SKIN TIGHT by Carl Hiaasen

“You sure about the last name?” Stranahan asked.

“Sorry—Gonzalez is her married name. Back then it was Orestes.”

“So let’s have the rest.”

“About a month ago, in New York, she came to us.”

“To me,” croaked Reynaldo Flemm.

“Shut up,” said Stranahan.

Christina Marks went on: “She said she had some important information about the Barletta case. She indicated she was willing to talk on camera.”

“To me,” Flemm said, before Stranahan tweaked him once more with the tarpon gaff.

“But first,” Christina Marks said, “she said she had to speak to you, Mr. Stranahan.” ‘“About what?”

“All she said was that she needed to talk to you first, because you could do something about it. And don’t ask me about what, because I don’t know. We gave her six hundred bucks, put her on a plane to Florida, and never saw her again. She was supposed to be back two weeks ago last Monday.” Christina Marks put her hands in her pockets. “That’s all there is. We came down here to look for Maggie Gonzalez, and you’re the best lead we had.”

Stranahan removed the gaff from Reynaldo Flemm’s crotch and tossed it into the bow of his skiff. Almost instantly, Flemm leapt from the stern and bolted for the cabin. “Get tape of that fucker,” he cried at the cameraman, “so we can prosecute his fat ass!”

“Ray, knock it off,” said Christina Marks. Stranahan liked the way she talked down to the big star.

“Tell him,” he said, “that if he points that goddamn camera at me again, he’ll be auditioning for the Elephant Man on Broadway. That’s how seriously I’ll mess up his face.”

“Ray,” she said, “did you hear that?”

“Roll tape! Roll tape!” Flemm was all over the cameraman.

Wearily, Stranahan got back into his skiff and said, “Miss Marks, the interview is over.”

Now it was her turn to be angry. She hopped up on the transom, tennis shoes squeaking on the teak. “Wait a minute, that’s it?”

Stranahan looked up from his little boat. “I haven’t seen Maggie Gonzalez since the day after the Barletta girl disappeared. That’s the truth. I don’t know whether she took your money and went south or what, but I haven’t heard from her.”

“He’s lying,” sneered Reynaldo Flemm, and he stormed into the cabin to sulk. A gust of wind had made a comical nest of his hair.

Stranahan hand-cranked the outboard and slipped it into gear.

“I’m at the Sonesta,” Christina Marks said to him, “if Maggie Gonzalez should call.”

Not likely, Stranahan thought. Not very likely at all.

“How the hell did you find me, anyway?” he called out to the young TV producer.

“Your ex-wife,” Christina Marks called back from the cabin cruiser.

“Which one?”

“Number four.”

That would be Chloe, Stranahan thought. Naturally.

“How much did it cost you?” he shouted.

Sheepishly, Christina Marks held up five fingers.

“You got off light,” Mick Stranahan said, and turned the skiff homeward.

5

Christina Marks was in bed, reading an old New Yorker, when somebody rapped on the door of the hotel room. She was hoping it might be Mick Stranahan, but it wasn’t. “Hello, Ray.”

As Reynaldo Flemm breezed in, he patted her on the rump.

“Cute,” Christina said, closing the door. “I was getting ready to turn in.”

“I brought some wine.”

“No, thanks.”

Reynaldo Flemm turned on the television and made himself at home. He was wearing another pair of khaki Banana Republic trousers and a baggy denim shirt. He smelled like a bucket of Brut. In a single motion he scissored his legs and propped his white high-top Air Jordans on the coffee table.

Christina Marks tightened the sash on her bathrobe and sat down at the other end of the sofa. “I’m tired, Ray,” she said.

He acted like he didn’t hear it. “This Stranahan guy, he’s the key to it,” Flemm said. “I think we should follow him tomorrow.”

“Oh, please.”

“Rent a van. A van with smoked window panels. We set the camera on a tripod in back. I’ll be driving, so Willie gets the angle over my … let’s see, it’d be my right shoulder. Great shot, through the windshield as we follow this big prick—”