Carl Hiaasen - Skin Tight

“A nd you just remember who writes all your lines. And who does all your dull, dull research. Remember who tells you what questions to ask. And who edits these pieces so you don’t come off looking like a pompous airhead.” Except that’s exactly how Reynaldo came off, most of the time. There was no way around it, no postproduction wizardry that could disguise the man’s true personality on tape.

Reynaldo Flemm shrugged. His attention had been stolen by something on the television: Mike Wallace of CBS was a guest on the Letterman show. Flemm punched up the volume and inched to the edge of the sofa.

“You know how old that geezer is?” he said, pointing at Wallace. “I’m half his age.”

Christina Marks held her tongue.

Reynaldo said, “I bet his producer sleeps with him anytime he wants.” He glanced sideways at Christina.

She got up, went to the door, and held it open. “Go back to your room, Ray.”

“Aw, come on, I was kidding.”

“No, you weren’t.”

“All right, I wasn’t. Come on, Chris, close the door. Let’s openthe wine.”

“Goodnight, Ray.”

He got up and turned off the TV. He was sulking.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“You sure are.”

Christina Marks held all the cards. Reynaldo Flemm needed her far worse than she needed him. Not only was she very talented, but she knew things about Reynaldo Flemm that he did not wish the whole world of television to know. About the time she caught him beating himself up, for example. It happened at a Hyatt House in Atlanta. Flemm was supposed to be out interviewing street-gang members, but Christina found him in the bathroom of his hotel room, thwacking himself in the cheek with a sock full of parking tokens. Reynaldo’s idea was to give himself a nasty shiner, then go on camera and breathlessly report that an infamous gang leader named Rapper Otis had assaulted him.

Reynaldo Flemm had begged Christina Marks not to tell the executive producers about the sock incident, and she hadn’t; the weeping is what got to her. She couldn’t bear it.

For keeping this and other weird secrets, Christina felt secure in her job, certainly secure enough to tell Reynaldo Flemm to go pound salt every time he put the make on her.

On the way out the door, he said, “I still say we get up early and follow this Stranahan guy.”

“A nd I still say no.”

“But, Chris, he knows something.”

“Yeah, Ray, he knows how to hurt people.”

Christina couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw a hungry spark in the eyes of Reynaldo Flemm.

The next morning Stranahan left the skiff at the marina, got the Chrysler and drove back across the Rickenbacker Causeway to the mainland. Next to him on the front seat was his yellow notepad, open to the page where he had jotted the names and numbers from the Barletta file. The first place he went was the Durkos Medical Center, except it wasn’t there anymore. The building was now occupied entirely by dentists: nine of them, according to Stranahan’s count from the office directory. He went looking for the building manager.

Every door and hallway reverberated with the nerve-stabbing whine of high-speed dental drills; soon Stranahan’s molars started to throb, and he began to feel claustrophobic. He enlisted a friendly janitor to lead him to the superintendent, a mammoth olive-colored woman who introduced herself as Marlee Jones.

Stranahan handed Marlee Jones a card and told her what he wanted. She glanced at the card and shrugged. “I don’t have to tell you nothing,” she said, displaying the kind of public-spirited cooperation that Stranahan had come to appreciate among the Miami citizenry.

“No, you don’t have to tell me nothing,” he said to Marlee, “but I can make it possible for a county code inspector to brighten your morning tomorrow, and the day after that, and every single day until you die of old age.” Stranahan picked up a broom and stabbed the wooden handle into the foam-tile ceiling. “Looks like pure asbestos to me,” he said. “Sure hate for the feds to find out.”

Marlee Jones scowled, exhibiting an impressive array of gold teeth: bribes, no doubt, from her tenants. She shuffled to a metal desk and opened a bottom drawer and got out a black ledger. “All right, smartass, what was that name?”

“Durkos.” Stranahan spelled it. “A medical group. They were here as of March twelfth, four years ago.”

“Well, as of April first, four years ago, they was gone.”

Marlee started to close the ledger, but Stranahan put his hand on the page. “MayI look?”

“It’s just numbers, mister.”

“A w, let me give it a whirl.” Stranahan took the ledger from Marlee Jones and ran down the columns with his forefinger. The Durkos Medical Trust, Inc., had been sole tenant of the building for two years, but had vacated within weeks after Victoria Barletta’s disappearance. The ledger showed that the company had paid its lease and security deposits through May. Stranahan thought it was peculiar that, after moving out, the medical group never got a refund.

“Maybe they didn’t ask,” Marlee Jones said.

“Doctors are the cheapest human beings alive,” Stranahan said. “For fifteen grand they don’t just ask, they hire lawyers.”

Again Marlee Jones shrugged. “Some people be in a big damn hurry.”

“What do you remember about it?”

“Who says I was here?”

“This handwriting in the ledger book-it’s the same as on these receipts.” Stranahan tapped a finger on a pile of rental coupons.

Marlee Jones appeared to be having a spell of high blood pressure.

Stranahan asked again: “So what do you remember?”

With a groan Marlee Jones heaved her bottom into the chair behind the desk. She said, “One night they cleared out. Must’ve backed up a trailer truck, who knows. I came in, the place was empty, except for a bunch of cheapo paintings on the walls. Cats with big eyes, that sorta shit.”

“Were they all surgeons?”

“Seemed like it. But they wasn’t partners.”

“Durkos the main man?”

“Was no Durkos that I heard of. Big man was a Doctor Graveyard, something like that. The other four guys worked for him. How come I know this is, the day after all the stuff is gone, a couple of the other doctors showed up dressed for work. They couldn’t believe their office was emptied.”

Graveline was the name of the surgeon who had operated on Vicky Barletta. There was no point to correcting Marlee Jones on the name. Stranahan said, “This Dr. Graveyard, he didn’t even tell the other doctors about the move?”

“This is Miami, lots of people in a big-time hurry.”

“Yeah, but not many pay in advance.”

Marlee Jones finally laughed. “You right about that.”

“Did anybody leave a forwarding address?”

“Nope.”

Stranahan handed Marlee Jones the ledger book.

“You be through with me?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“For good?”

“Most likely.”

“Then can I ask who is it you’re workin’ for?”

“Myself,” said Mick Stranahan.

Since the day that the Durkos Medical Center had ceased to exist, the life of Nurse Maggie Orestes had gotten complicated. She had gone to work in the emergency room at Jackson Hospital, where one night she had met a man named Ricky Gonzalez. The reason for Ricky Gonzalez’s visit to the emergency room was that he had accidentally been run over by a turbo-charged Ferrari during the annual running of the Miami Grand Prix. Ricky was a race-car promoter, and he had been posing for pictures with Lorenzo Lamas in pit row, not paying close attention when the Ferrari had roared in and run over both his feet. Ricky broke a total of fourteen bones, while Lorenzo Lamas escaped without a scratch.