by Tim Dorsey
The manager had begun getting out the forms but hesitated. “What exactly are you going to do with it?”
“First, load my current favorite possession, that Easy Rider chopper sitting outside your window.”
“Oh, I get your experiment now.” The manager slapped paperwork on the counter. “We often get bikers who are concerned because they haven’t transported their wheels before. But don’t worry; the trucks that will fit your motorcycle have special tie-downs inside.”
“For the record: Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve had the utmost respect for U-Haul, from concept to execution,” said Serge. “During my wonder years, I’d see them going down the road and think: ‘What are those people fleeing from?’ I always begged my parents to rent one, but they kept telling me they didn’t have any need. And I said, ‘I do. Just park it in the backyard and I’ll go about my business. You’ll forget I even live here.’ ”
The manager handed over the keys. “You know we’re not actually the U-Haul company.”
“But . . .” Serge looked back out the window. “The trucks and trailers?”
“Bought some used inventory and opened an independent office.”
“Good for you,” said Serge. “Then the U-Haul people won’t mind what I’m going to do.”
“And I won’t, either,” said the manager. “Bikers are some of my best customers. Guess it’s overall vehicle pride, because they always return them spotless. You should see some of the other stuff we get back. Once there must have been some kind of struggle inside because of all this blood.”
“I’ll try to watch that.”
Serge took the keys and led Coleman out to one of the trucks. The manager stood at the window, observing them lower the back ramp and push the chopper up the incline with someone still in the sidecar.
A helmet began lolling back and forth.
“Serge, I think he’s starting to come around.”
“Then we have to hurry.” Serge grabbed his knapsack off the rear of the bike, removing rope and duct tape. He saw the manager staring from the office. Serge grinned and waved and pulled the roll-down back door closed behind them.
“It’s dark in here,” said Coleman. “And hot.”
Serge clicked on a flashlight. “Only take a minute to immobilize and silence him. I love U-Hauls! If only my parents had rented one, they wouldn’t have had to repair the ceiling.”
“Ceiling?”
“It can only hold so much weight. They were watching TV one night when suddenly: ‘What the hell are all these coconuts falling out of the attic? . . . Where’s little Serge?’ ”
“I think you tied him up pretty good,” said Coleman.
“Let’s rock.”
Serge began raising the door but stopped a quarter way when he saw the manager standing outside.
“Is everything okay?”
The pair crawled out quickly, and Serge closed the door. “Reminiscing about childhood. They also found coconuts under my bed.”
The manager rubbed his eyes as Serge and Coleman climbed in the truck’s cab and sped away.
It was another winding country drive back to the motel. This time, not even small towns. Just tracts of land and isolated buildings. Fire tower, church steeple, NO DUMPING, some kind of quarry, a soccer field for migrant workers, an overgrown cemetery where the latest date was 1933, a wedding dress in a ditch. The traffic was different, too. An open-bed semi brimming with fresh oranges, a pickup full of watermelons, an obese woman in a Cadillac with a row of stuffed animals in the back window.
“Serge, I think I hear the theme from Miami Vice.”
“My cell phone . . . Hello?”
“Where are you guys?”
“Oh, it’s you, Matt.”
“I found your note when I got up yesterday and I’ve been waiting and waiting, and you still weren’t back this morning.”
“Had a bunch of errands to run.”
Thud, thud, thud.
Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “I think he’s flopping around back there.”
“He’ll wear himself out.”
“Who will wear himself out?”
“Nobody you know.”
“You guys aren’t doing any cool stuff on the tour that I’m missing, are you?”
Thud, thud, thud.
“Definitely not,” said Serge. “You’d be completely bored.”
“I’m completely bored here.”
“We’ll be back tonight,” said Serge. “Meantime, just do what college kids do. Study for a test, occupy an administration building.”
“That was the sixties.”
Thud, thud, thud.
“Got to go.” Click.
Coleman cracked a Pabst and looked out the window. “I just saw another mailbox shaped like a chicken. That makes five, including the rooster.”
“It’s the defining difference between inland and coastal Florida. Near the ocean, people with money have manatee and dolphin mailboxes,” said Serge. “Out here, poultry is the class distinction.”
“So what’s the plan now?”
“Stop voter suppression,” said Serge. “Another goiter on the American Dream. It’s supremely immoral to use the false pretext of in-person voter fraud to disenfranchise hardworking citizens. You should have seen the line I had to stand in for the last election.”
“But how can you vote if you’re a fugitive?”
“With a fake ID,” said Serge. “I’m not about to let them destroy the integrity of the process.”
“That’s just not right.”
“Especially after they cut back early voting,” said Serge. “I always cast my ballot before Election Day because I have flexible hours, so I drove to the local precinct at the library and went in one of the meeting rooms where I always vote. Can’t tell you how heartened I was to see all these lines of fellow patriots itching to be democratic. I took my spot at the end of one of the lines with my sample ballot already filled out. Soon I realized the lines were barely moving, and I’m like, ‘What the hell are they trying to pull now?’ Then all the people got down on the floor and sat cross-legged, obviously because of the long wait, except they pulled their feet up uncomfortably over their thighs. I remember poll taxes and literacy tests from the sixties, so I yelled, ‘We have every right to vote without this stress-position bullshit!’ Then someone explained that early voting had been pushed back and I was in a yoga class.”
“What happened?”
“I didn’t get to vote, but I learned the lotus position.”
Coleman nodded and drank beer. “So what’s the plan?”
“I just told you.”
“No, I mean right now.” Coleman looked over his shoulder. “The guy in the back of this van.”
“Oh, I thought you meant the plan: Stand up to China, fix immigration, get some new Supreme Court justices who will play ball . . .” Serge passed a chicken mailbox and watched a sign go by. He hit the brakes.
“What did you see?”
“That farmhouse.”
The moving truck turned off the street and headed up a solitary dirt road.
Someone on the porch saw a cloud of orange dust approach from the distance. He continued rocking in his chair.
The truck pulled up sideways, and Serge ran to a porch railing. “Saw your sign by the road.”
“If you say so.” The whiskered man in a straw hat took a leisurely sip of sweetened iced tea and bourbon.
“You selling horses?” asked Serge.
“That what the sign says?”
“Yes.”
“Then I don’t see why not. You want a horse?”
“No,” said Serge.
“You here for conversation?”
Serge pointed at a much smaller animal. “I want that.”
“You wan
t to buy Betsy?”
Serge got out his wallet. “How much?”
“Wasn’t plannin’ on sellin’ her.”
“Name your price.”
The farmer shook his head. “She’s part of the family.”
“Five hundred,” said Serge.
“I’ll go get her.”
“Not necessary.” Serge handed cash over the railing. “We’ll just drive down and load her in the back. Here’s another hundred for that wheelbarrow.”
“Nice doin’ business.”
The truck headed away from the house. A chair resumed rocking.
A half hour later, Serge entered Citrus County. He flipped down his visor to shield the setting sun.
Thud, thud, thud.
Coleman took a hit and flicked a roach out the window. “I’m totally confused.”
“You just nailed human existence.”
“We got a hostage to take care of with a new science experiment you haven’t explained.” He pulled out a baggie to twist a fresh one. “But buying that thing back there is only going to slow us down.”
Serge winked. “Unless Betsy is part of the plan.”
MEANWHILE . . .
A “Closed” sign hung in the front window, and all the doors were locked just after dark. But Lead Belly’s was definitely open for business. A private party.
The search had taken forever, but it finally yielded the three bug-eyed, stuttering young men sitting up as straight as they could in a row of chairs against the wall. Elroy, Slow and Slower.
“You got to be shitting me!” yelled Jabow. “You buried him under my house! I’m going to strangle all of you!”
He lunged, but the others got between them and wrestled him back.
“Jabow!” shouted Vernon. “The last thing you need to do now is lose your head. We have to close ranks on this.”
“What are we going to do?” asked Otis.
“Give me some space to think,” said the mayor. “Obviously the first thing is to get that body out of there. Then we’ll worry about the cover story . . . Guys, get the pickup truck and some shovels.”
Jabow pointed with menace. “Those assholes ain’t going anywhere near my house!”
“Fair enough,” said Vernon. “But we have to start moving because we’ve got a lot of work and the sun will be up before we know it.” He turned to the petrified trio against the wall. “Elroy, exact location?”
“Uh, third piece of lattice from the end on the south side, then straight in twenty yards.”
Vernon turned a different way. “Otis, stay here with them and don’t let anyone leave until we get back. The rest of you, follow me . . .”
A small convoy raced through back roads at ninety.
“I still want to kill them!” said Jabow.
“Let’s stay on task,” said Vernon. “There’s your house now.”
They pulled up and piled out. A piece of lattice was pried away. Vernon peeked underneath with a flashlight, then stood up. “Okay, who’s going with me and Jabow?”
The rest leaned on shovels, looking at each other and the sky and the ground.
“Come on!” said Vernon. “If I’m going, you can, too. Floyd? Clem? Harlan?”
“It’s really dirty.” “There could be insects.” “My back.”
“Jesus!” said the mayor. “Okay, I’ll make this simple: Either we all go, or nobody goes. And then we all hang together and rot in jail.”
Vernon got on his hands and knees with a flashlight, followed by Jabow and a yardstick, then the reluctant remainder of the gang joined them in the blackness of the crawl space.
Worms and ants and spiderwebs. “How much farther?”
“Just keep crawling.”
“Eighteen,” said Jabow, dragging the yardstick. “Nineteen . . . Twenty. Here we are. Shovels?”
The trailing members slid a couple forward. The first clump of dirt flew. Then another, and another. Jabow was motivated but tiring. “How deep did they say?”
“They didn’t,” said Vernon. “But with those three, I’m guessing not a lot of elbow grease was involved.”
They kept digging until Jabow stood hip-deep in the ground. “This can’t be right.”
“Then we’ll just have to widen the hole.”
An hour later, everyone was panting with futility.
“Now I’m really going to kill them!” said Jabow.
A flashlight slowly panned boards and beams. “It’s got to be here somewhere,” said Vernon. “The only other answer is they were lying, and they’re too stupid and scared for that.”
“What do we do?”
“Fan out and dig a bunch of shallow test holes every few feet.”
Another hour passed. People shouted from various corners beneath the house. “Nothing here.” “Same here.” “I’ve reached the end.”
Vernon turned to his brother. “Jabow, I know how you feel about this, and with every right. But now we have no choice. We’ve got to bring ’em out and show us.”
“Then I get to kill them?”
“Fair enough.”
Everyone piled back in the vehicles. Just as they were pulling out, a police radio squawked. A hand grabbed the mike. “Vern here.”
“This is Officer Phibbs.”
“Phibbs, it better be damned important.”
“It’s leaning that way . . .” And the cop laid it out.
Vernon keyed the mike again. “And this happened last night? Why are you just telling me about it now?”
“I’d rather not say any more over the radio.”
Vernon hung up the mike and yelled out the window at another car. “Jabow . . .”
“I heard on my own radio. What a crazy night.”
“I’ve got to go out there,” said the mayor. “You head back and gather the peckerheads.”
They reached the road at the bottom of Jabow’s drive. The pickup headed back to town, and Vernon went the other way, hitting lights and siren. “Of all the rotten times for another sinkhole!”
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
BACK TO NATURE
Unhurried citizens strolled through crosswalks. Optimistic notions of how the evening’s dinner menus would come together. Some lugged plastic and earth-friendly sacks; others were followed by bagboys pushing shopping carts. One woman had second thoughts about her veal with peppercorn.
The grocery store’s automatic doors opened again; an effervescent man in a tropical shirt sprinted out holding a pair of sacks high over his head. “I scored! I scored!”
The crosswalk traffic parted as Serge and Coleman raced back to their moving van. “Publix is a Florida treasure! Where shopping is a pleasure!”
“But we just bought fruits and vegetables,” said Coleman. “I hate it when you only let us shop along the walls of the store with all the yucky stuff.”
Serge checked his appearance in the rearview. “Jedi Master, the force of the beer aisle is strong with this one.”
Later that night, the rental truck pulled into an empty parking lot at Homosassa Springs Wildlife State Park.
“Serge, duck your head down!”
“Why?”
“A security guard! And there’s another!”
Two golf carts pulled alongside the driver’s door. “The park’s closed. Can we help you with something?”
Serge held up a road map. “Checking my route.”
Thud, thud, thud.
“What was that?” asked a guard.
“Must not have stacked the boxes right.” Serge folded the map. “Hope nothing’s broken or I’m in trouble. You married?”
“So you’re not parking here overnight or anything?” asked one of the guards.
“Leaving right now.” Serge started up the engine and got back on the road.
“That was close,” said Coleman. “I guess you’ll have to call off your project.”
“Just the opposite.” Serge swung onto a small road below the park and cut his lights. “That was exactly what I expected. Simply needed to recon their security rounds before I put everything in motion.”
Serge opened the back of the truck and rolled out the chopper, hiding it in the darkness of the side street. Then he resumed driving deeper into marsh country.
“Hey, there’s Neon Leon’s again,” said Coleman. “Why are we back here?”
“Because the houses really start to spread out, and there’s a lot of vegetation for concealment.” Serge slowed and checked each residence for a number of criteria. “No . . . No . . . No . . . No . . . Okay, this one looks promising.”
The truck quietly drove across the lawn and pulled around behind the house.
“Why did you pick this place over all the others?”
“Four reasons.” Serge rolled up the rear door of the truck and climbed in. “First, it’s on the Homosassa River. Second, there’s enough space between homes that it’s out of view. Third, the lights are out at an early hour, which means the owners aren’t home.”
“What if they’re just having dinner at Leon’s?”
“We’ll be long gone by then anyway.” Serge dragged the wriggling captive by his ankles across the cargo bed, then pushed him over the bumper, where he fell to the ground with a groan.
“What’s the fourth reason?” asked Coleman.
Serge glanced toward the water. “They have one of those.”
“Cool.”
“Give me a hand with Betsy . . .”
A few minutes later, Serge and Coleman moved slowly and quietly through the night, cool wind in their hair, oak branches overhead.
“Mmmmmmmm!”
“Serge, your prisoner is trying to scream again under the duct tape.”
“Doesn’t he know this is a nature area?” Serge looked down and delivered a swift kick to the ribs. “You’re disturbing the wildlife.” Another kick. “There’s more where that came from.”
“Mmmmmmm!”
“Crap! Another challenged student!” Serge ripped the tape off his captive’s mouth, producing a brief schoolgirl scream. “So you want to talk?” He pressed a .45 auto into the captive’s right eye. “I’m all ears.”