The bus driver who’d phoned in the bogus tip turned out to be a second cousin of Sergeant Mendez’s. One morning Yancy boarded the cousin’s bus and sat in the first row and opened a notebook. After thirty-three blocks the driver spilled the whole story. He said Sergeant Mendez was upset to have opened the newspaper and seen the item about the reward, and had punished him by pocketing all but a grand.
That night, after too many rum and Cokes, Yancy decided it would be fabulously clever to dial the Crime Stoppers number and report Sergeant Mendez for grand theft and embezzlement. Mendez wasn’t a big fan of irony, and in any case he’d been busy covering his tracks. Yancy was eventually accused by Internal Review of making up lies about a fellow officer and of trying to extort money from Crime Stoppers. Yancy’s position was weakened by the transcript of his phone call to the tip line, in which he suggested that a reward of fifty thousand dollars would be appropriate for the “courageous and upright deed” of exposing a crooked cop.
Yancy had delivered that line in a snarky and facetious tone, but the review board never got to hear the original tape, which had been mysteriously damaged by magnets while in Johnny Mendez’s possession. Suspended without pay, Yancy quickly ran out of money for his lawyer and had no choice but to resign from the department, in exchange for not being indicted. Sergeant Mendez denied all wrongdoing but was quietly reassigned to the K-9 division. Soon thereafter he was bitten in the groin by a Belgian shepherd trainee named Kong, and he required three operations, culminating in a scrotal graft from a Brahma steer.
Mendez retired from the police force on full disability at age forty-four. He lived on Venetia Avenue in Coral Gables. Parked in the driveway was a silver Lexus coupe undoubtedly purchased with Crime Stoppers proceeds. One solution to the severed-arm dilemma would be for Yancy to plant the limb in Mendez’s car, perhaps strung to the rosary that hung from the rearview mirror. Yancy discarded the idea—if by some chance Mendez overcame his panic and called the police, the arm would end up at the county morgue, where it inevitably would be traced back to Yancy based on information provided by the exquisite Dr. Campesino.
Over the years Yancy had conjured many irrational revenge fantasies about Johnny Mendez. For a time he considered seducing Mendez’s wife until he realized he’d be doing Mendez a huge favor. Mrs. Mendez was an unbearable harridan. Her features were a riot of futile surgeries, and she laughed like a mandrill on PCP. Yancy once bought her a margarita at the InterContinental, and for two solid weeks he’d slept with the lights on.
Now he was parked down the block from the Mendez marital nest. A fat Siamese was primping on the hood of the Lexus. Yancy assumed the animal belonged to Mendez, who seemed like a total cat person. The man’s inability to control K-9 candidates was further evidence.
Before Yancy could make up his mind about snatching the Siamese, his cell rang. It was the sheriff, probably seeking confirmation that the severed-arm transfer was complete. Yancy let the call go to voice mail.
On the drive back to the Keys he phoned Burton and gave him the bad news.
“They didn’t want the damn thing. Now what do I do?”
“Lose it somewhere,” Burton said. “That’s my advice.”
“Listen to you.”
“Seriously. Take 905 back through North Key Largo—there’s a dirt road about halfway that leads to an old cockfighting ring.”
Yancy wasn’t sold on the plan. “My luck, some birder will find it.”
“Not before the ants and vultures do.”
“What the hell’s wrong with Sonny, anyway? This is no big deal.”
Burton said the sheriff freaked when Channel 7 called. “Anyway, he already gave a press statement saying the case had been turned over to Miami-Dade.”
“I warned him, Rog.”
“Just ditch the fucking arm and come home.”
“Let me think about this.”
“I wish you wouldn’t.”
Yancy boiled the blue crabs and served them on hearts of palm, sprinkled with lemon pepper and Tabasco. Bonnie brought a bottle of Bordeaux. The fine vintage was wasted on Yancy but the gesture seemed rich with promise. Still she said: “I shouldn’t have come.”
They ate dinner on the back deck, where a world-class sunset was being ruined by the vulgar structure arising next door, spears of light slanting harshly through a checkerboard of window spaces and door frames.
“Where’s the good doctor?” Yancy asked.
“Lauderdale. He’s got a meeting tomorrow with our bankers.”
“It must be nice to have bankers. As a couple, I mean. ‘Here’s our Christmas tree. Here’s our minivan. And, oh, last but not least, here are our bankers.’ ”
“Shut up, Andrew,” Bonnie said. Her frosted hair was in pigtails, and a touch of pink gloss had been applied to her lips.
“He’s sixty, you’re forty. I remain at a loss.” Yancy threw up his hands.
“Don’t try to flatter me. I’m forty-two and you know it.”
She kicked off her flip-flops and crossed her smooth tanned legs, which stirred in Yancy’s chest a longing that almost incapacitated him. He and Bonnie hadn’t slept together since the night before the vacuum-cleaner incident.
Yancy said, “The sheriff would lift my suspension if you and Cliff agreed to drop the charges.”
“So that’s why you invited me tonight.”
“I ask you over three or four times a week, but you always say no.”
“Cliff won’t budge,” Bonnie said. “He wants to see you punished.”
Yancy pointed out that a trial would be humiliating for all parties. “Especially the alleged victim.”
“Alleged? There were three hundred witnesses, including yours truly.”
The assault had occurred at high noon at Mallory Square, which was packed with cruise-ship passengers. Fourteen amateur video clips of admissible clarity were in the hands of the prosecutor.
“Nobody calls you a whore and gets away with it,” Yancy said.
“Well, I was cheating on him, as you’ll recall. And I believe he used the term ‘tramp,’ not ‘whore.’ ” Bonnie balanced a plate of crabs on her lap. With a silver fork she probed for morsels amid the ceramic debris. “These are pretty darn tasty,” she said.
“Talk to him, darling. Please. I need my badge back.”
“Why didn’t you just punch him like a normal person? Why’d you have to go and sodomize him with a Hoover?”
Yancy shrugged. “You always said he had a bee up his ass. I was only trying to help.”
“Are you seeing anybody?” Bonnie had no talent for changing the subject. “I don’t think you’re ready yet. I think you’re still recovering.”
“It’s true, I’m a portrait of frailty. Tell me again why Cliffy isn’t divorcing you.”
“He adores me, Andrew.”
“Even after catching us together.”
“Yes,” said Bonnie impatiently.
“On his own boat.”
“We’ve been over this a hundred times.”
“In the tuna tower, for Christ’s sake! His own wife and another man, lewdly entwined.” Yancy inserted a crab claw in his mouth and bit down violently. “We must’ve looked like the fucking Wallendas up there.”
The boat was a seventy-two-foot Merritt with all the bells and whistles. Dr. Clifford Witt had recently retired from the practice of medicine, having invested in a chain of lucrative storefront pain clinics that dispensed Percocets and Vicodins by the bucket to a new wave of American redneck junkies.