Insane City

by Dave Barry

  “You don’t have to prove that. You definitely still look good.”

  “So why am I trying to prove it? I mean, the guys I meet on South Beach, going to clubs every night, getting wasted . . . they’re not the kind of guys I want to meet anyway. I want to meet nice guys. Guys like . . . OK, like you.”

  This time they both blushed.

  “Well, thanks,” said Seth. “But I have to point out that you met me over there on South Beach and I was totally wasted. I was so wasted, I lost my suitcase, which is how come now we’re driving over to Primate Encounter.”

  “Right, but that was your bachelor party. That’s different. And besides, if you think about it, if things didn’t happen the way they did, you wouldn’t have ended up on that beach last night, and you would never have pulled Laurette and her kids out of the ocean. They probably would have drowned.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Anyway,” she said, “the point is, you’re a good guy. Tina’s very lucky to have you.”

  “I hope she feels the same way.”

  “I’m sure she does,” said Cyndi. She touched Seth’s arm, then pulled her hand away.

  24

  “You did what?” said Meghan.

  “I told Daddy about the Haitians,” said Tina.

  The sisters were back in their suite, getting ready for bed.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Because Seth told me he’d get rid of them, and he didn’t.”

  “I’m sure he’s trying to, Tina, but it’s probably—”

  “And I saw him leaving the hotel in a car with that bimbo he was with last night, the one with the boobs hanging out who was with the snake idiot.”

  “OK, maybe he was driving her home. Tina, it’s Seth. He loves you. He’s crazy for you. He can’t believe you’re marrying him. He thinks he won the lottery. He would not mess that up, especially not the day before the wedding. I’m sure there’s a totally innocent explanation for all of this.”

  “There fucking better be,” said Tina, though as she thought about it she realized Meghan was probably right. Seth was just driving the bimbo home, because that was the kind of nice guy Seth was.

  “You shouldn’t have told Daddy about the Haitians,” said Meghan.

  “Why not?”

  “Because Seth asked you not to.”

  “Seth had his chance to take care of this, and he couldn’t. These people are taking advantage of him the way I’m sure the bimbo did. You know how he is. He’s a pushover. So when this kind of person shows up, they just walk all over him.”

  “When what kind of person shows up? Drowning Haitians?”

  “You know what I mean. And it’s not just them. There was this huge African-American woman in his room. She called me a bitch. She slammed the door on me. That fat fucking black bitch.”

  “OK, Tina, whoever’s there, the point is that Seth promised this Haitian woman—”

  “I don’t care what he promised her! He promised me he’d get rid of them! We’re getting married tomorrow!”

  Meghan sighed. “So what is Daddy going to do?”

  “He’s going to take care of it.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning he’s going to get them out of there.”

  “Meaning his two thugs are.”

  “They’re not going to do anything bad to them. I made Daddy promise that.”

  “So what are they going to do?”

  “They’re going to take them to the federal immigration people.”

  “But Tina, that’s exactly what he doesn’t want to happen.”

  “That’s exactly what the law says is supposed to happen,” said Tina. “They’re here illegally, Meghan. Don’t you get that?”

  “I thought the term you used was undocumented,” said Meghan. “You know, when you’re marching in your rallies.”

  Tina reddened. “Don’t try to make me into the bad guy here, Meghan. They’re going to be perfectly fine. They’ll be well treated.”

  “Until they get sent back to Haiti.”

  “You don’t know that’s what will happen. There are procedures that have to be followed. They’ll have legal representation. And why the hell are you being so self-righteous about this anyway? When have you ever cared about this kind of thing? What have you ever done to help undocumented immigrants?”

  Meghan was silent for a few seconds, staring at the wall.

  Tina let her words hang in the air for a while. Then she rose and said, “I’m going to bed.”

  “Sleep well,” said Meghan.

  “I’ll sleep just fine,” said Tina.

  25

  Wendell and Marty were now alone on the beach. One by one, the members of the wedding party had drifted off to bed. Stan, former owner of what was now Stan’s Transglobal Pizza of Key Biscayne, had also departed, literally skipping up the beach, firmly holding his attaché case.

  Now it was just Wendell and Marty, bare toes in the sand, listening to the whoosh of the waves and staring at the fat moon rising over the Atlantic.

  Neither had spoken for more than a half hour when Marty chuckled and said, “You realize what you did, right?”

  Wendell, still looking at the moon, said, “What did I do?”

  “You bought a pizza restaurant.”

  “I know!” Wendell burst out laughing.

  “And the whole entire reason you bought it was so you could have a pizza delivered.”

  “I know!” Wendell was laughing so hard he was gasping. “And you want to know the worst part?”

  “What’s the worst part?”

  “I didn’t even get a slice!”

  “Seriously?”

  “Seriously. Greta ate the whole thing.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. That woman hardly eats anything. And she never eats carbs. But she scarfed down the entire pizza. She was a pepperoni piranha.”

  “Wow.”

  They stared at the moon some more, catching their breath. Then Wendell said, “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I’m still hungry.”

  “Me too,” said Marty.

  “You think there’s any place around here that sells Chinese food?”

  Marty looked at Wendell. “Are you serious?”

  “I could really, seriously, eat some Chinese food right about now.”

  “Chinese sounds good,” said Marty.

  26

  Seth and Cyndi were driving through the Redlands, having left behind the dilapidated strip malls and ragtag housing developments along the U.S. 1 corridor. Now they passed clapboard houses scattered among palm tree nurseries, mango groves, horse farms and U-PICK-’EM tomato fields, the air smelling of damp grass and soil and manure. It was still Dade, but a world away from Miami.

  With Cyndi giving directions, they took a series of lefts and rights, zigzagging south and west on the narrow, arrow-straight rural roads, getting ever closer to the Everglades. Finally the Escalade’s headlights illuminated a big, faded PRIMATE ENCOUNTER sign looming over an unlit dirt parking area next to a dense stand of trees. Seth pulled in and killed the motor and the headlights. The lot was dark, the trees blocking most of the light from the rising moon.

  “Maybe there’s a flashlight,” said Cyndi. She opened the glove compartment and started rooting around.

  “Hmm,” she said.

  “What?”

  “There must be twenty condoms in here. Also a box of Cheez-Its. Also rolling papers, and . . . Whoa, here’s a large jar of Vaseline.”

  “Wesley’s prepared.”

  “He actually is,” said Cyndi, producing a metal-bodied, three-cell flashlight, the kind favored by law enforcement because it could be used for both illumination and, when necessary, busting the heads of suspected wrongdoers. She handed it to Seth, who found the switch. The Escalade filled with a bright white light.

  “That’ll work,” said Seth, switching it off. “So where’d Duane say the guy left my suitcase?”


  “In the back, behind a big cage. He said you go in through a gate around the side to the left. He gave me the code to get in.”

  “Is there a night watchman?”

  “I don’t know. Duane didn’t say either way.”

  “Well, if there is, let’s hope we don’t run into him. We’ll just grab the suitcase and go.”

  They got out of the car. The night air was thick with humidity and the sweet smells of tropical vegetation. They crossed the parking lot, Seth leading. He left the flashlight off; there was just enough moonlight leaking through the trees for them to see their way.

  They reached the front entrance to Primate Encounter and turned left, following a high wooden fence. The fence turned right, and they followed a path alongside it, barely visible in the filtered moonlight. To their left was a thick wall of foliage. From inside the fence, they heard animal noises—rustling, grunting, chittering, a moaning sound. Suddenly a high-pitched shriek pierced the night. Cyndi grabbed Seth’s hand.

  “That was a monkey, right?” she said.

  “I’m thinking zombie,” said Seth.

  “Very funny. Ha-ha.”

  She was still holding his hand.

  They kept moving along the fence and came to a steel gate with narrowly spaced vertical bars. Seth turned the flashlight on. Above the gate latch handle was a numeric keypad. Cyndi got a scrap of paper out of her purse and read the code to Seth. He punched it into the keypad, heard a click, turned the handle and pushed the gate. It swung open. They went inside. Behind them, the gate swung closed with a dull clang.

  Seth shined the flashlight beam ahead, illuminating a walkway lined with animal cages, each with a sign out front identifying its occupants. From inside some of the cages, pairs of glowing eyes stared out at Seth and Tina. Seth swept the beam to the right, toward the entrance, then to the left. At the far left end the beam found a cage quite a bit larger than the others.

  “That must be it,” whispered Cyndi.

  “Why are you whispering?” said Seth.

  “I don’t want to attract the zombies.”

  “Ha-ha.”

  But she was still holding his hand.

  They walked to the big cage at the end. The air there held a musky aroma. Seth flashed the light beam through the bars, illuminating a large log play structure and a tire swing, but no living creatures.

  Seth and Tina walked around to the back of the cage, a grassy embankment leading down to a drainage ditch. Seth shined the flashlight back and forth, a sick feeling growing in his gut.

  “It’s not here,” he said. “Are you sure this is the right cage?”

  “He said the big cage in the back.”

  “Well, this is definitely the big cage in the back.” He walked along the embankment, flashing the beam back and forth.

  “Shit,” he said. “Where the hell is it?”

  “Duane said it’d be here.”

  Seth, still moving the light beam around, said, “Well, apparently Duane was . . . Hey.”

  “What?” said Cyndi.

  “Look here.” Seth was shining the light on a clump of tall grass close to the cage. The grass had been pressed down; the stalks were pointing toward the cage. “Looks like something got dragged.”

  Seth stepped closer to the bars and shined the light inside. Close by he saw a dirty gray tarp lying on the floor in a rumpled heap. He reached through the bars, grabbed an edge of the tarp and pulled it. There was nothing under it. He moved the light beam around some more, then stopped.

  “Oh shit,” he said.

  “What?” said Cyndi.

  Seth trained the light on a ragged black cloth lump about six feet into the cage. “I think that’s my suitcase,” he said. “At least part of it.”

  “Oh no,” said Cyndi.

  Seth was moving the beam around the cage floor. “Oh God. That’s my tuxedo jacket. There’s my dress shoes, my shirt . . . My clothes are all over the place.” He kept moving the beam. “Damn. I don’t see the ring. It’s in a red jewelry box. It’s gotta be in there somewhere.” He took a breath, let it out. “I have to get in there.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea. Whatever’s in there . . . look what it did to your suitcase.”

  “Yeah, but there doesn’t seem to be anything in there now. I’m thinking they move whatever it is to a sleeping area at night.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I know I don’t. What I do know is, I have to get that ring. There has to be a door to the cage, right? For the trainers to get in?”

  He moved left along the cage wall. The door was almost at the end, in a steel frame welded into the cage bars. The door had a digital keypad that looked identical to the one on the fence gate.

  “Do you think they’d use the same code?” said Cyndi.

  “Let’s hope,” said Seth. He punched the code into the keypad, heard a click. “Yes.” He turned the latch and pushed. The door swung open. Seth reached down to the side of the doorway and pulled out a thick clump of grass. He wedged it between the door and the frame to keep the door from closing and latching shut behind him. Then he stepped inside the cage. Cyndi followed, not happy about going inside but not wanting to stay outside alone.

  The musky aroma was stronger inside the cage. Seth, with Cyndi staying close behind, walked back along the cage wall to where his clothes were strewn. He played the light beam over the scattered garments, kicking them aside. They were damp and reeked an eye-stinging odor.

  “I don’t like this,” whispered Cyndi.

  “It has to be here,” said Seth, his eyes on the cage floor. “It has to.”

  He moved a little deeper into the cage, sweeping the flashlight beam back and forth across the floor.

  “I really don’t like this,” said Cyndi.

  “You want to wait for me outside?” said Seth.

  “No. I want us both to be outside.”

  “I’m sorry but I gotta do this.”

  They were nearing the log structure. The flashlight beam fell on a wadded clump of clothing near its base. Seth stepped closer. The musky aroma was very strong now. Seth reached out his foot to probe the clothing.

  A noise.

  It came from the log structure, a low rumble.

  “What was that?” said Cyndi.

  Seth raised the flashlight, swept it across the structure, the beam illuminating the logs right to left.

  Seth caught a glimpse of something as the light swept past it. He stopped the beam, moved it back.

  Cyndi screamed.

  27

  “I don’t want them to get hurt,” said Mike Clark. “I promised Tina they wouldn’t get hurt.”

  Brewer and Castronovo nodded. They were in the lobby, sitting on some chairs in a quiet corner.

  Brewer said, “So what do you want us to do?”

  “First, I want you to take them out of the room, quietly. I don’t want a scene. And be careful. Tina said there are some other people in the room, too. More black people. Apparently my idiot future son-in-law has a fucking United Nations going on in there. And I’m paying for this.”

  Castronovo said, “You want them out, too?”

  “Yes, definitely, get them out. I don’t care how, just don’t make noise about it. I don’t give a shit about them. Just get them out of the hotel.”

  Brewer said, “What about the Haitians? What do we do with them?”

  “That’s trickier. The most important thing is, I don’t want them to be connected with me or Tina’s wedding. I don’t need some asshole do-gooder immigration lawyer somehow finding out my name is connected with these people and going to the newspaper with some sob story about how the big mean billionaire Mike Clark had these poor Haitian boat people arrested. They should be arrested, for God’s sake; they’re breaking the fucking law. But I don’t want this thing blowing up into a PR disaster that ruins the wedding. So there can be no connection between them and me, understand? I want you to take them out of Miami, drive them
north. Past Boca. Maybe to Delray Beach. Or north of there, but at least that far. Drop them off near the water, somewhere where the cops will find them. They’ll get picked up and it’ll look like they came ashore there. Even if they say they were down here, nobody’s going to believe them. How would Haitian boat people get into the Key Biscayne Ritz? So that’s the plan, OK?”

  Castronovo and Brewer nodded.

  “One thing,” said Mike. “If Tina asks you about this, tell her you took the Haitians to the federal immigration authorities and they took them into custody. That’s what I told her I was going to do. They’ll end up getting picked up by the feds anyway. I just don’t want anybody connected with me to be directly involved.”

  Brewer said, “What about Seth? Does he know we’re going to be doing this?”

  “He’s not in his suite. Tina said he’s out right now.” Mike’s tone of voice made it clear he did not want to discuss that matter any further.

  Castronovo said, “Do you care when we do this?”

  “Soon as possible without creating a scene.”

  “OK,” said Brewer, looking around. “Best time is early morning, not too many people out.”

  “All right,” said Mike. “Just get it done. I want them gone.”

  “They’ll be gone,” said Castronovo.

  28

  Your mature male orangutan is not a looker. His head is dominated by huge cheek pads—wide flaps of black flesh that extend outward from the face, surrounding it and joining at the forehead, forming a sort of hood over the eyes, which are deep-set and absurdly close together. The nose is small, almost dainty; it’s perched high over a wide, purse-lipped mouth, beneath which is a scraggly beard and a huge chin pouch. These features give the male a moon-faced, dopey, comical appearance. Until he feels threatened or angry. When that happens, he will open his mouth—which is much larger, and much more powerful, than a human mouth—and reveal a fearsome set of teeth, dominated by long, fang-like canines. Then the male orangutan does not look comical at all. He looks like a powerful, badass animal capable of inflicting great harm, which he is.