by Tim Dorsey
Gaspar climbed back in on the driver’s side and resumed the trip to Fort Lauderdale.
He turned on the radio.
Back on the edge of the road, José heard a truck driving away as he watched the stars begin to dim.
Chapter Six
KEY LARGO
Brilliant colors screamed off a two-story concrete wall, where the mural of a giant angelfish directed visitors to nearby snorkeling pleasures.
A mile west, silverware jingled in a suitcase sitting on a kitchen table.
“Dang, the zipper’s stuck,” said Serge. He jerked the tab violently and cursed and slammed the luggage against the wall and jumped up and down on it. Ten minutes later: “Okay, that’s not working. I’ll try finesse . . . Just back the zipper up a little to free that tiny piece of fabric and there! Fixed in five seconds.”
“Why didn’t you just do that in the first place?” asked Coleman.
“Don’t start talking crazy.”
Coleman shrugged and took a seat at the table, painting a joint with hash oil.
Serge grabbed a chair on the other side. “I think our work here is done. You get all the lightbulbs?”
Coleman raised a shopping bag from beside his chair.
“Good.” Serge opened the local morning newspaper. “Just let me read this, and we’ll start loading the car.”
Coleman torched the bone and exhaled a small cloud. “Why are you always reading when nobody’s forcing you?”
Serge looked up and stared at Coleman a moment. “That question kind of answers itself.” He looked back down.
Coleman tapped joint ash on the floor. “My teachers were always making me read. I’m talking about books. Shit. I swore when I got out, I’d never read another.”
Serge kept his eyes on the paper. “You showed them.”
Coleman took another hit. “Damn straight.”
A rare moment of silence.
“Serge? I saw this cool bar up the street—”
“I’m trying to read. This is important.”
“Why?”
“Because the way things are going, soon you’ll only see newspapers in museums, like the Dead Sea Scrolls. Everyone now gets their data off the Internet.”
“So? It’s just a computer screen instead of paper.”
“There’s a bigger difference. On one hand, the New York Times, also known as the Old Gray Lady and the Paper of Record; on the other, Yahoo! headlines: ‘Demi Moore’s Style Showdown,’ ‘Best Cities for Cats to Live,’ ‘Ten Telltale Signs Nobody Likes You,’ ‘We Replace Half Our Friends Every Seven Years.’ ”
Coleman became worried. “I’ve known you for fifteen.”
“Don’t sweat it. You’ve got tenure.” Serge turned a page. “Newspapers also provide the local lowdown that would never get on the net. That’s how I learned about throwing rocks at cars down here, and cleaning your headlights before leaving bars.”
“Cleaning what?”
“This one cop down here had like the record for DUI arrests before a ton of them got reversed.” Serge flipped to the sports section. “He’d go to bars early in the evening and walk through the parking lot with a bar of soap, marking Xs on the headlights. Then, after midnight, if he saw some car with Xs, he pulled them over on some bullshit pretext. So after the news broke, people started checking their headlights. But you’d never know that if you weren’t into newspapers.”
“Wow,” said Coleman. “Reading is cool! . . . Let me start with the funnies.”
Serge whipped a page out of the paper and handed it across the table without looking.
Coleman haphazardly folded it over with an unending crinkling sound. “I can’t believe I’m reading.”
“The day the earth stood still,” said Serge.
“They still have ‘Family Circus,’ ” said Coleman. “Billy’s running crazy all over the house again leaving a dotted line . . . I don’t understand ‘Doonesbury.’ ”
“Newspapers also help me line up takedown scores. They report the most devious, heartless scams perpetrated on the weak and the elderly, and since it’s Florida, that’s a lot of pages to fill. But it bird-dogs me straight to my pickin’ of guilt-free heists. Like this one jackass here: Check out what he did to these retirees . . .” Serge turned the paper around and held it across the table.
Coleman leaned and squinted. “Jesus, that’s terrible.”
“See what I mean?” Serge turned another page. “I’d bum-rush these cowards for free. But usually they beg me to take them to an ATM.”
“And then you give that money back to the victims?”
“If they happen to be walking by the ATM at that very moment, sure. But otherwise, no. I’m busy,” said Serge. “And I want to go on the record here: Robin Hood fucked it up for everyone. Is it not enough that I’m punishing these miscreants while the law grinds like a toothless mouth? No, to be a charismatic criminal, I’m supposed to work for nothing?”
“Batman.” Coleman pointed at the comics. “Bruce Wayne was already rich. No job, free cave.”
“And they gave him a pass on all his shit—violated at least seven constitutional rights by my count, and that’s just the Joker.”
“It’s not fair,” said Coleman.
“But what are ya going to do? Dwell on the negative, or think about Catwoman?”
“That was my first boner,” said Coleman.
“The first for everyone our age,” said Serge. “And the rest of your life you’re chasing that initial sensation, which is a recipe for disappointment, because even though you buy the most expensive Catwoman costume, the reaction’s always the same: ‘Get the hell away from me, you freak!’ ‘Wait! I was only six years old! I blame TV!’ ” Serge flipped to weather and the local crime report on the back page. “Ooooo! Here’s a follow-up on the story of the year from the Keys. This woman was cruising down the Overseas Highway in a convertible and was arrested for distracted driving because she rear-ended someone while shaving her pussy.”
Coleman dropped his comics and began coughing. He pounded his chest. “That’s it. Fuck it. I’m definitely reading from now on . . . Please, tell me more!”
“Let’s see, she was just convicted of DUI the previous day, and told the cops she wanted to look good for a date with her boyfriend; plus the passenger was her ex-husband, whom she had asked to take the wheel so she could shave, which means he’s definitely not looking at the road either, and—here’s the cherry on the sundae—a comment you will only hear from a cop in the Keys: It was the strangest traffic incident he’d seen on the Overseas Highway since pulling over that guy with four syringes sticking out of his arm—”
Thud, thud, thud . . .
Serge looked around. “What’s that noise? Rats?”
“They’d have to be big.” Coleman twisted the end of the jay in his mouth.
Thud, thud, thud . . .
“There it is again.”
Thud, thud, thud . . .
Both of their heads turned slowly toward the closet.
“We completely forgot about him,” said Coleman.
Serge reached in his pocket. “I guess our work here isn’t done after all.” He pulled out a tiny object and cupped it in his hand.
“A diamond-stud earring?” asked Coleman. “Did the dead guy who lived here have a wife or something?”
“No.” Serge pointed the gem at the closet. “I pulled it off his ear in the trunk, remember?”
A muffled scream from the door.
Serge pocketed the jewelry. “And that’s the same sound he made when I ripped it off his ear.”
“I remember that now from the parking lot.” Coleman took another giant hit and cracked a beer. “Still makes me cringe.”
“Not my fault.” Serge held up innocent hands. “He broke the rules of society at that bank branch, so I was
involuntarily drafted into the War on Rudeness. If there’s one thing I’m not, it’s a draft dodger.” He stopped and scratched the top of his head. “Although I could have enrolled in community college and gotten a deferment. But as John Fogarty sings, ‘I ain’t no senator’s son.’ ”
“The guy was a little on the pushy side.”
“No joke.”
“Probably high on coke,” said Coleman. “That’s how you know if it’s good coke. It makes you pushy.”
“So keep it in the nightclubs,” said Serge. “The clubs are specifically designated for people to work off their pushiness, just like gyms are made for exercise. But you don’t see people lifting weights in the street.”
“His ear was really bleeding.”
“Couldn’t be helped,” said Serge. “You can’t tear it off without that.”
“Why tear it off at all?”
“If you’re a gigantic prick, the diamond-stud earring is the exclamation point,” said Serge. “It’s like a huge, flashing neon frame around the prick picture.”
“I didn’t know you were prejudiced against guys wearing earrings.”
“Just the opposite,” said Serge. “It’s all a question of what works. For most guys, it’s pretty cool. But everybody simply has certain things that won’t gel with their overall package, and it only emphasizes the fact you’re trying too hard. For example, you won’t see me strutting out of a hip-hop barbershop anytime soon with ‘Don’t Snitch’ shaved into the side of my head. Clashes with the shape of my face. Four-hundred-pound guys shouldn’t wear shirts with horizontal stripes, and pricks shouldn’t wear diamond earrings. They’re just fashion no-no’s, like how certain people definitely shouldn’t wear certain swimsuits to the beach—we all agree on this last point. It’s the only concept that unites us as a nation.”
“So have you decided what you’re going to do with him?”
“I think I finally figured out my next science project.”
WISCONSIN
A sink was running. Sounds of someone brushing his teeth.
Barbara McDougall was already in bed with a book. “You’re not supposed to leave the sink running when you’re brushing your teeth. We’ve told our students a million times.”
“I always forget,” said Patrick, turning a faucet.
He finished brushing and flicked off the bathroom light.
Barbara looked up from her book. “Don’t forget to leave the sink running so the pipes don’t freeze.”
Patrick smiled and went back, giving the hot-water knob a quarter twist. He returned to the bedroom, pulled back the blanket and looked over at the cover of the thick book Bar had just started. An orange sunset over a sooty industrial skyline. “Gravity’s Rainbow? How many times have you started that book?”
Bar looked over the top of reading glasses halfway down her nose. “Can’t remember. Supposed to be a literary classic—all the people I respect say so. Except it’s impenetrable to me.”
“I’ve never gotten much farther than when he goes into the toilet and somehow wiggles through the pipes,” said Pat. “Reminded me of that Scottish bathroom scene in Trainspotting.”
Her nose went back in the novel. “This time I’m determined. I’d hate to think I’m not smart enough.”
“You’re the smartest person I know.”
A smile. “You’re just saying that because you’re married to me.”
“It’s why I married you—”
The phone rang. Patrick reached for the nightstand on his side. “Hello? . . . No, don’t apologize. It’s not too late . . . What’s up? . . .”
Bar lowered the book and saved her spot with a finger. “Who is it?” she whispered.
Pat covered the receiver and whispered back. “Courtney’s parents.” He uncovered it. “Is she okay? . . . I see . . . Why don’t you put her on the phone? . . . Hello, Courtney? It’s me, Mr. McDougall. What seems to be the matter? . . . Courtney, just slow down and relax. I can’t understand if you keep crying . . . That’s better. No, everything’s going to be all right. You haven’t done anything wrong . . . I understand completely. Could you do me a favor and put your father back on the phone? . . .”
“What’s going on?” asked Bar.
Pat held up a hand for her to wait. Then into the phone: “Jack, yeah, I know . . . Last night it was three A.M. before she settled down? She did seem a little exhausted in class today . . . Jack, you two can’t blame yourselves. There’s nothing you did to trigger it; I’ve read all the studies . . . What? Tonight she was crying so hard she gave herself a nosebleed? . . .” Pat pulled off the blanket and threw his legs over the side of the bed. “I’m coming over . . . Don’t say not to. We’re like family . . . Look, the longer we stay on the phone, the longer till I’m there . . . See you in a few.”
He hung up.
Bar looked at the alarm clock. “You’re going over to the Arsenaults’ at this hour?”
“It’s Courtney.”
Bar threw off her covers.
“What are you doing?” asked Pat.
“Coming with you.”
Pat pulled up his pants and buckled the belt. “She’s not your student. Stay here and get your rest.”
“I’m wide-awake,” said Bar. “What am I going to do in an empty house? We can talk.”
Pat slipped on a shirt, then pointed out the window in the general direction of a silo. “But I have to go to the school first, and that’s in the opposite direction.”
“You’re going to the school and the Arsenaults’?”
“I know her favorite books. If I read to her . . .” said Pat. “A lot of driving; you don’t want to go.”
“Now I definitely want to go.”
“Why?”
“So we can talk. I like it when we can talk.”
A seventeen-year-old Geo Metro headed east out of Waunakee on Highway 19. It wasn’t a typical car for a Wisconsin winter. Or even spring. But the drive was peaceful. No streetlights. A full moon lit up rolling hills of snow through dairy land. It was the only car they ever owned, which they bought slightly used just before getting married, which was twelve years ago.
They talked about early Hemingway, late Picasso, the Middle East, a new movie they were dying to see but would wait for the rental because money was tight. They realized they hadn’t had Chinese food in a while. The kind of destination-free conversation that bounces all over the place when two people just enjoy each other’s company. Still in love.
Forty minutes later, they pulled up at a shoveled-out driveway at a small farmhouse with all the lights burning.
“She’s the sweetest child in the world,” said Bar. “It’s so sad.”
“The good news is it’s one of the mildest forms of autism,” said Pat. “But since it mainly manifests in crying, it just tears at your heart.”
They got out and walked up the front steps with their best game faces.
Jack Arsenault already had the door open. “Get in, you’ll freeze.”
He led Patrick to the bedroom. The women went in the kitchen. “Can I get you something? Danish, coffee?”
“I’m fine.”
They both sat at the table and smiled, but their eyes were in another emotional room.
“You really didn’t have to come,” said Gabby Arsenault.
“Are you kidding?” said Bar. “We love Courtney.”
“She’s always talking about Patrick. You both have such a way with the students. You’d be great parents—” Gabby stopped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean . . . I mean I forget.”
“Don’t worry about it . . .”
A half hour later, the men joined them in the kitchen.
Gabby looked up. “How is she?”
“Asleep,” said Patrick.
“I don’t know how he does it,” said Jack.
“Y
ou’re the ones who do it all,” said Pat. “She was practically asleep when we got here. I just gave the jar lid a final twist.”
A heavy pause in the room. Jack formed tight lips. “Uh, I . . . me and Gabby, we want you to know that we feel absolutely horrible about what’s going on with the teachers.”
“Everything will work out.” Pat smiled, and it was sincere.
“But I can’t believe I voted for those greedy bastards.” Jack shook his head. “It was supposed to be about government responsibility. Who knew they were going to raid the candy store?”
Bar got up from the table as Pat put a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “The important thing is you have a wonderful daughter.”
Chapter Seven
MEANWHILE . . .
It had been one of those killer Keys sunsets. Just a few hours earlier, a wavering scarlet ball melted into the Gulf of Mexico, silhouetting countless uninhabited mangrove islands scattered across the quiet water.
Then it was gone, but the show continued. Streaks of wispy clouds fanned out from a point in the distance, glowing rose and crimson underneath from the hidden sun. Below the clouds, drivers turned on headlights, creating a string of bright beads up U.S. 1. It was especially magical if you had a wide-angle view.
“Can we go now?” asked Coleman.
“I’m using my wide-angle,” said Serge. “It’s magical.”
The final cloud faded to dark.
Serge tossed his camera in the ’76 Gran Torino that was backed up in the driveway of a dead man’s house on Key Largo.
Coleman followed him inside the residence. “The car’s been packed for the last hour. You promised I could go to that bar.”
Serge made a quick recon sweep for anything they might have forgotten. “We had to wait for night anyway.”
A beer cracked. “What for?”
Serge gave him a “stupid question” look, then tilted his head across the room toward the closet.
“Oh, that.” Coleman realized he now had an open beer in each hand. “But we’re still going to that bar, right?”