Nuclear Jellyfish

TWO MILES AWAY

Sea fog was thick as an unusually dim sun set over the ocean. Tide rolled in with a frothy chop. Couples bundled in sweaters against the nippy breeze and strolled along the mean-high-water mark. Hovering gulls cawed. Seaweed tangled around a row of PVC tubes anchoring an array of unattended surf-casting rods. Someone in headphones swept a metal detector over the sand. He stopped and dug up a rusty bicycle chain, studied it curiously, then reburied it.

North of the boardwalk, a column of upscale hotels and resorts had begun a ferocious sprout, but someone had thought to save the historic band shell. In the southeast corner of the nearest hotel, a light went on in one of the upper suites. A silhouette appeared behind the drapes. Below on the beach, a man in headphones rested the metal detector against his leg and raised a pair of binoculars.

The shadow moved back and forth behind the curtains. The man on the beach counted floors up the side of the hotel. The shadow disappeared from the window. The light went out.

The man with the metal detector grabbed a small Motorola two-way radio from his pocket. “Blue?”

“Blue here …”

“This is red. He just left. Fifteenth floor, southeast corner.”

“Sure the room’s clear?”

“Saw it with my own eyes. I’ll be in the bar to make sure he doesn’t come back up.”

Five minutes later the lighted numbers over the elevator ticked up to “15.” Doors opened. Men in maintenance overalls walked quickly down the empty hall, followed by a cluster of bodyguards around a taller man in a leather jacket.

Normally, the Eel would never let himself be caught within ten miles of a job, but there had been a recent pandemic of screw-ups. They neared the suite at the southeast corner. The first to reach the door set his toolbox on the ground. He removed a small electrical device the size of a garage opener and plugged a wire into the side. The wire’s other end attached to a thin strip of metal that he ran through the room’s magnetic card scanner. They went inside.

The search was silent and swift. At least in the beginning. They went straight for the bottom left dresser drawer and flipped it over on the bed. That’s where their inside information said the courier always taped his packets of stones.

They stared at bare wood.

“Maybe he changed drawers.”

Out came the rest.

“Well?” said the Eel.

The maintenance men shook their heads and slowly stepped backward.

The Eel’s eye-bulging face turned deep crimson. “What kind of ignorant fuckheads do I have working for me?”

“But that’s every drawer. You’re here. You saw it-“

“Son of a bitch!” The Eel marched forward and flicked open a ridiculously large switchblade.

“Please! No!-“

A two-way radio squawked.

The Eel punched a wall. “What now?”

“Blue? Are you there? This is red. Come in …”

The Eel’s eyes signaled a temporary reprieve. One of the maintenance men grabbed the radio. “Blue here. We copy.”

“There’s trouble …”

MEANWHILE …

The Javelin rolled past a drive-in church and turned onto Van Avenue. Serge parked at the curb in front of a quaint ranch house, tastefully landscaped. He raised his camera.

“Dammit!” said Story. “You’re going to make me late!”

“Relax.” Click, click, click. “A travel professional always builds in a time cushion.”

“That’s what you said up the road at the other place. I only agreed because I thought it was going to be your only photo stop.”

“That’s right, it was. Seabreeze High School, where they played their first gigs. But this is the Allman Brothers childhood home.” Click, click, click. “It’s your fault.”

“Mine?”

“You know what kind of person I am. How could you expect me to be so close to the cradle of southern rock and not get sucked into its gravity well? Gregg and ‘Sky Dog’ Duane probably skateboarded right on this very street.”

“But I have a job!”

“I do, too.” Click, click. “Recovering the credit that Florida so richly deserves. And Duane not only grew up here but laid down the most historic guitar licks ever recorded in the state, teaming with Eric Clapton on ‘Layla’ at Miami’s Criteria Studios, 1970.”

Coleman lowered a flask. “Isn’t that the place we went during that hurricane?”

“The same.”

“Damn you!” said Story.

“Please.” Serge pointed at the house. “Respect the Sky Dog.”

“I just better be there by eight o’clock.”

“Nooooooo problem.” Click, click, click.

Thirty seconds before eight, Serge skidded into a parking lot at the corner of A1A and International Speedway. “Told you we’d make it.”

Story jumped out and slammed the door. “Asshole.”

The guys exited the vehicle at a more leisurely pace and approached a small building with exotic dancers in glaring neon. Over the front doors sat a large fish and another sign: shark lounge.

The place wasn’t yet open to the public. For now, it remained empty except for Story, another woman on the far side of the lounge, and Serge and Coleman, seated at the unstaffed bar. A half hour passed. Coleman swigged from a bottle of sour mash that he’d commandeered from the adjoining liquor store. “This is easily the most bizarre strip club I’ve ever been in.”

“That’s why I love the Shark Lounge!”

“You’ve been here before?”

“Many, many times.”

“But I thought you didn’t like strip clubs, except when we’re lining up marks.”

“The Shark is different.” Serge gestured across the room. “See that tall rectangle of steel bars?”

“Looks like one of those things scuba divers use on TV.”

“Girls actually dance in a shark cage.” Serge’s arm swung another direction. “And the main catwalk with the poles is on top of a giant aquarium.”

“They strip on a real aquarium?”

“Something for everyone,” said Serge. “The only negative is I go through a ton of cash tipping the dancers not to stick their muffs in my face while I’m trying to look at fish.”

“Speaking of which …” Coleman’s head turned the other way. “Can’t believe Story’s still hanging with us. Thought she’d just use us for a ride and dash at the first chance.”

“I’m starting to wish she would dash.”

“How can you say that?” asked Coleman. “She lets you fuck her.” “Coleman, have you still not learned there’s more to a relationship than that?”

“Is this some kind of trick question?”

“Let you in on the big secret about chicks. It starts with intercourse …”

“I like that start. Go on.”

“But they universally possess the same prehistoric genetic memory. Doesn’t matter where you find them-Miami, Budapest, the mountains of Peru, those remote islands off New Zealand where they just discovered a tribe that’s never seen a wheel-the women are all hardwired with the identical life drive.”

“Which is?”

“To change you.”

“How?”

Serge made a fisherman’s spin-casting motion with his hands. “First, they set the hook with mind-bending kinky shit. Then a year later you’re living in a Talking Heads song, dressed like Teddy Ruxpin, living with a strange woman in a big house full of frilly throw pillows, experiencing a frequency of sex that can only be charted by Halley’s comet. And you’re wondering: How did I get here?”

“These ways that they want to change us,” said Coleman. “Are they for the better?”

“Of course,” said Serge. “But that’s not the point.”

The Eel’s head was about to explode. The walkie-talkie crackled again in the hotel room.

“Blue? You there?”

“I’m here. What kind of trouble are you talking about?”

“The mark is heading back up early.” “Roger, we’ll clear the zone.”

“No, I don’t think you’ll have enough time. He left a few minutes ago. I thought he was just going to the bathroom, but then I noticed he’d paid his tab and his coat was gone. He could be opening the door any second.”

They scrambled to turn off lights. The Eel motioned with his knife for everyone to clear toward the blind side of the room from the door. Then they waited.

And waited.

The Eel telegraphed a look to the crew member with the radio, who keyed the mike. “Red, do you copy?”

“This is red, over.”

“He’s not here. Did he return to the bar?”

“Negative. I’m out on the beach again.” “What are you doing on the-?”

“Hold it. Something’s happening. The light just came back on in the suite. You see him?”

The crew exchanged confused glances in the dark room. The one with the radio: “Uh … no.”

“Now I see his shadow. He’s walking by the curtains.”

The crew heard footsteps. They looked up at the ceiling.

The Eel punched another wall. “Jesus Christ! Give me that radio!” He ran to the window and looked down at a tiny man on the beach with a metal detector. “Red, how do you know he was staying on the fifteenth floor?”

“I counted.”

“You counted?”

“Three times. From right here on the beach.”

“You do know that some hotels don’t have thirteenth floors.”

“What?”

A two-way radio smashed against the wall. A lamp flew. An ashtray shattered the TV tube with a flicker of dying sparks. The Eel stormed out of the room, and the others followed.

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