Christina saw that he wore a towel around his waist, and nothing else. A bright green pair of elastic cyclist shorts lay on the floor.
“Hawaii?” Christina said. “You told that bimbette we’d send her to Hawaii.”
Reynaldo said, “What choice did I have? You want to lose this story?”
“Yes,” Christina said, “this story is serious trouble, Ray. I want to pack up and go home.”
“And give it to ABC? Are you nuts?” He opened the door a little more. “We’re getting so close.”
Christina tried to bait him. “How about we fly up to Spartanburg tomorrow? Do the biker segment, like we planned?”
Reynaldo loved to do motorcycle gangs, since they almost always attacked him while the tape was rolling. The Spartanburg story had a sex-slavery angle as well, but Flemm still didn’t bite.
“That’ll wait,” he said.
Christina checked both ways to make sure no one was coming down the hall. “You heard about Chloe Simpkins?”
Reynaldo Flemm shook his head. “I haven’t seen the news,” he admitted, “in a couple of days.”
“Well, she’s dead,” Christina said. “Murdered.”
“Oh, God.”
“Out by the stilt houses.”
“No shit? What an opener.”
“Forget it, Ray, it’s a mess.” She shouldered her way into his room. He sat down on the bed, his knees pressed together under the towel. A tape measure was coiled in his left hand. “What’s that for?” Christina asked, pointing.
“Nothing,” Flemm said. He wasn’t about to tell her that he had been measuring his nose in the mirror. In fact, he had been taking the precise dimensions of all his facial features, to compare proportions.
He said, “When is Chloe’s funeral? Let’s get Willie and shoot the stand-up there.”
“Forget it.” She explained how the cops would probably be looking for them anyway, to ask about the five hundred dollars. In its worst light, somebody might say that they contributed to Chloe’s death, put her up to something dangerous.
“But we didn’t,” Reynaldo Flemm whined. “All we got from her was Stranahan’s location, and barely that. A house in the bay, she said. A house with a windmill. Easiest five bills that woman ever made.”
Christina said, “Like I said, it’s a big mess. It’s time to pull out. Tell Maggie to go fly her kite for Hugh Downs.”
“Let’s wait a couple more days.” He couldn’t stand the idea of giving up; he hadn’t gotten beat up once on this whole assignment.
“Wait for what?” Christina said testily.
“So I can think. I can’t think when I’m sick.”
She resisted the temptation to state the obvious. “What exactly is the matter?” she asked.
“Nothing I care to talk about,” Flemm said.
“Ah, one of those male-type problems.”
“Fuck you.”
As she was leaving, Christina asked when he would be coming out of his hotel room to face the real world. “When I’m good and ready,” Flemm replied defensively.
“Take your time, Ray. Tomorrow’s interview is off.”
“You canceled it—why?”
“It canceled itself. The man died.”
Flemm gasped. “Another murder!”
“No Ray, it wasn’t murder.” Christina waved good-bye. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“That’s okay,” he said, sounding like a man on the mend, “we can always fudge it.”
12
After Timmy Gavigan’s funeral, Garcia offered Mick Stranahan a ride back to the marina.
“I noticed you came by cab,” the detective said.
“Al, you got eyes like a hawk.”
“So where’s your car?”
Stranahan said, “I guess somebody stole it.”
It was a nice funeral, although Timmy Gavigan would have made fun of it. The chief stood up and said some things, and afterwards some cops young enough to be Timmy’s grandchildren shot off a twenty-one gun salute and accidently hit a power transformer, leaving half of Coconut Grove with no electricity. Stranahan had worn a pressed pair of jeans, a charcoal sports jacket, brown loafers and no socks. It was the best outfit he owned; he’d thrown out all his neckties when he moved to the stilt house. Stranahan caught himself sniffling a little toward the end of the service. He made a mental note to clip the obit from the newspaper and glue it in Timmy Gavigan’s scrapbook, the way he promised. Then he would mail the scrapbook up to Boston, where Timmy’s daughters lived.