by Tim Dorsey
“In J-school they said it was tradition.”
“We don’t do that anymore.” He tapped the delete key and hit spell check. “Fine work, McSwirley. You did it again.”
“Uh, thank you?”
“Don’t say it like a question.” The editor added an r to “embarrass.”
“Sorry.”
“And don’t apologize.” The editor hit file and swiveled around to face them. He leaned way back in off-deadline posture. “On second thought, forget that. Stay the way you are. It’s how you succeed.”
“Excuse me…” said the other reporter.
“What is it, Justin?”
“I think I should get a byline, too.”
“I gave you a contributing tagline at the end.” He pointed back at the screen. “See? Right here. ‘Justin Weeks.’”
“But sir, it’s my story, too. I worked just as hard—”
“Get over yourself,” said the editor. “McSwirley landed both main interviews: the confidential source and the victim’s family at the Chinese restaurant.” The editor adopted a sarcastic edge. “You do remember that family, don’t you?”
Weeks didn’t say anything. His black eyes did.
“Plus, McSwirley even stopped to get great footage with his camcorder for our sister cable network—even though I still think that idea stinks.”
“Sir,” said Justin, “there’s still time to put my name at the top.”
“Justin?”
“What?”
“Shut up. Let’s talk about tomorrow. It’s our story now, but we’ll have to hit the ground or someone will take it away from us.” The editor reached for a Slinky on his desk. “Obvious follow-up is talking to the family of the victim at the Skyway, the guy who ran the Internet scam for Katrina relief.”
“I’ll go,” said Justin.
“Let Justin go,” said McSwirley.
“Not a chance.” The editor undulated the Slinky between his hands. “This is McSwirley’s strength. You need to let those shiners fade.”
“Sir, I don’t want to go,” said McSwirley.
“He doesn’t want to go,” said Justin.
“And that’s exactly why he is going.” The editor put the Slinky down and picked up a slingshot. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten how you handled that plane crash.” He stuck a gumball in the slingshot’s pocket and fired absentmindedly in the direction of the photo lab. “Had to run a front-page apology.”
“But you’ve got to give me something,” said Justin.
The editor thought a moment. “Jeff, what was the name of that suspect Mahoney kept yammering about?”
“You mean Serge?”
Someone came out of the photo lab rubbing his arm. He looked around, went back in.
“Justin, check the archives and call Tallahassee,” said the editor. “See if you can’t find out more about this Serge character.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE MORNING AFTER
Hurricane Alex left the state overnight. The exit wound was Vero Beach. The rising sun flirted with the Atlantic horizon. The storm was somewhere below it. Looking seaward from the calm shore, you’d never have known there’d been one. Looking inland, there was no doubt.
Cops directed traffic as heavy equipment cleared trees from major roads. The electric company found itself at the spearhead of civilization, racing everywhere to head off mob rule. With power out, society was breaking down and reforming at the same time. Police couldn’t be at every intersection, and some motorists took advantage with tribal aggression. Others worked things out with improvised hand gestures and a rediscovered civility that had been forgotten since driving had become cell-phone time. There were price gougers and good Samaritans, looters and citizen patrols, whiners and volunteers.
The Acropolis of this new world was the local Wal-Mart. Truckloads of donated goods arrived from faith-based charities across the Midwest: winter coats, musical instruments, butterfly nets. On the other side of the parking lot sat a disciplined row of semis. The National Guard stood in the trailers’ open back doors, distributing federal relief.
One of the Guardsmen tossed down a ten-pound sack. “That’s the last of the ice.”
On the west side of town, just past Interstate 95, a column of police cars idled with all the lights flashing. A sergeant stood outside the driver’s door of the first vehicle. “Hurry up! We have to get through!”
“Almost there…” Workers in city-issue hard hats chain-sawed a massive tree blocking the only route to Yeehaw Junction. A bulldozer plowed the middle section of trunk off the pavement, and the cruisers shot through the narrow gap, speeding west with a LoJack receiver and an all-points bulletin from Tampa.
YEEHAW JUNCTION
The air in the parking lot was uncommonly still.
A motel door opened. Coleman came out with bed hair and a just-popped, sixty-nine-cent Natural Lite Ice. No sign of Serge. Typical. Serge always rose hours earlier, and Coleman had to go hunting.
He walked into the silent lot and chugged half the sixteen-ounce. He looked around. Moonscape. Snapped trees, downed lines, corrugated aluminum crumpled like typing paper. No Serge.
He ventured to the edge of the empty highway. More trash. Antifreeze jug, tar paper, ground glass. He finished the beer. Silence was broken. A vehicle appeared. A tractor rig way up the bend. It slowly grew larger on the long straightaway toward the crossroads, finally reaching Coleman and blowing by with a violent wind that kicked up a dense haze. Coleman blinked dust from his eyes. Brakes hissed. The driver pulled in to one of the gas stations just beyond the motel, learned it was closed and accelerated away in a diesel cloud.
It was quiet again. Coleman gave up the search for his pal and started back to the motel room. Something caught his eye. He looked up over the roof. A two-by-four sailed like an arrow and arced into the woods with a crash of branches.
Coleman moseyed around the end of the building. He turned the last corner in time to see Serge pull a lanyard.
“Yeeeeeeee-hawwwwwwwww!”
Another board took flight. Coleman strolled over to his bud. “Morning.”
Serge stood beside a contraption that looked like a combination table saw and industrial clay-pigeon launcher. “Watch this.” He kicked a large rock out from under the front legs, lowering the firing line.
“See that abandoned school bus by those trees?” Serge loaded another board and pulled the cord. The stud flew horizontally across the field, piercing the side of the bus like an antitank round.
Serge took off running. Coleman took off walking. He came around the back of the bus and found Serge holding the board triumphantly over his head. “Went right through both sides.”
“That’s nice.”
Serge returned to the machine and folded spring arms. “Isn’t she a corker?”
“Don’t know. Never seen one before. Where’d you hear about it?”
“That big hurricane expo at the convention hall.” Serge began rolling the device back around to the front of the motel. He reached the H2 and opened the rear door. “Between state regulators and licensed contractors, there was growing demand to establish a more precise hurricane-rating system.” Serge reached into his pocket and flicked open a multi-tool. He removed the carpeted panel over a hidden storage well and began unscrewing. “These stud launchers are used to bench-test storm shutters and window safety film. You get an insurance break.” Serge removed a small metal box from the chassis.
“What’s that?”
“LoJack.”
“You knew it was there this whole time?”
“Had my suspicions. I only accept quality rides.”
“But the police could have caught us.”
“Doubtful.” Serge walked toward the gas station next door. Another diesel sound grew louder. “Nobody’s crazy enough to come after us in that storm.”
A semi rig with Georgia plates rolled into the station. The driver got out, placed hands on hips and looked around in futility. He was wearing a plaid flannel shirt
and a baseball cap that indicated he had yet to accept the outcome of the Civil War.
Serge stepped up to a newspaper box in front of the station. He was about to insert a quarter.
“Hey, buddy!” yelled the driver. “Know any place I can get gas around here? All the stations are closed.”
Serge threw up his arms can’t-help-you style. “Power’s out from the storm. No pumps work.”
“But I’m almost empty.”
Serge went over to the driver. “Got a map?”
“Right here.” The driver reached under the front seat of his cab.
Serge unfolded it. “Okay, here we go….” He ran a finger across the county line. “Take the turnpike north—that’s the entrance ramp right over there past those trees—and get off on Exit 242. Lots of gas stations. They were outside the damage cone. Unless you’re bone dry, shouldn’t be a problem.”
“Appreciate it,” said the driver, shaking Serge’s hand. He climbed back into his cab.
“Don’t forget your map.” Serge slipped it under the seat.
The driver slammed his door and leaned out the window. “Thanks again.”
Serge waved as the truck pulled away. “Welcome to Florida!” He returned to the newspaper box. In the distance a long line of speeding, wailing police cars crested an overpass.
“At that hurricane expo, the university had an exhibit from their new storm-research center…” A quarter clanked down into the news box. “…They unveiled a revolutionary super stud launcher with three times the p.s.i. of anything from Underwriters Laboratories.” Serge opened the squeaky door and pulled out a paper. “One look and it was love at first sight. I said to myself, I gotta get me one of those!”
The convoy of squad cars raced toward the gas station. Serge began going through his paper. “It has to be in here somewhere.”
Flashing blue lights flickered off Serge’s shirt as the first cruisers screeched into the parking lot.
“What are you looking for?” asked Coleman.
“Coverage of my comeback.” He turned pages quickly. “How could they ignore it?”
Police tires squealed a few feet in front of Serge and Coleman. The lead car executed a sliding U-turn and sped off in the opposite direction. More cruisers skidded into the lot, more noisy turns, all reversing course and following the first car up the turnpike’s entrance ramp.
“This is so unfair!” Serge flipped to the next section and looked at the top. He smacked the paper with the back of his hand. “Of course! It’s yesterday’s paper. They didn’t deliver because of the storm. I should have known from the day-old tracking chart of the next hurricane.”
“Another hurricane? But we just had one. Don’t we have to wait till next year?”
“There can be more than one a year.”
“I thought it was like Miss Universe.”
“Not remotely. Hurricanes are now so frequent it’s completely changed the way we live in this state. From June to November, one storm’s just left, another’s about to hit, and three more are forming, a tropical backbeat that’s so constant, residents don’t even raise a pulse anymore. They just bring in lawn furniture like people in Quebec shovel driveways all winter.”
“So that’s what’s been going on?”
Serge nodded. “It’s the New Florida Lifestyle: Put up the plywood, take down the plywood, rent a movie, get your dry cleaning, plywood up, plywood down, time to make the doughnuts.”
“But, Serge, when will it all end?”
“I’m afraid it’s only getting worse. The weather craziness of the last few years actually began in the early nineties. Meteorologists are split between a permanent upward trend and interdecadal cycles. The twenties and thirties were particularly bad. So were the sixties. Unfortunately, most of Florida’s population and construction came during the last down node.”
“I have no idea what any of that means.”
“It means back off the weed. There’s a category two bearing down fast on St. Augustine. That’s why we have to hurry.” Serge threw the newspaper in the trash. “I’m sure there’ll be a big spread about me when we reach the coast. Let’s rock.”
Coleman looked around. “What did you do with the LoJack?”
“What? Oh, I slipped it under that trucker’s seat with his map.”
CHAPTER NINE
VERO BEACH
The chief of police stood next to a semi trailer in the Wal-Mart parking lot. He was on the phone. “…No, we don’t think the truck driver was involved. The killer must have slipped it under his seat…. Who knows? He could be anywhere by now….”
Serge walked past the chief and up to a National Guardsman with embroidered stars on the shoulders of his camouflage fatigues. “General, you can relax now. We’re here to help.”
The general was preoccupied with a new shipment of generators and blue roof tarps.
Serge coughed. Nothing. He tapped his arm. “General!”
The general noticed Serge for the first time. “Did you say something?”
Serge saluted and clicked the heels of his sneakers. “I place myself and Coleman under your command!”
More distraction. Someone handed the general a clipboard; he signed quickly and handed it back. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”
“When do we get uniforms?”
“I’m very busy. Please.” The general began walking briskly.
Serge ran up alongside. “The whole problem with society today is ‘me, me, me!’ But not the National Guard! My hat’s off to the whole operation. You’ve really bounced back since Kent State.”
The general ignored him, barking orders as he passed the headquarters tent.
“Yes, sir, the Guard’s got a whole new image,” said Serge. “Thanks to Bush, you’re on the front lines with the real soldiers, whether you want to be or not. Completely different mind-set since when the president was AWOL. He’s transformed the Guard from the door to a draft dodge to a back-door draft. I thought that up all by myself. I could write your press releases.”
The general continued ignoring him and marched purposefully.
Serge kept pace. “I hear there’s been looting. I can save manpower there. Just loan me a sniper rifle.”
The general stopped and turned. “What?”
“Or a machine gun if you’re in a hurry—”
“Shut up!”
Serge stopped. The general was rubbing his forehead.
“What’s the matter?” asked Serge. “Pressure headache?”
The general took a deep breath and signed another clipboard. “If you want to be useful, get over in that line handing out MREs.”
“Meals Ready to Eat? I love those!” Serge stepped back and saluted smartly again. “You won’t regret this! Do you have the lasagna? Those little heating packets really are something, aren’t they?”
But the general was already walking away.
“Coleman, come on!”
The pair arrived at the back of a semi; Serge aggressively threaded his way to the front of the crowd. He saluted a lower-echelon officer. “We’re here on special orders from the general, which I’m not disposed to discuss if, in fact, such orders did exist. Our uniforms haven’t arrived yet. The general’s a great man, but he’s gotten himself into a quagmire. We briefly considered the option of sniper fire, but he dismissed it because, after all, this is the new National Guard: ‘Be all that you can be!’ Wait, that’s the army. What’s the Guard’s slogan? ‘Sorry about Kent State’?”
The officer was a veteran of the 2004 season. Florida street loons didn’t faze him anymore. “Stand in that line over there and just pass whatever’s handed to you.”
Another salute.
Soon they were rapidly unloading cardboard boxes. “Hey, everybody!” yelled Serge. “Did you see Full Metal Jacket? We should all sing! After me, children first: I don’t know but thought I’d ask…Will Hurricane Alex kiss my ass?…”
Coleman passed a carton of military rations and panted. “Serge, wha
t are we doing here? I thought you wanted to get up to St. Augustine.”
“Liberty isn’t free.”
A local resident walked around the back of the trailer and called up to the Guardsman inside. “Any ice?”
“Ran out an hour ago. Try another trailer.”
“They’re all out.”
“Check the other distribution sites?”
“Everyone’s out. Except for all price gougers on U.S. 1. Why aren’t you doing anything about them?”
The Guardsman passed down another heavy box. “Hands full here.”
The bucket brigade fell into a finely tuned, civic-duty rhythm. Except Coleman. Perspiration pasted the shirt to his stomach. He gasped for air as Serge tossed him another case. “I don’t think I can last much longer.”
“Hang in there,” said Serge. “Let’s finish emptying this trailer. Then we book. I have something planned.”
“What?”
“Complete my religious journey.” Serge checked his wristwatch. “I’ve blocked off noon to twelve-thirty.”
“Is that enough time?”
“It’ll be tight, but I want to go sightseeing later.”
Coleman grunted and heaved another box. “I don’t get it. You’ve always been turned off by religion.”
“That’s because of religious people. What do they know about religion?”
“Why the sudden change?”
“Another birthday. Decided it was time to place my bets on the afterlife. But there are so many choices. You got your Catholics, Protestants, Hindus, Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Wiccans, your Santería, your voodoo, your tarot cards, that guy on the corner of Highway 92 in the sandwich board with his day-and-night diatribe on all things great and small. Plus every kind of cult you can imagine—they’re the spiritual microbreweries. I’m sure I’ll find a brand I like.”
Coleman passed another case of rations. “You should drop acid.”
“That’s not a religion.”
“Oh, it’s a religion, all right. I’ve seen God many times.” Another case. “Once he told me to spray-paint my legs silver. But after the LSD wore off, there no longer seemed to be a point.”