by Jeff Lindsay
We drove back to the doughnut shop where I’d left my car, idling past once on U.S. 1 while we looked for any sign of untoward activity, Legal or Otherwise, around my car. There was no sign of anything: no police cruiser or unmarked car, and as far as we could see, there was no conga line of swarthy killers with machine guns, either.
Just to be safe, Brian drove around the block and approached the parking lot from the rear. He pulled up on the street, in the shadow of a large old banyan tree, and put the van in park. For a moment we both sat silently. I don’t know what Brian was thinking, but I was still scrabbling across the rough tundra of my brainscape, looking for a way out of the unfolding unending hopelessness of being Me nowadays. As far as I could see, there wasn’t one.
“Well,” Brian said eventually.
“Yes,” I said. “I suppose so.”
“Cheer up, brother,” he said. “Keep smiling.”
“What on earth for?”
He smiled. “It confuses people?” he said.
I sighed. “I’m afraid it’s beyond me at the moment,” I said. I opened the door. “I’ll find another hotel and let you know where I am.”
“By phone?” he said, sounding rather anxious. “I mean—I suppose the business with the credit card has made me overcautious, but—”
“You’re right,” I said, mentally kicking myself; I should have thought of that. “Let’s meet here, at the doughnut shop, for breakfast.”
“A wonderful thought,” Brian said. “I do like fresh doughnuts.”
“Eight o’clock?” I said, and he nodded. “All right, then.” I jumped down out of the van and Brian put it into gear.
“Good night,” he said as I reached to close the door. It was a wonderful sentiment, but it seemed unlikely, so I just nodded and trudged over to my rental car.
I found a small and anonymous motel just south of Goulds, a little north of Homestead. It was an old-style one-story hotel, clearly built in the fifties to accommodate weary Northerners as they rested from motoring down the old Dixie Highway and exploring the wonders of Florida. The place was run by a mom and pop who really should have retired no later than 1963. They seemed surprised and a little put out that somebody would interrupt their TV viewing by asking for a room, but I showed them cash, and after a certain amount of grumbling, they gave me a key and pointed away toward the left wing.
My room was halfway down a row of identically tatty doors with peeling paint and missing numerals. The inside was no better; it smelled like mothballs and mildew and was nearly as tiny as my cell had been. But I hoped that the place was small enough to be off the grid somewhat. And the proprietors had shown no sign of any technical savvy beyond changing channels on their old TV set—and not even with a remote control—so perhaps they would simply pocket my cash without leaving any trace on the information grid.
I locked the door and secured it with the rusty chain that hung there, and then walked over to the bed and looked it over. A large part of the mothball smell seemed to be coming from the bedspread, and the two pillows were so flat I thought they might just be empty pillowcases. I put one hand on the mattress and felt it. It offered all the firm support of a bag of fresh marshmallows. But it was a bed, and I was suddenly very tired.
I flopped onto the bed—a little too energetically, as it turned out. It was apparently a few years older than my hosts, and it did not merely sag; I actually felt my back touch the floor. Then it moved a few inches upward again, leaving me in a half-folded position that was already starting to give me back pain. The mattress in my other hotel room had been bad enough; this one was far worse, enough to make me nostalgic for the nice hard shelf they’d let me sleep on in jail.
I turned and twisted and finally found a position that was not actually painful, though it was very far from comfy. So much to do, and so many distractions. Was it really only this morning that I woke up in a cell? It seemed impossible—so much had happened since that it seemed like another lifetime. But it was true; mere hours ago I had been blinking in the sunlight, thrilled at my reentry into a world with fewer steel bars. And I spent most of the day convinced that nothing in the world could possibly be worse than going back to jail—until my brother had very thoughtfully provided a couple of new options that were far, far worse.
But I still had to keep myself free. I pushed my brain away from contemplating the hordes of savage drug-crazed assassins who were no doubt sniffing my trail, and I forced myself to think about my real agenda, keeping Dexter out of jail and, if possible, putting Anderson in.
Let’s see; I had just decided on independent action. I needed to find some proof that…what was it again? I was distracted by an enormous yawn that seemed to take over my entire body. Proof—I needed to show that Robert was a pedophile, and Anderson had played games with evidence. I remembered that I had decided my first step was to talk to Vince, ask him to help me gather some stuff that—Another enormous yawn. Something about Anderson being a bad guy or something, that was it. Good old Vince. Bad old Anderson.
I felt a third yawn coming on, and I could tell that this one would leave the other two far behind in the dust. It felt so powerful, overwhelming, gigantic that I was afraid it might actually crack me in half, and I fought against it for a few valiant seconds, and then…
—
The sun was doing its very best to break through the tattered mildew-smelling curtains when I opened my eyes. Somehow it had turned into morning—and an obnoxiously bright and cheerful one, too, just to rub salt in all my psychic wounds. It’s very hard to maintain a properly grumpy perspective when the sun is beaming down from a cloudless sky, and the voice of the turtle is so clearly warming up in the wings. But I tried; I lay there unmoving for a while, wondering if it was even worth getting out of bed. If I did, some new and awful disaster would almost certainly leap out of the closet and wrestle me to the floor. And the floor did not look terribly inviting—yellowed, peeling linoleum that had probably been put down to celebrate Eisenhower’s inauguration.
On the other hand, if I just lay here on my marshmallow mattress, all the other wicked and unwarranted beasties pursuing me would eventually catch up. Not really a terribly enticing choice either way.
So I lay on my back on the horribly soft bed and avoided making the choice. It was nearly comfortable, even though my knees were surprisingly close to my head. Sometime in the night, my body had curved into the shape of the letter “U,” as the bed yielded around me. It wasn’t so bad, almost the same position as lying in a hammock, and I’d never heard a sailor complain about that. Of course, I did not ordinarily hang out with sailors—but surely some word would have trickled out.
I lay there, and I thought grumpy thoughts that were only partly generated by my waking up so recently. I grumbled, and it might even be said that I pouted. But eventually a small but potent voice sounded in the depths of my very being, that tiny nagging whisper that has so often guided me, the righteous glowing arrow that always points my way, lights my footsteps, and sends me down the right path, no matter what. There is no denying this Voice when it speaks, for it is never wrong and never out of order. It spoke to me now, softly but insistently, and what it said was, I’m hungry.
And once again, I realized that it spoke the truth. I was hungry. Very hungry, in fact. I am blessed with a total lack of conscience, but my keen sense of hunger takes its place quite ably and keeps my feet on the proper trail. And with a jolt of guilt that very nearly approached panic, I realized I’d had no dinner. What had I been thinking? There was no excuse for such rash and careless behavior. Shame on Dexter.
With that clarion call of duty ringing in my ears, I remembered that I had said I would meet Brian for breakfast. I glanced at my watch: seven-fifteen. I had plenty of time—but on the other hand, it wouldn’t hurt to get there early and get a head start on the doughnuts.
I sat up—or to be accurate, I tried to sit up. The bed had wrapped its soft and spongy tendrils around me and locked me into a kind of death
grip and it would not let go. I struggled, I fought, I rolled to one side—and the edge of the bed completely collapsed under me and dumped me onto the floor. I landed badly, hitting my left elbow and right knee. And even as I felt a new pain blooming in my elbow, I could not help noticing that the floor was wonderfully firm. Perhaps I could sleep here tonight.
I pushed myself up carefully into a sitting position. That hurt even more. Between the unaccustomed exercise of the day before and the dreadful clutch of the bed, there was nothing left of my back but a vast area of numbness and pain. I tried stretching, twisting from side to side, and after only a few minutes I was somehow able to stagger to my feet and totter to the bathroom. I was quite sure that if I could only get a nice hot stream of water pouring onto my back, my spine would loosen up and return me to something that approached functioning.
And it may well be that I was right. Sadly, we will never know, because the ancient showerhead in the bathroom put out only a thin trickle of rust-tinted water, none of it warmer than room temperature. Nevertheless, I clenched my teeth and stood under it as long as I could, and if nothing else it did wake me up and put me in a proper mood to face what was certain to be a truly awful day.
I climbed out of the shower and stood there dripping, looking around for a towel. I finally found one—but only one—and it was about the size of a large washcloth. I did my best to dry off anyway, more or less pushing the water off me and onto the floor.
I got dressed in a brand-new set of clothes: underwear and socks right out of the package, jeans still stiff and smelling like…well, like new jeans, I suppose. I topped this chic ensemble with one of Walmart’s finest and most fashionable guayaberas, and I was ready for anything.
Just to show that things were finally going my way, my little red rental car was right where I’d left it, in the space closest to my room. Even better, the key still fit, and the car started right up with the first try. What a wonderful thing life can be when it puts a little effort into things.
I drove north on U.S. 1, and the morning traffic was already thick enough to make me wonder whether I would get there on time, let alone early. At 216th Street a large truckload of tomatoes had spilled out onto the road. Behind the truck where the load had spilled, a very big man with a shaved head was slugging it out with a shorter man who sported a black ponytail. It looked like the short man was winning. They stood up to their ankles in tomatoes, slinging punches with very bad intentions, and traffic slowed to a crawl, and then even less than a crawl.
I am not made out of stone; I understood full well that the spectacle was worth watching, even if it meant slowing and making several thousand people late for work while you watched and hoped both fighters would fall into the tomatoes before you crawled past. But it was precisely because I am not made of stone, and I felt very urgent hunger pangs clawing at my stomach, that I did something that can only be called a Classic Miami Move. I twisted the steering wheel, fought my way over to the shoulder, and with two wheels completely off the road, I drove the half block to the closest cross street.
Several angry horn blasts followed me, but I ignored them. It would have been more proper, or at least in keeping with tradition, to extend my middle finger, but I kept to the high ground, maintaining my poise and returning only a lofty sneer. After all, I learned to drive here. I know my rights.
I worked my way a half mile north on side streets and then turned back up onto U.S. 1. The traffic was much lighter now, since the flow had been so thoroughly choked off at the scene of Tomatopalooza. I pulled into the lot and parked at the doughnut shop thirteen minutes early. There was no sign of Brian, so I collected a large coffee, a bear claw, and a cruller, took a booth at the back, and sat facing the door.
I had disposed of the cruller and half of the bear claw when Brian came in. He looked around, careful but nonchalant, and then bought himself a large coffee and two cream-filled doughnuts with brightly colored sprinkles on top. He slid into the booth facing me and took a large bite. “Mmm,” he said.
“Yes, but really, Brian,” I said. “Sprinkles? Are you already in your second childhood?”
He smiled, revealing a row of teeth bedecked with cream filling and rainbow-colored sprinkles. “Why not?” he said, his voice thick with doughnut. “I never actually got my first one.”
“Well,” I said, looking with quiet satisfaction at the remains of my steady, no-nonsense bear claw, “no accounting for taste.”
“Mmp,” he said agreeably, and shoved half of the doughnut into his mouth. He washed it down with coffee and started on his second doughnut while I finished my bear claw and wondered whether it would be considered greedy if I topped it off with a couple of Bavarian creams. I decided that no one could possibly criticize me for having only one, and I bought one and used it to help the rest of my coffee go down smoothly.
Brian made one more trip to the counter, too, returning with a cake doughnut smeared with maple frosting, leaving me to ponder once again the vast marvels of heredity versus environment.
“Well,” Brian said, as we sipped at the last of our coffees. “Where shall we begin?”
“I suppose with my new address,” I said, and I told him the location of my little Shangri-la. He nodded and took a sip of his coffee.
“And on to new business,” he said happily. “How should we stay alive today?”
“I have no idea,” I said. “But you have to remember that I have my own agenda, too. I want to stay out of jail.”
He arched his eyebrows at me. “Yes, of course, but really,” he said, “isn’t staying alive more important?”
“Give me liberty or give me death,” I told him.
“Death is much easier to arrange, I’m afraid,” he said, shaking his head.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I have to do what I can.”
“Well,” he said, “I suppose you’re not much good if you’re in jail.”
“Exactly my point,” I said.
He waggled a finger at me. “But sooner or later, having two separate agendas is going to cause trouble.”
“Well,” I told him with my customary lighthearted touch, “perhaps I’ll think of a way to merge them.” And I thought happily of sending a troop of drogas after Anderson. A happy ending for all—he would even get a hero’s funeral, which was certainly a great deal more than he deserved. “But, Brian—I don’t know how much good I am out of jail. I mean—I can’t risk carrying a weapon of any kind. And that’s…Seriously, what’s the plan?”
Brian said nothing, just finished off his coffee, and to my mind he looked a little bit shifty, as if he hoped his ostentatious coffee swallowing would distract me and I wouldn’t remember what I’d asked him.
It didn’t work. He put down the cup, looked vaguely out the window.
“Brian,” I said, a little testy, “you do have some kind of plan, don’t you?”
He looked back at me, hesitated, and then shrugged. “To be perfectly honest,” he said, “I was hoping something might occur to us.”
I noticed that he said us, and that was almost as irritating as his notion of winging it when pursued by a horde of assassins. “All this time, nothing has occurred to you?” I said.
“One thing did,” he said, trying hard for a tone of injured righteousness. “I got you out.”
I felt myself grinding my teeth together at the realization that, just like Deborah, Brian had decided that when the going gets tough, the tough get Dexter—and then they make him do all the work. “This is my problem?” I said with some heat. “I’m supposed to figure out how to keep us both alive?”
“Well,” he said. “I mean, you had a much better education.”
“Yes, but he’s your drug lord,” I said, and I realized that he’d succeeded in knocking away my cool control and I was speaking much too loudly. I lowered my voice. “I don’t know the first thing about these people, Brian,” I said. “Not what they’re likely to do, or how they’ll do it, or—Nothing at all. How am I even supposed to
find them?”
“Oh, that shouldn’t be a problem,” Brian said soothingly. “I’m quite sure they’ll find us.”
For some reason, I could not find any comfort in that. “Wonderful,” I said. “And I can assume they know what they’re doing, of course.”
“Of course,” he said happily. “Some of them are very good, too.” He smiled, and even though it was the closest to a real smile I’d ever seen from Brian, the effect was spoiled somewhat by the bright pink, blue, and green sprinkles stuck to his teeth. “Let’s just hope we’re a little better,” he said.
I ground my teeth some more. It didn’t actually do any good, but it was probably better than leaping across the tabletop and sinking my canines into Brian’s neck. “All right,” I said. “So your wonderful plan is to wait until they come after us, and then be better than them.”
“A little oversimplified,” he said. “But accurate.”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. When I opened my eyes again, Brian was looking at me with a happy little smirk on his face. “How will they do it?” I asked him. “I mean, if it won’t spoil your plan to tell me.”
“Oh, not at all,” he said. “I know how Raul thinks—I mean, I ran so many of these little errands for him, and he got very specific most of the time.” He nodded, and at least he lost the smirk. “He hasn’t found me yet, and he is not a patient man. So his first move will be to try to frighten me so I’ll do something silly and become visible.”
“Frighten you with something like killing Octavio, and dumping him in a room you got with that credit card?” I asked.
“Mmmm, maybe,” Brian said thoughtfully. “Of course, he wanted to kill Octavio anyway, and…You know, I was really looking for something a little splashier.”