Nuclear Jellyfish

SHENANIGANS

The bartender went through twenty napkins wiping Steve’s blood off the counter. He smiled at Story because she was hot. “Sorry, ma’am, some of our customers can’t hold their liquor …” He discarded the last napkin and looked up at the next suitor, standing patiently behind the empty stool. “I’m done. It’s all yours.”

A discount loan consolidator climbed on the seat and grinned. “What can I get you?” “Solitude.”

The man waved a fifty at the bartender, folded lengthwise between his index and middle fingers, indicating little-dick syndrome. “Tanqueray and tonic, and get the lady another of whatever she’s having.”

The bartender set two drinks and thirty-five bucks on the bar. Story stuck the bills in her pocket.

“Hey, what about my change?”

“Okay, work on not being a putz.”

The loan broker slunk back to the good-natured ribbing of a gang sitting around pushed-together tables in the middle of the bar.

Serge finished his second coffee refill and nudged Coleman. “Grab your drink. I detect fertile research ground for my next report.”

The pair approached the tables. Chewed stirrers, wet cardboard coasters, menu of frilly umbrella drinks in an upright Plexiglas holder. The gang’s lineup kept changing as guys rotated to the restrooms and computer center. One had a rolling suitcase next to his chair with an airline tag from Baltimore. Another wore a necktie around his forehead like a kamikaze.

“Greetings, fellow warriors of business travel!” said Serge. “Mind if me and my associate join your camaraderie of the open road?”

“More the merrier.”

Serge cleared a formation of highball glasses and vigorously wiped down a swatch of personal work space. He bent over a notebook. “Just a few pointed questions. Nothing to worry about.”

“You with the hotel or something?”

“Or something,” said Serge. “They want me to use their checklist, but I say fuck that plastic cage. I’m in a Hendrix phase now. I march to my own checklist. How would you rate Jimi on a scale of one to mind-fuckin’-blowing?”

They stared silently.

“That concludes my Hendrix phase.” Serge waved for the waitress. “Coffee.”

The kamikaze began laughing. “You must be appearing at the comedy club?”

“That’s right,” said Serge. “Same one as you. It’s called earth. Please cooperate. Did you back your cars into parking slots when you arrived?”

“Why?”

Serge told them.

Now the rest of the guys at the tables began laughing. Except two on the end, who got up and left quickly.

Serge turned a page of his notebook. “My revolutionary new website bursts with local technicolor and value-conscious travel wisdom not to be found elsewhere, like never hire a hooker who suddenly appears outside your hotel.”

“Why not?”

“It’s usually just a foot in the door for accomplices to burst in and stick you up, because who’s less likely to report a robbery than some out-of-town businessman with a wedding ring?”

The gang at the table laughed again and pointed. “Ned!”

A man who taught corporate foreign-language classes emptied a beer pitcher into his mug. “‘Luckily, we don’t have that problem at this hotel.”

“Yes you do,” said Serge.

“What are you talking about?”

“Propositioned in the parking lot seconds after getting here,” said Serge. “Barracuda hooker. For more on that, please visit my site. I have to leave something off the table.”

“In our own parking lot?” said an independent polygraph examiner for defense attorneys who passed everyone. “That’s hard to believe.”

“Not just the parking lot,” said Serge. “She’s right here in the bar.”

Heads spun. “Where?”

“Over there,” said Serge. “The brunette number talking to that guy in the polo shirt. Pegged her immediately as the local honey trap.”

“That’s not a hooker.”

“To the untrained eye,” said Serge. “The business suit throws most people off, but that’s now the uniform for extended-stay properties. Click the special hyper-link on my site.”

“No, I mean we know her. That’s our district manager …”

“… She’s coming over here. She looks pissed.”

“You didn’t happened to say anything to her in the parking lot that made her angry?”

“Absolutely not. Well, maybe I mumbled the V-word.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

The woman arrived at the table and stared daggers at Serge.

Serge smiled back. “By vagina, I meant how well you carry it.”

The woman grabbed one of the drinks from the table and dumped it on Serge’s head, then stormed away.

Serge wiped his face with a napkin. “Vagina has become such a tricky word.” He clicked open a wet pen. “Overall, how would you rate your stay?…”

Three TVs were on above the bar; four more hung from wall brackets mounted in the corners.

“… Police believe those responsible for the current string of Florida motel robberies are the same gang that worked the I-75 corridor from Cincinnati to Chattanooga last year … And now the Internet story that everyone’s talking about…”

One of the businessmen pointed up at the evening newscast. “Look, it’s on again.”

The tables became quiet. Someone asked the bartender to crank the volume.

“What’s going on?” asked Serge.

“Shhhhh. You’ll miss it.”

“… Investigators were initially baffled by the bodies of two young men, who appeared to have been killed by giant constrictor snakes. While reports of large exotic pets being released into the wild are well documented, no confirmed fatalities have ever been reported. Complicating matters were severe facial injuries that couldn’t be explained by any known pets. Official spokesmen said the case was going nowhere until a break came, of all places, from a video anonymously posted on YouTube. The popular Internet site reported record-breaking hits until the video was taken down at the request of authorities, but not before our station was able to obtain a copy. The footage is too offensive to air, but it begins with a pair of so-called skinheads attacking a homeless man beneath an underpass near Jacksonville’s picturesque St. Johns River. The video then jumps to a predawn scene where the tables have been turned and the skinheads are under attack. Meanwhile, law enforcement has requested that anyone with information please contact them, but so far all the department’s anonymous tip lines have been swamped by callers registering support for the perpetrators …”

The TV image switched to a police captain at a podium. “Two people are dead, and there’s at least one very disturbed person out there. So if you don’t have any pertinent information, please stop calling us and laughing.”

The anchorwoman returned. “While this station continues to stand by its policy of not airing the graphic footage, our own science editor Mary Nelson is here to explain the physics of how the young men died. Mary? …”

“Jennifer, I’m standing in the outdoors section of a local Home Depot. To the stable individual, everything here appears innocent and cheerful. But to a heart filled with malice, evil lurks beneath the begonias. I’m now holding up an unassuming garden hose. This is the type with small pinholes that collapses flat and was used extensively to irrigate lawns in the nostalgic days of old Florida before built-in underground systems became the rage. It was a pair of hoses just like the one in my hand that police have identified as the murder weapon and is now on sale for a limited time … Back to you …”

“Thanks Mary … Later in this broadcast: It was supposed to be a fun outing, but in the end a bear lay dead and a father was thankful for his son’s remote-control helicopter …”

The kamikaze opened a laptop on the table. “Check it out. I captured the video before they took it down.”

The table gang got up and crowded around the notebook’s screen, showing grainy, low-light footage of two people wrapped ankle-to-shoulder in green hoses. They slowly crossed a lawn like inchworms.

“… Now the Action Five business report. Brad?”

“Jennifer, all area home improvement stores are reporting a huge run on garden hoses …”

The loan consolidator: “Newspaper said they were in a race to get to the shut-off valve before the automatic sprinkler system came on and filled the hoses.”

“So what?” said the fertilizer salesman. “How can water in those hoses hurt them?”

“Can’t if they’re regular hoses,” said Serge. “But like the TV lady said, those are the special irrigation kind.”

“Irrigation?”

“Roll up flat,” Serge continued. “Hundreds of tiny holes. Stretch ‘em across a lawn, turn on the water, and they expand into thick round hoses spraying a light but high-coverage mist that results in a magnificently lush tropical landscape, unless they’re wrapped around skinheads, then it’s a landscape of justice.”

“I remember those,” said a pharmaceutical salesman from Savannah. “My grandfather used them in the sixties.”

“Very big in this state when I was a kid,” said Serge. “Evokes idyllic childhood memories, getting goose bumps stroking the hose’s sleek rubber skin the other night. I mean decades ago.”

Someone pointed at the screen. “They made it to the valve. They’re trying to switch the lever with their noses.”

“They’re bashing each other’s faces!”

“Look at ‘em go!”

“This is too sick to watch. Can you enlarge it?”

“The sprinklers just came on! The hoses are expanding!”

“They’re seizing up! … Ooooo …”

“Jesus! Look at the blood flow from those head wounds!”

“Why is it spurting so much?”

“Fun fact,” said Serge. “Most people think constrictor snakes-and now irrigation hoses-kill prey through strangulation, when death actually comes from high blood pressure. CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta calls it the silent killer.”

The hotel robbery crew was divided into two groups: talent and muscle. Talent was thinning out. The muscle took the form of the Jellyfish/Eel’s personal bodyguards, who were required when the gang locked horns with another crew in a turf dispute and won a messy, decisive victory. There was little chance of the rival faction reconstituting, and they weren’t very tough anyway, but why take the chance?

Muscle had the stomach-and voracious appetite-for violence. Talent didn’t. Several had been shanghaied from the remnants of the capitulated gang. Their hallmarks were tedious preparation, stealth and intel, which helped avoid any contact with the marks, who were never harmed. Consummate gentleman bandits.

Muscle had a more inelegant approach.

Talent wore overalls, and right now four of them stared down at the precedent-setting deviation of an unconscious salesman and maid on the room’s tiled entryway.

A light knock at a door. Everyone knew who it was.

“Answer it.”

“I’m not going to answer it.” Another quiet knock.

“Someone has to answer it.”

“So you answer it.”

“Damn.” The one with the false GARY stitched over his pocket forced himself toward the door on licorice legs. He checked the peephole from habit and undid the chain.

Two massive bodyguards pushed their way inside, followed by a taller, thinner person in a brown leather jacket. A glowing blob peeked out the neckline of his dark T-shirt.

Two trailing bodyguards covered the flank. They made a last visual recon of the hall before coming inside and bolting the door.

The Eel squatted and felt the victims’ wrists. Weak pulses.

He stood back up. He never spoke loudly, never had to. “They get a look?”

“No, I mean, the guy. We jumped him immediately. I don’t know. He- … I think the maid can identify us.”

Moaning from the floor.

Without fanfare or urgency, the Eel slowly slipped his hands into leather riding gloves that matched his jacket. Then he grabbed a lamp off the dresser, snapping the plug out of the wall, and brought the base down hard, over and over, striking both heads with a series of stomach-churning thuds that started with a thick resonance and eventually became squishy. One of the overalls ran in the bathroom and hugged the toilet.

The Eel set the lamp back. “Where are the stones?”

“C-c-couldn’t find them.”

“Check the light switches?”

Energetic nodding. “Just like you said.”

An intimidating pause. He held out a palm. “Screwdriver.”

One of the gang practically fell over himself fishing a slot-head from a toolbox and slapping it into a gloved hand. The Eel went to the wall. “Check this one?”

More nodding.

He unscrewed the faceplate. Nothing there. Then he unscrewed the switch itself, carefully removing the mechanism and letting it hang from two copper wires. He reached into the back of the junction box and retrieved a small white envelope. The contents emptied into a leather palm. The gang stood stunned at the sight of a dozen near-flawless Peruzzi-cut diamonds in the two-to-four-carat range. He gently poured them back into the envelope.

“How’d you know those were there?”

“Our inside source,” said the Eel. “Same info I gave you.”

“But we just thought you meant the faceplates, not behind the switch.”

“That’s the problem. You thought.”

“I’m really sorry. I’ll do anything to make it up-“

The Eel raised a hand that received prompt silence. “Mistakes happen. We got the diamonds so no harm done… Get your shit…”

“Oh, thank you! It’ll never happen again!” The maintenance man with the stitched name turned and closed the lid on his toolbox. He was so unnerved by the roller-coaster events that he never realized what came out of his mouth next: “You won’t be sorry, Jellyfish …”

The lamp came off the dresser again.

Wham, wham, wham, wham …

The others jumped back.

Seemed like it would go on forever … Wham, wham, wham …

Finally, the Eel was done. A previously white maintenance uniform was now red. A bodyguard stepped forward with Kleenex and wiped specks from his boss’s cheeks.

The Eel looked at the remaining trio of overalls, frozen in the realization that they were next. Instead, the lamp flew into a corner. “Now clean all this up. And next time follow instructions.”

A bodyguard opened the door and held out his arm for them to wait as he made another visual sweep. All clear. They filed out and headed up the hall, passing room after room. On the other side of one door: rapid, clipped conversation.

“Who’s your favorite astronaut?”

“Frank Borman. His first lunar circumnavigation healed national wounds of 1968,” said Serge. “Yours?”

“John Young.”

“Good choice. He and Story Musgrave co-hold the record of six space flights.”

“Except Musgrave’s were all shuttle. Young did it the hard way…”

“Two Geminis …”

“And two Apollos,” said Story. “Oh yes! Including a moon walk. Fuck me! Faster! Fuck the shit out of me!”

Serge thrust like a jackhammer. “Where have you been all my life?”

“Don’t stop! Oh God! Don’t stop!”

“Okay, original Mercury astronaut Deke Slayton finally made it into space on 1975’s joint Soyuz mission …”

“Harder! Faster! I’m coming!…”

Serge increased his rhythm. “What made you change your mind about me?”

“Back at the bar, you defended my honor. No man’s ever done that … Oh God! I’m coming again! I’m coming again!…”

Coleman cracked a beer in a dark corner. “I had the G.I. Joe with the space capsule, but I blew it up with firecrackers.”

Story panted and raised her head. “What the hell’s he doing in here?”

“You know how some guys think of baseball players to prolong ejaculation?”

“Yeah?”

Coleman crashed into the sliding glass balcony door. “Sorry …”

Serge thrust again. “That’s why he’s here.”

“Make him leave.”

“Coleman …” said Serge.

Coleman grabbed a joint from over his ear. “I’ll be on the balcony.”

Fifteen minutes later, Serge rolled off her in utter exhaustion.

Story fought to catch breath and wiped sweat off her face with a bedsheet. “That was incredible. I’ve never been with anyone like you! Must have had a dozen.”

Serge stared at the ceiling in a religious trance.

“You okay?”

He spoke in a flat robotic monotone. “I can’t believe it. I actually came twice. There is a God.”

“You’ve never come twice before?”

“No, I’ve come more than that, but it took a long night of love-making with extended intermissions to reload the howitzer. But this time they were three minutes apart without stopping. Until now I thought the cosmos had sentenced me without parole to The Guy’s Curse of One.”

“Yeah, I thought you were losing it a little there in the middle.”

“That was after the first. But I didn’t want to say anything because you seemed to be having such a good time.”

“What made the difference?”

“Guess our space conversation. Whew! After sex like that, there’s one thing I love to do!” He rolled over and reached for the drawer on the nightstand.

“I didn’t know you smoked … Well, I guess if you’re ever going to smoke, it’s after sex …”

“Oh, I don’t smoke.” Serge removed a small plastic device from the drawer and held it to his eyes.

Story got a puzzled look. “You like to look at View-Masters after sex?”

Serge hit the lever. “I actually like to look at them during sex, but it’s been met with near-universal criticism.” , I

“Let me see that…”

He handed it to her. She clicked the lever through black-and-white stereographic images of the Overseas Highway. “Wow! These are fantastic! Must be sixty years old!” Click, click, click. “I hope you have more …” Click, click …

Serge stared at the ceiling again. “Love has come to town.”

“And here’s a super-early one of Sloppy Joe’s.” Click. Click. Click.

Serge looked sideways on the pillow. “If I’d only known, I’d have been smashing all kinds of noses into bars.”

Click, click. Story kept her eyes to the viewer and held out a hand. “Another reel!”

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