By the time I checked the map to see what had become of the Greater Miami Area, I realized I had somehow missed it altogether and was out in the Everglades. I decided I’d catch Miami another time and just kept going on south through the Glades.
It was something like I’d never seen before, and it got me wondering how life must have been for those early Indians living down there in that part of the state folks called the River of Grass. Nothing for a hell of a lot of miles but grassy swamp and hardwood hammocks.
I stopped a couple times and looked out over all that wild country, then after dark I pulled into a little ol’ bar off the main road a ways. I had me a bite to eat and a couple beers while talking with some of the folks living around there. Besides the universal conversations pertaining to matters of women, sports, and gas mileage, the beer talk that evening was airboats, fishing, gators, swamp buggies, and who shot what, where, last hunting season.
Later on, I pulled my truck over behind the bar and climbed in back to get a little sleep. I had my flashlight looking for a crossword to do to help me get to sleep, and found a worn little booklet, a guidebook to the Keys and Key West. I thought over how it got there a while, then read myself to sleep.
I got a couple hours sleep, then lay there listening to the skeeters through the window screen for a few minutes before deciding to get my lazy ass up and head south some more before I ended up on the receiving end of another impromptu Dalton visit.
There wasn’t a whole lot of Florida left down south to see, but I had a feeling it was the best part.
∨ Key Weird ∧
12
Highway Irregularity
By the time Jeremy got into Florida, he was really sick of driving. It was getting hot during the day, and he hadn’t slept well the last couple of nights in motels. The lack of exercise, coupled with his diet of greasy roadside fast food, had given him a serious case of constipation.
Now he was lost after trying a shortcut. Not lost enough to pull into a gas station and ask directions, but lost enough to maybe ask the two guys standing alongside the road.
“Yo, Chief! How do I get back on the interstate from here?” Actually, only one guy was standing up, the other one was the same height, sitting down.
“Get in Lenny!” Jeremy hadn’t planned on giving these guys a ride, just ask a quick question, but the big one was squeezing into the back seat before he could say anything. The other guy jumped in the front and gave him a hard look.
“Drive!”
Jeremy hit the gas, and the guy in front stopped staring at him long enough to look at the map.
“Take the next right.”
“That’s the way to the interstate? You sure?” The guy kept staring at him, not saying anything. He looked up in the mirror and saw the big one in back just sitting there with a blank look on his face. This sucked.
“Where you guys headed? I’m not going much further myself.”
“We’re going to Miami. You’re taking us.” Jeremy didn’t like the way the conversation was headed, or the way the guy with the bruise on the side of his head kept staring at him. Maybe he’d try to lighten things up a little.
“Uh, sure, no problem. I hear Miami is nice; beaches, palm trees, that kind of stuff.” These guys didn’t look like your typical beach goers though. “I bet they got a lot of bars in Miami, topless bars especially.” That was more like it, the guy turned the volume down a few notches on his stare.
“Pull over here!”
Jeremy almost missed the turn for the liquor store.
“Wait here, Lenny. If he moves before I get back, reach over and break his neck.”
Jeremy hoped the guy was just getting a six pack. The one filling up the whole back seat of the Pinto was staring at him now, and looked like he was about to say something.
“Excuse me mister, you haven’t seen a white pickup truck with a big possum painted all the way down each side, have you?” Before Jeremy could answer, there was a gunshot inside the liquor store, and the other man ran out and jumped in the car.
“Go!”
Jeremy kicked the Pinto hard, and they were back on the highway, the Pinto maxed out at sixty five.
“Ease up, Mr. California, we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.” He must have seen the license tag. At least the guy was smiling now, looking down in the bag he got from the liquor store.
“Here you go Lenny.” A handful of candy bars went in back. “They didn’t have Mars, sorry.”
“But George, you know I like Mars best!” Sounded like the monster in back was about to cry over a candy bar.
“Look, Lenny, I TOLD you they didn’t have ‘em! I even asked the guy. Explained it was important. When he said he didn’t have any, I shot him, okay?” This was getting too weird for Jeremy.
“You just killed a man because he didn’t have the right candy?” Jeremy glanced away from the road at the guy, who just gave him a look.
“Of course not! What do you think I am, crazy? I just shot him in the leg.” It sounded like a pack of hogs was eating the candy bars in back. George pulled a liquor bottle and a wad of money out of the bag.
“You mentioning them titty bars in Miami reminded me we we’re a little low on cash since we had a problem with our van and lost all our stuff.” Jeremy wasn’t going to ask. He kept looking in the rearview mirror expecting to see police any minute.
“Lenny and me are going to get us a stake one of these days, settle down, maybe right here in Florida. Ain’t that right Lenny?”
“Yeah, George! We’re going to get a place of our own, like a farm! Tell him about the rabbits, George!”
“Nah, This guy don’t look like he wants to hear about no rabbits.” George was taking hits right out of the bottle and counting money. At least he seemed to be in a better mood.
“No, I like rabbits, really!” Jeremy had to lose these guys somehow. “Having your own place sounds great. So, you’re going to do that in Miami?” They were on the Interstate, heading south. At least there weren’t any liquor stores on the Interstate. George got his dark look again, gritting his teeth.
“First though, we got to kill a man.” Somehow, this didn’t surprise Jeremy.
“Anyone in particular?” Jeremy chanced another glance over, and was getting that incredulous look again.
“Of course it’s someone in particular! You think we’re crazy?” George belched and threw the empty bottle out the window. Jeremy had never seen anyone drink an entire quart of whiskey so fast. “Man needs killing, too. Sent us up to the big house for five years!”
“Jeez! You guys are going to kill a judge?”
“Judge? Shit no! The judge is our uncle, or we mighta got even more time!” George pulled out a gun and waved it around. “Hells Bells, how were we supposed to know all them places we robbed had cameras up taking pictures!”
Jeremy saw a roadsign.
“Anyone need to take one? Next reststop after this is twenty nine miles.”
“You gotta go Lenny? Tell me now!”
“No, George.” The smaller man looked back and pointed the gun at Lenny.
“Don’t be telling me in no ten minutes you gotta go!”
“I ain’t gotta go George, I’m sure.” George stuck the gun back in his pants.
“Maybe you better pull in here so I can bleed the lizard.”
As soon as George weaved off into the restroom, Jeremy hit the gas. The car moved about twenty feet before there was an iron grip on his throat.
“Mister! We gotta wait for George!” Jeremy hit the brake. He could barely talk.
“I seen a bunny up there! Under that red car, a little bunny rabbit!” The grip eased.
“Where? I don’t see it!”
“It’s there behind the front wheel! If somebody doesn’t get it, it might get splattered by a truck!”
Lenny worked his way out of the car just as George came out of the restroom pulling his gun. Jeremy credited George missing with all eight shots to the fact he
was shitfaced and couldn’t get a clear shot through the cloud of black smoke pouring out of the straining Pinto’s exhaust.
♦
Jeremy decided the Everglades area at the bottom of the state had to be the biggest bore he’d seen since the desert, nothing but mile after mile of swamp. Hardly even any good billboards to read.
At least when he got to the Keys, there were bridges and water to look at, but through all the restaurants, dive shops, motels, mini-malls, and bait shops, he didn’t see a single topless bar. There did seem to be plenty of bars though, and with the Visa Gold card Carol had given him, Jeremy was sure he could find some action once he got to Key West.
It was a pleasant but cloudy day, and there were plenty of boats on the water around the bridges. If he hadn’t been so constipated, Jeremy might have even enjoyed looking out over the water as he drove along. Finally, there was a break in the clouds and the sun came out, so Jeremy was fumbling around for his sunglasses and almost didn’t see the young woman in the bikini standing on the bow of one of the boats. After that, the little man from California went on Code Red Cooter Lookout. Crossing Sugarloaf Key, he was checking out two college girls on a scooter, and didn’t notice the armadillo crossing the road until it was too late.
“Jeez! I thought those things only came out at night!”
Soon afterwards, Jeremy started hearing deep rumbling noises and thought maybe the armadillo had messed up something underneath the Pinto. He turned the radio down and realized the rumbling was coming from his intestines. Maybe it was the mango he’d bought from that old Indian guy next to the gas station. Jeremy usually didn’t eat fruit, but this guy was peeling the mangos and putting a stick in the end so you could eat it like a big lollipop. It actually wasn’t bad, for fruit.
Jeremy hoped he could hold it to Key West. Get himself a motel room so he could take a nice, long, relaxing crap before getting this little statue thing Carol was so worked up about.
∨ Key Weird ∧
13
Taco Bob Sees the Keys
“All that clear blue water is near, I could live on conch fritters and beer.”
Driving down towards the bottom of the state, the air changed about the same time I caught the first glimpse of water through the mangroves, and I started getting anxious to see what was up ahead. It was early morning by the time I hit the first couple of islands, the sun up enough I could get a good look at all the businesses and houses along the road of the upper Keys. It really didn’t look all that different from the rest of Florida. There wasn’t a whole lot of water to see down through Key Largo, but pretty soon there was plenty.
I never seen such beautiful clear water before. The sky was cloudy at first, but the sun started peeking out just as I was getting to some really nice areas, and you could see all the different colors in the water from up on the bridges. I hadn’t ever realized there were so many different shades of blue and green.
By the lower Keys, the buildings, signs, and people thinned out some. There was more wilderness areas along the smaller islands, with a whole ’nother world of water out beyond.
I was easing down the road, listening to a Key West radio station, working on some smoked Kingfish from a Vaca Key fishhouse, and taking in the sights. I was set.
A little blue car up ahead run over something on the road, so I slowed down and looked as I went by, and sure as hell it was an armadillo. I happened to look in my rear view mirror and seen what looked like a tall fella wearing a shower cap and some kind of skirt, run out and grab the ‘diller and run back in the bushes. Just up ahead, an old station wagon along the road had a sign for Chicken Burritos, but there wasn’t anyone there.
I stopped at a State Park on one of the Keys, put on my swim trunks, and went and just lay there in that warm, crystal-clear seawater for a while. There was a few other people at the beach swimming too, and I talked to a couple from Toronto who seemed just as happy to be there in the bright sunshine and warm water as I was.
After a long swim I went over to the showers, got cleaned up real good, and got on the road without a single, homicidal Dalton popping up. I thought maybe my luck was changing for the better as I made for Key West at an easy cruise.
∨ Key Weird ∧
14
The First Motel in Key West
The Chan brothers, who’d made a fortune in the laundry and illegal-immigrant-smuggling businesses, owned the first motel entering Key West. Using the same business strategy of packing as many desperate people in the holds of rusting derelict freighters as possible, the Chans bought several motels in Florida and remodeled.
The idea was simplicity itself. Just take an ordinary room, throw up some extra walls, doors and plumbing, and you have three rooms instead of one. It was not unlike what many movie theaters across the country had been doing for years.
♦
“Hey, how ya doing? I don’t have a reservation, but I got this and I need a room, like pronto.”
André, the self-assured assistant manager of Big Pelican Nice Lucky Motel, looked up from his computer screen behind the counter and did a quick assessment of the short, pudgy, balding guy holding a Visa Gold Card up in his face like it was the Hope Diamond.
Oh joy, thought André, another asshole.
“I see. Let me just take a look at our room availability index.” André sighed and looked back at the screen and tapped a few keys. The guy was sweating and fidgeting like crazy.
“Look sport, I’m in a big hurry here. I gotta take a wicked crap, so just take the card and give me the room key. I’ll come back later and sign in and get the card.”
André frowned, “I’m sorry sir, policy doesn’t permit me to…”
“Look, would another twenty bucks on the card make policy happy? Thirty?”
The little man snatched the key André dangled over the counter and waddled back out the door of the tiny office as fast as safely possible.
“Welcome to Key West, sir!” André allowed himself a little chuckle as he ran the credit card through the machine. He was sure room 325-C was the farthest back in the motel, but he wasn’t sure if the maintenance man had fixed that sticking door lock yet.
∨ Key Weird ∧
15
Carol
Carol was pissed. Now instead of flying down to Key West to get her justly deserved third idol, she had to go to Germany to bail out the Witchettes. Sara called, whining about being up all night with the flu, said she was too weak to lead the other Witchettes in tonight’s seminar. So Carol’s rendezvous with destiny, her opportunity to wield unlimited power over all she encountered, was going to have to wait. This sucked.
Carol booked a seat on the next flight to Bonn so she could make one of her rare on-stage appearances. Germany sounded beyond boring.
“If we’re going to take this Dog and Pony Show all the way to Europe, we should at least make it someplace with decent shopping, like Paris.”
And speaking of sick and whining, Jeremy had called complaining about getting food poisoning in some big swamp somewhere in south Florida. He’d spent three hours on the toilet in a motel in Key West. That was the good news.
The bad news was his old car wouldn’t start, and he wanted to head for the bars to unwind from his long drive. Since the little weasel could easily “unwind” for a week straight rather than going to the Treasure Museum like he was supposed to, Carol nixed that idea. She gave him an ear-full, including the usual threats of losing his employment and genitalia, and finally told him to get with the program or she’d put a stop on his credit card.
The thought of being stuck in the opposite end of the country with no money seemed to get his attention. As much as she didn’t like the idea, Carol realized she was going to have to depend on Jeremy to discreetly start gathering information on the treasure scene in the Florida Keys.
♦
After packing for her trip to Germany, Carol had some time to kill before leaving for the airport, so she sat on her bed and read through th
e story of the Chacmools one more time.
According to Charlie, the Chacmool idols were from the Ancient Toltecs of Mexico. Seems the Spanish had paid the Toltecs one of their little visits that were so popular back in the 16 and 1700s and grabbed everything of value, including two of the Chacmools. The third was hidden from the Spanish by a shaman who’d passed it down through generations of shamans until Charlie picked it up from an old Indian in a small town market in central Mexico for two hundred dollars cash and a carton of Marlboros. The old Indian told Charlie the story of the other two Chacmools and the power they could hold if they were ever together.
It was another twenty years before Charlie had the second Chacmool. It cost him over a hundred thousand dollars to have it stolen from a museum in Spain. Several more years of searching Europe’s museums and private collections failed to turn up any trace of the last idol.
The last entry was only weeks before Charlie’s death. It said that the Spanish sailing fleet carrying the Treasure of the Ancient Toltecs back to Spain had run into a hurricane and lost a ship, the one most likely carrying the missing Chacmool. According to Charlie’s diary, the ship had gone down somewhere around Key West.
Carol looked at her diamond watch and sighed. Time to head for the airport.
“All Jeremy has to do is find one little golden idol. Is that too much to ask?”
∨ Key Weird ∧
16
Free Estimate
“The starter’s shot, the battery won’t take a charge, the alternator’s fried, and the belts are disintegrating. The radiator and water pump are leaking, the plug wires are cracked, the wheel bearings are gone, the tires are past bald, the muffler is hanging by a thread, and there doesn’t seem to be any oil in the engine.”
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