He pivoted to the left, then to the right, then back to the left. He sucked in his breath. He flexed. He locked his knuckles behind his head and tightened his stomach muscles, but his belly did not disappear.
In the mirror Reynaldo saw a body that was neither flabby nor lean: an average body for an average forty-year-old man. He saw a face that was neither dashing nor weak: small darting eyes balanced by a strong, heavy jaw, with a nose to match. He concluded that his instincts about preserving the mustache were sound: When Reynaldo covered his hairy upper lip with a bare finger, his nose assumed even greater prominence.
Of course, something radical had to be done. Confidence was the essence of Reynaldo’s camera presence, the core of his masculine appeal. If he were unhappy with himself or insecure about his appearance, it would show up on his face like a bad rash. The whole country would see it.
Standing alone at the mirror, Reynaldo hatched a plan that would solve his personal dilemma and wrap up the Barletta story simultaneously. It was a bold plan because it would not include Christina Marks. Reynaldo Flemm would serve as his own producer and would tell Christina nothing, just as she had told him nothing for two entire weeks after the shooting in Stiltsville.
The shooting. Still it galled him, the sour irony that she would be the one to get the glory-after all his years on the streets. To have his producer nearly assassinated while he dozed on the massage table at the Sonesta was the lowest moment in Reynaldo’s professional career. He had to atone.
In the past he had always counted on Christina to worry about the actual nuts-and-bolts journalism of the program. It was Christina who did the reporting, blocked out the interviews, arranged for the climactic confrontations-she even wrote the scripts. Reynaldo Flemm was hopelessly bored by detail, research, and the rigors of fact checking. He was an action guy, and he saved his energy for when the tape was rolling. Whereas Christina had filled three legal pads with notes, ideas, and questions about Victoria Barletta’s death, Reynaldo cared about one thing only: Who could they get on tape? Rudy Graveline was the big enchilada, and certainly Victoria’s still-grieving mother was a solid bet. Mick Stranahan had been another obvious choice-the embarrassed investigator, admitting four years later that he had overlooked the prime suspect, the doctor himself.
But the Stranahan move had backfired, and nearly made a news-industry martyr of Christina Marks. Fine, thought Reynaldo, go ahead and have your fling. Meanwhile Willie and I will be kicking some serious quack ass.
Every time Dr. Rudy Graveline got a phone call from New York or New Jersey, he assumed it was the mob. The mob had generously put him through Harvard Medical School, and in return Rudy occasionally extended his professional courtesies to mob guys, their friends or family. It was Rudy himself who had redone the face of Tony (The Eel) Traviola, the hit man who later washed up dead on Cape Florida beach with a marlin hole through his sternum. Fortunately for Rudy, most mob fugitives were squeamish about surgery, so he wound up doing mainly their wives, daughters, and mistresses. Noses, mostly, with the occasional face-lift.
That’s the kind of call Rudy expected when his secretary told him that New York was on the line.
“Yes?”
“Hello, DoctorGraveline.”
The voice did not belong to Curly Eyebrows or any of his cousins.
“Who is this?”
“Johnny LeTigre, remember me?”
“Of course.” The hinky male stripper. Rudy said, “What are you doing in New York?”
“I had a gig in the Village, but I’m on my way back to Miami.” This was Reynaldo Flemm’s idea of being fast on his feet. He said, “Look, I’ve been thinking about what you said that day at the clinic.”
Rudy Graveline could not remember exactly what he had said. “Yes?”
“About my nose and my abdomen.”
Then it came back to Rudy. “Your nose and abdomen, yes, I remember.”
“You were right,” Reynaldo went on. “We don’t always see ourselves the way other people do.”
Rudy was thinking: Get to the damn point.
“I’d like for you to do my nose,” Reynaldo declared.
“A ll right.”
“And my middle-what’s that operation called?”
“Suction-assisted lipectomy,” Rudy said.
“Yeah, that’s it. How much’d that set me back?”
Rudy recalled that this was a man who offered ten grand to have a mole removed from his buttocks.
“Fifteen thousand,” Rudy said.
“ Geez!” said the voice from New York.
“But that’s if I perform the procedures myself,” Rudy explained. “Keep in mind, I’ve got several very competent associates who could handle your case for, oh, half as much.”
The way that Rudy backed off on the word competent was no accident, but Reynaldo Flemm didn’t need a sell job. Quickly he said, “No, I definitely want you. Fifteen it is. But I need the work done this week.”
“Out of the question.” Rudy would be immersed in preparation for the Heather Chappell marathon.
“Next week at the latest,” Reynaldo pressed.
“Let me see what I can do. By the way, Mr. LeTigre, what is the status of your mole?”
Reynaldo had almost forgotten about the ruse that originally had gained his entry to Whispering Palms. Again he had to wing it. “You won’t believe this,” he said to Dr. Rudy Graveline, “but the damn thing fell off.”
“Are you certain?”
“Swear to God, one morning I‘m standing in the shower and I turn around and it’s gone. Gone! I found it lying there in the bed. Just fell off, like an acorn or something.”
“ Hmmm,” Rudy said. The guy was a flake, but who cared.
“I threw it away, is that okay?”
“The mole?”
“Y eah, I thought about saving it in the freezer, maybe having some tests run. But then I figured what the hell and I tossed it in the trash.”
“It was probably quite harmless,” Rudy Graveline said, dying to hang up.
“So I’ll call you when I get back to Miami.”
“Fine,” said the doctor. “Have a safe trip, Mr. LeTigre.”
Reynaldo Flemm was beaming when he put down the phone. This would be something. Maybe even better than getting shot on the air.
20
Maggie Gonzalez said: “Tell me about your hand.”
“Shut up,” Chemo grumbled. He was driving around Queens, trying to find the sonofabitch who had sold him the bad bullets.
“Please,” Maggie said. “I am a nurse.”
“Too bad you’re not a magician, because that’s what it’s gonna take to make my hand come back. A fish got it.”
At a stop light he rolled down the window and called to a group of black teenagers. He asked where he could locate a man named Donnie Blue, and the teenagers told Chemo to go blow himself. “Shit,” he said, stomping on the accelerator.
Maggie asked, “Was it a shark that did it?”
“Do I look like Jacques Cousteau? I don’t know what the hell it was-some big fish. The subject is closed.”
By now Maggie was reasonably confident that he wasn’t going to kill her. He would have done it already, most conveniently during the scuffle back at the Plaza. Instead he had grabbed her waist and hustled her down the fire exit, taking four steps at a time. Considering the mayhem on the ninth floor, it was a miracle they got out of the place without being stopped. The lobby was full of uniformed cops waiting for elevators, but nobody looked twice at the Fun Couple of the Year.
As Chemo drove, Maggie said, “What about your face?”
“Look who’s talking.”
“Really, what happened?”
Chemo said, “You always this shy with strangers? Jesus H. Christ.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “Professional curiosity, I guess. Besides, you promised to tell me.”
“Do the words none of your fucking business mean anything?”
From behind the bandages a chilly voice said, “You don’t have to be crude. Swearing doesn’t impress me.”
Chemo found the street corner where he had purchased the rusty Colt.38 and the dead bullets, but there was no sign of Donnie Blue. Every inquiry was met by open derision, and Chemo’s hopes for a refund began to fade.