by Tim Dorsey
“Damn it.” Serge ran back inside.
“Ow! Ow! Ow! Let go of my ear!”
“Get in the car!” Serge boosted Jeff into the backseat with Coleman. He climbed up front with Jill and floored it. The Hummer sped past the radio tower and out of Everglades City.
Serge’s calculations had been spot on. He reached the Tamiami and picked up the eye. Clear sailing. Jeff ’s chest heaved again.
“What’s the matter?” asked Serge. “We’re out of the weeds.”
That was the problem. Too many weeds. Up till now visibility had been poor. But the recently opened eye and low Everglades horizon gave Jeff an unobstructed view of his predicament. He twisted around, completing a 360-degree panorama of the perfectly defined, cottony gray wall. “We’re in the middle of the hurricane!”
“Isn’t it great?”
“We’re going to die!”
“You’re shit-dwelling too much,” said Serge. “I’ve covered everything. We’re monitoring all crucial coordinates with a laptop and GPS receiver.”
“Who is?”
“Coleman.”
“No he’s not.”
Serge turned around. “Coleman, where’s the laptop?”
“I thought you had it.”
“Coleman! You’re the navigator!”
“Must have left it at the bank.”
“But our lives depended on that computer! We’re flying instrument-blind!”
Jeff ’s chest heaved again. “Serge, what does this mean? What’s your backup plan?”
“No backup plan,” said Serge. “Isn’t it great? Anything can happen now! If we survive, life will taste that much sweeter.”
“Oh, dear Jesus!” yelled Jeff, struggling with the child-locked door handle. “I have to get out of here!”
Jill looked up from Serge’s lap. “Do our lives really depend on that?”
“No, I’m just fuckin’ with Jeff,” whispered Serge. “Go back to what you were doing.”
“Oh, my God! We’re doomed!”
“Jeff, take your hands away from your face. You’ll miss everything. Crossing the Everglades is one of the coolest things you can do in Florida, like an astronaut looping around the dark side of the moon. Totally on your own out here, no tether, farther, deeper, back through a billion years of amphibian genetic memory, his brain is squirmin’ like a toad. Look! There’s the Ochopee post office, nation’s smallest, and here’s an authentic Micosukee Indian village…” They passed a cluster of thatched chickee huts with Yamaha dirt bikes and a Camaro out front. “…And there’s an airboat concession. I love airboat rides! It’s the only way to truly appreciate the ’Glades. You don’t realize it because all the reeds create the illusion of land, but this artificially dredged causeway is in the middle of a hundred-mile-wide slough, inches to feet deep, ‘River of Grass,’ God rest Marjorie Stoneman Douglas. Sure wish we could take an airboat ride! But that’s the drawback of riding the eye: Most things are closed, like the Skunk Ape Research Center coming up on your right. Best three-dollar tour value in Florida.”
Coleman looked out the window. “They have a skunk ape?”
“No, just skunk ape T-shirts and baseball caps and a bunch of snakes they let you pose with for photos.” Something else went by the window. “I can’t believe it!” Serge slammed the brakes.
Jill sat up. “What is it?”
“We’re in luck!”
The Hummer pulled into a narrow gravel parking lot. “Everyone out!” yelled Serge. He raced down to a dock on the edge of a drainage canal. An oversized tourist airboat sat lashed to a rustic pier. A stocky older man with leather skin was on the knees of his Levi’s, tightening a knot on a mooring cleat.
Serge ran up to him and grinned. “We’d like an airboat ride, please.”
“Are you crazy?”
“Crazy about the Everglades! How much?”
“We’re closed.” He threw an arm skyward. “The hurricane. I just came out in the eye to make sure these lines were holding up.”
“I guess you’re right,” said Serge. “We’ll come back another time. You won’t be going anywhere. I mean that as a plus, not the other.”
The man pulled hard on a second rope. Serge turned and spoke reverently to the others. “You’re in the presence of history. He’s making knots The Old Way…. Sir, what kind of wild-animal fur did you fashion that line from?”
“Nylon.”
“I have another question, sir….” Serge stopped and chuckled to himself. “Listen to me. ‘Sir.’ Using the White Man’s tongue. You’re probably a big chief. Proud ancestral name like Thunder Foot, Standing Bear or Recumbent Intestinal Parasite.”
The man stood. “Sylvester.”
“Gang,” said Serge, “I’d like you to meet Chief Sly.”
“I don’t know what you’re planning,” said Sylvester. “But if you’re going to take shelter, you better do it now. The back wall of the eye’s almost here.”
“Did you hear that?” Serge asked the others. “His keen native senses alert him to the slightest changes in weather. Amazing phenomenon. Science can’t explain it.”
Sylvester pointed. “It’s right there.”
They turned and looked straight up at the growling wall. Sylvester headed back to the concrete souvenir store. The others ran for the Hummer.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
TAMPA BAY TODAY
Another codependency budget meeting.
“I won’t stand for this,” said Tom. “I demand you cancel the series!”
“Are you starting again?” said Max.
“I’ll call New York—”
Three photographers in twenty-pocket safari vests sprinted past the conference table. The last slowed briefly. “You might want to see this.”
“What’s happened?”
Moments later an elevator opened on the ground floor. The budget meeting stampeded across the street to the garage.
A fire truck foamed down the parking space under a charred chassis.
McSwirley stepped forward on unsure legs. “My Fiero…”
“See now?” Tom told the maximum editor. “We have to stop the series!”
“Sorry,” said Max. “I’d love to help, but Part Four just went to press.”
Another spinning paper:
KIDNAPPED REPORTER UNABLE TO STOP MURDER.
HERO OR ACCOMPLICE? YOU MAKE THE CALL!
PART FOUR
With only seconds to spare, they dove into the Hummer and raced away from the airboat concession.
Jeff ’s eyes were locked on murderous blackness out the back window.
“Don’t worry.” Serge uncapped his thermos. “The storm’s not that fast. In a few minutes, we’ll be miles out in front again.”
The eye tracked sure and steady. Not the Hummer. Serge kept pulling over for landmarks. Locks and dams. Back in the car. Back out. Shark River, overlooks, historic markers, restaurants with swamp cuisine. In, out, in, out…
“Shotgun!” yelled Coleman.
Jeff ended up in back with Jill.
“So you’re a newspaper reporter?”
Jeff had difficulty pulling himself away from the eye wall. “Huh?…What?”
“Newspaper reporter,” said Jill. “I heard you up there doing the big interview. I thought I recognized him.”
“You know who he is?”
“It’s that guy, right?”
“I’m not supposed to say anything,” Jeff whispered. “And you shouldn’t say anything either. For your own protection.”
“Don’t worry. The secret’s safe with me.” She smiled and shook her head. “Imagine that. Me, Jill Ribinski, on a road trip with him.”
“You’re happy about this?” asked Jeff.
“Of course. This is going to be in Rolling Stone, right? I just love his music.”
“Who exactly do you think he is?”
“You know. That guy. I don’t remember his name, but I knew he looked familiar.”
“When?”
“Listen,” said Jeff, “I’m not sure you understand what you’ve gotten yourself into—”
“You sound just like my girlfriend.” Jill glowed with the recollection. “As soon as you left the parking deck, I called her and said, ‘You’ll never believe who just came through my lane!…No, guess again…. No, guess again…. No…. Okay, I’ll just tell you—it was that guy!’ She said, ‘Stay away from him. You know, the whole lifestyle thing.’”
“You have no idea.”
“It’s worth the chance. How could I not with those ice-blue eyes?”
“You’re really attracted to him?”
“Oh, definitely! There’s a bit of an age difference, but I can go for that. I think my parents saw him back when he was just getting started. Of course, they saw everybody. Wait till I tell them!”
“You might want to hold off.”
Jill slid closer to McSwirley. “You can trust me. Tell me some inside stuff about him.”
“Trust me,” said Jeff. “I really can’t.”
“R-i-b-i-n-s-k-i.”
“What are you doing?”
“Spelling my name for your article. He and me—we’re an item now. You know, back in the bank and”—grin—“the front seat. People will want to know all the intimate details about his love life. You tell me stuff, I tell you. Deal?”
“I’m not supposed to reveal any personal—”
“His cock is incredibly huge.”
“Call me crazy, but I can’t begin to imagine how I might fit that into an article.”
“I was just establishing trust. I’m dying to know more about him.” She smiled adoringly toward the front seat. “You never know how they’re going to be in person. Sometimes it’s a big disappointment. But he’s so down to earth—and humble. He has yet to mention a single word about his body of work.”
“That’s him.”
“What’s the current project? Is this like a back-to-his-roots trip?”
“You could say that.”
“I knew it! He must be working on a comeback.”
“You could say that, too.”
She covered her face and almost cried. “I can’t believe it. He’s going back to the studio. After all these years! And I’m going to be there by his side!…Me! Jill R-i-b-i-n-s-k-i.”
“Don’t want you to get your hopes up,” said Jeff. “One thing I can tell you for sure is, we’re not going to a recording studio.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Jill. “I was with him. I believe in his dreams.”
“I’m telling you,” said Jeff. “You’ve got the wrong picture.”
“We’ll see.”
The Hummer passed a modern, freshly constructed school and a cluster of civic buildings with red, black, and yellow tribal symbols. A modest but clean middle-class neighborhood went by. “Makes you proud to live in America,” said Serge. “They’re diligently tending the flame of—Hold it, what’s this?”
“What?” said Jeff.
Serge pulled onto the shoulder of the road. “Back there, loading his car.”
Jeff turned around. “The guy evacuating?”
“Pretty late to be evacuating,” said Serge.
“But we’re evacuating.”
“We’re not taking a plasma TV.”
The Hummer crossed a small bridge over a drainage canal and rolled slowly down a side street skirting the back of the house. Serge furtively grabbed his pistol. “Jill, honey, would you watch the car? I have to visit a sick friend.”
“That’s so nice of you.”
“Won’t be long.” Then, to Jeff and Coleman: “Come with me. Stay as quiet as you can.”
“What are you doing with that gun?” asked Jeff. “What’s going on?”
“Martial law.” Serge checked the chamber. “I hate hurricane looters.”
They crept along the bushes on the side of the ranch house. Coleman bumped into Jeff, who stepped on the back of Serge’s shoes. “What if he’s armed? Let’s leave.”
“Shhhhh!”
A man walked out the front door, straining under a stack of stereo components featuring the new two-hundred-watt JVC integrated amp. Serge leaped from the shrubbery. “Drop it!”
Electronics smashed to the concrete.
“I meant, freeze! You’re under arrest!”
The man looked Serge over. “You’re no cop!”
“I just deputized myself.” He waved the gun. “Back inside.”
They entered the living room, and Serge closed the door. “Take a seat on that couch.” He began pacing. “I just don’t understand looters!”
“They sell the shit to pawnshops,” said Coleman. “Make money.”
“Coleman! Put that down! You’re not taking anything in here!”
“But, Serge…”
“You don’t even know what it is.”
Coleman pulled the object from his windbreaker. “Sure, it’s a—They still give you money.”
Jeff pointed at the floor. “Look at all these dead bugs.”
“Because of that can.”
“What can?”
“Aerosol. Middle of the floor on that newspaper.” Serge kept the gun on the man as he reached the wall, turned around and paced back the other way. “Looters are the lowest. What would be an appropriate punishment?”
Jeff picked up the empty can. “Bug bomb?”
“Another Florida hurricane tradition,” said Serge. “You’re going to be gone anyway and taking the pets with you. Perfect time to bug-bomb.” He scratched his nose with the gun barrel and faced the man on the sofa. “Now, what am I going to do with a cockroach like you?”
“Serge, shouldn’t we be in a hurry?” said Jeff. “The storm…”
“It’s a typical twenty-mile-wide eye going an average twelve miles an hour. We got here on the front side. You do the math.”
Jeff wandered into the next room doing the math. “There’s a bug can in here, too—and in this other room….” His voice trailed down a hallway. “Another one in here….”
“Jeff, I’m trying to concentrate!”
McSwirley came back into the living room with a half-full twelve-pack from Sam’s Club. “They bought more cans than they needed.”
“Jeff! I can’t think!”
The looter’s eyes squinted over his duct-taped mouth. He looked up at a formless face that was framed dark against the contrasting bright blue sky. Serge’s features began filling out as the sky dimmed. The eye was passing. The captive struggled with rope-bound hands and feet, wedged into the well of his car’s trunk among all the loot.
“Jeff, come here.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Buck up!” Serge waved him over. “Remember that tsunami in Asia? Fascinating fact: Virtually no animals died. They all cleared out. They knew what was going on. But humans have lost touch with nature and become susceptible to misadventures in bad weather, like our friend here.” Serge spoke into the trunk. “If you were more in tune with our planet, you might have run a better chance with this hurricane. Enjoy the silverware…”
Serge had something in his hand. He pressed a button. Hissing. A canister landed on the captive’s chest and rolled under his armpit next to a deep fryer. Serge grabbed another canister. Another hiss. It hit the man’s stomach. Another canister. Another. The trunk was alive with the aerosol chorus.
Jeff jumped back. “Serge! Jesus! Please, don’t do this! I’m begging you—”
“I saw the same disconnect when Frances headed for Tampa. So I zipped down to Bayshore Boulevard for the A-view, and a million other cars were already parked along the balustrade. I said, ‘Coleman, look at all the idiots out in this storm.’…” Serge tossed the la
st can and smiled at his hostage—“Sorry, lost another loan to Ditech”—and slammed the trunk shut. “…Then something I’d never seen before: The storm had sucked the water halfway back, dry bay bottom for hundreds of yards, all these fools scrambling over the railing to run around in the muck. Luckily a hurricane isn’t as fast as a tsunami, and they all got out before the bay flooded over the seawall, and the boulevard filled with kayaks…. Jeff, you’re crying again. What now?”
Jeff blubbered and pointed.
“Why are you upset?” asked Serge. “This was your idea.”
“No it wasn’t!”
“Take praise when it’s due.”
“I just showed you the extra cans. I didn’t want this!”
Tendrils of ominous vapor seeped from the trunk’s seals. Kicking sounds through the fenders.
“But it was your core concept,” said Serge. “You got the ball rolling, so take credit, or at least responsibility.”
“Give me the keys,” said Jeff. “I’m going to get him out. There’s still time.”
Serge reached back and hurled the keys as hard as he could over the roof of the house. He hopped up and sat on the trunk’s hood. “Now deal with your actions.”
“These aren’t my actions!”
“Jeff, Jeff, Jeff…knock off the innocent act.”
“It not an act! Maybe we can get him out with a crowbar.”
“It’s in the trunk.”
Jeff whined and grabbed his head.
“Tell the truth,” said Serge. “Didn’t it piss you off that this asshole was preying on the good people of this state in their hour of crisis?”
“But this isn’t the answer!”
“Don’t be a denial-chimp. Admit it! He made you mad!”
“Okay, I was kind of mad.”
“And you know the type of person I am, right?”
Jeff nodded slowly, trying to figure where Serge was going.
“Why do you think you brought me those cans? You subconsciously wanted this.”
“I didn’t! I swear!”
“Somewhere deep inside. Think about it…. Don’t answer right away.”
Jeff opened his mouth and stopped. Oh, my God, was it possible? Did I actually intend…?
Serge smiled. “We’re really not that different, you and me.”