Tiger Shrimp Tango полностью

Sasha was on the Permanent A-List with the security team at the front door because she was a consensus all-American femme fatale. First, there was her jaw-dislodging, exquisitely draped platinum-blond hair. Sure, it came out of a bottle at her hairdresser’s, and she lied about it every chance. And if men ever learned that secret, their universal reaction to her black roots: “So what?” Plus that killer mane was fringed with brown lowlights an inch along the ends like some mythical jungle creature. Then her features, starting at an absolute perfect ten, but after that each of them was a notch different, not negative or positive, just . . . off. Her eyes more oblate and drawn to a taper, lips disproportionately fuller in the middle, nostrils with larger intake. And the total package worked, adding to the exotic allure, because that’s how men work. They’ve all been to strip clubs. Beauty is beauty, and then there’s new, like the unsymmetrical cant of Ellen Barkin’s smile, or Lauren Hutton’s tooth gap. Only makes them stand out more. Sasha had all that going on. It was her predatory, catlike looks and moves, but it was more. Even the way Sasha said her name. It was a laboriously drawn-out process that drew no complaints, starting with an elongated hissing sound like a vandalized tire, rising to a throaty whisper accenting the first syllable, before finally concluding with a post-coital exhale.

“Ssssssssaaa-shhhhhh . . . ahhhh.”

She had hired a voice coach.

Women were the last thing on Johnny’s mind earlier that day around noon as he enjoyed a takeout lunch of lobster salad and sparkling water from a fjord. He was sitting by himself in the sun on the grassy slopes of Dumbfounding Bay. Except it’s not really a bay. Actually part of a string of lagoons just inside the barrier-island communities of Bal Harbour, North Miami Beach and Sunny Isles. It was Johnny’s special place, a quick midday nature escape a convenient fifty feet south of the William Lehman Causeway and the golf course on the other side.

Johnny wiped his mouth with a napkin and began to get up when, suddenly, she was just there.

Sasha.

In all her platinum halo glory. Gently weeping, casting upon the water a dozen of the reddest roses, which were promptly ripped apart by pelicans and seagulls accustomed to human handouts from the Frito-Lay company. But the roses were quickly spit back: What is this shit?

Sasha sniffled daintily and dabbed her eyes with a monogrammed handkerchief.

J.R.

Of course Johnny was required to come to her rescue. After all, he had the same first initial as the hankie.

“Miss, are you okay?”

“What?” Sasha turned. “Oh, I didn’t notice you. I, uh . . . Yes, I’m fine.”

“You’re crying.”

She smiled and wiped mascara-smearing tears. “This is my special place. It’s where J.R. and I . . .” She stopped to blow her nose with unusual duration.

Johnny took half a step back to be safe.

She glanced at him with another embarrassed smile. “Sorry about that.”

“No, just take your time.”

Sasha nodded. “J.R. was a real gentleman, knew how to treat a woman.” She lowered her gaze toward the water. “He’s gone now . . .”

Johnny Vegas thought: He’s gone, good. Let’s hear more.

Sasha watched the remaining mangled flower petals drift south with the tide. “So you like to come out here and relax for lunch?”

“Time to time,” Johnny said with underplay. He knew women loved the sensitive type. “It’s so tranquil. Occasionally you need to break away from the crazy pace out there with all the calls from hedge-fund managers. The natural purity and solitude out here helps me meditate.”

“I love the sensitive type,” said Sasha. “J.R. was like that.”

Johnny Vegas didn’t know it, but he had inadvertently stumbled into one of Florida’s most vividly historic landmarks. There were no signs. With reason. Vegas grinned. “What about you? Come here often?”

“No.” A sigh. “Just once a year . . . On the day he—” The handkerchief came out again.

Uh-oh, Johnny thought, a woman in mourning. Grief was such a heartbreaking thing. Maybe he could use it to score. “You said this place is special?”

She nodded again. “Holds a lot of memories.”

And how. Every responding police officer clearly remembers the day they got the call. The neighbors remember the fifty-five-gallon drum that had bobbed to the surface and was dragged ashore. The medical examiner remembers the ghastly contents . . .

A screech of braking tires.

Johnny and Sasha turned to see a black Firebird skid off the causeway into the grass on the opposite side of the tiny bay. The driver got out and dashed enthusiastically down the bank. The passenger tripped and rolled like a log to the water’s edge.