Bad Monkey

Yet there was no sign of Yancy or wild dogs, and the Lipscombs’ second tour was as uneventful as the first. Sweating, slapping at bugs, they remained at all times polite and uncomplaining. The few questions asked by the husband seemed deliriously naïve coming from an ex–Wall Street slick, until Evan Shook reminded himself that he was dealing with a man who’d never before witnessed a Gulf sunset, a man who’d habitually vacationed in Bridgehampton or Breckinridge before squandering the first act of his hard-earned retirement downwind from a goddamn horse barn.

Before long, Evan Shook had set aside his native wariness in order to nurture Ford Lipscomb’s fantasy, which was the boilerplate back-nine fantasy of so many ultra-successful, ultra-resourceful American males: to live by the sea in perpetual sunshine, in a state with no income tax.

Jayne Lipscomb came down the stairs to report a pair of ospreys diving for fish in the tidal creeks.

“They’re here every day,” Evan Shook said. “Are you a birder?”

“No, but that’s a thought.”

“We’ve got a very active Audubon chapter down here.”

“Did Ford tell you he’s selling the trotters?” Her husband broke in: “We are selling the trotters. Mutual decision.”

Jayne Lipscomb sighed. “Gorgeous animals, but so much drama. My goodness.”

“You’ll love living in the Keys,” Evan Shook said.

Ford Lipscomb handed up the check. “I’d like to buy a boat. Do a little fishing once I get the hang of it.”

“First let’s talk about window frames,” his wife said. “Also, a skylight in the master bedroom? Is that doable, Mr. Shook?”

“Anything’s doable.”

A skylight inevitably would leak during the rainy season, as did all skylights in Florida, but Evan Shook felt unmoved to mention this because every whimsical add-on served to pad his wispy profit line. By the time the silicone sealant began to disintegrate, in two or three years, he’d be back in Syracuse, probably ass-deep in divorce papers.

Recently his mistress had delivered a curdling ultimatum: Dump the wife or else.

The else being a musician-slash-poet with whom she’d shared a cannabis vaporizer at the bluegrass festival—a mandolin player, she’d informed Evan Shook, knowing he would find that more threatening than a perky banjoist. The young man was tall, his mistress had added cruelly. Six-one in his socks.

Ford Lipscomb said, “When’s the last time this island took a direct hit from a hurricane?”

Evan Shook chose to narrowly interpret the term “direct hit.”

“Never,” he declared. “Anyway, the building codes are much tougher now than in the old days. Heavy-duty glass, reinforced trusses—it’s the law.”

Jayne Lipscomb asked if he’d been keeping track of Tropical Storm Françoise on the Weather Channel. “Because this house, no offense, it’s wide open. No windows, no doors, the roof could fly off to Cuba—”

“Oh, we’d board up the place,” Evan Shook said with a patient-looking smile. “That storm isn’t coming this way, don’t you worry. It’s rolling straight up through the Bahamas.”

“Just what I told her,” said Ford Lipscomb.

“But look at what Katrina did!” The wife, tracing an elaborate S in the air.

Evan Shook inconspicuously touched the breast pocket into which he’d tucked the couple’s check, and he was comforted to feel the crisp paper rectangle beneath the fabric.

Ford Lipscomb rose. “There is one important detail we need to discuss.”

An unpleasant contraction commenced in Evan Shook’s colon.

“Fire away,” he croaked, bracing for the deal breaker.

“Sewer or septic?” Ford Lipscomb said.

Evan Shook went blank, such was his apprehension. He saw the husband’s lips moving but he heard not a word. Helplessly he shook his head.

“The house,” Jayne Lipscomb intervened, from behind tortoise-shell frames. “Is it on a sewer main?”

Evan Shook nearly gurgled with relief. “No, no, we have state-of-the-art septic, totally aerobic,” he said. “Come outside and I’ll show you where the tank’s buried!”

Neville took his boat up Victoria Creek ahead of the first band of heavy showers. He tied off in some mangroves, threw out an anchor, tested the bilge pump and crossed back to shore in a skiff run by some conch boys from the South Bight. The thought of being confined with Joyous for the storm’s duration was withering, so he decided to walk back to Rocky Town and surprise one of his less surly girlfriends. On the way he avoided Bannister Point, feeling lucky to be alive. The white man Christopher could have shot him dead as a thief instead of firing over his head, and Neville wondered why he’d been spared. After giving it some thought, he decided there was no mercy at play; Christopher simply didn’t wish to draw attention to himself.