by Tim Dorsey
“Walter—”
“I’d say pretty much the whole town. Can’t believe it doesn’t bother you. I’d be mortified, everywhere I go people looking at me picturing stuff…”
“Walter—”
“I’d quit my job and move away. Maybe change my name. Then I’d probably kill myself….”
“Walter!”
“What?…Oh, it does bother you. See, I knew it.”
“No, it’s just that we’re starting to dwell.”
The cruiser turned off the highway and pulled up to a bright new mobile home on Cudjoe Key. The sheriff’s substation.
Gus and Walter went inside with the full-occupancy expressions of men who had reports to write. The only other person was Sergeant Englewood, sitting at a desk under an air conditioner that made the whole trailer vibrate with an oscillating hum.
“Hey, Sarge,” said Walter. “What’s the word?”
Englewood hunted and pecked. “Someone took a bunch of plants last night from the nursery.”
Gus handed Walter some papers, and they split up. Gus walked to his desk. There was a photo of a bearded Al Pacino sticking out of the typewriter. Someone had drawn a bra. Gus crumpled it and got to work.
You could honestly say Gus was one of the good guys. Nice to a fault. When Gus started at the department, he made a strong first impression. Deference, respect, dedication. Gus didn’t have any connections in the department. Didn’t want any. He was determined to make his own way in the world through hard work and character. His supervisors immediately took notice and fast-tracked him into the category of new recruits who needed to be kept down.
“Hey, Serpico,” yelled Englewood. “How do you spell bougainvillea?”
“His name’s Gus,” said Walter.
“It’s okay,” said Gus. “B-o-u-g-…”
It had started as a proud nickname. And it had a nice snap. That was in the eighties, when Gus was a young stallion of a cop. Then his back went out, and he got fat. There was no exact moment in time—more of a gray transition—and the nickname gradually drifted into derision. After twenty years, it was a complete joke. Actually, it had been kind of a joke all along.
Nobody was talking in the substation, just the air conditioner and three chattering typewriters.
The front door opened. “I just heard the funniest story!” said Deputy Valrico. “This woman I stopped for speeding told me Serpico’s wife once—”
Englewood cleared his throat. Valrico turned. “Oh, hi, Serpico. Thought you were on a call.”
“Just got back.” Gus pulled a completed report from his typewriter and walked to a filing cabinet. The fax machine started up. Gus tore the APB off the spool and walked over to Walter’s desk.
“Remember those bodies up in Fort Pierce?”
Walter nodded and typed.
Gus set the fax on his desk. “Metallic green Trans Am spotted at a Key Largo gas station.”
“So it is headed this way.”
“There’s more,” said Gus. “See this list of victims? All named in the same indictment as the guy we found on the bat tower.”
9
T HE PETITE WOMAN sitting in the rear of the No Name Pub didn’t take off her sunglasses. An untouched cup of coffee on the table. Her back to the wall.
After a few minutes, Anna’s eyes rose slightly. Someone she’d been watching at the bar was coming over. He pulled out the chair across from her. “You okay?”
She nodded. “Thanks for agreeing to meet.”
“Of course I’d meet you! Can’t tell you how worried I was when I saw the reports on TV. What the hell happened?”
Anna opened her mouth, then crumbled into silent crying. Her shoulders bobbed. The man turned around to see if anyone was looking. The people at the bar were laughing about something. The man reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to say anything.”
Anna sniffled and gathered composure. “No, I have to tell someone….”
Two days earlier
ANNA SEBRING SCURRIED around the kitchen as the sun went down. She looked up over the sink. A big yellow daisy said six-thirty. She opened the oven and took a chicken out. She was wearing a waitress uniform.
It was a duplex, a plain white rectangle with no landscaping in a sub-blue-collar section of Fort Pierce, about two hours north of Miami. It had been another sparkling Florida development—“from the low forties”—when it first went up thirty years ago. Now the yards were dirt and weeds and disabled cars, the lawns orphaned in the mid-1980s, when the neighborhood collapsed all at once like the fall of Cambodia, and the Middle Class fled for the next new development farther inland.
Anna tensed when the front door opened. She hurried into the living room and searched Billy’s face for clues. She went to kiss him. He walked by.
“I made your favorite…”
He didn’t answer. Just sat at the dinner table. It was one of those days she knew to leave quickly. Anna grabbed the strap of her purse. “I’ll be home same time….”
She went out the door.
She came back in.
“My car’s gone.” Anna grabbed the phone. “Somebody stole it.”
When Billy didn’t react, she knew. She put the phone down.
“Repossessed again?”
Billy stared ahead.
“But we’re up on the payments this time. I deposited my check from the restaurant….”
Billy took a hard breath. Bad territory.
“You didn’t make the payment. You’re gambling….”
Crack. Right across the nose.
She stumbled, off-balance. Billy slowly pushed out his chair and stood.
Anna began backing up.
Billy didn’t have to knock her to the ground. She went down on her own, curling and covering everything important. Her legs took the kicks. She tried to keep quiet so the neighbors on the other side of the duplex wouldn’t know. Didn’t matter. Same story there, too.
Billy lost interest and went to the kitchen for a Coors. Anna stuffed contents back in her spilled purse and ran out the door.
But how to get to work? She’d be late again for sure, and she’d been warned. She looked at Billy’s metallic green Trans Am in the driveway. She had spare keys in her purse. It was the wrong decision, but there wasn’t a right one.
Ten minutes later, Anna raced into the parking lot of the Sunny Side Up Café. The sign had a fried egg with a smiling yolk.
“You’re late again!” yelled the owner, doubling as short-order cook after firing someone.
“Sorry…” Anna ran to the back of the restaurant and the employee rest room, actually a mop closet. She stuck toilet paper up her nose to draw blood. Checked her eyes in the mirror. Starting to puff.
Anna grabbed an order pad and rushed back out under the owner’s glare. The customers momentarily forgot their selections when Anna rushed up to the table looking like she’d just rolled down a hill. Clothes out of line, droplet of blood peeking from a nostril.
A taxi arrived. Billy. He could have just taken the Trans Am in the parking lot and driven away, but you had to know Billy. He ran in the restaurant and started shouting at Anna again like they were still alone in their living room. Billy so wanted to club her, but then saw the much-larger owner coming over. He left quickly.
Customers started getting up. Tires screeched in the parking lot and Billy took off. Across the street, a white Mercedes with tinted windows pulled away from the curb and headed in the same direction.
Anna was sitting and crying at an empty table. The owner walked over.
She wiped her eyes. “I’m so sorry….”
“So am I.”
She looked up. The owner was shaking his head. “This isn’t working.”
“I need this job.”
“I need this restaurant.”
He called for Val, one of the other waitresses, to give Anna a ride. There wasn’t any business now anyway.
They went to Val’s apartment.
A relative was there, watching her kid.
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know,” said Anna.
Val leaned against the kitchen counter and lit a cigarette. “I’d call the police.”
“I can’t.” Anna turned quickly. “And you don’t say anything either. Billy’s on probation. He’d go back to jail.”
“Good.”
“Then we really won’t have any money.”
Anna couldn’t believe how different Billy had been in the beginning.
“They always are,” said Val, looking over at her own child in the living room.
But Billy wasn’t like the others. And besides, he was in business with her brother, Rick. Anna adored Rick. He was married to her best friend, Janet, and Anna thought Janet was the luckiest woman in the world. If only she could find someone half as nice as her brother. And if Billy was good enough to be Rick’s business partner, that was plenty recommendation.
The two waitresses didn’t have answers. It got to be midnight.
“I need to go home,” said Anna.
“You should stay here.”
“Just take me home.”
They drove across town and turned the corner at the end of Anna’s street. Val leaned over the steering wheel. “Holy shit.”
Anna’s clothes and everything were all over the front lawn, the front dirt, that is. The Trans Am was in the driveway.
Val kept going past the house and drove to a nearby convenience store. They bought plastic trash bags and returned to the duplex. No sign of Billy. The blinds were drawn and all the lights off except one still burning in the back bathroom. They quietly stuffed belongings in the bags and tossed them in the backseat.
Val ran around to the driver’s door. Anna stood beside the car, looking at the house.
“What are you waiting for?”
“There’s more stuff.”
“Forget your stuff!”
“I need it.”
“You’re not seriously thinking of going back in there?”
“He’s probably sleeping. I’ll just be a minute.”
10
A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA sat in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie shopping center on Big Pine Key. The windows were down. Serge peered across the lot with a pair of camouflaged hunter’s binoculars. He raised a tiny digital recorder to his mouth. “Surveillance file zero-zero-zero-zero-one. Subject: white female approximately thirty-five to forty years old, driving beige, late-model Pathfinder. Established contact outside dry cleaners, several dresses and a jacket. No visible scars or tattoos, full set of teeth, brunette hair, nicely groomed but not overly so in a manner indicating bullshit personality…. Subject now exiting vehicle for supermarket. Will resume report once inside and target reacquired.”
Serge and Coleman pushed empty shopping carts side by side up the cleanser aisle. Serge had argued they should use only one cart for mobility, but Coleman didn’t want people to think they were gay. Serge lectured him about bigotry, and Coleman said he needed his own cart anyway for self-esteem…. Where’d the woman go?
They ran in panic along the meat case, checking each aisle, soup to nuts…there she was. Serge and Coleman executed a flanking maneuver down the salad dressing aisle and hooked back into breakfast. The woman looked up as two carts skidded around the far end of the aisle and crashed into each other. Serge and Coleman grabbed cereal boxes and pretended to read. The woman resumed shopping.
Serge raised a fist concealing the recorder. “Target reacquired…comparing flavors of nature bars, original and new…”
The woman turned toward Serge; he looked away quickly.
“Coleman! Her cart’s moving! She’s coming this way!”
They held cereal boxes over their faces. The woman passed by. Coleman tugged Serge’s sleeve. “Can I get something?”
“Of course. You’re an adult.”
“I don’t see Frankenberry.”
“They don’t make it anymore, the fuckers.”
“There’s no Quisp, either. And no Quake or Count Chocula.”
“Our heritage has been raped.”
“This one’s got a free offer.” Coleman turned a Pokemon box over. “Darn, it’s one of those deals where you have to mail away and wait six weeks.”
“I hate that,” said Serge. “You could be a whole new person in six weeks. I want to immediately dig in the box and find some rubber-band toy that can put your eye out. She just cleared the aisle. We’re back on.”
They began pushing carts again.
“Remember when you used to race as a kid?” said Coleman.
“I loved that.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Okay.”
They sprinted down the aisle like Olympic triple jumpers, simultaneously leaping onto the bars between the back wheels. Serge’s cart edged ahead of Coleman’s.
“I’m winning! I’m winning!…”
Past the Life and Cheerios. “Coleman, you’re veering into me!”
“There’s no steering!”
“It’s like wind-surfing. Shift your weight.”
“I can’t!”
Crash.
Serge and Coleman ran away from the cereal-strewn aisle with two carts nosed up into the shelves.
The woman took a number at the deli. Serge and Coleman arrived with a single new cart and hid behind the rotisseries.
“Look at this,” said Coleman, holding up a box by the cardboard handle. “Marked-down chicken.”
“I love marked-down chicken,” said Serge. “It’s always better. Put it in the cart.”
“Cheap generic pizza,” said Coleman, picking up a frozen disk. “And expired doughnut holes. I think we’re in the guy section.”
The cart began to fill.
“Ever put potato chips on a sandwich?” asked Coleman.
“That is the best! Then you mash it all down good. The bread ends up with a bunch of fingerprints, but the taste!”
“You can only do that when women aren’t around,” said Coleman. “And you definitely can’t pour bacon bits straight in your mouth from the container.”
“No kidding,” said Serge. “Once they see that, the sexual ship sails forever.”
“You know who really doesn’t put up with that shit?” said Coleman. “Lesbians.”
“What did I tell you about that kind of talk?”
“I’m not criticizing. I like lesbians.”
“I’ve seen your video collection.”
“That’s not what I mean. They have lots of strong points.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like they can install their own garbage disposals.”
“Did you eat a lot of glue as a child?”
“Sometimes.”
A butcher began slicing meat and cheese for the woman. Serge raised a fist to his mouth. “…Boar’s Head, Gouda…” The woman glanced over at Serge. He looked away. A speaker in the ceiling: “Cleanup, cereal aisle.” Two sun-burnt construction workers walked past Serge and Coleman’s single cart. “Faggots.”
“I told you,” said Coleman.
“Serves you right for that crack about lesbians.”
“But I was saying something positive.”
“It’s still against the rules.”
Coleman noticed the seafood section on the other side of the rotisseries. “Hey, I just remembered something I loved to do in supermarkets when I was a kid.”
“What?”
Coleman told him.
“That’s a great idea!” said Serge. “I completely forgot about that!”
Serge and Coleman ran over and leaned with palms pressed against the cold glass of the seafood case, staring inside. A couple of five-year-old boys walked up and put their hands on the glass next to Serge and Coleman. A man in a paper hat wiped his hands and approached from the other side of the case. “What can I get you fellas?”
“Nothing,” said Serge. “We just want to look at the fish with the heads still on.”
&n
bsp; Coleman pointed. “She’s heading to dairy!”
“Let’s go!”
The woman was checking calorie counts on various yogurts, opting for fruit on the bottom.
Serge staked her out from over in eggs.
A stock boy arrived with a large cart. “Can I help you?”
“Yes,” said Serge. “Where are the small eggs?”
“We don’t carry small,” said the stock boy. “The smallest we have are medium.”
“How small are they?”
“Really small.” He flicked open a box cutter.
“What if I don’t want really small? What if I just want kind of small?”
“Get the large. They’re small.” He slit open a carton.
Serge grabbed a Styrofoam container out of the cooler. “How big are the extra-large?”
“Medium.”
“And the jumbo would be large?”
“Medium to large.”
“Thanks.” Serge put the container back in the cooler.
“What about your eggs?” asked the stock boy.
“I don’t want eggs, just answers.”
The woman headed for produce and placed tomatoes on a scale. Serge and Coleman hid behind the florist display. Coleman picked up a rose and sniffed it. “I’ve never stopped in this part of the store before.”
“Neither have I.” Serge picked up a bouquet and checked the price tag.
“Maybe you should buy something to have on hand, just in case.”
“You’re right.” Serge placed the bouquet in their cart. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a dozen supermarket flowers for three dollars.”
Coleman looked toward the ceiling. “They have helium balloons. The ones made of foil.”
“Those are critical.” Serge reeled one down and inspected the pressure. “But you have to save them for the right moment. You don’t want to shoot your wad.”
Coleman reeled down his own balloon. “This one’s a double. It’s got a red heart inside a clear heart.”
“That’s the most important of all. A guy only puts it into play if it’s a super-special occasion or if he’s fucked up big time.”
“Why’s that?”
“The double balloon gets you out of anything. Can’t even be questioned. Like those letters of transit Peter Lorre stole in Casablanca.”