Bad Monkey

“I want to see the kitchen. You know the drill.” Yancy was carrying his vacuum-equipped roach-catching device.

“I’m glad you’re here.” Brennan fumbled to fit on a hairnet. “Somebody came by askin’ where you been. Jesus, is that a fuckin’ gun on your belt?”

“Absolutely.” After being nearly murdered by Eve Stripling’s accomplice, Yancy had purchased a used Glock to replace his forfeited service weapon. He would have preferred another 12-gauge but that was out of his price range.

Brennan seemed agitated. “Nobody on roach patrol packs a piece! Nilsson didn’t even carry a damn pocketknife.”

“This can be treacherous work,” Yancy said.

“The way some people do it, yeah. You got a carry permit?”

“Who was in here asking about me?”

“That girl,” said Brennan. “Phinney’s girl.”

“Madeline? She’s back?”

“For ’bout a week now. Come on, man, try the fuckin’ oysters.”

“Where’s she staying?”

“In Old Town, with some pimple-faced Russian d-bag. Hey, are you leavin’ already?”

“It’s your lucky day,” Yancy said, and made for the door.

Defiantly Brennan tugged off the hairnet. “I got nuthin’ to hide here! Drop in anytime!”

Madeline was working at the same skanky T-shirt shop on Duval, Pestov lurking ferret-eyed among the inventory. She told Yancy she’d returned to Key West because the police no longer considered her a suspect in Phinney’s murder. Yancy noticed that she’d chopped her hair even shorter and dyed it a shade of chartreuse that was popular for tarpon streamers. In addition she was sporting fresh ink—her dead boyfriend’s initials, tattooed on her left wrist.

He said, “It isn’t the cops I’m worried about. That’s not why I wanted you to get out of town.”

“Then who? Why would anyone want to hurt me?”

“Because—hold on, I’ll be right back.” Yancy went to the rear of the store and chased the scuttling Pestov out the door. Then he went back inside and informed Madeline that the man who’d shot Charlie had tried to kill him, too.

“Poncho Boy’s feeling some heat,” Yancy said.

“But he’s got no cause to kill me. I don’t know zip about zap.”

“You know where Charlie got all that money.”

Madeline said, “Stop tryin’ to scare me. And what’s with the gun?”

Yancy remembered her saying she had a sister in Crystal River. “Go stay with her until this is over. Please, Madeline.”

“Millie got born-again last October.”

“Oh.”

“For the third fucking time. All she does when I visit is preach Jesus Christ our Lord ’n’ Savior in my face, twenty-four/seven. One of her stupid cows got fried by lightning and she said it’s God’s will. No way can I be under the same roof with that psycho. She threw my Kools down the garbage disposer!”

Yancy said, “There must be somewhere else you can go.”

“The Russians won’t let anything happen to me. I already talked to Pestov.”

“Pestov is a barn maggot.”

“Dude, I need this job.”

“Really? All the T-shirt shops in the world?”

Yancy hung back while two dancers from Teasers came in to browse for the latest in nipple clips. After they left, Madeline smiled at Yancy and said, “I’m okay here. It’s kinda cool that you care, but I’ll be fine.”

When he returned to Big Pine, the rain had quit and the sky was clearing. Evan Shook stood on the street in front of his spec house, addressing a horseshoe-shaped gathering of the construction crew. Yancy interpreted Evan Shook’s gesticulations as beseeching. Some of the workers apparently had been unnerved by the sight of the Santeria altar or the rodent skull in the pentagram, possibly both. Yancy purposely had designed the display to touch a broad socio-religious spectrum.

He was rocking to Dave Matthews an hour later when Evan Shook pounded on the door, somewhat discourteously in Yancy’s view. He hid the Trainwreck he’d been smoking, unplugged his earbuds and straightened the shiny blue necktie he’d taken to wearing on restaurant inspections; the pattern on the fabric was a lateral skein of tiny silver handcuffs.

By way of a greeting, he said: “Is there news of the wild dogs? Please come in.”

Evan Shook remained on the front stoop, seething in the compressed manner of small men accustomed to bullying. Clearly he was inhibited by Yancy’s height, and also the hip-mounted firearm.

“Have you been in my house again?” he asked somberly. “Somebody …”

“Yes?”

“Somebody defaced the downstairs.”

“Good Lord. When did this happen?”

“Just this morning.”

“That’s unbelievable. In broad daylight? Kids, I’ll bet.” Yancy was counting on the conservative neckwear and police-model handgun to work in his favor, your average vandal being untidy and unarmed. The smell of pot, however, imperiled his credibility.

“I’ve been working all day,” he said. “Just got home.”

“So your answer is no, you haven’t been over there.” Evan Shook wondered if Yancy was too stoned to lie.

“Was anything stolen?” Yancy inquired. “You should hurry and hang those doors and windows, get the place buttoned up. Not just for security—it’s hurricane season.”