Skinny Dip

"Relax, man," said Luis Cordova. "Far as I know, the old man is still alive and kicking in Tampico. I came out here to ask you about an abandoned boat."

Mick grabbed the rope and Joey clung monkey-style to his back. The ranger pulled them to the transom of the SeaCraft, so that they could rest on the dive platform. Joey was pleased to note that Luis Cordova was a gentleman, strenuously averting his gaze from her bare bottom.

"What boat?" Mick asked.

"Twenty-three-foot rental floated up on the rocks at Cape Florida last night, probably when that weather moved through. No dive gear, no tackle, nobody on board. Just a busted spotlight and some blood spots on the gunwale."

"Human?"

Luis Cordova spread his arms. "That's why I'm here."

"Who did the paperwork trace back to?"

"No paper, Mick," the ranger said. "Rental company says the boat was stolen from the marina before the storm, but I've got a hunch they owed somebody a favor."

"Twenty-three-footer, you said?"

"Blue Bimini top. Yamaha four-stroke."

Stranahan said, "Sorry, Luis. I didn't see any boats."

Joey spoke up. "We stayed indoors all night. The weather was horrible."

"That it was," agreed Luis Cordova, gallantly trying to keep his eyes fixed above her neck. "What's your name, ma'am?"

Joey, who had been covering her breasts with her free arm, let go just long enough to jab Mick in the rib cage. He took the cue.

"She's trying to keep a low profile," he confided to the ranger. "Family problems back home. You know what I mean."

"Did I mention there was a bullet hole in the windshield?"

"No, Luis, you didn't."

"Maybe you folks heard something-like a gunshot?"

"Not with all that hellacious thunder," Stranahan said.

Joey added, "We could barely hear ourselves talk."

Luis Cordova was nodding, but Joey sensed that he wasn't entirely sold.

He said, "Well, I figured it couldn't hurt to ask. Every time there's a bloodstained boat, I think of you first, Mick."

"I'm flattered, but these days I'm living a quiet, normal life."

"Yeah, I can see that," Luis Cordova said dryly. "Sorry to interrupt your afternoon. You want a lift back to the dock?"

"Naw, we'll swim." Stranahan pushed away from the stern, Joey riding his shoulders. "Good seeing you again, man," he called to the ranger.

"Same here, amigo."

"Are you looking for a body?" The question popped out of Joey's mouth before she realized it. Stranahan reached down and pinched her on the butt.

"A body?" Luis Cordova said.

Joey, thinking: How could I be such a ditz!

"What I meant," she said, "was that maybe somebody fell off that boat during the storm."

The ranger told her that nobody had been reported missing. "But don't forget it's Miami," he added. "Sometimes people disappear and nobody ever calls the cops. Anyway, it's a big ocean."

Tell me about it, Joey said to herself.

Swimming toward the house, she couldn't stop wondering about her husband. Had a suitcase crammed with half a million dollars been found on the abandoned boat, Luis Cordova likely would have mentioned it.

And if no suitcase or corpse had turned up, Joey reasoned, the odds were better than even that Chaz Perrone had survived and made off with the cash. It was almost unbearable to contemplate.

"You kept telling me not to worry," she shouted to Mick, who trailed her by ten yards in the water. "Now you happy? The worthless creep got away!"

"Why won't you trust me?" Stranahan called back.

"Because you're a man." Joey blew bubbles as she laughed.

"Fine," he said, "then you owe me two weeks' room and board!"

"Gotta catch me first."

She lowered her head and lengthened her strokes, knifing across the foamy crests of the waves. She could barely hear him shouting, "Hey, Joey, slow down! I love you!"

Geezer, she thought.

Happily she kicked toward the seawall where Strom paced, yapping and wagging his silly stump of a tail.

Red Hammernut licked at the corners of his lips. He'd been spitting and swearing so much that his tongue had gone to chalk. For about the sixth time he proclaimed, "That was the worst job a shootin' I ever saw from a man with two good eyes."

Earl Edward O'Toole kept his two good eyes on the levee road and said nothing. Evidently he was done apologizing.

Red was nearly apopletic about Chaz Perrone's escape. Tool had told him to quit worrying; said the guy was a hopeless pussy who'd never get out of the 'glades alive.

Only what if he does? Red thought.

"That boy can flat-out ruin me," he said somberly.

Tool chuckled. "He ain't gone ruin nobody, chief. He's gone run till he drops."

"You know sumpin' I don't?"

"Just that he's got plenty to be a-scared of," Tool said, "he ever comes out."

"And what if somebody else catches him first? Ever thought about that? Boy's lookin' at Death Row, he'd be tickled to rat out yours truly for a plea bargain."

Tool said, "Don't getcha self all worked up."

On the chance that Chaz might backtrack, they had waited a long time in the darkness on the levee-listening, watching for a shadow to move-until Red could no longer endure the bugs. They left Perrone's Hummer but took the keys, in the event that the sonofabitch was waiting in the weeds nearby. His maudlin suicide note lay prominently displayed on the dashboard-"in case he's polite enough to float up dead," Red had explained.

Now, riding next to Tool in the dusty pickup, Red couldn't stop stewing about all that had happened since the screwball biologist had gotten rid of his wife. It was unca

Normally Red Hammernut had no difficulty identifying the source of the problem and fixing it-a payoff, a beating or a plane ticket usually did the trick-but the Perrone situation was unlike any he'd ever come up against. All of Red's clout and political co

That back-stabbing lowlife.

Oh well, Red thought, at least I got my money back. The Samsonite was sliding noisily around the bed of the pickup as they jounced along the berm, heading out of the Loxahatchee preserve.

"Why you goin' so damn slow?" he griped at Tool. "Because I gotta keep the headlights off." "And why exactly do you gotta do that?"

" 'Cause they's park rangers and game wardens out here," Tool explained. "It ain't like back home, Red. This is a federal deal." "They can kiss my ass, them feds." "Plus your boy only left us 'bout a quarter tank of gas."

"Well, that figgers."

By choice Red Hammernut hadn't spent much time in what little remained of the original, untouched Everglades. He preferred the parts that had been drained, plowed or paved-such as the vegetable fields he patrolled by Cadillac or helicopter; flat and orderly rectangles, neatly delineated by ditches and shorn of unruly tree cover. Sometimes you might run across a feral pig or a stray coon, but wildlife was generally sparse on the farm.

Red was not afraid of the wilderness but he wasn't truly comfortable there, especially at night; especially with a shotgun that was empty.

"Those fuckin' feds," he said contemptuously, "and the state of Florida, too, they're go