Bad Monkey

Standing at the chain-link fence, Neville saw several overturned planes on the turnaround section of the tarmac. He also noticed, undamaged, the single-engine seaplane belonging to the man he knew as Christopher. A few white men and some local teenagers were out clearing the landing strip of hurricane litter. Soon the American policeman and his girlfriend would be able to take off, if they had a pilot who would fly them. The weather out west, toward Florida, looked all right.

The car belonging to Coquina’s mother was a rust-freckled Taurus with a Salt Life decal on the back window and a fickle alternator. Neville tried the key seven times before the ignition turned over. Then, barely a mile from the airport, the engine quit. Neville got out and popped the hood hoping for something as simple as a loose wire. He fiddled with various connections but nothing worked.

Neville heard a car coming the other way and decided to flag it down. As the vehicle came into view he noticed first that it was yellow, then that it was a hardtop Jeep Wrangler, of which there was only one on the island. Neville stopped waving and backpedaled for cover behind the broken-down Taurus.

But the Jeep was moving too fast. Both occupants looked squarely at Neville as they swerved around the stalled sedan and sped on toward the airport. The bastard that Neville had stabbed in the back sat upright in the front next to his woman, who was driving. Their taut expressions displayed not a flicker of recognition, only annoyance at the roadway obstruction.

Once they were out of sight, Neville placed both hands over his heart and thanked the Lord Almighty for his good fortune. Obviously the murderous fugitive had no idea who’d speared him from behind with a fishing rod.

Minutes later Neville heard an aircraft lifting off from Moxey’s. He looked up and saw the floatplane, as white and graceful as a gull. The man known to him as Christopher wouldn’t have had enough time to make that flight, no matter how fast his woman was driving.

So it had to be Yancy, the American policeman, on board. Yancy and his girlfriend.

The fact was confirmed minutes later when the yellow Jeep reappeared, racing back from the direction of the airfield. This time Neville didn’t wave at the Striplings as they passed, but he didn’t bother to hide, either.

Rosa fell asleep on Yancy’s shoulder but he kept awake, his eyes on the pilot. The flight to Miami was only forty-five minutes through a light chop. To the north, beyond Grand Bahama, towered a bank of muddy clouds, the last tailings of Hurricane Françoise.

Riding on small planes never failed to put a tune in Yancy’s head, and this time it was “Mozambique.” Claspers didn’t ask for details of Stripling’s crimes or say much of anything at the controls. Yancy figured he was preoccupied devising a story for Nick or the FAA, depending on which way he decided to play it. After the Caravan touched down at Miami International, Yancy offered him a one-hundred-dollar bill for fuel. Claspers shook his head and pointed to a gold AmEx clipped to the sun visor. The name imprinted on the card was Christopher Grunion.

When the plane taxied to a stop, Claspers tugged off his earphones.

“So, what are your plans?” Yancy asked.

“I’m not sure. Too old for prison and, man, I do like to fly.”

“It won’t be my call. The feds can be prickish, as you know.”

Claspers said, “I had no idea he murdered anybody. Swear on the Bible, the Koran, whatever.”

“Hey, I believe you.”

“Then I was thinking maybe you could help. Put in a good word.”

“Sure, but here’s the situation,” Yancy said. “Technically I’m not a cop. I’m a restaurant inspector.”

“Fuck a duck!”

“It’s just a temporary reassignment. The badge I borrowed from a colleague.”

“Other words, you count dead flies at the Pizza Hut. This is who I got for a character witness.”

“I’ll be a detective again in the very near future. Meanwhile, let’s not disparage the tireless civil servants who keep our public dining establishments free from vermin.”

“You don’t mind,” said Claspers, “I got a shitload of paperwork.”

Yancy woke up Rosa. They climbed out of the plane and jumped from a pontoon to the tarmac. A brief snag occurred upon re-entry when a Customs officer asked Yancy to unzip his footwear, tight nylon booties that were tailored for water wading though not ideal for travel. The fishing shoes smelled vile but the Customs man intrepidly probed their sweaty interiors in search of contraband.

Afterward Rosa called a cab to take them to the parking garages, where they kissed good-bye and set out separately to locate their cars. Twenty minutes later Yancy was in his Subaru heading up the interstate to the FBI office in North Miami Beach. He wasn’t dressed for the occasion, and in fact looked like a man who’d spent the night in a hurricane. Again the booties were a liability.