The Stingray Shuffle

32

A small newsstand stood on the corner of Madison and Fifty-fifth. No business. A thin Guatemalan shivered inside the booth and rubbed his hands together in their mittens. A small battery-powered TV sat atop a stack of unsold tabloids. John Walsh walked angrily toward the camera. “Tonight on America’s Most Wanted, we’re on the lookout for a merciless serial killer who has been terrorizing south Florida and leaving a trail of bodies from Tampa to the Keys…”

The clerk turned up the volume on his little black-and-white set as a stretch limo rolled by on Madison Avenue. Sam sat in the backseat, turning up the volume on the little color TV flush-mounted in the wet bar.

“…We’re going to get a rare glimpse inside the twisted mind of a psychopath with some astonishing footage that will be shown for the first time anywhere right here on America’s Most Wanted!…”

Sam listlessly resumed watching TV with her chin in her hands. Her friends were acting like such fools. Look at them, standing up through the moon roof, whooping, hollering and dancing with that Serge guy, their hair blowing in the cool night wind below the skyscrapers.

“Hey, Sam,” Paige shouted down through the opening in the roof. “Why don’t you join us?”

“I’ll take a rain check.”

“…In the next few moments, you will hear the actual voice and see real footage of the suspect from a chilling videotape seized by police in Miami. Pregnant women and those with heart trouble are asked to leave the room…”

“Come on, Sam!” “Yeah, come on, Sam!” “Don’t be a party pooper, Sam!”

“Oh, all right!”

Sam stood up and stuck her head through the moon roof as the image on the TV set switched to a thin, fortyish man sitting on a stool in front of a sky-blue portrait-studio backdrop. There was a banner over his head: SOUTH BEACH DATING SOLUTIONS.

An off-camera voice: “Ready anytime you are.”

The man cleared his throat. “Hi. My name is Serge. Serge… uh… Yamamoto. And I’m looking for that special gal out there who enjoys quiet evenings, walks on the beach, fine wine, good conversation, fact-finding missions and exhaustive library research…. You must be fun-loving, have a sense of humor, an open mind, incredible stamina and experience at rapidly loading cameras and firearms under hectic conditions…. Smokers okay, no hard drugs….

“I’m thirty-five, keep myself in reasonable shape. A spiritual army of one. No hangups that I’m comfortable talking about. Hobbies: genealogy, first editions, conch-blowing, my prize poinsettias, celestial navigation for the car, warning the populace about the impending social collapse. Scotch: Dewar’s.

“Turn-ons: women who use big words, women who wear glasses, women who work in libraries and state forests, women who perform in theme park marine mammal shows, bedroom role-playing involving the first territorial congress.

“Turn-offs: women who react to big words like somebody cut the cheese, women who change the color of their hair, women who change the size of their breasts, women who want to change you, women who know the names of MTV personalities, women who go to bars in groups complaining about men while hoping to be approached by them.

“Turn-ons: growth-management plans, no-wake zones, the annual return of the white pelican, the tangy scent of the orange blossom, Spanish doubloons, Saltillo tiles, Marjory Stoneman Douglas.

“Turn-offs: the unexamined life, deep-well injection, people who call radio shows and say ‘Mega dittos,’ politicians who pretend to like NASCAR for votes, stupid Floridian jokes, stupid Floridians…”

Off-camera voice: “Okay, that’s enough.”

“I’m not finished.”

“That was great. You’ll do fine.”

“But I have more to say. I have to present the whole picture.”

“Please get up. We have to start filming the next guy.”

“No!”

Two men appeared from behind the camera and approached. “Okay, buddy, on your feet.”

Serge pulled a pistol from his waist and coldcocked one over the head, dropping him to the ground in front of the stool. He pointed the pistol at the other one, who raised his hands.

“Get back there and keep filming until I say to stop.”

“You got it.”

Serge tucked the gun away and sat back down, an unconscious man at his feet. “…So if you’re searching for that special someone, if you’re tired of the bar scene, generously misleading personal ads and blind dates that turn into restraining orders, look no further….”

The limo beat a red light at Thirty-eighth Street, a tight cluster of people sprouting through the moon roof. “And there’s the Chrysler Building,” said Serge. “The spire contains the penthouse where Walter Chrysler once lived, lucky bastard, except he’s dead….”

Maria chugged a plastic glass of champagne and swayed. “Isn’t he the best tour guide ever?”

Teresa blew a paper noisemaker, which unrolled and hit Sam in the side of the head.

After a quick series of stops on Serge’s A-Tour of New York, the limo pulled up outside the GE Building. Serge jumped from the backseat. “To the Rainbow Room!”

They took the elevator to the exclusive bar on the sixty-fifth floor, facing the Empire State Building. “I saw them film Conan in this building. O’Brien, not the barbarian. And once I sat next to Katie Couric at the table right there. Scorcese opened his 1977 opus New York, New York in this room with Tommy Dorsey on the bandstand…. Let’s go!” Serge heading for the elevators.

“We just got here,” said Teresa.

“We just ordered,” said Maria, holding up a full beer.

But Serge was off to the races. The women chugged a few sips and ran after him.

“…And this is Sparks Steak House. Paul Castellano got whacked right there…. Back to the limo!”

They stopped at the corner of Broadway and Fifty-fourth; Serge ran down some stairs to a basement.

“And this is Flute, used to be a speakeasy. The acerbic writer Dorothy Parker came here all the time. Now that was a broad! Used to answer her phone: ‘What fresh hell is this?’”

“I was just about to say that,” said Sam. Teresa elbowed her.

“Back to the limo!”

“Slow down!” yelled Teresa. “Do you always move this fast?”

“No. When I’m alone, I move faster,” said Serge. “Like when I came to see Conan last year. I arrived four hours early and still almost missed it. As usual, I built in a vast cushion of time because I always have a lot of anxiety that I’ll be late. I didn’t plan on the museums.”

“The museums?”

“East side of Central Park, Museum Mile. You got the Met, the Frick Collection, National Academy of Design, the Museum of the City of New York, the Whitney, Cooper-Hewitt. I knew they were nearby. I just thought I had the willpower.”

“But you just couldn’t resist?” said Sam.

Serge nodded. “Which still wouldn’t have been a time problem until I remembered the Museum of Natural History was on the other side of Central Park. That’s where they have the Star of India, the world’s largest sapphire, stolen in 1964 by flamboyant Miami Beach playboy Jack Murphy, portrayed by Robert Conrad in the delightfully campy Murph the Surf. After the arrests and a lot of negotiation, an anonymous phone tip led detectives to an outdoor bus locker in Miami, where the sapphire was recovered and later put back on display. The caper is so carved into my brain that I couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see the gem in person. I made good time crossing Central Park to the museum, but then more trouble. To get to the gem room, you have to go through the Hall of Biodiversity. I really got hung up in there. Thousands of species on display, bacteria to great blue whales, phylums and families, marsupials, nocturnals, a rainbow of butterflies, blind fish from cold depths with no light, eels with scraggly teeth, bugs the size of your head, birds that can’t fly, squirrels that can, some shit with webbed toes and all these eyes, something else with dangling prongs sticking out its forehead. Then the other rooms, ancient civilizations, Neanderthals, dinosaurs, geological forces, continental plates, the stars and the cosmos, and finally, the Big Bang Room. My time-management was shot; started looking bad for Conan. Then, complete panic. My consciousness was expanding, id shrinking, the exhibits making me feel utterly insignificant, that life was a mere flashbulb going off, and I had a sensation of falling, trouble breathing, and I realized what it was. All this knowledge and awareness — I was getting closer to God. Which can be stressful. Takes a lot of intellectual curiosity and courage, and also you’ll get a bunch of heat from religious types because it involves evolution and science, which actually only points all the more to the existence of a deity, unfortunately not the kind you can use to boss others around….”

“So did you see it?”

“See what?”

“The sapphire.”

“Oh, the sapphire! Yes, I saw it. It was an unbelievable experience, the way the light breaks into six points across the oblate, azure surface. I got goose bumps. I was shaking so much I could barely hold the glass cutter steady.”

“A glass cutter,” said Rebecca, laughing. “What a riot!”

“Yeah, it was pretty funny. The guards had never heard that alarm before, and they didn’t know what to do. Two ran head-on into each other. I was laughing so hard I couldn’t finish getting through the glass. It’s a lot thicker than you’d expect.”

Maria tapped her watch. “Eleven o’clock.”

“Right,” said Serge. “We better get moving.”

The chauffeur parked as close as he could to the blocked-off streets, and they all began walking west on Forty-sixth, working their way through the packed crowd to Times Square. They reached the corner of Seventh Avenue and looked up. In one direction, a twenty-foot cup of steaming ramen noodles. In the other, the lighted New Year’s Eve ball.

“I’m hungry,” said Maria.

“Me, too,” said Rebecca. They went in a Sbarro’s for pizza by the slice.

Except Sam. She withdrew. She stood outside the restaurant watching a sidewalk portrait artist with no customers working on a charcoal of Tina Turner.

Serge left the restaurant and stepped up beside her. She knew he would.

“You don’t like me, do you?” he said.

Sam turned and looked him strong in the eyes. “I want you to leave my friends alone. I want you to start walking right now and keep going.”

“What?”

“I know what you are. You’ve got a record somewhere, and if you stay I’ll find it and turn you in. So get going!”

“That settles it,” said Serge. “I’m in love with you.”

“What?”

“I know what you are, too,” said Serge. “Intelligence and confidence are always sexy in a woman.”

Sam grabbed the back of his head and kissed him hard, then stepped back. “I have no idea why I just did that.”

The other women came out of the restaurant with slices of pepperoni on paper plates, cheese stringing to their mouths.

“Where’d those two go?” asked Paige.

“Maybe we should go look for them,” said Rebecca.

Teresa shook her head. “We’ll lose our spot. We don’t want to miss the ball drop.”

Dick Clark was on TV, counting down.

Men’s and women’s clothes trailed across the carpet of the posh, dark room.

Serge was staying on the fifty-first floor of the Millennium Hotel. He was in bed, on top of Sam. Sam usually preferred the top, but Serge had flipped her with an illegal wrestling move. He reached beside the bed and yanked a cord, opening the curtains on the floor-to-ceiling windows. The night air was white with light, thousands of tiny people jamming Times Square far below.

Sam was a loud one.

“Oh yes! Oh no! Oh yes! Oh no!…”

“I like you, too,” said Serge.

Sam reached up and grabbed him by the hair on the back of his head. “Oh my God! What are you thinking about? Tell me now!”

“The blooming of the tulips on Park Avenue, those little lamps in the New York Public Library, the lighting of the tree at Rockefeller Center, the playful audacity of the Guggenheim, the Babe, the Mic, Earl ‘the Pearl,’ Yoko, Prometheus…”

“Faster! Faster!”

Serge talked faster: “…The new Times Square, the Stork Club, the old Times Square, the Sunday Times, Black Tuesday, Blue Man Group, the ‘21’ Club, the ’69 Mets, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, corned beef on rye, My Dinner with André, Restaurant Row, King Kong, Queen Latifah, Jack Lemmon, the Statue of Liberty, Son of Sam, the Sharks and the Jets, the Flatiron, ‘Ford to City,’ Do the Right Thing, ‘Don’t block the box’…”

“Oh my God!…”

“Here it comes,” Dick Clark said on TV.

The ball began dropping outside, just over Serge’s bouncing derrière, the mob down on the street counting down. “…Ten, nine, eight…” Teresa leaned over to Paige as they watched the ball from the street. “Those two sure are going to be disappointed they missed this.”

“…Three, two, one…!”

“I’m there!” screamed Sam, back arched and quivering.

Serge raised up and exploded: “I did it my way!”

“Happy New Year!” said Dick Clark.

33

The first day of the new year in Manhattan.

Everyone hungover.

New York slowed to a crawl. The steam trays of oriental food in the corner convenience stores went untouched. Nothing selling except aspirin and stomach remedies. Others swore by ginseng. They sat on benches, trying to conserve movement, walking only when they had to, shuffling slowly through Times Square with the street sweepers.

Serge and Sam stepped over two people on the sidewalk in front of McHale’s Café and continued up Forty-sixth to the Edison Hotel. They walked into the 1930s lobby, deco murals wrapping around the tops of the walls, Rockettes, Twentieth Century Limited, Bronx Bombers, Cotton Club.

“They said they’d meet us in the restaurant after they checked out of their rooms,” said Sam. “Café Edison.”

“I know the place well,” said Serge. “Affectionately nicknamed the Polish Tearoom, a simple yet culturally rich coffee shop for Broadway people in the know. Neil Simon’s setting a play…Hey, there they are.”

Four women waved from a table up front. Serge and Sam walked over. A waiter arrived with pancakes and eggs.

“Where did you two disappear to last night?” Teresa asked with a grin. They were all grinning.

“Knock it off,” said Sam.

“We were beginning to worry you might not make it back in time for the train.”

“Never a problem,” said Serge. “I was keeping track of time.”

“I thought you didn’t want him along,” said Paige.

“Yeah,” added Rebecca. “We really don’t know anything about him.”

“Don’t think I won’t hit you,” said Sam.

They poured syrup and sipped tomato juice.

“I’m impressed,” said Serge. “You picked The Table.”

“What table?” asked Teresa.

Serge looked around the group. “You don’t know?”

They shook their heads.

“This is the table where Al Pacino shot those two guys in The Godfather. Remember when they taped the gun behind the toilet tank?”

“No way!” said Maria.

“Way!” said Serge. “Ask anyone.” He waved at the waiter. “Didn’t Pacino shoot those guys right here?” The waiter nodded.

The next thing the women knew, Serge was clutching an imaginary bullet wound in his neck with one hand, grabbing the tablecloth with the other, falling to the floor with all the dishes.

They were quiet for a time as they stood on the curb with their luggage, waiting for cabs.

“I’ve never been kicked out of a place before,” said Teresa. “Taxi!”

Half the group got in the first one that stopped and headed for Penn Station. Serge flagged down a second and the rest got in. “Follow that cab! I’ve always wanted to say that.”

The two taxis quickly covered the dozen blocks to Thirty-fourth.

“Here we are!” said Serge, helping the women out. The book club rolled luggage inside the building.

“You should have seen the original station, the historic one — they tore it down in 1963,” said Serge, hand over his heart. “But there’s a little silver lining. It produced a preservationist outcry. It’s been said that Penn Station had to die so that Grand Central could live.”

Their luggage wheels squeaked on the concourse. Serge rolled an overnight case and carried a box in his other arm.

“What have you got there?” asked Maria.

“This?” said Serge. “My trains.”

“Your what?”

Serge stopped and opened the box.

“See? There’s the engine, The City of Miami. They didn’t actually have a model one, so I had to buy a Union Pacific and repaint it by hand. Took hours. And this is the Rambler. I’m really proud of that one. Built it from scratch, balsa wood and dowels and Dremel tools. Got the plans from historic collections in the Palm Beach Library. As long as you know the gauge conversion, which happens to be three-point-five millimeters to the foot, the rest is easy. These silver babies are the train we’re walking toward. And you’ve got a hopper over here, a tanker, an old caboose, and a logging car that really tips sideways to dump its load. See the plastic logs?”

“When did you first get interested in trains?” asked Rebecca.

“Watching Captain Kangaroo. My favorite part of the show was a commercial. They had a train set on the soundstage, and the steam engine would come puffing out of a mountain, past Mr. Moose and Green Jeans and Bunny Rabbit, and stop and pour out a load of Rice Krispies from one of the cars.”

“Those models are all quite nice,” said Teresa. “But why bring them? Isn’t actually riding on a real train enough?”

“No.”

They resumed rolling luggage.

“They’re going to build a new one,” said Serge.

“New what?” asked Teresa.

“Penn Station. It’s supposed to be an unbelievable piece of modern architecture — I’ve seen the models, and I can hardly wait! I saw the president’s speech on C-SPAN during the dedication and took notes and committed it to memory: ‘Whether you are a wealthy industrialist or just a person with a few dollars to your name, you can feel ennobled, as people did, in the old glass-and-steel cathedral that was Penn Station. People without tickets could come in the afternoon just to dream about what it would be like to get on the train.’”

The women noticed Serge wasn’t walking with them anymore and looked back. Serge held up a hand as he composed himself. “I’ll be okay.”

Public announcements echoed through the station. Waves of people poured in from subway connectors. Overcoats and newspapers. Serge and the women continued until they got to the big train board and looked up. The letters and numbers clattered as they flipped over, updating arrivals. Three down from the top: “Miami… Silver Stingray… On Time…Track 12W.”

“This way,” said Serge. They took the escalator down to the departure platform. Ahead was a gleaming metal rocket, the pride of the Amtrak Corporation. They rolled luggage past the diesel and several silver cars until they came to the steps of their sleeper. The women climbed aboard; Serge stood in the doorway passing up luggage.

The BBB found their sleeping compartments, and Serge found his. He cranked down the upper bunk, cranked it up, flipped the sink open from the wall, flipped it back up, then down again just to be sure, flushed the toilet, hit the button for porter assistance, changed channels on the flat-screen TV, angled the vents up and down, left and right, adjusted the thermostat, cycled the reading and wall lights, turned on the radio, climbed into the overhead luggage compartment, let himself down, and finally clipped all his spy travel bags to the various handrails with spring-action mountain-climber D rings.

The porter showed up in the doorway. He had never seen a fully activated sleeping cabin before, TV and radio, lights, air, sink, toilet, Serge giving the upper bunk another quick up-and-down on the pulleys.

“Is everything okay?”

“Fine,” said Serge. “Just a shakedown cruise.”

“You hit the porter button?”

“It was a test. I’m happy to report your response time is excellent.” Serge tucked a five in the porter’s shirt pocket, then began unloading his box of trains on the floor. “That will be all.”

When the porter was out of sight, Serge reached in his overnight bag and removed an egglike metal object wrapped in orange silk. “My ace in the hole.” He stuffed the grenade in another cool storage nook.

More people headed for Track 12W. Tanner Lebos smiled and spread his arms wide when he spotted his old friend coming down the escalators.

“If it isn’t that good-for-nothing Ralph Krunkleton!”

“Tan!” yelled Ralph. “There you are!”

They met in the middle of the platform and hugged and headed for The Silver Stingray.

“How you been?” asked Tanner.

“Never better.”

“How’d the book signing go in Miami?”

“Raided by police.”

“That’s just Florida,” said Tanner. “Some people exchanged fire at a Tom Clancy deal last month.”

Out on Thirty-fourth, more cabs arrived. A woman in a floral dress got out, followed by a bunch of guys in blue velvet tuxedos. They stopped and looked up at the train station in befuddlement. The Pickpocket Comedian scratched his head. “But I thought you said we were going to play—”

“I know what I said!” snapped Spider. “There’s been a big fuck-up, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it! C’mon!”

The BBB finished squirreling away possessions in their sleepers and headed out. They moved single file up the narrow aisle, hitting the automatic button that opened the door at the front of the car, passing through the connecting chamber, hitting another button, into the dining car. They grabbed a table and called the waiter. “What do you drink on a train?” asked Teresa.

“I don’t know,” said Sam. “A blue caboose?”

“What’s that?”

“Whiskey and Irish Cream and something else, I think.”

“Amaretto,” said the waiter.

“Five blue cabooses,” said Teresa.

“Don’t look now,” Rebecca whispered, “but I think that’s Ralph Krunkleton.”

“That’s him, all right,” said Maria.

“Doesn’t look like the book photo,” said Teresa.

“That was eleven years ago.”

“He’s shorter than I thought.”

“I’m going to get his autograph,” said Maria.

“It’s too soon,” said Sam. “Let him settle in. Don’t embarrass us.”

Ralph was joking around with his agent when a bunch of people climbed aboard. Tanner made the introductions. “Ralph, this is Preston Lancaster, also known as the Great Mez-mo, and Andy Francesco — you might have seen his stuff on Showtime — and Xorack the Mentalist…”

“Xolack.”

“Sorry, Xolack the Mentalist, I can never keep that straight, and Spider — he juggles, quite good, too — and Dee Dee Lowenstein as Carmen Miranda.” Tanner pointed at Bob Kowolski. “Of course you know Steppenwolf.”

Ralph shook hands and smiled, wondering what he had gotten himself into. Tanner had told him he’d branched into live entertainment, but it didn’t quite prepare him.

A new person with stringy long brown hair walked up. Tanner put his arm around the man’s shoulders. “I have a surprise for you. Meet the newest member of your troupe, the drummer for ——.”

Spider pointed at Steppenwolf. “We already got a musical act.”

“I’ve decided to have them perform together as a super group.”

Tanner turned to Ralph. “You’re gonna get a chuckle out of this.” He began pulling books from an overnight bag. “I found these when I went digging for bio material. They’re your old novels. The jacket photos are a scream! Here’s B Is for Bongo. Note the goatee and the fashionable suicidal look. And here’s Bad Trip. What’s with the flowers on that shirt? You look like you played tambourine in Herman’s Hermits…. And here’s Murder at the Watergate. Ralph, is that genuine polyester?”

The laughter finally subsided, and Spider stepped forward. “Mr. Lebos, I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, but in your phone call, I thought you said we were going to play Carnegie…”

“Almost right,” said Tanner. “The Carnegie car.” He pointed up at a fancy brass sign on the bulkhead.

Preston turned to Spider. “That’s even better! Who wants to play Carnegie when you can play the Carnegie car?”

“Shut up!”

“There’s no slowing this career juggernaut now…”

“I said, shut up!”

“…Next stop, the Hollywood Bowl… public bus!”

Spider grabbed Preston’s collar, and there was a quick, wordless struggle in the aisle. A sleeve ripped.

“Break it up!” said Tanner. “We’ve got rehearsing to do.”

Bruno Litsky cleared his throat. “Uh, Mr. Lebos. I’m still not clear on precisely what it is we’re supposed to be doing.”

“I’m not an actor,” said Andy.

“I’m not even sure what a mystery train is,” said Dee Dee.

“What’s my motivation?” asked Frankie.

“All of you — relax or you’ll give yourselves heart attacks,” said Tanner. “Look at me. Who takes care of you? Huh?”

They stared at the floor and spoke in unison: “You do, Mr. Lebos.”

“That’s right!” said Tanner, holding up his briefcase. “Got your scripts right here. And the props.”

“Scripts?”

“Props?”

Tanner nodded. “Fake guns, rubber knives, play money, stuff like that. Didn’t you read Ralph’s last book? I had some copy editors convert it to a script. You’re going to perform it on the way to Florida, interact with the passengers. Do you have any idea how much money these people are paying for this? It’s an incredible opportunity. If everything works out, we might even be talking cruise ships.”

Preston nudged Spider. “The Carnegie ship.”

“I’m warning you!”

Out on the loading platform, a train conductor in black slacks headed for Track 12W. He stopped at the front of The Silver Stingray, pulled a hundred-year-old gold Elgin pocket watch from his pants and flipped it open. He snapped it closed and returned it to his pants, then fit a conductor’s hat on his head. “Alllllllll aboard!”

Serge stepped up next to him. He wore his own souvenir conductor’s hat and opened his own gold pocket watch. “Alllllll aboard!… The Silver Stingray, serving Dade City, Winter Haven, Delray Beach and Coooo-kamunnnnnnga!”

The conductor grabbed a handrail and climbed up. “I hate these fucking mystery trains.”

In a rest room on the northwest side of Penn Station, Eugene Tibbs sat on a toilet in a locked stall with his knees and a silver briefcase tucked to his chest, the same position he’d been in for the last twenty-four hours. When the public address system announced final boarding for Miami, Eugene stretched out his legs. He slowly opened the stall door, looked both ways, then ran out of the rest room and across the station. He raced down the escalator and didn’t stop until he had bounded up the steps of the train just as it started to move.

“Here come our drinks,” said Teresa. The waiter placed five blue shots on the table.

“Cheers!”

The waiter held his empty tray to his stomach and Eugene Tibbs held the briefcase to his as they turned sideways and passed in the aisle. Eugene sat down at the last table in the car, his back to the wall.

Ivan and Zigzag were on day two of their stakeout at the SoHo loft. They were still on the same bench across the street, eating dollar hot dogs from a corner vendor, a pile of trash next to them, soda and coffee cups, bagel chip bags, lollipop wrappers. Growing impatience.

“We have to make a move,” said Ivan. “It’s now or never.”

“You got mustard,” said Zigzag.

Ivan touched the corner of his mouth with a paper napkin.

“Other side.”

They headed across the street and up the stairs to the loft. Ivan picked the lock. They had begun sifting through the wreckage when Ivan saw the red light blinking on the answering machine. He pressed play.

The pair sprinted north on Eighth Avenue, pushing tailors to the ground, running through racks of clothes, Ivan yanking a mink stole off his face and throwing it over his shoulder, crossing Thirty-third Street, knocking over an elegant blonde in a strapless evening gown walking a tiger on a diamond-studded leash next to the luxurious new Mercury Sable with dual-stage air bags.

“Cut! Cut!”

They reached Thirty-fourth, down the stairs into the train station, looking around frantically, tracks to the left, tracks to the right…

“There he is!” yelled Ivan, pointing at Eugene Tibbs sprinting from the rest room to the escalators on the far side of the concourse.

Zigzag and Ivan bolted across the station. The train was already moving pretty good as they vaulted down the escalator, crashing into people, scattering luggage. Ten miles an hour, twelve, fifteen, the diesel engines roaring to life. They finally caught up with the last car, running alongside it as hard as they could, yelling and slapping the corrugated metal side, twenty miles an hour, still accelerating, gradually pulling away from the two men, who broke off pursuit and bent over and grabbed their knees, out of breath. When they looked up again, The Silver Stingray was a hundred yards down the snow-covered tracks, pulling away from New York’s Pennsylvania Station for Florida, Serge waving from the back window.

34

Serge had his new digital camera ready, aimed out the window of the dining car, as the Philadelphia skyline came into view. Click, click, click. Running through to the lounge car in case it had a better vantage, taking pictures out windows along the way. Click, click, click…

That’s when he saw it. He couldn’t believe his luck. It was just sitting there in the aisle. A silver briefcase. It was next to a table full of people. Serge stayed cool, pocketing his camera. He scrunched down as he walked and dipped his left shoulder so his hand was at the same level as the briefcase handle. He snagged it without breaking stride and kept going, keeping the briefcase an inch off the floor as he moved away. When he was out of view, Serge brought the case to his hip and walked swiftly back to his sleeping compartment. He closed the door fast behind him, twisting the lock and pulling down the shades. He set the briefcase on the floor and tried the latches. He expected them to be locked, but they just flipped open. Serge broke into a broad smile. “We meet again!”

He raised the lid. His face changed.

“What the hell?”

He began removing plastic guns, plastic handcuffs, rubber knives, rubber candlestick holders, fake passports, packets of play money. He got to the bottom of the briefcase and removed a stack of stapled Xeroxes. He read the cover and riffled the pages.

“Scripts?”

Another skyline in the distance. The Silver Stingray pulled out of the Wilmington station, back into the snow. A bunch of guys in blue tuxes and Dee Dee Lowenstein stood in the aisle of the last sleeping compartment.

“We better find Tanner,” said Spider. “We’re supposed to go on in a few minutes and we still don’t have our scripts.”

They noticed for the first time that a large group of people had gathered behind them, suspiciously quiet. The performers looked at them. The people stared back and smiled. Some had notebooks and pencils out. One wore a T-shirt: “Mystery lovers do it by the book.”

“This is creepy,” said Preston. “Let’s get out of here.”

They went up to the next sleeping compartment and looked back. The doors opened and the group came in, slightly larger now. The performers headed for the next sleeper car. The group followed, picking up new members along the way. The performers walked faster; the crowd stayed with them. Preston hit a button and the automatic doors opened to the next car.

They were practically running when they reached the dining car. They turned around. The door in the back of the compartment opened, and in they came.

“Who the hell are they?” said Spider.

“What do they want from us?” said Andy.

Another voice: “There you are!”

They turned. It was their agent, Tanner Lebos, sitting at one of the tables with Ralph Krunkleton.

“Get over here!” Tanner bellowed, making an exaggerated waving gesture.

They approached the table. The crowd followed.

“I got your scripts right here…” Tanner’s hand felt around next to the table but only found air. “Hold a sec.”

Tanner stuck his head under the table, then came back up. “The scripts! They’re gone!”

“Maybe you left them back in the sleeping car?” said Ralph.

“No, I’m sure,” said Tanner. “I always know where that thing is — it’s my favorite briefcase.” Then Tanner started talking to himself, reenacting recent events. “Okay, I sat down, turned and put the briefcase right there, opened the newspaper…”

“There’s got to be a simple explanation,” said Ralph.

“No chance,” said Tanner. “Something bizarre has happened. This is a real puzzle.”

“Kind of like a mystery?” said Krunkleton.

Tanner glared. “Not now, Ralph.” He went back to recreating his morning. “Then I reached for the salt…”

An Amtrak porter walked through the sleeping compartment, knocking on doors. “Tickets. Check your tickets…”

He knocked on the number seven berth. “Tickets…”

“It’s unlocked.”

The porter opened the door and saw Serge sitting on the top bunk, legs dangling over the side, a conductor’s hat on his head and an electric control box in his hands. On the floor, a miniature train chugged around a small oval of track.

“I need to check your ticket.”

Serge pointed at the train. “It’s coming around.”

The porter bent over and plucked the ticket sticking out of the logging car as it went past his feet. He looked it over — “Thank you” — and stuck the ticket back in the logging car on its next pass. “Having a nice trip?”

Serge nodded without looking up from his controls. “Me ride big choo-choo.”

“That’s nice,” said the porter, closing Serge’s door. “…Holy Jesus!”

Back in the dining car, tables began filling up. Waiters set ice-water glasses on the linen and flipped open order pads. “Poached salmon or prime rib?”

“What are we going to do without scripts?” asked Frankie. “Look — they’re already arriving.”

“I got it,” said Tanner. “You all have regular acts, right?”

They nodded.

“Do ’em,” he said. “That’ll hold us till tomorrow. We’ll find the scripts and write it all in as back story.”

Plates of fish and beef arrived. People buttered rolls. Preston and the others claimed the big rounded booth at the front of the car. When most of the people were finished eating, Tanner stood and tapped a glass of water with a spoon.

“May I have your attention. I want to thank you all for coming to this special production of The Stingray Shuffle…” Tanner paused until the clapping tapered off. “Since most of you have read the book, there really wouldn’t be a whole lot of suspense. So we’ve played around with the story a little. The killer might not be who you think. And you’ll definitely never guess who ends up with the five million dollars! With us tonight to bring the story to life are some of the finest entertainers in the business. Starting from my left, direct from Reno, Nevada, Frankie Chan and His Amazing Shadow Puppet Revue…”

The women at table number five ordered another round of blue cabooses.

“I’m having so much fun,” said Maria. “This was a great idea.”

“Where’s Serge?” asked Rebecca.

“He’ll show up sooner or later,” said Teresa. “If I know him, there’s no way he’ll miss this.”

“…And finally,” Tanner announced, “the reason all of us are here. The author of classics we’ve come to know and love — let’s give a big hand for the one and only Ralph Krunkleton!…Ralph, stand up!”

Ralph stood self-consciously and waved to the applause. Baltimore went by the windows.

A half hour later, Frankie Chan was wrapping up his big finale, the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in hand shadows. The ovation was deafening. Frankie went back to the booth and bummed a cigarette.

“You hear that applause?” he said. “We should have been doing this from the start!”

“Who’s up?”

“Dee Dee,” said Spider.

Dee Dee Lowenstein took the stage and launched an uncanny rendition of “South American Way.”

Serge walked up the center aisle of the dining car in a burgundy smoking jacket. “It’s murder, I tell you! This man has been poisoned! Nobody leave the room!”

Dee Dee stopped singing and someone turned off her boom box. The audience began taking notes. Some filmed with camcorders. Serge pulled the script from his back pocket. “Wait a minute. There’s no Carmen Miranda in this scene.” He went back to the sleeping car.

Someone turned the music back on, and Dee Dee brought the house down with a medley from Carmen’s Hollywood years.

The applause was off the meter. Dee Dee headed back to the rounded booth. The Washington Monument went by. “What a great room!”

“Preston, you’re up.”

The Great Mez-mo took the stage. “I need some volunteers.”

Nobody responded. “You gals,” said Preston, pointing at table number five. “Come on up here.”

The women declined, but the audience was behind Preston: “Get up there!”

A few minutes later, Paige was scraping invisible poop off her shoe, Teresa said she swam out to naval carrier escorts, Sam quacked, and Rebecca begged Preston for his autograph.

Preston walked up to Maria.

“Are you a lesbian?”

“No,” Maria said, trancelike.

He handed her a blow-up doll. “Then pretend this is one of the Baldwins.”

The crowd roared.

Three hours later, Books, Booze and Broads were still in the dining car. They barely held a quorum.

“Where did the time go?” said Paige.

“Better yet, where did Rebecca and Sam go?” said Maria.

“I can guess where Sam is,” said Teresa. “But Rebecca must have had some kind of luck we don’t know about.”

The Great Mez-mo closed the door behind him in his sleeping compartment. Rebecca looked around in wonderment. “I can’t believe I’m actually in Brad Pitt’s room!”

The next compartment: “Oh yes! Oh no! Oh yes!” Sam grabbed Serge by the back of the head. “Oh God! Oh God! Tell me what you’re thinking about!…”

“The Great Train Robbery, The California Zephyr, The Wabash Cannonball, the Rock Island Line, Casey Jones, Murder on the Orient Express, the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe, Soul Train…”

35

Ivan and Zigzag listened to Jimmy Cliff on the stereo of an orange ’72 Dodge Charger. Zigzag rocked slowly with the rhythm, but Ivan wasn’t convinced.

“What’s so great about this music? It just makes me antsy.”

“You need to learn how to relax, mon.”

It was after midnight. Ivan changed lanes, passing some farm equipment infarcting the southbound side of Interstate 95. They drove under a big green sign. Richmond, 1/4 mile. Ivan took the exit ramp; Zigzag unfolded a map and navigated through the city to the train station. They skidded up to the curb and ran through slush to the Amtrak window.

“Two tickets to Miami, The Silver Stingray.”

“It’s sold out,” said the clerk.

“What about cancellations?” asked Ivan. “Standby?”

“Doesn’t matter,” said the ticket man, pointing down the tracks. “It just left.”

“Why didn’t you tell us in the first place?”

The pair dashed out of the depot and jumped back in the Charger.

Zigzag pulled the map from under his seat and flicked a lighter to see.

“What now?” asked Ivan.

“We might be able to get on in Fayetteville, or maybe Charleston.”

“You heard the man. It’s sold out.”

“That’s never stopped me and Louise here,” said Zigzag, producing a shiny .380 automatic from the glove compartment.

“We can’t just go in there blazing! We don’t know where he is on the train. If we cause any commotion at all, he might jump off and we’ll never see the money.”

“You got a better idea, mon?”

“Well, if we try to get on at a depot, we risk problems from the Amtrak people, and they’re the last ones you want to mess with. Plus, the train will be stopped, so it’s easier for him to hop off. Which means we’ll have to get on the train between cities, while it’s moving. It’s the only way we can…” Ivan stopped and stared at Zigzag, who was lighting a joint the size of a bowling pin.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Hopping on board the ganja train.”

“Look at the size of that fucking thing!” Ivan glanced around in traffic to see if there were any cops. “Are you nuts?”

Zigzag exhaled, a small cloud enveloping their heads. “You’re the one who wants to jump on a moving train.”

“It’s possible.”

“It’s suicide.”

“I’m not talking about shooting ourselves out of a cannon at the thing. There are ways to trim risk. I just haven’t figured out the right method yet.”

Zigzag grinned. “I have an idea, mon.”

The sleeping berths were wide enough for sex, if you had the right motivation. But there wasn’t remotely room for a couple to sleep together.

Serge was in the top bunk, Sam on the bottom. She had fallen off fast after the lovemaking, but Serge was still wide open. He was way too wound up from being on a train. Plus, Sam snored like a lumberjack.

A little after two in the morning. Serge lay on his back, head propped with two pillows, looking sideways out the window as The Silver Stingray rolled through the backside of Virginia, rhythmic clacking, a faint train whistle ten cars up, then the crossing guard, the red-and-white bar across the road, caution lights flashing above a metal sign with buckshot dents, two pickups waiting on the other side of the gate. America was on the move, and it was moving away from the train tracks. Serge saw what was left behind, the late-night scenes repeating, Virginia becoming North and South Carolina. Raleigh, Southern Pines, Hamlet, Camden. Crime light, barbed wire, warehouses and liquor stores, alleys, a flashlight in the face of someone pulled over by police, then another tiny train depot from the 1940s hanging on for life, bleary travelers under the cantilevers. Serge hit radio buttons until he found jazz. Perfect. Watching America go by. Homeless people rubbing hands over oil-drum flames to the melancholy of Thelonious. He got out his new digital camera and rested it on his stomach, switching on the tiny monitor, replaying scenes from the last twenty-four hours. The gray Philly switching yards, the Maryland slums, the upscale parks in D.C., the Marine Corps hangar with the president’s helicopter, the blur of a freight train passing the other way, a citadel, a rocky trout stream, a riverboat, a carnival, a fire station, a little girl with pigtails skipping rope in front of a church, a restored Victorian home in an anonymous town with train tracks running down the center of Main Street, and everywhere, smiling Americans waving back at the train like a Ford truck ad. Serge finally came to the last picture in the camera’s memory and stopped: An old guy with a long white beard standing next to the tracks in the middle of nowhere, operating a big Hasselblad camera on a tripod, taking a picture back at Serge, his own future.

A loud scream startled Serge, and he bonked his head on the ceiling.

It was Sam. “You bastard!”

Serge hung his head over the side of the bunk. “What’d I do?”

“You bastard!” she yelled again, talking in her sleep. There were more words, but he could only make out a few of them, and most of those were bastard. Then something about final exams.

“What year is it?” asked Serge.

“1973.”

She twisted violently, a few more bastards, then: “It’s our secret, girls.”

“What’s your secret?” asked Serge.

The sunrise sparkled through the trees as The Silver Stingray rolled into the quiet South Carolina morning. There was still a cover of snow, but now patches of ground poked through.

A bunch of tuxedos sat around the booth in the front of the dining car.

“Tanner find the scripts yet?” asked Andy.

Spider shook his head.

Dee Dee came back from the rest room.

“Hey! Who ate one of my bananas?”

An empty peel sat in front of Preston.

Dee Dee snatched her hat off the table. “If I ever catch you doing that again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”

Passengers at nearby tables perked up. They put down their forks and began writing in notebooks.

The BBB walked forward through the sleeping compartment.

“Is it me, or does this train seem to be going faster?” asked Teresa.

“Feels the same,” said Maria. “The important question is why Rebecca won’t tell us where she disappeared to last night. And why she’s grinning so much.”

“I just had a dream, that’s all.”

“What kind of dream?”

“A Brad Pitt dream. We’ll leave it at that.”

The BBB left the sleeper and entered the dining car. The people having breakfast turned around and applauded.

“You were great last night,” said a woman in a sun hat.

“They didn’t tell us more cast members would be hidden among the passengers,” said her husband. “What a performance!”

“What are you talking about?” said Teresa.

“I got it all on video if you want to see.”

“We do,” said Sam.

They crowded around. The man adjusted the tiny crystal screen on his camcorder and played back Preston’s hypnosis show. Sam quacking, Paige scraping her shoe and so on. The BBB began to boil as they watched. But it was nothing compared to Maria’s reaction when she saw herself with the blow-up doll.

“I’ll kill the son of a bitch! Who’s got a gun?”

Passengers took more notes.

Suddenly, yelling and a struggle at the front of the car.

Dee Dee had demanded an apology about eating from her hat, and Preston had told her to go fuck herself with one of her precious bananas. Andy and Spider had to separate them. Passengers scribbled furiously.

“Preston, enough’s enough!” said Frankie. “Sometimes it’s just not funny anymore. Like back in Bridgeport when that mob chased us out of Private Ryan. I was ready to strangle you with my bare hands.”

More writing in notebooks.

The book club marched angrily up the aisle, ready to read Preston the riot act. A woman in a red dress pushed by them and stormed to the front of the car.

“Preston?”

He turned around. “Yes?”

“You don’t remember me, do you?” said the woman.

Preston squinted at her face. “Should I?”

“Albuquerque.”

“Let’s see… Albuquerque, Albuquerque… oh, Albuquerque! I remember now. Wait, don’t help me…” — snapping his fingers — “…Helen, Helga, Heloise…”

“Betty.”

“I was just about to say Betty.”

“I finally tracked you down, you worm! How dare you take advantage of me like that!”

“Take advantage of you how?”

“Hypnotizing me to think you were Brad Pitt so I’d have sex with you!”

“Moi?”

“You!” said the woman, pulling a gun from her purse and pointing it at Preston.

Some passengers ran out of space and had to break out new notebooks.

“Hold on a second! I can explain! I, I was trying to help you…”

“Help me! How was that helping me?”

“You obviously have a problem with men…”

Mistake.

Just before she pulled the trigger, Spider grabbed her arm, and the bullet flew out an open window. Andy and Frankie helped wrestle the woman to the ground, kicking and screaming.

Preston looked around with a fake grin. “Those blanks sure sound real!”

They got the gun away and hog-tied the woman with Andy’s belt and waited to hand her over to authorities at the next stop.

The BBB looked at each other.

“Did she say ‘Brad Pitt’?” asked Rebecca.

“Yes, she did,” said Sam.

“Something’s not kosher in Denmark,” said Teresa.

“You used me!” the woman screamed from the floor. “You made it so every time I heard the word harmonica, I’d think you were Brad Pitt.”

Rebecca began jumping up and down. “Look, it’s Brad Pitt!”

“The trigger word is probably a toggle,” Sam told Teresa. She grabbed the shrieking Rebecca by the arm. “Harmonica!”

Rebecca stopped jumping up and down. “Why are you holding my arm, Sam?”

“I think we need to have a talk.”

The women stood in the aisle explaining things to Rebecca. Rebecca’s head shook side to side. The other women nodded. Rebecca shook her head harder. The others nodded sadly.

Rebecca broke from the group and ran to the front of the car. “Wait!” yelled Teresa.

Too late. “Did you have sex with me last night while I was under hypnosis? I’ll kill you if you did!”

“Moi?”

One passenger leaned to another. “That Preston’s finished.”

The second passenger nodded, still writing. “Too many enemies, plenty of motive. Now it’s just a matter of creating the opportunity for murder.”

The train slowed at the next depot. Only a few little patches of snow left. The Savannah police boarded and carried off the woman in the red dress, still kicking and screaming. “I’ll kill you, you bastard! I’ll cut your fucking dick off if it’s the last thing I do!”

A passenger turned to a fresh page in her notebook. “This is the best mystery train I’ve ever been on.”

36

The dining car began filling up again shortly after noon.

Waiters circulated, dropping off drinks, opening order pads. “Chef’s salad or Caesar?”

It was a sunny day on the train; warm light poured into the dining car through the glass skydome.

Serge was sitting with the book club. “Chef’s salad,” he told the waiter. “Extra dressing on the side. Double-chop the lettuce. That is all.” He still hadn’t seen any sign of Eugene Tibbs. Surely he hadn’t missed the train.

Paige pointed out the window. “Palm trees!”

They crossed the Florida state line as Tanner Lebos stood and clinked a glass of water with a spoon again, signaling the official start of the author’s luncheon.

“Thank you once again and welcome.” He shook his head and chuckled for effect. “This already has been quite an action-packed trip to say the least. And we have one person to thank for that! The author who thought all this up, Ralph Krunkleton!”

The audience began applauding. Ralph didn’t know what the hell Tanner was talking about. He had no idea what was happening — this was the craziest damn train he’d ever been on.

Passengers began standing up, five, ten, twenty, until it was a solid standing ovation.

“Speech!” someone yelled.

“Don’t worry,” said Tanner. “The problem will be shutting him up.”

Everyone laughed.

Ralph stepped into the aisle, and the crowd quieted.

“First, I’d like to thank the best agent money can buy.”

More laughter. Tanner pointed at Ralph and smiled: Ya got me!

“Seriously. What a weird business. What a weird life. I still haven’t figured it out. I’m getting to associate with a better class of people by writing about a worse class of people.”

More laughs.

“But I’m glad to see the mystery genre finally getting its due. For the longest time, people automatically thought there was no meaning. That’s simply not true. In my case, I’m on an internal journey, the crime plot just a pretext for me to explore the spiritual side of existence. Like when I used the urinal guy as a metaphor for Christ…”

The audience looked puzzled.

“…pure humility, serving others,” said Ralph. “And the tribulations of the people developing the first orange harvester are straight from the Twenty-third Psalm. I also borrowed some Eastern elements of cleansing and rebirth for the reunion of that women’s book club after all those lost years…”

The audience exchanged glances. Were they reading the same books? Tanner saw what was happening; he gave Ralph a slashing gesture across his throat with an index finger.

Ralph saw him and nodded.

“…Uh, and then I killed a whole bunch of people.”

“Hooray!” the audience yelled.

Tanner stood up and slapped his hands together. “What do you say we sign some books?”

The passengers quickly formed a line in the aisle.

Ralph’s little speech had been especially comforting to Serge. So he’d been right all along about the religious imagery in the book — it wasn’t just more hallucinations. “After you,” he told the BBB, who got up from the table and joined the autograph line. Then Serge stood and bumped into someone who didn’t recognize him.

“Excuse me,” said Eugene Tibbs.

The line began working its way down. The BBB finally made it to the front, and they heaped on the praise. “Your books have changed our lives,” said Teresa.

Ralph blushed. “Maybe that’s exaggerating a little.”

“No, it isn’t,” said Maria. “What a path of self-discovery!”

“Ahhhh,” said Ralph, nodding with satisfaction as he signed his name. “So you got my spiritual message.”

Teresa shook her head. “No, we went to all the bars. They were great!”

Next, a book critic from Miami.

“Oh, hi, Connie,” said Ralph, opening her book and writing. “Don’t you think you were a little hard on me in your last review?”

“It was more than fair. That one character you have who can never seem to score — he’s overstayed his welcome.”

Ralph finished signing and handed the hardcover back to her. “How’d you like me to pair you up with him in a book?”

“Ha, ha. Very funny.”

Next, Eugene Tibbs. He pumped Ralph’s hand. “I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time. Your writing has completely changed my life.”

Ralph began signing his name. “Maybe that’s a stretch.”

“No, it’s true,” said Eugene. “I’ve patterned my entire existence after your last book. I took every one of your lessons and put them into daily practice.”

Ralph looked up, confused.

Eugene patted his chest. “I’m the urinal guy.”

“Ohhhh, that’s great! Thank you!” said Ralph, looking back down to finish his autograph. “You got my spiritual message.”

“No,” said Eugene. “I made a bundle in tips.”

Serge was next.

“Great book.”

“Thanks.”

“Especially the spiritual message.”

Ralph looked up. “What?”

“Your spiritual message.”

“You actually got it?”

“Are you kidding?” said Serge. “The imagery was so vivid I could practically reach out and touch it. Screaming souls burning in a lake of fire. Drooling beasts ripping bowels out of the righteous, then avenging angels of the Lord chopping their heads off with big swords. A horrible blackness descending over the land. People running naked in terror, falling off cliffs and onto tall spikes. Manic little horned trolls scurrying about, slashing tires and sodomizing family pets…”

Tanner gently grabbed Serge by the arm. “Would you mind stepping aside? We need to keep the line moving.”

“Oh, sure. Sorry.”

Tibbs had retaken his seat at the back table, enjoying dessert and admiring the inscription in his book. Serge sat up front, keeping tabs on Tibbs in his peripheral vision.

Shouting broke out up front. Notebooks opened.

Spider bounced around in the aisle, throwing left hooks in the air.

“I know what you’re thinking — ‘Just because he only has one arm, I’ll bet he can’t play the banjo!’”

“Who said anything about a banjo?” asked Preston.

“Okay, well maybe I can’t play the banjo, but I can still kick your ass!…”

One of the passengers pointed with a pencil at Spider’s right arm tucked behind his back. “Now that’s acting!”

“Hic,” said Preston. “Dammit, now you gave me the hiccups… hic…”

“Breathe in a paper bag,” said Andy.

“Drink water upside down,” said Dee Dee.

“Pull your earlobes and swallow,” said Spider.

“Boo!” said Steppenwolf.

Hic.

“I can cure hiccups,” offered Serge.

“Who are you?”

“Just a passenger. But I’ve studied this phenomenon for years, purely on an avocational basis, of course. All the cures you’ve mentioned are simply power of suggestion. The actual mechanics have nothing to do with it. It’s what you believe. So, Preston, do you want to get rid of your hiccups?”

“It’s worth — hic — a try.”

“Okay, focus on my voice. I want you to relax. Your muscles are getting loose. That’s better…”

“Hic.”

“Don’t worry about that last hiccup. The sound was a mile away. There will be a few more, but they don’t concern you. Each hiccup is one less until they end. Picture each hiccup being typed on a piece of paper as it comes out of your mouth, then mentally wad up the sheet and throw it away…”

When Preston was completely relaxed, Serge leaned forward and whispered in his ear. Then he sat back and clapped his hands sharply, startling Preston.

“Hic… I still have the hic hiccups.”

“Not for long,” Serge said with a grin.

In the back of the car, Eugene Tibbs finished his dessert and got up to head back to the sleeping compartment. This was the moment Serge had been waiting for — getting Tibbs alone, away from the herd.

“Good luck with those hiccups,” said Serge, standing and heading down the aisle after Tibbs.

“Everybody, look!” a passenger yelled in the middle of the car. They all turned to the window on the west side of the train.

“Unbelievable!”

Mild pandemonium as a crowd jammed the center of the car for a better view of the spectacle, blocking the aisle and Serge’s only path to Tibbs. Fifty disposable cameras pointed out the window.

“What a mystery train!”

Zigzag and Ivan slowly but surely gained on the train. They had ditched their Charger in Ocala, even though Ivan told Zigzag his plan would never work. Now it was looking like they just might pull it off.

“There she is!” yelled Ivan, spotting a train emerging from around a distant bend in a palm hammock.

“Giddy-up!” yelled Zigzag, snapping his reins.

“How’d you know Ocala raises some of the fastest thoroughbreds in the country?” asked Ivan.

“Made a killing on one in the Derby.”

It was a beautiful picture, the two horses — a brown-and-white filly and a pure black stallion — striding majestically, hooves thundering across the hot Florida scrubland, gaining on The Silver Stingray.

“They shoot horse thieves, don’t they?”

“Not anymore,” said Zigzag. “Come on, we’re nearly there.”

More passengers rushed to the middle windows of the dining car, pouring in from the sleeper and coach, lifting children up and pointing.

“Have to admit, this was a great idea,” said Ivan.

“The beauty of it is stealth,” said Zigzag. “There’s no way in the world anyone will detect our approach.”

The horses finally caught The Silver Stingray, and Ivan and Zigzag put the crop to their steeds. They gradually moved up the side of the train toward the break between the dining car and the first sleeper, passing a giant window filled with faces stacked three high, taking pictures and filming home videos.

Zigzag was in front. He reached with his left hand for the railing, two feet away, closing slowly. “Almost there.” One foot, six inches. “Alllllllll-most…Got it!” He grabbed the rail firmly and leaped from the horse to the tiny platform, the filly peeling off to the side and stopping. Ivan came up next. Zigzag reached out. “Give me your hand!”

Ivan strained, their fingertips inches apart. Zigzag saw the Russian’s eyes grow large. “What is it?”

Several passengers looked sideways out the window and pointed ahead in horror.

“Tunnel!”

“Grab my hand!” said Zigzag.

“I can’t!”

“You have to!”

Ivan whipped the reins a last time. Their fingertips touched, then parted, then touched again. Zigzag snatched Ivan’s hand and jerked him out of the saddle. The stallion hit the brakes. They were in the tunnel.

Zigzag felt around in the dark. He unhooked an emergency entrance in the side of the connector between the cars, and they climbed through.

“Now if we can just slip inside without anyone noticing,” said Ivan.

The tunnel still provided cover of darkness as they opened the back door of the dining car and quietly crept inside. They came out of the tunnel, light again. A carful of people was staring at them. Cheering erupted.

“This is definitely the best mystery train I’ve ever been on!”

“How can it possibly get any better?”

A woman let loose a bone-chilling scream.

Everyone turned. The screaming woman was up front, standing over a body in the middle of the aisle.

Preston.

“Someone must have killed him in the tunnel!”

“But who?”

37

Two crooked lines of cocaine wound across the instrument panel, just above the pressure gauges in the red zone. They were vacuumed up by the empty fuselage of a ballpoint pen.

The engineer stood straight again and wiggled his nose, then pinched it closed to get membrane action. “We’re not going fast enough… must go faster.” He pushed a lever forward.

A crowd had gathered around the body in the dining car.

“I don’t think he’s acting.”

“Of course he is.”

“It’s been five minutes.”

“I’ve seen human statues in New York go for hours.”

“He’s really good.”

Ivan and Zigzag wasted no time. The element of surprise was gone, but the train was still moving. They checked the schedule. Ten minutes until the Okeechobee depot. Ten minutes to find Tibbs or he could jump off with the briefcase. They worked quickly through the sleeping compartment, knocking on doors. “Tickets!…”

Serge tiptoed into the car behind them and peeked around the corner.

Eugene Tibbs heard a knock and opened his door. There was no nonsense. Zigzag tackled him and Ivan stuck a gun in his mouth. “The briefcase! Now!” Tibbs pointed up at the overhead rack. Zigzag pulled it down.

A voice from behind: “I’ll take that, if you don’t mind.”

They turned around. Serge stood in the doorway with an even bigger gun. They handed him the briefcase.

“Thanks.” Serge slammed the compartment door shut and took off.

Zigzag and Ivan ran out the door, and Serge took a shot at them from down the hall. They dove back in Tibbs’s compartment.

Passengers in the dining car heard gunfire, took notes.

Ivan and Zigzag poked their heads back into the hallway. Clear. The Russian pointed to the back of the car. “You go that way!”

They checked everywhere, but no Serge. Zigzag tried to find his sleeping compartment. He knocked on doors and came to one that was locked with no answer. He gave it his shoulder. The door popped open. He tore through luggage. Nope. Belonged to a couple from Kalamazoo. Three more doors down, no answer, also locked. He gave it the shoulder again. The door popped easily. It swung open and hit a switch on a small control box on the floor. Zigzag heard a little train whistle as a toy locomotive began to chug around a small circle of track on the floor.

Zigzag smiled as the train stopped at the loading dock in front of his feet, the logging car automatically tipping out its load: several plastic logs and an unpinned grenade whose handle had been wedged in the car. The handle sprang off as the grenade wobbled a few inches and bumped into Zigzag’s toes.

“Uh-oh.”

The explosion rocked The Silver Stingray all the way to the dining car. Passengers wrote faster. Others were still timing how long Preston could remain motionless.

Ivan spotted Serge sneaking out the front door of the first sleeping compartment. He ran after him. As Ivan passed through the connector between the cars, he noticed the emergency door was unlatched. He stuck his head out the side of the train and looked up a ladder.

Back in the dining car: “How long has it been?”

“Ten minutes.”

“Do you think we should poke him or something?”

They heard pounding and banging overhead and looked up through the clear skydome. Two men wrestled on the roof with a metal briefcase, rolling this way and that, legs swinging precariously over the edge of the train as it headed across the Indian River on an old steel-girder trestle. One man socked the other in the face; the other punched back. They rolled over again. Another punch. The briefcase went skidding away from both of them, sliding across the glass roof.

Ivan and Serge rolled over a couple more times until they came to the edge of the car. Ivan was on top, his hands around Serge’s throat, Serge’s head hanging back over the side of the roof and turning blue. Ivan reached his right hand back and slugged Serge in the face. Then he unsnapped his shoulder holster, pulled out a pistol and pressed it to Serge’s forehead. Serge grabbed it by the barrel and pushed it up; a shot flew into the sky. It became a battle of arm strength, the barrel of the gun slowly moving back down toward Serge’s face.

The train rumbled across the trestles, the vibrating briefcase sliding left and right across the roof. A hand reached down and grabbed it by the handle. The passengers pointed up through the glass at two new feet walking toward the pair of struggling combatants.

Ivan was winning the war of muscles, and the barrel of the gun reached Serge’s face again. Ivan pressed it between his eyes. “You lose.” He began squeezing the trigger.

Wham.

The briefcase slammed into the side of Ivan’s head. He flew off Serge and rolled in disorientation and pain. The gun fell over the side of the train and clanged off bridge beams on the way down.

Suddenly, the air was full of green paper, countless hundred-dollar bills swirling into the sky. Serge and Ivan looked up at the money, then at Sam standing over them, holding the handle of the flapping, empty briefcase. The pair crawled to the side of the car and got down on their stomachs to look over the edge of the train’s roof, watching in shock as the money gently fluttered down to the river and began floating toward the ocean.

They crawled back from the edge of the car and stood up. Serge pointed at the open case still in Sam’s hand. “What’d you do that for?”

“He was going to kill you!”

Serge and Ivan looked at each other and shook their heads. “Women.” They walked to the back of the roof and climbed down the ladder. Wild cheers erupted again as they entered the rear of the dining car. People shook their hands and slapped their backs. The drummer for —— walked up. “I couldn’t come through.” He handed Serge forty-three dollars.

The train approached the Okeechobee station. Teresa looked out the window. “We’re not slowing down.”

“What?” said Maria.

“We’re supposed to stop at this depot. We won’t be able to at this speed.”

She was right. The train blew right past the depot and the confused people on the platform.

“Was that supposed to happen?” asked Maria. “Maybe because the mystery program’s sold out?”

“Can’t be,” said Teresa. “They also handle parcels.”

“Do you think something’s wrong with the engineer?”

“We are going faster,” said Teresa.

The women made their way forward. When they got to the back of the engine, they found the train’s staff already on the case. They were trying to radio the engineer, but no answer.

“Why don’t you force your way in?” asked Teresa.

“We can’t,” said one of the staff. “You can only get into the engine from the outside. Prevents interference.”

“What about a backup guy?” said Rebecca. “In case of a heart attack or something?”

“That would be me,” said the staffer.

“But then why aren’t you up there? What are you doing back—”

“Look, I’m already in enough trouble.”

A man and his young son crouched in the woods just before sunset, out where Palm Beach County meets the Everglades. Their eyes focused on the train tracks a few yards away, a tight bend just past the clearing where Pratt & Whitney tests its jet engines. A shiny new Lincoln penny sat on one of the rails.

“Why are we doing this, Daddy?”

“To get a flat penny.”

“What for?”

“Because it’s fun!”

A train whistle blew in the distance. “Here she comes! Get down!”

The pair crouched and waited, the train growing closer. It was in sight before they knew it, nothing but a blur as it entered the bend and hit the penny. There was a harsh grinding of metal. The father and son watched in astonishment as The Silver Stingray jumped the tracks and twenty cars jackknifed down the embankment toward the swamp.

“Daddy? Did we do that?”

“How’d you like some ice cream?”

38

A half hour after sundown, flashlights split the darkness, wisps of smoke. The crew worked its way through the train lying on its side halfway down the embankment to the swamp. They came to the dining car, but the door was jammed and blocked by twisted metal. The crew banged on it. “Is everyone all right in there?”

“We’re fine,” a passenger yelled back. “Just some scrapes.”

“I think Preston’s dead,” yelled someone else. “But I think he was dead before. We’re not sure.”

“Everyone stay calm.” An emergency generator came on, then backup lights. The car was a mess, but it could have been much worse.

“Yep, we’re sure now,” the passenger yelled again. “Preston’s really dead.”

“Did you poke him?” yelled the crew member.

“Twice.”

“Stay put,” he shouted. “We’ll get you out, but it’s going to take a while. We have to cut through some big pieces of metal out here, and we only have a hacksaw.”

“What about the authorities? Won’t they send someone when we don’t show up?”

“Sure,” yelled the crew member. “But the remoteness of our location and the trickiness of the terrain complicate it a little. Also, we don’t really have an excellent on-time record, so they might not notice for a few more hours. But immediately after that, they’ll be right here.”

A naked, sobbing book critic from Miami wrapped herself in a towel and ran from the sleeping compartment to the dining car, followed by Johnny Vegas. “What’s the matter, baby? It’s just a little derailment.”

The train lurched a few feet as soil gave way on the embankment; passengers fell over. It was still again. People uprighted chairs in the diner and sat down on the left wall, bracing for a long wait.

“Nobody leave this car!”

They looked up. Serge strolled through the wreckage in his burgundy smoking jacket. He stopped next to Preston’s body.

“Someone murdered this man!” He turned around slowly. “And that someone is still in this room!”

The crew member banged on the door again. “I heard shouting. What’s going on in there?”

“Someone’s trying to solve a mystery,” yelled a passenger.

“Jesus! We just derailed! Don’t you people know when to quit!”

Serge paced and scanned faces. “Preston had accumulated quite an impressive list of enemies…”

“You!” he yelled, spinning and pointing at Dee Dee Lowenstein, holding a fruit hat in her lap. “Dozens of people heard you threaten Preston’s life.”

“I didn’t mean it. It was just a stupid banana.”

“You had motive and opportunity. People saw you near Preston when we went in the tunnel…. But you weren’t the only one.” Serge resumed pacing, looking people in the eye. He spun again.

“You’re the one they call Spider! He humiliated you time and time again!…And you, Frankie Chan. He almost got you killed in Bridgeport!”

“But we didn’t murder him!”

Serge nodded thoughtfully. He took a few more steps and stopped in front of the BBB.

“What are you looking at us for?” said Sam.

“You know why. You all know why,” said Serge.

“What are you talking about?”

“The brochure for the mystery train that first got you interested in the trip — the name of one of the celebrity guests caught your attention.”

Teresa nodded. “Ralph Krunkleton. We love his books.”

“That’s what you’d like us to believe,” said Serge, then raised his voice dramatically: “But in fact the person you came to see was not Ralph Krunkleton at all, but Preston Lancaster!”

The women recoiled in their seats.

“Why would we want to see him?” said Maria.

“Because he got all of you pregnant at the University of Florida twenty-five years ago before fleeing to Nevada. Isn’t that true!”

The women were speechless.

“That’s how all of you got together in the first place!” said Serge. “It’s the common factor that explains why a club would consist of such completely different — though unquestionably lovely — personalities.”

“That’s crazy!” scoffed Teresa.

“Is it?” said Serge.

“Where’d you get such a ridiculous idea?” said Rebecca.

“Sam talks in her sleep.”

Four heads turned. “Sam!”

“I didn’t know I talked in my sleep.”

“We never intended to kill him!” said Rebecca. “We were just planning to confront him after all these years and embarrass him publicly. Sam wanted to kick him in the nuts, but that was it! I swear!”

“Maybe that was the plan, but when he picked you for hypnosis volunteers, everything went haywire,” said Serge. “You never expected that, did you? But you had to go through with it or he’d get suspicious. And guess what, Rebecca? He did it to you again! You were fit to be tied when you found out about Brad Pitt!”

“But not mad enough to commit murder!”

Serge walked away from the women, back to the center of the car. “So we have a whole roomful of people who had a bone to pick with Preston — all with ample opportunity. The question is, which one of you acted on that opportunity?”

A chorus of denials filled the overturned train car.

The train lurched another foot. Everyone shut up and grabbed something for balance. They waited a moment until they were sure it had stopped.

“All your protests will be moot in a few moments,” said Serge. “I have irrefutable proof as to the identity of the killer.”

Heads looked back and forth; suspicion everywhere. Serge walked to one of the passengers with a camcorder, the same one who had taped the hypnosis show with the BBB.

“May I?” asked Serge.

The man handed over the videocamera.

“You were filming when we went into the tunnel, is that not true?”

“Yes, but I wasn’t filming Preston — I was shooting out the window at the two guys on horseback. Besides, it was completely dark in the tunnel.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Serge. “All we need is sound.”

Serge rewound the tape, turned up the volume and hit play. Everyone crowded around and watched the tiny screen.

“Here they come,” said Serge, the Russian and the Jamaican approaching the train on the monitor. “And here’s where they jump to the train…and now the critical part…”

Serge turned the volume way up. “Listen carefully.”

Nobody made a sound; the screen went black.

“…Hic… hic… hic…(Thud).”

Serge turned off the camcorder. “And there you have it!”

Everyone looked puzzled. “There we have what?” said Spider.

“The identity of the killer,” said Serge. “My guess is someone planted a hypnotic suggestion to get rid of his hiccups. He was probably given instructions for his soul to leave his body and take the hiccups with him. He had a heart attack, just like in 1894, when that hypnotist accidentally killed his assistant onstage the same way.”

“That’s right,” said Frankie Chan. “Preston talked about that case all the time back in Reno. He swore it was true.”

Serge addressed the whole car: “Find the person who hypnotized Preston to get rid of his hiccups, and you’ve got your killer.”

“But that was you,” said Frankie. “I heard you. I was sitting right there.”

“I guess that settles it,” said Serge. “It was me.”

“Bullshit,” said Andy. “You can’t hypnotize someone to death!”

“I also sort of broke his neck, just to be careful,” said Serge. “But I’m sure it was the hypnosis. I’m getting pretty good at it.”

The BBB stared at him in disbelief. “But why?” asked Sam.

“Because of what he did to all of you. He was an embarrassment to my gender.”

The train lurched a final time, sliding the last twenty feet into the shallow swamp, tumbling everyone and rupturing a hole in the side of the car. Serge went headfirst into the wall. The BBB ran to help him up.

“Serge, are you okay?” asked Sam.

“Who?”

“Serge. That’s your name.”

“I don’t know any Serge.”

They began to hear helicopters.

“Look at that knot on his forehead,” said Teresa. “He really conked himself.”

“Serge,” said Sam. “Do you know who I am?”

Serge stood up and shook his head.

“We better get that looked at,” said Maria.

“You must have the wrong person,” said Serge.

The helicopters got louder and louder. Then thuds on the top of the car as a National Guard rescue team rappelled down.

Voices outside. “Hold on! We’ll have you out in a second.”

Rebecca touched Serge’s arm. “You need to sit down.”

“Really, you’ve got me mixed up with someone else,” said Serge, warily backing away from the women. “It’s been nice talking to you, but I have to be going.” And with that, Serge jumped through the ruptured side of the dining car.

“Serge!”

But Serge kept going, deeper and deeper into the swamp.

EPILOGUE

A Greyhound bus cruised down the Florida Keys on a perfect cloudless day. The ride was comfortable on the Overseas Highway. The bus had plenty of air-conditioning, the tinted windows kept out the heat and bright light, and the insulated diesel provided a soothing, rhythmic amniotic hum.

The wino thought the passenger sitting next to him was nice enough, but he sure was different, even by wino standards.

Click, click, click, click.

The passenger lowered his camera from the window. “Excellent day for photography. The polarized filter is giving me killer stuff.”

The wino offered a bottle. “Night Train?”

“No, thanks…. Hey! There’s the Grassy Key Dairy Bar!” The passenger raised his camera again. Click, click, click, click, click. He lowered it. “The Overseas Railroad has been gone many a year, but the concrete arches remain. You can see them at Long Key and elsewhere, still going strong after a century of Florida hurricanes, outliving the critics and their worst predictions for Flagler’s Folly. The trains only ran for twenty-three years, from 1912 to 1935, until an unnamed hurricane dropped a curtain on the works. Then they slapped roads down and built new spans to accommodate more lanes. And now, if you book Amtrak to Key West, you have to get off the train in Miami and take a bus the rest of the way. But imagine what it was like for just a brief period in history. You drive a car over the bridges today, and you sit low on wide bridges with tall railings. But back then, you sat high up in the train, perched naked on the narrow rails with nothing on the sides, just a wide-open view of the sea all around. How precarious and exciting it must have been!…Ooooo, there’s the Brass Monkey Lounge!” Click, click, click.

The wino began to stand, but Serge grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back down. “You know, the closest you can get today to that Overseas Railroad experience is what we’re doing right now: riding the Greyhound, way up high, the illusion of no guardrails.” Click, click, click. “Did you know that?”

The wino indicated he hadn’t considered it.

“It’s true,” said Serge. “The place we’re in now is called Marathon. And that’s the Seven-Mile Bridge coming up. The view is spectacular — better than any mind-altering drugs. I should know. They keep trying to get me to take them, but I just tell them, no way José!…”

The wino got up again before Serge could stop him and went up front and told the driver he would like to get off now.

“Hey, where are you going? I didn’t tell you how it got the name Marathon yet!…It’s because of how long it was taking them to build the…oh, well…Alone again, naturally…” Click, click, click.

Hydraulic brakes wheezed as a Greyhound bus pulled into Key West an hour before sunset, the fading orange light glancing off the silver frame. Passengers carried battered luggage and cardboard boxes into the station. The driver thought the bus was empty until he noticed one last passenger sitting in back, not moving.

The driver walked toward the rear of the bus and looked the man over with concern. The passenger’s eyes were unfocused, staring.

“Hey, buddy. You okay?”

Serge nodded.

“We’re here. We made it to Key West.”

“I know,” said Serge. “I can hear the children, but I can’t see them.”

“Will you get off my bus, already?”

Six months later.

A red Jaguar convertible pulled up the drive of the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. A valet in white shorts ran around to the driver’s side and opened the door for Samantha Bridges.

A red BMW convertible pulled up behind the Jag; Teresa Wellcraft got out. Then a red Mercedes convertible, a red Audi and a red 1962 Corvette. Rebecca Shoals, Maria Conchita and Paige Turner.

The women hugged on the steps of the Mediterranean resort before crossing the lobby for the courtyard.

They set five books on the table and pulled out chairs. Meeting time.

The waiter arrived.

“Strawberry coladas,” said Sam. “Five.”

“Diplomatico rum,” said Maria.

The waiter nodded and left.

Sam patted the cover of her new hardcover. “Did everyone finish it?”

“Imagine that,” said Teresa. “Sam’s a Krunkleton fan.”

“Of course I am. He put us all in the book.”

“I think it’s his best yet,” said Maria.

So did the critics, and Ralph Krunkleton’s career had rocketed into mediocrity with the release of Blender Bender. Ralph turned Sam’s character into an undercover OSS agent, judo-chopping her way through a human jungle of deadly narco-criminals and ex-husbands. Paige became a plucky crusader against the bloody ivory trade in West Africa who is marked for death and overcomes the odds with an unwavering moral code and trusty machine gun. Maria and Teresa teamed up to run a prestigious New York fashion house until their top designer is snuffed by the mob, and they go on a merciless rampage of vengeance and cleavage. Rebecca became a nun with attitude, who finds no sin in hair that holds up under all conditions. Ralph even created cameos for Dee Dee Lowenstein and the other performers from the train, which Tanner Lebos was able to parlay into small but crucial roles in Police Academy Eight and Nine.

The five women all stopped for a long moment and looked at each other with knowing smiles, all sitting there in thousand-dollar sundresses.

“Has it sunk in yet?” asked Teresa.

“Not remotely,” said Maria. “I’m still walking on air.”

“It’s like I’m permanently trapped in the moment I opened my suitcase,” said Paige. “A million dollars takes up a lot less room than I would have thought.”

“I remember every second, every detail,” said Maria. “We’re all standing there looking in Paige’s suitcase, thinking, what the heck is going on? That can’t be real money.”

“Then Sam opened her suitcase…”

“No, Teresa opened hers next,” corrected Maria. “I told you, I remember every single detail. The National Guard rescued us, Amtrak put us up in suites at the Hilton, and there we were in the room, Paige’s open suitcase full of money, nobody breathing, so Teresa opened hers. When we saw the second million dollars, the rest of us literally dove for our own suitcases…”

“…every one full of money,” said Rebecca. “And then we all looked at each other and said it at the same time: ‘Serge!’ ”

“I still can’t believe we’re being allowed to keep it,” said Paige.

“Believe it,” said Sam. “We paid that lawyer enough. We paid everyone enough.”

“What a country,” said Rebecca. “You can buy anything.”

“You sure we don’t have anything to worry about?” said Maria. “I’m still expecting a knock at my door.”

“I told you, it’s all a matter of knowing which lawyers are wired in with the current administration,” Sam explained. “Our attorney knows the Washington attorney who had lunch with the IRS attorney…”

“What on earth did he tell him?”

“The truth,” said Sam. “That he was representing a Florida attorney who was representing an offshore corporation — remember? The company they set up for us? — and the attorney says the corporation tripped over five million dollars of drug money but had nothing to do with any of the crimes connected to it.”

“And they gave us immunity just like that?”

“No, they turned it down,” said Sam. “That’s when the IRS started getting calls from the staff of congressmen sitting on their budget committee. The ones we contributed to.”

“But what about those drug guys? Won’t they come looking for it?”

“They think it floated away. Everyone on that train thinks it floated away.”

“But if we have the money, what blew into the river?”

“We can thank Ralph Krunkleton for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You remember how everyone in The Stingray Shuffle was chasing five million bucks?”

“Yeah?”

“And you remember how Ralph’s agent brought a briefcase on the train full of scripts and props to act out the book, toy guns and knives…and play money…”

“Play money blew into the river?”

“It’s the only answer.”

The drinks arrived, and Sam proposed a toast. “To Serge, wherever he is.”

The women clinked glasses.

“To Serge…”

A twenty-eight-foot trimaran tacked across the Gulf Stream below the Bahia Honda Bridge in the Florida Keys.

“Hey, Johnny,” said Sasha, an alternate Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader and first-string dope date. “Let’s go to Key Lois.”

Johnny Vegas was a member of the all-virility team, wearing an America’s Cup rip-stop nylon yachting jacket, his black Vidal Sassoon mane snapping in the wind. He stood at the helm, turning the large chrome wheel with panache.

“But baby, Key Lois is off limits,” he said. “It’s federal law.”

“I know,” she purred. “It’ll be deserted.” She came up from behind, sliding her left hand up between his legs. Johnny reacted nonchalantly by losing sensation in both arms and letting go of the wheel. The main boom whipped over their heads and the sailboat momentarily pitched up on its port hull before Johnny grabbed the spinning helm and straightened her out.

“It’s right over there,” said Sasha, pointing at the low profile of a mangrove island on the horizon.

Johnny set his course for Key Lois, a mile south of Cudjoe Key and twenty miles east of Key West. He approached from the leeward side to make harbor and showcased his seamanship by gently rupturing the center hull on the rocky beach.

“Where’s your coke?”

“Right here.”

“Dump it out.”

He did. She vacuumed.

“Weeeeeeee!” squealed Sasha, hopping over the side and running down the beach ripping off her bikini. “Let’s go see the monkeys!”

Johnny was close behind but losing ground, trying to run with his trunks around his knees.

The monkeys Sasha had mentioned were the reason Key Lois was off limits. Charles River Laboratories of Massachusetts, a subsidiary of Bausch & Lomb, uses the island to breed rhesus monkeys for scientific experiments. And breed they do.

But Johnny didn’t see a single monkey as he wiggled his swim trunks down to his ankles and flicked them aside with his left foot. He caught up with Sasha near the breakers.

“Where’s your cocaine?”

Yes! She wants a little nitro to get her engine primed, then it’s off to the races! Johnny ran back and got the swim trunks he had kicked off. He returned and pulled a watertight capsule from a Velcro pocket.

“Gimme that!” She snatched it out of his hands and stuck it up her nose until it was empty.

Her eyes glassed over, and her lower lip jutted and tremored with predatory sensuality. Show time, thought Johnny. But instead of making her amorous, it only made her want to look for monkeys.

“Here, monkey, monkey…”

Johnny followed her all the way around the island, four miles total, but no monkeys. They splashed out into a few inches of water to skirt the last outcropping of mangroves before returning to the sailboat. Johnny felt a hand on his thigh. The silly dust had kicked in. Sasha put her mouth to his ear and whispered in a husky voice: “I love seafaring men. Let’s fuck in the boat… I feel a big blow’s acomin’.”

Johnny developed a certain carefree spring in his step as they held hands and skipped merrily through the shallow water. They rounded the mangrove bend, and there was the boat.

Sasha screamed. Johnny gasped.

The trimaran — what was left of it — was covered with monkeys. Hundreds of chattering, swinging, shitting monkeys, ripping up the sails, tearing the stuffing out of life preservers, ransacking the galley. The monkeys cavorted across the stern and hung by their tails from the cabin railing. A dozen monkeys armed with marlinespikes and galley utensils jumped onto the beach and charged. Sasha screamed and took off in the opposite direction. The monkeys ran past Johnny and chased Sasha back around the bend. Johnny fell to his knees in the water. “Why me?…”

When he finally looked up again, he saw something he would never forget as long as he lived. It was a fleeting but searing image, like a Loch Ness sighting.

What he saw was a wiry man in a royal blue astronaut jumpsuit. The man stood atop the sailboat’s cabin, arms akimbo, a monkey on each shoulder and more monkeys clustered around his feet in loyalty and affection. Then the man jumped down off the boat and disappeared into the mangrove thicket, and the hundreds of monkeys followed.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Gratitude is due once again to my agent, Nat Sobel, and my editor, Henry Ferris, for throwing friendship in with the bargain.

About the Author

Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999 and is the author of the novels Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, and the upcoming Cadillac Beach. He lives in Tampa, Florida. Visit his website at www.timdorsey.com

Also by Tim Dorsey

FLORIDA ROADKILL

HAMMERHEAD RANCH MOTEL

ORANGE CRUSH

TRIGGERFISH TWIST