Bad Monkey

Admirably, the doctor had arrived totally sober, his hands steady, and he came through big-time. Afterward the town house looked like they’d been butchering hogs, but the floors had been covered with Visqueen—Nick’s idea—so that all they had to do was roll up the mess and cram it in a Dumpster.

Eve sobbing behind a hospital mask flecked with her husband’s blood, O’Peele chugging Gatorade pretending it was Ketel One. Stripling lying there thinking, okay, during the Civil War? Medics had to do this shit on open battlefields, hack off arms and legs. These were fucking kids, most of ’em—no anesthesia, no antibiotics. For sutures they’d rip the stitching out of boot soles, for bandages they’d tear up filthy uniforms, maggots crawling in the open wounds.

So I’ll be fine is what Stripling assured himself, not that his raw shoulder socket didn’t hurt like a motherfucker. Holy Christ did it hurt! But he was a new man, a free man.

This was the day after he’d sunk the Summer’s Eve, the fuel tanks topped out, the coolers packed with ice and bait. Just like a real fishing trip. His wife had followed him offshore in a rented SeaCraft, past Sombrero Light, rough as a cob and no other vessels in sight. First he pulled the plugs and then he got her sideways in a trough and gunned her in reverse, the mighty blue Atlantic pouring over the transom and filling the cockpit. Stripling used a 5/0 hook to put a hole in the skin of the life raft (in case anyone wondered why he hadn’t used it). Then Eve motored up in the SeaCraft, he jumped aboard, and together they watched the Summer’s Eve sink: a whorl of bubbles and seat cushions and not much else, owing to the whitecaps.

The next morning Stripling went under the knife of Gomez O’Peele, and by nightfall his severed left arm was staked on a mud flat near Vaca Cut being gnawed by sharks. That’s what happens when a person drowns in the Florida Keys, which is a shark’s version of a Golden Corral—all you can eat, all the time.

Which, the Tourbillon? That’s one reason Stripling didn’t leave it on his severed left wrist after the operation. Why not, Eve had said, just drive a Rolls-Royce off a pier? Besides, you love that watch, she said, which he couldn’t deny. The Tourbillon was a work of art, far as Nick was concerned. He didn’t want it to end up in a hammerhead’s stomach.

Some mistakes along the way, no question.

First: choosing Phinney, the pothead mate from the Misty Momma IV. Eve had gone to the docks and scoped out the crews and personally picked him out. Showed him the arm and said the plan was to punk her cousin, who was chartering the Misty the next morning. Eve said the limb came from a med-school cadaver so no worries, Charlie, everything’s cool. Her cousin’s crazy fraternity brothers, she said, they’re the sickos who dreamed this up. And Phinney fell for the whole story, practically came in his pants when she counted out the three grand.

But then he couldn’t keep his trap shut about the wad, buying rounds all over Key West, and Stripling knew it was only a matter of time before he got stoned and blabbed about the arm, too. So Nick rented a moped and ambushed the guy after he and some hooker walked out of the Half Shell. To make it look like robbery Nick even snatched Phinney’s wallet—seven hundred and two bucks was all the kid had left from the biggest score of his life.

If Stripling had to do that part over again … but, see, it was the best way to make sure the fucking arm got found—arrange for some tourist to reel it in while he’s trolling for tuna, whatever. At first Eve had suggested they put the limb on the shore behind somebody’s house, as if it washed up with the tide. But Nick feared the coons or pouch rats might drag it off, even a stray dog. Remember, the whole plan depended on the thing being recovered and positively identified as belonging to him. Being indisputably dead would get the feds off his case, not to mention bring a sweet payoff on the life insurance.

Stripling had flapped his empty left sleeve and said to Eve: I didn’t go through all this misery just for sport! Like my secret dream was to be an amputee.

So they’d recruited Phinney to do the old sailfish scam, only using Nick’s arm instead of a fish. And everything would have turned out great except Phinney couldn’t keep a secret. Dumbass.

Mistake number two: waiting too long to deal with the Caitlin problem.

Again, Nick’s call. He and his daughter had been on the outs ever since he’d married Eve. Caitlin had a big mouth, too, and don’t forget she’s married to Mr. Simon Cox, ex-military. The man was so straight he’d once turned in his next-door neighbor for watering the lawn on Thursday instead of Tuesday, some lame county law, a fifty-dollar fine.