Carl Hiaasen - Skin Tight

Nurse Maggie Orestes attended to Ricky Gonzalez in the emergency room before they put him under for surgery. He was young, dashing, full of promises-and so cheerful, considering what had happened.

A month later they were married at a Catholic church in Hialeah. Ricky persuaded Maggie to quit nursing and be a full-time hostess for the many important social functions that race-car promoters must necessarily conduct. Maggie had hoped she would come to enjoy car racing and the people involved in it, but she didn’t. It was noisy and stupid and boring, and the people were worse. Maggie and Ricky had some fierce arguments, and she was on the verge of walking out of the marriage when the second pit-row accident happened.

This time it was a Porsche, and Ricky wasn’t so lucky. After the service they cremated him in his complimentary silver Purolator racing jacket, which turned out to be fireproof, so they had to cremate that portion twice. Lorenzo Lamas sent a wreath all the way from Malibu, California. At the wake Ricky’s lawyer came up to Maggie Gonzalez and told her the bad news: First, her husband had no life insurance; second, he had emptied their joint bank accounts to pay for his cocaine habit. Maggie had known nothing about the drug problem, but in retrospect it explained her late husband’s irrepressible high spirits and also his lack of caution around the race track.

A widowhood of destitution did not appeal to Maggie Gonzalez. She went back to being a nurse with a plan to nail herself a rich doctor or at least his money. In eighteen months she had been through three of them, all disasters-a married pediatrician, a divorced radiologist, and a urologist who wore women’s underwear and who wound up giving Maggie a stubborn venereal disease. When she dumped the urologist, he got her fired from the hospital and filed a phony complaint with the state nursing board.

All this left Maggie Gonzalez with a molten hatred of men and a mind for vengeance.

Money is what pushed her to the brink. With the mortgage payment on her duplex coming due, and only eighty-eight bucks in the checking account, Maggie decided to go ahead and do it. Part of the motive was financial desperation, true, but there was also a delicious hint of excitement-payback, to the sonofabitch who’d started it all.

First Maggie used her Visa card to buy a plane ticket to New York, where she caught a cab to the midtown offices of Reynaldo Flemm, the famous television journalist. There she told producer Christina Marks the story of Victoria Barletta, and cut a deal.

Five thousand dollars to repeat it on camera-that’s as high as Reynaldo’s people would go. Maggie Gonzalez was disappointed; it was, after all, one hell of a story.

That night Christina Marks got Maggie a room at the Goreham Hotel, and she lay there watching Robin Leach on TV and worrying about the risks she was taking. She remembered the State Attorney’s investigator who had questioned her nearly four years ago, and how she had lied to him. God, what was she thinking of now? Flemm’s people would fly straight to Miami and interview the investigator-Stranahan was his name-and he’d tell them she’d never said a word about all this when it happened. Her credibility would be shot, and so would the five grand. Out the window.

Maggie realized she had to do something about Stranahan.

And also about Dr. Rudy Graveline.

Graveline was a dangerous creep. To rat on Rudy-well, he had warned her. And rewarded her, in a sense. A decent severance, glowing references for a new job. That was after he closed down the Durkos Center.

Lying there, Maggie got another idea. It was wild, but it just might work. The next morning she went back to Christina Marks and made up a vague story about how she had to go see Investigator Stranahan right away, otherwise no TV show. Reluctantly the producer gave her a plane ticket and six hundred in expenses.

Of course, Maggie had no intention of visiting Mick Stranahan. When she got back to Florida, she drove directly to the Whispering Palms Spa and Surgery Center in beautiful Bal Harbour. Dr. Rudy Graveline was very surprised to see her. He led her into a private office and closed the door.

“You look frightened,” the surgeon said.

“I am.”

“And a little bouncy in the bottom.”

“I eat when I’m frightened,” Maggie said, keeping her cool.

“So what is it?” Rudy asked.

“Vicky Barletta,” she said. “Somebody’s making a fuss.”

“Oh.” Rudy Graveline appeared calm. “Who?”

“One of the investigators. A man named Stranahan.”

“I don’t remember him,” Rudy said.

“Ido. He’s scary.”

“Did he speak to you?”

Maggie shook her head. “Worse than that,” she said. “Some TV people came to my place. They’re doing a special on missing persons.”

“Christ, don’t tell me.”

“Stranahan’s going to talk.”

Rudy said, “But what does he know?”

Maggie blinked. “I’m worried, Dr. Graveline. It’s going to break open all over again.”

“No way.”

Maggie’s notion was to get Stranahan out of the way. Whether Dr. Graveline bribed him, terrorized him, or worse was immaterial; Rudy could get to anybody. Those who stood in his way either got with the program or got run over. One time another surgeon had done a corrective rhinoplasty on one of Rudy’s botched-up patients, then badmouthed Rudy at a medical society cocktail party. Rudy got so furious that he paid two goons to trash the other doctor’s office, but not before stealing his medical files. Soon, the other doctor’s surgical patients received personal letters thanking them for being so understanding while he battled that terrible heroin addiction, which now seemed to be under control. Well, almost… By the end of the month, the other doctor had closed what was left of his practice and moved to British Columbia.

Maggie Gonzalez was counting on Rudy Graveline to overreact again; she wanted him worried about Stranahan to the exclusion of all others. By the time the doctor turned on the tube and discovered who was the real threat, Maggie would be long gone. And out of reach.

She went on: “They won’t leave me alone, these TV people. They said the case is going to a grand jury. They said Stranahan’s going to testify.” She fished in her purse for a tissue. “I thought you ought to know.”

Rudy Graveline thanked her for coming. He told her not to worry, everything was going to be fine. He suggested she get out of town for a few weeks, and she said that was probably a good idea. He asked if there was anywhere in particular she wanted to go, and she said New York. The doctor said New York is a swell place to visit around Christmas time, and he wrote out a personal check for twenty-five hundred dollars. He recommended that Maggie stay gone for at least a month, and said to call if she needed more money.

When, Maggie said. Not if she needed more money, but when.

Later that same afternoon, Dr. Rudy Graveline had locked his office door and made a telephone call to a seafood restaurant in New Jersey. He talked to a man who probably had curly eyebrows, aman who promised to send somebody down around the first of the year.

On the day that Tony Traviola, the first hit man, arrived to kill Mick Stranahan, Maggie Gonzalez was in a tenth-floor room at the Essex House hotel. The room had a view of Central Park, where Maggie was taking skating lessons at Donald Trump’s ice rink. She planned to lie low for a few more weeks, maybe stop in for a chat at 20/20, A little competition never hurt. Maybe Reynaldo Flemm would get worried enough to jack up his offer. Five grand sucked, it really did.

Dr. Rudy Graveline made an appointment with the second killer for January tenth at three in the afternoon. The man arrived at Whispering Palms a half-hour early and sat quietly in the waiting room, scaring the hell out of the other patients.