Bad Monkey

Evan Shook checked around. Except for the strange couple’s tent, the place was in good shape for the Lipscombs. The menacing pentagram on the floor had been painted over by a select member of the construction crew, a Sikh carpenter who took no stock in silly Western superstitions. It was also he who’d disposed of the icky Santeria artifacts, lobbing the stiffened rooster into the canal and granulating the rodent skull with a belt sander.

The cute woman in pigtails said, “We weren’t trying to make trouble. We just needed somewhere dry and safe.”

“This’ll be a cool-ass crib when it’s done,” her companion added for ingratiation.

Evan Shook nodded brusquely. “Yup. A real cool-ass crib.”

Over the phone the Lipscombs had sounded like long shots. The guy claimed to be a retired hedge funder who was now raising trotters. He said he was driving all the way to Florida because the wife refused to fly ever since their Lear 45 had clipped a cow elk on the runway at Jackson Hole. He said they already owned a seaside spread at Hilton Head and a cottage up on the Boundary Waters. Evan Shook responded with cordiality but not gushing enthusiasm. It was his experience that people with serious money didn’t broadcast their real estate portfolios to strangers who were angling to peddle them another property.

But maybe the Lipscombs were real. Maybe his luck would change.

The woman said, “I’m begging you, don’t call the police. We have nowhere else to go.”

Evan Shook opened his billfold and peeled off two, three, four hundred dollars. “Pack up your stuff and go get a room.”

When the woman leaned forward to kiss his cheek, Evan Shook caught a heartbreaking glimpse down her blouse. “God bless you,” she said.

What God? he thought. In half an hour she’ll be balling this slob in a hotel I’m paying for.

Her lump-faced boyfriend solemnly took his hand. “Thanks, dude. I mean, duuuuude.”

It’s so tragic, thought Evan Shook. So wrong.

·  ·  ·

The phone number for Christopher Grunion obtained by Rosa—the last number dialed by Dr. Gomez O’Peele—was disconnected. Yancy had planned to call Grunion out of the blue, pretending to be an insurance broker or maybe a Republican pollster. He’d just wanted to hear what the prick who tried to kill him sounded like.

His room on Lizard Cay was fine; the AC was anemic but he had a striking view of the white flats, veined with tidal channels shining sapphire and indigo. Offshore Yancy could see a slow-chugging mail boat; otherwise the horizon was empty. He heard the Caravan lift off from Moxey’s airstrip and pass over the motel on a slow turn toward Nassau. The pilot seemed like an okay guy although his bullet-headed passenger was bad news. Apparently the thug was connected to Grunion in a capacity of sufficient importance to warrant use of the seaplane for a dental crisis.

Yancy checked his phone and found a snide message from Caitlin Cox:

“Listen, Inspector, I think you oughta know what just happened. That judge in Miami declared my dad officially dead, whatever, so can you please leave us all alone and get back to your annoying life?”

The court’s decision didn’t surprise Yancy. Nick Stripling’s mangled arm was sufficient evidence of death. That it had been unearthed later from the grave and then ejected from a stolen vehicle would have no bearing on the judge’s ruling as to whether or not Stripling was in fact deceased. How he got that way—by mishap or homicide—was likewise irrelevant. Yancy wondered how long it would take Caitlin to get her slice of the insurance payoff, and whatever else Eve Stripling had promised.

He picked out a bicycle from the motel’s rusty selection and rode to Rocky Town. It was critical to avoid Eve and her boyfriend, either of whom might recognize Yancy even in yuppie fishing garb. Unfortunately, he was the only white man on the streets, and the only white man at the seafood shack where he stopped to eat. A woman dicing conch behind the bar was so friendly that Yancy took a chance and said he was looking for a fellow American named Christopher. She gave a roll of the eyes and then one of those fabulous island laughs. Before long she was telling Yancy all about Grunion’s ambitious project, the Curly Tail Lane Resort.

“Yeah, mon, dey gon have a spa and clay tennis and a chef dot’s from some five-star hotel in Sowt Beach.”

“Sounds spectacular,” Yancy said.

“You friends with Mistuh Grunion back in Miami?”

“I am. Where does he usually hang out around here?”

“Ha, he dont hang no place. You see ’im drive sometime tru town but mostly he stay at Bannister Point. ’Im and his lady rent dot Gibson place. She come by every now ’n’ then to pick up some chowder. Wot’s your name, mon? Have another rum.”