Bad Monkey

The agents were bummed because there was nobody to arrest. Yancy felt their pain. After all, it was his case, too.

“You boys had him by the balls,” he said, to boost morale. “It was a done deal.”

Peevishly Strumberg reported that someone other than an authorized FBI official had tipped the Royal Bahamas Defence Force that Stripling was living on the island.

“Wasn’t me,” said Yancy. “You might check with the Key West police. They’ve been working the murder of that fishing mate pretty hard.”

“Whatever. Our boy got sketched out by all the pressure. Word was that he and the wife were plotting to escape in their new boat. The RBDF thinks they were on a practice run the night they crashed.”

Yancy saw no reason to enlighten the agents about what really happened. “What’s your next move?” he asked. “Or do you have a next move?”

“Chasing the assets, of course,” said Liske, “starting with his bank accounts in Nassau.”

“Plus all that prime beachfront he was developing on Andros,” Strumberg added.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Yancy said. “Stripling had a silent partner in that resort deal. I don’t know the guy’s name but I heard he’s got a Bay Street lawyer, the brother of an MP. Try to execute a property forfeiture over there, they’ll tie you up in the courts forever.”

The FBI men bore this setback stoically. In the absence of prolonged legwork they would never discover there was no silent partner in Curly Tail Lane, no high-powered Bay Street barrister.

Yancy said, “Stripling hadn’t put up any buildings, anyway. Just chopped down some trees.”

“It’s way easier to go after the money,” Liske muttered to Strumberg, who agreed with leaden resignation.

As soon as the agents drove away, Yancy phoned the conch shack in Rocky Town and left a message. He looked forward to telling Neville Stafford that it was safe to move back to Green Beach.

Rosa got in around seven. “Your tongue’s purple,” she said.

“But my heart is true blue.”

“Take your hand out of there. I’m hungry.”

They cruised down to Stoney’s, which Yancy had cleared for reopening in time for Madeline’s pre-wedding party. Madeline was glad to see him and Pestov was less furtive than usual, buoyed no doubt by the future upgrade of his citizenship status. Rosa and Yancy gave the happy couple a three-speed juicer, though a better gift was the news that Charles Phinney’s killer had drowned in the Bahamas.

Madeline sniffled in relief, while Pestov emitted a chuff of glee that had nothing to do with seeing justice for the murdered charter-boat mate. Because Nick Stripling had died before he could be arrested, Pestov wasn’t obligated to cough up the five thousand dollars he’d grudgingly committed to the Crime Stoppers reward.

And retired sergeant Johnny Mendez would have to find some other means to pay for his wife’s new chin.

Brennan acted insulted when Yancy and Rosa departed before even the apps were served. They went to a pizza joint that always passed inspection, then back to Yancy’s house, where they made love on Rosa’s pink yoga mat, which stuck to Yancy’s butt like an oversized Post-it note.

“What did the sheriff say about your job?” she asked later, after they showered.

“Be patient, he told me. Maybe a year or two.”

“That sucks, Andrew. I’m sorry.”

“Monday I’m doing an Italian joint down on Ramrod,” he said. “Some customer, retired navy, you don’t even want to know what he found in his calzone.”

Rosa dried off. “I’m applying for a pediatric residency at Jackson. It’s time.”

“Uh-oh. What happened?”

She said, “I’m burning out is all. It’ll be nice to have patients who can talk back.”

“Did another kid come in today?”

“A child, Andrew. He stepped in front of the school bus. Eleven years old.”

“Aw Jesus.”

“You know what? Let’s go look at the moon.”

Outside they held on to each other. Rosa’s hair was still wet, and the drops felt cool on Yancy’s arms. The sky was clear and the air was still, though in the far Caribbean a new tropical cyclone had begun to churn.

Gerardo, for God’s sake. Already the TV weathermen in Miami were fibrillating.

Rosa said she wanted to come stay with Yancy if the storm veered toward Florida. “Hurricane sex is the best,” she whispered. “You’d better agree, by the way.”

“Off the chart.”

“Hey, I brought the movie.”

“Finally,” Yancy said.

His career troubles were placed in cosmic perspective by the sight of a barefoot woman in a Foo Fighters T-shirt popping popcorn in his kitchen. Beyond the window hung a crescent moon, lighting the Gulf of Mexico. Life was fine. All that stood between him and his detective badge was a few thousand cockroaches.

“The DVD’s in my purse,” Rosa said.

She’d rented the first of the Johnny Depp pirate films, which they’d both seen before. Yancy paused the action on a close-up of the scraggly buccaneer monkey, costumed in a velvet waistcoat and a bell-sleeved shirt.

He and Rosa edged forward for a close look.

“I don’t think that’s Driggs,” Yancy said.

“But he was younger then. Before his fur fell out.”

“Check out those chompers. What a psycho.”