Tsar

“Are you awake?” he asked her in the stillness of the early morning, stroking her thick golden hair. Her head was still on his chest, right where she’d last fallen asleep.

“Hmm.”

“Thinking of going for a swim.”

“Hmm.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Maybe later,” she said, her voice furred with sleep.

“No, now. It can’t wait. I have to ask you about Hoodoo.”

“Poor Hoodoo. A lovely man. He’s dead. Murdered.”

“I know. I’m trying to understand why.”

Asia sat up in the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “What they said in the paper. You read it. He was killed by those awful Jamaicans living out on Nonsuch Island.”

“Yes, but why was he there?”

“It wasn’t in the papers?”

“No. You tell me.”

“My father sent him. To deliver a warning. My father wants those people off that island. It’s a nature sanctuary. They are living there illegally.”

“Why didn’t your father call the police?”

“My father never calls the police. He prefers to handle things himself. Besides, the police wouldn’t do anything anyway. My father says someone at the top in Government House is taking money from the Jamaicans. That’s why they’re allowed to stay.”

“I heard a rumor there were illegal weapons involved. That the murder was an arms sale gone awry.”

“Hoodoo? Selling weapons? Ridiculous. People say anything to sow discredit upon my father. I stopped listening long ago.”

“Ah.”

“Do you normally grill your suspects before they have a chance to wake up, detective?”

“Sorry. I’m a beast.”

“I’m beginning to wonder.”

“Come here. Look at this.”

Hawke rolled naked off the bed and lifted the ring attached to the circular section of flooring that concealed the top of his fireman’s pole and the blue grotto below.

“What’s that?” she said, flopping forward on the bed and staring at the hole in the floor.

“It’s called a fireman’s pole, for somewhat obvious reasons. There’s a hidden grotto just below us. You slide down the pole and into the water. I do it every morning. Great way to wake up.”

“Wait. Why are you so curious about Hoodoo?”

“Tell you later,” Hawke said, and then he disappeared through the floor.

“Hold on, I’m coming, too!” she cried, leaping from the bed. Grabbing the pole with both hands, she slipped down into his waiting arms.

32

MIAMI

Raining cats and dogs used to be true. Back in Robin Hood’s day, Stoke had read somewhere, the domestic animals used to sleep curled up inside the thatched roofs. When it rained really hard, down they came, wham on the dinner table. Hello, Sparky, hey, Ginger! It was raining that hard now. Luckily, except for a few Seminole tiki huts, there were very few thatched roofs in Miami today.

It was just after two in the afternoon when Stoke turned the GTO off Collins and onto Marina, headed for the Miami Yacht Group’s showroom. It was located almost kitty-corner from Joe’s Stone Crabs. Big glass showroom with red, white, and blue flags standing out stiff from the tall poles surrounding the lot.

The weather today, finally, was perfect for what Stoke had in mind. Blowing hard out of the southwest, a big tropical depression headed up from the Keys, the leading edge about over Islamorada now. As he drove slowly through Miami Beach, palm trees were bent over backward, crap was flying around in the streets-no cats or dogs, though, at least he didn’t see any.

He’d taken a good long look at the ocean from the balcony of his penthouse apartment. Blowing like stink out there. Huge rollers, whitecaps with the crests whipped off soon as they peaked. He’d been waiting all week for weather like this.

Today’s the day, he thought, smiling at himself in the mirror, sliding the knot on his Italian designer silk tie up to his Adam’s apple. He adjusted his wraparound sunglasses. Would Sheldon wear sunglasses on a day like this? he’d asked himself. Yes. He had the whole Sheldon Levy thing down now. Hell, he was Sheldon Levy.

Traffic was light on a stormy day, and he’d made good time getting over the causeway. Miami Yacht Group looked just like a car dealership, except it had boats where all the cars would normally be. Big boats, little boats. The littlest ones were out front on trailers. The medium ones would be inside on the showroom floor. The big go- fast ones he was interested in, those of the Cigarette persuasion, they were in the water at the docks located on the marina side of the glitzy glass and steel showroom.

Soon as he walked through the front door in his shiny sharkskin suit, Elsa Peretti tie, Chrome Hearts wraparound shades and pointy-toed alligator shoes, a salesman was on him like sucker fish on a mako.

“Good afternoon!” the guy said.

“You, too.”

“And how are we doing today, sir?”

Stoke smiled at him. Tall and angular and blond. Blue-water tan. Faded khakis, no socks with his bleached-out boat shoes, collar of his navy-blue polo shirt turned up on the back of his neck. Two little crossed flags on his shirt with the words “Magnum Marine” underneath. Talked funny, too, through his teeth, like his jaw was permanently wired shut.

“I’m good, I’m good,” Stoke said, looking around the showroom.

“Heckuva storm out there, isn’t it? Golly!”

Golly? When was the last time you heard that word? Seriously.

“Golly is right, darn it,” Stoke said, as he bent over and peered out the big plate-glass showroom windows, as if noticing the weather out there for the very first time today.

“Nothing a Magnum Sixty couldn’t handle, I’ll bet,” Stoke said, clapping Larry Lockjaw on the back. “Right?”

“Well, n-now,” the salesman said, staggering a bit before recovering his balance, “you’d have to be pretty darn plucky to go out on a day like today. But you know what? Your timing is perfect. We’ve got a pre-Christmas special going on, and I-”

“Call me plucky, but I want to rock one of those Magnums right now!”

“Well, gee, you know, I don’t think today is ideal for-”

“Actually, you know what? I’m here to see one of your other salesmen. Piss, I think his name is.”

“Piss?”

“Yeah, Piss. Like-take a piss? I’ve got his card somewhere in my wallet.”

“I’m sorry, sir. My hearing’s terrible. Are you saying Mr. Piss?”

“Yeah, Piss. Pisser, something like that.”

“You’re looking for a Mr. Pisser? I’m afraid-”

“No, wait. Urine. That was it. I knew it was something like that. Like piss, I mean.”

“Oh. Yurin, you mean?” the guy said, sort of chuckling. “Right, sir, that would be Yuri Yurin. He’s our divisional sales manager here at the Miami Yacht Group.”

“He around?”