by Tim Dorsey
“The junk drawer!” said Coleman.
They both stopped and looked at each other.
“Serge, what do junk drawers have to do with anything?”
“I don’t know.”
The two stared at the ceiling, then the floor, then their fingernails, the ceiling again . . .
“I’ve got it!” said Serge. “Starting a fire! So the arson investigators discovered the surprising rate at which people keep loose Brillo pads and nine-volt batteries in junk drawers, and after opening and closing the drawer long enough, stuff begins shifting around, different things touch, and the whole place burns down. Look it up.”
“Mmmmmmmmmmm!” said Gil.
“Sorry, the Internet café is closed for you. Just take my word.” Serge grabbed a knife and sliced the ropes binding Gil to the chair. “On your feet, slappy boy.”
Gil stood up, festooned with scouring pads, hands still fastened behind his back.
Coleman giggled. “He looks funny.”
“It’s about to become a laugh jamboree.” Serge peeked out the window into the darkness and saw nobody. He walked back to Gil. “Okay, here’s the skinny. Our room here is on the back of the motel facing the beach, and it’s empty at this hour. If you’re familiar with the area, you know it’s a pretty wide beach. There are a few clusters of palm trees behind the motel, and then about a hundred yards to the water. We’re going outside now. Don’t try to pull anything to attract attention or it’s no bonus round for you!”
Serge seized Gil by the back of the neck. “Coleman, open the door and check outside again.”
Coleman trotted to the edge of the sand. “It’s still clear.”
Serge rushed onto the beach with the captive and took cover in the nearest clump of palms. “It’s reckoning time, so pay attention.” Slap! “It could save your life. Which brings us to the bonus round. As I said, this one’s a piece of cake, as long as you don’t panic. Panic is bad in the bonus round. I’m going to let you go now.” Serge poked a gun into his spine. “But you can’t come back this way. You have to head out across the beach toward the Gulf.” He reached a hand around Gil’s neck to show him a nine-volt battery.
“Mmmmmmmmmmmm!”
“I see you remember this baby from my little sermon back in the room. That’s great! That’s marvelous! Because this is also your parting gift.” Serge glanced down at the wrist ties. “I see your hands are occupied at the moment. Where should I put this? I know! I’ll stick it in your hip pocket. But before I do, remember about the panic. The burn rate on steel wool ranges wildly depending on conditions. All you have to do is put out the fire before it gets to be, well, why dwell before it’s time? I notice that you’re looking at the water. Excellent idea. You’re a young chap, and if you were any good at track and field, it’s not that far to the shore. Get the fire out in time and you’re free to go. You have my word. There’ll be a pretty bad burn on your hip area for a while, but I can’t think of everything.” Serge’s head swiveled one last time and, literally, the coast was clear. “Ready to make your bid for freedom? . . . Gil, you have to nod or this won’t work.”
Gil whimpered and nodded frantically.
“Good.” Serge stuck the battery in his pocket, then shoved him in the back. “And you’re off!”
“Look at him go!” said Coleman.
Serge leaned against a palm tree with folded arms. “And look at his pocket.”
“It already ignited. It’s setting off the other pads on the bottom of his safety vest.”
“I don’t think I could have made the bonus round any simpler.” Serge sighed. “And after all I said about not panicking.”
Flames began working their way down Gil’s legs and up to his armpits.
“He doesn’t look like he’s panicking,” said Coleman. “See? He’s keeping his head and running straight for the water.”
“Exactly,” said Serge. “All he has to do is drop and roll in the sand. I told him it was easy.”
“Maybe if he had used sunscreen,” said Coleman. “People are always telling you that down here.”
“But nobody listens.”
The flames began spreading, pad by pad, across his chest, but Gil wasn’t slowing down. If anything, he was running faster.
“I don’t know,” said Coleman. “I think he might make it. He’s more than halfway there, and most of the pads still aren’t lit.”
“That’s the double whammy of panic,” said Serge. “He’s not rolling in the sand, and he’s still running. Remember me telling you about twirling Brillo on the Fourth of July? The faster he sprints, the more air gets to the pads, and the fire accelerates until he’s engulfed.”
“He’s almost to the water!” said Coleman. “Oooo, he’s engulfed now. Engulfed isn’t good.”
The pair watched the human torch reach the wet sand at the edge of the waves. He dropped to his knees, then tipped over facedown and fell still. The waves continued rolling in, eventually putting out the fire with a series of sizzles, but it was all epilogue.
“That was cool!” said Coleman. “I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be happy.”
“Someone has to thin the herd, but why do they always leave it to me?”
“Because you’re thoughtful?” asked Coleman.
Serge turned back to the motel room. “Show’s over.”
“Cancel sunscreen.”
Chapter 22
Somewhere along the Gulf of Mexico
Water jets sprayed from the giant fountain in the middle of the man-made lake. It seemed to be the big selling point at every retirement park up and down the west coast of Florida. The setting sun created the illusion that the flying water droplets were ablaze like molten blobs of lava. Three-wheel bikes and members of the Silver Sneakers fitness club circled the pond. American flags flapped from sticks in doorside brackets.
Inside one of the trailers, a phone rang. A man in a recliner got up and reached for the cordless receiver.
“Hello?”
“Ted?”
“Yes?”
“Is this Ted Pruitt?”
“Who’s calling?”
“Tofer Baez.”
It was one of those stunned pauses that might have gone on forever.
“Hello? Hello? Are you still there?”
More silence. Then: “Tofer, is that really you?”
“Yes, we need to talk.”
“That’s what we’re doing now,” said Ted.
“No, not on the phone,” said Tofer. “In person.”
“Slow down, I’m getting dizzy,” said Ted. “I haven’t heard from you in—what, almost twenty-five years? . . .”
“More than that.”
“. . . And you call out of the blue, acting all mysterious?” said Ted.
“You’ll understand when we meet.”
“I need to sit down.” Ted eased back into the chair and popped up the footrest. “We’re not as young as we used to be. I just turned sixty-seven, so that makes you . . .”—silently counting on his fingers—“. . . seventy-one?”
“By your area code, I’m guessing you’re on the Gulf.”
“You guessed right,” said Ted. “Where are you? Still in West Palm?”
“No, I switched coasts years ago. Now I’m in Saint Petersburg.”
“Then you’re just up the road from me.” Ted finally relaxed and smiled at the old friendship. “Where do you want to meet?”
“A bar. It needs to be an out-of-the-way place with lots of exits and clear sight lines.”
“Jesus, with the mystery again!” said Ted. “I don’t know any place like that.”
“Then I do,” said Tofer. “Got something to write with? . . .”
. . . Two hours later, a black Oldsmobile cruised south through downtown St. Petersburg on Ninth Street. Ted thought Tofer was being paranoid, but he promised to watch for surveillance as requested. He’d been checking all his mirrors since hitting the Skyway Bridge over the mouth of the bay. Still no signs of intrigue as he c
rossed the intersection with Twelfth Avenue North. Ted almost missed the tiny neighborhood saloon with a white picket fence holding up a banner that said Free Pool Wednesdays. A framed black-and-white photo of a handsome young man was bolted to the front of the building. Over the door:
Flamingo Bar.
Ted pulled around back to park, passing door after open door exposed to the night. Yep, plenty of exits. He entered one.
It was a Wednesday and the rear pool room was crowded, one of the few places left where you could smoke, hence all the open doors. A TV was on the pro bowling tour. Someone sank a cue ball and groaned. Ted rounded the last table, eyes sweeping the elongated bar in the middle of the lounge. From the edge of his vision, an arm waved. The bushy black hair was now a gray ponytail, but even after all these years, Tofer was unmistakable. He sat alone at a small table tucked between an antique barber’s chair and an old stand-up ashtray. Above, shelves with an unnatural volume of books for a bar.
Ted waved back with a giant smile, and the pals had a huge, backslapping guy hug.
“Man, you sure did pick out a funky place,” said Ted. “What a dive.”
Tofer sat down at their secluded table. “It was Jack Kerouac’s favorite bar at the end of his life, close to his final home in nearby Pinellas Park.”
“I picked up on that from the book titles on the shelves, the big photo of him out front, and all the signs advertising ‘Kerouac Special: Shot & Small Draft, $2.’ . . . The ponytail looks good. What was too weird to discuss on the phone?”
Tofer leaned in and whispered. “Putin.”
“Putin?”
“Shhhh! Lower your voice.” Tofer’s head yanked around. “I thought back in the nineties that all this Cold War shit was over.”
“It is,” said Ted.
Tofer shook his head. “Heating up again.”
“What are you talking about?”
Tofer stomped a foot on the floor under their table. “Dammit! How could I have been so stupid? I was just a naive young guy trying to change the world. There were so many injustices in America back then—race relations, poverty, the war—and I bought into their propaganda. But the Russians were worse, much worse. I idealistically thought we were comrades in the struggle, but they were just using me, twisting harder and harder. I got more jittery over time and said I wanted out, but they wouldn’t let me. Vague threats of blackmail. Then not so vague. They had tapes. Began talking about how many years you get in America for espionage.”
“That’s terrible,” said Ted. “What happened?”
“Luck. The empire broke apart, and most of the KGB went home, at least those agents who handled us.”
“What did you do?”
Tofer flinched as someone loudly racked balls on the pool table behind them. “Went into hiding. Kept a low profile and worked odd jobs. But every day waiting for that knock at the door from the FBI. Or worse. You can’t live like that.”
“But you’re here and safe,” said Ted. “It’s been so many years I doubt they even care anymore.”
Tofer scooted his chair around as close as possible to Ted. “In the last couple months, I’ve been contacted by some of my old friends from back in the day. Rumors are going around and they’re worried. The Russians are reaching out to some of their old assets they left behind, mainly younger guys we recruited in the eighties. They’re trying to put the networks back together.”
“Have they reached out to you?”
“No, I’m too old.” Tofer absentmindedly stroked the ponytail.
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Don’t you see? It puts the spotlight back on. Any files our government may have had on me were mothballed, but now they’re getting dusted off. One of my friends in Orlando got a visit from the feds. They didn’t have any hard evidence or he’d be in jail. But it was like they just knew. It was an intimidation visit, and it worked. He’s really shaken, says he can never call me again for both our safety.”
“I had no idea,” said Ted.
“Gets worse,” said Tofer. “This Putin character is a bad actor. I worked back under Brezhnev, the architect of détente, but Putin is former KGB, assassinating journalists and political opponents, and not too subtly. Gunning them down outside the Kremlin, poisoning them with exotic radioactive isotopes that only the military has. It’s all deniable, and yet at the same time he wants people to know.”
“I don’t see how this affects you,” said Ted.
“When I mentioned they’re putting networks back together, they’re also tying up some old loose ends, if you know what I mean,” said Tofer. “Some of us defected to the United States, and others like me are just still alive. But the Russians aren’t making the distinction: ‘Hey, if Tofer’s not in jail, maybe he cut a deal, or maybe he was never caught, but why take the chance?’”
“You seriously need a drink.”
“There was some talk back when we were working. Nobody really believed it, though it was always there. One thing the Russians are good at is getting people out of the country, but they’re not perfect. If one of their foreign assets becomes compromised, they’re often smuggled to Cuba as a way point, or some other friendly place. But if they’re too late for an extraction, and an asset knows enough to expose an operation, then it’s a cold, quick decision. They just disappear. Happened a number of times in the seventies. We were always told they’d been spirited off to nice apartments in Moscow, but who knows? . . . I think I’m being followed.”
“I think you’re making yourself crazy,” said Ted.
“Am I?” said Tofer. “Remember my friend in Orlando? He’s missing now, along with his wife. One of my other friends drove by his house to check up on him, and the place was crawling with FBI. And there was a crime scene truck.”
“But that could be anything,” said Ted. “It’s a dangerous state.”
“Don’t you see now? I personally can identify dozens of those younger agents from the late eighties that they’ve just reactivated. Anyone who knows anything is in play now. That means you, too.”
“But I don’t know those agents,” said Ted.
“Doesn’t matter. You know me. They like to be thorough.”
“You’re already worrying enough for both of us, so I’m not going to lose any sleep.”
“Ted, we’ve been friends for a long time.”
“Yes, we have.”
“I’m not cut out for this stress.” He placed his face in his hands. “In case anything happens to me, I want a clear conscience. I need to make a confession. I recruited you.”
“I kind of figured that out later,” said Ted. “We both liked shortwave and became friends. You were into this other stuff, but once you felt you could trust me . . .”
“It goes beyond that,” said Tofer. “I targeted you.”
“What? Targeted?”
“They first approached me at an anti-war rally, and it was an easy sell. I told them I was in.”
“These were other Americans?”
Tofer shook his head. “That’s the thing. They were Russian, yet their English was so perfect, even idiomatic. They knew all the music and fads and everything else about what the youth was into. It was amazing how easily they infiltrated the counter-culture. Except their backgrounds could only withstand superficial scrutiny. So they said they needed my help to recruit Americans born and raised here. First we tried the flag burners, because they had already disowned their country, but they turned out just to be assholes. Then we looked at the Weather Underground types, real hard-core organizers, because we figured they’re organized. But they had so much internal politics that they were fighting themselves even more than the government. Finally, we decided to forget all that and go younger. It would require much more time and patience, but we could mold them from an early age. High school students.”
“Like me?”
“We developed a profile. Misfits.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“We were looking for bright kids, b
ut loners. Our profile said the most vulnerable were from broken homes, single offspring without the support of siblings. Even better if they lost their dads at an early age. You came to us on a silver platter with your letter to Radio Moscow. We put you under surveillance for a couple weeks: You had little interaction with classmates, rarely leaving the house except to launch your model rockets. Just waiting to be befriended by a cool college guy with a guitar. That’s when they sent me in. I’m sorry.”
A long pause as they stared at each other.
Ted placed his palms flat on the table and leaned back. “That’s a lot to take in.”
“Life is a list of things you wish you could go back and change,” said Tofer. “But there it is.”
“Indeed,” said Ted. “Now there’s something that I need to tell you. It might come as a bit of a shock. Remember the first time we met back in 1970? . . .”
Chapter 23
Sarasota
In northern states, they have hail damage. In Florida, they have different damage. An hour after dark, a palm tree dropped a coconut through the windshield of a Lincoln parked outside a trailer.
A Ford Falcon arrived at the entrance of Boca Shores.
“. . . Let’s play The Hollywood Squares . . .”
Earl came out of his booth in loose khakis and bright spirits. “Back again? You might as well move in.”
Serge threw up his arms in mock frustration. “Another dinner invitation. What are you going to do?”
“You’re the man of the hour,” Earl said convivially. “Enjoy it while you can.”