Another self-aggrandizing lie. Reagan had never spoken so much as a word to him. “Wanna hear it?”
Estella was practically straddling Palmer Stoat now, the bar stool listing precariously. “Tell me!” She nudged him purposefully with a breast. “Come on, you, tell me!”
But as Stoat struggled to remember the punch line to the joke about the horny one-eyed parrot, the bartender (who’d told Stoat the joke in the first place) touched his sleeve and said: “Sorry to bother you, but this just came by courier.”
Which highly annoyed Stoat, as Estella’s hand was now tugging on a part of him that craved tugging. Stoat was ready to wave off the bartender when he noticed what the man was holding: a cigar box. Even through the smoke Stoat recognized the distinctively ornate label, the official seal of the Republic of Cuba, and of course could not suppress his excitement.
Pulling away from the call girl, even as her fingers worked on his zipper. Reaching across the bar for the cigar box, assuming it to be a gift from a grateful client. Thinking of how many years he’d been trying to get a line on this particular blend. Already imagining the best place to display the box in his bookcase, among his other treasures.
Stoat taking the box with both hands and noticing first that the seal had been broken, and, second, that the box seemed too light.
Setting it on the polished oak bar and opening the lid—Estella watching, her chin on his shoulder—to find no cigars inside the box, not a single one.
Only the paw of an animal; a black short-haired dog paw, severed neatly at the bone.
“What’s that?” The prostitute craned to see.
Stoat was dumbstruck with disgust, the lunatic once again violating his sanctum.
“Lemme look,” Estella said, releasing the tab on Stoat’s zipper and extending the same inquisitive hand—she was a nimble one, Stoat had to admit—for the cigar box.
“Don’t,” he warned, too late.
Now she had the ghastly curio out of the box, turning it first one way and then another; tracing her painted fingernails around the velvety paw pads, playfully flicking at the sharp dewclaw.
“Palmer, is this some sorta joke? This can’t be real.”
Stoat clutched lugubriously at his drink. “I gotta go.”
“Wow.” Now Estella the prostitute was stroking the severed paw gently, as if it were alive. “Sure looks real,” she remarked.
“Put it back, please. Back in the box.”
“Holy Christ, Palmer!” In newfound revulsion she dropped the furry thing. It fell with a sploosh, stump-first into his brandy; lifeless doggy toenails hooking on the rim of the glass. Palmer Stoat snatched up the Cuban cigar box and made for the door.
Desie asked to see where he had buried the dead Labrador.
Twilly said, “You don’t believe me.”
“I believe you.”
“No, you don’t.”
So they drove all the way back to Lauderdale. McGuinn rode in the bed of the pickup. The rush of seventy-mile-per-hour wind on the interstate made his ears stand out like bat wings. Desie said she wished she had a camera. Every time she spun around to look at the dog, Twilly got an amber glimpse of her neckline in the sodium streetlights. He liked the fact she wanted to see for herself about the other dog. Of course she would—after all, she was married to a compulsive bullshit artist. Why would she believe anything said to her by any man?
The beach behind the Yankee Clipper was nearly deserted, cast in a pinkish all-night dusk by the lights of the old hotel. The breeze had stiffened, and with it the splash and hiss of the surf. Twilly led Desie to the grave.
He said, “I suppose you want me to dig it up.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
McGuinn sniffed intently at the fresh-turned sand.
“Ten bucks says he pees on it,” Twilly said.
McGuinn cocked his head, as if he understood, and began circling a target zone.
“No!” Desie snatched up the leash and tugged the dog away from the grave. “This is so sad,” she said.
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it creep you out? Cutting off the ear and the paw—”
“It’s getting late, Mrs. Stoat. Time for you to go home.”