Torpedo Juice

Part Two

5

Inside the No Name Pub

THE GANG HUNKERED atop tall stools. A stuffed bear in a Harley T-shirt hung from the ceiling. The bartender leaned across the counter toward Serge. She was flirting. “Ready for another?”

Sop Choppy drained a draft. “What was the deal with that guitar?”

“I’m reinventing myself.” Serge twisted the cap off a bottle of water. “Music was just a blind alley.”

A Jeep Grand Cherokee pulled up. College students came through the screen door. “We found it!” They grabbed a table in the middle of the room and began scribbling on dollar bills. “Bartender! Stapler!”

“Why reinvent yourself?” asked Sop Choppy.

“The trick to respect in this life is a robust turnover in acquaintances,” said Serge. “The Keys are the perfect place to hole up and create a new mystique.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because nobody down here is who they seem to be.”

“Nobody?”

A limo pulled up. Gaskin Fussels burst through the screen door. “Let the party begin!”

Sop Choppy’s head sagged. “Not that asshole again.”

“Did you say something?” asked Serge. He was rotating on his stool like radar, absorbing the contents of the pub, which originally opened as a pioneer trading post, complete with upstairs brothel. A living treasure chest of footnotes and contradictions. The No Name Pub is actually named after something: No Name Key, a remote island not yet touched by public utilities, where modern homesteaders rough it out with cisterns, solar panels and generators. Except the pub isn’t on No Name Key; it’s across the bridge on Big Pine, way, way back in the sticks, hidden by lush vegetation, possibly the worst retail location in all the Keys. That’s why it was so popular. The pub had two main advertising points: great pizza. And you can’t find the pub.

Serge continued revolving and smiling. The interior was intimate and dark, the decor busy. Old life preserver, mounted deer head, street signs, license plates, framed photos, newspaper clippings, Midwest police patches. And dollar bills. Thousands. Inscribed by tourists. “Made it from Colt’s Neck, N.J.! Suzie.” The walls had long since been covered, and now hundreds of newer bills hung stapled to the ceiling by their ends, fluttering down in the breeze from the screen door and giving the already cave-like room the additional impression of bats. The bartop also met Serge’s approval, etched and worn from decades of rough living and ribald stories. If it was a person, it would be Keith Richards. Serge absolutely loved the No Name! He fidgeted and hopped off his stool. “I have to get the hell out of here.”

“See ya, Serge.”

The screen door slammed. Serge hoisted his knapsack and began walking up the street toward the water. It was an isolated stretch of road surrounded by unforgiving nature. Scorching, bright and still except for the electric buzz of crickets. Serge’s senses were keen, outlook superpositive. This was his favorite place on earth. He told himself to slow down to appreciate the moment, and he started walking faster to appreciate it sooner…. Photos. I need photos!

Serge set his knapsack on the ground and retrieved camera gear. He began walking briskly again, one eye closed, viewing the world through a zoom lens. Click, click, click…

A photo of each living thing he saw. “All life is sacred, even algae…. Oooh, nice flowers, pine hyacinth, turk’s cap…” Click, click, moving on to the insect family. “…Wood tick, spiny orb weaver…” Click, click. He noticed movement below on the street. “I’m in luck! A ghost crab!”

The crab skittered sideways across the pavement. Serge got down in a baseball catcher’s crouch with his camera, sidestepping with it. A pickup truck flew by. “Get out of the fuckin’ road, you imbecile!”

Serge kept his eye to the viewfinder. “Another soul out of tune with the life force.”

The crab stopped. Serge lowered himself with stealth until he was belly-flat on the road, aiming the camera like a sniper.

“Photography teaches me to be observant,” said Serge. “Discipline. Becoming one with the environment so I don’t miss even the smallest detail.”

A skunk ape crossed the road behind him.

Click. “Got it!” He stood and continued on. Trees gave way to scrub, the sky got big, water up ahead, sagging power lines and crooked palms. A loose parade of cotton-clouds drifting north, and Serge free-associated on their shapes: “Elephant, giraffe, Snoopy, Elvis, the Baltic states, chain of mitochondric enzyme inhibitors, a Faustian choice…” Standing against it all was a solitary old clapboard building at the foot of the Bogie Channel Bridge. White paint and white metal storm awnings. Behind it sat the dock, a neat row of identical rental boats and an aboveground fuel tank with a big red Texaco star on the side. Serge walked past a sign:

OLD WOODEN BRIDGE FISHING CAMP

EFFICIENCY COTTAGES

BEER • TACKLE • BAIT

He reached the building.

Ting-a-ling. The woman behind the counter looked up. She had a tank top, ponytail and a local’s tan. “Hi, Serge…” She raised a hand in front of her face. “Don’t take my picture again!”

“You’re a living thing.” Click.

The woman finished unpacking a UPS box of spoon-lures and reached for a hook on the door under the number five. “Your regular room?”

“Thanks, Julie…. Ooooo, new fishing caps!” He grabbed one off a shelf and studied the front. “Embroidered establishment name and dateline. That means I’m not allowed to leave without it.”

She rang the register. “Anything else?”

“New T-shirts, too!” He held one up to his chest. “And hand-painted postcards. Gimme ten of each.”

“Who do you send all your cards to?”

“Me.” Serge inspected a nearly empty pegboard of Instamatic film and individual packets of Bayer aspirin. The Coca-Cola snack-bar menu board indicated Fruitopia was now in stock and pinfish were going for a buck apiece. Julie punched buttons on an accounting calculator. Serge spun a rack of sunglasses. “They shot the movie Tollbooth here.”

“You told me.”

“When?”

“Last six times you stayed.”

Serge picked up a pot of complimentary coffee, smelled it and made a face. “It’s a B movie, but it beats trench mouth. They chopped up a guy and stuck him in your bait freezer over there.” Serge replaced the coffee beneath a mishmash of sun-faded photos covering the wall. People holding up bull dolphin and tarpon and snook. Bikinis, lobsters, smiles. Somebody’s dog was wearing a bandanna.

The back door opened. A man came in from the dock, sunglasses hanging from a lanyard around his neck. “Hi, Serge.”

“Hi, Mark.” Click.

“Anything going on?” asked Julie.

“One of the rental boats came back trashed again.”

“Which one?”

“Number seven, the businessmen.” He turned to Serge. “Guys from the Pacific rim, don’t know what nationality. Every morning this week they come in and buy twice as much bait as anyone needs and take a boat out all day.”

“Catching anything?”

“Apparently. Each time they come back, the deck is a bloody mess from bow to stern, but they never bring any fish to the dock. We just find all these skeletons in the bilge.”

“They’re eating raw fish out there?”

Mark nodded.

“What about the extra bait?”

“I think they’re eating that, too.” Mark snatched a compact yellow walkie-talkie off his belt. “Jim, hose out number seven…. That’s right, again.” He clipped the Motorola back on his shorts. “Staying in number five?”

“You know it.” Serge adjusted the band of his new cap and left through the rear door. He walked along the dock, where someone was flushing out a boat with a garden hose, pushing squid tentacles and loose suckers along the deck.

“Noble work.”

“What?”

Serge headed across the parking lot. He stopped and raised his camera. A row of tiny, white cottages from the forties. Picnic table in front of each.

The two proprietors were outside, trying to straighten a signpost someone had hit.

“Who’s he talking to?” asked Mark.

“Himself,” said Julie.

“…Ah, the Old Wooden Bridge Fishing Camp!” said Serge. “Last vestige of the early days, when rustic compounds defined the archipelago, vernacular gems with wraparound verandas and plantation fans, Zane Grey lounging in coconut shade, polishing dispatches on pompano for northern intelligentsia. Then the march of progress, coming ashore like Godzilla, smashing the historic fish camps like balsa-wood pagodas…”

“Why is he stomping around the parking lot like that?” asked Mark.

Julie shrugged.

“…Now they’re all memories. Even the old wooden bridge itself is gone, replaced by concrete. But at least the camp is still here….”

“What’s he doing now?” asked Mark.

“Kissing cottage number five.”

Serge stuck the key in the knob, went inside and double-bolted the door. Safe and snug. His own space capsule. Microwave, coffeemaker, fridge, stove, dark paneling and a dark-wood kitchen table bought at some place with a name like “The Wagon Wheel.” There was a single small painting on the wall of a lionfish made with the bold, instinctive brush strokes of a state prison art class. Then more impressionism, a clashing 1963 avocado sofa covered with sunflowers, marigolds and violets like Van Gogh’s bitter, less-talented half-brother worked in upholstery. Serge jammed the window AC unit up all the way, closed his eyes and stuck his face in the freezing vent. Good ol’ number five.

It was a busy hour. Serge scurried around the cabin, stowing all his paraphernalia in The Special Places. Finally, he was done, the cottage in perfect order. Serge unfolded a scrap of paper from his pocket and committed a task list to memory. He ran out the door, cutting between other units. There were no fences, just one big feral lawn with pockets of standing water that connected all the cottages and homes behind the camp like an abandoned par-three golf course. Serge ran past a car parked behind cottage number three, which he couldn’t tell was a metallic green Trans Am because it was hidden under a tarp.

The curtains parted a slit on a back window of number three. Eyes watched Serge jog across the grass and disappear up the road. The curtains closed. The petite woman went back to the couch and sat bolt upright at the very edge. Full ashtray, nearly empty bottle of vodka, baggy eyes. She stared at the cell phone on the coffee table and was frustrated she didn’t feel the least bit drunk. Adrenaline.

Her name was Anna Sebring. She’d been up most of the night, glands on battle stations, constantly peeking out the curtains for a white Mercedes with tinted windows. Then back to the windows again at every random sound. Toads, raccoons rattling garbage cans, dragonflies bumping into porch lights, the people four cottages up with their midnight fish fry and campfire songs. That was the problem hiding out at the Old Wooden Bridge. It was so quiet it was noisy.

A tap on the window.

Anna screamed and found herself standing on the couch.

Another tap. At least it wasn’t gunfire or someone kicking in the door. And what if it was him? But how did he find her? The car?

Tap.

Anna slowly lowered a leg off the sofa. She made it to the window and parted the curtains….

Her heart seized. Face to face. The beady eyes and narrow beak of the great white heron that the previous tenants had been feeding. Dinnertime. Tap.

In the background, fishermen returned to the dock, and two guys carried a green kayak over their heads.

Anna closed the curtains. “Get a grip!”

She returned to the couch and drank the end of the vodka. She stared again at the silent cell phone on the coffee table. A fast pulse throbbed in her forehead, which was running a horrible, round-the-clock slide show. Always blood.

Anna didn’t want to turn on the TV in case it blocked out a warning sound. But this was getting ridiculous. She needed distraction.

Anna picked up the remote control and pointed it at the TV. She paused a moment and studied her own reflection in the black picture tube. She clicked the power button and was then looking at a photo of herself on the local news. The remote crashed to the floor; batteries rolled under the couch.

The multiple killings were all over TV, and now her photo, asking the public’s help. The picture switched to a live shot, rows of evenly spaced volunteers combing a field for her body. Anna curled up on the couch and pulled her knees tight to her body.

The cell phone rang.

Her head snapped toward the sound, and she curled tighter. Three rings. Answer it! Her body wouldn’t respond. It was like she was floating somewhere near the ceiling. Five rings. Pick it up! Seven rings, eight… She saw one of her arms reach for the coffee table.

“Hello?…”

Sunset, cottage number five

SERGE OPENED A thick, leather-bound book in his lap, the journal he wrote in at the end of each day. He tapped his chin with a pen and stared out the window at the fading light over Bogie Channel. He hunched over and started writing:

Captain Florida’s log, star date 764.354

Another night of vivid dreams. Found myself in Key West a hundred years ago when the lawless streets were filled with bloodthirsty smugglers and wreck-salvagers. Except for some reason I had a plasma gun, which gave me the edge. Basis for hit TV series? Which started me thinking: How the early pioneers must have lived! By the late 1800s, Key West had run out of fuel sources. So people on the other islands built giant, ten-foot-tall earthen kilns to make charcoal that they shipped down on boats for barter. Which brings us to what I did today: The Great Serge Kiln Project! It was a daunting task, but the payoff would be immense in spiritual terms. Then I got to thinking: Hey, this could also make some real money. Remember natural sponges? Sell bags of the shit all over the place. “Historic Keys Charcoal.” Completely change the way people cook out, make a ransom by mass producing the un-mass-produced simpler life like Ben and Jerry. I have to admit, it was getting pretty exciting! I walked over to No Name Key and found a perfect clearing in the woods. There was much to do. Prepare the site, gather the right wood, assemble a domed superstructure, pack it with mud, then diligently tend the fire for at least a week, narrowing and expanding the chimney so the charcoaling process doesn’t overheat or extinguish. And I’m standing there, staring at the ground, and I think: That’s way too much fucking work. So I drive to the convenience store for some briquettes. And on the way in I pass the Dumpster, and there’s that smell again. You know, the

Dumpster

smell. They all smell the same. Convenience store, Bloomingdale’s, third-world deli, doesn’t matter, exact same odor, like there’s a Dumpster molecule we have yet to isolate, and when we do, we’ll be able to neutralize it. No more smell for the customers. Boom! Business skyrockets! Another big moneymaking idea! But does the guy behind the register at Circle K listen? He just wants me to get out of the way so the line can move. I tell him it’s that kind of parochial thinking that’s keeping him behind that counter, and then the conversation wanders again into nastiness. But it’s no surprise; lost people everywhere and none of them accepting my free maps. Then I realize something else. Fish have eyes on the sides of their heads. How do they focus? Do they get a split screen? Is this what’s holding them back?

Serge took a deep, satisfied breath and slowly closed his journal. He gazed out the window at the soothing waters. “Can you feel it? Peace and solitude, nothing but tranquility in every direction.” He nodded to himself. “Sometimes it’s good to be alone with your thoughts.”

He smiled and sat perfectly still. He jumped up and ran out the door.

6

THE NO NAME Pub’s screen door flew open.

“Serge! You’re back!”

Serge joined them at the bar. He sat next to one of his favorite regulars. A sensitive but self-destructive journalist named Bud Naranja, who first came to the Keys after being fired from a South Florida newspaper for writing a caption on a hurricane aftermath photo of a looter running down the street with a shopping cart. Except it was a bank president delivering relief supplies — and a major advertiser. Guards hovered over Bud in front of the whole newsroom as he packed belongings in a cardboard box and cut his giant, inflatable “news flamingo” down from the ceiling. Didn’t even go back to his apartment, just climbed in a 200,000-mile Toyota and began driving with no purpose but an earnest devotion to the principle: How can I make this worse? He headed south until he ran out of land and kept going. The Toyota started smoking on Crawl Key, and Bud had to drive across the Seven-Mile Bridge with his head out the window. The engine finally took pity and threw a rod on Big Pine, and he caught a ride with a local housepainter in splattered overalls on his way out to the No Name Pub, where Bud got drunk and slept in the woods behind the building and never went back. Decided to stay and reinvent himself. He reinvented himself as a fired journalist for a Key West newspaper who now did occasional freelance for a variety of free weekly shoppers distributed throughout the islands.

“Bud, what’s the matter?” asked Serge. “You look like someone died.”

Bud pointed at the TV. “Have you been following the airbag murder case in Miami?”

“No.”

“How could you miss it?” said Sop Choppy. “It’s been all over TV for weeks. It’s a big story.”

“So I missed it. I’ve been on the road. What’s the deal?”

“These mechanics reconditioned deployed airbags by filling them with sand to save money,” said Bud.

“What’s wrong with people?” said Sop Choppy. “How low does the bar get?”

“Not this jerk again,” said Bob, gesturing at the local TV newscast, which had switched to a regular investigative segment called “Consumer Bloodhound.” “I don’t know who’s worse, the scam artists they report on or the obnoxious reporter who chases them across parking lots and shouts questions at slammed doors.”

They stopped and listened to the story about a contractor in Fort Lauderdale who tells people they need whole new roofs when they don’t.

“I know that scam,” said Sop Choppy. “Used to work construction. It’s so common in Florida it’s a cliché. They go up on top of your house and find rust on shingle nails and say everything’s about to cave in. But it’s so humid down here you can find nail rust in the finest roofs.”

Next on the tube: Wall Street Update and the latest accounting irregularities at embattled Global-Con.

“Global-Con!” said Sop Choppy. “Don’t get me started! Why doesn’t anybody do anything?”

“A bunch of shareholders have sued,” said Bob the accountant. “But no criminal indictments, probably never, because of campaign donations.”

“I read in the papers where he’s moving down here,” said Bud. “Started building a giant mansion in Marathon.”

“Who?” asked Sop Choppy.

“The Global-Con guy. What’s his name?”

“You don’t mean Donald Greely,” said Serge.

Bud nodded.

“There goes the neighborhood.”

“But how’s that possible?” asked Sop Choppy. “I thought the courts froze his assets after the lawsuits.”

“They did,” said Bob. “But he’d already homesteaded and sheltered twenty million in construction under Florida’s no-forfeiture law. It’s the first thing they teach in accounting school.”

“That’s typical,” said the biker. “They seized my hog last year for one stinkin’ joint in the saddlebag. Then this guy steals all those retirement accounts and there’s a law protecting him?”

Jerry the bartender came over. Jerry was even more sensitive than Bud. He was naturally likable, with a chronic insecurity about being liked that got on everyone’s nerves.

“What are you guys talking about?” asked Jerry, tipping a draft handle.

“The stock market.”

“That’s a good subject.”

Serge looked at his watch. “How long have I been sitting here?”

“You just arrived,” said Bud.

Serge hopped off his stool. “I gotta move around.”

Serge was a wall-looker. Restaurant, hotel, bar, whatever — had to case the whole interior for history. Plaques and photos and clippings and stuff. He could get hung up for hours in the No Name with all the dollar bills. Serge had been coming here for years and was still only a quarter way through. He resumed where he’d left off last time behind the pool table. “The Brennans were here 11-12-02,” “Tami, Dansville Mich., Try God.” A red maple leaf drawn over George Washington’s face: “Canadian and Proud!” Without looking, Serge reached over to set his bottle of water down. There was nothing to set it on. He turned and waved his hand through an empty space of air. “Hey, Joe…” — Joe was the owner — “didn’t there used to be a cigarette machine?”

“Had to take it out,” said Joe, writing in a book of receipts behind the bar. “Always full of dollars torn off the wall. Betty and John’s Excellent Honeymoon. What’s wrong with people?”

“The common good,” said Serge. “It’s not hip.”

Joe nodded politely and returned to his paperwork. He liked Serge, despite everything. Besides, Joe was a fellow history buff. He had purchased Captain Tony’s Saloon in Key West, then the No Name, more out of preservation than business.

“Can you take me upstairs?” asked Serge.

Joe added a column of figures. “I’m busy.”

“I want to see the brothel.”

“It’s not a brothel anymore.”

“I’ll use my imagination.”

“Later.”

Serge pointed up at the ceiling. “Is it true you have the fifty-caliber deck gun from Captain Tony’s boat up there? Back when he made midnight runs to Cuba for the CIA?”

Joe nodded.

“Can I see it? I won’t touch. Okay, maybe I will. Sometimes I can’t help myself, so no guarantees.”

Joe exhaled in exasperation and started adding the numbers again from the beginning.

“If you won’t take me upstairs, can you go get Captain Tony?” said Serge. “Everyone’s met him but me. You promised.”

“He’s probably doing something.”

“But Tony’s the last living link to the Old Days. I have to meet him before it’s too late!”

“Serge, he has a life. He’s not some antique car I can just roll out of the garage whenever I feel like it.”

Serge stared at Joe a moment. “Then can we go upstairs?”

Joe took his work into the back room. Serge resumed his circuit around the pub. More dollar bills, then a bulletin board. Church raffle, baby shower on Guava Lane, missing person last seen walking down a deserted road on No Name Key at three A.M. Serge came to a Xerox of a meeting notice. Paradise Obsessive-Compulsive Association. There were a bunch of little tabs with phone numbers at the bottom of the sheet. He tore one off. The tear did not make a straight line. So he tore off another.

Jerry the bartender walked up. “Serge…”

“Hey, Jerry.”

“Can I ask a question?”

“Sure. What is it?”

Jerry looked around, then lowered his voice. “Do people like me?”

THE FLORIDA KEYS are home to the largest per-capita concentration of twelve-step programs in the nation. Some of the support groups meet at the municipal building on Sugarloaf Key, next to the fire station. The building has a long hallway of low-bid, peel-and-stick tiles.

The third room on the left was full of teens in defiant slouches. A court-ordered early-intervention program for at-risk youth arrested on petty charges. Two older men in sheriff’s uniforms stood at the front of the room. Both were out of shape, but one more so. He held up a hand-rolled cigarette.

“This is marijuana….”

The kids: “Oooooooooooooo.”

Gus set the joint on a table up front. “It is what is known as a gateway drug….”

A teen raised his hand. “Where’d you get that?”

“Evidence. After a trial.”

“Weren’t you supposed to destroy it?”

“We did. But sometimes we save a little for training purposes.”

“That’s against the law.”

“No it isn’t.”

“Do you have a court order?” asked the youth.

“What?”

“I’m going to be a lawyer. There are very strict condemnation procedures for scheduled substances. Outside of that, only a few high-security federal research facilities are allowed to keep pot. Right now you’re guilty of possession.”

“And showing it to minors,” said a girl chewing gum.

“This is just a class,” said Gus. “If you’d all be quiet, we can wrap this up and go home—”

“You told us that possession of even a small amount of pot is a serious offense.”

Another boy in baggy jeans pointed at a phone number on the blackboard. “Maybe we should call the anonymous tip line.”

Gus turned to his colleague. “Walter, help me here.”

Walter shrugged. “I’ve never seen the guidelines. Maybe he’s right.”

“Thanks, Walter.”

A banging came through the wall from the next room. All the kids were talking now.

“Everyone, please be quiet!” said Gus. “We’re here because we care what happens to you. Drugs aren’t healthy….”

A hand went up. “I saw on TV where obesity is a leading killer. You might consider a diet.”

Another hand. “How are you supposed to catch anybody? I’ll bet you can’t get over a fence.”

Gus was red-faced and speechless.

The gum-chewing girl raised her hand. “I heard your nickname is Serpico.”

“What?” said Gus.

“Serpico. Is it true?”

“I don’t know,” said Gus. “I guess some of the guys call me that sometimes.”

The girl raised her hand again. “Is that, like, some kind of joke?”

Gus’s eyes narrowed. Why, you little shits.

More banging came through the wall.

The next room: Serge sat in the back row with folded arms. A gavel continued banging on the front table. Serge was beginning to wonder if he’d made a mistake. He’d never seen so much unconnected movement in his life, all these nervous rituals and spastic noises. Then the moderator had to bang his gavel again every few minutes to restore order before the next introduction. “Hi, I’m Sam.” “Hi, Sam.” And more ridiculous stories. Have to keep dusting the house. Have to keep making sure the doors are locked. One person couldn’t stop washing his hands, one dreaded contact with faucets, and another had both problems and just stood at sinks a long time. Serge wasn’t one to judge, but what a pack of loons!

The gavel banged again. It was Serge’s turn. Everyone was staring at him. Serge didn’t want to go.

“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said the moderator.

“I’m not sure I’m in the right place,” said Serge.

“You’re among friends.”

Serge looked around at all the tense, panicky faces staring back at him. Sheesh.

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Serge, look—”

“Hi, Serge!”

Serge checked his watch. “I’m missing Space Ghost.” He reluctantly walked to the front of the room.

“What seems to be your problem, Serge?”

“Nothing.”

“Take your time. And remember, anything you say here is privileged.”

Someone kept scooting his chair back and forth. The gavel banged three times.

“Will you stop with the gavel?” said Serge.

Someone turned the lights off, then on, then off. The gavel banged three more times. The lights came back on. Serge was at the breaking point. What a crazy meeting! Actually, it was two meetings. They were in one of those double rooms with a sliding accordion divider in case a large group needed the extra space. Another meeting was under way on the other side. Someone kept opening and closing the divider. Serge caught glimpses of glazed adults in a variety of robes and talismans. The Lower Keys Chapter of People Susceptible to Joining Cults. The members attended religiously. The moderator was trying to get them to stop coming. The divider closed.

The first moderator politely touched Serge’s arm. “Everyone here is on your side.” Then he touched his arm two more times. Serge jerked away. “You’re creeping me out!”

The divider opened. A man stood at the front of the other meeting wearing a bishop’s mitre with the insignia of every ship in the star fleet. The divider closed. The gavel banged three times. Serge grabbed his head with both hands. “What the hell is wrong with you people!”

“Serge, please…”

“I will not ‘please’! All I’ve heard since I’ve been here is a bunch of whining. ‘I’m so messed up.’ ‘I need help.’ Guess what? The world’s messed up! Deal with it!”

“Could you lower your voice?”

“Dammit!” said Serge. “I thought this was going to be some kind of cool club. Like Mensa. Special crafts and hobbies, take field trips, maybe pool our awesome powers for a shot at the Guinness book. Instead, all I hear is complaints!…” Chair scooted; people made crackling sounds with fingers, necks and jaws.

The gavel banged three times. “Quiet!”

Serge snatched the gavel away and banged it at the moderator. “No, you be quiet!”

The moderator picked up the gavel. “You have to bang it three times” — bang, bang, bang — “then set it on its special presentation stand, perfectly straight, equidistant from the four edges.”

Serge picked up the gavel, snapped it in half and threw the pieces down. “There. You’re fuckin’ cured.”

The moderator made a sucking scream. He fell sobbing into his chair with the two pieces, desperately trying to fit them together.

Serge faced the room. “Don’t you understand? The answer is inside each of you! Don’t follow anyone else! Be your own leader! Lead yourselves!”

The divider was open. The moderator on the other side had lost his audience. They were listening to Serge.

The lights went off, on, off.

“That’s it! I’m history!” Serge stormed from the room.

The hallway was quiet except for Serge’s footsteps. “Unbelievable.” He glanced in the window of the next door. A deputy was at the front table. “Please! I’m begging you!…” Serge kept walking, other rooms, other agendas. People afraid of closed-in open spaces. People who love too much. People who try to get attention by staging hang-glider accidents. Serge looked in another window, a lone man tapping on a computer: People Afraid to Leave the House, telecommuting to the meeting. The next room, a sign outside: AA.

“At least it’s tradition.”

Serge passed the door and heard giggling. He took another step and stopped. “That laugh… no, it couldn’t be—” He took another step and heard it again.

The AA door creaked open. The laughter grew louder. Serge poked his head inside.

Another gavel was banging, the moderator asking the man in the back row to control himself.

“I’m sorry,” said Coleman, dabbing his eyes. “Just that last story — the image got to me. Guy wakes up naked on the bathroom floor with his glasses in the toilet and a bunch of shit mashed in his hair. I mean, how can you not laugh?”

Stern glares in response.

Coleman swallowed a final giggle. “I’m okay now….”

Serge couldn’t believe his eyes. “Coleman!”

Coleman turned around. “Serge!”

They ran together and hugged. Coleman held Serge out by the arms. “You’ve come back!”

The moderator shhhhh’d everybody: “One of our brothers has come back.”

Serge turned. “What? Oh, no, you’ve got the wrong—”

“What’s your name?”

“It’s Serge,” said Coleman.

“Hi, Serge!”

“Welcome home,” said the moderator.

“I was never a part of your group.”

“We understand. Some of us come for years before we’re ever really a part—”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“We don’t want to rush you. Why don’t you just sit with your friend until you’re ready. He can be your sponsor.”

Serge looked at Coleman a moment, then cracked up.

“He’s hysterical,” said Coleman. “Must be the shock of the return.”

They sat down and whispered.

“I thought you were dead!” said Serge. “I even saw your body. Your face was all shot up!”

“That’s right,” said Coleman. “The face was gone. That’s why police got the wrong ID. It was my perfect chance to go underground. Everyone just assumed because it was my motel room, except it was actually this other dude who was visiting.”

“But I recognized your T-shirt. Save the Bales… the one that was always getting you hassled by the cops.”

“I met this guy at The Slushie Hut on Duval Street, and we started pounding the house special, Torpedo Juice. One part grain alcohol, three parts Red Bull. After a couple of those you’re completely fucked up but on the move. The guy says we should go look for Thai stick. So we roam all over the island and finally meet a connection behind The Green Parrot and give him the money. Then back to my room to wait, which is where the drinks clobbered the guy, and he throws up all over himself, so I lend him my shirt, and then we realize the guy we paid for the dope is taking a really long time, and I head down to the lobby—”

“Stop right there,” said Serge. “This is beginning to sound like some lame soap opera device to bring back a character they regretted killing off.”

“Yeah, but that’s just bad TV writing,” said Coleman. “This is real life.” He patted himself on the chest. “See? I’m actually here.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

The old pals continued catching up in the back of the room, oblivious to the meeting. A guy at the front in a cervical collar explained how he crashed into the DUI checkpoint. Serge and Coleman finally realized that the gavel had been banging for a while. They looked up. Everyone was staring at them. The moderator pointed at Coleman. “Excuse me, but what is that in your hand?”

Coleman looked at the flask. “What? This?”

“Yes, that! Are you drinking in here?”

“Of course,” said Coleman.

“But your recovery?…”

“Recovery?” said Coleman. “I’m here for the stories. This is the funniest shit in town!”

That did it.

The pair stood and headed out of the room. Serge slapped Coleman on the shoulder. “I’m not sure, but I think this is some kind of record. Eighty-sixed from AA.”

Serge opened the door.

A bunch of faces in the hall stared back at him. People from the cult meeting, patiently awaiting orders from their new leader.

7

THE SUN ROSE on a viciously humid morning at the Marathon Airport. Birds walked along the fence. A lone runway worker in shorts and ear protectors was stained through his shirt. He waved the Lear in with batons.

Stairs flipped down from the side of the plane, and a short, bald man stood in the doorway with an umbrella drink. His bright orange shirt had vintage Corvettes.

“Let the games begin! Gaskin Fussels is here!”

The worker unlatched the luggage compartment on the side of the plane.

Fussels grabbed the wire handrail and marched down the stairs with thunderous steps. “Please! Please! Everyone! Hold down your applause!”

The worker glanced around the empty runway.

A limo raced up. The chauffeur ran to grab luggage. “Sorry, Mr. Fussels. Got held up in traffic.”

“No harm, no foul.”

Fussels climbed in the limo, and they soon made the routine pit stop at Overseas Liquors. The attorney poured a stiff double as they passed the 7-Mile Grill. The chauffeur looked over his shoulder. “Where to?”

“You know where.”

They started across the big bridge. Out the right windows, a little tram dressed up like a train took tourists down the old span to Pigeon Key. The chauffeur looked up in the mirror. “You sure are spending a lot of time at the No Name, Mr. Fussels.”

“Sal, can’t thank you enough for showing me that place. Best bar on earth.”

“It’s Sid.”

“What?”

“You said Sal.”

“Sal, Sid. You say tomato, I say bottom’s up!”

The limo drove through Bahia Honda State Park, past the ruins of an ancient train trestle.

“Sal, got a joke for you. Salesman’s in a small town, asks the bartender where he can get a hooker. The bartender says it’s a small town, the only action is Willie over there, the wino at the end of the bar. The salesman says, ‘Are you crazy?’ Hours pass and he gets drunker and asks the bartender again, and the bartender says just old Willie over there. Finally, it’s closing time. The salesman is wrecked and horny. He says, okay, okay, I’ll take Willie. How much? The bartender says fifty dollars. The salesman says, ‘That filthy bum gets fifty dollars! This must be a small town!’ And the bartender says, ‘Oh, no, the fifty is for me to hold him down.’ Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!… What’s the matter, Sal? You’re not laughing….”

“So the wino wasn’t really in on it?”

“No, you’re missing the beauty of it. You see… forget it.”

The limo arrived outside the No Name Pub. The chauffeur got the luggage; Fussels grabbed his wallet. “Sure you won’t join us?”

“Got another fare.”

Fussels paid in twenties. “Great gang of regulars. They absolutely love me in there!”

The screen door flew open. “Gaskin Fussels is back!”

“Not that jackass again.”

The attorney hopped on an empty bar stool and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get this day started! Drinks for everyone! Of course you’ll all have to pay, ha! ha! ha!… I got a million!…”

Regulars began getting off stools and heading for the pool table.

The afternoon wore on. More and more empty stools. By sundown, Fussels had the entire west side of the bar to himself. The only person who would talk to him was Jerry the bartender, because Jerry would talk to anyone. Fussels drained another beer and handed Jerry the empty glass for a refill. “…Of course people like you!”

Sop Choppy stood with a pool stick at his side. “We’ve got to get rid of that guy.”

The others looked back at the bar. Fussels was showing Jerry his platinum pass to the Bunny Ranch.

Bob the accountant leaned over the table to line up a shot. “He’s fucking up the whole chemistry in here. It just takes one…. Seven ball, corner pocket.” Clack.

Bud Naranja circled the table, examining the shit the accountant had left him. “He’s not that bad. Just give him time…. Three ball…”

A loud voice. The guys looked back at the bar again. Fussels slapped the countertop. “…‘No, the fifty is for me to hold him down!’ Ha! Ha! Ha!…”

“He’s never going to leave!” said Sop Choppy. “Been coming a whole month now, and we always end up over here playing pool. Then after he clears the bar, he walks up and asks what we’re playing. It’s hopeless…. Five in the side…” Clack.

Their eyes followed the ball into the pocket.

“You’re right,” said Bob, chalking his cue. “We have to take action. But how can we get rid of him?”

Fussels walked up with his drink, napkin stuck to the bottom. “So, what are you guys playing?”

A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA cruised over the bridge at Ramrod Channel. Serge was the pilot, Coleman the waist gunner manning the radio. They bobbed their heads to the pounding rhythms of Pigeonhead from the Sopranos soundtrack.

“Hey Mr. Po-liceman, is it time for gettin’ away?…”

“How do you like my car?” asked Coleman.

“Impressed,” said Serge. “Didn’t know you had this kind of taste. Early Rivieras are classics, jutting nose like a mako shark, tapering boat-tail rear windshield and, of course, the elegant comfort of a sophisticated ride.”

“It was the only thing under five hundred dollars.”

“Still counts,” said Serge. “What’s that gold chain around your neck? Didn’t think you were the type.”

“This?” Coleman pulled the chain out of his shirt, revealing a small brass tube. “It’s my dog whistle.”

“You have a dog?”

“No.”

“I’ll hate myself for asking…”

“This one makes a pitch they don’t like.” Coleman dropped it back inside his shirt. “Drives them away.”

“And you need that because?…”

“Dogs don’t like me.”

“What do you mean, dogs don’t like you?”

“They just don’t. Always trying to bite me. Never know why.”

“Like the time you were drunk and standing on that poodle?”

“This is different. I’m not doing anything and they give me trouble.”

“When do I get to see this maximum bachelor pad of yours?”

“Right now. Turn here.”

The Buick pulled up in front of a rusty trailer on Ramrod Key. Coleman walked to the mailbox and grabbed envelopes. They went inside.

Stuff was strewn everywhere. Pulled-out drawers on the floor. Furniture knocked over. Serge stooped and picked up a lamp. “Did somebody ransack your place?”

“Yeah, me,” said Coleman, checking in the fridge. “Forgot where I hid my stash.”

Serge set the lamp on a table. “Looks like some kind of fierce struggle.”

“It was.” Coleman came back in the room and plopped on the sofa with beer, Cheetos and mail. He began tossing envelopes in a reject pile on the coffee table. “All junk.”

Serge looked at the pile. “You actually got a credit card offer?”

“No, it’s addressed to someone else.”

Serge grabbed the envelope. “‘Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Grodnick.’ It’s got the address of your trailer. Did they used to live here?”

“I don’t know.”

Serge tore it open and unfolded the application. “Well, they live here now.” He pulled a pen from his pocket. “Let’s see, how much do the Grodnicks make a year?…” He looked up at the armadillo on top of the TV, then back down. “A hundred thousand dollars…”

“Don’t you need their social security number?”

“No, the pitch letter says it’s preapproved, lucky for them.”

Coleman popped a beer. “How long you been back in the Keys?”

“Just got into town. Can’t imagine my surprise when I heard your voice in that room…. What do the Grodnicks like to do in their spare time?…” He began checking boxes. “…Astronomy, aviation, coin collecting, horticulture, international travel, literature, mountain climbing, oil painting — Coleman, these people are well-rounded — photography, rap music, religious studies, water skiing and ‘other.’ We’ll fill that one in ‘alpaca stud farm’….”

“I’ve been going to the meetings a few months now,” said Coleman. “Those people are fucked up, but I can’t stop listening to the stories. It’s like talk shows where chicks pull each other’s hair. You know you shouldn’t be watching, but what are you gonna do? There’s this one guy at the meetings who keeps waking up in other people’s houses. He’s always getting loaded and going home with strangers. It’s not a sex thing. It’s just… I don’t know what it is. He’s woken up facedown in a pet-food bowl, another time his leg was in the oven, but it wasn’t on. Once he woke up in Mexico. There’s this other guy who comes each week with his face all scraped. You know the classic way drunks fall, landing gear up? Forgetting to put their arms out? That’s this guy….” Coleman clicked the TV remote. Local news.

“I’m going to need your help with something,” said Serge.

“Name it.” Coleman turned up the volume.

“…This is Eyewitness Five correspondent Blaine Crease with another segment of ‘Consumer Bloodhound.’ We’re here at the home of Troy Bradenton, owner of Troy’s Roofing Plus, accused of ripping off hundreds of South Florida homeowners with fraudulent repairs…” The reporter knocked on the door. “What are you hiding from?…”

Serge began pacing in front of the couch. “The reason I came back to the Keys was to reinvent myself. At first I was going to be the next Jimmy Buffett.”

“Good choice.” Coleman fished a flat joint out of his wallet and lit it.

“Yeah, but you have to know music and all.” Serge stopped and faced Coleman. “I have a big announcement to make.”

“What is it?”

Serge smiled broadly. “I’m getting married.”

“Serge! Congratulations! That’s great!”

“I want you to be my best man.”

The TV switched to a downtown street scene. “This is Eyewitness Five correspondent Maria Rojas outside the Miami Courthouse, where the jury has just gone into deliberations in the infamous airbag-murder case. As you recall, four used-car dealers are on trial in the death of a Margate woman whose reconditioned airbag had been filled with sand to save money…. Here they come now!” Three men in suits ran down the courthouse steps and jumped in a waiting sedan. “Is it true you’re guilty?…”

Coleman reached under the couch and pulled out a clear plastic bag attached to a tube. He clenched the tube in the corner of his mouth and sucked.

“Morphine drip bag?” said Serge.

Coleman took the tube out of his mouth. “Security guard at the hospital owed me for some weed.”

“What’s right is right.”

“Who are you going to marry?”

“Don’t know yet.”

“Is this going to be one of those Dennis Rodman things where you wear a gown and marry yourself?”

“No, that’s weird. I’m going to find women in public places and study them from a distance with binoculars. That’s the only way to really get to know someone.”

“Why do you want to get married, anyway?”

“I’ve come to the conclusion men don’t do well as bachelors,” said Serge. “It’s like a state of arrested development.”

Coleman poured Cheetos in his lap and took the tube out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

“All my married friends are so much more mature.”

“I don’t have any married friends,” said Coleman. “Whenever a guy gets married, his wife won’t let him see me anymore.”

8

A PAIR OF Monroe County sheriff’s deputies stood in the backyard of a modest ranch house on Big Pine Key. The landscaping was spare but neat. Crape myrtle, trumpet honeysuckle, jasmine. Chicken wire surrounded the flowers.

The deputies listened sympathetically as an eighty-year-old woman talked nonstop, pointing at knocked-over trash cans and garbage strewn across the lawn to where a clothesline had been snapped. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers in the afternoon. One of the deputies jotted down the high points in a notebook.

“He was big and hairy.” The woman got on her tiptoes and raised a hand high in the air. “At least seven feet tall.”

Gus wrote six feet, allowing for excitement.

The woman tapped the notebook. “I said seven.”

Gus smiled and made a correction.

“I could smell him clear across the yard. The worst odor.” She crinkled her nose, then held up a disposable camera. “Going to send these to the Enquirer. They pay.”

Gus closed his notebook and smiled again. “We’ll get right on it, ma’am.”

The woman shuffled back toward her house. “Patronizing prick.”

The deputies headed up U.S. 1 in their white-and-green sheriff’s cruiser. Gus was driving. He kept shifting his weight. The seat had one of those wooden-bead seat covers.

“Is that thing helping your back?” asked Walter.

“Actually hurts more.”

“Why do you still use it?”

“I paid for it.”

Walter looked out the windshield at a tiny, white balloon flying high on a tether. It had tail fins. “Fat Albert’s up today.”

“So it is.” The anti-smuggling radar blimp was flying in a stout offshore wind above the federal installation on the north side of Cudjoe Key. Whenever it was up, there was much less boat traffic in the back country.

“Hey, Serpico. I want to ask—”

“Walter. You mind?”

“Sorry. Forgot,” said Walter. “Force of habit from listening to the other guys. Is the story true?”

“What story?”

“How you got the nickname.”

“Depends on how it was told.”

“It made fun of you.”

“Then I guess it’s true.”

“It’s a funny story.”

“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

“No, I got sidetracked. Gus…”

“Thank you.”

“I heard your ex-wife is dating the lieutenant.”

“She is.”

Walter looked across the front seat at his partner. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“No.”

Walter faced forward. “That’s what Sergeant Englewood said.”

“Said what?”

“It didn’t bother you.”

They drove over a bridge.

“It would bother me,” said Walter. “The lieutenant knowing all those embarrassing sex stories.”

Gus did a slow side-take at his partner.

“What?” said Walter. “You do know the stories she’s telling, don’t you?”

“No.”

“Oh, my God, they’re hilarious! Apparently she’s blabbing about everything. All your weird sexual quirks…” Walter started laughing. “There was this one time she was seriously pissed off at you, so that night she asked you to wear her bra to bed, said it would ‘get her motor running.’ Those were the exact words Deputy Valrico used. Except she was really just trying to humiliate you!”

Walter noticed his partner’s knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

“You did know she was just messing with you?”

Gus stared ahead.

“Gee, I’m really sorry.” Walter looked down at his lap. “This is kind of awkward now.”

“What other stories?”

“I’m not going to tell you. I feel bad.”

“Don’t,” said Gus. “It’s not your fault. It was a long, long time ago.”

“It really doesn’t bother you?”

“Not a bit.”

“Okay, there’s this other really great one. Remember the time she said there was something she’d always wanted to try in bed, but was too embarrassed and didn’t want you to laugh at her? And you told her you’d do anything for her? So she made you lie on your back while she peed on your face. Remember that? I guess you would — you were there. Anyway, it wasn’t to turn her on. She was just mad at you again.”

Gus took a deep breath. “How many people know? You said Englewood and Valrico. Is that how you heard?”

“No, they told Brevard and La Belle, and somehow it got around to the second shift before winding through the other substations until it reached the sheriff. I was at a barbecue at his house, and his wife had a little too much sangria, and she sees you out the window in the yard, standing alone eating a hot dog. And she just cracks up and blurts it all out.”

“Was anyone else there?”

“No. Yes, just a few guys.”

“A few?”

“A lot. It started with about ten, but the crowd really swelled when word got around what she was talking about. By the end of the story I think everyone at the barbecue was jammed in that room except you.”

“So that’s who knows? The whole department?”

“No. I also heard them talking about it in the ice cream parlor and at the marina and the video store. I think the guy who came to work on my cable mentioned something….”

“Walter—”

“I’d say pretty much the whole town. Can’t believe it doesn’t bother you. I’d be mortified, everywhere I go people looking at me picturing stuff…”

“Walter—”

“I’d quit my job and move away. Maybe change my name. Then I’d probably kill myself….”

“Walter!”

“What?… Oh, it does bother you. See, I knew it.”

“No, it’s just that we’re starting to dwell.”

The cruiser turned off the highway and pulled up to a bright new mobile home on Cudjoe Key. The sheriff’s substation.

Gus and Walter went inside with the full-occupancy expressions of men who had reports to write. The only other person was Sergeant Englewood, sitting at a desk under an air conditioner that made the whole trailer vibrate with an oscillating hum.

“Hey, Sarge,” said Walter. “What’s the word?”

Englewood hunted and pecked. “Someone took a bunch of plants last night from the nursery.”

Gus handed Walter some papers, and they split up. Gus walked to his desk. There was a photo of a bearded Al Pacino sticking out of the typewriter. Someone had drawn a bra. Gus crumpled it and got to work.

You could honestly say Gus was one of the good guys. Nice to a fault. When Gus started at the department, he made a strong first impression. Deference, respect, dedication. Gus didn’t have any connections in the department. Didn’t want any. He was determined to make his own way in the world through hard work and character. His supervisors immediately took notice and fast-tracked him into the category of new recruits who needed to be kept down.

“Hey, Serpico,” yelled Englewood. “How do you spell bougainvillea?”

“His name’s Gus,” said Walter.

“It’s okay,” said Gus. “B-o-u-g-…”

It had started as a proud nickname. And it had a nice snap. That was in the eighties, when Gus was a young stallion of a cop. Then his back went out, and he got fat. There was no exact moment in time — more of a gray transition — and the nickname gradually drifted into derision. After twenty years, it was a complete joke. Actually, it had been kind of a joke all along.

Nobody was talking in the substation, just the air conditioner and three chattering typewriters.

The front door opened. “I just heard the funniest story!” said Deputy Valrico. “This woman I stopped for speeding told me Serpico’s wife once—”

Englewood cleared his throat. Valrico turned. “Oh, hi, Serpico. Thought you were on a call.”

“Just got back.” Gus pulled a completed report from his typewriter and walked to a filing cabinet. The fax machine started up. Gus tore the APB off the spool and walked over to Walter’s desk.

“Remember those bodies up in Fort Pierce?”

Walter nodded and typed.

Gus set the fax on his desk. “Metallic green Trans Am spotted at a Key Largo gas station.”

“So it is headed this way.”

“There’s more,” said Gus. “See this list of victims? All named in the same indictment as the guy we found on the bat tower.”

9

THE PETITE WOMAN sitting in the rear of the No Name Pub didn’t take off her sunglasses. An untouched cup of coffee on the table. Her back to the wall.

After a few minutes, Anna’s eyes rose slightly. Someone she’d been watching at the bar was coming over. He pulled out the chair across from her. “You okay?”

She nodded. “Thanks for agreeing to meet.”

“Of course I’d meet you! Can’t tell you how worried I was when I saw the reports on TV. What the hell happened?”

Anna opened her mouth, then crumbled into silent crying. Her shoulders bobbed. The man turned around to see if anyone was looking. The people at the bar were laughing about something. The man reached across the table and put a hand on her arm. “You don’t have to say anything.”

Anna sniffled and gathered composure. “No, I have to tell someone….”

Two days earlier

ANNA SEBRING SCURRIED around the kitchen as the sun went down. She looked up over the sink. A big yellow daisy said six-thirty. She opened the oven and took a chicken out. She was wearing a waitress uniform.

It was a duplex, a plain white rectangle with no landscaping in a sub-blue-collar section of Fort Pierce, about two hours north of Miami. It had been another sparkling Florida development — “from the low forties” — when it first went up thirty years ago. Now the yards were dirt and weeds and disabled cars, the lawns orphaned in the mid-1980s, when the neighborhood collapsed all at once like the fall of Cambodia, and the Middle Class fled for the next new development farther inland.

Anna tensed when the front door opened. She hurried into the living room and searched Billy’s face for clues. She went to kiss him. He walked by.

“I made your favorite…”

He didn’t answer. Just sat at the dinner table. It was one of those days she knew to leave quickly. Anna grabbed the strap of her purse. “I’ll be home same time….”

She went out the door.

She came back in.

“My car’s gone.” Anna grabbed the phone. “Somebody stole it.”

When Billy didn’t react, she knew. She put the phone down.

“Repossessed again?”

Billy stared ahead.

“But we’re up on the payments this time. I deposited my check from the restaurant….”

Billy took a hard breath. Bad territory.

“You didn’t make the payment. You’re gambling….”

Crack. Right across the nose.

She stumbled, off-balance. Billy slowly pushed out his chair and stood.

Anna began backing up.

Billy didn’t have to knock her to the ground. She went down on her own, curling and covering everything important. Her legs took the kicks. She tried to keep quiet so the neighbors on the other side of the duplex wouldn’t know. Didn’t matter. Same story there, too.

Billy lost interest and went to the kitchen for a Coors. Anna stuffed contents back in her spilled purse and ran out the door.

But how to get to work? She’d be late again for sure, and she’d been warned. She looked at Billy’s metallic green Trans Am in the driveway. She had spare keys in her purse. It was the wrong decision, but there wasn’t a right one.

Ten minutes later, Anna raced into the parking lot of the Sunny Side Up Café. The sign had a fried egg with a smiling yolk.

“You’re late again!” yelled the owner, doubling as short-order cook after firing someone.

“Sorry…” Anna ran to the back of the restaurant and the employee rest room, actually a mop closet. She stuck toilet paper up her nose to draw blood. Checked her eyes in the mirror. Starting to puff.

Anna grabbed an order pad and rushed back out under the owner’s glare. The customers momentarily forgot their selections when Anna rushed up to the table looking like she’d just rolled down a hill. Clothes out of line, droplet of blood peeking from a nostril.

A taxi arrived. Billy. He could have just taken the Trans Am in the parking lot and driven away, but you had to know Billy. He ran in the restaurant and started shouting at Anna again like they were still alone in their living room. Billy so wanted to club her, but then saw the much-larger owner coming over. He left quickly.

Customers started getting up. Tires screeched in the parking lot and Billy took off. Across the street, a white Mercedes with tinted windows pulled away from the curb and headed in the same direction.

Anna was sitting and crying at an empty table. The owner walked over.

She wiped her eyes. “I’m so sorry….”

“So am I.”

She looked up. The owner was shaking his head. “This isn’t working.”

“I need this job.”

“I need this restaurant.”

He called for Val, one of the other waitresses, to give Anna a ride. There wasn’t any business now anyway.

They went to Val’s apartment. A relative was there, watching her kid.

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” said Anna.

Val leaned against the kitchen counter and lit a cigarette. “I’d call the police.”

“I can’t.” Anna turned quickly. “And you don’t say anything either. Billy’s on probation. He’d go back to jail.”

“Good.”

“Then we really won’t have any money.”

Anna couldn’t believe how different Billy had been in the beginning.

“They always are,” said Val, looking over at her own child in the living room.

But Billy wasn’t like the others. And besides, he was in business with her brother, Rick. Anna adored Rick. He was married to her best friend, Janet, and Anna thought Janet was the luckiest woman in the world. If only she could find someone half as nice as her brother. And if Billy was good enough to be Rick’s business partner, that was plenty recommendation.

The two waitresses didn’t have answers. It got to be midnight.

“I need to go home,” said Anna.

“You should stay here.”

“Just take me home.”

They drove across town and turned the corner at the end of Anna’s street. Val leaned over the steering wheel. “Holy shit.”

Anna’s clothes and everything were all over the front lawn, the front dirt, that is. The Trans Am was in the driveway.

Val kept going past the house and drove to a nearby convenience store. They bought plastic trash bags and returned to the duplex. No sign of Billy. The blinds were drawn and all the lights off except one still burning in the back bathroom. They quietly stuffed belongings in the bags and tossed them in the backseat.

Val ran around to the driver’s door. Anna stood beside the car, looking at the house.

“What are you waiting for?”

“There’s more stuff.”

“Forget your stuff!”

“I need it.”

“You’re not seriously thinking of going back in there?”

“He’s probably sleeping. I’ll just be a minute.”

10

A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA sat in the parking lot of the Winn-Dixie shopping center on Big Pine Key. The windows were down. Serge peered across the lot with a pair of camouflaged hunter’s binoculars. He raised a tiny digital recorder to his mouth. “Surveillance file zero-zero-zero-zero-one. Subject: white female approximately thirty-five to forty years old, driving beige, late-model Pathfinder. Established contact outside dry cleaners, several dresses and a jacket. No visible scars or tattoos, full set of teeth, brunette hair, nicely groomed but not overly so in a manner indicating bullshit personality…. Subject now exiting vehicle for supermarket. Will resume report once inside and target reacquired.”

Serge and Coleman pushed empty shopping carts side by side up the cleanser aisle. Serge had argued they should use only one cart for mobility, but Coleman didn’t want people to think they were gay. Serge lectured him about bigotry, and Coleman said he needed his own cart anyway for self-esteem…. Where’d the woman go?

They ran in panic along the meat case, checking each aisle, soup to nuts… there she was. Serge and Coleman executed a flanking maneuver down the salad dressing aisle and hooked back into breakfast. The woman looked up as two carts skidded around the far end of the aisle and crashed into each other. Serge and Coleman grabbed cereal boxes and pretended to read. The woman resumed shopping.

Serge raised a fist concealing the recorder. “Target reacquired… comparing flavors of nature bars, original and new…”

The woman turned toward Serge; he looked away quickly.

“Coleman! Her cart’s moving! She’s coming this way!”

They held cereal boxes over their faces. The woman passed by. Coleman tugged Serge’s sleeve. “Can I get something?”

“Of course. You’re an adult.”

“I don’t see Frankenberry.”

“They don’t make it anymore, the fuckers.”

“There’s no Quisp, either. And no Quake or Count Chocula.”

“Our heritage has been raped.”

“This one’s got a free offer.” Coleman turned a Pokemon box over. “Darn, it’s one of those deals where you have to mail away and wait six weeks.”

“I hate that,” said Serge. “You could be a whole new person in six weeks. I want to immediately dig in the box and find some rubber-band toy that can put your eye out. She just cleared the aisle. We’re back on.”

They began pushing carts again.

“Remember when you used to race as a kid?” said Coleman.

“I loved that.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Okay.”

They sprinted down the aisle like Olympic triple jumpers, simultaneously leaping onto the bars between the back wheels. Serge’s cart edged ahead of Coleman’s.

“I’m winning! I’m winning!…”

Past the Life and Cheerios. “Coleman, you’re veering into me!”

“There’s no steering!”

“It’s like wind-surfing. Shift your weight.”

“I can’t!”

Crash.

Serge and Coleman ran away from the cereal-strewn aisle with two carts nosed up into the shelves.

The woman took a number at the deli. Serge and Coleman arrived with a single new cart and hid behind the rotisseries.

“Look at this,” said Coleman, holding up a box by the cardboard handle. “Marked-down chicken.”

“I love marked-down chicken,” said Serge. “It’s always better. Put it in the cart.”

“Cheap generic pizza,” said Coleman, picking up a frozen disk. “And expired doughnut holes. I think we’re in the guy section.”

The cart began to fill.

“Ever put potato chips on a sandwich?” asked Coleman.

“That is the best! Then you mash it all down good. The bread ends up with a bunch of fingerprints, but the taste!”

“You can only do that when women aren’t around,” said Coleman. “And you definitely can’t pour bacon bits straight in your mouth from the container.”

“No kidding,” said Serge. “Once they see that, the sexual ship sails forever.”

“You know who really doesn’t put up with that shit?” said Coleman. “Lesbians.”

“What did I tell you about that kind of talk?”

“I’m not criticizing. I like lesbians.”

“I’ve seen your video collection.”

“That’s not what I mean. They have lots of strong points.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like they can install their own garbage disposals.”

“Did you eat a lot of glue as a child?”

“Sometimes.”

A butcher began slicing meat and cheese for the woman. Serge raised a fist to his mouth. “…Boar’s Head, Gouda…” The woman glanced over at Serge. He looked away. A speaker in the ceiling: “Cleanup, cereal aisle.” Two sun-burnt construction workers walked past Serge and Coleman’s single cart. “Faggots.”

“I told you,” said Coleman.

“Serves you right for that crack about lesbians.”

“But I was saying something positive.”

“It’s still against the rules.”

Coleman noticed the seafood section on the other side of the rotisseries. “Hey, I just remembered something I loved to do in supermarkets when I was a kid.”

“What?”

Coleman told him.

“That’s a great idea!” said Serge. “I completely forgot about that!”

Serge and Coleman ran over and leaned with palms pressed against the cold glass of the seafood case, staring inside. A couple of five-year-old boys walked up and put their hands on the glass next to Serge and Coleman. A man in a paper hat wiped his hands and approached from the other side of the case. “What can I get you fellas?”

“Nothing,” said Serge. “We just want to look at the fish with the heads still on.”

Coleman pointed. “She’s heading to dairy!”

“Let’s go!”

The woman was checking calorie counts on various yogurts, opting for fruit on the bottom.

Serge staked her out from over in eggs.

A stock boy arrived with a large cart. “Can I help you?”

“Yes,” said Serge. “Where are the small eggs?”

“We don’t carry small,” said the stock boy. “The smallest we have are medium.”

“How small are they?”

“Really small.” He flicked open a box cutter.

“What if I don’t want really small? What if I just want kind of small?”

“Get the large. They’re small.” He slit open a carton.

Serge grabbed a Styrofoam container out of the cooler. “How big are the extra-large?”

“Medium.”

“And the jumbo would be large?”

“Medium to large.”

“Thanks.” Serge put the container back in the cooler.

“What about your eggs?” asked the stock boy.

“I don’t want eggs, just answers.”

The woman headed for produce and placed tomatoes on a scale. Serge and Coleman hid behind the florist display. Coleman picked up a rose and sniffed it. “I’ve never stopped in this part of the store before.”

“Neither have I.” Serge picked up a bouquet and checked the price tag.

“Maybe you should buy something to have on hand, just in case.”

“You’re right.” Serge placed the bouquet in their cart. “Nothing says ‘I love you’ like a dozen supermarket flowers for three dollars.”

Coleman looked toward the ceiling. “They have helium balloons. The ones made of foil.”

“Those are critical.” Serge reeled one down and inspected the pressure. “But you have to save them for the right moment. You don’t want to shoot your wad.”

Coleman reeled down his own balloon. “This one’s a double. It’s got a red heart inside a clear heart.”

“That’s the most important of all. A guy only puts it into play if it’s a super-special occasion or if he’s fucked up big time.”

“Why’s that?”

“The double balloon gets you out of anything. Can’t even be questioned. Like those letters of transit Peter Lorre stole in Casablanca.”

“She’s heading for checkout.”

The woman got in line at register three. Serge and Coleman pulled into register four. Serge held up a Redbook with Jennifer Aniston on the cover. Drive Him Totally Wild with Ordinary Household Products, Page 132. He peeked over the top. The woman was looking at Serge; he peeked back down.

The cashier rang up chicken and flowers. Serge thought the eighty-year-old woman bagging his groceries looked familiar. She was going slow.

“Doris?”

“Serge?”

“What are you doing here? I thought you’d retired.”

“I had,” said Doris. “But then I got wiped out in the stock market. That accounting scandal with Global-Con…”

“Son of a—!”

The old woman was tired. She stopped and grabbed the end of the counter, then started bagging again.

Serge went over and gently held her arm. “Why don’t you take a break. I’ll bag these myself.”

“No, I have to keep going!”

Coleman was reading a tabloid. “Hey, Serge, look at this article. ‘Leading psychic reveals: Hitler kicked out of hell, starts rival inferno’…”

Serge began helping Doris bag. “You must have some money left.”

“Not enough to live on.” She sniffed the flowers and put them in a sack. “The worst part is that bastard Donald Greely has started building a mansion just up the road, rubbing our noses in it.”

The woman at register three zipped her purse and began pushing a cart of bagged groceries toward the door.

“Doris, I want to get back with you on that.”

Serge and Coleman hurried out of the store and reached the parking lot just as the woman finished loading bags in her Pathfinder. They ran to the Riviera. Serge grabbed his binoculars.

“Look,” said Coleman. “She’s getting back out of her car. I think she’s seen us.”

“You’re right. She’s coming over here,” said Serge. “This could ruin everything. It’s too premature for us to formally meet before I’ve had a chance to study her at the gym and through open windows of her house. On the other hand, you never know. She could be the one!”

The woman was almost to their car. Serge grabbed the flowers and got out, hiding the bouquet behind his back.

She stopped a few feet in front of him. “Have you been following me?”

Serge broke into his broadest, most charismatic smile. “Yes!”

“I thought so.” The woman reached in her purse.

Serge whipped the flowers from behind his back and proudly held them out. “This is for you.”

The woman pointed a keychain cannister at Serge. “And this is for you.” Squirt.

The flowers hit the pavement. Serge stomped on them as he reeled. “Ahhhhhhh! My eyes! I’m blind!”

She kicked him between the legs. “Pervert!”

Coleman jumped out of the car. “Serge! Where are you?” He ran around the Buick and found his partner bunched on the ground. Coleman bent down and helped his buddy up into a sitting position. “What happened?”

“She’s not the one.”

11

A LOUD CRASH.

The petite woman in the back of the No Name jumped.

The man sitting on the other side of the table reached for her hand. “Just somebody dropping something.”

Anna hyperventilated.

“You need a beer.” The man got up and went to the bar. He returned with two drafts. Anna grabbed hers in shaking hands and guzzled till it was gone.

The man grabbed her hand again. “Jesus, easy…”

“I can’t take this. I need Valium.”

“I can get you some.”

“Where was I?”

“Take a rest.”

“No. I haven’t told anyone yet. I have to get it all out….”

ANNA CREPT TOWARD the duplex.

“Don’t go back in there!” yelled Val.

Anna didn’t listen.

“I’ll keep the engine running and your door open. You just run right out….”

Anna reached the porch. She cautiously unlocked the door and pushed it open with a creak. Stillness. She eased through the dark living room, no sign of Billy. The bedroom door was closed. That was good. The stuff she needed was in the bathroom. She went down the hall.

Anna got closer and heard water running. The door was ajar, a ribbon of light. She pushed it open.

Val leaped out of the car when she heard the shrieks. Anna stood paralyzed in the bathroom doorway. Red arterial spray over everything. On top of the sink was a box. On top of the box was Billy’s head. The autopsy would later find the work had been done with a hacksaw, begun, at least, while the victim was still alive. A slim wire ran into Billy’s mouth, attached to a miniature recording device — the kind police make informants wear — which was now broadcasting from somewhere near the top of Billy’s throat. The box was on top of the sink so the head could look at itself in the mirror. Billy’s surprised eyes, frozen open in a look of eternal terror, gazed at the reflection, where someone had written in blood, “How smart are you now?”

Anna came flying out the front door and fell to her knees with dry heaves. Val ran and met her in the middle of the yard. She struggled to understand Anna’s hysterics. The message eventually got across.

“We have to call the police!”

“You’re right.” They ran to the car and Anna reached in her purse for a cell phone. It rang in her hands. They both jumped.

Anna apprehensively put the phone to her head. “Hello?”

It was her sister-in-law, Janet. Screaming.

“Calm down, I can’t understand—”

“They killed everyone!”

“Who?”

“They shot Rick….”

Her brother. A punch in the chest.

“…I found him on the kitchen floor. And they shot Randy. And Pedro and his wife!…” Then more shrieking.

Janet’s collapse somehow spurred Anna to get it together. It was the Rick in her. “I’m coming over….”

“I’m not at home. It’s not safe,” said Janet. “You and Billy need to hide.”

“Billy’s dead.”

“Oh, my God!”

“Just found him,” said Anna. “We’re at the house.”

“Get away from there!”

Anna looked across the front seat at her friend. “We’re not safe here.”

Val started shaking and fumbling with the gear shift.

Anna opened her door.

“What are you doing?”

“Something’s started that I can’t tell you about. You need to get out of here. But don’t call the police.”

“What about you?”

Anna looked toward the driveway. “I’ve got the Trans Am.”

Her friend sped away and nearly took out the stop sign at the corner. Anna kept her sister-in-law on the phone as she ran up the driveway, juggling her purse, digging for keys.

“Where are you?”

Janet looked around the pay phone outside a truck stop on I-95. “Flying J.”

“Don’t move. I’m coming over.” Anna revved up the Trans Am and screeched backward into the street.

Janet was still sobbing. “Rick told me there was nothing to worry about. Just said not to speak to anyone without a lawyer.”

“What are you talking about?”

“The indictments today. Didn’t you hear? It was on the news.”

“Indictments?”

“We all got one. This was only pot for Chrissake! Rick promised nobody gets rough over that. Just coke.”

The picture snapped into focus.

Anna vividly remembered the day it all began. It was windy down at the municipal marina. The women wore scarves. They loaded picnic lunches while the guys argued over their new knots. Rick and Billy had just bought the sailboat. The wives were against it at first, but the idea grew on them as they thought of all the time the couples would be spending together. They imagined raising kids.

That’s when the strangers approached. They started talking to Rick and Billy from the pier, complimenting the vessel. The women didn’t like the men, didn’t exactly know why, just didn’t. The guys hit it off.

After that, the other men always seemed to be hanging around the marina when the couples came back from sailing. Rick and Billy started going out for drinks with their new friends. Then phone calls at the house where Billy would go in another room and close the door. The husbands developed a sudden interest in night fishing.

Anna knew something was up, so Billy got the shoe boxes down from the attic and showed her the cash. “It’s just pot….”

That was five years ago. Rick and Janet got a bigger house, and another place in the Keys they rented out. Billy got a gambling habit and another lease on the duplex.

Rick changed. He became smart with money. They were living well, but not spending nearly what was coming in. Rick was putting it somewhere. Billy changed, too. Cocaine, the dog track. Then the women from the bars that Billy always swore were the very last time. Finally his temper, which steadily grew worse and spilled into phone arguments with the guys from the pier.

Rick tried talking to him, and Billy said he’d change. He changed into a liar. Rick didn’t know what to do. From time to time, he passed money to his sister on the side.

Now the indictments…

“What are we going to do!” Janet yelled in the phone.

The Trans Am squealed around a corner. “Stay calm. I’ll be right there.”

“I can’t take it anymore!” Janet leaned weeping against the pay phone. Truck drivers heading into the coffee shop couldn’t help notice the drama. That hot little number in distress who obviously needed a knight.

A man in a Pennzoil cap walked up from behind. “Ma’am, is everything okay?”

Janet jumped and screamed. “No! Get the fuck away from me!”

“Jesus. You got it, lady….”

“What’s going on?” said Anna.

“I have to get out of here!”

“No, stay put,” said Anna. “You’re in the open. You need to be in public.”

“I have to go! I can’t handle this! I’ll call back.”

“Don’t hang up!”

“I have to!”

“Okay, you know that place Rick and Billy have? The piece of land they go duck hunting and have that aluminum building where they work on their motorcycles?”

“I know it.”

“Meet you there.”

12

SERGE COMBED HIS hair as he drove. He pulled up to a stop sign, tilted his head back and squeezed a Visine bottle.

“How are your eyes?” asked Coleman.

“Still sting a little, but I’m not blinking as much.”

“She got you good.”

“Was worth it,” said Serge, capping the bottle. “I discovered her problem with men before we got too deep into the relationship.”

Coleman lit a joint and pointed with the lighter. “Another midget deer.”

Serge eased onto the brakes. “They’re endangered. That’s why I won’t let you drive on this island.”

“But they’re so cute. I want to take one home. It would be neat having it roam around the trailer to keep me company. Do they make a lot of noise?”

“You can’t take care of yourself.”

Coleman looked at the road again, then at the joint in his hand, then back at the road. “Serge, I think I see a big dragon. Can you check?”

Serge hit the brakes again. “Iguana.”

“It’s huge.” Coleman put his face to the windshield. “I’ve never seen one that size. Must be five feet.”

“Closer to six.” The lizard slithered into someone’s azaleas. Serge stepped on the gas. “Exotic pet breed that got loose on the island. No natural predators and a plentiful food source, so they just mate and grow to unforeseen sizes. Hundreds now.”

Serge drove around a bend on Watson Boulevard and pulled up to the No Name Pub. They went inside and grabbed a pair of stools in the middle of an argument.

“Flotsam!” said Bud Naranja.

“Jetsam!” said Sop Choppy.

“But the boat sank!”

“But they threw it overboard first!”

“What a great place,” said Coleman, slowly looking around. “I didn’t even know it was here.”

“Bet it beats those weeklong benders where you never leave your trailer.”

“They have their moments.”

The bartender came over and automatically set bottled water in front of Serge.

“I’d like a draft anything,” said Coleman. “But not lite anything.”

The bartender stuck a tall glass under a tap. “What’s new, Serge?”

“He’s getting married,” said Coleman.

“You’re kidding! Congratulations!”

“Who’s the lucky gal?” asked Bud.

“Don’t know yet. We’re still doing recon.”

Sop Choppy laughed. “What about Brenda?”

“We’re just friends,” said Serge. “She doesn’t like me that way.”

“Are you kidding?” said Sop Choppy. “She’s crazy about you, always coming around and asking if you’re back in town.”

“Not my type.”

“What do you mean ‘not your type’?” said Bob the accountant. “She’s every guy’s type.”

“Brenda’s got some great qualities,” said Sop Choppy. “College degree. Big tits.”

Serge shook his head. “The soul-mate vibe just isn’t there.”

Coleman was turning his eyelids inside out.

“You’re going to freeze that way,” said Serge.

Coleman flipped his lids back. The Stones came on the juke.

Serge hopped off his stool and began strutting to the music. “Can you feel it, Coleman? You’re sitting in the greatest place in the world — the last frontier in America! Dig it everybody: It’s the Florida Keys! We’re weirdness on a stick!”

The gang: “Hooray!”

The petite woman in the back of the pub tensed up at the noise. “What’s going on over there?”

The man sitting across from her turned around. “Oh, that’s just Serge.”

Serge strutted faster. The regulars: “Go, Serge, go!… Go, Serge, go!…”

“I’m a cold Italian pizza, I could use a lemon squeezer! Yowwww!” Serge did a split at the end of the bar, popped up and started strutting back toward them. “These islands have always attracted a ragtag, bottom-of-the-barrel cast of life-bunglers….” He made a sweeping gesture at the bar. The gang smiled and waved at Coleman.

Serge stopped and placed a hand on a shoulder. “This is Bob the accountant, not to be confused with Shirtless Bob here. How’s the car coming?”

“I just bored out the—”

“That’s wonderful. And here’s the well-read biker named Sop Choppy, a regular doubting Thomas who’s in charge of debunking all the phooey that’s slung around this joint, and this is Bithlo Tice, who runs an unethical towing service, and Odessa ‘Odey’ Goulds, same deal but with plumbing, and Trilby Mims, who’s on total disability (wink), and Belle Cutler, a bouncer in the private room at the Cheetah Club who takes payoffs to look the other way on rim jobs, and Loughman Mascotte, who can never let himself get fingerprinted for some reason…”

“Shhhhhh!” said Loughman, hunching over his beer, holding a hand up to his face.

“…And Darby Felsmere, who has a bunch of washing machines and doorless refrigerators marked offshore with GPS coordinates that he uses to supply the restaurants with lobster, and Ogden Ebb, who was about to lose everything in the divorce but instead talked his wife into faking his death at sea and splitting the insurance, and Noma Lovett, who’s also Lawtey Pierce and Sewall Myers according to the unemployment checks, and ‘Daytona Dave’ DeFuniak, the one-hit wonder who had that big song back in the seventies, ‘Island Fever,’ which caught the draft behind the Changes in Latitudes album and topped out at number thirty-nine and he’ll even sing it for you if he gets drunk enough…”

“I’m burnin’ up, with that island fe—”

“…But not now. And Scanlon Elerbee, who peddles caffeine tabs as bootleg speed over the Internet to fraternities, and Yulee Richloam, who sells inferior roadbed to the state, and Perky Sneads, who signs off that roadbed for the state, and Eddie Perrine, who’s in between gigs and has a job, and Bud Naranja here, who keeps getting fired from newspapers and abandoned his car on the side of U.S. 1 next to the chamber of commerce…”

“I know that car,” said Coleman. “Some guy’s living in it.”

Daytona Dave raised his hand. “That would be me.”

“…And finally we have Rebel Starke,” said Serge, “who eluded a massive manhunt in Tennessee.”

“Wow, you’re really a fugitive?” said Coleman.

“Tell him,” said Serge.

“Not as bad as it sounds,” said Rebel. “Was living in Knoxville at the time and got mixed up with this cult that was deep into Sartre and Kierkegaard, only it was really about door-to-door cleaning products. Anyway, I get this existential license plate for my car: UNKNOWN. A year later, they put in those cameras that automatically take pictures of drivers who run red lights. If they can’t make out the license number in the photo, they manually type in, you guessed it, ‘unknown.’ In the first month I get like a hundred tickets. I went down to city hall at least a dozen times, and they always said they’d fix it, but I was still being pulled over two and three times a day. It was easier to just move.”

There was a series of loud crashes out the back door, metal garbage cans falling over.

“What was that?” said Coleman.

“Roger.”

“Roger?”

“Classic Keys story,” said Sop Choppy. “You may think we’re crazy, but you’re looking at the solid citizens, the ones who bend in the wind….”

“Only two social rules on this island,” said Bud. “Don’t mess with the miniature deer and don’t steal the No Name dollars off the walls. Otherwise, anything goes. People who aren’t used to the freedom lose their minds.”

“Like Roger,” said Sop Choppy. “Used to be a lawyer, good one, too. Then he started deep-sea fishing down here. It was the eighties, so naturally he hung out afterward with the other guys at the Full Moon and the Boca Chica. Roger didn’t have a single bad habit, never even tried pot. But after three or four trips down here, he’s into everything. Drinking till dawn, snorting lines of blow as wide as your thumb. One weekend, he never goes home at all. His wife starts calling the police, and they find him barricaded in a suite at the La Concha.”

“He’s under one of the beds screaming about giant flying snakes,” said Bud. “The cops finally called animal control, and they dragged him out by slipping one of those lasso-sticks around an ankle, and he bites one of the officers, which got him ninety days in the Stock Island jail. On the seventy-fifth day, he runs away from a road detail and disappears into the mangroves, where he’s been ever since. There are still warrants, but the police just want to help him more than anything. He’s harmless except when he tears up the garbage cans all over the island — worse than the raccoons.”

The trash cans banged around some more.

“That’s Roger?” said Coleman.

Bud nodded. “The Skunk Ape.”

“Man, you guys have some great stories!” said Coleman, surreptitiously peeling a dollar off the wall.

Serge slapped Coleman’s hand.

“Ow.”

“You haven’t even heard the best ones,” said Bob the accountant. “No Name Key.”

“What’s No Name Key?” asked Coleman.

“Right across that bridge you saw when you came in,” said Rebel. “One scary island. People you never want to mess with. No sewer lines or power or anything. Just a bunch of no-trespassing signs at the ends of spooky private roads winding back to places you can’t see.”

“Bud,” said Serge. “Remember the time you got kidnapped?”

“You got kidnapped?” said Coleman.

Bud nodded. “This will tell you everything you need to know about No Name Key. I was doing freelance real estate photography of a stilt house back up one of those roads. I go and take my pictures, no big deal. I’m heading out and this woman in a Dodge Dakota is coming the other way. She blocks me with her pickup, gets out with this big gun.”

“Some crazy old hag?” asked Coleman.

“No, a real looker,” said Bud. “Asks what the fuck I think I’m doing on private property, can’t I read the signs? I tell her about the photos, even show her my real estate paperwork. Doesn’t care, just waves the gun. Orders me to turn my car around and drive off this little sandy spur that leads God-knows-where. The road goes deeper and deeper into back country and we come to another stilt house, totally secluded in the salt flats and mangroves. Makes me get out of the car and walk around behind the house to a patio, where she makes me sit in this lounger with my back to the building. Tells me not to turn around or she’ll shoot. Then she climbs the stairs and goes inside. I’m really shaking now, all kinds of horrible stuff running through my mind. You wouldn’t even have to dispose of a body there, just let nature take its course. I’m about to make a run for it when I hear a door open and footsteps on the stairs. Then this scraping noise. She’s dragging another lounger and sets it up right next to mine. I look out the corner of my eye and can’t believe what I’m seeing. She’s completely naked. And fine. No supermodel’s got anything on her. She sets the gun on this little cocktail table on the other side of her lounger, which also has a pitcher of lemonade and one of those bottles of Jack Daniel’s with a handle. Then she fires up this huge Bob Marley spliff, lays down in the sun and starts reading a magazine like there’s absolutely nothing wrong with this picture.”

“So did she kill you?” asked Coleman.

“No. But I didn’t move a muscle for an hour. Finally she gets up, grabs the gun and goes in the house. I wait a few minutes just to make sure, then take off running like a bastard. I get around the side of the house and there she is, walking back up the road from the mailbox, still buck naked, nonchalantly thumbing through envelopes, the gun dangling upside down by the trigger guard from one of her fingers. Doesn’t even look up, just says, ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ So I’m back on that lounger. Another hour goes by, and suddenly there’s this crashing in the brush and some big lumberjack type in jeans and tattoos jumps out and charges at me, screaming and swinging a baseball bat. Chases me all over the yard. We make several circles around the naked woman on the lounger, and she’s just reading her magazine, la-de-dah, and finally says like she’s really bored, ‘You wanna fool around or you wanna fuck?’ She puts down her magazine and skips off into the swamp. The guy drops the bat and runs after her undoing his pants. I made a break for it, never looked back.” Bud took a long sip from his draft. “And that, my friend, is No Name Key.”

“Whoa,” said Coleman. “Some story!”

“That’s not even the best,” said Rebel. “There’s this drug kingpin who lives over there named—”

“Shhhhhh!” said Shirtless Bob.

“Give me a break!” said Sop Choppy. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid to even say his name!”

“Keep your voice down,” said Bud.

“I don’t even believe he exists,” said Sop Choppy.

“You better,” said Rebel.

13

THE PETITE WOMAN took off her sunglasses for the first time. She dabbed tears, put them back on. She turned her head in the direction of No Name Key. “I just know he was behind this.”

“Keep your voice down,” said the man sitting across from her. He scooted his chair closer. “Of course he’s behind it. That’s why we have to get you some place safe. And a new identity.”

“I’m not going to spend the rest of my life looking over my shoulder.”

“You need to start making plans.”

“I’m still thinking about Janet.”

“That’s what I’m talking about.”

“I never should have let her leave the truck stop. If only I’d driven faster…”

ANNA LOOKED AT the speedometer. A hundred and five. She took the second exit off the Interstate and raced east down a county road with cattle fencing and no street lights. Anna knew the area; she turned up an unmarked dirt road. The Trans Am had what’s known as racing suspension, which means it’s bad. Especially doing fifty without pavement. The uneven earth threw the car around. It seemed like forever, but the road soon dumped into a pasture. A dark aluminum building came into view at the edge of the Australian pines. Janet’s car was already there. Janet waiting inside. Good. Anna pulled nose-to-nose with the other car. What was up with Janet’s windshield? Those would be bullet holes. Thirty.

Headlights came on from an unseen car behind the building, two tubes of lighted fog across the field.

Anna threw the car in reverse, looked over her shoulder and began backing up as fast as she could. The rear end swished in the dirt. High beams from the oncoming car hit the Trans Am. Anna didn’t turn around, just kept fighting the Pontiac’s back end trying to muscle itself off the road. The other car was a quarter mile and closing, a white Mercedes with tinted windows. Anna came to the end of the dirt road, spinning backward onto the hardtop. She threw it in drive, went maybe fifty feet, then killed the lights and dove down another dirt road that she knew from memory would be there. The Mercedes wasn’t far behind; they’d check down the road and see her taillights. So Anna cut the wheel and crashed into the palmettos. She jumped out and braced behind a tree.

The end of the dirt road: High beams grew brighter on the hardtop until a white Mercedes came into view. It stopped. Anna knew they were looking. She didn’t breathe. An eternity. The Mercedes accelerated away.

Anna jumped in the Trans Am, praying it wasn’t stuck. She hit the gas and the front end popped out of the crunched brush. The car rolled without headlights back to the edge of the county highway. Anna looked to the right. No sign of the Mercedes. She turned left and floored it.

ANNA SAT BACK in her chair in the No Name. “…And then I called you from the turnpike and came here.”

“Jesus.”

“Thanks again for meeting me like this.”

“I told you, I’d meet you anywhere.”

“Aren’t you afraid?” asked Anna.

“Why?”

“You had that big falling-out with him. And everyone I know in our circle is dead.”

“Your circle,” corrected the man. “We were the ones who met you at the marina. It’s a little different code among us.”

“I remember that day. I didn’t like you.”

He smiled. “I could tell.”

“So what happened?”

“Fernandez got too crazy.”

“Is that his real name? I just heard his nickname.”

“That’s part of the myth. Except it wasn’t all myth. The violence is mostly true. But the worst part was his stare. He has this way of looking at you—”

“When? I never saw him,” said Anna. “In fact, come to think of it, I don’t know anyone who’s ever seen him.”

“Almost nobody has.”

ON THE OTHER side of the No Name Pub, Rebel Starke leaned low over the bar and spoke like a conspiracy. “Nobody’s ever seen him and lived to tell. Nobody knows what he looks like. He lives right across that bridge….”

“You guys are wussies!” said Sop Choppy. “That’s just a fairy tale.”

“I believe it,” said Bud. “I know this guy he had killed. Castrated him with a sharpened melon scoop, let him bleed out.”

“Who?” said Sop Choppy.

“My wife knows this woman at work. Her brother’s friend heard it—”

“Exactly!” said Sop Choppy. “Someone told someone told someone else. That’s how urban legends start.”

“How do you explain that big house across the channel?” said Bud. “Nobody’s seen the owner.”

“I believe some hermit lives over on No Name,” said Sop Choppy. “So what? That island’s full of recluses. And as far as the dope-running… like that’s far-fetched. Throw a rock anywhere in the Keys and it’ll bounce off three smugglers. I’d be more astounded if he ran a tire store. Remember back in the eighties when every other phone booth around here had a number to call if you found a bale, and a van would come by in thirty minutes and give you five grand, no questions asked? They were more dependable than Domino’s.”

“What about the model-ship story?” said Rebel. “That one I definitely believe.”

“Me, too,” said Bud. “The ship story is practically legend. I’ve heard it from at least four different people.”

“Big deal. A lot of people are telling the same rumor,” said Sop Choppy. “How many times have you heard the one about the rock star who had all that semen pumped out of his stomach?”

“I heard that one,” said Coleman. “It was—”

“Shhhhhh!” said Serge. “If you can’t say something nice about someone…”

“The point I’m making is it’s a physical and medical impossibility,” said Sop Choppy. “Semen’s nontoxic, so there’s no need to pump, and as far as the ridiculous amounts in those stories, it would take like two hundred guys to produce that kind of… What? Why are you all looking at me like that for? I don’t do it. I’m just saying check the facts before you go believing every stupid rumor you hear.”

“What’s the model-ship story?” asked Coleman.

“Don’t tell that idiotic thing again,” said Sop Choppy. “Everyone’s heard it.”

“I haven’t,” said Daytona Dave.

“Me neither,” said Coleman.

“Okay,” said Rebel. “There are only two things known for sure about the owner of that house: He’s ordered the murders of more than a hundred men, and he loves building model ships—”

“I’m telling you he doesn’t exist,” said Sop Choppy.

IN THE BACK of the pub, Anna Sebring picked at her fingertips. “Who’s seen him besides you?”

“Just a handful of the top people in Miami and South America. He actually gets a kick out of all the rumors. He’s got it so half the people around here are afraid to say his name and the rest don’t even believe he exists.”

“What about the guys you were with at the marina?”

“Nope. None of them was ever allowed to meet him. That’s the way he wanted it. Put an extra level of fear in the ranks in case someone decided to skim.”

“All I know is he’s an asshole,” said Anna.

“That’s why I had to quit. Too erratic with the violence. Didn’t make business sense.”

“So he just let you leave?”

“No, he had some guys looking for me awhile. To be honest, I was pretty scared. But I had some friends, too. He might take me out, but not without a war. We came to an agreement.”

They stopped and looked at each other. The man squinted at Anna. “You understand the risk you’re taking just by sitting here? He’s right over that bridge.”

“I know.” She was still fidgeting with her fingers.

“You fled all the way from Fort Pierce to be in his backyard?”

“He murdered my brother.” She looked up. “Will you help?”

“Don’t even—”

“I’m gonna kill him. I don’t give a shit anymore.”

The man shook his head. “I can’t help. It’s part of our understanding. When I walked away, I walked away. He gets the big house and I get a crummy job, but at least I’m alive.”

“You liked my brother.”

“I did.”

“And you won’t help?”

“Anything else. You need cash? Help getting away? I’ll even go over there and talk to him for you if you want.”

She didn’t react.

The man sat back in his chair and decided to change the subject. “Staying at your brother’s vacation place?”

“I’m not going near there. He’s probably got the house watched.”

The man rubbed his chin hard and looked at Anna in a different way. “You actually did come down here to kill him.”

Anna took off her sunglasses again and answered with her eyes.

“At first I thought it was the money,” said the man. “But you really don’t know about that, do you?”

“What money?”

“Your brother squirreled it away. A bunch, I hear. He was pretty smart about that.”

“I don’t know about any money.”

“Everyone else does. They say it’s in the millions, but that could just be talk. When I first heard you were coming down here, that’s what I thought it was about. Get the money for a fresh start.”

“Where is it?”

“Nobody knew but your brother.”

“I don’t care about money.”

“You will.”

“Sure you won’t change your mind?” asked Anna.

The man stood. “Sure you won’t change yours?”

She shook her head.

“Remember, you can always call.”

“I know.”

The man walked away from the table, past an involved story-telling circle at the bar.

“…He builds these intricate model ships from scratch,” said Rebel. “Old eighteenth-century wooden frigates and stuff. An insane perfectionist, painstaking detail. Some take as long as a year. Then he goes over them with a magnifying glass and if there’s the tiniest flaw, he’ll smash whole masts and riggings in an insane rage and spend weeks redoing them. When he’s finally satisfied the model is absolutely perfect, he gets out a giant survival knife and carves his name in the base.”

“What name?” asked Coleman.

“Okay,” said Rebel. “I’ll tell you his original name, but I don’t want to say what they call him now because of the curse—”

“Since when is there a fuckin’ curse?” said Sop Choppy. “This story gets more ridiculous every time I hear it!”

“Fernandez,” said Rebel. “Doug Fernandez.”

“That’s not a scary name,” said Coleman.

“That’s why he changed it,” said Rebel. “Fernandez has this way of looking at you. Very intimidating. Strong men have been known to throw up. There’s this famous test he gives. Nobody is ever allowed to see him. Unless you’re in his smuggling organization and about to be promoted into the highest ranks. Then you get to meet one-on-one. But only that single time; you’ll never see him again. And if, during that meeting, you can look him in the eye and pass the test, you get your promotion.”

“Ooooo, that’s pretty spooky,” said Sop Choppy. “They have a staring contest.”

“No,” said Rebel. “It’s not a staring contest. There’s conversation, too. The point is it’s a mental test. They don’t kung fu fight or some shit.” He turned to Coleman. “Don’t listen to him. This is all true. There was this one lieutenant of his, young but rising fast. He’s up for the big promotion. They drive him out to No Name Key, all these limos kicking up dust down the no-trespassing road. The kid is led upstairs to Fernandez’s personal office. All the goons assemble outside the door — they’ve all passed the test, but they’re not allowed to see Fernandez again. They stare at the doorknob. The new guy gulps and grabs it. He goes in and finds himself standing all by himself in this huge room, looking across an empty, gleaming oak floor. On the other side of the office is an antique Louis-the-whatever desk with a stunning scale model of a British schooner. Behind the desk is a giant wicker butterfly chair, facing the other way. The kid isn’t even sure if there’s anyone else in the room. Then, the butterfly chair slowly begins rotating, and there… is… Fernandez!”

“Butterfly chairs can’t rotate,” said Sop Choppy. “They’re stationary.”

“Whatever the fuck,” said Rebel. “It’s a chair with a very high back and casters or wheels or a swivel base. You happy?”

Sop Choppy looked at the ceiling. “… Hmmm-hmmm-hmmm… Bullshit story… Hmmm-hmmm…”

Rebel ignored him. “…Fernandez leans forward in the chair and bears down on the young man with that glare of his. The lieutenant tries to maintain eye contact, but he can’t. Fernandez sits back and folds his hands in his lap. He doesn’t say anything. The young guy’s really shaking now. Fernandez finally opens a drawer in his desk. He takes out a stopwatch and a gun. The new guy doesn’t know what’s going on. Fernandez braces his shooting arm on the edge of the desk and says in an unnervingly calm voice: ‘You have one minute to make me angry. Or you die.’ He clicks the stopwatch. This is the test. The kid is stupid with fear. Fernandez looks at his stopwatch. ‘You now have fifty seconds.’ The guy figures he better do something. He starts swearing at Fernandez, but he’s stuttering. Fernandez laughs. ‘I’ve been called worse. Forty seconds.’ The guy insults Fernandez’s mother. Fernandez laughs again. ‘I never liked her myself. Thirty seconds.’ The guy’s in a complete panic, sweat pouring down his face. Fernandez flicks the safety off the gun. ‘Twenty-five seconds.’ The guy’s head jerks around the room. ‘Twenty seconds.’ Fernandez cocks the hammer. ‘Fifteen seconds.’ The guy runs up to the desk. ‘Ten seconds.’ He picks up the model ship, races across the room and throws it out the fuckin’ window!”

“No!” said Coleman.

“Yes!” said Rebel. “Fernandez loses it. Starts screaming at the kid: ‘Out! Out! Out!!!’ I heard the guy literally jumped down the whole last flight of steps. Took Fernandez a whole ’nother year to build a replacement ship.”

“The guy get his promotion?” asked Coleman.

“Yeah, he got his promotion all right,” said Rebel. “Fernandez prides himself on his word. Then right after, they cut him in half with a table saw.”

“A table saw?”

Rebel nodded. “Lengthwise.”

“I’m telling you he doesn’t exist!” said Sop Choppy.

“Does too,” said Rebel.

“Then how come nobody’s seen him coming or going?”

“He drives this big white Mercedes, but the windows are tinted.”

14

A BIG WHITE Mercedes with tinted windows drove past the No Name Pub. Air conditioning on 65. The suspension made it feel like the sedan was standing still. It was the S600 class with the massive V-12 engine, liquid-display global navigation system and a manufacturer’s suggested retail price of $122,800.

There were four men in the Mercedes. Actually five. The last one was in the trunk, pounding with fists.

Bang, bang, bang.

The driver tooted from a cocaine bullet and looked in the rearview. “He better not be fucking up the lining.”

All the men in the car wore bright tropical shirts. The one sitting across the front seat from the driver cracked open a Heineken. “Why didn’t we just shoot him back on the mainland? That way he couldn’t mess up your car.”

The driver whipped out a giant nickel .45 automatic and stuck it between the man’s eyes. “I told you! Because this is just like the beginning of Goodfellas. I love that scene! Goodfellas is the second-best movie ever made!”

Not those stupid movies again. All the other men in the car knew what the Number One film was, and it was also how they finally realized that the driver had gone completely insane. The movie was what started the whole nickname business. Fernandez demanded you call him that or else.

It had been hard to tell for a while about the insanity thing. Between Fernandez’s original personality and the cocaine, he’d always been a nervous experience, even when he was working his way up as a deckhand unloading pot. Now that he was at the top of the organization and had more coke than he needed, it was beyond intolerable. There was never any conversation in the Mercedes that Fernandez didn’t start himself. Many trips were silent the whole way down the Keys, except for the near-constant tooting up that made them all tremble. One toot closer to pulling that big gun again.

The Mercedes crossed the bridge over Bogie Channel to No Name Key. Fernandez was leaned over snorting when the miniature deer wandered into the road.

The Mercedes maintained a steady sixty miles per hour. The guys glanced at each other. Fernandez was doing an extra-long series of toots, even for him. The man in the front passenger seat finally cracked and grabbed the dashboard. “Doug! Watch out!”

Fernandez looked up and slammed the brakes. Another car would have screeched to a halt, but the antilocks quietly eased the sedan to a stop a few feet from the unstartled animal. It trotted into the brush. The .45 automatic was back in the passenger’s face. “What did you call me!”

The passenger replayed his own voice in a loop inside his head. Shit, he’d called him Doug.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” said the passenger. “Just the excitement. We were going to hit that deer.”

Fernandez pressed the gun barrel against the passenger’s forehead. “What do you call me!”

“I’m sorry…. Scarface.”

Fernandez unconsciously touched the three-inch scar on his left cheek. “That’s better.” He put the gun away and hit the gas.

Scarface. Film Number One. There was a time when the guys had actually liked the movie, but none of them could stand it anymore. They were forced to watch it at least three times a week, the whole time Fernandez repeating lines along with Pacino to work on his accent. They didn’t think it could get any worse until the anniversary special-edition DVD came out, and they also had to watch all the bonus material on disk two.

The Mercedes turned south on a dirt road and wound its way into the swamp, finally parking under a secluded stilt house. They got out and opened the trunk.

Fernandez sniffed the air. “Did you pee in there?”

The hostage shielded his unadjusted eyes from the sunlight. “Oh, please! God! No!…”

The other three yanked the man out of the car. His legs went limp, and they had to carry him up the outside staircase. Fernandez unlocked the door. They threw him down in the middle of the room.

He sat up on the hardwood floor. A large-screen TV at one end of the room; a big oak desk with a model ship at the other. Also, watercolors and oils: fly-fishing, sunset, a woman hanging laundry in Bimini. Some of the paintings hung on the wall over a two-hundred-gallon aquarium. The hostage wasn’t looking at any of it because he was busy wiggling backward across the floor while Fernandez kicked the stuffing out of him.

“I didn’t do anything! Please! I’m begging!”

Kick.

“You idiot! You fool!” Kick. “Billy was wired for sound up in Fort Pierce.” Kick. “The feds heard every word you said!” Kick. “That’s how they got all those lovely indictments!” Kick.

“I didn’t know! I swear!”

“You’re supposed to!” Kick. “That’s what I pay you for!”

“Please!… I’ve always been loyal!…”

Fernandez shot a look to the other three men. They stepped forward and jerked the man to his feet. “No! Anything! I’ll give you money! I’ll leave the country!…”

Fernandez walked across the room to the aquarium. “Bring him here.”

“W-w-what are you going to do?”

Fernandez didn’t answer, just addressed the others in a low voice. “Give me his right arm.”

The trio tightened their grip on the struggling man. One grabbed the requested limb below the shoulder and forced it forward. Fernandez seized it by the wrist.

The man was now more confused than terrified, until he looked in the tank…. His head snapped toward Fernandez. “Piranhas?”

“You need to be taught a lesson. Not to be so stupid.”

Fernandez pulled the arm over the tank and lowered it toward the water. Fish gathered near the surface. Now the struggling really started. And the crying.

“Don’t be such a baby,” said Fernandez. “Take your punishment like a man.”

“I’ll be more careful next time! I’ve learned my lesson!”

“You have?”

The man nodded as hard as he could.

Fernandez released the arm, and the man clutched it to his chest. “You… uh… you’re not going to stick my arm in there?”

“Nah, I’ve changed my mind.”

“Oh, thank you. You won’t regret this. Thank you! Thank you!…”

“Don’t mention it.”

Fernandez suddenly grabbed the hair on the back of the man’s head and slammed his face into the tank. The water broiled and turned pink.

The rest of the crew winced and looked away but didn’t dare release their grips. Fernandez began laughing. He held the head down a good while after the resistance had stopped, then let go. The lifeless body collapsed to the floor, carotid spurting.

The crew turned green, staring in any direction other than down.

Fernandez pointed at the floor. “C’mon, look at him. It’s funny.”

They couldn’t bear it. Not without throwing up in front of Fernandez, and you definitely didn’t want to do that.

“Okay, be that way. I try to have some fun with you guys….” He walked around the oak desk and dropped down into the butterfly chair. He grabbed a cocaine mirror with one hand, a remote control with the other. “Go get some towels and clean up this mess.”

The crew headed for the door. They heard the TV come on behind them at max volume.

“I bury the cock-a-roaches.”

15

THE GANG IN the No Name Pub gave up trying to convince Sop Choppy of Scarface’s existence, and instead turned their efforts to Serge’s love life.

“I still say you should try Brenda,” said Bud. “She’s nuts about you.”

“And hot as they come,” said Rebel. “My God, any guy on this island would love to be in your shoes.”

Serge shook his head. “I told you. Something’s missing there.”

“Have you been seeing anyone else?” asked Daytona Dave.

“Thought I’d found the perfect woman this morning,” said Serge. “But it didn’t work out.”

“What happened?” asked Bud.

“He got tear-gassed,” said Coleman.

“What approach are you using?” asked Sop Choppy.

“He follows them at a distance with binoculars,” said Coleman.

“That never works,” said Bud.

“You come on too strong,” said Sop Choppy. “What you need to do is relax, forget about marriage for the moment and just try to strike up a friendly conversation like a normal person.”

“They’ll see that coming,” said Serge. He moved his right arm in a wide circular motion. “You have to sneak up from the back side.”

“I’m going to do you a favor,” said Sop Choppy. “I want you to walk up to a woman right now and start talking. This very minute.”

“Where?”

“Right here.”

“In a bar? Are you crazy?” said Serge. “The force fields are up. I always have the worst reactions.”

“Worse than pepper spray?”

“He’s got a point,” said Bud.

“I don’t see any available women, anyway,” said Serge.

“What about her?” said Sop Choppy.

“Which one?”

“The petite number in back with the sunglasses. She’s sitting all alone. I bet she’d just love for you to come up and talk.”

“I don’t know….”

“Consider it batting practice,” said Sop Choppy. “Go on now, get over there.”

The others: “Do it, Serge.” “Come on, Serge.”

He took a deep breath. “Okay, here goes nothing….”

The gang watched as Serge walked over to the table and started talking. After a few seconds, the woman jumped up and ran out of the bar crying.

Serge came back to his stool.

“Jesus,” said Bud. “What on earth did you say to her?”

“Nothing. Just, ‘Why the long face? You look like someone died.’”

The screen door opened. A large group of people streamed into the pub and stood silently behind the stools. Bud tapped Serge on the shoulder and pointed.

Serge turned around. “Oh, no. Not you guys again!”

They didn’t say anything.

“Who are they?” asked Rebel.

“These people from the cult meeting. It’s a long story.”

Some in the group held tape recorders toward Serge.

“Go on now!” said Serge. “Shoo!”

They just stood there. A few took snapshots.

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”

A man in the front piped up. “Because you speak the truth.”

“I lie all the time. Ask anybody.”

The man turned to the rest of the group. “See? Everyone lies. But he’s the only one who tells the truth and admits it.”

Serge made a whining sound. “Why me? Don’t you guys have some guru or messianic folk singer to follow?”

“Yes,” said the one in front. “But we found out they had other agendas. Wanted to screw all the women and have the rest of us put our houses in the churches’ names. Or they were selling herbal supplements. But you’re different. You don’t have any agenda at all.”

“Oh, I’ve got an agenda all right. I want to be left the hell alone!”

The man turned again to the others. “Doesn’t even want to be followed. That means he’s The One.”

Serge raised his arms toward the ceiling in exasperation. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“He’s calling on The Father.”

“No! Stop it! It’s a figure of speech!” said Serge. “What can I do to get you to go away?”

“Give us a message.”

“Message? Okay, I have a message. Here it is: Do as I do. And you know what I do? I follow nobody. You got it? I follow nobody at all. That’s exactly what all of you should do: Follow nobody!”

The group exchanged glances. “Follow nobody?” Then nods. “Follow nobody!”

They wandered out the screen door, chanting: “Follow nobody. Follow nobody…”

“Hey, I got an idea,” said Rebel. “I know the perfect woman for you. Real outdoorsy type. Saw her fishing on the bridge when I came in here. Probably still there.”

“What are we waiting for?” said Sop Choppy.

“I don’t think so,” said Serge. “This hasn’t been a very lucky day for me.”

“Come on, Serge.”

The gang coaxed the reluctant suitor off his stool and out the door. They started up the road to the bridge. Serge’s mood brightened. “I love the fishing scene!”

“There you go,” said Rebel. “You already have something in common with her.”

They passed a man with barbed wire tattooed around his upper arms, working a spinning rod, Marlboro hanging from his mouth. Then a pair of African Americans cutting bait and listening to a cheap radio.

“There she is,” said Rebel.

“Where?”

“At the very end.” He pointed at a tall, freckled redhead in shorts and a black sports bra, gathering up the skirt of a nylon cast net. “Her name’s Daryle.”

“I’ve never seen a babe cast-net before,” said Coleman.

The woman expertly folded lengths of mesh, gripping the braided retrieval cord in her teeth.

Serge’s mouth hung open.

The woman started spinning on the bridge. She took a couple quick steps toward the railing and twirled the net high in the air, lead weights evenly fanning out before slapping down in the water.

“What do you think?” asked Rebel.

“I’m in love.”

The woman reeled the net back over the rail, depositing a respectable quantity of flopping fish on the bridge.

“You’re up,” said Bud.

“I’m too nervous….”

The guys pushed Serge in the back. “Go talk to her.”

Serge walked up and stood a few feet away. The woman was gathering the net again and didn’t see him at first. He coughed. She looked up.

Serge was bouncing on the balls of his feet with a big smile. He tried to speak but nothing came out.

The woman wound the retrieval line. “Can I help you with something?”

“…I-I love you!… Shit!… I mean, love cast-nets. That’s an eighteen-footer, isn’t it? Must have cost a hundred.”

“Hundred fifty.”

“Yes, sir. You have great style. Not many men can handle an eighteen-footer. That didn’t sound right, did it? I’m completely behind Roe v. Wade. Can I try?”

“You want to throw?”

Serge smiled.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course.”

The woman shrugged. “Okay, just don’t get it all fuckin’ tangled.”

Oooooo, sassy, too! She could be the soul mate, thought Serge. Don’t blow this. I’ll impress her with my cast-net mating dance.

They all stood back as Serge bunched the net in a flurry of motion. Once it was ready, he counted off large steps to the opposite side of the bridge. He leaned with his back against the far railing, closed his eyes and took a rapid series of deep breaths.

“Serge,” said Sop Choppy.

“Not now.”

“But, Serge—”

“I’m concentrating. I have to prepare the mental place.”

“But I’m trying to tell you…”

Serge opened his eyes and took off running. He reached the middle of the bridge and began pirouetting with tremendous centrifugal force like a discus thrower. Painful grunting noises, spinning faster and faster. Finally, he reached the railing, sprang up and released with a mighty “Hiiiiiiiiiiyyyyy-yahhhhhhhhhh!”

The net deployed perfectly, sailing higher and farther than anyone had ever seen before. They ran to the side of the bridge.

“I was trying to tell you,” said Sop Choppy. “The wrist cord—”

They watched the net splash into the water and sink to the bottom of Bogie Channel with the retrieval line.

Captain Florida’s log, star date 384.274

Old Wooden Bridge Fishing Camp, Cottage #5. Today we launch a new Captain Florida feature: Serge’s Word Corner. Here are a few

bon mots

on the state of the language.

Milieu, Zeitgeist, Ennui:

these belong to a group called “the asshole words.” People who use them are compensating for something deeper.

Bolt:

a simple word, except in fabric stores when it becomes a

bolt

of cloth. Can’t get enough of that.

Picaresque:

always a compliment, as in, “Who’s my picaresque bastard?”

Babbittry, tautology, sophistry:

All mean the same thing, and it isn’t important. Skip over them when you read…. Any-hoo, it’s midnight. Women everywhere pissed at me. What did I do? All I ask is an average relationship and in return I get burning eyes and now own a cast-net at the bottom of the sea. The gang tried to cheer me up back at the No Name before I had to rush Coleman to the emergency room after a bar bet that somehow resulted in a small seashell getting pushed all the way up his nose until it went through the hole in his skull and fell down into the nasal cavity. I didn’t even know what was going on until Rebel and Sop Choppy were shaking him upside down behind the pool table. They asked Coleman if it was helping, but he just said, “I can feel it rattling around behind my eyes.” The doctors got it out with these incredible probes and sent him home with a bottle of painkillers. I can’t tell you how old these overdoses are getting. Back to the hospital, where they pump his stomach, yielding the medicine, some corn chips, a half pint of Yoo-hoo, five-alarm chili, small chicken bones and a shirt button. Then they told me to take Gomer home. I said his name’s Coleman, and they confided a little hospital slang:

Get Out of My Emergency Room.

So they injected him with a sedative, rolled him to the curb and told me, “Good luck.” Good luck indeed. Coleman is an unwieldy shape without convenient handholds, and getting him in the trailer when he’s dead weight is an engineering feat. I found an old block-and-tackle behind the dive shop and rigged it to the roof of his porch. Then I got a Styrofoam cooler, cut a U-shape in one side for his neck to go through and set his head in it. I poked some airholes in the lid and taped it on, so his face wouldn’t get smashed in case he rolled. I tied the pulley to one of his ankles, and everything’s going as planned. The ratio is down to fifty pounds. Suddenly, these dogs that roam our neighborhood pick up Coleman’s scent and start nipping his arms. I yell for them to get away, but I don’t want to drop the rope. That’s when Coleman wakes up and finds his head entombed and freaks out. He grabs the white block on his head with both hands and starts running all over the yard screaming, which made the whole cooler hum. You know that Styrofoam hum? That part was actually funny. Then he’s trying to get that dog whistle of his into his mouth, but he can’t because of the cooler and all. Anyway, the rope is still tied to his ankle, which is how the porch roof got ripped down, and he finally runs full speed into the side of the trailer, knocking himself cold. He’s sleeping like a baby now, but I’m completely awake, sitting here listening to my biological clock tick. I think I need to start working out. That’s it, exercise. Perfect timing, too. The big annual footrace over the Seven-Mile Bridge is this weekend. That’ll be my first workout. Tomorrow’s word:

roman à clef.