The bartender delivered a fresh brandy.
“Where’d this come from?” Stoat asked.
“From the gentleman at the end of the bar.”
That was one thing about cigar joints, the customers were all “gentlemen” and “ladies.”
“Which one?” said Stoat.
“In the sunglasses.”
Young guy in a tropical-print shirt; parrots and palm fronds. Stoat couldn’t place the face. Deeply tanned, with long sun-bleached hair and a two-day stubble. Probably an off-duty deckhand from Bahia Mar or Pier 66, Stoat thought, somebody he’d met on a party yacht.
Stoat raised the brandy and mouthed a thank-you. The boat guy in the sunglasses acknowledged with a wry nod. Stoat turned his attention to an effervescent brunette who wasn’t smoking a seven-inch Cuban knockoff so much as fellating it. And while the woman would hardly be mistaken for a serious cigar connoisseur, her husky giggle indicated an enthusiasm to learn. Stoat was about to introduce himself when the bartender touched his sleeve and passed him a folded cocktail napkin. “The young gentleman in the sunglasses,” the bartender said, “he left this for you.”
Palmer Stoat opened the note:
Mr. Yee called from Panama City about your “vitamins. ” Also, Jorge from Ocean BMW—they’ll have another ragtop by Monday. This time be more careful where you park it!
Stoat’s hands were shaky when he put down the napkin. He scanned the bar: no sign of the boat guy. Stoat flipped open his cell phone, dialed the nonlisted number to his den, and punched in the numeric code of his answering machine. The first two messages, recorded on the same morning he’d flown to Tallahassee, were exactly as described in the boat guy’s note. Mr. Yee—Durgess’s elusive rhino-horn connection—had finally returned Stoat’s call. (Without Desie’s knowledge, Stoat intended to score some of that magic erection powder; he was scheming some wild recreation for his next business trip.) And the second phone message on the machine was indeed from the BMW salesman, a young go-getter named Jorge Hernandez.
Spooky, Stoat thought. Either the boat guy pirated my phone code or he’s been snooping inside my house. Stoat laid a twenty on the bar and raced home. Once inside the front door, he sidestepped the dog and hurried to his den. The room did not appear ransacked, and none of the personal items on his desk had been taken or moved out of place.
Then Palmer Stoat noticed the polished glass eyeballs, arranged in a pentagram star. The geometry was so flawless that it appealed in an occult way to Stoat’s obsession with neatness and order. (The inverse manifestation of this fetish was a compulsion to jettison all traces of potential untidiness—every scrap of trash, waste or rubbish—with no regard for the consequences. It’s what made Stoat the impenitent litterbug he was.)
So he did not disturb the mystery pentagram. Slowly he raised his face to look at the walls; at the stuffed lynx, the timber wolf, the mule deer, the bighorn ram, the elk, the marlin, the tarpon, the peacock bass. Stoat stared at all of them, but they weren’t staring back.
Twilly Spree had a habit of falling in love with any woman who was nice enough to sleep with him. One was named Mae, and she was ten years older. She had straight straw-blond hair, and caramel freckles from her cheeks to her ankles. Her family was wealthy, and she showed an endearing lack of interest in Twilly’s inheritance. He likely would have married her, except for the fact she was already married to a businessman in Singapore. Mae filed for divorce three days after meeting Twilly, but the lawyers said it would take years for her to get free, since her spouse avoided the United States and therefore could not be served with papers. Having nothing else to do, Twilly got on a plane and flew to Singapore and met briefly with Mac’s husband, who quickly arranged for Twilly to be beaten up, arrested in a brothel and deported. After Twilly was returned to Florida, he said in all innocence to Mae: “What’d you ever see in a creep like that?”
Mae and Twilly lived together five months. She said she wanted him to help her become a free spirit. Twilly had heard the same line from other girlfriends. Without him asking, Mae gave up her bridge league and her Wednesday pedicures and took up the mandolin and bromeliads. Mac’s father became concerned and flew down from Sag Harbor to check Twilly out. Mae’s father was a retired executive from the Ford Motor Company, and was almost single-handedly responsible for ruining the Mustang. To test Twilly’s character, he invited him to a skeet range and placed a 12-gauge Remington in his hands. Twilly knocked down everything they tossed up. Mae’s father said, Sure, but can you hunt? He took Twilly to a quail plantation in Alabama, and Twilly shot the first four birds they jumped. Then Twilly set the gun in the grass and said, That’s plenty. Mae’s father said, What the hell’s the matter with you, we’re just getting warmed up.