by Tim Dorsey
Molly walked out on the veranda. “Serge?”
The hammock sagged deep in the middle where Serge curled up like a baby. He’d never slept harder. After an hour, the wind changed and the hammock began taking an eastern breeze off the harbor. It was down by the dock on the southern indentation of the island, visible from the upland bluff where two hands in leather gloves parted the fronds of a saw palmetto. The hands opened a small steel case lined with foam padding. A disassembled Marlin thirty-ought-six. The hands screwed on the barrel and snapped the stock in place. The barrel poked through the branches and rested in the yoke. An eye went to the scope, a leather finger eased through the trigger guard. A hammock appeared in the crosshairs. The finger squeezed.
The first bullet grazed Serge’s shoulder, an otherwise excellent shot. The elevation was dead-on, but a tiny miscalculation in windage. Serge woke up grabbing his arm. The second shot was hurried and missed altogether, smashing the support ring fastening one end of the hammock to the tree. Serge crashed to the ground just before the third shot flew through the spot where his head had just been. Serge instinctively tucked and rolled toward the cover of brush. Leather hands jerked the rifle out of the branches and deftly broke it down into the case. Serge was on his feet, running in a tight crouch against the vegetation, then into the thick of the trees, taking a long, looping fox trail around the island.
Serge finally made it back to the cottage, clearing the front steps in two giant leaps and diving through the door. Molly heard the noise and came in the room drying her hair with a hundred-watt blower.
Serge ran for the sink, blood trickling through the fingers holding his injured shoulder.
A scream. The dryer crashed to the floor.
“It’s just a flesh wound,” said Serge. “The bullet didn’t even enter.”
“Bullet!”
Serge grabbed the bungalow’s first-aid kit from a cabinet and patched himself up with antibiotic cream and large bandage. “There, like it never happened.”
“You got shot?”
“A little bit.”
“Who did this!”
“Who knows? It’s a crazy world.”
“I want you to tell me right now about this consulting work you do.”
“What’s to tell?”
“Have you ever been in jail?”
“Where’d that come from?”
“Just answer the question.”
“Jail?” Serge repeated. “Words are such relative things….”
“I knew it!” Molly jumped up and headed for the bedroom.
Serge ran after her. She started packing.
“Baby, wait. I can explain….”
“Let go of my arm!” She stuffed clothes in a bag and muttered to herself. “What was I thinking getting married so fast? Right, people do it in Vegas all the time. I’m so stupid! I don’t know anything about him!…”
“Why did you marry me so fast?”
“Because you were the first man who ever…” She finished the sentence by cramming a bathing suit in the bag.
Serge grabbed her by the hand and got down on a knee.
“I married you because I just knew. When you’re positive you’ve found your soul mate, why continue shopping?”
She pulled her hand away and kept packing.
“You’re the only woman for me. Whatever I was before was before. Everything is all new now. I meant every word of my vows.”
Her packing rate slowed. “There’s just so much I don’t know about you.”
“Okay, I’ll come clean. You’re my wife and you deserve the complete, unfiltered truth. Marriage is sacred. It must be based on total trust….” He paused and looked deep into her eyes. “Okay, here goes…. I’m…a social worker.”
“Social worker?”
Serge nodded. “I find people with really screwed-up lives and gradually ease them back into the herd.”
“Coleman?…”
“My toughest case. Been working on him for years.”
“Oh, Serge. I’m so proud of you! That’s a wonderful line of work!”
“Most of the time,” said Serge. “But some of these people are pretty bizarre. That’s why you’ll have to understand if I’m suddenly required to go someplace in the middle of the night.”
“But why didn’t you just tell me in the first place?”
“Afraid it might scare you away. Some of my clients are totally unpredictable, which is why you can’t tell anyone about me or where I live.”
Molly released a big sigh. “I feel so much better now.”
“Hey! Let’s open our wedding gifts!”
“Okay.”
They unwrapped Coleman’s present. A porn tape. Chitty Chitty Gang Bang.
“Thanks, Coleman.” Serge grabbed the next gift.
Molly reached for the cast-aside video. “Let’s watch it.”
So went the next thirty-six hours. The honeymoon finally ended but not the endurance test. Serge moved into Molly’s apartment, and life turned into a Pink Panther movie. Serge would stroll out of the kitchen with a sandwich and—wham!—Molly diving from a closet, pinning him to the ground.
The staff at the Big Pine library didn’t recognize Molly when she returned to work. Hair down, clothes fitting. She looked them in the eye and even talked! Good heavens, they thought, I need sex like that. The transformation was so stunning that her female colleagues involuntarily pictured Serge’s manhood in scale next to a Polaris missile, an old-growth redwood and the Statue of Liberty.
29
T HE NO NAME PUB’S screen door flew open.
“I’m Gaskin Fussels! And I rule!”
Hearts sank around the bar.
Fussels was holding a large box with both arms. He marched up and set it on the counter. “Y’all come over and take a gander at this!”
Nobody moved.
“Okay, stay where you are. I’ll take it out of the box and show you.” Fussels reached in with both arms and carefully extracted the contents. He proudly placed it on the bar.
The pub went silent. Mouths agape.
“I knew you’d be impressed,” said Fussels. “This’ll teach him to fuck with me!”
They hopped off their stools and crowded around Fussels.
Bud looked at Sop Choppy. “I hope that isn’t what I think it is.”
“Uh, where exactly did you get that?” asked Daytona Dave.
“Just up the street,” said Fussels. He formed a vicious grin. “At the home of that dick-head who owns the motel.”
“What motel?” said Bud.
“Lazy Palms. The one that ripped me off.” Fussels nodded to himself with satisfaction. “We’ll see about that fucking refund policy.”
“Where exactly was this house again?” asked Sop Choppy.
Fussels waved an arm east. “Right across the bridge on No Name Key. Down one of those back roads.”
“That’s not where the owner lives,” said Bud.
“What are you talking about?” said Fussels.
“I know the owner. His place is up on Cudjoe.”
“Then who lives out there?” asked Fussels.
It slowly began filtering back to Sop Choppy through the haze of the other night’s boozing. “Oh, no.” He looked at Bob the accountant, who was just beginning to remember himself.
“What is it?” asked Bud.
Bob had his hands over his face. “Us and our stupid practical joke.”
Sop Choppy looked at the object on the counter. “How could we be so dumb?”
“Because we were drunk!” snapped Bob.
“This is a major fuck-up,” said Sop Choppy.
Jerry the bartender started shaking. “I-I-I thought it’s what you wanted me to tell him.”
Bob ran his hands through his hair. “We have to think.”
They became silent again and stared at the bar.
Fussels looked around at everyone. “Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?”
Nobody answered. All
eyes on the magnificent, scratch-built model of a nineteenth-century British schooner. Scarface carved into the base.
“I’m starting to get pissed off!” said Fussels.
“Shut the fuck up!” yelled Sop Choppy. “You didn’t steal from a motel owner. You stole from a drug kingpin. He’s going to kill you, okay?”
“What are you talking about?” Fussels pointed across the bar. “Jerry said—”
“Jerry lied!”
“Why would he do that?”
“So we’d like him!”
“This is so bad,” said Daytona Dave.
“We gotta get it out of here,” said Bud.
“I don’t understand,” said Fussels. “Why would you want Jerry to—”
“Because you’re an asshole!” said Sop Choppy. “We were trying to get rid of you!”
“Get rid of me? I thought we were friends.”
Five guys: “Shut up!”
“He’s got to take it back right now,” said Sop Choppy.
“I’m not taking shit back,” said Fussels. “Not until I get my refund.”
“Aren’t you listening? Jerry was fucking with you!”
“You really are serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes! The guy’s had dozens of people killed!”
Bud grabbed the empty box. “You have to pack it back up and return it right now before he discovers it’s missing.”
The color left Fussels’s face. “No way. I’m not going back anywhere near there.”
“You have to!”
Fussels looked like he might faint.
“Hold on,” said Sop Choppy. “We might be missing something here. How do we know there’s any way to connect him to this?”
“Think hard!” said Bob. “Did anybody see you go in the house? Did you leave any clues?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
“I left a ransom note.”
“You what!”
“How was I supposed to get my refund?”
“It’s still okay,” said Sop Choppy. “It’s just a ransom note. They’re anonymous.”
“I sort of signed it.”
“You idiot!”
“What did the note say?” asked Bob. “You’d be calling him or something?”
“No, I said I’d be waiting at the No Name Pub. Just bring my refund here.”
The guys jumped back and spun toward the door.
“Oh, my God!” said Bob. “They could be coming in here any second with machine guns!”
“You have to take it back right now!”
“I can’t!”
“You have to!”
Fussels’s legs got rubbery. “I need to sit down.”
“Jerry, get him a beer.”
Fussels upended the draft in one long guzzle. The others quickly packed the ship back up and pushed the box into his stomach. “Get going!”
Fussels walked meekly toward the screen door.
“Whatever you do, don’t drop it!”
“What?”
“Don’t drop it!”
He dropped it.
The gang screamed. They ran over to the box.
“Maybe it’s all right,” said Bud. “It’s a pretty tough box.”
They opened the flaps. Sop Choppy pulled out a handful of broken toothpicks.
Bob held up a snapped crow’s nest. “We’re fucked.”
“He’s gotta go back and get that ransom note!” said Bud.
“That’s right. You have to get the note!”
Fussels was frozen with fear. The gang picked him up by the arms and rushed him out the screen door.
“Go get the note!”
30
Scarface’s office
T HE COCAINE USE was clearly out of control. He’d called the crew together for a late-night staff meeting, then forgot what he wanted to say. But it didn’t stop him. A torrent of disjointed, random thoughts, punctuated by lines of coke and Scarface surfing through chapters of his favorite movie on the big screen.
“I want my chu-man rights!”
The crew stood nervously on the other side of the desk, silent, hands behind their backs. They’d already had that big gun pulled on them four times. Scarface was currently nose down on his desk again for another line. He sat up and scratched his head with the gun barrel, trying to figure out why his desk looked so much more spacious.
“Hey, where’d the ship go?” He reached and grabbed a scrap of paper sitting where the model had been. “Who the fuck is Gaskin Fussels?” He tossed the note back, got out some more coke and turned up the television.
When the blow was gone, Scarface stood and pulled a large molded plastic case from behind his chair and set it on top of the desk. He flipped open the latches and nodded toward the TV. “This is my favorite scene!” He opened the case and removed a giant assault rifle complete with rocket launcher under the barrel, identical to the one Pacino now had on the screen. The crew ducked as the weapon swept across them. “You’re not watching the movie!”
The crew, anxiously glancing back and forth from the TV to their leader, who stood in the ready position with the weapon, repeating dialogue with Pacino:
“Say hello to my little friend!”
Scarface inadvertently pressed something.
Woosh.
A rocket fired.
“Oh, gee,” said Scarface. “I’m awfully sorry.”
The crew member in the middle had a half second to look down in surprise at the hole in his chest, before the projectile’s explosive charge blew him apart, knocking the other two crew members over in opposite directions like Scarface had picked up a spare in the tenth frame.
He leaned over the desk, looking for the survivors. “You guys okay?”
“Yes.”
“Why don’t you get up?”
“We don’t want to.”
“Come on, get up! I got it pointed in the air. The safety’s on.”
The remaining two crew members peeked over the edge of the desk.
Woosh.
A second rocket took off toward the ceiling, blowing a massive hole in the roof of the stilt house. The crew ducked again as debris fell. Scarface looked up at open sky. “How’d that happen?” He shrugged and dumped out more coke.
Finally, Scarface told the two remaining crew members to go get something to clean up the mess. Thank God. They hurried for the door.
“No, wait. Except you,” said Scarface. “I want you to stay behind.”
The pair turned around to see which of them he meant. The one Scarface was looking at pointed reluctantly at his own chest. “M-m-me?”
“Yes, you.”
“W-w-what do you want?”
“Relax. You didn’t do anything. I just want to talk.”
The selected crew member gulped and walked back across the room. Scarface got up from his butterfly chair and came around the front of the desk. Both turned and watched until the other crew member had left and closed the door. They faced each other again. Scarface broke into a wicked grin.
The other man reached back and slapped Scarface as hard as he could.
“Ow!” Scarface grabbed his cheek. “Why’d you do that?”
“What the hell do you think you’re doing!”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind!”
“What”—pointing at the ceiling—“the rocket launcher?”
“All of it! You’re out of control!”
Scarface continued rubbing his cheek. “But I thought this is what you wanted. You told me to pose as the head of your organization. To draw attention away from you.”
“Draw attention, not go on a publicity tour. You cut Billy’s head off, then posed it in front of a mirror!”
“That was wrong?”
Slap.
“Do you have any idea how much media that’s getting? I tell you to take care of a guy, and I expect two in the back of the head. Instead y
ou give me a horror show.”
“You told me I was doing a good job.”
“Five years ago! Before the coke started eating through your brain like termites. Your judgment’s fucked. Like the upside-down crucifixion at the bat tower. What the hell was that about?”
“I was sending a message,” said Scarface.
“What kind of message?”
“I don’t remember the message code, but it was a strong one. Especially the upside-down part. That’s never good.”
Slap.
“And you’re paying for my roof! I’m not standing for this—” His expression suddenly changed. He looked oddly at Scarface’s left cheek. “Your scar…”
Scarface smiled proudly. “You like it?”
“It’s peeling.”
“It is?” Scarface urgently felt his cheek and pressed it back in place. “There. How’s that?”
Slap.
The scar went flying.
Scarface ran across the room and picked it up off the floor.
The other crew member returned with the cleaning supplies.
Scarface pressed the scar back on and turned toward the door. “What the hell are you looking at!”
The crew member didn’t want to say anything, but he could have sworn the scar used to be on the other cheek.
31
D URING THE FIRST few weeks of wedded bliss, Molly asked more and more questions about Serge’s job. His answers became increasingly vague.
“I understand about the confidentiality,” said Molly. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just all these strange hours and phone calls, running into the house and locking the door, then peeking out windows. If only I could see something concrete for peace of mind….”
“Okay,” Serge relented. “You’ve been very supportive of my career. I couldn’t do half of this without you standing behind me. If it’ll help you sleep, you can come with me next time.”
“Really?”
Monday night, Sugarloaf Key Community Center
EACH WEEK, THE crowd had grown, drawing on audiences from other meetings as word spread. They had to move to one of the double rooms and push back the partition, and still it was standing-room-only. Serge had a particular ability to connect with youth, siphoning down the juvenile-intervention class until it was now empty. At first, the deputies were going to report the absences to the court, but Gus suggested they sit in on one of Serge’s talks to see if they could pick up techniques to help the kids.