“Who?”
“A man that could cause me some trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“Could shut down Whispering Palms. Take away my medical license. And that’s for starters.”
Chemo ran a bloodless tongue across his lips. “Who is this man?”
“His name is Mick Stranahan.”
“Where do I find him?”
“I’m not sure,” Rudy said. “He’s here in Miami somewhere.”
Chemo said that wasn’t much of a lead. “I figure a murder is worth at least five grand,” he said.
“Come on, he’s not a cop or anything. He’s just a regular guy. Three thousand, tops.” Rudy was a bear when it got down to money.
Chemo folded his huge bony hands. “Twenty treatments, that’s my final offer.”
Rudy worked it out in his head. “That’s forty-two hundred dollars!”
“Right.”
“You sure drive a hard bargain,” Rudy said.
Chemo grinned triumphantly. “So when can you start on my face?”
“Soon as this chore is done.”
Chemo stood up. “I suppose you’ll want proof.”
Rudy Graveline hadn’t really thought about it. He said, “A newspaper clipping would do.”
“Sure you don’t want me to bring you something?”
“Like what?”
“A finger,” Chemo said, “maybe one of his nuts.”
“That won’t be necessary,” said Dr. Graveline, “really it won’t.”
6
Stranahan got Maggie Orestes Gonzalez’s home address from a friend of his who worked for the state nursing board in Jacksonville. Although Maggie’s license was paid up to date, no current place of employment was listed on the file.
The address was a duplex apartment in a quiet old neighborhood off Coral Way, in the Little Havana section of Miami. There was a chain-link fence around a sparse brown yard, a ceramic statue of Santa Barbara in the flower bed, and the customary burglar bars on every window. Stranahan propped open the screen door and knocked three times on the heavy pine frame. He wasn’t surprised that no one was home.
To break into Maggie Gonzalez’s apartment, Stranahan used a three-inch stainless-steel lockpick that he had confiscated from the mouth of an infamous condominium burglar named Wet Willie Jeeter. Wet Willie got his nickname because he only worked on rainy days; on sunny days he was a golf caddy at the Doral Country Club. When they went through Wet Willie’s place after the arrest, the cops found seventeen personally autographed photos of Jack Nicklaus, going back to the 1967 Masters. What the cops did not find was any of Wet Willie’s burglar tools, due to the fact that Wet Willie kept them well hidden beneath his tongue.
Stranahan found them when he visited Wet Willie in the Dade County Jail, two weeks before the trial. The purpose of the visit was to make Wet Willie realize the wisdom of pleading guilty and saving the taxpayers the expense of trial. Unspoken was the fact that the State Attorney’s Office had a miserably weak case and was desperate for a deal. Wet Willie told Stranahan thanks anyway, but he’d just as soon take his chances with a jury. Stranahan said fine and offered Wet Willie a stick of Dentyne, which the burglar popped into his mouth without thinking. The chewing dislodged the steel lockpicks, which immediately stuck fast in the Dentyne; the whole mess eventually lodged itself in Wet Willie’s throat. For a few hectic minutes Stranahan thought he might have to perform an amateur tracheotomy, but miraculously the burglar coughed up the tiny tools and also a complete confession. Stranahan kept one of Wet Willie’s lockpicks as a souvenir.
The lock on Maggie’s door was a breeze.
Stranahan slipped inside and noticed how neat the place looked. Someone, probably a neighbor or a relative, had carefully stacked the unopened mail on a table near the front door. On the kitchen counter was a Princess-model telephone attached to an answering machine. Stranahan pressed the Rewind button, then Play, and listened to Maggie’s voice say: “Hi, I’m not home right now so you’re listening to another one of those dumb answering machines. Please leave a brief message and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Bye now!”
Stranahan played the rest of the tape, which was blank. Either Maggie Gonzalez wasn’t getting any calls, or someone was taking them for her, or she was phoning in for her own messages with one of those remote pocket beepers. Whatever the circumstances, it was a sign that she probably wasn’t all that dead.