Cuban moaned and rolled over, burying his face in the crook of an elbow. Tommy poked him again, decisively. Jesús sat up snuffling and rubbing his eyes. His fractured nose was the shape of a question mark and the rest of his face was a grid: the perfect imprint of a Spalding tennis racket.
“How you feeling?” Skip Wiley asked.
“Thiddy,” the Cuban said. “Damn thiddy.”
“I’ll get you some new teeth,” Wiley promised.
“Manks a mot.” Jesus sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of marbles.
Wiley clasped his hands evangelically. “Well,” he said, “I’m delighted we’re all here. The rainbow coalition, together again. And only four days left!”
“Mank God,” muttered Jesus Bernal. “Idth aah turding duh thid.” It’s all turning to shit, is what Jesus was trying to say.
Skip Wiley took a loud breath and stared down at the dusty floor. All at once the cheeriness seemed to drain from his expression; his mouth, always on the verge of smiling, suddenly turned thin and severe; the merry brown eyes shrank and turned dull. The transformation was so palpable and so volcanic that even Jesus Bernal was moved to silence.
