by Tim Dorsey
“And that’s what everyone thinks: If you’re a private eye, you’re supposed to follow the plot, but I say fuck that linear bullshit.” Serge slurped coffee from the tube while wearing children’s Gatorland sunglasses with cartoon characters on the corners. “Real life rarely stays on point like in the movies . . . These sunglasses are too tight for my head. It hurts . . . Ninety percent of our existence is tangents. So tangents are actually the real plot. But even more importantly, if you avoid a tangent you normally would have taken, you could create a rip in the quantum fabric of the universe.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s like a Twilight Zone episode where the future is forever altered because some time traveler goes back to 1899 and saves an Albanian woman from getting creamed by a streetcar in Syracuse, and then President Johnson is never born.”
“So what you’re saying is if we didn’t screw around back there at Gatorland . . .”
Serge nodded. “We could have been spun off into the galaxy.”
Coleman fired up a joint. “Then we should probably stop again.”
“Good thinking.” Serge hit his blinker and sucked the coffee bladder dry.
A cell phone rang. Serge checked the display.
Mahoney.
“Serge here. And before you say anything, I can explain: We had to make sure everyone was born.”
Chapter Nineteen
FORT LAUDERDALE
A cell phone sat upright against a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. It was the eighth-floor condo of a retired firefighter from New York. Brook Campanella pressed a button.
It was one of those calls with speakerphones on both ends.
A disembodied voice came from the middle of the table. “This is Ken Shapiro, and I have one of my partners, Linda Tataglia, in the office with me. Miss Campanella, I understand your father is with you?”
“He’s right here.”
“Good. First thing, another colleague of ours is calling the Washington DEA office right now to say we represent you, so that shuts them down there. They’ll have to go through us from now on and cannot legally contact you directly. And if for some reason, they do call, tell them you’ve retained counsel, give them our phone number and say good-bye . . . Excuse me, Linda has something she’d like to say . . .”
“Mr. Campanella, this is Linda Tataglia. I also need to advise you that if they come to your door and ask you to step outside for a private conversation, don’t do it. That’s a common ruse. They can’t arrest you inside your home without a warrant. Outside, they can.”
“But what if they have a warrant?”
“If they did, they wouldn’t ask you to step outside. They’d just show it to you.”
Ronald began shaking again. “But I didn’t do anything!”
“That’s irrelevant. Right now what you need to do is let the law play out. From what you’ve told us, it doesn’t sound like you’re who they’re really after. We’ll take care of this as quickly as we can.”
“Excuse me,” said Brook. “You’re making this sound a lot more serious than it actually is.”
“It’s not more serious, just more complex,” said Ken. “When you have an entity the size of the DEA, and the proverbial train has already left the station, it can entail a bit of red tape. The important thing is not to worry.”
Ronald scoffed. “Easier said than done.”
“There is some good news,” said Ken.
“How’s that?”
“They contacted you by phone. If you were a serious target, they would have tried to catch you off guard, like in a parking garage. People are more talkative under such duress.”
“So what does a phone call mean?” asked Ronald.
“I’d bet almost anything that, like your daughter suspects, their real target is a doctor. I think they’re fishing for witnesses and got your name from a patient list. But here’s where you have to be careful and let us handle it. Sometimes, instead of asking for a witness’s help, they prefer to go through the witness.”
“Through?” asked Brook.
“Indict as a co-conspirator, then deal down with a plea bargain in exchange for testimony.”
“But he didn’t do anything,” said the daughter.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s simply a game of leverage. I know a lot of people over at the agency, and every one of them is a total professional. But occasionally you’ll get someone who’s played the game so long that they’ve lost empathy and don’t realize the havoc it plays on people who aren’t part of their world.”
Ronald took a deep breath. “I don’t feel so good.”
“Hold on,” said Ken. “Our colleague just returned to the conference room and said he couldn’t reach the agent. But he left a message, so we’re covered on that front. Just relax and let us run it from here. We’ll call as soon as we hear something.”
“Thank you for helping us so quickly,” said Brook.
“Take care,” said Ken.
ORLANDO
A black Firebird sat on the corner of a motel parking lot with the radio on.
“ . . . Happiness is a warm gun . . .”
“Cool,” said Coleman. “The White Album.”
They were on stakeout, which meant coffee and bottled water on the driver’s side; joints and Jäger shots for the passenger.
“ . . . Bang, bang, shoot, shoot . . .”
Serge grooved to the classic Beatles cut. “I just realized something about the sixties. Because dope came along, comic books went out, so there were never any hippie superheroes.”
“Yes, there were,” said Coleman. “The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers. They had their own underground comic books.”
“But they weren’t superheroes.” Serge raised his binoculars toward a particular motel room. “They didn’t have any superpowers.”
“Yes, they did,” said Coleman. “They had the power to score weed under any circumstance.”
“That’s not a superpower.”
Coleman raised an eyebrow at Serge. “My friends would beg to differ.”
“ . . . Happiness . . .”
“The motel room door’s opening.” Serge tossed the binoculars in the backseat. “We’re on.”
The Trans Am raced across the parking lot and screeched up in front of a tall man and a petite woman.
The surprised couple jumped back. “Watch where you’re going! You almost hit us!”
Serge jumped out. “Everything’s under control. I’m a political detective, and this is my associate, Coleman. He has superpowers.”
“I can score dope at will.”
The man glanced toward his female companion—“street loons”—and began walking around the pair. Serge sidestepped to block their path.
“Is there a problem?” the man said menacingly.
“I was hoping we could get together and form a flash mob. Check out our moves.”
Serge and Coleman began doing the robot.
“Get the fuck out of our way!” The man started pushing past.
Serge blocked him again and squinted at the pair. “Do I know you from somewhere?”
“Move or get hurt.”
“No, I definitely remember you but can’t put my finger on it.” Serge looked closer, then raised a finger in epiphany. “I got it now! You’re the people from the TV shows! You’re famous . . . Hey, Coleman, we have a couple of celebrities here.”
“I can make a bong from the contents of any kitchen.”
“Man, I can’t believe the things they’re reporting about you,” said Serge. “Faking that whole terminal-disease thing and ripping off the compassionate. How does it feel to be the most hated people in South Florida? At least for this week?”
“Okay, fella, I warned you!”
Then the guy felt the gun in his ribs.
; “Why walk?” said Serge. “When there’s plenty of room in my trunk?”
Another dingy motel room.
Serge marched them inside at gunpoint.
“Okay, you sit here, and you sit here . . . and it’s pointless to resist. I don’t know why I always say that, but I hear it on TV and wouldn’t want to disappoint.”
Soon they were both tied up with sailor knots.
The couple’s eyes weren’t blinking.
Serge tugged the ropes behind their chairs to make sure they were snug, then circled back around.
“W-w-what are you going to do to us?”
“You tell me,” said Serge. “What should I do to you? I mean, how does someone get their head around such a disgraceful level of predation? There’s low and then there’s sick. On the other hand, up to two percent of the population are psychopaths, so you can’t help it if you have no empathy for others. They say empathy can’t be taught, but I don’t buy that for a minute! I’ve got a great lesson planned for you, and then we can have recess and milk.”
He tore off two sections of duct tape and roughly strapped them around their heads. Then he flicked open a switchblade and held it to the man’s mouth.
Curiously, eyes went wide again. “Hold still,” said Serge. “I wouldn’t want to cut your lips . . .”
Then he was done. The couple didn’t know what to make of it.
“It’s a little different than the gag I usually use,” said Serge. “I cut a small hole in the middle of the tape to fit those plastic tubes that are now sticking into your mouths. And the tubes are connected to these things. Depending on your culture, you might not recognize them, but they’re a couple of flexible plastic bladders that people use to sneak alcohol into places.”
Serge reached for the dresser and uncapped a two-liter bottle of soda. But instead of brown cola, it contained chalky-white fluid. “Just a little something I brewed up. Don’t worry, it actually doesn’t taste half bad . . . Coleman, we need theme music!”
Coleman set a bong down and walked to their boom box. “What do you want to hear?”
“The Doors should be appropriate.”
“You got it.” A chubby finger pressed a button.
Serge smiled and slapped Omar on the shoulder. “Now we’re cooking.” He raised the first bladder high in the air and began pouring from the soda bottle. “Coleman, stand here and hold this.” Then he repeated with the second bladder.
“ . . . No one here gets out alive . . .”
“That should about do it.” Serge set the bottle down. “And as I anticipated, you’re blocking the end of the tube with your tongue, so here’s the deal: I’m going to pinch your nose shut. That way you won’t be able to breathe unless you drink what’s in the bladders, then I’ll reward you by releasing. Ready? I’m pinching . . .”
The man held out as long as he could, then chugged rapidly and panted through flared nostrils.
“Now your turn, miss.” She held out even longer than the man, but there never was any other result. The elixir slid down.
Serge plopped himself on the end of a bed and clapped with excess enthusiasm. “Don’t you just love a good mystery? And here’s the part I know you’re just dying to find out. Just what the hell was that stuff he made me drink? Even though you have to admit it did taste pretty good.” Wink. “I’ll tell you! You know how there are all these medical labs where dedicated professionals work tirelessly to cure diseases? But in order to come up with cures, they have to create diseases, so they’ve developed serums that induce tumors in mice. Then they go to work on the rodents with scalpels and shit . . .”
Movement below distracted the couple. They looked down as something small and furry grabbed a piece of cheese and darted back through a semi-circular hole at the base of the motel wall. HOME SWEET HOME.
“That’s just Skippy,” said Serge. “He’s like family, so no medical experiments on him. Anyway, when I heard about the tumor-inducing serum, I just had to get my hands on some. Which is pretty difficult, but not because of security at the labs—who wants to take that stuff? The real hurdle is there’s no black market. Actually now there’s a black market of one: me. So you have to go to the source. I can’t believe how easy it was to break into the place last night, and the cabinet wasn’t even locked. Guess you were just lucky . . .”
The couple began thrashing against their rope bindings.
“Whoa! Hold on! You’re going to hurt yourselves,” said Serge. “And right now you need to keep your heads because good ol’ Serge always leaves his students a way out. If you listen carefully and follow my instructions, you just might emerge unscathed from this little adventure. Do I have your attention?”
They nodded.
“Good. And here’s the important part. I don’t really know the dosage translation between mice and people, which is great news for you! It could take hours or even a day before the tumors start to grow. So if you can catch it in time before it reaches a certain level of cellular formation and goes malignant, you’re home free. I guess you’ll need to find a treatment center and get radiation or something. I’m fuzzy on that, but the people there will know . . . Would you like a lift? It’s up to you.” He tapped his wristwatch. “Tick-tock, tick-tock . . .”
This time even more emphatic nodding.
“Coleman, looks like another road trip.” He stood and grabbed his gear bag. “You can turn off that boom box.”
“ . . . This is the end . . . my only friend . . .”
Chapter Twenty
ORLANDO
A ’78 Firebird rolled through downtown at lunch hour.
Serge glanced in the rearview at the couple in the backseat. “The hospital’s coming up, so look sharp. I’m sure you understand that I can’t be seen near the hospital or get caught on their security cameras. We’ll just drop you a few blocks away, but you’ll be able to see it.”
A minute later, a red light stopped the Trans Am at a bright intersection with a concrete bus bench advertising affordable cremation.
Serge turned around and reached toward the pair. “This is as good a place as any.” He slashed their wrist straps with a box cutter. Coleman opened the passenger door and leaned his seat forward. They took off running.
Horns honked.
“The light’s green,” said Coleman.
“Everyone’s in a rush.” Serge rolled forward another half block and pulled up to a car wash.
“Why are we stopping?”
Serge raised binoculars. “Because I want to see the rest of my plan unfold.”
“Did you really give them tumors?”
“No. That would be mean.”
“Then what was that stuff you made them drink?”
The binoculars followed the couple as they raced across the street. “Ipecac and magnesium citrate. Both are available over the counter.”
“What are they?”
“The first is an agent to induce vomiting in case you ingested something you shouldn’t have . . .”
“Like the time I ate all those mothballs?”
“. . . And the other stuff is what you take the night before surgery to completely evacuate your bowels. Both are highly aggressive and render the user quite helpless to control the effects. You essentially have to camp out in the bathroom. It’s like the old Robin Williams joke: two exits, no waiting.”
“I’ve been there,” said Coleman. “And that makes more sense because the tumor thing doesn’t sound like it would work.”
“Oh, not only will it work, but it has worked.”
“You’ve done it?”
Serge shook his head. “Little-known police case. This dude in perfect health suddenly died, and they couldn’t figure it out—got classified as unknown natural causes. And it would have ended there, except a second person in the family died. So now there’s an urgent investigation be
cause they think they got a food-contamination epidemic like salmonella and they’ll have to yank chicken wings off grocery shelves, or maybe it’s the beginning of a chemical cluster like Love Canal, where some factory has to buy up all the houses.”
“Which was it?” asked Coleman.
“Neither,” said Serge. “Authorities discovered organ damage in the two victims but couldn’t figure out what was ingested to cause it, so they sent tissue samples away to a lab, and they had no answers either. Then by sheer luck they gave the evidence to another scientist to double-check, and she looked up from her microscope and said, ‘This was no accident. This was murder!’ ”
“How’d she figure that?” asked Coleman.
“Turns out the scientist previously worked at a pharmaceutical company and said she had seen these types of cells before—in deliberately triggered mice tumors. But they never happen in humans. She told the cops to find a connection between a family member and someone who works with lab mice, and they’d have their killer. Sure enough, one of the sisters had just broken up with some asshole who worked in medical research, and he’d snuck in the house while they were away to poison something in the fridge.”
“Far out.” Coleman looked back up the street. “But what about that couple? How is the stuff you gave them instead supposed to teach them a lesson?”
“I’ve set up a behavior model of distilled irony.” Serge watched as the couple slowed down on the sidewalk and grabbed their abdomens. “The first step was to firmly plant the seed in their brains that they’re doomed without immediate medical care. Then the effects of my yummy concoction will fool them into thinking the serum was real.”
“When will it start working?” asked Coleman.
“I think it just kicked in.”
“Let me see!”
Serge handed him the binoculars. “Oooooo, gross. Look at all the people scattering away from them on the sidewalk. Cool.”
“It’s only another block to the hospital, but it will be a very long block,” said Serge. “On the bright side, it won’t be difficult to track them.”