In the growing crowd Evan Shook recognized his insurance agent, who was scampering around snapping photographs. Although the site was covered for fire loss, Evan Shook couldn’t recall the numerical terms of the policy, specifically the payoff limits. He was morbidly aware of how much of his own money he’d sunk into the property, and additionally what he owed on the mortgage and construction loan. Even with the insurance check he could lose his ass. All that remained would be a pile of charred rubble and a bare lot, which Evan Shook undoubtedly would be forced to surrender in the divorce.
The future was nauseating to contemplate. Evan Shook wished he were a clueless bystander, not the victim, so he could enjoy the blaze for the crackling spectacle it was. At some point Agent Weiderman asked if Evan Shook could think of a reason why Plover Chase would torch his house instead of Andrew Yancy’s.
“No idea,” said Evan Shook. “Only thing I ever did to the lady was rent a hotel room for her and her deadbeat boyfriend.”
“Strange. Wonder why she picked you.”
“There’s the one you should ask!” Evan Shook was pointing at Yancy, who’d just stepped out of his car. He looked genuinely astounded by the sight of the fire.
Evan Shook squirted past the much taller Agent Weiderman and rushed toward Yancy yelling, “This is all your motherfucking fault! Your lunatic girlfriend burned down my house!”
Yancy surprised his neighbor by pinning him somewhat forcefully to the hood of the Subaru. “In the first place,” Yancy said nose to nose, “she couldn’t possibly have done this because she’s in Miami. Secondly, she’s not a lunatic, but on her behalf I’ll accept your heartfelt apology.”
“Not the doctor girlfriend,” Evan Shook wheezed. “The fucked-up blonde. You know which one.”
Yancy righted Evan Shook and set him on the ground like a lawn jockey. Agent Weiderman wedged the men apart and led Yancy away to brief him on the improbable particulars of the crime. Evan Shook was so upset that when the phone vibrated in his pants, he pulled out the stun gun by mistake and nearly Tazed his own ear.
After successfully extracting his cell he heard the voice of Ford Lipscomb:
“Jayne told me what happened, Evan. It’s so terrible, truly awful.” He was calling from the Gulf Stream aboard the Misty Momma IV, which he’d chartered for the day.
“It’s heartbreaking for us,” he continued, “but poor you! Good God, man, you must be in shock.”
“Something like that,” said Evan Shook.
“Jayne’s completely devastated. I just spoke with her and she says the place is still burning—they couldn’t save anything.”
Evan Shook whimpered to himself. Three firefighters were chopping at a smoldering portico. “Is this about your deposit, Mr. Lipscomb?”
“No rush,” he said. “Tomorrow’s fine. Whenever the banks open.”
Twenty-seven
Claspers didn’t come back. The following day, the Striplings enlisted another pilot to fly them out of Andros—a local guy with a dubiously maintained twin Beech, but Nick said go for it. The new pilot advised them to be ready at noon.
Cell service on the island was working again, so Eve phoned British Air in Nassau and booked two business-class seats to London. Her next call was to a spinal surgeon on Devonshire Street whose patients had awarded him four and a half stars on the Internet, which was insufficiently stellar for Nick but Eve made an appointment anyway.
While she was repacking for a longer, possibly permanent stay, Egg showed up. He was haggard and limping; Nick chewed him a new one anyway. The goon offered no apology for disappearing the night of the storm. He said he’d had a medical problem, so he’d brought back the Jeep and walked to the trailer at Curly Tail Lane. He didn’t say what had been done with Yancy’s girlfriend, and the Striplings didn’t ask.
Eve told Egg to look at the Super Rollie, which had been malfunctioning since Nick crashed it into the wall. Egg said the automatic steering was fucked up. Nick started hollering and cussing again because how else was he supposed to get through Heathrow if he couldn’t walk. Eve said all airports offered wheelchairs.
“Not with motors!” her husband railed. “Not with a goddamn iPod dock!”
He was in ragged shape despite the painkillers. Eve told Egg to roll him outside while she finished filling the suitcases. In the hurricane’s aftermath Bannister Point was an obstacle course—branches and coconuts and two-by-fours all over the place. Egg in his hobbled condition did a poor job of dodging the rubble, and even the Rollie’s pneumatic suspension couldn’t spare Nick from the bumps. Between groans he rehashed for Egg the saga of his ambush.
Then he asked: “It wasn’t you who tried to kill me, was it?”
“No, mon. Why I do sum ting like dot?”
“You’d have to be brain-dead,” Stripling agreed. “But who could it be? I don’t have any enemies on this fuckin’ island. I don’t know anybody on this fuckin’ island.”
Egg reminded him about the vandal who’d peed on the backhoes at the construction site.
“I thought you took care of that sonofabitch,” Nick snapped.
“Yah, I hoyt ’im putty bod but he ain’t dead. I saw ’im utter night.”
Stripling wondered aloud if the stealth urinator was the same man he’d caught snooping outside the house, the old beach nigger he’d run off with the shotgun. Which, who’d be crazy enough to come back after somebody fired a twelve-gauge over your head?
Egg made no response. It wasn’t a daily occurrence that a sober white person used the n-word in his presence, but the boss man seemed clueless.
“You gotta find out who crippled me,” Nick went on. “That’s your number one job.”
Egg said he’d ask around town.
“Yeah, right. Be careful not to work up a goddamn sweat.” Nothing annoyed Stripling as much as lack of initiative. “Maybe your woman can help,” he needled Egg. “Do some of her voodoo shit and pull a name out of some dead chicken’s asshole.”
“Dot ain’t funny.”
“What’s with the limp?” Nick could see that the brute was hurting.
“Monkey fucked me up bod.”
“No shit?” It was Stripling’s first laugh in days.
Eve caught up with them on the road. When her husband saw she was out of breath, he asked what was wrong.
“You-know-who at Immigration just called,” she said. “Honey, it’s already in the computer—somebody in Miami flagged your passport!”
Stripling deflated in the scooter chair. “That fuckin’ Yancy got to the feds.”
Eve was jumpy and distraught. “So what now, Nicky? You-know-who said they won’t let you out of the country, and there’s nothing she can do. She said don’t go near the Nassau airport.”
“So screw Nassau. We’ll stay right here until I line up another way out. The Bahamians can’t arrest us till they get a warrant from the States, and that could take weeks. Months even. Meantime Mr. Ecclestone’ll keep an eye on Moxey’s for us, right? In case a chopper full of uniforms shows up.”
Egg sniffed noncommittally.
Eve said, “Arrest us? My passport’s clean. You’re the one with the fake.”
Sometimes she could be so thick it drove Nick nuts. “Yes, baby, ‘us’ as in Mr. and Mrs. Stripling, co-conspirators. You think Yancy left you out of the story? Like maybe he didn’t hear you telling me to go ahead and blow his brains out? Or maybe the Cuban babe forgot you were the one told Egg to put a gag in her mouth and get rid of her?”
“Yeah, but, Nicky—”
“Just shut up.”
Worse came to worse, he and Eve could escape by water. The new Contender would be arriving soon—the boat was a damn rocketship is what it was. He could run it straight down to Grand Turk.
Nick commanded Egg to take him back to the house. Eve walked on ahead. She didn’t speak again until they were alone and the new pilot had been dismissed and the bags were unpacked.