Bad Monkey

“What are you going to do?” the American said.

Neville told him about recruiting the Dragon Queen to put a voodoo hex on Christopher Grunion. “But it dint woyk,” he added. “And, at de end, she trick me outta my monkey.”

“I’m not sure she got the best of that deal.”

“Dot’s true.” Neville had to laugh.

“Movie stars, right? Nothing but trouble. Can I show you something?” The American took out a gold badge and held it close to his lap, below the bar counter, so that no one but Neville could see it.

“You police?” Neville whispered.

The man named Andrew put the badge away. He said, “Law enforcement authorities in the U.S. are very interested in Mr. Grunion—and that’s not his real name. We believe the Curly Tail Lane project is being financed with moneys obtained illegally, by fraud. We also believe he’s quite dangerous.”

Neville nodded. “Yeah, dot asshole shodda gun at me.”

“Really? When did this happen?”

“Big fucking gun, mon. Outside his house up Bannister Point.”

“Shit.” The man anxiously glanced at his wristwatch.

Neville drained his beer bottle thinking he and the American had something in common. Both were beset by greedy intruders destroying something rare, something that couldn’t be replaced.

The light bulbs hanging from the beams of the conch shack flickered and dimmed; soon the island would lose electricity. Neville wondered where Driggs would take shelter during the hurricane. Not with the voodoo witch, he hoped. What kind of demon skank would teach a monkey how to smoke?

“Foyst time I gon see de Dragon Queen, I bring a private ting belong to Chrissofer.”

“What was that?” the American asked.

“A sleeve from a fishin’ shoyt like you got on dere, ’cept it was blue. Dragon Queen supposed to pudda coyse on de mon and take care my prollem on Green Beach. But den notting hoppen—”

“It was a sleeve?” The man named Andrew planted his elbows on the bar and pressed the knuckles of his hands together. To Neville he looked a bit pale.

“Yeah, a sleeve dot been toyn off. It was in Chrissofer’s garbage.”

“Torn off or cut off?”

“I tink cut.” Neville made a scissor motion with his fingers.

“Oh Jesus.”

“Wot’s mottah?”

“Do you have a car, Mr. Stafford?”

“No, mon. I got a boat, but—”

“Never mind.” The American slapped some cash on the bar and disappeared up the road, into the swaying shadows.

Neville picked up the man’s expensive fishing rod and made his way to Joyous’s apartment where after a quick poke he lay awake, listening to the coconut trees shake and wondering if the American was really a policeman, and if the things he’d said were true.

Twenty

Agent John Wesley Weiderman, five pounds lighter after his bout with spoiled shellfish, had intrepidly returned to Florida on the hunt for Plover Chase. He was armed with a promising new lead supplied by the fugitive’s husband, a retired dermatologist who’d contacted the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

Dr. Clifford Witt had uncovered a series of credit card charges made by the suspect under the alias of Bonnie Witt and posted on a Visa account to which Dr. Witt had access (online password: nookyluv2). The purchases, all made in Key West, included groceries, lip gloss, blond hair coloring, domestic beer, condoms, dental floss, a car rental, four jerry cans, ninety-seven dollars’ worth of gasoline and a room-service charge at a Best Western on South Roosevelt.

“We run out of cash so we had to go plastic,” explained the man inside the hotel room, number 217.

He gave his name as Clyde Barrow, and he seemed unflustered by having a lawman at the door. Then again, Agent John Wesley Weiderman adhered to a low-key approach.

“Do you know a woman named Plover Chase?” he asked.

“She left me, dude. Hit the bricks.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Back on the run, I guess. Once an outlaw, whatever.”

“Let’s start with your real name.”

The man said, “Okay, okay, you got me.”

He was doughy and sunburned. He wore a black muscle shirt that said: OLD KEY WEST—A DRINKING VILLAGE WITH A SLIGHT FISHING PROBLEM!

“I’m Cody Parish,” he said.

Agent John Wesley Weiderman didn’t respond immediately. He was assessing the judicial prospects of his case, which were suddenly dimmer.

“Yo, as in Cody Parish the victim?”

“Got it,” said John Wesley Weiderman.

It was the person with whom Plover Chase had notoriously swapped sex in exchange for good school grades. Now he was all grown up. He was, in fact, losing his hair.

“Ms. Chase and me, we hooked up again after all this time. Actually, she tracked me down on Facebook. Talk about a true-life fairy tale—it’s all in my diary, I mean everything.”

“May I read it?”

“First I better get with a lawyer,” said Cody. “See, it’s gonna be a book and then probably a movie. That’s why I need to be careful nobody steals the good stuff and leaks it.”

The agent asked Cody if Plover Chase had abducted him against his will. Cody said, “She’s got something way more lethal than a gun. You know what they say—pussy is undefeated. That’s from Merle Haggard himself.”

“So she didn’t threaten or physically harm you.”