Star Island (16 page)

Before heading upstairs to break the news to Janet Bunterman, he stopped in the bar and leveled himself with a stiff martini. Obviously he’d misjudged the photographer as harmless; thinking back to their meeting in the hotel men’s room, the bodyguard realized he should have trusted his instincts. He should have taken away the idiot’s gun and then fractured every chubby finger.

There you have it, Chemo thought sourly. No good deed goes unpunished.

In the mid-1970s a man named D. T. Maltby became lieutenant governor of Florida as the running mate of a charismatic newcomer named Clinton Tyree. Maltby had been selected for the ticket because he was from rural DeSoto County, and it was believed he could deliver the ultraconservative Panhandle vote, which he did.

Maltby couldn’t have been more different from the man who had chosen him. Clinton Tyree was a towering presence, a chiseled ex–college football star and authentic Vietnam War hero. By contrast Maltby was a lumpy, marble-mouthed pharmacist whose only battle wounds were paper cuts received while tearing open his annual draft deferments. He’d spent a decade in the state house of representatives, honing larcenous skills that became known to Clinton Tyree only after they’d won the election. The lieutenant governor was as crooked as the governor was honest, so Maltby privately squirmed as Tyree launched what was literally a one-man crusade against corruption in Tallahassee. Of course the mission was doomed, but the imposing and eloquent governor managed briefly to disrupt the bountiful flow of gratuities that for years had enriched Maltby and his colleagues. Maltby had never before met a Florida politician who refused to accept
some
form of kickback—not even a stack of Bahamian gambling chips—and he soon came to believe that Clinton Tyree was as crazy as a shithouse rat.

That view became broadly embraced after the governor suddenly vanished. It happened the day after the cabinet decided to close down a waterfront wildlife haven called Sparrow Beach, and sell the land for peanuts to a development firm that planned to bulldoze the dunes and throw up a palisade of high rises. Naturally, Clinton Tyree cast the only dissenting vote. Just as naturally, D. T. Maltby sided with the majority—the only speck of actual authority to come with the title of lieutenant governor was a voting seat in the cabinet, and Maltby used every opportunity to faithfully advance the interests of the wealthy and powerful. More often than not, his fealty was well rewarded.

During the debate over closing the Sparrow Beach Wildlife Preserve, Maltby was careful not to advertise that he happened to be a major shareholder in the Sparrow Beach Development Corporation, which was acquiring the pristine tract. The lopsided vote pushed Clinton Tyree off an emotional ledge upon which he had been teetering for months. On the following morning, he despondently folded himself into the backseat of his state car and ordered his driver, a Highway Patrol trooper named Jim Tile, to step on the gas. Six hours later Tyree was dropped at a Greyhound terminal in Orlando, and from then on his whereabouts became a mystery. A manhunt was suspended after a resignation letter arrived in Tallahassee, and FBI handwriting experts authenticated the signature.

By constitutional directive, D. T. Maltby ascended to the governorship and held the office for the remainder of Tyree’s term, a wildly profitable spree that restored a climate of carefree venality to the state capitol. As the next election cycle approached, Maltby was preparing to launch his own gubernatorial candidacy when his wife caught him screwing a female crop duster and threatened to provide the Internal Revenue Service with a stack of bank statements from Curaçao. Citing unspecified health problems, Maltby abruptly retired from government service and joined a consulting firm that charged exorbitant sums to assist land developers in subverting state building regulations.

In time Maltby grew wealthy enough to purchase a spacious vacation home at the Ocean Reef Club, which was the last place he
expected to encounter Clinton Tyree after thirty years of weird rumors and silence. Maltby had long ago assumed the runaway governor was dead. At first he didn’t even recognize the bastard, for Tyree’s appearance had changed shockingly. But the moment the intruder smiled, Maltby knew.

“Clint?”

“I shed that name a long time ago.” The governor was seated in the laundry room adjoining Maltby’s kitchen.

“Holy Jesus, what happened? Where the hell have you been all these years?”

“Now they call me Skink,” the governor advised.

Maltby was extremely nervous. Tyree wore moldy high-top sneakers and a putrid trench coat. His head was shaved, and strings of spent shotgun shells hung on two long silver braids. He had lost an eye, undoubtedly through violence, and his skin looked baked and weathered.

“What are you doing here, Clint?”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Wait—are you taking a goddamn dump in my washing machine?”

Skink rose and calmly rebuttoned his coat. “We have a mutual acquaintance named Jackie Sebago.”

Maltby was reeling. What did this maniac want?

“I didn’t break in. You left the sliders open,” Skink explained. “I brought my own music, by the way.”

Maltby worriedly followed him to the family room, where the governor inserted a disc in the CD deck and said, “Joe Walsh.” He turned up the volume.

“How’d you find me?” Maltby asked.

“Vanity, you schmuck.” From a pocket Skink whipped out a bright yellow sheet of paper announcing that D. T. Maltby had scored a hole in one on the Hammock Course. “It was posted on the corkboard at the clubhouse,” Skink said. “Nice shot.”

“Are you a member here?” Maltby asked incredulously.

The governor’s laughter boomed. “No, I live down the road,” he said. “I hike the grounds at night, when all you trolls are asleep.”
He shoved Maltby toward the living room and sat him down on the Mexican tile. “Now tell me about Sebago.”

Shakily, Maltby said, “Never heard of him.”

“That’s not what Jackie Boy told me. He said he paid you to fix the permits for his town house project, which is quite the abomination. Have you seen the plans? We had a long heart-to-heart, the two of us.”

Maltby turned pale. News of the bus hijacking had swept like a flash fire through the Ocean Reef community. “Don’t tell me you’re the one who—”

“Sebago Isle—does that ring a bell?” Skink lifted the mounted head of a mule deer off the wall and, using a thumb, pried out the glass eyes and tucked them in his side pocket. Then he began whipping the buck’s head back and forth as he twirled in mad circles, slashing at air with the antlers.

Maltby helplessly wet himself in fear, crying, “What the hell do you want from me?”

The governor halted his primitive jig and sat down on the arm of the chair. “Those favors you arranged for Jackie? I want you to unarrange them—and don’t say it’s impossible.” He probed Maltby’s earlobes with the sharp tips of the deer antlers. “The scumsuckers you paid off to get those construction permits, you pay ’em off again to red-tag the site and shut it down. These things are very doable, D.T.”

Maltby thought about what had happened to Sebago—thirty-three sea urchin spines removed from his scrotum, according to the president of the home owners’ association.

“Look, Jackie’s project is in the shitter anyway,” Maltby said. “I think he’s sold maybe two units, and the investors are ready to gut him.”

Skink beamed. “Then let’s finish the job.” He stood up and centered the deer head on a coffee table. “Tell me something, D.T. Did you buy this place with the money you got from Sparrow Beach?”

Maltby felt himself shrivel inside his silk pee-stained boxers. So Tyree knew about his secret stake in the company.

He murmured, “No, Governor. That all went to wife number one.”

“Well, it appears you bounced back just fine.” Skink slapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve put on a few pounds since the old days. Let me guess: Third marriage?”

Maltby shook his head glumly and held up four fingers. The governor whistled. “You went one way, I went the other,” he said. “Eons pass, and now here we are, bonding again!”

“Yeah. Unbelievable,” Maltby said hoarsely.

“Tell the truth—did you ever think our paths would cross?” Skink hooted and clapped his hands. “Of
course
you didn’t. Where’s the newest Mrs. M., by the way?”

“Sag Harbor.”

“Spending your life savings, I hope. Excuse me.” The governor groped into his trench coat and came out with a phone that was vibrating. He covered his fake eye and with the other he squinted at the tiny screen, trying to make out the name on the caller ID.

“I’ll be damned,” he said quietly. Then, to Maltby: “It’s been fun catching up, but don’t make me come find you again.
Comprehende?”

Then he was gone. Maltby hurried to the window and watched Clinton Tyree jog across the backyard into the darkness—braids flapping, coat billowing, his face half-lit with the violet glow from the cell phone, which he held to one ear.

Maltby’s first thought was: For an old fart, that fucker can move.

His second thought was: No cops.

Bang Abbott was halfway across the MacArthur Causeway before he realized he’d snatched the wrong blonde.

“Nice work,” said Ann DeLusia.

“But, the tattoo!”

“It’s henna,” she said. “Cherry’s is the real deal.”

The photographer was trying to scope her out and watch the road at the same time. “Lose the shades,” he said.

“Don’t be a jackass. Take me back to the hotel.”

Bang Abbott turned off on Watson Island and parked near the children’s museum, where he had left his rented Buick. He put on the dome light inside the Suburban and pulled out the pistol, just to show her that he meant business.

“You must be the phantom double. The one Lev told me about,” he said.

When the woman removed her sunglasses, Bang Abbott swore heatedly.

“The Viper Room, right? After the Grammys?” he said.

“Big night. I saw Ashlee Simpson choke on a prawn.”

“Shit.”

It was the same brown-eyed nobody whom he’d photographed on the stretcher behind the Stefano, the one who had mockingly blown him a kiss.

“I’m just an actress,” she said. “My name’s Ann.”

“Cherry stole my stuff.”

“What?”

“She balled me, then she jacked my cameras and my BlackBerry,” the photographer said. “I got the Nikons back, but not the phone.”

Ann nodded. “So you decided to kidnap her. Well, at least it’s not over something stupid and childish.”

“Get out,” he snapped. “We’re switching cars.”

She seemed relieved when he began navigating back toward South Beach. “Just drop me at the Strand—I’ll call a cab.”

Bang Abbott shook his head. “You don’t understand.” He’d had the whole thing worked out in his head, before the fuckup. Now he needed a plan B.

“I paid off the bellman to spill those suitcases,” he bragged.

Ann told him he had a bright future as a carjacker. “It’s definitely a step up, career-wise.”

Bang Abbott was too preoccupied to catch the insult. All he could think about was Cherry Pye.

He said, “She’s gotta pay for what she did. Let’s agree on that.”

“What if I could get my hands on your precious BlackBerry? Would you go back on your medication like a good boy?”

The photographer smiled to himself. How could this girl be so dim?

Ann said, “You wouldn’t do well in prison. For one thing, they make you shower every week.”

This time Bang Abbott reddened. “You saw the fucking gun, right? Did I also mention it’s loaded?”

“Where are you taking me?”

“She needs me and she doesn’t even know it.”

“Cherry? You gotta be kidding.”

Bang Abbott perceived that he was sweating like a pack mule.

“She’ll be dead before she’s thirty,” he went on, “and forgotten in five years.…”

“Less,” said Ann.

The photographer stuck his face out of the window to suck some fresh air. His skull was ringing like a gong. They were on Washington Avenue, mired in club traffic.

He said, “Marilyn Monroe’s been gone for what—fifty years? But everybody over the age of sixteen still knows who she is. Why? Not because of her movies. She couldn’t act her way out of a goddamn speeding ticket!”

Ann DeLusia said, “Take it easy, guy.”

“It’s because of all those fantastic photos—that’s why Marilyn will never
ever
die. She was fuckin’ amazing in front of a still camera. The swimming pool shoot—you ever see that? Serious whack-off treasure, to this day.”

“What’s your name?” Ann asked.

“Claude.”

“So your aim, Claude, is to keep Cherry Pye alive for eternity with your photographs.”

“Yup.”

Ann’s involvement presented a large complication, but Bang Abbott hoped that a good night’s sleep would bring clarity to the situation. He cut over to Collins Avenue and turned north, in search of an affordable hotel.

She said, “Maybe I’m just slow, but could you explain to me how abducting this woman would advance your grand artistic
ambition? By the way, you might want to stash that gun under the seat.”