by Tim Dorsey
“So?”
“So under Florida law ownership hasn’t officially transferred. It never stopped being government property.”
“What’s your point?”
Serge raised paddle number 142 and smiled. “I was the next highest bidder. I’d like my boat now, please.”
“Who’s robbin’ this train?” yelled the man in the cattle hat. “You sumbitches give him that fuckin’ airboat, I’m writin’ my congressman!…”
The agent watched calmly from behind dark glasses. The noisy little dust devil in a cattle hat stomped in an angry circle. “I’ll have your badges!…”
The agent never moved. He spoke out of the side of his mouth to a colleague: “Give him the boat.”
“Thanks!” said Serge.
“Goddammit!” The man threw his hat on the ground. “You know who you’re trying to screw? You’re just a bunch of stupid fuckin’ hired thugs!…”
Serge tapped the agent on the shoulder. “I think you’re overlooking something.”
“What’s that?”
“While the airboat remained government property, it was hitched to the Bronco when the narcotics were found, which means under the forfeiture law the truck had become part of the smuggling continuum.”
The agent began nodding. “I wouldn’t mind driving one of those.”
The man in the cattle hat stumbled backward against the truck and spread his arms like a human shield. “No! Not the Bronco!”
“WOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOO!”
The gang from the No Name Pub was up on the Bogie Channel bridge. An airboat raced toward them.
It zipped under the bridge. They ran across the road to the opposite rail as Serge came flying out.
“Yaba-daba-doooooooo!”
“…You should have been there,” said Coleman, leaning against the bridge railing. “It was priceless. They had to pry the Bronco’s keys out of the guy’s hands….”
The airboat made a tight turn in the middle of the pass, sending up a sheet of water. It whizzed back under the bridge.
Everyone ran across the road again. The airboat zoomed down the channel toward Spanish Harbor, Serge’s shouts becoming mere peeps in the distance.
“He sure seems happy,” said Sop Choppy. “Look at him go.”
Serge turned her around one last time near the viaduct and came back, idling through the man-made inlet at the fish camp. The gang trotted down the embankment for a better look. Jerry the bartender ran a hand along the polished wooden propeller with steel tips. “I wish I had an airboat like this.”
“Why’s that?” Serge hitched the Diamondback to the trailer line.
“Gentle Ben,” said the bartender. “Ever since I was a kid…”
Serge reached in his pocket. He worked a key off his chain and tossed it to the bartender.
“What’s this?” asked Jerry, catching it against his shirt.
“Spare key. Take it whenever you want.”
“I couldn’t—”
Serge started cranking the boat onto the trailer. “Why not?”
“Because it’s yours.”
“Jerry, I like you.”
“You do?”
“I’m not into possessions, just moments. And anyone who’s into Gentle Ben deserves a moment.”
“You sure?”
“Take her anytime.” Serge threaded the trailer straps. “Don’t even bother to ask. Just don’t wreck it.”
“All right,” said the bartender. “But I have to do something to repay you.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. Where are you going to keep it?”
“I don’t know. Probably parked at Coleman’s trailer.”
“Don’t do that,” said Jerry. “It’s a hassle every time you want to go out. You need to keep it near the water.”
“I don’t have a place like that.”
“I do. Over on No Name Key. Bought a parcel way back. Was going to build but waited too long and construction went out of sight with the freight charges. I camp there sometimes. It’s got this break in the mangroves that I smoothed out to launch my skiff. Not a proper ramp, but serviceable.”
Serge pulled a strap hard. “It’s a deal.”
“Why don’t we go out there now?”
Serge and Jerry drove off. They tied up the airboat on the edge of the flats and returned to the No Name Pub, where the petite woman in sunglasses was sitting alone again at a table in back.
A man walked over and grabbed the chair across from her.
“I got your call,” said Anna. “What made you change your mind?”
“Did some thinking.”
“You’re really going to help me kill him?”
“I liked your brother a lot. This has to stop.”
“You got an idea?”
“A couple. But I’m going to need a little time to sort this out. Until then we can’t be seen together.”
“What do I do?”
“Don’t do anything. Just stay in your cottage until I call. And keep that Trans Am hidden.”
21
Friday night, six o’clock
A WHITE JAGUAR WITH a blue tag hanging from the rearview pulled into a handicapped slot in the lower Keys. Four men in yachting jackets got out.
“Here we are,” said Troy Bradenton, looking up at a big wooden sign with words written in nautical rope. LOBSTER TOWN.
Troy and the roofing salesmen could have found their way to the bar blindfolded.
The lounge at Lobster Town was their favorite place in all the Keys. Heavily lacquered wood with brass portholes peering into saltwater aquariums full of coral and clownfish. It was also the annex of a great restaurant, where they could order food over to the drinking side and not miss the babe action. Only thing missing was the babes. Wouldn’t have made any difference if they were around. Troy and the boys had what might be termed an indelicate touch. They decided if their pickup lines weren’t going to work, then they really weren’t going to work. The construction site principle: Next best thing to scoring was impressing the other guys with how rude you could be.
The beer came in frosty mugs and soon the food. A waitress set up a folding stand behind their stools. It held a big round tray ready to collapse under their orders. Giant lobster tails with all the fixin’s! They strapped on the bibs, grabbed nutcrackers and tiny forks, and went at it like pigs with thumbs. “Can we have more bread?”
Lemon mist and shell splinters filled the air. The waitress returned with an extra loaf.
“You have such lovely blond hair,” said Troy. “Does the rug match the curtains?”
The waitress left quickly. The gang cracked up.
“Hey, guys,” yelled the bartender. “Want another round? Happy hour’s almost over.”
Troy looked at the ship’s clock over the bar. Two minutes till seven. “Set ’em up!”
Sugarloaf Key Community Center
ONE OF THE classrooms was full of people in Serge T-shirts. But where was Serge? This was the first scheduled meeting he’d called since they had accosted him outside the library. They quietly stared at the clock over the chalkboard. Two minutes till seven.
They heard running footsteps out in the hall. The door burst open and Serge marched to the front of the room. He dove right in, pacing and gesticulating, lost in thought like a field-goal kicker who blocks out the crowd. “…And then Neo took the red pill so he could see the truth. He was the Chosen One, ready to save the city of Zion….”
A man in the front row raised his hand. “So we should smash this Matrix?”
Others nodded. “Smash the Matrix!” “Smash the Matrix!”
“What are you talking about?” said Serge.
“The army of Morpheus. We’re ready to join!”
“Smash the Matrix!”
“No,” said Serge. “It’s just a movie. I told you that at the beginning. We’re here to talk about my favorite flicks.”
“Oh, that was a movie.”
“Weren’t you
listening?” said Serge. “Now I want to discuss the oeuvre of Paddy Chayefsky. Network is one of the all-time greats, number sixty-six on the American Film Institute List….”
A hand went up. “We should smash this Network?”
“Smash the Network!” “Smash the Network!…”
Serge banged his forehead on the blackboard. He spun around. “Everyone, shut the hell up!”
The room stopped. All eyes on Serge. “That’s better.” He began pacing again. “You want a Matrix? Okay, I’ll give you a Matrix. There’s an elaborate world of illusion out there designed to control all facets of our daily lives, but it’s not made of computer codes. It’s made of words….”
They glanced at each other with concern.
“It’s the calculated packaging of your entire life, a twenty-four-hour reality manipulation on a hundred channels. Cell phone minutes that set you free, instant stuffing that makes your thankless family sit up and take notice, deodorant soap that turns a shower into a life-affirming epiphany…Enough already! I say, Kill the advertisers!”
“Kill the advertisers!” “Kill the advertisers!”
“Are you nuts?” said Serge. “It’s just advertising. If you can’t see that, you’re already toast. In fact, I want to be manipulated. If I have to watch a commercial, at least don’t give me the same dreary heartbreak I see every day on the street. Briefly balm me with cheerful, slow-motion footage of an orange slice spraying the air with droplets of that citrus goodness, and I’m ready to face another day!…No, the real problem is lawyers. Scum-sucking, double-talking, soul-selling leeches with legs. Everything that comes out of their mouths is a feckless belch of duplicity, their entire culture communicating in a regional accent of velveteen, overly qualified, triple-couched, can’t-nail-it-to-the-wall-like-Jell-O, circumlocutious fibbery. If you and I walked around nozzling this kind of fiction on a daily basis, we’d all be friendless, divorced and fired. But our justice system rewards their morning-noon-and-night press conferences pointing nine different directions away from the bloody client: ‘It was drug smugglers, the ex-boyfriend, the “Alphabet Soup” killer, Satanists in a windowless van that was the dark shade of a light color, and I vow never to rest as I travel the globe in my personal search for the real killer!’ And I’m thinking, yeah, well, you might want to save your frequent-flyer miles because I think I caught a glimpse of the ‘real killer’ today. He was sitting next to you at the fucking defense table!…There’s only one Shakespearean solution. Kill the lawyers!”
“Kill the lawyers!” “Kill the lawyers!…”
“Are you insane? Lawyers are good! We need lawyers! Be more skeptical. Analyze those attorney-bashing sound bytes by multinational corporations and the harems of far-right congressmen they buy up on the cheap like dazed crack whores chanting, ‘I take it in the mouth for jury-cap lobbyists.’ Listen carefully when Fortune Five Hundreds say the greatest threat is runaway verdicts that only enrich those greedy trial lawyers. Then ask yourself: Why does every vested interest that wants us to get rid of our lawyers have entire floors reserved for their own legal teams?…No, lawyers are the common man’s last defense against the deep pockets. It’s the corporations, I tell you!…”
The audience was indecisive. A woman in the front row slowly raised her hand. “Except the corporations are good?”
“No, they truly are fucking evil. But a necessary evil. We’re capitalists, after all, which means we benefit from man’s worst instincts, as opposed to Communists, who suffer from man’s best instincts. Who’s really to blame? The media! Those self-righteous hacks with their liberal bias. Kudos to you, Fox News! You tell us what the ‘media elite’ refuses to: that we need to get all wadded up and distracted over gay marriage so we don’t notice the next massive transfer of wealth scheme. No wonder the rest of the world hates us. Half of America hates the other half. The country’s tearing itself down the middle, and these latter-day pimps of yahooism are swinging sledgehammers at the wedge….”
In the next room, deputies Gus and Walter dismissed their class of juvenile delinquents. They were on their way down the hall when a raised voice caught their attention. They stopped and looked in a doorway.
“So now you don’t know what to believe,” said Serge, “and that’s exactly what you should believe. To borrow from Fire-sign Theater, Everything You Know Is Wrong. Because the biggest danger is the people who believe Everything They Know Is Right. That’s the key to personal growth: Identify your firmest, most self-comforting beliefs, then beat the living shit out of them and see if they’re still standing. The key to stagnation? Worry about other people’s beliefs. There’s an invisible war of self-interest between the ends of the spectrum, and we’re foot soldiers caught in the crossfire. That’s why I’m a moderate, from the extremist wing. Because the middle is where the good people are. It’s where hope is. And it’s where the truth lies. But what is this truth? For starters, it’s don’t listen to someone whose only credentials are that he’s standing at the front of a room. And that’s the truth.”
Serge trotted out the door past the deputies.
Gus looked at Walter. “There’s something not right here.”
22
Saturday, 5:30 P . M .
D EPUTY WALTER ST. CLOUD arrived at the sheriff’s substation for the evening shift.
Gus was already at his desk reading paperwork that Sergeant Englewood had just handed over from the day side.
Walter put a fresh filter in the coffee machine.
Englewood snapped a briefcase shut. He was thinking about mashed potatoes. “See you guys tomorrow.”
“’Night, Sarge.”
Walter came over to Gus’s desk while the coffee perked. “What are you reading?”
“The reports both of us are supposed to read.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
Gus continued reading. “What is it?”
“The stories really don’t bother you?”
“I don’t pay ’em any mind.”
“Good.” Walter rolled up a chair and sat down. “Because I just heard this great new one I wanted to ask you about.”
Gus closed his eyes for an extended blink.
“A waitress told it at the Key Deer Café. I was having pie at the counter, and she was talking to these other people, but everyone was listening. It was the time you didn’t know about one of the department’s surprise urine tests, but your wife did because she was doing the major. So the night before she got you to let her draw on your penis. You couldn’t see what she was doing because of the angle. And she draws this goofy Mr. Bill face. You know: ‘Mr. Sluggo’s going to be mean to me!’ The next morning you hear about the test and try to scrub it off, but she used one of those indelible Sharpies that lasts for like a week. There was no hiding it from the monitor who has to witness you give the sample. And he blabs to everybody!”
“What’s your question?”
“Well, there wasn’t really a question. I just wanted someone to tell it to.”
Gus went back to reading.
“I think it’s my favorite one so far.”
Gus looked up at his partner.
“You know what I mean,” said Walter. “Actually it’s quite terrible. I’m going to be back over there at my desk.”
It was quiet again in the substation. The fax started.
Gus got up and grabbed the bulletin.
“What is it?” asked Walter.
“Remember that APB the other day on a brown Plymouth Duster? They just linked it to a charred body found in the Everglades. A witness also spotted it at Dade Corners. Ohio plates but no number.”
“Heading this way?”
Gus taped the new bulletin to the wall next to his desk. “That’s how it’s looking.”
SEVENTEEN MILES DOWN U.S. 1, two combat boots walked through a wrecked-car graveyard on Stock Island. “U Pull-It Auto Parts.” The boots stopped behind an ’81 Fiero. Hands in leather gloves twisted a screwdriver, removing a Delaware licen
se. The plate went inside a shirt. The boots walked back out the barbed-wire gate to the side of the road and a brown Plymouth Duster.
One hour later
FOUR PEOPLE CONDUCTED predate rituals at four different locations in the lower Keys.
Serge was in his fishing cottage. His finest tropical shirt lay ironed and flat on the bed. He sprayed cologne and gargled and applied contingency layers of Speed Stick. The borrowed Buick sat outside. The plan was to arrive at Coleman’s trailer with an hour cushion in case Coleman needed to be revived, then swing over to pick up Brenda by 6:50 and knock on Molly’s door at seven sharp, to lay the reputation groundwork as a dependable husband.
Serge sang as he trimmed ear hair.
“I’mmmmmmmmmm coming up, so you better get this party started….”
Molly stood rigid at her bathroom mirror, hair pulled back tight and pinned in a bun. She had a dark-blue blazer over a light-blue shirt buttoned practically to her chin. She auditioned pairs of granny glasses.
Another apartment, another mirror. Brenda threw her head forward, that gorgeous blond mane hanging down in front of her face. She flung her head back, the locks making the return flight and falling over her shoulders for that sexy tossed look. She clipped a belly-button ring in her bare midriff. That was for Serge’s benefit, definitely not Coleman’s…. Coleman! Jesus! There was no way she could face this sober. Time for date-priming. She grabbed her giant plastic Sloppy Joe’s cup of rum and Coke.
Serge drove up to Coleman’s trailer, pressed the doorbell. No answer.
He knocked.
Still nothing.
Serge stepped back from the trailer to appraise the situation. He noticed the soles of two shoes at the edge of the roof. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Coleman!”
Coleman slowly sat up with disheveled hair.
“What the heck are you doing up there?”
Coleman looked around. “I don’t know.”
“Hold on. I’ll get a ladder.”
They ended up in the living room. A bong bubbled.