Free Skin Tight by Carl Hiaasen

day that Tony Traviola, the first hit man, arrived to kill Mick Stranahan, Maggie Gonzalez was in a tenth-floor room at the Essex House hotel. The room had a view of Central Park, where Maggie was taking skating lessons at Donald Trump’s ice rink. She planned to lie low for a few more weeks, maybe stop in for a chat at 20/20. A little competition never hurt. Maybe Reynaldo Flemm would get worried enough to jack up his offer. Five grand sucked, it really did.
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    DR. Rudy Graveline made an appointment with the second killer for January tenth at three in the afternoon. The man arrived at Whispering Palms a half hour early and sat quietly in the waiting room, scaring the hell out of the other patients.
    Rudy knew him only as Chemo, a cruel but descriptive nickname, for he truly did appear to be in the final grim stages of chemotherapy. Black hair sprouted in random wisps from a blue-veined scalp. His lips were thin and papery, the color of wet cement. Red-rimmed eyes peered back at gawkers with a dull and chilling indifference; the hooded lids blinked slowly, pellucid as a salamander’s. And the skin—the skin is what made people gasp, what emptied the waiting room at Whispering Palms. Chemo’s skin looked like breakfast cereal, like somebody had glued Rice Krispies to every square centimeter of his face.
    This, and the fact that he stood six foot nine, made Chemo a memorable sight.
    Dr. Graveline was not alarmed, because he knew how Chemo had come to look this way. It was not melanoma, but a freak electrolysis accident in Scranton, many years before. While burning two ingrown hair follicles off the tip of Chemo’s nose, an elderly dermatologist had suffered a crippling stroke and lost all hand-eye coordination. Valiantly the old doctor had tried to complete the procedure, but in so doing managed to incinerate every normal pore within range of the electrified needle. Since Chemo had eaten five Valiums for breakfast, he was fast asleep on the table when the tragedy occurred. When he awoke to find his whole face blistered up like a lobster, he immediately garroted the dermatologist and fled the state of Pennsylvania forever.
    Chemo had spent the better part of five years on the lam, seeking medical relief; ointments proved futile, and in fact a faulty prescription had caused the startling Rice Krispies effect. Eventually Chemo came to believe that the only hope was cosmetic surgery, and his quest for a miracle brought him naturally to Florida and naturally into the care of Dr. Rudy Graveline.
    At three sharp, Rudy motioned Chemo into the consultation room. Chemo ducked as he entered and shut the door behind him. He sat in an overstuffed chair and blinked moistly at Dr. Graveline.
    Rudy said: “And how are we doing today?”
    Chemo grunted. “How do you think?”
    â€œWhen you were here a few weeks ago, we discussed a treatment plan. You remember?”
    â€œYep,” Chemo said.
    â€œAnd a payment plan, too.”
    â€œHow could I forget?” Chemo said.
    Dr. Graveline ignored the sarcasm; the man had every right to be bitter.
    â€œDermabrasion is expensive,” Rudy said.
    â€œI don’t know why,” Chemo said. “You just stick my face in a belt sander, right?”
    The doctor smiled patiently. “It’s a bit more sophisticated than that—”
    â€œBut the principle’s the same.”
    Rudy nodded. “Roughly speaking.”
    â€œSo how can it be two hundred bucks a pop?”
    â€œTwo hundred and ten,” Rudy corrected. “Because it requires uncommonly steady hands. You can appreciate that, I’m sure.”
    Chemo smiled at the remark. Rudy wished he hadn’t; the smile was harrowing, a deadly weapon all by itself. Chemo looked like he’d been teething on cinder blocks.
    â€œI did get a job,” he said.
    Dr. Graveline agreed that was a start.
    â€œAt the Gay Bidet,” Chemo said. “It’s a punk