"A real wiseass," Burt said. "This friend of yours, he seems to be enjoying all this, doesn't he?"
"Sure looks that way," Keyes grumbled, trying to remember where the hell he'd left his passport.
They found Skip Wiley snoring beneath a baby-blue umbrella on Cable Beach. He wore ragged denim cutoffs and no shirt. A pornographic novel titled Crack of Dawnwas open across his lap. A half-empty bottle of Myers's rum perspired in a plastic bucket of ice, protected by the shade of Wiley's torso.
Brian Keyes removed the rum and dumped the ice cubes over Wiley's naked chest.
"Christ on a bike!" Wiley sat up like a bolt.
"Hello, Skip."
"You're one cruel fucker." Wiley reached for a towel. "Introduce me to your friends."
"This is Burt and this is James."
"Love the hats, guys. Sorry I missed the sale." Wiley shook hands with the Shriners. "Pull up some beach and have a seat. Terrific view, just like on Love Boat,huh?"
Burt and James silently agreed; they had never seen the ocean so glassy, so crystalline blue. It truly was a tropical paradise. The cabdriver had said that one of the James Bond movies had been filmed in this cove, and from then on the Shriners had felt they were on a great adventure. They didn't know what to make of this fellow under the beach umbrella, but they'd already agreed to let Brian Keyes do the talking.
"Where's Jenna?" Keyes asked. He liked to start with the easy questions.
"House hunting," Wiley said. "I can't stand this goddamn hotel. Full of American rubes and geeks pissing away Junior's college fund at the blackjack tables. It's pathetic." Wiley poured himself an iceless rum and cranberry juice. "How're the ribs, Brian?"
"Getting better." Keyes was scouting the shoreline.
"Relax, he's not here."
"Who?"
"Viceroy, that's who! So you can unpucker your asshole. I sent him on some errands because I wanted privacy. Now you show up with these burly bookends."
"They're friends of Theodore Bellamy."
"I see," Wiley said, scratching his head. "So we're here for vengeance, are we? Brian, I hope you explained to your companions that they are now on foreign soil and treading in a country that takes a dim view of kidnapping and murder. A country that respects the rights of all foreign nationals and adheres to the strictest legal tests for extradition."
"Meaning what?" Burt demanded.
"Meaning you and your bucket-headed partner are on your way to Fox Hill Prison if you fuck with me," Skip Wiley said, waving his rum glass. "I'm a guest here, an honored guest."
This problem had occurred to Brian Keyes as soon as he set foot in Nassau. He had no idea how one would go about kidnapping Skip Wiley and hauling him back to Florida. By boat? Barge? Private helicopter? And if one succeeded, then what? No charges had been filed against Wiley in the States because no one, besides Keyes and possibly Cab Mulcahy, knew the true identity of El Fuego.
"Did you kill Dr. Courtney?" Keyes asked.
"Ho-ho-ho."
"Why'd you do it?"
"Please," Wiley said, raising a hand, "we've been through all this."
"You need help, Skip."
"I've got all the help I need, Ace. Look, you're lucky I'm still talking to you. I gave you everything you'd need to turn the cops loose like a bunch of bloodhounds."
"I lost the briefcase."
"Swell, just swell." Wiley laughed sourly. "Some fucking private eye you turned out to be. I will admit one thing: that was a great line you fed Bloodworth about Slavic crazoids in fright wigs. Just the right nuance of xenophobia."
"I was hoping nobody'd believe it."
Wiley's cavernous grin disappeared and his lively brown eyes hardened. "Tell your friends to take a stroll," he said under his breath. "I want to talk to you."
Keyes motioned to the Shriners and they trudged down the beach, glancing over their shoulders every few steps.
"So talk," Keyes said to Wiley.
"You think I'm just a deranged egomaniac?"
"Oh no, Skip, you're completely normal. Every newspaper has at least one or two reporters who moonlight as mass murderers. It's a well-known occupational hazard."
Wiley sniffed scornfully. "Let me assure you, my young friend, that I'm not crazy. I know what I'm doing, and I know what I've done. You're fond of the word murderer—fine. Call me whatever you want. Zealotry can be grueling, that's for sure; don't think it doesn't take a toll on the psyche—or the conscience. But just for the record, it's not my name that's important, it's the group's. Recognition is damned essential to morale, Brian, and morale is vital to the cause. These fellas deserve some ink."
"But a revolution? Skip, really."
"Revolution?—perhaps you're right; perhaps that's hyperbole. But Jesus and Viceroy are fond of the imagery, so I indulge them." Wiley tossed his rum glass into the sand. "So there'll be no revolution, in the classic sense, but chaos? You bet. Shame. Panic. Flight. Economic disaster."
"Pretty ambitious," Keyes said.
"It's the least I can do," Wiley said. "Brian, what is Florida anyway? An immense sunny toilet where millions of tourists flush their money and save the moment on Kodak film. The recipe for redemption is simple: scare away the tourists and pretty soon you scare off the developers. No more developers, no more bankers. No more bankers, no more lawyers. No more lawyers, no more dope smugglers. The whole motherfucking economy implodes! Now, tell me I'm crazy."
Brian Keyes knew better than to do that.
Wiley's long hair glinted gold in the Bahamian sun. He wore a look of lionly confidence. "So the question," he went on, "is how to scare away the tourists."
"Murder a few," Keyes said.
"For starters."
"Skip, there's got to be another way."
"No!" Wiley shot to his feet, uprooting the beach umbrella with his head. "There ... is ... no ... other ... way! Think about it, you mullusk-brained moron! What gets headlines? Murder, mayhem, and madness—the cardinal M's of the newsroom. That's what terrifies the travel agents of the world. That's what rates congressional hearings and crime commissions. And that's what frightens off bozo Shriner conventions. It's a damn shame, I grant you that. It's a shame I simply couldn't stand up at the next county commission meeting and ask our noble public servants to please stop destroying the planet. It's a shame that the people who poisoned this paradise won't just apologize and pack their U-Hauls and head back North to the smog and the blizzards. But it's a proven fact they won't leave until somebody lights a fire under 'em. That's what Las Noches de Diciembreis all about. 'Cops Seek Grisly Suitcase Killer' ... 'Elderly Woman Abducted, Fed to Vicious Reptile' ... 'Golf Course Bomb Claims Three on Tricky Twelfth Hole' ... 'Crazed Terrorists Stalk Florida Tourists.'"Wiley was practically chanting the headlines, as if he were watching them roll off the presses at the New York Post.
"Sure, it's cold-blooded," he said, "but that's the game of journalism for you. It's the only game I know, but I know how to win."
"The old hype button," Keyes said.
"You got it, Ace!" Wiley slapped him on the shoulder. "Let's go find your funny friends."
They walked up Cable Beach. Keyes sidestepped the wavelets but Wiley crashed ahead, kicking water with his enormous slabs of feet. He cocked his head high, chin thrust toward the sun.
"If you hate tourists so much," Keyes said, "why'd you come here, of all places?"
"Sovereignty," Wiley replied, "and convenience. Besides, the Bahamas is different from Florida. The A.Q. here is only forty-two."
A.Q., Keyes remembered, stood for Asshole Quotient. Skip Wiley had a well-known theory that the quality of life declined in direct proportion to the Asshole Quotient. According to Wiley's reckoning, Miami had 134 total assholes per square mile, giving it the worst A.Q. in North America. In second place was Aspen, Colorado (101), with Malibu Beach, California, finishing third at 97.