by Tim Dorsey
Serge had been disappointed. It was almost too easy kidnapping Glide off his boat near Stiltsville in Biscayne Bay. But irony always brought his spirits back. He grabbed the handle of a large crank, making one slow clockwise turn.
Iron gears clicked. The dinghy lowered a foot.
Serge leaned toward Malcolm. “Except you planned for everything to go sour all along.”
“Stop cranking!” yelled Glide. “On my mother’s grave! Espionage has many layers, very complex. It’s not what it seems!”
“It seems Felicia’s dead. She was my almost-fiancee.” Another crank.
The small boat lowered another foot and stopped with a shudder.
“That wasn’t supposed to happen!” said Glide. “I told them to leave her out of it, but those generals are crazy. You try dealing with Latins.”
“What am I? An Eskimo?” Crank.
“I didn’t mean it that way!” Malcolm looked down at his trussed-up body, fastened securely in the dinghy’s middle seat with boat straps and chains, no hope of movement. “I’ll give you money!”
Serge looked behind him. “Coleman, you want money?”
“Sure!”
Serge turned back and grinned at Glide. “Too bad you didn’t double-cross Coleman.” Crank, crank, crank…
“Please stop cranking!..”
Serge stopped cranking and placed a hand on his heart. “Okay, you’ve touched me.” He grabbed something from the bilge and vaulted over the stern into the dinghy. “I’m going to show you mercy.”
“You are?”
“I know, I should have my head examined.”
“Thank God!” said Malcolm. “You won’t regret this!”
“Lift your feet.”
“What?”
“Just lift them.”
He did, and Serge unrolled something. “You can put ’em down now.”
Malcolm rested his feet on a new surface. “What’s that?”
“The red Star-Elite Club carpet.” Serge climbed up from the dinghy and back over the stern. “Now you’re traveling in style.”
Glide began blubbering again.
“Jesus, be a man!” Serge resumed cranking. “It’s not that bad.”
“It isn’t?”
“Not for me. You’re pretty fucked.” Crank, crank, crank…
Tears flowed with abandon. “What are you going to do?”
“Teach you about nature. Like this holy body of water and all the majestic shorelines surrounding her… Isn’t it peaceful?”
“I had nothing to do with the oil spill! I just lobbied candidates with scientific facts!” Glide wriggled in vain against his bindings. “It’s never happened before! It was the scientists!”
“Scientists told you that all the other countries were wrong when they demanded PB install a remote-controlled shutoff valve?” Crank, crank, crank. “And your candidates voted to let them go without valves to increase profits? And cap liabilities in case of a spill?”
“I’m begging you. Don’t kill me!”
“Oh, I won’t kill you… I’m not that upset about the Gulf.”
“You aren’t?”
Serge set the lock on the winch and leaned against the lever, staring up at constellations. “That would be egotistical. Humans tend to view everything in terms of their own insignificant life spans. But in the long run, Mother Earth takes care of herself. The big wheel keeps on turning.”
Malcolm sniffed back sobs. “That’s what I always say.”
“Right-o. Nature spawned you to pee in the pool. And nature created me to cross your path. See? Mother’s always right… Or at least: When she’s not happy, nobody’s happy.” Cranking resumed without stopping. So did the crying.
The hull hit the water. Serge hopped down into the dinghy again and pull-started the engine. “I know what you’re thinking? How in heaven’s name can I steer?” He stepped back onto the yacht. “Fret not. Serge is your pilot. I drilled bolts, freezing the rudder, so you’ll sail straight as an arrow.”
Malcolm choked back emotion. “To where?”
“Your crowning achievement!”
Coleman stood in the yacht and shielded his eyes. “It’s started. I need to smoke some dope to dig this.” He rolled a number.
Serge looked up and squinted. “You can almost feel the heat from here.” He reached into the small boat and slammed the throttle forward. “I love an oil burn just before dawn.”
The dinghy sped away as screams trailed off into the distant waters.
“Look at him go!” Coleman took a deep hit. “But he’s heading right for the flames.”
“Imagine the view.”
“Didn’t think we’d be able to still hear him yelling from this far
… Oooo, he just caught on fire.”
“That’s rarely positive,” said Serge.
“Still screaming,” said Coleman. “How long will he be alive?”
“Longer than you’d actually think.”
A ring of fire engulfed the western horizon. In the middle, a spike in the flames, and a screaming voice heading toward the center of the burning oil.
“How’d you think of doing this to him.”
“Actually he’s doing it to himself. If it wasn’t for his political shenanigans, he’d just be on a long, windy ride until the gas tank ran out and someone found him drifting in the morning.”
“But the gas tank won’t run out?”
“No, it will,” said Serge. “But all at once. You get such bad gas mileage in a burning spill.”
Coleman exhaled a toke. “Still screaming.”
“Ahhhhhhh!..”
“Coleman, what are you doing?”
Coleman was hanging over the side of the boat. “I see something floating.” He retrieved a prosthetic leg with a Willie Nelson bumper sticker and packed it with pot.
“Ahhhhhhh!..”
Boom.
Serge smiled at the rising fireball. “Energy for a brighter tomorrow.”
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-c160a7-1c33-6546-bbbb-5e73-b930-ef2c0e
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 20.02.2012
Created using: Fiction Book Designer, FictionBook Editor Release 2.6 software
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