Strip Tease Read online

  The dirt road fed straight downhill to the old steel span across the river. Fat raindrops began to slap against the Bronco, dimpling the chalky brown dust on the tinted windshield. Mindful of the strong wind, Johnny Skyler took it slowly. First gear. High beams. Both hands on the wheel. Approaching the bridge, he was careful to line up the truck’s wheels on the twin wooden planks, already slickened by the drizzle.

  Halfway across, Faron Skyler said, “Hold up.”

  His brother braked the truck to a stop, idling.

  “Out there,” Faron said.

  “On the river?”

  “Yeah. I seen a raft.”

  “No way,” said Johnny Skyler. He lowered the window. It was too dark to see anything on the Clark Fork.

  His brother said, “Wait for the lightning.”

  Up the valley it came, an ultraviolet burst that illuminated the river for a fraction of a second. In that blink of a moment, Johnny Skyler spotted the raft, twenty yards downstream from the bridge.

  “There—against the gravel bar,” Faron said.

  “Yeah, I saw it.”

  “Did you see the guy?”

  “No.” Johnny dimmed the headlights and squinted into the thickening night. The rain was coming down pretty good, soaking the sleeve of his left arm. Johnny spit hard, and the wind hurled it back in his face.

  Another rip of lightning, high and far away. A purple strobe brightened the valley, then it was dark again. But the scene was stamped in Johnny’s eyes: a red raft, oars askew, gliding sideways along a narrow gravel spit that briefly split the river in two. The man in the raft had his back to the bridge. He wore an olive vest and an updowner-style cap, either of which marked him definitively as an out-of-towner. His arms were straight at his sides. A fishing rod lay across his lap.

  “Crazy bastard,” said Faron Skyler.

  “Think he needs help?”

  “Hell, yes, he needs help. He needs his damn head examined. Crazy bastard trout fiend.”

  Johnny wasn’t sure what to do next, wasn’t sure what could be done. As the sizzling electrified maw of the storm boiled down on them, a steel bridge seemed not such a smart place to be. Thunder had begun to shake the struts.

  “He better get off the water,” Johnny Skyler remarked, staring at the place where the rafter had last appeared in a blast of light. Johnny briefly considered the logistics of a rescue, then pushed the notion out of his head. Here the banks of the Clark Fork were rocky and steep, and of course the Skyler brothers were full of beer. Disaster was the word that came to Johnny’s mind.

  He cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted against the wind: “Hey out there!”

  Faron said, “Forget it, man. He can’t hear you.”

  Johnny tried again: “Hey you!”

  Another flash, another glimpse of the raft, slipping farther downstream. The fisherman appeared not to have heard the shouts. The rod still lay across the man’s lap; the oar handles remained unattended—one pointing upriver and the other pointing the opposite way.

  “There’s one crazy bastard,” Faron reiterated.

  “Somethin’ ain’t right.”

  Lightning exploded nearby, and the brothers covered their heads. They heard the crash of a lodgepole pine, breaking in three pieces.

  “Time to go,” Faron said. “Would you agree?”

  Johnny Skyler had a bad feeling in his gut. He gazed down the Clark Fork, waiting for more lightning, for one more look at the lunatic trout fiend.

  “He’ll be all right, Johnny. The river slicks out for the next mile. A blind dog could make it to shore.”

  “I suppose.” Johnny had never seen a raft on this leg of the Clark Fork so late in the evening. The next takeout was twelve miles downriver. And who the hell goes fishing at night in a thunderstorm?

  “Would you please fucking step on it?” Faron Skyler was saying. “I don’t feel like gettin’ barbecued up here on this damn bridge. Besides, we’re missing the ballgame.”

  Ever since Denver had gotten a major-league franchise, Faron had become a baseball fanatic. His brother could take it or leave it. Football was something else. With the dish they could even pull in the Argonauts.

  “It’s nine-thirty,” Johnny Skyler noted. “Game’s almost over.”

  “Well, shit.”

  “Faron, I can’t see him no more.”

  “Maybe he turned the big bend.”

  “Not without rowing he didn’t. Not unless he’s got an Evinrude on that raft.”

  Faron said, “All he’s got to do is hang on, he’ll be OK. Now let’s go.”

  “Just a minute.” The rain came down in sheets, thrumming on the roof of the Bronco. Johnny finally rolled up the window but he didn’t take his eyes off the water.

  Sky crackled and the river became a pink mirror. This time the brothers had no difficulty spotting the small red raft, turning in the slow current as it floated downstream.

  “Oh my Lord,” Johnny Skyler said.

  Faron grabbed the dashboard with both hands. “Crazy goddamn bastard,” he said.

  The raft was empty. The man was gone.

  The Skylers hopped from the truck and ran for the river.

  The rain stopped two hours later. By then the Mineral County Sheriff’s Office had arrived with a motorboat and a bona fide scuba diver. The U.S. Forestry Service had promised to send four rangers and a helicopter, providing the weather didn’t act up again. A few residents turned out with rafts, rowboats and waterproof flashlights. The small riverside campground at Forest Grove served as headquarters for the search, which by local standards was heroic and exhaustive.

  By dawn, the raft had been found, wedged sideways under a piling of the 1-90 bridge, due west of Lozeau. The oars had been lost, and the raft contained no clues to the identity of the missing angler. An empty can of Colt .45 and a crumpled Snickers wrapper were the only evidence of a human passenger.

  The search for the body lasted eighteen hours, and proved fruitless. A reporter from the Missoulian arrived at Forest Grove and interviewed the Skyler brothers, who gave a richly embroidered account of what they’d seen on the river during the thunderstorm. Then they posed for pictures next to the Forestry Service helicopter. For the next several days the brothers faithfully watched C-Span on the satellite dish, but saw no mention of the Clark Fork rescue effort or their role in it. Fame embraced the Skylers in more modest ways: it was years before they had to pay for their own beers at the Lozeau Lounge.

  The children of Al García’s second wife called him Al, and that was fine. “Dad” was out of the question. The kids already had a dad, who was in prison because of Al García.

  That was how García had met his second wife—while arresting her husband for a drug murder. There were no hard feelings. Six months after the trial, she filed for divorce and married Al.

  From hash dealer to homicide detective, García had told her, you’re moving up in the world. Not by much, Donna had said. Quick on the draw, that was Donna. The children were all right, too: a boy and a girl, ages eight and nine, or nine and ten—García had trouble remembering. Overall he was very fond of the kids, and didn’t feel the least bit guilty about the circumstances.

  The first time the boy asked when his real dad was getting out of jail, Al García took the small hand and said: “Never, Andy.” When the boy asked why, García said: “Because your daddy shot a man between the eyes.” Andy appreciated the seriousness of the situation. His sister, Lynne, who was either a year older or a year younger, said maybe her dad had a good reason for shooting the other guy. A hundred thousand reasons, Al García had said, but none good enough. Just then Donna had come storming in from the kitchen and ordered them all to hush up, or else.

  When it came time for their first family vacation, Donna chose western Montana because she and the kids had never seen mountains. It sounded fine to Al García. He made a few calls and found out that Montana, for all its Wild West lore, was a safe and tranquil place; there were traffic intersections
in Dade County with higher murder rates.

  Donna arranged to rent a small log house on the Clark Fork River, about sixty miles outside of Missoula. García was no out-doorsman, but a cabin on the water seemed like a splendid idea. He promised Andy and Lynne he would help them catch a big rainbow trout and they could fry it up for supper. He promised Donna he wouldn’t talk about his job and wouldn’t call Miami, not even once, to check on his open cases.

  In fourteen years as a homicide detective, Sgt. Al García had personally investigated 1,092 murders. It was his curse to remember every one; the oddest details, too. “Rescue 911” playing on the television while they chalked the body. The counterfeit Rolex worn by the victim. The smell of burned biscuits in the kitchen. A photograph in the hall, the dead man whooping it up at Disney World. Al García hated the unfailing thoroughness of his memory; it made him an excellent detective but a deeply troubled person.

  Montana turned out to be better than he had expected; wide-open and friendly, with a few exceptions. A desk clerk at the motel in Missoula shot him a hard look when she saw the name on the credit card. Being a García from Miami wasn’t easy these days. Some people automatically assumed you had six kilos in the trunk and a loaded Uzi under the front seat.

  The next day, when they got to the log house on the river, Al García nearly forgot where he’d come from and what he did for a living. Standing on the wooden deck, he thought the river valley was the most peaceful place he’d ever seen. He drank the piney air, closed his eyes and easily lost himself in the silence of the surrounding woods. The first day, Andy spotted two deer. The second night, Lynne found a small bleached skull from a dead skunk; she wanted to take it home to Florida, but Donna said no, give it a decent burial in the garden.

  On the third day, Andy came running up the bank so fast that García thought a bear was chasing him. The boy was shouting: “Al, you better come! You better come fast!”

  García told him to slow down, take a breather. Andy grabbed his arm and tugged hard. “Come on. Down to the river.”

  “What is it, son?”

  “A floater!” Andy exclaimed.

  García felt a sour knotting in his gut. Living with a homicide cop had given Donna’s youngsters a gruesome vocabulary. They knew all about trunk jobs, John Does, Juan Does, gunshots, accidentals and naturals.

  And floaters, of course.

  García followed the boy down the hill to the river’s edge. The detective waded into the water, skating his tennis shoes across the gravel bottom. The body floated face-up, tangled in a shallow brushpile. The face was violet and bloated, the eyes springing out in a cartoonish way.

  “Is he dead, Al?” Andy stood on the bank; he folded his small arms across his chest, looking very serious. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Extremely,” García said.

  “I told you!”

  The dead man wore heavy rubber trousers and an olive vest with many small pockets. García unzipped the one over the left breast, and removed a wallet. The wallet held three one-hundred dollar bills, a half dozen traveler’s checks and a laminated driver’s license with familiar colors.

  García said, “Goddammit to hell.”

  The boy shouted, “Who is he, Al?”

  “Go tell your mother to call the police.”

  The boy ran off. The dead man’s face stared up googly-eyed from the hissing river.

  “You’re a prick,” Al García said to the corpse. “You’re a prick for spoiling my vacation.”

  He looked again at the dead man’s license and cursed acidly. The sonofabitch was from Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

  Why? García wondered. Why won’t they let me be?

  10

  Shad was intrigued by the psychiatrist’s eyebrows, lush and multi-hued.

  “Those real?” he asked.

  “Please,” said the doctor, recoiling. “No touching.”

  It was Shad’s first visit to a shrink—Mordecai’s man. His name was Vibbs, Palm Beach sharpie and plaintiff’s best friend. A laminated diploma from Yale University hung on one wall. Shad was more interested in a jar of hard candy on the doctor’s desk. He filled his cheeks and began to chew.

  “Tell me about the roach,” Dr. Vibbs said.

  “Big fucker.” The words crackled out of Shad’s mouth.

  “Did it upset you?”

  Shad’s laugh exposed a wet maw of peppermints and butterscotch. “Upset? Hell, I’m traumatized. Write that down.”

  Dr. Vibbs was rattled by Shad’s hairless, hulking presence. Most of Mordecai’s referrals had nothing wrong with them; this one was different. When the hairless man bent to pick up a candy wrapper, the psychiatrist noticed a “G” carved into his scalp. He assumed that Shad had done it to himself.

  Vibbs probed with caution. “I need to ask some personal questions—it’s standard for these evaluations.”

  “Evaluate away,” said Shad. “I told you I was fucking traumatized. What more do you want?”

  “Are you having bad dreams?”

  “Nope.”

  “Not even about the roach? Try to remember.”

  “Ah,” Shad said. He was catching on. “Now that you mention it, I been havin’ fearsome nightmares.”

  “That’s understandable,” said the psychiatrist, scribbling up a storm. “Tell me about them.”

  “I get chased down Sunrise Boulevard by a giant cockroach with yogurt dripping from its eyeball sockets.”

  “I see,” the psychiatrist said. He scarcely glanced up from his notes. Shad took this as a signal to try harder.

  “Yeah, so this monster roach is chasin’ me back and forth, drooling and growling like a thousand tigers. The fucker’s as big as a tanker truck. Plus it’s got a dead baby in its teeth.”

  “I see.”

  “And when it gets real close … it turns into my mom!”

  “Good,” said Dr. Vibbs, without emotion. “So tell me more about your mother.”

  “Eh?”

  “Please. I’m interested in your relationship with your mother.”

  “You are?” An odd light flickered in Shad’s eyes. He dragged Dr. Vibbs out of the chair and put him face down on the floor. Then he took a handsome pair of wood-handled scissors and sliced the psychiatrist’s clothing from neck to buttocks. On the desk Shad found a rotating tray of rubber stamps. He selected a red one that said NO INSURANCE, and stamped it all over Dr. Vibbs’s naked torso. It was quite some time before Shad ran out of ink. Meanwhile, sad puppy noises rose from the doctor’s throat.

  “What a phony,” Shad complained. He tossed the stamp on the desk and grabbed a handful of hard candies, for the road.

  “You’re disturbed!” Vibbs cried.

  “I ain’t disturbed. The word is fucking traumatized. You should’ve wrote it down.”

  “Go away,” said Vibbs.

  Shad stood over him. “Not until you spell it.”

  “What?”

  “Come on, wigpicker. Trau-ma-tized. I’ll even spot you the goddamn T.”

  In a shaky but defiant voice, the psychiatrist spelled the word perfectly.

  “Proud of you,” Shad said, stepping across him. “And forget that business about my mom. I don’t know what got into me.”

  To quell employee unrest at the Eager Beaver, it was Orly’s custom to pound on the desk and invoke the Mafia. He would brag of lifelong bonds with Angelo Bruno, Nicky Scarfo, Fat Tony Salerno and other famous gangsters whose names he’d clipped from crime magazines. He would talk of blood oaths, and the certain death awaiting those who violated them. Orly’s performance usually had the desired effect of stanching demands for pay raises, health benefits or the slightest improvement in work conditions at the club. In truth, he had no connections whatsoever to organized crime. The mob wasn’t interested in the Eager Beaver because strip joints got too much heat from police. Orly heard this first-hand from the only genuine Mafioso he’d ever met, a loan shark on trial for breaking the thumbs of a delinquent Chrysler salesman.
Orly had gone to court as personal research, to learn how the mob actually operated. During a recess he approached the loan shark and struck up a friendly conversation. When Orly asked if the loan shark knew anyone in the market for a nude dance club, the man frowned and said no fucking way, there’s too much heat. Now video arcades, the mob guy said, that’s a whole other deal. A video arcade would be very attractive, investment-wise. Orly was disappointed, but out of politeness he hung around to hear the verdict. Not guilty, it turned out. The jurors (among them, several recent purchasers of Chrysler products) were visibly unmoved by the victim’s tale of woe. Orly noticed a few of them smiling as the salesman described his hands being placed in the doorjamb of a steel-blue New Yorker sedan. All that muscle over a six-hundred-dollar debt! Orly was impressed. He clung to his dream that someday the Mafia would make him a partner.

  For now, though, the illusion would have to suffice. Orly faced a roomful of disgruntled dancers. As usual, Erin spoke for the group.

  “Item Number One,” she began. “The air conditioning.”

  Orly scowled. “So what about it?”

  “It’s way too cold,” said Erin.

  Urbana Sprawl spoke up. “Thermostat’s on sixty-eight degrees. That’s awful cool.”

  Orly turned to Shad, who stood expressionless in a corner. “You chilly?”

  “No,” said Shad, “but I don’t feel much in the way of hot and cold.”

  “Well,” Orly said, “I’m quite comfy at sixty-eight.”

  Because you’re a reptile, Erin thought. She said, “You’re wearing a cardigan, Mr. Orly. We, on the other hand, are freezing our bare butts.”

  Orly rubbed his palms together. “The cold makes you look sexier. Makes those nipples good and hard. Customers go for that, am I right?”