Bad Monkey

Which, the guy who attacked him? Nick had no goddamn idea who it was. Never saw the man’s face. Eve insisted she didn’t get a good look, either.

Some black dude, is what she said—a gem of a clue, here in the Bahamas. Very fucking useful.

Eve told Nick to quit yelling and let’s figure out where to find a rock-star spinal surgeon, soon as we get off this stupid island. Miami was out of the question because Yancy might beat them there and tip the feds that Stripling wasn’t dead, triggering a full-on manhunt.

Yancy, who should have been safely out of the picture, a steaming pile of guts. Instead he was likely hunkered somewhere nearby on Lizard Cay, waiting for the weather to clear.

One thing Stripling had in his favor was a counterfeit U.S. passport bearing the name of Christopher Joseph Grunion. It was a superior counterfeit that had cost him nine grand—some wiseguy who ran a lunch truck in Little Haiti. The passport would remain usable for maybe three days max, depending on how long it took Homeland Security to process Yancy’s information and enter Stripling’s alias in the computer.

“We’re going to England,” Nick declared hoarsely to Eve.

“All right, honey. There’s a nonstop from Nassau.”

“They’ve got fantastic doctors. Good as New York.”

Eve agreed. “I’ll call British Air soon as we get cell service.”

This was during the heavy part of the storm, rain hammering the roof, the electric generator grinding like a cement mixer.

To his wife Stripling said, “I better not be fuckin’ paralyzed. This is all on you.”

“Knock it off, Nicky.”

“You know I’m right.”

He couldn’t stop railing about what had happened. Which, what are the odds of getting randomly stabbed in your own yard during a hurricane?

While holding a loaded shotgun.

The pain was worse than anything Stripling had ever experienced, worse even than post-amputation. Breathing hurt. Blinking hurt. Talking hurt even more.

His suspicions turned to a certain sketchy freelance employee, Mr. Carter Ecclestone, otherwise known as Egg. The meathead was supposed to return to the house after taking care of Yancy’s girlfriend. However, Egg hadn’t been seen since before the hurricane struck. The Jeep, however, was back in the driveway …

Maybe Egg was here, Nick thought, only now he was working with somebody else. Like that nutty old crone he’d been balling—what if she’d talked him into killing Stripling and robbing the place? Maybe she put a voodoo spell on that pea-brained motherfucker.

Or maybe it was Eve who’d made Egg a better offer. Lately she’d been riding Nick’s case about how boring it was on Lizard Cay, how she’d go batshit crazy living here all the time with nothing to do. She’d gotten downright surly when Nick had told her to quit bitching and get a hobby, take up snorkeling or kiteboarding. He’d said the two of them were in this thing together, up to their shiny white asses, only maybe Eve was thinking: Not necessarily.

Except the Egg theory didn’t add up. He wouldn’t have tried to murder Nick with a spindly goddamn fishing rod. He would have disemboweled him with a knife, or cracked his skull with that fish billy, or snapped his neck with those gorilla paws.

Everything about the night ambush seemed unplanned and frantic. A total amateur, but who? Stripling had made a point not to know a soul on the island.

“Oh great,” he muttered. “Now I gotta take a leak.”

“You can still void?” Eve said buoyantly. “That’s a super healthy sign, Nicky. And I see your toes moving, too!”

“Yeah, that’s right, they’re dancing a tango. Now bring me something—a jar or a bowl, I don’t care.”

Eve went to the kitchen and came back with an empty wine bottle.

Stripling scowled. “Get serious. My dick won’t fit in there.”

“Sure it will.”

“It’s bigger than a goddamn cork!” Wretchedly he pounded on the armrests of the Rollie.

“Honey, chill. I didn’t mean anything,” his wife said.

“Gimme your glass before I wet my pants!”

She was holding a Waterford tumbler full of ice, peach vodka and soda. It came from a table set belonging to her maternal grandparents, now deceased. Nick could sense that Eve was reluctant to deploy the sentimental heirloom for urine collection.

Or possibly she just didn’t want to pour out her cocktail.

Stripling was better at forging orders for Rollies than he was at driving one. Impatiently he toggled the joystick until the motorized chair clicked and surged forward. As it passed by Eve he made a swipe at her precious tumbler but she pulled it away. The scooter thudded hard into a wall, jarring Nick’s damaged spine and also his distended bladder, which yielded a warm sour flood. With it came well-founded gloom.

Once the FBI learned he was alive, his days of freedom on Andros Island were numbered. The Curly Tail Lane project would be done, of course, as would Grunion Global Realty, Nick’s mishandled stab at legitimacy. Although he still had a few million liquid, he could easily waste every penny on lawyers and bribes trying to fight extradition to the United States.