by Tim Dorsey
And now, five hours later, the captive sat strapped in a chair, staring up at a comfortably numb Coleman.
A banging on the door of the warehouse. “I’m baaaaaack!”
Coleman smiled down at the hostage. “That’s my buddy.”
Serge slid the door open and led two more people inside.
“Who’ve you got with you?” asked Coleman.
Serge held each one around the waist as they staggered forward. “You remember Roger from the Democratic Party, and this other guy is Jansen from the Republicans.”
“They look drunk.”
“Naw, I just gave them a shot of Sodium Pentothol in the parking lot when they were getting off work. Grab me a couple chairs . . .”
Coleman helped Serge get them seated. “But Roger was nice to me. Why do you have to kill him?”
“What are you talking about?” said Serge. “I’m not killing anybody—I mean not these two. I just need to explore the political terrain further, because after I was shunned and they embraced you, I realize I don’t know anything anymore. And since we still have a few hours until traffic clears off the industrial road, I thought I’d put it to use.” He looked around at the ceiling. “This warehouse reminds me of Reservoir Dogs. That whole movie was a bunch of conversations in a warehouse, with some torture and death in between, just like here.”
Serge tossed a wad of cloth, and Coleman caught it against his chest. “What’s this?”
“Just go in the bathroom and put that on.” Serge knelt in front of his two newest guests and tapped them lightly on the cheeks. “Anybody in there?”
Jansen’s head wobbled on his neck. “Wha—? Where am I?”
“A warehouse.”
Roger started coming around. “I feel funny.”
“You’ll be fine,” said Serge. “That’s just the truth serum I gave you.”
“Why’d you do that?” Roger asked in a dull monotone.
“Because I don’t know anything anymore. Our political process appears to be a toxic dance of mutually assured destruction that takes all the citizens down with you, and that can’t be right. So I’ve prepared a little experiment.”
“What kind of experiment?” slurred Roger.
“You’re positively going to love this!” Serge excitedly flapped his arms. “I’ve got the best candidate you could ever hope to recruit. Absolutely everyone will vote for him. He’s completely unselfish with a blemish-free record, and he loves all the people. But he’s not sure which party to join.”
Roger lolled his head. “And you want to know which one of us will pick him?”
“No,” said Serge. “He’s a no-brainer as the top candidate for either ticket. You’ll both fight like wild dingoes over him. That’s a given. But only one party can win. So here’s the experiment: After the election, can the other party unite behind him for the sake of the nation?”
“Depends on the candidate,” said Jansen.
“Like I told you, he’s an automatic,” said Serge. “It’s the one and only . . . Jesus Christ!”
“Jesus Christ?” said Bradley. “But he’s dead.”
“Well, he came back,” said Serge. “That possibility was always left open. I’m sure you heard the stories.”
Roger twisted his head around. “Where is he?”
Serge called toward the bathroom: “Jesus, can you come here a second?”
No response.
“Jesus, get out here!”
Roger and Jansen leaned in the direction of Serge’s gaze.
“Dang it!” Serge marched to the bathroom and banged on the door. “Jesus, what are you doing in there?”
From the other side of the door: “Jesus? Oh, right.” Coleman came out and smiled. “My children!”
“That’s not Jesus,” said Jansen.
“Yes, it is,” said Serge.
“He’s out of shape,” said Roger.
“Give him some slack,” said Serge. “It’s been two thousand years. And if you don’t believe it’s really him, check out the shirt.”
The pair looked in the middle of Coleman’s chest, where something had been written in Magic Marker: WHAT WOULD I DO?
“I’m convinced,” said Roger.
“Me, too,” said Jansen.
“Then back to my main question,” said Serge. “He’s sure to win. I mean, even if you don’t believe he’s the son of God, you have to admit he’s a people person. And if he wins for the other side, could you support his administration? Jansen, you go first.”
“Wait a second.” Roger interrupted from the other chair. “I have some issues to go over first before I can accept him as our candidate.”
“Are you joking?” said Serge. “What’s not to like about this guy?”
“The conservatives have been eroding separation of church and state for years.”
“So?”
“Well, he’s a little on the religious side.”
“He’s Christ!”
“Exactly. And politicians often visit schools. Since he’s Jesus, anything he says will be the new gospel.”
“I’m not following.”
“Prayer in the classroom.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” said Serge.
“I agree it’s a quibble,” said Roger. “But we have to keep our base happy—”
“Shut up.” Serge grabbed his head and turned to Jansen. “Don’t tell me you also have a problem with him as a candidate.”
“Actually, yes.”
Serge’s jaw fell open. “What?”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, because we definitely respect all faiths. It’s just that our polling data right now shows that the only viable candidate needs to be a Christian.”
“Yeah?” said Serge. “Jesus, Christian, who better?”
Jansen shook his head. “He’s Jewish.”
“He’s Christ!” said Serge.
“It’s just that our pollsters—”
“Shut up.” Serge massaged his temples and turned back to Roger. “Hypothetically, let’s take the prayer thing off the table. Surely, he’s acceptable in every other way.”
“Not really.”
Serge needed a chair. “I don’t even want to ask.”
“Remember that talk about telling his followers to render unto Caesar?” said Roger. “That they’d be rewarded in heaven?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m not sure he’d support shifting the tax burden to the rich.”
“Incredible.” Serge turned. “Jansen, can you help me here?”
“I’m afraid he scores very low on our Christian values test.”
“He’s Christ!”
“Associating with known prostitutes, creating a disturbance in a house of worship with that money-changers scene, the loaves and the fishes, which was a socialist food-redistribution program . . .”
“Stop talking.”
“. . . Mary was an unwed teen mom,” said Roger. “We’re concerned about his views on abortion . . .”
“. . . And we’re worried about His stance on capital punishment,” said Jansen. “Because of that incident . . .”
“Both of you, shut the fuck up! I can’t believe what I’m hearing!” Serge stood behind the drugged political operatives next to the fat Jesus, who was petting a lobster in a tank filled with iron pellets, and glanced over at the duct-taped hostage. “What’s wrong with this picture?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
ALFONSO’S
Serge tucked Roger and Jansen snugly into their beds and made it back to the warehouse just as truck traffic cleared off the charcoal-black industrial road.
He moved the hostage outside, in back by the scrapyard, and made him change his clothes at gunpoint.
Now the captive was all shiny.
The tape remained over his mouth. In front of him, a giant aquarium with a lobster. The captive watched as Serge placed the lobster in a temporary bucket while he removed the iron pellets and replaced them with regular sea gravel “to establish the control element for my test results.” Then Serge attached something to the side of the lobster with several wrappings of water-resistant tape.
The prisoner observed Serge walk backward with a giant spool, laying down wire like a demolition team, from the aquarium all the way out of sight around the corner and through the front door of the warehouse.
Serge ran back in joy. “Almost done. Barely any waiting left. Just one more thing . . .” He reached in a bag and hung a jumbo magnet over the far end of the aquarium. The hostage looked straight up and saw a much bigger magnet.
“And that’s it!” said Serge. “Isn’t this great? . . . Ah, you don’t know what’s going on?”
Coleman exhaled a cloud toward the moon. “I don’t know either.”
“This is one of my all-time favorites!” said Serge. “But to truly appreciate it, you must first understand a lobster’s orientation mechanism . . .” And he laid out the whole scene, the internal sac and the little rock, blah, blah, blah. “You follow me? You have a grasp? Good! Then I taped this little gizmo to the side of Shelly. That’s his name; you might need it later. The thing I taped is a ball-bearing tilt switch. The little ball stays at one end of the plastic tube unless it’s tilted, and then it rolls to the other, where it simultaneously touches two metal contacts and completes the circuit. Very easy to come by, used in pinball machines and thermostats and car-trunk lids to turn the light off, and bombs—don’t worry, this isn’t a bomb—and some vending machines that now have alarms because people keep rocking them to get the bag of Cheez-Its hung up on the corkscrew.” Serge walked over and patted the man on the shoulder. “Next, you’re probably wondering about that spiffy new getup you’re wearing. It’s a shark suit, used to protect divers from nasty bites, and composed of a thin titanium mesh called chain mail. The only opening is the top part of the face where the scuba mask goes.”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “Can we get some Cheez-Its?”
“Not now.” Serge crouched down in front of the chair like a baseball catcher. “Here’s the deal: I always give my students a way out. So all you have to do is keep the lobster entertained and at your end of the aquarium until dawn, when Alfonso and the crew arrive and will set you free. Shelly likes music, so you might try humming. Or wiggling around. Any kind of motion, because it’s probably pretty boring in the tank.”
Coleman tossed a roach on the ground and snuffed it out with his shoe. “What if Shelly decides to explore?”
“That’s what they call a game changer,” said Serge. “If he reaches the spot under the magnet, it’ll flip him over, tripping the ball-bearing switch . . .” His eyes followed the wire into the warehouse. “From there it’s all computerized. Alfonso has an automated program to run the scrapyard.”
“What’s it do?” asked Coleman.
“Creates more irony.” Serge pointed straight up. “The big magnet that lifts the junked vehicles will come down and grab him by the shark suit, and then it’s a wacky ride over there, when the power to the electromagnet is cut off, dropping him into the car-crusher. Which, of course, turns on.”
“What’s the irony?”
Serge pointed up again. “See the big crane claws surrounding the magnet? It’s like the reverse of the lobster game at the restaurant. This time the lobster captures the human.”
“Cool.”
Serge smiled a last time at his contestant. “I’ll leave you and Shelly alone now so you can get to know each other.”
The pair began walking away.
Coleman grabbed another joint from over his ear. “What kind of music do you think Shelly likes?”
“I’m guessing the B-52’s.”
The hostage watching in terror as Serge and Coleman climbed into the car on the other side of the yard, singing two-part harmony in the distance.
“It wasn’t a rock . . .”
“ . . . It was a rock lobster!”
The Firebird drove out the gate. It was quiet again except for bullfrogs in a stagnant storm ditch.
The hostage looked at the lobster. The lobster looked back.
The lobster wasn’t moving. Maybe it was asleep. So far, so good.
An hour went by. Since Shelly seemed quite inert at the moment, the hostage didn’t dare move or make a peep, lest he disturb the status quo.
Another hour. Still an indolent lobster. This might be easier than he thought.
Suddenly his eyes flew open. The lobster’s antennae began twitching more than usual. It backed up from the glass a couple of inches and stopped.
The man hummed as loud as he could.
The lobster began turning. The captive thrashed side to side to get its attention, but apparently the lobster had seen more interesting days. It completed the turn and began scooting through gravel toward the other end of the tank.
Humming went to max volume with no song in mind.
The lobster was almost under the magnet.
Now just hysterical screaming under the duct tape.
For some unexplained reason, the lobster simply stopped.
The man held his breath. Could he believe his eyes? The lobster began slowly turning around to face him again.
The burglar sagged with a huge sigh.
Then the lobster took a step backward . . .
. . . And flipped over.
“Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!”
There was a loud ker-chunk sound followed by mechanical whizzing.
The captive looked up. This was no slow-motion, dramatic magnet. It came down with haste and was so powerful that the victim actually leaped off the ground with the magnet still a good foot away.
His face was mashed against it as the claw tongs closed underneath, carrying him into the night sky, legs wiggling like a detached lizard’s tail.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
THE NEXT MORNING
Police cars with lights ablaze continued streaming through the entrance of Alfonso’s Scrap Metal. More were already on the scene, taking notes and photos.
Alfonso had called them immediately to avoid an accessory charge. He played dumb. Not hard given the evidence.
The head detective sat on the other side of Alfonso’s desk in the warehouse office. He crossed his legs and noticed something in the sole of his shoe. He picked out an iron pellet, looked at it a moment and flicked it over his shoulder. “You’re telling me you have absolutely no idea who did this?”
“I don’t even know what they did,” said Alfonso.
“Our people just pulled a guy in a shark suit out of the crusher,” said the investigator. “Was your lounge open last night?”
Alfonso shook his head. “And I made sure everything was turned off before I left.”
“Our captain doesn’t like headlines. If there’s anything at all you can think of—”
A uniformed officer appeared panting in the doorway. “Sir, I just found something that might be important.”
“What is it?”
“The lobster’s upside down.”
The detective quickly stood. “Not again.”
FORT LAUDERDALE
Noon. The kitchen of an eighth-floor condo sat quiet. A laptop was logged on to a chat room, but the person in the kitchen wasn’t paying attention to the online exchange.
Brook Campanella stood at the counter, pressing her left hand down firmly. Her right hand grabbed a molded rubber grip. The silence was broken by a rhythmic grinding noise.
Choco-holic: “What’s the word from that private eye?”
Shitless in Seattle: “He’s narrowed on the address.”
Pirate Fan: “I’ve got my plane ticket.”
Mets Fan: “Leaving in an hour.”
Wasted in Margaritaville: “I’m already here.”
The Fluffer: “Is Lucy going?”
Choco-holic: “See you all in Miami!”
The grinding noise stopped, followed by the sound of metal clanging on a terrazzo floor where nine inches of shotgun barrel had just landed.
Brook Campanella set down the hacksaw and picked up a file, smoothing out the new bore of the sawed-off twelve-gauge.
MEANWHILE . . .
A black Firebird pulled into the parking lot of a busy shopping center.
Coleman looked up from his hurricane glass. “We’re stopping at Food King?”
“Supply run,” said Serge, jumping down from the car. “You know what else pisses me off? People who say ‘an’ historic event. You don’t say ‘an’ history book. The irony is it’s usually only people who think they’re smarter than you and also say ‘incentive-ize.’ ”
“The pricks.”
“And companies that say, ‘Your satisfaction is our number one goal.’ ”
“If that’s so, then give us the shit for free,” said Coleman.
“Exactly,” said Serge. “But instead they tell you they’ll come to fix your cable between noon and five, and I say, okay, I’ll pay my next bill between July and November, but they don’t laugh.”
They went through the automatic doors of the supermarket.
“Ooo! Ooo!” said Coleman. “I want to drive the cart! Can I drive the cart?”
“Go crazy.”
Coleman got a running start down an aisle, jumped up on the bar between the back wheels, flipped backward and knocked himself out.