Carl Hiaasen - Skin Tight

Reynaldo Flemm shook his head. “In due time, Mr. Stranahan. When we’re ready to do the interview.”

Stranahan said, “I’m ready to do the interview now.”

Flemm smiled in a superior way. “Sorry.”

Stranahan slipped the tarpon gaff between Reynaldo Flemm’s legs and gave a little jerk. The tip of the blade not only poked through Reynaldo Flemm’s Banana Republic trousers, but also through his thirty-dollar bikini underpants (flamenco red), which he had purchased at a boutique in Coconut Grove. The cold point of the gaff came to rest on Reynaldo Flemm’s scrotum, and at this frightful instant the air rushed from his intestinal tract with a sharp noise that seemed to punctuate Mick Stranahan’s request.

“The interview,” he said again to Flemm, who nodded energetically.

But words escaped the television celebrity. Try as he might, Flemm could only burble in clipped phrases. Fear, and the absence of cue cards, had robbed him of cogent conversation.

The young woman in blue jeans stepped forward from the cabin of the boat and said, “Please, Mr. Stranahan, we didn’t mean to intrude.”

“Of course you did.”

“My name is Christina Marks. I’m the producer of this segment.”

“Segment of what?” Stranahan asked.

“Of the Reynaldo Flemm show. In Your Face. You must have seenit.”

“Never.”

For Reynaldo, Stranahan knew, this was worse than a gaff in the balls.

“Come on,” Christina Marks said.

“Honest,” Stranahan said. “You see a TV dish over on my house?”

“Well, no.”

“There you go. Now, what’s this all about? And hurry it up, your man here looks like his legs are cramping.”

Indeed, Reynaldo Flemm was shaking on his tiptoes. Stranahan eased the gaff down just a notch or two.

Christina Marks said: “Do you know a nurse named Maggie Gonzalez?”

“Nope,” Stranahan said.

“A reyou sure?”

“Give me a hint.”

“She worked at the Durkos Medical Center.”

“Okay, now I remember.” He had taken her statement the day after Victoria Barletta had vanished. Timmy Gavigan had done the doctor, while Stranahan had taken the nurse. He had scanned the affidavits in the State Attorney’s file that morning.

“You sure about the last name?” Stranahan asked.

“Sorry-Gonzalez is her married name. Back then it was Orestes.”

“So let’s have the rest.”

“About a month ago, in New York, she came to us.”

“To me,” croaked Reynaldo Flemm.

“Shut up,” said Stranahan.

Christina Marks went on: “She said she had some important information about the Barletta case. She indicated she was willing to talk on camera.”

“To me,” Flemm said, before Stranahan tweaked him once more with the tarpon gaff.

“But first,” Christina Marks said, “she said she had to speak to you, Mr. Stranahan.” ‘“About what?”

“All she said was that she needed to talk to you first, because you could do something about it. And don’t ask me about what, because I don’t know. We gave her six hundred bucks, put her on a plane to Florida, and never saw her again. She was supposed to be back two weeks ago last Monday.” Christina Marks put her hands in her pockets. “That’s all there is. We came down here to look for Maggie Gonzalez, and you’re the best lead we had.”

Stranahan removed the gaff from Reynaldo Flemm’s crotch and tossed it into the bow of his skiff. Almost instantly, Flemm leapt from the stern and bolted for the cabin. “Get tape of that fucker,” he cried at the cameraman, “so we can prosecute his fat ass!”

“Ray, knock it off,” said Christina Marks. Stranahan liked the way she talked down to the big star.

“Tell him,” he said, “that if he points that goddamn camera at me again, he’ll be auditioning for the Elephant Man on Broadway. That’s how seriously I’ll mess up his face.”

“Ray,” she said, “did you hear that?”

“Roll tape! Roll tape!” Flemm was all over the cameraman.

Wearily, Stranahan got back into his skiff and said, “Miss Marks, the interview is over.”

Now it was her turn to be angry. She hopped up on the transom, tennis shoes squeaking on the teak. “Wait a minute, that’s it?”

Stranahan looked up from his little boat. “I haven’t seen Maggie Gonzalez since the day after the Barletta girl disappeared. That’s the truth. I don’t know whether she took your money and went south or what, but I haven’t heard from her.”

“He’s lying,” sneered Reynaldo Flemm, and he stormed into the cabin to sulk. A gust of wind had made a comical nest of his hair.

Stranahan hand-cranked the outboard and slipped it into gear.

“I’m at the Sonesta,” Christina Marks said to him, “if Maggie Gonzalez should call.”

Not likely, Stranahan thought. Not very likely at all.

“How the hell did you find me, anyway?” he called out to the young TV producer.

“Your ex-wife,” Christina Marks called back from the cabin cruiser.

“W hich one?”

“N umber four.”

That would be Chloe, Stranahan thought. Naturally.

“How much did it cost you?” he shouted.

Sheepishly, Christina Marks held up five fingers.

“You got off light,” Mick Stranahan said, and turned the skiff homeward.

Christina Marks was in bed, reading an old New Yorker, when somebody rapped on the door of the hotel room. She was hoping it might be Mick Stranahan, but it wasn’t. “Hello, Ray.”

As Reynaldo Flemm breezed in, he patted her on the rump.

“Cute,” Christina said, closing the door. “I was getting ready toturnin.”

“I brought some wine.”

“No, thanks.”

Reynaldo Flemm turned on the television and made himself at home. He was wearing another pair of khaki Banana Republic trousers and a baggy denim shirt. He smelled like a bucket of Brut. In a single motion he scissored his legs and propped his white high-top Air Jordans on the coffee table.

Christina Marks tightened the sash on her bathrobe and sat down at the other end of the sofa. “I’m tired, Ray,” she said.

He acted like he didn’t hear it. “This Stranahan guy, he’s the key to it,” Flemm said. “I think we should follow him tomorrow.”

“Oh, please.”

“Rent a van. A van with smoked window panels. We set the camera on a tripod in back. I’ll be driving, so Willie gets the angle over my… let’s see, it’d be my right shoulder. Great shot, through the windshield as we follow this big prick-”

“Willie gets carsick,” Christina Marks said.

Reynaldo Flemm cackled scornfully.

“It’s a lousy idea,” Christina said. She wanted him to go away, now.

“What, you trust that Stranahan?”

“No,” she said, but in a way she did trust him. At least more than she trusted Maggie Gonzalez; there was something squirrely about the woman’s sudden need to fly to Miami. Why had she said she wanted to see Stranahan? Where had she really gone?

Reynaldo Flemm wasn’t remotely concerned about Maggie’s motives-good video was good video-but Christina Marks wanted to know more about the woman. She had better things to do than sit in a steaming van, tailing a guy who, if he caught them, would probably destroy every piece of electronics in their possession.

“So, what other leads we got?” Reynaldo Flemm demanded. “Tell me that.”

“Maggie’s probably got family here,” Christina said, “and friends.”

“Dull, dull, dull.”

“Hard work is dull sometimes,” Christina said sharply, “But how would you know?”

Flemm sat up straight and flared his upper lip like a chihuahua. “You can’t talk to me like that! You just remember who’s the star.”