SKIN TIGHT by Carl Hiaasen

Making the most of the moment, Garcia took his notebook from his jacket and read aloud: “White male, early thirties, approximately seven feet tall, two hundred fifty pounds, freckled, balding—”

“Holy shit.”

“—appeared to be wearing fright makeup, or possibly some type of Halloween mask. The waitresses couldn’t agree on what, but they all said basically the same thing about the face. Said it looked like somebody dragged it across a cheese grater.”

Mick Stranahan couldn’t recall putting anybody in jail who matched that remarkable description. He asked Garcia if he had any leads.

“We’re busy calling the circuses to see who’s escaped lately,” the detective said sarcastically. “I swear, I don’t know why I tell you anything.”

He pushed the button to unlock the doors. “We’ll be in touch,” he said to Stranahan, waving him out of the police car. “And stay away from the damn doctor, okay?”

“You bet,” said Mick Stranahan. All he could think of was: Seven feet tall. Poor Chloe.

Dr. Rudy Graveline now accepted the possibility that his world was imploding, and that he must prepare for the worst. Bitterly he thought of all the crises he had survived, all the professional setbacks, the lawsuits, the peer review hearings, the hospital expulsions, the hasty relocations from one jurisdiction to another. There was the time he augmented the breasts of a two-hundred-pound woman who had wanted a reduction instead; the time he nearly liposuctioned a man’s gall bladder right out of his abdomen; the time he mistakenly severed a construction worker’s left ear while removing a dime-sized cyst—Rudy Graveline had survived all these. He believed he’d found safe haven in South Florida; having figured out the system, and how to beat it, he was sure he had it made. And suddenly a botched nose job had come back to spoil it all. It didn’t seem fair.

Rudy sat at his desk and leafed dispiritedly through the most recent bank statements. The Whispering Palms surgical complex was raking in money, but the overhead was high and the mortgage was a killer. Rudy had not been able to siphon off nearly as much as he had hoped. Once his secret plan had been to retire in four years with six million put away; it now seemed likely that he would be forced to get out much sooner, and with much less. Having already been banned from practicing medicine in California and New York—by far the most lucrative markets for a plastic surgeon—Rudy Graveline’s thoughts now turned to the cosmopolitan cities of South America, a new frontier of vanity, sun-baked and ripe with wrinkles; a place where a Harvard medical degree still counted for something. Riffling through his CDs, he wondered if it was too late to weasel out of the Old Cypress Towers project: get liquid and get gone.

He was studying a map of Brazil when Heather Chappell, the famous actress, came into the office. She wore the pink terry-cloth robe and bath slippers that Whispering Palms provided to all its VIP guests. Heather’s lipstick was candy apple, her skin had a caramel tan, and her frosted blond hair was thick and freshly brushed. She was a perfectly beautiful thirty-year-old woman who, for reasons unfathomable, despised her own body. A dream patient, as far as Rudy Graveline was concerned.

She sat in a low-backed leather chair and said, “I’ve had it with the spa. Let’s talk about my operation.”

Rudy said, “I wanted you to unwind for a couple of days, that’s all.”

“It’s been a couple days.”

“But aren’t you more relaxed?”

“Not really,” Heather said. “Your masseur, what’s his name—”

“Niles?”

“Yeah, Niles. He tried to cornhole me yesterday. Aside from that, I’ve been bored to tears.”

Rudy smiled with practiced politeness. “But you’ve had a chance to think about the different procedures.”

“I didn’t need to think about anything, Dr. Graveline. I was ready the first night off the plane. Have you been dodging me?”

“Of course not.”

“I heard your car got blown up.” She said it in a schoolgirl’s voice, like it was gossip she’d picked up in study hall.

Rudy tried to neutralize his inflection. “There was an accident,” he said. “Very minor.”

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