Atomic Lobster

by Tim Dorsey

  Crickets.

  Then, slowly, a sound at the end of the street. From around the corner, the reflection of headlights, and then headlights themselves, swinging south. Cooter ducked as the beams swept over the bushes. He checked his pistol’s magazine and safety. The vehicle stopped at the curb.

  Cooter tightened his fingers around the pistol’s grip. The passenger door opened. He took aim and began squeezing the trigger. He stopped. What the—?

  Empty beer cans flew onto the lawn. “Wooooo! Steelers number one!” Plump men in football jerseys piled out of the van. Someone in a black-and-yellow Afro wig threw a glass bottle against the side of the house. A security light came on.

  “Dammit,” Cooter muttered under his breath. “These boobs are going to ruin everything!”

  “Woooo! Steelers!”

  Cooter jumped from the bushes and rushed down to the sidewalk. “Can I help you?”

  Someone in a Super Bowl T-shirt looked at a scrap of paper. “Is this 888 Lobster Lane?”

  “Yes.”

  “You live here?”

  “What do you want?”

  “Your name Jim Davenport?”

  “Look, fellas, it’s kinda late.”

  Wham, wham, wham, wham. Kick, kick, kick. Wham, wham. They hopped back in the van and sped away from the man sprawled across the sidewalk. “Steelers forever!”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  DAVIS ISLANDS

  The Davenports’ drive home was pressurized with domestic tension. Jim continued south on an empty island boulevard, just the distant red taillights up ahead from a Mercury.

  “Martha—”

  “That was revolting.”

  “Please don’t let it ruin our evening.”

  “I haven’t even gotten to the guy with the gun.”

  Jim chose the correct strategy of not talking. Five blocks ahead, the Comet’s taillights turned onto Lobster Lane.

  The Mercury raced up the street and skidded to a stop in front of 888. Serge got out as if an unconscious man on the sidewalk were perfectly normal. He popped the trunk. “Coleman, give me a hand!”

  Jim turned onto their street.

  “Why are you slowing down?” asked Martha.

  “Who’s that in front of our house?”

  Serge slammed the trunk, jumped back in and sped off.

  The marital chill continued as Jim parked in the driveway, and they went inside.

  Numerous tires screeched in the street.

  “What was that?” said Martha.

  “I don’t know.”

  The doorbell rang.

  Jim looked through the peephole: a fisheye view of five men in black suits.

  He opened the door. A silver badge. “Agent Boxer, FBI.” They came inside without invitation.

  Jim followed. “What’s this about?”

  “You remember the McGraw Brothers?…”

  Jim and Martha flinched at the mention.

  “…The last one just got released from prison.”

  “Oh, I understand now,” said Jim. “You’re supposed to notify victims.”

  “It’s a little more than that.” The agent looked around the room. “Got a VCR?”

  Jim opened an oak cabinet concealing the entertainment system. The agent pulled a video from his jacket and inserted it. He picked up four remote controls, studied the buttons, and handed the pile to Jim. “This is different from my system. Can you start the tape?”

  “Sure…”

  The show began. Tex McGraw stood alone in a dingy garage.

  “We routinely get thousands of tapes,” said Boxer. “Most are just garden-variety loons. Crazy threats, conspiracy theories, loners documenting empty lives, like public-access TV. Ninety-nine percent are just barking dogs that don’t bite.”

  On screen, McGraw plugged an electrical cord into a socket, triggering a loud, buzzing sound.

  “What are you trying to say?” asked Jim.

  “This tape’s different. We intercepted it on the way to the office of the prosecutor who put him in prison.”

  “He made some really bad threat?”

  “No. He didn’t make any threat at all,” said Boxer. “In fact, he didn’t even say a word. Those are the worst threats. We’ve gotten a few of these in the past, mainly militia nuts upset about Waco and Ruby Ridge.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Just watch.”

  “What’s he doing placing his own hand under that circular saw?”

  “Turn it off,” said Boxer. “You don’t need to see any more. I think you get the picture.”

  Jim trembled. His fingers lost dexterity, hitting wrong buttons. The scene on TV only got worse.

  “Turn it off!” yelled the agent.

  “I’m trying.” More wrong buttons. Video hideousness.

  Martha screamed.

  The agent grabbed the remote, but it was different from his system.

  McGraw held his severed left hand in his right, and threw it. Boxer ran to the TV and reached for the power button. The bloody hand hit the screen. The television went black.

  “Geez, I’m awfully sorry,” said Boxer. “You weren’t supposed to see that part.”

  Martha cried softly on the couch; Jim stood numb.

  Boxer popped the tape out of the VCR. “We just wanted you to grasp the level of danger you’re in.”

  “But how am I involved?” asked Jim. “You said the tape was sent to the prosecutor.”

  “Our best profiler worked around the clock to decipher his intentions. We theorize he’s working his way down a revenge list.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “He also sent us a letter: ‘I’m working my way down a revenge list.’”

  “God,” said Jim.

  “Your name was on it. So was the defense attorney whose body we just found. Dental records.”

  “But why on earth would he cut off his own hand?”

  “Psychological warfare,” said Boxer. “He’s on a suicide run. ‘If I’ll do this to myself, imagine what I’ll do to you.’ Trying to scare us.”

  Jim fell into a chair. “It’s working.”

  “The Bureau can give you protection, but it would be better if you left town.”

  “Leave town?” said Martha.

  “Maybe take a cruise,” said Boxer. “We’ve seen these extreme, revenge-obsessed types before. They’ll stop at absolutely nothing.”

  “Then we’ll always be running,” said Jim.

  “We’ll catch him,” said Boxer. “Just foiled a plot against an arresting officer. Grabbed one of Tex’s kin in a restaurant where McGraw told him to kidnap the officer and bring him to this empty piece of property where we discovered the lawyer’s remains.”

  “Why is he making relatives take people into the woods instead of just killing them on the spot himself?”

  “So he can have fun.”

  The doorbell again.

  “I’ll get that.” Boxer turned the knob. More dark suits. Another badge.

  “Agent Garfield, Secret Service.”

  “The Secret Service is interested in the McGraw case?” said Boxer.

  “Who’s McGraw?” Garfield reached in his jacket and pulled out a clear bag with two hundred-dollar bills. “Jim Davenport?”

  “That’s me.”

  “You passed counterfeit notes at a restaurant tonight.”

  Serge did his best work when it was dark and isolated. He slid his hands into rubber gloves, grabbed heavy-gauge cutters and began snipping wires. Unseen interstate traffic zipped by on the other side of a berm. Nobody around except Coleman and their surprise guest from the trunk, who was seated twenty yards away, trying to scream with a washcloth stuffed in his mouth.

  Another snip. “Why do they always resist like that?”

  A beer tab popped. “Serge, we don’t have a key to turn this thing on.”

  “And that’s when most people give up. But not Serge.” He whittled the insulation off a pair of just-cut cable. “Notice how
the activation key goes into the padlocked control box? That’s their so-called security feature: You turn the key and, inside the box, it completes the electrical connection that starts everything up. But the wires whose circuit the key completes lead nakedly out the bottom of the box.” Serge held a stripped wire in each gloved hand. He touched them together. Sparks. Then a flurry of mechanical movement in the background. Serge separated wires. Movement stopped. “Now for my final preparations.” He grabbed his tote bag, opened the chain-link gate and stepped over a knee-high barrier.

  Their guest’s muted screams grew louder as Serge approached and set the bag on a concrete floor. Cooter McGraw squirmed furiously, but it was futile with all the ropes and knots and safety straps fastening him into the bucket seat. An impish smile spread across Serge’s face as he narrated the emptying of his supply bag: “Steel-wool scouring pads, double-sided tape, nine-foot length of bare copper wire, big magnet, spare gas can. Your mind must be going in ten directions. What on earth can Professor Serge be up to? I love a good mystery, don’t you? That’s why I never just shoot a guy. Okay, I do, but only if I’m running late.” Serge began taping steel-wool pads all over the man’s shirt. “I like to be a proper host and entertain. And, just to be fair, I’ll usually provide a slim way out of the jam I’m creating. In this case, it’s that pedal by your feet. If you’re really good, you could stave off disaster for hours, maybe even until someone arrives early for work in the morning and saves you.” He lifted the gas can and soaked the hostage. “But don’t give it full power from the natural panic that anyone would have in your situation.” Serge tied one end of the copper wire to the magnet and heaved it straight up, where it stuck to the ceiling of metal mesh. A strand of copper trailed back down and hung next to Serge, ending a foot above the floor. “My advice? Finesse the throttle. Less is more.” Serge clapped his hands together sharply. “What do you say we get started?”

  More muffled screams.

  “You’re excited, too? Great!” Serge hopped back over the barrier and ran to the control box.

  “I still don’t get it,” said Coleman.

  “Observe, Kato.” He grabbed a stripped wire in each gloved hand again. Coleman looked up at a darkened sign. FUN-O-RAMA. He looked back down at Cooter McGraw sitting in the middle of a fleet of silent bumper cars.

  Serge twisted the wires together. The cars began moving randomly at idle speed, except for Cooter’s, which zoomed by at top velocity.

  “You’re going too fast!” yelled Serge. “Finesse!”

  “I don’t think he’s listening.”

  “And you try to help people.”

  Coleman turned away to light a joint against the wind. “So what’s the deal here?”

  “You still don’t get it?”

  Coleman shook his head.

  “See how each car has a tall pole behind the driver’s seat with a curved metal runner at the top, scraping the metal mesh ceiling?”

  Coleman nodded.

  “The mesh is electrified. It’s how bumper cars get their power. If you find yourself soaked in gasoline with a bunch of steel wool taped to your chest—and in Florida that could happen at any time—the last thing you want to do is make a spark. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happens when you hit a live copper wire that some careless person left hanging from the ceiling by a magnet. Objective: Avoid the wire. Since he’s tied up and can’t steer, he’s got to use the throttle and work with the other cars….” Serge cupped his hands around his mouth. “Slow down! You’re never going to last!”

  The car headed straight for the wire at top speed.

  “Ease off the juice,” yelled Serge. “Synchronize it so that other car bumps you out of harm’s way.”

  “He’s slowing down,” said Coleman. “The other car knocked him clear.”

  “Here he comes again,” said Serge. “This time he’ll have to speed up to bounce off the other car and miss the wire.”

  “Speed up!” yelled Coleman.

  “He did it,” said Serge. “Not bad.”

  Three more passes, three perfectly timed deflections.

  “Nice work!” yelled Serge. “At this rate, he just might make it.”

  “Look,” said Coleman. “He doesn’t see that other car coming up in his blind spot.”

  “Watch out for that other—!”

  The guys shielded their faces from the sudden light and heat.

  Serge grabbed his car keys. “Let’s go. Rachael’s probably about to regain consciousness.”

  “But I want to watch.”

  “Don’t be disgusting.”

  THIRTY-NINE

  COZUMEL

  Straight-A college students bloodied themselves in falls, vomited and had indiscriminate sex, in that order, in the same hour.

  Across the channel on the mainland lay the salsa flats of Cancún. Budget motels, even cheaper tequila. Farther inland, the town gave way to farmhouses and hot, dusty fields with a feverish yellow haze. Then even the farmhouses disappeared. Horned frogs and vultures. Eerily quiet, except for occasional gusts of spaghetti-western wind.

  In the distance, a tiny ’62 Chrysler station wagon sped down a bouncy dirt road at seventy miles an hour. Across the barren landscape, its kick-up cloud resembled a ground-level jet contrail. The left shock absorbers were history, and the station wagon listed like it had two wheels in a ditch.

  A lone hacienda came into view. It appeared vacant. Not as much as a weed in the scorched, lifeless yard. Half the roof was gone; so was an interior wall. The windows had no glass, and, from the proper angle, you could see straight through the building to the maroon sun burning into the horizon.

  The car parked. Three doors slammed and as many men in linen suits walked through an empty doorframe. “Hello? Anybody here?” The Diaz Brothers split up. Tommy and Benito circled in opposite directions and bumped back into each other near the front. “Sure we have the right place?”

  Rafael returned to the room with arms raised and a muzzle in his back, followed by five bearded men in tunics. They leveled Kalashnikovs.

  Tommy and Benito racked their Uzis.

  “Drop your weapons!” ordered the tallest tunic.

  “You drop ’em!” answered Tommy.

  Nobody did. They bore down on each other with empty eyes. It was a standoff. It was in Mexico.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way,” said Tommy, sweaty finger slipping on the trigger. “Let’s talk.”

  “No talk!” yelled the tunic. “We were never even supposed to meet!”

  “Then why’d you set this up?”

  “You lost the last package. You die.”

  “Not our fault. Someone killed the mule and took the shipment.”

  “Even worse. Your organization’s fucked.”

  “You’ve obviously never been to that part of Florida,” said Tommy. “Just another redneck rip-off.”

  “How’d you let someone else get to him? How’d he get out of your sight before you could retrieve the package?”

  “We took a different ship back in case he got nailed at Customs. Just like you told us to.”

  The man ground his teeth and poked the air in front of Tommy with the Russian assault rifle. “That next package we gave you before we found out you couldn’t be trusted. We want it back!”

  “Too late. Already in the pipeline.”

  “Get it out of the pipeline!”

  “We know what we’re doing.”

  “You know how to lose a package.”

  “The mules are the problem. The type of person willing to take that kind of work isn’t reliable,” said Tommy. “That’s why we’re using a totally different method this time.”

  “A different method to lose a package?”

  “Ever consider trying to be less annoying? You might think you’re popular, but—”

  “Shut up! What is this method?”

  “Shut up or tell you the method?”

  “The method, you fuck!”

  “Okay, numb
er one…” Tommy began and didn’t stop until he’d laid out the plan to the final detail. “…and then we meet back in Tampa.”

  The man gritted his teeth harder.

  “Come on,” said Tommy. “We’ve already set it in motion. Weigh the risks of giving it a shot versus jumping in and mucking it up.”

  The teeth remained locked. Finally, the man released his trigger hand. “This is your last chance!” He left the room, and the others followed.

  WAINSCOTTING RESIDENCE

  The noise was deafening.

  Party Day.

  Serge stood in the open office door at the top of the stairs.

  Below: A sea of derelicts filled the living room, laughing, shouting, stumbling, dancing to the driving stereo beat. Through the middle, Coleman pushed a rolling serving cart. “Cocktails, pretzels, smoke…” The mob was thickest on the far side of the room, Rachael stripteasing atop the bar. She captured a dollar with her tits. The serving cart rolled by. “…Yellow jackets, psilocybin, Diet Coke…”

  Serge went back in the office. “This cannot end well.”

  An hour passed. Serge sat behind the office desk, deep in thought.

  Knock-knock.

  The door opened; music volume spiked.

  “…Rebel rebel, your face is a mess…”

  Coleman closed the door and walked over to the desk. “Serge…”

  “Not now.” Serge aimed his digital camera. Flash.

  “Playing with your dirt again?”

  “This isn’t playing.”

  “I thought you kept your dirt in tubes. What are all those flat things?”

  “Bought a bunch of ant farms. Wanted to see how they behaved in different genius soil.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “Kerouac ants had another cave-in.”

  “Oh, yeah, just remembered,” said Coleman. “I knew I came in here for a reason.”

  “To bother me?”

  “No, someone’s outside to see you.”

  “Who?”

  “It’s a surprise.”

  Another knock. The door opened. “Serge!”

  “Lenny?”

  “Long time!”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Heard you were having a party.”

  “You did? But…how?…”