by Jeff Lindsay
“Brian,” I said, and even though it was one of the stupidest things I had ever said, I couldn’t help adding, “You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here,” he said, with his awful fake smile, and somehow it didn’t seem quite so phony right now. “What’s family for?”
I thought about the last few days: first Deborah getting me from the trailer in the Everglades, and now this, and I shook my head. “Apparently,” I said, “family is for rescuing you from cannibals.”
“Well, then,” Brian said. “Here I am.”
And for once his awful fake smile seemed very real and welcome.
FORTY
AS EVERY CLICHÉ-LOVING HUMAN BEING KNOWS, NO cloud dumps its load upon us unless it is hiding its very own silver lining. In this case, the one small perk of being held captive by cannibals is that there are always plenty of nice sharp knives lying around, and Brian had me cut free very quickly. Pulling the duct tape off my wrists didn’t hurt quite as much the second time either, since there wasn’t much arm hair left to rip out by the roots, but it still wasn’t a great deal of fun, and I took a moment to rub my wrists. Apparently it was a moment too long.
“Perhaps you could massage yourself later, brother?” Brian said. “We really can’t linger.” He nodded at the gangway.
“I need to get Deborah,” I said.
He sighed theatrically. “What is it with you and that girl?” he said.
“She’s my sister.”
Brian shook his head. “I suppose,” he said. “But do let’s hurry, all right? The place is crawling with these people, and we would really rather avoid them, I think.”
We had to pass the mainmast to get to the cabin door and, in spite of Brian’s urgency, I paused by Samantha, taking very great care to avoid the puddle of blood that spread out to her right. I stood on her left side and looked at her carefully. Her face was incredibly pale and she was no longer swaying or moaning and for a moment I thought she was already dead. I put a hand on her neck to feel for a pulse; it was there, but very faint, and as I touched her neck her eyes fluttered open. The eyeballs themselves twitched and did not quite focus and she clearly didn’t recognize me. She half closed her eyes again and said something I could not hear and I leaned closer. “What did you say?” I said.
“Was I … good …?” she whispered hoarsely. It took me a moment, but I finally did realize what she meant.
They like to tell us that it is important to speak the truth, but it has been my experience that real happiness lies in having people tell you what you want to believe, usually not the same thing at all, and if you have to stub your toe on the truth later, so be it. For Samantha, there was not going to be any later, and that being the case, I could not really find it in myself to hold a grudge and be mean enough to speak the truth now.
So I leaned down close to her ear and told her what she wanted to hear.
“You were delicious,” I said.
She smiled and closed her eyes.
“I really don’t think we have time for sentimental scenes,” Brian said. “Not if you want to save that darn sister of yours.”
“Right,” I said. “Sorry.” I left Samantha with no real reluctance, pausing only to pick up one of Alana’s very nice knives from the table beside the barbecue.
We found Deborah behind the counter in what had once been the concession stand down in the main cabin of the old pirate ship. She and Chutsky had both been tied to a couple of large pipes that ran from a missing sink into the deck. Their hands and feet were duct-taped. Chutsky, to his credit, had almost freed one hand—his only hand, of course, but give kudos where it’s due.
“Dexter!” he said. “Christ, I’m glad to see you. She’s still breathing; we gotta get her outta here.” He saw Brian lurking behind me for the first time and frowned. “Hey—that’s the guy with the Taser.”
“It’s all right,” I said unconvincingly. “Um, actually, he’s—”
“It was an accident,” Brian said quickly, as if afraid I would actually introduce him by name. He had flipped the hood back up to mask his face. “Anyway, I rescued you, so let’s just get out of here quickly, before anybody else shows up, all right?”
Chutsky shrugged. “Yeah, sure, okay, you got a knife?”
“Of course,” I said. I leaned over him, and he shook his head impatiently.
“No, fuck, come on, Dex, get Deborah first,” he said.
It seemed to me that a man with only one hand and one foot who is bound hand and foot, as well as tied to a pipe, is in no place to give orders in a cranky tone of voice. But I let it pass, and I knelt beside Deborah. I cut the tape off her wrists and picked up one hand. The pulse felt strong and regular. I hoped that meant she was just unconscious; she was very healthy, and very tough, and unless she had caught a really bad break I thought she would probably be all right, but I did wish she would wake up and tell me so in person.
“Come on, quit fucking around, buddy,” Chutsky said in the same petulant tone, and I cut the rope that secured Deborah to the pipe, and the tape that held her ankles together.
“We do need to hurry,” Brian said softly. “Do we have to bring him?”
“Very fucking funny,” Chutsky said, but I knew that my brother was serious.
“I’m afraid so,” I said. “Deborah would be upset if we left him behind.”
“Then for goodness’ sake, cut him loose and let’s go,” Brian said, and he went to the door of the cabin and looked out, holding the shotgun at the ready. I cut Chutsky loose and he lurched to his feet—or to be accurate, to his foot, since one of them was a prosthetic replacement, like his hand. He looked down at Deborah for a second and Brian cleared his throat impatiently.
“All right,” Chutsky said. “I’ll carry her. Help me out, Dex.” And he nodded at Debs. Together we lifted her up and got her onto Chutsky’s shoulder. He didn’t seem to mind the weight; he shifted once to get her settled more comfortably, and then he moved toward the door as if he were off on a hike with a small day pack.
On deck, Chutsky paused briefly by Samantha, which made Brian hiss with impatience. “Is this the girl Debbie wanted to rescue so bad?” Chutsky said.
I looked at my brother, who was practically hopping on one foot in his eagerness to be gone. I looked back at my sister, draped across Chutsky’s shoulder, and I sighed. “That’s her,” I said.
Chutsky shifted Deborah’s weight slightly so he could reach over with his one real hand. He put it on Samantha’s throat and held his fingers there for a few seconds. Then he shook his head. “Too late,” he said. “She’s dead. Debbie’s going to be very upset.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” Brian said. “Can we go now?”
Chutsky looked at him and shrugged, which made Deborah slip a little bit. He caught her—fortunately not with his steel hook—readjusted her weight, and said, “Yeah, sure, let’s go,” and we scurried for the ramp off the boat.
Getting down the wobbly gangway was a bit tricky, especially since Chutsky was using his hand to hold on to Deborah, leaving only his hook to hold the guide rope. But we did manage, and once we were on terra firma we headed quickly for the gate.
I wondered if I should feel bad about Samantha. I didn’t really think there was anything I could have done to save her—I hadn’t even done a very good job of saving myself, which had a far higher priority—but it made me uncomfortable just to leave her body there. Perhaps it was because of all the blood, which always unsettles me. Or maybe it was just that I was always so tidy with my own leftovers. Certainly it was not because I thought her death was tragic or unnecessary—far from it. It was actually a small relief to have her out of the way without having to take any of the responsibility for it myself. It meant that I was in the clear; there was no piper to be paid, and my life could slip back onto its well-oiled and comfortable rails without any more worry about frivolous court proceedings. No, on the whole, it was a very good thing that Samantha got her wish, or most of it. The only thing gnawin
g at me was that it made me want to whistle, and that didn’t seem right.
And then it hit me—I was feeling guilt! Me, Deeply Dead Dexter, King of the Unfeeling! I was wallowing in that soul-crushing, time-wasting, ultimate human self-indulgence—guilt! And all because I felt secret happiness from thinking that the untimely end of a young woman was a good thing for my selfish self-interests.
Had I finally grown a soul?
Was Pinocchio a real boy at last?
It was ludicrous, impossible, unthinkable—and yet, I was thinking it. Maybe it was true—maybe the birth of Lily Anne and my becoming Dex-Daddy and all the other impossible events of the last few weeks had finally and fatally killed the Dark Dancer I had always been. Maybe even the last few hours of mind-numbing terror under the reptile glare of Alana’s dead blue eyes had helped, stirring the ashes until a seed sprouted. Maybe I was a new being now, ready to blossom into a happy, feeling human, one who could laugh and cry without pretending, and watch a TV show without secretly wondering what the actors would look like taped to a table—was it possible? Was I newborn Dexter, ready to take his place in a world of real people at last?
It was all fantastically interesting speculation, and like all such navel-gazing, it almost got me killed. As I blindly marveled at myself, we came through the park all the way to the go-cart track, and I had wandered slightly ahead of the others, unseeing because of my ridiculous self-absorption. I slid around the shed at the edge of the track and very nearly stepped on two party-hearty pirates who were kneeling on the ground trying to start a thirty-year-old go-cart. They looked up at me and blinked stupidly. Two large cups of punch stood on the ground beside them.
“Hey,” one of them said. “It’s the meat.” He reached into his bright red pirate sash, and we will never know whether he was trying to get a weapon or a stick of chewing gum because, happily for me, Brian stepped around the shed just in time and shot him, and Chutsky came around and kicked the other one in the throat, so hard I could hear it crack, and he went over backward making gacking noises and clutching at his windpipe.
“Well,” said Brian, looking at Chutsky with something like affection. “I see you’re not just eye candy.”
“Yeah, I’m terrific, huh?” Chutsky said. “Really useful.” He sounded a little bit down for somebody escaping unharmed from a cannibal orgy, but perhaps getting Tasered left an emotional afterglow.
“Really, Dexter,” Brian said. “You need to watch where you put your feet.”
We made it to the main gate without further incident, which was a relief, since sooner or later our luck was bound to run out and we would stumble onto a large number of pirates, or enough who were sober, and we would have a very hard time. I had no idea how many shots Brian had left in his borrowed shotgun, but I didn’t think it could be many. Of course, there were presumably plenty of kicks left in Chutsky’s foot, but we couldn’t count on being attacked by any more bad guys thoughtful enough to charge us from a kneeling position. Altogether, I was very glad to get through the gate and back to Debs’s car.
“Open the door,” Chutsky said to me in a demanding tone of voice, and I reached for the car’s door handle. “The back door, Dexter,” he snapped. “Jesus Christ.” I made no attempt to correct his manners; he was too old and grumpy to learn, and after all, the strain of his failure this evening must have been taking some toll on his always basic etiquette. Instead I simply shifted to the car’s back door and pulled on the handle. Naturally enough, it was locked.
“For fuck’s sake,” Chutsky said as I turned around, and I saw Brian raise an eyebrow.
“Such language,” my brother said.
“I need the key,” I said.
“Back pocket,” Chutsky said. It gave me just a moment’s hesitation, which was silly. After all, I was quite well aware that he had been living with my sister for several years. But still, I was surprised at the thought that he knew her this well, that he automatically knew where she kept her car keys. And it occurred to me that he knew her in other ways that I never would, too, knew other small domestic details of her life, and for some reason the thought made me hesitate for just a second, which was not, of course, a very popular choice.
“Come on, buddy, for Christ’s sake, get your head out of your ass,” Chutsky said.
“Dexter, please,” Brian added. “We need to get out of here.”
Clearly, I was going to be everybody’s whipping boy tonight, a complete waste of protoplasm. But raising any objection would just take more time. Besides, anything that could get the two of them to agree was almost certainly inarguable. I stepped over to Deborah, where she lay across Chutsky’s shoulder, and slid the keys out of the back pocket of her pants. I opened the back door of the car and held it wide as Chutsky put my sister down on the seat.
He began to go through a quick paramedic’s exam of Deborah, which was harder than it should have been with his one hand. “Flashlight?” he said over his shoulder, and I got Debs’s big police Maglite from the front seat and held it as Chutsky thumbed up her eyelids and watched her eyes react to the light.
“Ahem,” Brian said behind us, and I turned to look at him. “If you don’t mind,” he said, “I would like to disappear?” He smiled, his old fake smile again, and nodded toward the north. “My car is a half mile away in a strip mall,” he said. “I’ll just ditch the gun and this corny robe, and I’ll see you later—tomorrow for dinner, perhaps?”
“Absolutely,” I said, and believe it or not I had to fight down a very real urge to give him a hug. “Thank you, Brian,” I said instead. “Thank you very much.”
“You’re very welcome,” he said. He smiled again, and then he turned away and walked off into darkness.
“She’s gonna be okay, buddy,” Chutsky said, and I looked back to where he still squatted beside the open back door of the car. He held her hand, and he looked overwhelmingly weary. “She’s gonna be all right.”
“Are you sure?” I said, and he nodded.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he said. “You should still take her to the ER, get her checked out, but she’s okay, no thanks to me and—” He looked away from me and for a very long moment he didn’t say anything, long enough that I began to feel uncomfortable; after all, we were agreed that we needed to get out of here. Was this really the time and place for quiet contemplation?
“Aren’t you coming along to the hospital?” I said, more to move things along than because I wanted his company.
Chutsky didn’t move or speak. He just kept looking away, off into the park, where there were still scattered sounds of revelry and the mindless thump of the music wafting toward us on the night breeze.
“Chutsky,” I said, and I felt real anxiety growing.
“I fucked up,” he said at last, and to my very great horror, a tear rolled down his cheek. “I fucked up big-time. I let her down when she needed me the most. She could have been killed, and I couldn’t stop them, and …”
He took a deep and very ragged breath. He still didn’t look at me. “I’ve been kidding myself, buddy. I’m too old for her, and I’m no fucking good to her or anybody else. Not with …” He held up his hook, and thumped his forehead against it, resting his head there and looking down at his fake foot. “She wants a family, which is stupid for a guy like me. Old. A mess, and a cripple—and I can’t protect her, or even—It’s not me she needs. I’m just a useless, old fuckup—”
There was a shriek of female laughter from inside the park, and the sound brought Chutsky back to the here and now. He snapped his head around to the front, took another deep breath, a little steadier, and looked down at Deborah’s face. Then he kissed her hand, a long kiss with his eyes closed, and stood up. “Get her to the ER, Dexter,” he said. “And tell her I love her.” And then he marched to his car.
“Hey,” I said. “Aren’t you going to …”
Apparently, he wasn’t going to. He ignored me, got into his car, and drove away.
I did not linger to watch his tail
lights flicker off into the night. I secured Debs in the backseat the best I could with a seat belt around her middle, and got in. I drove two miles or so, far enough to be safe, and then pulled over. I reached for my phone, then thought better of it and instead picked up Chutsky’s phone from the seat where Debs had thrown it. His phone would be shielded from little things like caller ID. I dialed.
“Nine-one-one,” the operator said.
“You all better get a whole lotta boys over to that ol’ Buccaneer Land right fast,” I said in my best Bubba voice.
“Sir, what is the nature of this emergency?” the operator asked.
“I’m a veteran,” I said. “I done two tours in Eye-rack and I know gunfire when I hear it and that’s sure as shit gunfire in Buccaneer Land.”
“Sir, are you saying you heard gunshots?”
“More than jes’ heard it. Went and took a look in there, and they’s dead bodies everywhere,” I said. “Ten, twenty dead bodies, and folks dancin’ ’round ’em like a party,” I said.
“You saw ten dead bodies, sir? You’re sure?”
“And then somebody took a bite outta one and started to eat it an’ Ah run. Never seen nothin’ so groo-sum in mah life, an’ Ah wuz in Baghdad.”
“They—ate the body, sir?”
“You all best get all them SWAT boys over there pronto,” I said, and I hung up and put the car in gear. They might not round up everybody in the park, but they would get most of them, enough to get a picture of what had happened, and that would be enough to get Bobby Acosta, one way or another. I hoped that it would make Deborah feel a little better about Samantha.
I nosed the car up onto I-95 and began the drive to Jackson. There were several closer hospitals, but if you are a Miami cop, you tend to home in on Jackson, which has one of the best trauma units in the country. And since Chutsky had assured me that the visit was precautionary only, I thought it best to go with the experts.