by Tim Dorsey
“Know what else pisses me off?” said Serge. “Calling customer care: ‘Please listen carefully as menu items have changed.’ ”
“It’s always that same woman,” said Coleman. “Who the fuck is she?”
“The Tokyo Rose of automated messages,” said Serge. “She wants us to believe they’re hard at work around the clock improving menus.”
“They’re not?”
Serge shook his head. “Since I became aware of the phenomenon, I’ve been calling dozens of menus every few days for over a year to check, even when I’m neither a customer nor need care.”
“And they don’t change?”
“Only the wait time changes. But you’re busy thinking: ‘Holy Jesus! A new menu! And I just got used to the old one-better pay close attention or I won’t receive ultimate pampering.’ And you’re so rattled you miss the real issue of not talking to a live human.”
“That always bites.” Coleman continued up the sidewalk.
“And when you don’t want to talk to a human, some solicitor calls right after I’ve poured milk in my cereal, and I say, ‘Can’t talk now,’ which among their people means keep talking, so I interrupt and say, ‘Serge isn’t here. Cereal’s happening.’ And they ask what’s a convenient time to call back, so I say, ‘I don’t know. The police are still looking for him. Somehow he got the home address of a telemarketer and they found a bloody clawhammer. Where do you live?’ ”
“What else do you hate?” asked Coleman.
“Segues.”
The shark was a man-eater.
Probably a bull, at least ten feet nose to tail.
It had somehow strayed from Biscayne Bay into the mouth of the Miami River, where people weren’t expecting sharks.
They expected sharks even less in the downtown business district, where it now lay on the hot pavement in the middle of Flagler Street.
But it was a busy lunch hour. Office workers in suits walked purposefully along the road. Others in guayaberas sipped espresso at sidewalk sandwich windows. They offhandedly noticed the shark, but it wasn’t bothering them, as it was dead, and it was not their concern.
“Serge,” said Coleman. “There’s a dead shark in the middle of the street.”
“It’s Miami.”
Taxis and sports cars swerved around the fish. Above, commuters looked down from the windows of a Metro Mover pod that slid silently along elevated monorail tracks winding through the downtown skyline and south over the river to the Brickell Financial district. Serge unfolded a scrap of paper and crossed something off a list. He raised a camera sharply upward, snapping photos of a forty-story office building, all glass, glistening in the sun.
Coleman glanced around and sucked a brown paper bag. “You’ve been taking pictures of buildings all morning.”
“Correct.” Serge reached in his backpack and removed an envelope. “Stay here. I won’t be long.”
He ran into the building, then returned.
“What did you just do?” asked Coleman.
“Delivered a message.” Serge checked his address list again and strolled half a block. He raised the camera.
“What’s this building?” asked Coleman.
Click, click, click. “Argentinian consulate. Last one was Germany.”
“Consulate?”
Serge held up his page of notes. “That’s this whole list-sixty consulates within a two-mile radius.” He resumed west. “Outside of Washington, Miami is the diplomatic capital of America. Even the Canadians have a consulate here.”
“The Canadians! Christ!”
“No shit. They scare the hell out of me,” said Serge. “I mean, what on earth are the Canadians doing with a consulate in Miami?” Click, click, click. “Nothing good.”
“But why do you need so many pictures of the same buildings?”
“I don’t need any.” Click, click, click. “These are to provoke a response.”
“Response?”
Click, click, click. “Take enough photos of consulates, and people act fidgety. That’s how I intend to make contact.”
“With who?”
Serge stowed the camera. “What’s the one thing every consulate has?”
“Desks?”
“A spy.” Serge pulled another envelope from his backpack. “And in case my photos don’t work, there’s Plan B.” He ran across the street again and returned.
“Who are you delivering those messages to?” asked Coleman.
“The spy.”
“What’s the message?”
“Just a generic greeting. Brighten up their day.”
“No secrets?”
Serge shook his head. “I’m not out to pass information. Just raise curiosity.”
“What for?”
“To get hired.”
“By the consulate?”
“Or whoever has it under surveillance.”
“You’re losing me again.”
“All consulates are under constant surveillance.” Serge pointed at a black SUV parked up the street. “Looking for defectors, secret agents, keeping track of their own to see who’s career is moving up. If you loiter around enough of these buildings, you’re bound to show up on an internal report. ‘Say, who’s this new guy at ten consulates on Tuesday? That’s seriously connected. Maybe he should work for us.’ ”
“Can I see one of the messages?”
Serge grabbed another envelope from his backpack.
Coleman unfolded the note. “But it’s blank.”
“Exactly.”
“I mean, there’s no message here.”
“Oh, there’s a message all right.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Spies will. You pass a note with regular writing and it goes right in the junk-mail pile.” Serge took the paper back and returned it to the envelope. “But they can’t resist a blank page. It’s like crack to a spy: ‘This must be super important! Get the lab guys right on it!’ ”
“What kind of message are they supposed to find?”
“If they’re remotely competent, they’ll be able to raise the invisible ink.”
“Where’d you get invisible ink?”
“Grocery store.” Serge walk another block. Click, click, click. “Stay here.” He ran across the street again.
“Wait! I want to come.”
Coleman caught up with him in the lobby. “What kind of job are you looking for?”
Serge stared at a wall, reading plastic letters inside a glass case that listed offices by floor. “I’ve always wanted to be a secret agent. From now on, I’m completely dedicating my existence to the art of spycraft. And it fits snugly with my new Master Plan, Mark Five.”
“You never said anything.”
“Just found out. Watched that spy-movie marathon on TBS and kind of fixated.” He tapped the glass case. “Here it is, seventh floor.” They dashed across the lobby.
“So you’re really going to be a spy?” asked Coleman.
“I already am one.”
“But you don’t work for anybody yet.”
“And that’s exactly what they all think.” Serge waited outside an elevator and stared up at lighted numbers. “Where’s the rule that says you can’t just unilaterally declare yourself a spy and snoop around for no reason? That’s the whole key to life: Fuck explaining yourself to people. Plus Miami is the perfect place, absolutely crawling with self-employed, freelance agents in dummy corporations ready to join any government that can’t have direct involvement with an illicit operation. I’ll just act suspicious until the highest bidder comes along.”
The doors opened. They got in. Coleman sucked his paper sack. “But how do you get hired as a spy?”
“By acting like you don’t want to get hired. If you just barge into some office asking for a spy job, they’ll think you’re a double agent with disinformation. Or worse, a conspiracy kook off the street. That’s how the conspiracy works.”
Elevator doors opened on seven.
Ahe
ad, glass doors with gold letters: C ONSULATE OF C OSTA G ORDA.
Serge grabbed a handle and went inside.
Flags and travel brochures and the national crest.
Serge whispered sideways to Coleman, “What you need to do is play hard to get, which makes them want you.”
“How do you do that?”
“Behave inscrutably. Then contact will be made on a park bench by a man in a hat feeding pigeons.”
They entered the consulate. “This next part’s critical,” said Serge. “I better drink lots of coffee.” He walked over to the reception area’s coffee machine and poured a cup.
Coleman drained his paper sack. “Serge, the woman behind the reception desk is staring at us. Not in a nice way.”
“My plan’s working.” He chugged the Styrofoam cup and approached the desk.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “Can I help you?”
Serge quickly glanced around, then leaned closer. “The code word is smegma. ”
Channel 7
“This is Cynthia Ricardo reporting live outside the Miami morgue, where police are still baffled by the so-called Hollow Man discovered in a run-down motel behind the former Orange Bowl. Also known as the Jack-O’-Lantern Man, he has since been identified as Juan Vizquel, whose fingerprints implicate him in numerous tourist robberies near the airport. Most puzzling is the cadaver’s empty chest cavity, missing all internal organs, but with no external surgical marks. Meanwhile, authorities are seeking the whereabouts of mysterious vigilantes responsible for the murder. Two surviving witnesses from Bowling Green credit the suspects with saving their lives during an attempted carjacking, and further believe that the pair-clad in superhero costumes-are on a crusade to rid Miami’s streets of crime and legalize marijuana.”
Inside the morgue…
A homicide lieutenant burst through lab doors.
“Got anything yet?”
The medical examiner didn’t look up. “Hold your horses.”
“The chief wants this solved fast,” said the lieutenant. “The press just came up with another nickname.”
The examiner was a gnomelike public servant with a habit of girlish giggles when handling close-up gore. It got under the lieutenant’s last layer of skin, and the examiner explored the possibilities.
“We got another problem,” said the lieutenant, staring curiously at the gray body on a cold metal table. “There’s an information leak somewhere.”
The examiner picked up a sharp instrument. “Not in my department.”
“ Some body’s talking to reporters. Have you seen the headlines?”
The examiner nodded.
“Do you have to giggle?”
The examiner reached for safety glasses. “I thought you’d be happy.” The beginning of an incision at the collarbone.
“Happy?” said the detective. “I’m not feeling the joy.”
The examiner chuckled to himself. “You cleared at least fifteen carjackings, including a fatal with that Dutch tourist.”
“But now we’ve got vigilantes cruising the airport.” The lieutenant picked up an X-ray and held it to the ceiling light. “The chamber of commerce hasn’t stopped calling.”
“People on talk radio seem to like him. Especially the part about the cape.”
“We look ridiculous.”
Slicing continued in classic autopsy Y-pattern. A giggle.
The lieutenant held the X-ray to the light again. “I see I’m talking to the wrong person.”
The examiner set down his instrument and looked up. “What do you want from me?”
“A conclusive ruling.” He extended a palm toward the table. “What’s taking so long? You’re usually done way before this.”
“It’s a complicated case.” The examiner reached toward his desk and opened a file. “Seemed open-and-shut at first. Fractured femur and tibia from when the car hit him, embedded windshield glass in his scalp. Almost positive I’d find internal punctures and hemorrhaging from a rib. Then I saw these…” He held up his own X-rays. “… I thought our machine was broken. See how the entire chest cavity is empty? All organs removed.”
“You’re shitting me,” said the lieutenant. “I thought the papers were just being sensational, like Squid Boy.”
The examiner shook his head. “He’s literally hollow. So then I thought his lacerations from the car were covering surgical entry. You heard those urban legends about a guy waking up in a hotel bathtub full of ice, no kidney and a telephone?”
“Some surgeon did this?”
The examiner shook his head again. “No incisions. And none of the lacerations penetrated the hypodermis. Some mysterious new technique I’ve never seen before, like building a ship in a bottle. That’s why it’s taking so long.” He slapped a cold shoulder. “We can’t hurry into this guy, or I might destroy evidence of the method.”
“You wouldn’t say not to hurry if it was your ass in city hall this morning.” The officer wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. “We need to stop all the wild speculation. You should hear the rumors: voodoo, supernatural, UFOs. It’s like the freakin’ X-Files out there.”
“How am I supposed to stop that?”
“Bring it down to earth. Surely there’s some reasonable explanation that’s boring and will get the reporters-and the chief-off my back.”
The examiner grabbed his knife again and finished the Y-cut. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’ve looked at this from all angles, and a flying saucer is as good as anything I’ve come up with.” A bone saw buzzed to life.
“You’re not making me feel any better.”
“And you’re crowding me.” The saw went back on the tray and the rib spreader came off.
The lieutenant winced. The examiner stuck his head down. “That’s more like it. Clue city.”
“What’d you find?”
The examiner scraped inside with what looked like an ice cream scoop and held the results toward the officer.
“That’s disgusting. Get it out of my face.”
The examiner set it aside. “Extensive internal burns.”
“You mean like he was in a fire?”
The M.E. took another scoop from the abdomen. “There are many kinds of burns besides fire, and no indication here of external heat trauma.”
“This just gets worse and worse.”
“When I make some slides from tissue samples, we’ll know a lot more.” The examiner bent down again. “Now, if you leave me alone, I can work faster.”
“You’ll call?”
“Got you on speed dial.”
The lieutenant put his hat back on and headed out. He stopped in the doorway, neck muscles seized. Behind him, giggling. “A cape.”
Consulate of Costa Gorda
The receptionist glared at Serge.
He produced an envelope and glanced around again. “Give this to your spy.”
“Spy?”
“Every consulate has a spy.”
“But we don’t-”
Serge winked. “They trained you well. And since you hold such a low position, you might even be the spy, like the submarine cook in The Hunt for Red October. If so, open that envelope and read it yourself.” Serge chugged the rest of his coffee, then held the empty cup to his left eyeball. “Some spies have to put things in their butt. I don’t want that job, unless it’s something very, very small. Coleman would do it, but his bowels are unreliable whenever you need to count on them. In the 1965 James Bond movie Thunderball, the skydiving frogmen are supposed to be jumping into the Bahamas, but downtown Miami is in the background. Or am I lying? See how I turned that around? That’s critical in the shadow world: The truth is the lie, and the lie is the truth. Sometimes it’s a limerick or a productive cough. I saw a werewolf with a Chinese menu in his hand. Dead shark in the street. The code word now is monkey-pox…”
One of the building’s elevators reached the ground floor. Five beefy
men rushed Serge and Coleman out the front door and threw them down on the sidewalk.
Coleman got up and rubbed his hands on his shirt. “Don’t take it too bad. Maybe the next people will hire you.”
“What are you talking about?” Serge checked his backpack and threw a broken thermos in the garbage. “Those guys hired me.”
Coleman looked puzzled. “I haven’t been hired much, but when it has happened, they don’t rough me up and throw me really hard on the ground.”
“Everything in the spy world is opposite.” Serge hoisted his backpack. “Remember the constant surveillance? If they took us out to dinner and had loads of laughs, that would mean I wasn’t hired. This way, anybody watching would mistakenly think we annoyed them. Standard protocol to distance themselves before they activate me.”
“But who would be watching?”
Serge shrugged and headed east toward the waterfront.
A city truck pulled up. Workers threw a shark in the back like they were picking up a discarded sofa on the side of the highway.
The truck drove off, revealing a black SUV with tinted windows parked on the other side of Flagler. The back window rolled down and a telephoto lens poked out.
Miami Morgue
A door flew open.
“You said you had something on the carjacker?” asked the lieutenant.
“And how,” said the examiner. “I’d love to meet the killer.”
“I’d love to kill him. So how’d he do it?”
The examiner clapped his hands a single time. “Okay, this is really cool. The mind that thought this up…” A whistle in admiration.
“Will you just spill it?” The lieutenant glanced at the foot of the autopsy table and tilted his head like a cocker spaniel. “Wait, what’s that metal canister with the evidence tag?”
“After I checked slides in the microscope, I went back to the police report. Your guys got lucky. During their neighborhood canvass, one of the uniforms found the canister in a trash bin behind a convenience store. He thought it was unrelated, but because of what it is, and the location, he logged it into evidence anyway as probable stolen property. More on that later. Take a look in the microscope.”
The lieutenant bent over and adjusted focus on twin eyepieces. “What am I seeing?”
“Chemical burn. Liquid nitrogen.”