THE TEASER - An Excerpt from A REAL PIECE OF WORK

Back in my FBI days, during soporific stakeouts when I dreamed about the life I might lead as a private detective, I never imagined the job would one day require me to scuba-dive across a quarter-mile of ocean brimming with sharks.

Basically, anything capable of eating me was absent from my business plan.

Right now, despite the Caribbean sun on my face and the piquant salt air in my nose, I wished I were back in snowy Manhattan, safe behind my desk, listening like Sam Spade to some elegant dame tell me her troubles. Instead I had a 20-year-old scuba bum and my bikini-clad associate, Svetlana Krüsh, all but shoving me into the water. They stood silently beside me as wave after wave spanked the hull. Under my wetsuit, the heat began to rise.

“You’re positive they’re both on there,” I said, nodding at the 80-foot motor yacht in the distance.

“According to the chambermaid,” Svetlana said, “they left together this morning.”

“And we’re sure they’re, ah, busy?”

“I am told they never leave the room.”

She adjusted her bikini strap. After three days down here, Svetlana had only a whisper of a tan, but the way the leopard print hugged her aristocratic curves, you didn’t care. Kyle, our alleged guide, leered at her. I grabbed him by the mouth and pinched his cheeks together.

“How about it, dude?”

“Wha?”

“Our friend on the yacht.”

“Already told you—guy runs their slip says they put out every morning, come back around one.”

“What time we got?”

With a flourish, Svetlana held out her watch. High noon.

“How long to get over there?” I asked.

“Half an hour, tops.” Kyle scratched in his ear. “Quit stalling, man. I’ve gotta meet somebody at Sloppy Joe’s soon.”

I looked over our stern. Key West was a purple mist on the horizon. I turned back to the yacht.

“Let me see, one more time.”

Svetlana passed the binoculars. While the captain and his mate read newspapers on the bridge, three bodyguards sunned themselves on the bow. Conover and his mistress had to be inside, doing what mistresses and CEOs of financial services companies did.

“Moneta?” Kyle said. “What the hell kind of name for a boat is that?”

“Goddess of money,” I said. “Greek, I think.”

“Roman,” Svetlana said.

“There you go—Roman. We know what he worships anyway.”

To the south dark clouds were creeping in, and the mounting wind flapped Svetlana’s hair across my cheek. Between their boat and ours boiled a gulf of cobalt blue that looked like it would take a week to cross. I wanted to call it off, but if I chickened-out now, in two weeks my business would shrivel up. Besides, Mrs. Conover was counting on us. I handed the binoculars back.

“Ready, Mr. Stevens?” Kyle said.

“Stop with the ‘Mister’ already. It’s Dakota.” I strapped on the flippers. “Why am I doing this again?”

Why? Because Mrs. Conover had made it sound so simple—snap a few photos, collect a big check. “I’ll cover any expenses,” she said. “Consider it a vacation…take a week, a month—I don’t care. Just catch the bastard.”

Svetlana nudged me. “Because you are sucker for jilted women. Especially when they are rich.” She handed me a mask. “And don’t forget, a blizzard is starting in New York, so we must catch six o’clock out of Miami.”

I spit in the mask, rubbed it around and put it on.

“Sharks?” I said to Kyle.

“Sure. Blacktips, a few bulls maybe. No big deal.”

I squatted down and slipped into the vest with the scuba tank. Kyle showed me the buttons for the buoyancy compensator.

“So, Miss Krüsh,” I said, “while I’m risking life and limb, what will you be doing?”

She donned a pair of Dolce & Gabbana sunglasses and tied a mocha sarong around her waist so it hung fetchingly off one hip.

“Wave when you finish, and I swoop in like cavalry.” She plopped down behind the wheel, crossed her runway legs and rubbed sunblock on her shoulders. Kyle jammed the regulator in my mouth.

“Remember what Nietzsche said, man—the shit that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Trust me, you’re gonna love it.” He tipped backwards into the deep.

I patted the vest’s waterproof pouch to check for the camera and plunged in. By the time the bubbles cleared, Kyle was already 50 yards ahead and paddling fast along the reef. A school of blue and yellow fish darted around him. I pumped furiously to catch up, my ears shrieking. By the time my Eustachian tubes kicked in and balanced the pressure, I had caught up to Kyle. He was treading water in a shaft of sunlight.

“Slow down,” I tried to say.

He gave me a thumbs-up, and we were off again, hovering over the craggy surface of the reef. Bent and slender growths of coral jutted up like cacti, and red and green plant life swayed in the current. I almost began to relax and enjoy this undersea desert. That is, until the reef vanished.

Before leaving Key West, Kyle had told me that just beyond the reef the seabed descends from fifty to a thousand feet. Little by little the friendly coral disappeared along with the ocean floor. Even in the cool water I felt the hot pulse of adrenaline down my back and legs. I couldn’t see the bottom anymore. The water was a ghastly deep blue. My sight was hazy at the fringes and swimming beasts seemed to materialize like ships out of the fog. A barracuda bigger than my leg drifted past me, its fanged jaw hanging open, its cruel eye sizing me up. I turned and a pair of hammerheads crossed our path. My instincts screamed for me to turn around, but my legs refused to listen. They kept pushing me forward.

I had long believed that mingling with creatures in the open sea was a bad idea. This was their turf. No matter how nimble you were with your stupid flippers, they were always going to be better at it than you. My shin muscles burned from all the kicking. I shouldn’t be down here. But this was my last chance before Conover jetted off for Zurich, and I wasn’t following him to Zurich. The Hilton in Key West, the Pierre in New York, the estate in Greenwich when the wife was away—in all three cases he’d been too well-guarded. Mrs. Conover needed ironclad proof of her husband’s infidelity, and I was going to get it.

Gradually a spectral shadow of the yacht appeared, its edges glowing like the corona of an eclipse, its two shiny anchor chains plummeting into the gloom. I punched Kyle in the arm, pointed up. Silhouetted by the sun, dozens of sharks swam in erratic loops around the bow. The damn bodyguards were feeding them. We crawled up toward the ladder at the stern.

On deck, we crouched next to a vile-smelling bait box and shed the scuba gear.

“Five minutes.” I checked the camera. “Second you hear me, wave for Svetlana.”

Kyle stared at the water. I slapped his arm.

“Didn’t count on so many, did you, smart guy?”

“There’s a Tiger down there, man. Those things are vicious.”

“Well, we won’t have to go in again. Hang tight till I get back.”

I padded up the stairs and entered a beige-carpeted living room with cushioned seats under the windows. I continued forward, down a passageway of dark wood. Faint at first, the walls resonated with a woman’s moaning. Much too enthusiastic to be real. Reveling in my first bit of luck in a month, I smiled and switched on the camera.

At their door, I pushed, but it wouldn’t open. I pushed harder.

Locked. Well, I hadn’t come a thousand miles and through my personal hell on earth to give up. I kicked the door in.

Conover and a striking Latina sprang up in the bed. I let the camera absorb the full range of their emotions—from shock to embarrassment to outrage to anger—and all the while they did nothing to cover up. Mrs. Conover was going to be pleased.

“What the fuck is this?” Conover blurted out.

“Wait, hold that pose,” I said. “Nice.”

As they finally scrambled out of bed, I ejected the camera’s memory card and sealed it in a Ziploc bag. Hustling down the hall, I tucked the bag under my suit, against my skin, and ran out on deck.

“All right, Kyle, let’s—”

The three bodyguards stood between Kyle and me with their arms crossed. They wore nothing but Speedos, and their bare chests glistened with sweat. This was disturbing on many levels. Above us, Conover rushed onto the balcony tying his bathrobe. The wind grabbed his comb-over and flapped it from the side of his head like a windsock.

“Get that fucking camera,” he said, mashing the hair back against his skull, “and throw their asses overboard.”

With no effort they seized Kyle and pitched him into the drink. I was cornered at the rail. They moved in. I dropped the one closest to me with an elbow to the throat, but the other two grabbed my legs and heaved me so hard that I did a somersault in mid-air. The camera slipped out of my hand. I kicked to the surface and heard our boat in the distance, humming toward us.

Conover galumphed down the stairs and hurled buckets of chum into the water.

“Nothing like a good feeding frenzy!”

“Mother,” Kyle said.

We raced away from the yacht. Sharks swirled around the stern, their fins slicing the water everywhere. Every wave was sinister. Something brushed my leg. It was Kyle, thrashing.

“Calm down,” I said. “Just get ready to grab the ladder when she comes.”

As Svetlana rolled in, I grabbed Kyle and hooked the ladder with my free arm. The boat dragged us until we pulled ourselves out.

We were safe on the deck, speeding for Key West. Kyle took the wheel.

“All that equipment,” he said. “I’m screwed.”

“Relax, we’ll expense it.” I handed Svetlana the Ziploc with the memory card. “Email these to her lawyer the second we get to the hotel. I want somebody to meet us with the money when we land.”

“I just hope we can get back before they close LaGuardia,” she said.