Torpedo Juice

30

Scarface’s office

THE COCAINE USE was clearly out of control. He’d called the crew together for a late-night staff meeting, then forgot what he wanted to say. But it didn’t stop him. A torrent of disjointed, random thoughts, punctuated by lines of coke and Scarface surfing through chapters of his favorite movie on the big screen.

“I want my chu-man rights!”

The crew stood nervously on the other side of the desk, silent, hands behind their backs. They’d already had that big gun pulled on them four times. Scarface was currently nose down on his desk again for another line. He sat up and scratched his head with the gun barrel, trying to figure out why his desk looked so much more spacious.

“Hey, where’d the ship go?” He reached and grabbed a scrap of paper sitting where the model had been. “Who the fuck is Gaskin Fussels?” He tossed the note back, got out some more coke and turned up the television.

When the blow was gone, Scarface stood and pulled a large molded plastic case from behind his chair and set it on top of the desk. He flipped open the latches and nodded toward the TV. “This is my favorite scene!” He opened the case and removed a giant assault rifle complete with rocket launcher under the barrel, identical to the one Pacino now had on the screen. The crew ducked as the weapon swept across them. “You’re not watching the movie!”

The crew, anxiously glancing back and forth from the TV to their leader, who stood in the ready position with the weapon, repeating dialogue with Pacino:

“Say hello to my little friend!”

Scarface inadvertently pressed something.

Woosh.

A rocket fired.

“Oh, gee,” said Scarface. “I’m awfully sorry.”

The crew member in the middle had a half second to look down in surprise at the hole in his chest, before the projectile’s explosive charge blew him apart, knocking the other two crew members over in opposite directions like Scarface had picked up a spare in the tenth frame.

He leaned over the desk, looking for the survivors. “You guys okay?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you get up?”

“We don’t want to.”

“Come on, get up! I got it pointed in the air. The safety’s on.”

The remaining two crew members peeked over the edge of the desk.

Woosh.

A second rocket took off toward the ceiling, blowing a massive hole in the roof of the stilt house. The crew ducked again as debris fell. Scarface looked up at open sky. “How’d that happen?” He shrugged and dumped out more coke.

Finally, Scarface told the two remaining crew members to go get something to clean up the mess. Thank God. They hurried for the door.

“No, wait. Except you,” said Scarface. “I want you to stay behind.”

The pair turned around to see which of them he meant. The one Scarface was looking at pointed reluctantly at his own chest. “M-m-me?”

“Yes, you.”

“W-w-what do you want?”

“Relax. You didn’t do anything. I just want to talk.”

The selected crew member gulped and walked back across the room. Scarface got up from his butterfly chair and came around the front of the desk. Both turned and watched until the other crew member had left and closed the door. They faced each other again. Scarface broke into a wicked grin.

The other man reached back and slapped Scarface as hard as he could.

“Ow!” Scarface grabbed his cheek. “Why’d you do that?”

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

“What are you talking about?”

“You’ve lost your fuckin’ mind!”

“What” — pointing at the ceiling — “the rocket launcher?”

“All of it! You’re out of control!”

Scarface continued rubbing his cheek. “But I thought this is what you wanted. You told me to pose as the head of your organization. To draw attention away from you.”

“Draw attention, not go on a publicity tour. You cut Billy’s head off, then posed it in front of a mirror!”

“That was wrong?”

Slap.

“Do you have any idea how much media that’s getting? I tell you to take care of a guy, and I expect two in the back of the head. Instead you give me a horror show.”

“You told me I was doing a good job.”

“Five years ago! Before the coke started eating through your brain like termites. Your judgment’s fucked. Like the upside-down crucifixion at the bat tower. What the hell was that about?”

“I was sending a message,” said Scarface.

“What kind of message?”

“I don’t remember the message code, but it was a strong one. Especially the upside-down part. That’s never good.”

Slap.

“And you’re paying for my roof! I’m not standing for this—” His expression suddenly changed. He looked oddly at Scarface’s left cheek. “Your scar…”

Scarface smiled proudly. “You like it?”

“It’s peeling.”

“It is?” Scarface urgently felt his cheek and pressed it back in place. “There. How’s that?”

Slap.

The scar went flying.

Scarface ran across the room and picked it up off the floor.

The other crew member returned with the cleaning supplies.

Scarface pressed the scar back on and turned toward the door. “What the hell are you looking at!”

The crew member didn’t want to say anything, but he could have sworn the scar used to be on the other cheek.

31

DURING THE FIRST few weeks of wedded bliss, Molly asked more and more questions about Serge’s job. His answers became increasingly vague.

“I understand about the confidentiality,” said Molly. “And it’s not that I don’t trust you. It’s just all these strange hours and phone calls, running into the house and locking the door, then peeking out windows. If only I could see something concrete for peace of mind….”

“Okay,” Serge relented. “You’ve been very supportive of my career. I couldn’t do half of this without you standing behind me. If it’ll help you sleep, you can come with me next time.”

“Really?”

Monday night, Sugarloaf Key Community Center

EACH WEEK, THE crowd had grown, drawing on audiences from other meetings as word spread. They had to move to one of the double rooms and push back the partition, and still it was standing-room-only. Serge had a particular ability to connect with youth, siphoning down the juvenile-intervention class until it was now empty. At first, the deputies were going to report the absences to the court, but Gus suggested they sit in on one of Serge’s talks to see if they could pick up techniques to help the kids.

Five till seven. The seats almost full. The deputies stood in the back of the room by the punch bowl. Serge, Molly and Coleman arrived. Molly had a serving tray. She smiled at the deputies and peeled back cellophane. “Cookie?”

Gus took two.

Serge marched to the front of the room and grabbed chalk. He wrote across the blackboard in big letters. He set the chalk back in the tray and faced the class. Everyone became quiet. Over his head was the title of tonight’s lesson: TWELVE STEPS IN REVERSE: GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR INNER MANIAC.

This time Serge didn’t start talking right away. He paced with hands behind his back, staring in accusation. Some in the audience fidgeted and averted their eyes.

“Why do you come to these meetings?” He let the question hang as he moved across the front of the room. Suddenly, he fell to the floor, flopping around and whining in a loud voice. “Because I’m a victim! Oh, please help me! I’m so fucked up!…”

A young girl in the front row giggled.

Serge jumped to his feet. “Did I say you could laugh?” He ran up fast until he was right in her face. “Shut the hell up! You’re a child. You don’t know shit! You think adults with problems are funny? You know how they get that way? They start like you, a smart-ass punk disrespecting underpaid teachers who are trying to hand you the keys to the world, thinking life’s going to bloom all by itself and wipe your ass with roses! You have no idea where you’re headed. But I do…” He began moving his hands over an imaginary crystal ball. “…I’m getting a picture now. A middle-aged woman with thirty-inch thighs and no health insurance working entry-level checkout, going home to a run-down rabbit warren full of TV Guides, pregnant offspring, paint-ball guns and a slob of a husband who can’t go look for another job just yet because he has to hurry up and finish these beers before the police drop by to break up your weekly slap-dance in the front-yard, dog-shit orchard. And you go back to that cash register, year after year, your anger growing in proportion to the success of the people coming through your line. Why are they so happy? Because they’re screwing you, that’s why! You can’t say exactly how they’re doing it because that’s part of the conspiracy. More years pass. You’re switching channels after dinner and happen to hear something that finally explains how none of this is your fault. You see, you’re a victim. You did nothing to deserve this. And you know what? They’re right. You did absolutely nothing. And one day you wake up and find yourself in one of these meetings you find so hilarious.”

The girl was quaking. Serge saw some of the adults nodding and whispering. “Tough love.” “The boot camp method.”

Serge erupted. “No! No! No! I hate tough love! Screw the boot camp! Are you crazy? That’s the last thing you should do to children! They need love! As much as you can give!” He walked over to the girl he’d just been yelling at. “You look like you could use a hug.”

She nodded with glassy eyes.

He helped her up by the hand and gave her a big squeeze. She sat back down with a quivering smile, wiping her eyes.

“There,” said Serge. “Now go forth and be a nuclear physicist.”

He faced the room as a whole and spread his arms. “The entire problem is this victim mentality. When did that start? Life’s not turning out the way they said it would when you were in first grade. You’re not the president or a movie star or playing center field for the Yankees. Guess what? They lied! Move on! You come from incredible stock! Immigrants who chewed through it all and spit it out with thanks: Ellis Island, Manifest Destiny, the dust bowls, Normandy, and for what? For a society that now encourages everyone to choose up excuse teams: My attention span’s a little off, sometimes I’m nervous, sometimes I’m tired, insults make me sad, I was unfairly labeled slow in school when I really just didn’t want to do any work, a diet of super-size French fries turned me into a human zeppelin, your honor, so I need to be given a lot of money….”

A person standing along the back wall grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the refreshment table and picked up a pot of coffee.

Serge stopped and pointed. “Put… the coffee… down!”

The pot returned to its stand.

“Just look at your speaker tonight,” Serge continued. “I’m a complete mess. But so was every successful person who ever got off the boat and climbed to the top. Watch those cable biographies for any length of time and you realize that the most accomplished people were every bit as weird as Son of Sam. The difference? Choice. Choosing to harness your peculiar energies. Me? I could be home right now giving into my all-consuming urge to construct the world’s largest ball of pencil shavings. But I choose not to. I choose to be here with you fine people. Sure, I’ve been thinking about it the whole time I’ve been standing up here, boxes of new pencils, electric sharpeners, the special adhesive you use, that twelve-year-old little fucker from Iowa who got on Leno with his pitiful five-foot ball that I’m sure had a false basketball core but just can’t prove it…. I forgot what I was talking about. Thanks for coming.”

They gave Serge a standing-O as he walked down the aisle to the back of the room, taking up a position by the door to shake hands like a pastor.

“Great talk…”

“Loved it…”

“So moving…”

Molly couldn’t have been prouder of her husband. He was really helping people. How could she ever have doubted he was a social worker?

Serge shook more hands. “Thank you.” “Thank you.” “That’s very kind of you.” “Thank you….”

Coleman walked over. “You’ve never said anything about pencil shavings. When did that start?”

“While I was up there talking. I realized I’ve never been on the Tonight show…. Thank you…. Thank you very much….”

The audience was almost completely gone, just the deputies left. Molly swept crumbs into the trash from her cookie tray.

Gus shook Serge’s hand. “Enjoyed the talk, especially how you connected with the kids.”

“Thank you.”

Molly came up with her clean tray, and Serge took her by the arm.

The deputies watched the couple leave the room, Coleman bringing up the rear.

“Something’s not right there,” said Gus.

“He was pretty strange.”

“It’s not that,” said Gus. “I remember something from somewhere. Just can’t put my finger on it.”

32

THE NIGHT WORE on. Only a few fishermen left on the bridge over Bogie Channel. One added fuel to a camping lantern. Headlights hit him. A late-model rental car rolled slowly over the span toward No Name Key.

Gaskin Fussels came off the bridge barely above idle speed. No light except his high beams. A form appeared. Fussels hit the brakes. A miniature deer clopped across the road. Fussels’s heart pounded in his ears. The rental began moving again. It was quiet the rest of the way down the long, straight dark road. Fussels slowed when he came to the end of the no-trespassing driveway. The muscles in his arms resisted instructions to turn the steering wheel. His chest heaved. The fear of not continuing overrode the panic instinct, and he turned onto the dirt road. The overgrowth was thick, almost forming a canopy, full of glowing animal eyes. The sedan quietly pulled around the back of a stilt house. Fussels knew he couldn’t stop to think about it. He slipped out of the car and left the door ajar, creeping across the yard and tiptoeing up the stairs. He reached the sliding glass door and froze when he saw flickering light. Scarface playing on the big-screen TV with no volume. He cupped his face to the glass and scanned the room. Nothing. He grabbed the glass door’s frame and lifted carefully. He cringed when it made a loud metal snap, but at least it was out of the track. He was in.

His skin was aflame, so much adrenaline it made a metallic taste in his mouth. He wouldn’t have been able to move at all, but Fussels was on autopilot now. His progress across the wood floor was ultraslow, setting each step, then adding the weight, fearing creaks in the boards that came with every movement. Finally, good news: There was the ransom note, still sitting on the edge of the desk where the ship had been. Twenty feet away. Another step, another creak. Fifteen feet. Almost there. Ten. He wanted to reach with his arm and not risk more noise, but it was still too far. Another step… suddenly…

Fussels’s feet flew from under him and he slammed to the floor with a tremendous thud. He found himself on his back in a pool of slick fluid that had caused the fall. He raised an arm; black drops fell from the sleeve. What the hell? He made his way back to his feet, concentrating on centering his weight like someone roller-skating for the first time. He was at the desk, the note easily in reach. Except he was still looking down at the floor. The fluid was dark and shiny in the moonlight coming through the giant hole in the roof. It trailed under the desk toward the wicker butterfly chair on the other side. The high-back seat was facing the opposite direction. Fussels used the desk for balance and started working his way around.

A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA crossed the bridge to Big Pine and pulled up to a two-story, flat-roofed building with wasp-yellow trim. Coleman got out.

Serge and Molly had gone home after the meeting at the community hall, and Coleman went partying. Now he was lonely. He wanted to see if Serge could come out and play.

Coleman climbed the single staircase of Paradise Arms. He had a greasy white paper bag in his hand. He popped a jalapeño snap in his mouth and knocked on the door of apartment 213.

No answer.

He grabbed another snap and knocked again.

Still nothing.

Coleman bobbed his head to the memory of the last song from his car and stepped over to the window. He put his face to the glass and peeked through a slit where the curtains didn’t quite meet.

“Oh, shit!”

He pulled a canceled video card from his wallet and stuck it in the doorjamb. It took a little work, but Coleman eventually tripped the angled bolt. He ran inside.

Serge was sitting in the middle of the living room in a wooden chair from the dining set, his back to the door. He looked over his shoulder. “Coleman! What are you doing here?”

Serge was tied up, his hands bound behind his back, ankles strapped to chair legs. A thick-braid nylon rope was loosely looped a ridiculous number of times around his chest like the Penguin used to tie up Batman.

Coleman rushed over and began undoing knots. “Don’t worry, buddy! Have you free in a second!”

“Coleman! Get out of here! This is a game!”

“It’s always a game with you!” Coleman freed the ankles. “Hang in there. Just a few more seconds…”

“Coleman, you don’t understand—”

“I’m not as stupid as you think.” Working the wrists now.

A falsely deep female voice: “You’ve been a bad rebel soldier!”

Serge and Coleman looked up at the bathroom door. It opened.

Molly was completely naked except for the Darth Vader helmet and toy light saber. There was a brief moment of suspended animation when everyone silently stared at each other. Then time speeded up. Shrieks of horror rattled out of the helmet. One of Molly’s hands dropped the light saber and flew up to cover her breasts, the other shot down to the nexus of her legs. She ran crying into the bedroom and slammed the door.

It was quiet again in the living room except for the light saber rolling across the wooden floor with a sound representing husbands in deep shit everywhere.

Serge pushed Coleman away. “You idiot!” He finished untangling himself and ran to the bedroom. Molly was inconsolable, her head buried deep under the pillows. Serge caressed her back, but she wouldn’t stop crying. He removed the pillows and helped get the helmet off.

It was no use, nothing Serge could say or do. Only more tears. He came out of the bedroom. Coleman was rummaging through the refrigerator.

“I’m new to this marriage thing,” said Serge. “But I’m guessing this is the part where you need to leave.”

“Let’s go someplace.”

“Coleman, I’m married now.”

Coleman closed the fridge. “Damage is done. You’ll only make it worse by staying here. I suggest you head to a bar with me and wait for this to blow over.”

“You really think so?”

“Do it for Molly.”

THE WIND HAD picked up again, blowing the stout beginnings of a good rainstorm. Perfect drinking weather. The ’71 Buick Riviera pulled up to the No Name Pub. TV news was going in the background when Serge and Coleman came through the screen door and climbed on their favorite stools.

“…A Wisconsin scuba diver was arrested just before dawn for public intoxication, burglary and other pending charges after breaking into the Key West Aquarium and spearfishing. The staff is mourning the loss of the lovable tarpon Bernie…”

The owner was doing paperwork behind the bar. “Hey, Joe. How’s it going?”

The owner didn’t look up. “Hey.”

Serge turned to the others. “He’s usually in a good mood.” Then he noticed the two men in dark suits. They were standing at one of the walls, writing in notebooks.

“Joe, who are those guys?”

“IRS.”

“What are they doing?”

“Counting the dollar bills. It’s considered income.”

“…Another body was discovered inside a sand castle on Smather’s Beach. And from Duval Street, police are still puzzled by a Vermont man’s head injuries….”

“Serge, that was a beautiful wedding,” said Sop Choppy. “How’s married life?”

“Molly’s crying and refusing to come out of the bedroom.”

“That’s normal,” said the biker. “What you need to do is wait it out in a bar. That’s what I always do.”

“But you’re divorced,” said Serge.

“Problem solved.”

“Hey, Coleman,” said Bud. “Where’d you disappear to after the wedding? We were supposed to meet back here.”

“Had a little trouble when I tried to return Serge’s tux,” said Coleman. “Gave me shit, like, they’re not for scuba diving or something.”

“Get it straightened out?”

“No, I had to run away.”

Daytona Dave pointed at the TV. “Look!”

A young female reporter appeared on the screen in a red rain jacket. She walked backward along a bridge railing, talking in her microphone. “This is Eyewitness Five correspondent Maria Rojas coming to you live from the Seven-Mile Bridge where an intense human drama is currently unfolding. Authorities have blocked off traffic while they attempt to talk a distraught woman out of committing suicide….” The reporter looked up the bridge, where a half dozen police spotlights converged at the top of the span. The cameraman focused over the reporter’s shoulder and zoomed in. A drenched woman had one leg over the railing.

“Check it out,” said Coleman, popping a pretzel in his mouth. “It’s Brenda.”

“You need to call the police,” said Serge.

Coleman chewed and washed it down with some draft. “Why?”

“Whenever a person is threatening suicide, they’re always looking to put them on the phone with someone close.”

“Get Coleman a phone!” yelled Sop Choppy.

A cell phone appeared. Bud Naranja hit nine-one-one and passed it to Coleman, who took a last quick sip and placed it to his ear.

“Hello? Yes, I know the woman on the TV. No, not the reporter, the jumper… Right, I’d like to help. I think she may want to talk to me…. Her boyfriend… yeah, I’d say we’re pretty close…. I recently asked her to marry me. Sure, I’ll hold.” Coleman covered the phone. “They’re patching me through.”

“Wait a second,” said Maria Rojas, placing a hand over the tiny speaker in her ear. “The woman seems to be yelling something. Let’s see if we can make it out….” The camera zoomed even tighter on the top of the bridge. The TV station turned up the volume on the directional microphone pointed at Brenda. The wind whipped strands of wet hair across her eyes. “I don’t want to live anymore!… I can’t face myself!… I… fucked… Coleman!…”

The guys in the bar slapped Coleman on the back. “Way to go, dude!”

Coleman grinned, then waved them off. “Shhhh! I think they’re putting me through!”

On TV, a police negotiator held a waterproof phone at the end of a long pole. He inched toward Brenda, urging her to take it. Brenda finally agreed and answered it tentatively.

“Uh, hello?”

“Hey, baby!” said Coleman. “What’s shakin’?”

“Who’s this?”

“It’s Coleman! Your sugar daddy! Remember our special night?”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The cameraman pointed over the side of the bridge to catch Brenda’s fatal plunge into the stormy sea.

It was like a tomb inside the pub. Coleman quietly closed the cell phone and picked up a pretzel. The others stared at the floor and the ceiling. Rain pattered.

The station cut to an older man behind an anchor desk. “We must remind our viewers that Eyewitness Five news brings you the best in live, unedited coverage and cannot be responsible for content….” He shuffled papers and turned to a second camera, so the station could show it had a second camera. “In other news, a suspected drug kingpin was found shot to death execution-style in his home on No Name Key. Police have sealed off the area, and aren’t commenting. However, sources close to the investigation, who are those same police officers, have told us that they’re closing in on the suspect as we speak…. In sports, more arrests…”

The screen door creaked open. A soaked Gaskin Fussels stuck his head inside.

The gang jumped off stools and ran to the door. “Get in here!”

They dragged him to a table and sat him down. Gaskin closed his eyes and began weeping. “He’s dead.”

“We know he’s dead,” said Sop Choppy. “It was just on TV.”

“What happened?”

“Did you kill him?”

Fussels shook his head emphatically. “I swear I didn’t! He was already dead! You gotta believe me!”

“We believe you,” said Bob the accountant. “But you have to tell us everything you saw.”

“I didn’t see anything. Just a big pool of blood and this butterfly chair facing the other way. So I crept around it and there he was, shot through the eyes!”

“They were sending a message,” said Sop Choppy.

“What kind of message?” asked Bud.

“I don’t remember the message code. But I think that’s a strong one.”

“All of you, shut up!” said Bob.

“What am I going to do?” pleaded Fussels.

“Just stay calm. We might be able to work this out. Is there any way they can connect you to this? Think hard! Did you leave any clues?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Okay, we need to get you out of town—”

“You mean like falling in the blood?”

“Yes, like falling in the blood. Did you get any on your hands?”

“Just the palms and fingertips.”

“But you didn’t touch anything….”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Does the desk count?”

“Yes.”

“Then the desk…. And the doorframe and the railing on the stairs, and the butterfly chair when I slipped again, and one of the legs of his pants pulling myself up, and on the ransom note that I dropped when I fell again and left behind in all the excitement….”

The gang got up and started backing away.

“What?” said Fussels.

The screen door opened again.

Deputies Gus and Walter came in. “Is there a Gaskin Fussels here?”

They all pointed.

Gus produced handcuffs. “Gaskin Fussels, you’re under arrest for the murder of Douglas Fernandez.”

33

Captain Florida’s log, star date 385.274

Starting to have my doubts about this marriage thing. Thought it was going to take me to the next level, but so far all it’s been is moody obedience school. First Coleman breaking in during our Star Wars game, then more shit for going to the pub until three A . M . Didn’t think it could get any worse. Was I wrong! Had a full day planned with Coleman, but Molly wanted to pick out bathroom towels. I’d already packed my gear and told her I’d be happy with whatever she picked out. Next thing I know, I’m fucked without a clue. All this negative body language and those slamming doors again. I run after her and say, ‘What’s the matter, honey?’ And she says, ‘Nothing.’ But doors keep slamming. That’s the thing about marriage — I haven’t deciphered it yet. But I’ve just figured out the first thing. “Nothing” really means “something.” If it actually is nothing, they’ll tell you all about it, just yap and yap and yap about the most meaningless tripe while you’re trying to watch a documentary on Czar Nicholas, and finally I say — real nice — “Baby, I’ve kind of been looking forward to this show all week….” So now all of a sudden Czar Nicholas is more important than she is. Like a stupid idiot, I had to say he was — you know, Russia, dynasty, big turning point in global history. I’d tried climbing out of that hole but anything I said was just pulling more dirt down on myself. I called a married friend of mine in West Palm Beach and asked him what the hell was going on, and he said, “Are you nuts?” Turns out I’m supposed to pick out towels with her. It’s part of the marriage bonding. I didn’t know this. So I go to the department store, and she’s happy again, and we’re walking the aisles and pretty soon I want to cut my fucking head off. If I’m going to buy a towel, I walk in, grab a towel and buy the goddam thing. Then I wash with it. End of story, fade to black. But I find out that in marriage, the towel selection becomes some kind of introspective chick flick with Holly Hunter that lasts three hours and never goes anywhere. Molly keeps holding up towels and asking if I like them, and I nod impatiently, glancing at my watch. “Perfect. Love ’em. Let’s go.” And she says, “You don’t like them. I can tell.” And she picks up some more. “Love ’em. Spectacular.” “You’re just saying that.” It goes on like this for twenty more towels until she finally decides on the very first ones she showed me. We go to the counter and — get this, the little hand towel in the set is nine dollars! I say, “Holy cow! In some countries you can get blown for nine dollars!” Apparently this isn’t what she wanted to hear. What am I, psychic? It’s an around-the-clock minefield. Like whenever there’s a bunch of blood on my clothes — automatic question time. Oh, and friends. That’s another thing. I’m not allowed to have any. They’re bad influences. And she really hates Coleman. Doesn’t want him coming around anymore. I say he’s my best friend. She says she works hard to keep a clean home and can’t have him throwing up all over the place. I say, “But that’s what he does.” And whenever he is here, she’s always calling me aside for secret conferences, like, “What’s he doing?” And I say, “Drugs.” Come to find out it wasn’t really a question at all; it’s a rhetorical question — another curve ball! But here’s the biggest caveat: Actually, I can have a few friends, but they have to be married to her friends. After the towel travesty, there was this dinner at the head librarian’s house where I was supposed to meet all my new, approved buddies, like a forced marriage in Nepal. Guys who wear plaid sweater vests. Jeffrey, Ronald, Ned. I tell myself, “Don’t prejudge.” The women are in the kitchen, and we’re out back by the barbecue with glasses of Lipton having loads of chuckles, and then we go in the garage looking at tools and golf clubs and I’m bored as hell until I realize, hey, we’ve got everything here to make pipe bombs. In short, everyone got way too emotional in the emergency room, and now I’m the bad influence. I tell my wife, look, I didn’t want to hang out with the noodle-dicks to begin with…. And that’s why I’m writing this on Coleman’s couch. Still looking for the sorcerer’s key that unlocks it all. Night-night.

34

THE MORNING SKY was threatening a slight drizzle. The local fishermen stayed in, but the tourists still went out in their rental boats, arrays of fishing poles sprouting from their holders like antennas. They wore bright yellow and orange rain slickers and fought uphill against the choppy tide in Bogie Channel with a style of seamanship suggesting future Coast Guard rescues. The weather wasn’t that bad today, but tourists were known to go out even under storm flags. Vacation would not be denied.

Two people watched the bobbing vessels through the back patio windows of a waterfront ranch house on Big Pine Key. It was one of the older homes, built on the ground before flood-plane ordinance required stilts. The streets on this side of the island had names like Oleander, Hibiscus, Silver Buttonwood. The front yard was a field of little brown river rocks because fresh water was scarce for lawns. The rocks had an unintended security feature: You could always hear people driving up. In the middle of the yard was the centerpiece, a faux nineteenth-century ship’s anchor. That’s how visitors were given directions — “Just look for the anchor” — one of those big, three-hundred-pound jobs with a new antique verdigris finish, festooned with fishing nets and strings of colorful Styrofoam crab-trap floats. The nautical kitsch was surrounded by rings of cheerful lavender and pink flowers that had recently opened and would soon be chewed to the stems by night-feeding mini-deer. The original owner had known the bridge tender who was killed when a trawler struck the old Seven-Mile Bridge and was honored by a memorial plaque at the top of the new span that nobody could read because they were going by too fast and weren’t allowed to stop. A baby-blue sea horse sat over the numbers by the door. A dark sedan was parked half a block up the street.

The two people watching the boats were sitting at the kitchen table. They had been there since long before dawn. Periods of intense conversation or awkward silence. This was one of the quiet spells. The table had a glass top with a pebbly surface and a round, white metal frame. It could be used outdoors. There were two coffee cups on the table. Bottle of scotch. Pair of dark sunglasses.

“I need another Valium,” said Anna.

“You need to slow down.”

“Are you going to give me one?”

The man opened his wallet and scooped out a pill.

Anna tossed it in her mouth and chased it with the contents of her coffee cup.

“It’s all going to work out,” said the man.

Anna set the cup down. “I feel even worse now.”

The man put a hand on hers in the middle of the table. “It’s over. You’re finally safe. Time will heal.”

“We could get the death penalty.”

“We’re not going to get caught. As long as neither one of us ever says anything. You can do that, can’t you?”

“I knew I couldn’t go through with it,” said Anna. “I knew I couldn’t shoot someone.”

“Then what were we doing there?”

“Jesus, you shot him in the eyes!”

“I was just aiming for the head.”

Anna’s stomach spasmed. “I’m getting another panic attack.”

“The Valium hasn’t kicked in.”

She poured more scotch.

“You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I’m sick right now!” She fiddled with the sunglasses on the table. Her two black eyes had reached full bloom. She looked out the back window at the patio, which was the roof of the cistern. Her nose flared at the faint indication of the sulfur sticks that had been dropped in the tank for mosquitos. The man reached for her hand again. Drops of rain ran down the windows.

She pulled her arm away. “Why’d you grab the gun? Why’d you shoot him?”

“Because you didn’t.”

“I changed my mind. You heard him. He was ready to negotiate. And he started saying stuff about my brother that made no sense, a lot of stuff that made no sense, but you shot him before he could—”

“You think this is some kind of game? You think you can point a gun at someone like that and not shoot?”

“But we had his word….”

“You still don’t have any idea the type of person we were dealing with! He’s going to say anything! He’s not going to be grateful for sparing his life! He’s going to come after us first chance he gets!”

“So fucking what? I was already on the run.”

“But I wasn’t! I tried to talk you out of this, remember? Then I’m standing there watching you lose your nerve, and I’m like, shit, that’s my ass right there! Once you raised that gun, you wrote the future. Him or us.”

Quiet again. No lights on inside the house, just what was coming through the windows from the overcast dawn, suspending the house in an off-balance gray. It was actually a pretty nice day to be alive in the Keys. Curl up with a book, listen to the rain, watch the weather.

“I hate this. It looks like shit out there.”

“Are you going to be able to keep it together?”

“Why?” said Anna. “Are you going to kill me, too?”

The man looked down.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“You don’t need to say anything.”

“No, you’ve been too good to me.”

“I’ll always be there for you. You know that.”

This time, her hand reached across the table. “That’s why I called the other day. That’s why I called before, you know….”

They looked at each other. History. Countless sobbing phone calls when Billy started hitting her up in Fort Pierce. More tears in person at coffee shops. Then, lovers.

Anna grabbed the scotch. She decided not to pour and put it down. “The Valium’s working.”

“Good.”

She began picking at a corner of the bottle’s black label. “I recognized him.”

“Who?”

“Scarface.”

“You did?”

“Up in Fort Pierce. From the marina. He was one of the guys who came around a couple times. But he was just one of the loaders. I don’t get it.”

“He did that sometimes.”

“You said he never met anyone.”

“Not as Scarface. Because he didn’t trust anyone. But since almost nobody knew what he looked like, it allowed him to move invisibly through his own organization to make sure nobody was skimming, which they always were. A lot of guys ended up dead and never knew why.”

The man checked his watch. Getting near eight. He grabbed the scotch.

“I thought you weren’t drinking.”

“So did I.” He looked across the terrazzo of the vacation home that used to belong to Anna’s brother. “You decided to stay here after all.”

“With Scarface gone, there’s no reason not to.”

The man drained his cup and poured again.

“You’re making up for lost time.”

There was a purpose. He finished the second drink and let it work. The clouds finally let loose outside. Rain pounded the windows at a hard angle.

“I have a confession to make.”

Anna stretched and yawned from the medicine.

“My motives weren’t entirely pure.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I wanted to protect you and everything. I really liked your brother….”

“Yeah?”

“Remember the rumors I told you about? Rick putting money away with Scarface — Fernandez, whoever. It wasn’t a rumor. I knew it for a fact.”

Anna looked confused.

“For some reason Fernandez liked your brother. Or at least trusted him. Or didn’t. But your brother was sharp. He knew this wouldn’t last forever… he had to put something away. Sometimes we’d go drinking after bringing a boat in. Fernandez was always asking him questions about money. He finally let your brother know who he really was. That might have gotten him killed.”

Anna’s breathing shallowed. She grabbed the scotch again. Rain sheeted on the glass.

“Fernandez and Rick got some money together. I know you didn’t know. It’s at least three million, maybe four. I don’t know where it is. Well, I do, sort of. There’s a safety deposit box—”

Anna raised the cup to her mouth with both hands.

“The box contains instructions in case anything ever happened to Rick. Some of the money was your husband’s, except your brother knew Billy would just gamble it. So he put it away for you. There are four names on the deposit box. Fernandez, your brother and his wife. And you — you’re the only one still alive to claim it.”

Anna was grabbing the edge of the table. “H-how do you know all this?”

“Your brother knew about you and me being… together. He could just tell. It almost made him feel better knowing I was there for you because he’d already given up on Billy. A few times he came close to killing him over the beatings he gave you. He came to me one day, asked if anything happened to him, that I’d tell you about the box. Made me swear.”

Anna just sat there; too much to process at once.

“You’re going to hate me for what I’m going to say next, so I’m just going to say it….” He looked her straight in the eyes. “I want Fernandez’s share. You can have the rest.”

“Jesus, Jerry!”

“I don’t like this any better. But I’m practical. We don’t have much time before the police find out their guy in the morgue has a deposit box. Then it’s gone for good.”

“But how can you think about money at a time like this?”

“I’ll tell you how! I’ve been sitting here for years, watching Fernandez over in his fancy house getting rich and fat while I work a shitty job fetching drinks for a bunch of tourists I have to pretend to like. That’s how. I want mine! I deserve it!”

Anna pressed back in her chair. “What’s wrong with you?”

Jerry the bartender poured another scotch. “You have to go to the bank.”

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Yes, you are. We’re in this together now.” He raised the cup to his mouth. “You will be going to the bank.”

“But what about the murder? Shouldn’t we be lying low?”

“We don’t have to worry about that.”

“Why not?”

Jerry reached in his pocket and set a brass bank key on the table. “I fixed it so they suspect someone else.”

35

Monday evening: six-thirty

SERGE WAS IN the living room of the love nest, checking his wristwatch. Molly was in the bathroom. A car honked outside.

Serge looked out the curtains. Coleman.

“Honey!… I’m leaving for my meeting. Love you!…” He grabbed the doorknob.

“Wait a minute,” called Molly. She walked into the room holding one of the new hand towels. It was dangling between her thumb and index finger like a used diaper.

“What is it?” said Serge. “I’m running late.”

“Did you use this?”

“Yeah, I washed my hands.”

“You’re not supposed to use this.”

He grabbed the doorknob again. “Right, right… what?”

“You weren’t supposed to use it.”

“It’s a towel.”

“You don’t use these.”

A car honked.

“Sure thing.” He opened the door.

“You don’t care.”

“I do so care.”

“I’m not finished talking about this.”

“Can we deal with it when I get home? I’ve got people waiting.”

“They’re more important than our marriage?”

“Of course not. But the meeting starts at a specific time. We can discuss your towels later.”

“What do you mean, ‘your towels’?”

“I didn’t mean anything….” Glancing at his watch. “…Come on, don’t stare at me like that.”

Honk.

“Shit.” He stuck his head out the door. “Coleman, knock it off. Be down in a minute.” He closed the door. “Okay, let’s talk.”

She stood there.

“I thought you wanted to talk.”

Still standing there.

“Okay, see you tonight.” He opened the door.

“You never liked these towels.”

Serge closed the door. “What?”

“I knew it.”

Serge gritted his teeth. “The towels are fine. I may eventually grow to hate them at this rate. But right now they’re still okay by me…. Can I leave now?”

“Go ahead. Go off with your friends.”

“It’s a trick. That means stay.”

“I want to make a nice home for us.”

“And I’m all for that.” He looked at his watch and emitted a high-pitched whine of anxiety. “I understand completely. I promise I won’t use the towels.”

“No, just the guest towels.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You don’t use them.”

Honk.

“I really gotta go.”

Molly’s silence said not to.

“Okay, you win!” Serge dropped into a chair. “Let’s talk about it. Are there any other movie props around here that I can’t touch or I’ll get a ration of shit?”

Molly ran crying into the bedroom and slammed the door.

“What did I say?”

Monday evening: six-thirty. Sheriff’s substation, Cudjoe Key

“I HATE THE night shift,” said Walter. He dumped an old pot of coffee in the sink.

Gus highlighted a textbook with a yellow marker. “It’s always slow on Monday.”

Walter went through mail at his desk while new coffee trickled. Gus swivelled his chair and taped another fax to the wall.

Walter came over with his coffee mug. He had an envelope in the other hand. “I got a piece of your mail by mistake.” He handed it to Gus. “It’s from Internal Affairs.”

“How do you know?”

“I opened it.”

“Thanks.”

“Someone filed a complaint about you having marijuana evidence that was supposed to be destroyed.”

Gus tossed the letter aside and resumed reading. Walter took a sip and stared at the wall. “New bulletin?”

“They connected another possible murder to the Duster.” Gus made a yellow line in his book. “And the missing woman’s green Trans Am was spotted in Marathon.”

“Looks like trouble.”

“I know,” said Gus. “They’re probably both headed our way.”

“No, I mean you’re not supposed to tape stuff to the walls. Department rule.”

Gus looked up dubiously at his partner, then back to his textbook.

“I’m just trying to help,” said Walter. “You’re already under investigation. Is it true you were even showing drugs to kids?”

“Walter, you were there. It was a class.”

“I’ll say whatever you want me to. We’re partners. You just tell me what the line is, and that’s how I’ll testify.”

“Testify?”

Walter pointed back at his own desk. “Got a letter myself from Internal. They want me to turn on you. They can stick their rules. This is about loyalty.”

“Let me see that letter.”

“I’m not allowed to show you.”

Gus returned to his book.

Walter took a sip of coffee. “What are you reading?”

“Psychological profiles,” said Gus. “I’m getting a strong feeling that something big is about to happen around here.”

“Looks boring.”

“Actually, it’s quite amazing.” Gus tapped a page. “Check this out. They’ve developed a written test that’s ninety-nine percent accurate in determining whether someone’s a potential serial killer.”

“Baloney,” said Walter. “If it’s a written test, they’ll just lie. People are going to answer the way they think you want them to.”

“That’s the fascinating part,” said Gus. “There are a bunch of obvious questions on the test where people will answer like they think they’re supposed to: ‘If you could get away with it, would you shoot someone who slept with your wife? Stole ten thousand dollars? Got you fired?’ But those are the null questions. Scattered in between are a handful of innocuous ones a person would never suspect — those are the real questions. Any answer would appear benign. But they’ve empirically prescreened the test, administering it to hundreds of murderers in prison, as well as people of unimpeachable character, boiling down the questions until they arrived at a short list with a ninety-nine percent mutual exclusion rate between the two groups.”

“Like?”

“Like this one. A woman is at her mother’s funeral and she meets this hunk of a guy. It’s love at first sight. The next week the woman murders her sister. What was her motive?”

“I don’t know,” said Walter. “Her sister made a move on the guy?”

“No.”

“The woman started dating the guy, and her sister told some horrible lie that made him dump her?”

“No.”

“I give up.”

“Here’s the red-flag answer that says you think like a killer: She wanted to meet the guy again at the next funeral.”

“But that makes no sense.”

“That’s why normal people don’t give that answer.”

“It’s a stupid test.”

Gus grabbed the keys to the cruiser. “We need to get going.”

Seven o’clock, plus a few minutes

AN ECLECTIC BLEND of people in “I Follow Nobody” T-shirts milled around the base of the Bogie Channel Bridge, where Serge’s notice on the community center’s bulletin board had told them to assemble for their first field trip. They were joined by several regulars from the pub and some clowns from a local carnival who were buying pot from Coleman.

A ’71 Buick Riviera skidded up, and Serge jumped out. “Welcome to the Night Tour!”

He reached in the backseat for camera equipment. “Truly apologize for being late. Hate it when people do that to me. Unavoidable personal emergency. Okay, I’m actually having marriage problems. But that’s confidential; I can’t reveal any details. Even I don’t know the details. And I definitely don’t want anything getting back to her in such a small town that might make it worse. So all I can tell you is I think my wife is getting her period. Is everyone ready?”

They nodded.

Serge began leading them on foot over the bridge.

“…Observe the stars, their concentration and brightness almost like special effects this far from the light pollution of the cities…. And now we come to the night fishermen. Can’t say enough about the night fishermen! You see them throughout the Keys, every night, all night. How can they spend so much time like this? When do they sleep? What about their jobs?…” The fishermen stared at Serge as he walked by talking loudly. “…Don’t they know how to form relationships? What killed their life ambition? Keep it up, guys!… And now we come to No Name Key, best viewing location for miniature deer, especially at night when it’s cooler and they come out to forage….”

The gang walked two more miles down the straight road across the island. They saw a total of eight deer, including a doe and a fawn that slowly crossed the street ahead of them and climbed into the brush. They came to the end of the road, which used to be the ferry landing before they built the Seven-Mile Bridge. Now it was just ruins with a barricade and reflective warning sign so tourists wouldn’t drive into the water.

“This way.” Serge left the road and started up an unofficial footpath that led from the north side of the pavement. The gang followed. After a few hundred yards, dense trees gave way to a moonlit clearing bordered by mangroves on the bay side. Water from a rising tide splashed through a maze of exposed roots that ensnared trash. Swim trunks, fishing line, rusty beer cans, two shoes tied together, mildewed pup tent and a Clorox bottle.

Somebody else already occupied Serge’s clearing. Teenagers in trench coats and stud collars and black makeup. They tended a waning campfire. A small pelt lay on the ground, blood and entrails. One of them held a stick over the fire, roasting an animal heart.

“Who the heck are you?” asked Serge.

The teen with the stick took a bite off the end. “Vampires.”

Another teen with spiked palm mitts relieved himself in the bushes. “Devil worshipers.”

“Which is it?” asked Serge.

“Both,” said the one by the fire.

“I see,” said Serge. “Overachievers.”

The one at the fire stood up. He was the leader because his mother let him borrow the station wagon. “What are you doing here?”

“Holding a meeting,” said Serge. “We reserved this clearing. It’s been on the board at the community hall all week. I know we’re a little late, but we still have the rest of the hour.”

“You have intruded on the sacred sacrificial circle,” intoned the leader. “And now you must die….”

One of the people susceptible to joining cults raised his hand. “Is it hard to become a vampire?”

“…We call on you, most high Satan, to strike down the unbelievers…” The leader continued incantations as he walked around the group, drawing on the ground with a long stick. “…I am now drawing the death pentagram, condemning your souls to the eternal bowels of hell…. Pardon me….”

“Oh, sorry.” One of the clowns stepped out of the way so the teen could continue his line.

“…Your mortal remains will be torn asunder, consumed by the seven-headed beast, your intestines devoured….”

Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “He’s making me hungry.”

“Me, too. Night Tours require munchies.” Serge borrowed a cell phone and punched in a number. “Hello? No Name? Eight large pepperoni supremes. Make it an even ten….”

“…Oblivion awaits. I unleash the curse of the black tabernacle….

“No, that’ll be delivery,” said Serge. “You know the clearing off the north side near the ferry landing? That’s right, the devil-worship place. Thanks.”

The teen began saying The Lord’s Prayer backward. “…Evil from us deliver and temptation into not us lead. Trespass against forgive… Wait, that’s not it. The ‘trespasses’ always mess me up….”

“Hey, Vlad the Imp,” said Serge. “Until oblivion gets here, we’ll just start our meeting over there if that’s all right.”

They gathered round Serge’s feet at the edge of the clearing. He began his trademark pacing.

“The Keys are an enchanted land removed from the continent, evolving independently like the Galapagos, a necklace of lush little neighborhoods across the Overseas Highway where the bad parts of town have boats up on blocks. Churches, dogcatchers, school buses, oncoming bikers low-fiving on drawbridges, art-guild galleries specializing in watercolors and handbags made from coconuts, streets like Cutthroat Lane and Mad Bob Road, a fire chief actually named Bum Farto, a mayor arrested for shaking down jet-ski rentals, tourists eating mangoes out of motel swimming pools, wild roosters, feral cats, Duval merchants charging credit cards of Dutch visitors five hundred dollars for a T-shirt, federal roadblocks sparking the Conch Republic revolution. ‘Remember the Aloe!’ Then, greed. Unaffordable resorts crowding out the funk that brought ’em here in the first place. A bearded, turtle-necked Papa Hemingway reduced to a logo for Sloppy Joe’s franchises like some kind of literary Chef Boyardee. The real Key West vanishing, moving toward a convergence point with the Key West pavilion at Sea World: tourists forsaking the genuine article to stumble through piped-in Jamaican music, plastic trees and misting wands, thinking they’re part of the wild Key West lifestyle. ‘Y’all better stand back. I’m pretty crazy. Who knows what I’ll do next? Guess I’ll buy me another Creamsicle.’ I tried to warn them. ‘Run!’ I yelled. ‘Run before they strap the rat cage on your face!’ But nobody wanted to talk to me except security….”

The audience heard a rustling in the brush. Serge stopped his speech. The head teen arose by the campfire. “Almighty Lucifer has heeded our unworthy calls….”

The rustling grew louder. Something large approached through the mangroves.

“The sword is raised! Beg for the mercy you won’t receive!…”

Everyone tensed and huddled together, eyes shifting nervously. The sound came closer and closer until it was right at the edge of the clearing. Whatever it was would emerge any second.

“Bow your heads for sweet death! Behold! It is Satan!…”

A deliveryman in a paper cap popped into the clearing. “Ten supremes?”

Serge waved. “Over here, Satan.”

The gang began chowing.

“Is that pizza?” asked one of the vampires.

“Yeah,” said Serge, holding up a slice. “Want some?”

“Sure!”

“Approach not the unbelievers!” yelled the leader.

“But it’s pizza.”

The two groups merged, stomachs filled, then digestion. Everyone gathered quietly around Serge by the campfire. His face glowing red as he poked embers with a stick. A number of attentive squirrels, owls and deer arrived and listened along the edge of the woods.

“…The Keys are like Florida squared, but not for long. It’s a creeping rot, inoperable gangrene moving up a limb, starting at Mile Zero and crawling east along U.S. One. Key West was the final haven of the true individual, a subtropical Greenwich Village. But it got too popular. In came shortsighted developers, cutting off their own air supply, raising prices so high that service employees can’t afford to live there any longer….”

A vampire raised his hand. “Is this a concurrency flaw in the growth-management plan or simply a multi-dwelling density issue?”

“It’s both, but it’s more. Who’s heard of Donald Greely?”

Some hands went up. “Isn’t he supposed to move down here?” asked a teen.

“Just did,” said Serge. “But here’s the worst part. He’s planning a major development. Not supposed to, under the deal with the bankruptcy court. So he’s fronting for some cats. It’s along the protected southern shore of Key West.”

“But if it’s protected…”

“Bribes,” said Serge. “Bribes and secrecy. That’s the part I hate the most. I’m not a hard case. Developers have to make a living, too. Just do it in the open. But, no, it’s all cigar smoke and brown envelopes slipped inside coat pockets. Secrecy, secrecy, secrecy!…”

“Then how did you find out about the development?”

“Can’t tell you. It’s a secret.”

“What can we do about it?” said one of the clowns.

“Glad you asked. Greely’s laying a preemptive foundation of local goodwill by giving to all these charities. The climax is this new community appreciation festival he’s sponsoring Saturday. Big shindig, free food, music, blahblah-blah — you know, the kind of event they advertise with vinyl banners over the road. The newspaper even published a schedule of all these celebrity appearances he’s going to make — limbo, parasail, get on stage to sing with one of the bands — trying to prove he’s a regular guy.”

“But Serge, what’s that got to do with us?”

The air cooled. A previously unseen cloud slipped across the moon. Serge rubbed his palms together. “I have a plan. Here’s what we’re all going to do….”

There was an ominous rustling again out in the dark brush. Serge stopped talking. People looked in the direction of the sound. Goose bumps.

The rustling grew louder. Then a final snapping of branches before a large form appeared at the edge of the woods.

“The Skunk Ape!”

“Hi, Serge.”

“Hi, Roger.”

“I smelled pizza.”

“A few slices left. Have at it.”

“Thanks.”

Serge crouched by the fire again. “Okay, here’s the plan.” He laid it out in detail. A role for everyone. Compartmentalized. Tight synchronization. He was just about finished when there was another rustling from the woods.

“What now!”

A naked woman popped into the clearing.

Bud Naranja jumped back in alarm. “That’s her! That’s the woman who kidnapped me!”

“Hi, Serge,” said the woman. “Been a long time.”

“I’m married now.”

“Damn.”

“What are you doing here?”

“I smelled pizza.”

“Roger’s got the last box.”

“Cool.”

Serge pulled a large envelope from his shirt, removing a stack of papers that he began handing out. “Here are your plans for our tactical operation at the Greely festival. Each is different depending on your mission…. And one for you and you, and one for you… Accompanying the plans is a separate homework assignment. It’s a scavenger list. Right after this meeting I want you all to go on your own Night Tour and find as many items as you can before dawn. Then we’ll meet at the address at the bottom for breakfast — if you make it! And one for you, and one for you… Each item must be touched for it to be considered an official find. Do not remove artifacts. Photos or tracing permitted…. And one for you, and one for you… Coleman, one of the vampires didn’t get one.”

“I see him.”

Serge held up the empty envelope. “Everyone got theirs?… Good. Gather round.” Serge put out his right arm, palm down. Everyone made a tight circle, placing their hands on top of Serge’s, like a college football team before a big game. “Bow your heads,” said Serge. “Almighty Father, please stop making jerks. Amen… Break!”

36

A GREEN-AND-WHITE sheriff’s cruiser flew east on U.S. 1. Walter had the microphone in his hand. “Ten-four, we’re rolling.” Gus hit the lights and siren.

A NAKED WOMAN walked down a dirt road on Sugarloaf Key. She was reading a piece of paper.

The woman approached the bat tower and placed her palm against the side. She grabbed a pen from over her ear and crossed it off the sheet. She wandered off into the darkness reading the paper.

A sheriff’s cruiser rolled slowly down a dirt road on Sugarloaf Key. Gus scanned with the search beam. They reached the end of the road, their spotlight sweeping across the base of the bat tower. Walter was on the radio. “…Nope, no sign of her.”

SERGE AND COLEMAN walked down another footpath from the clearing until they reached an opening on the water. Small waves lapped the shore. Coleman was carrying his flexible cooler. “I love Night Tours.”

“Give me a hand with the airboat.”

They sloshed into the water and dragged the hull off the sand. Serge held the boat steady a few yards from shore while Coleman climbed up into the high seat in back, grabbing a beer and stowing the cooler.

Serge thrust himself over the gunwale and settled into the low driver’s seat up front. He started the engine. The airboat zoomed away from the island with astounding acceleration. Serge gripped the control stick hard in his right hand, cheeks flapping in the high wind. Coleman was pasted back in his seat, sucking an aluminum can, rivulets of beer that had missed his mouth trickling upstream over his forehead windshield-style.

“You buckled in?” yelled Serge.

“What?”

“Good.” He made a sharp port turn around a mangrove point, catapulting Coleman into the water.

The airboat ripped across the flats. Serge tore up the channel on the windward side of Howe Key, then cut east, spraying water, making the wide pass between Raccoon and the Contents, yelling back over the deafening propeller.

“…Always wanted to do this, Coleman! Trace the historic route of Happy Jack and his merry band, the original Keys party animals! The books of the great historian John Viele bird-dogged me to the microfilm of the original Putnam’s and Harper’s articles from the 1850s. What a gang! Jolly Whack, Paddy Whack, Red Jim, Lame Bill, Old Gilbert and of course their leader, Jack himself. They drank whiskey and rum on the isolated north coast of Sugarloaf. When the booze ran out, they harvested vegetables and sailed to Key West to barter for more spirits. One problem: they started drinking on the way back and kept falling overboard….”

Serge tacked a gradual thirty degrees southwest, mangrove silhouettes all around. He skirted the Torch Keys, then Summerland and Cudjoe. The moon caught the white skin of the radar blimp tethered at five hundred feet. Serge opened the throttle wide for another screaming run across the flats.

COLEMAN WADED ASHORE on Big Pine and started walking up a deserted road. Headlights hit him. A station wagon stopped. The back door opened. Coleman got in with the vampires.

BIG FLOPPY SHOES slapped down a footpath on Coppitt Key. The trail led between a row of dirty headstones. Two men read checklists as they walked. Red rubber balls on their noses. Mr. Blinky stopped and fired up a joint. He handed it to Uncle Inappropriate, then bent down and touched one of the tombstones. He stood up and crossed it off his page.

The pair continued passing the joint as they strolled off into the darkness. On the other side of the cemetery, a sheriff’s cruiser rolled through the front gate.

Gus panned the searchlight across the tombstones. “What exactly did the dispatcher say?”

“You know, the usual. Some clowns in the cemetery…”

AN AIRBOAT BLASTED across the Great White Heron National Wildlife Refuge and slalomed through the Saddlebunches. Serge was in his element. “Over there,” he shouted. “Boca Chica, where the Navy jets touch and go. Used to have a historic dive. The men’s room door opened to the parking lot….”

The airboat straightened out and raced northeast, avoiding sandbars that were only visible on a map in Serge’s brain. He heard other boats now. Distant running lights from the fishing trawlers; no lights on the smugglers. Getting closer, skimming north of Stock Island, then the naval installations on Dredgers and Fleming keys. “Almost there, Coleman!…” A final cut due south through Man of War Harbor, on a dead bearing for the sparkling lights of Key West Bight.

Duval Street, Key West

DRUNK TOURISTS STAGGERED out of saloons, barefoot runaways begged on the sidewalk in front of St. Paul’s. A station wagon drove north through the intersection of Eaton. Five vampires read five sheets of paper.

“Let me off up here.”

The car stopped at the corner of Greene. Coleman got out. He stuck his head back in a window. “I think number eighteen is right over there. Serge takes me all the time.”

“Thanks.” The station wagon turned left. Coleman began walking east toward the string of bars along the harbor. All had doors open to the night air. Turtle Kraals, Half-Shell. Coleman entered Schooner’s and took a seat overlooking the big dock that ran parallel behind the restaurant. He ordered a rumrunner and opened his wallet to the family photo section stuffed with bar coupons.

Coleman had just finished his drink when a deep aviation drone came across the water, growing louder and louder until a silver airboat appeared out of the night. The boat pulled sideways up to the dock as Coleman trotted down the steps behind the bar.

Serge unbuckled his seatbelt and reached down for the mooring rope. “Coleman, get up on the dock and tie us off.” He turned and threw the line to Coleman, who wrapped it around a cleat.

Serge climbed out of the boat, and they headed off on the Night Tour.

In the parking lot at the end of the pier, headlights came on. A brown Plymouth Duster.

SERGE LED COLEMAN on a crooked path until he stopped and sat on a curb between the water and the end of Lazy Day Lane.

Coleman tried to get a wet lighter going. “Why are we stopping here?”

“There’s Jimmy’s secret studio, number twenty-two on the scavenger list. I want to see who gets it first.”

“What studio?”

“That plain, white-washed building with no signs. Looks like an ice house.”

“Buffett really records there?”

“Yeah, but nobody’s supposed to know,” said Serge. “I staked out the place two years ago when I heard they were about to start the new album. Sure enough, these fancy cars start pulling up, people looking around suspiciously before ducking inside. I recognized Fingers and Utley and Mac and finally Bubba himself. I figured that was my chance.”

“Chance for what?”

“To do some session work. I’ve always wanted to get in the liner notes. So I grab the door before it closed behind someone. You wouldn’t believe how many people are in there when they record. You got technicians and extra musicians and a million personal assistants getting coffee and Danish. People were tripping all over each other, so I tried to stay out of the way and stood in the back by the three microphones set up next to the keyboards. After ten minutes, the guy behind the mixer points me out to the bodyguards. Up till then, everyone just assumed I was with somebody else. The guards walk over and ask just what the hell I think I’m doing. I say, ‘Singing backup.’ So now I’ve got six guys on me. Jimmy was off to the side going over sheet music, but he finally looked up when we knocked over the cymbals. They had me completely off the ground, rushing toward the door. I yell, ‘Fine, Jimmy. I know when I’m not wanted. And for the record, it’s been an awfully long time since ‘He Went to Paris.’ Go ahead, put out another sonic-turd… Then I hit the sidewalk—”

“Someone’s coming.”

They looked across the street. A naked woman walked out of the darkness, reading a piece of paper. She stopped and pressed a palm against the white building. She walked away, grabbing the pen off her ear.

“I knew she’d be good at this.” Serge stood up. “Let’s rock.”

They headed back to Greene Street and went inside a bar with a giant grouper over the door.

“So this is Captain Tony’s,” said Coleman.

“Used to be the Blind Pig and the original Sloppy Joe’s.” Serge sniffed the air. “Still reeks of history! See that tree growing up through the roof? Used to be the ‘hanging tree’ when they still had public executions at the turn of the century. And look over here on the floor next to the pool table.”

“A grave marker?”

“Uncovered it when they were building on, so they just poured the cement around it. There’s Eric Clapton’s bar stool and John Goodman’s and Neil Diamond’s. Everyone comes to Captain Tony’s! Once I was sitting in here and we see this bunch of guys march past the door in combat fatigues. A couple minutes later they march back the other way.”

“Who were they?”

“Cuban military defectors. We’re always getting them here, like the guy who landed his MiG at the airport. This group had pulled their patrol boat right into the harbor, completely undetected. They couldn’t find anyone to turn themselves in to, so they just wandered the tourist district with fully loaded Kalashnikovs. But nobody paid any attention because everything’s so weird down here. They finally came in Captain Tony’s and surrendered to the guitar player.”

Coleman looked up at an old photo on the wall. “Who’s this?”

“A young Captain Tony fishing with Ernest Hemingway, and here’s a poster from the movie they made about Tony’s life. It’s driving me nuts!”

“What is?”

“Everyone’s met him but me. I just have to talk to the captain! He’s well into his eighties now, the last living link. Done it all, running booze and guns, then this saloon, where Tennessee Williams hung out. Was even mayor for a while. You know what his motto is?”

“No.”

“It’s right up there on those T-shirts they’re selling. ‘All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean shit.’ I disagree, of course, but still a nice sentiment.”

A Skunk Ape came in reading a piece of paper and put his hand against the hanging tree.

“Tony looks pretty old in this other picture,” said Coleman.

“He is old. But the sex-drive part isn’t just cheap talk. Women still flock to him in amazing numbers. Everyone around here knows all about the phenomenon.”

A PLYMOUTH DUSTER sat at the curb next to the Bull & Whistle. Combat boots climbed an old wooden staircase to the second floor, then around the landing and up another flight. The roof was a clothing-optional lounge. Except some weekdays in the summer were slow, like now. You could still go up and look over the side of the building for a bird’s eye of Duval, but the bar was closed. The combat boots crossed the roof. The access door at the top of the stairs had been jammed shut with a chair. Gloved hands snapped a folding stock in place and screwed on the silencer. The end of a rifle barrel soon rested on Spanish roofing tiles at the edge of the building. Serge and Coleman appeared in the scope’s crosshairs as they walked past a street artist doing caricatures. Vampires came toward them on the sidewalk.

“How many you got?” asked Serge.

“Eight,” said the leader, holding up his list with enthusiasm. “Would have had nine, but couldn’t catch the Hemingway cat. Wish me luck….”

“Satanspeed.”

Up on the rooftop, an eye stayed pressed to a rifle scope. Serge still in the crosshairs, waving goodbye to the teens as they parted in opposite directions. A leather finger curled around the trigger.

One of the vampires stopped on the sidewalk. He looked at his list, then at the Volkswagen driving by. “There’s number sixteen. An insane person’s car.”

“Where?”

“The Beetle completely covered with bumper stickers, seashells, bingo markers and religious figurines.”

They sprinted back up the sidewalk, passing Serge and Coleman. The fastest darted into the street and caught the car at a red light, slapping the fender. “Sixteen!” The slowest ran up behind Serge just in time to take a slug in the shoulder.

“Did you hear something?” said Serge.

“You mean like a yell?” said Coleman.

“Yeah. You heard it, too?”

“No.”

They kept walking.

Leather hands quickly disassembled the rifle. Combat boots ran across the roof and down the stairs.

THE END OF the night. Serge’s favorite time. The critical thirty minutes when the sky goes from its blackest to a tricky tease of light. Serge just had to be at the Southernmost Point, sitting on the seawall, legs hanging over and kicking with hope.

“My stomach’s making that noise,” said Coleman.

“You’re not watching,” said Serge.

The sky ran through a palette of grays and blues, the amorphous view toward the Gulf Stream separating into sky and water. A rooster activated in the distance. Serge stood and stretched. They began walking again, starting to see people, someone on the curb weaving five-dollar hats from palm fronds, someone else setting up a table of conch shells.

Serge picked up one of the largest shells. “May I?”

“May you what?” said the man behind the table.

“I’m going to be in that big conch-blowing contest next month,” said Serge. “I’d like to practice my chops.”

“Just don’t drop it.” The man began unloading another box.

Serge held the shell an inch from his mouth. “Okay Coleman, this is the winning entry for sure. I’ve been polishing it all year. Joe Walsh’s guitar solo from ‘Life in the Fast Lane.’”

“I love that song.”

“Here goes…” Serge pressed the shell to his lips.

Coleman tapped his foot to the catchy tune. Serge blew relentlessly into the third and fourth measures with big Dizzy Gillespie cheeks. The man behind the table looked up. “I’ve never heard anyone play that fast.”

“It’s ‘Life in the Fast Lane,’” said Coleman.

“His face is purple.”

“It gets that way.”

“Do his eyes roll up in his head?”

“Serge!” yelled Coleman.

Serge was still playing, reeling sideways off balance until he crashed into the bushes.

Coleman ran over and shook him. “You all right?”

Serge sat up and blew the spit out of his shell. “They might as well start engraving that trophy.”

They were on the move again, past the Southernmost House, the Southernmost Inn, the Southernmost transient, back around Simonton Street and up to a building that opened in 1962. On the roof, a suntan lotion sign with a dog tugging a little girl’s bathing suit.

Serge opened the door. Most of the gang was already seated around the U-shaped lunch counters of Dennis Pharmacy, comparing lists, spearing sunny-side yolks. Serge and Coleman grabbed stools and menus.

The front door opened again.

“Serge!”

“Joe!” Serge then noticed the eighty-seven-year-old man standing next to the owner of the No Name. “You actually got him to come!”

“I told you I would.”

The old man appraised Serge. “You look like a fucking tourist in that shirt.”

“I know. Isn’t it great? All the toll collectors wear them.” Serge faced the gang at the counter. “Can I have your attention? Our dysfunctional klatch is honored this morning by the presence of the one-and-only Captain Tony! Number thirty-seven on your lists.”

“That’s Captain Tony?” They quickly formed a line, one by one touching him on the shoulder.

The pharmacy window opened; Coleman was waiting behind a young woman with multiple piercings.

“…I’m telling you,” said the pharmacist. “I’ve known this doctor all my life and this isn’t his handwriting….”

“Yes, it is,” said the woman.

“…And he never gives fifteen refills for painkillers.”

“I’ll take one.”

The pharmacist picked up the phone. “You can either leave or be here when the police arrive.”

Two hungry sheriff’s deputies got out of their cruiser and walked toward the pharmacy.

“I thought you told me this was going to be a quiet night,” said Walter.

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Gus. There was a piece of paper stapled to the telephone pole on the corner, a photocopy of a penis with a Mr. Bill face. Gus tore it down and crumpled it into a ball. “I’m just glad it’s finally over.” The front door flew open and smacked Gus in the shoulder. “Ow.” A young woman took off down the street.

The deputies went inside and walked past the pharmacist, who smiled at Coleman. “Now, how can I help you?”

Coleman slipped a prescription back in his pocket. “Uh, where’s the rest room?”

The deputies headed for the breakfast counter.

“Hey, there’s Captain Tony,” said Gus. “The legend.”

A naked woman put her hand on Tony’s shoulder.

“He’s still got it,” said Walter.

Serge saw the deputies and energetically waved them over. “Join us!” He turned to the gang. “Some of you make room for hardworking law enforcement.”

“Serge, please,” said Gus. “I don’t want to take anyone’s seat.”

“Nonsense. You’re heroes.”

The deputies grabbed stools, and Gus opened his textbook.

Serge turned to the captain. “I was just telling my friend about your hanging tree.”

“Almost cut it down,” said Tony.

“What!”

“Didn’t know what it was. This was decades ago. The thing was wrecking my roof. And this old-timer says, ‘You can’t cut that down. It’s the hanging tree.’ He tells me that when he was a little kid, he saw them lynch a woman. Except she didn’t die right away, tongue sticking out and wiggling and everything…”

Walter made a butter pool in his grits, then pointed at his partner’s textbook with a fork. “You still on that psychology garbage?”

“I’m telling you, the test works.”

Walter salted his hash browns. “It’s a stupid test.”

“What’s a stupid test?” said Serge.

“We’ve been having an argument all night,” said Gus. “Maybe you can help us.”

“Name it. Always ready to help the police.”

“It’s not a big deal. Just a riddle.”

“Tell me.”

“A woman goes to her mother’s funeral and meets this hunk, and she’s smitten. The next week she kills her sister. What’s the motive?”

“What else?” said Serge. “She wanted to meet him at the next funeral.”

“There!” said Walter. “There’s your great test! You’ve asked one person so far. One hundred percent failure rate.”

“I don’t understand it,” said Gus. “They backed it up with all kinds of research. Less than one percent false results.” He looked at Serge. “How on earth did you know that answer?”

“What are you talking about?”

“That answer is supposed to indicate someone who thinks like a serial killer….”

Serge laughed unnaturally. “Ha, ha, ha… Oh! Those tests!…”

“But how did you get the answer?”

“Well, I, uh… read a lot of murder mysteries,” said Serge. “That’s it. It was in one of the plots.”

“I rest my case,” said Walter. “Unless you want to arrest Serge…”

37

Captain Florida’s log, star date 736.973

Molly! The woman’s driving me crazy! Remember those tiny little doubts about marriage I mentioned? They’re now a full-blown crisis of faith! To the news: I leave the apartment to go see Coleman, minding my own business and checking what’s in the Dumpster like I always do. I notice trash from our apartment, and I can’t believe my eyes. She’s thrown out my favorite tennis shoes! There they are, under the Maxi-pads. I fish ’em out with a stick and the poor things are full of soggy corn flakes. I’m on the verge of tears. I march right back upstairs and confront her. I figure this time she’s the guilty party so I’ll be in control of the debate. Know what I learned? Women are ninjas! Suddenly I’m back on defense! Says she’s

embarrassed

to be seen with me in those shoes. I say, “But they’re my favorite shoes.” The silent treatment again except for all the slamming. I didn’t know the apartment had that many doors. I call my married friend in West Palm again, and he says, “Are you crazy? You have to

hide

your favorite tennis shoes.” I say, “I didn’t know.” He suggests the wheel well of the car. I get off the phone and say, “Okay, honey. I want you to be happy. I’ll throw the shoes out.” Guess what? She catches me! The trunk lid was up and I didn’t see her coming. So now I’m dishonest in the relationship, which I was informed is worse than bad shoes. I say, “Time-out! I’m just trying to retreat here. Now I can see how marriage turns the most honest men into sneaks.” Whoops. That didn’t lead anywhere I want to visit again. Speaking of which, I was right about her period. We discussed it, and come to find out, she’s not responsible for anything she says or does three days a month. I ask if I can have three days, too, and she says, “No.” I suggest we at least put a calendar up on the refrigerator and mark the days so I have time to dig a foxhole. Holy shit! Can that woman throw! Didn’t even see her pick up the flowerpot. I call my friend again, and he says, “Are you nuts? You can’t ask her to post her period on the fridge!” I say, “Why not? I’ve never lived with a woman before. I’m going through my first one and, Jesus, can you believe those fucking things? How can husbands everywhere be going through this and there hasn’t been anything about it on the news?” He just said, “Welcome to family life.” I decide to drive to the supermarket and get a balloon to buy a fresh start. I come home and she’s got a wooden box in her hands. My matchbook collection! I say, “What are you doing?” She says I’m a pack rat! Ladies and gentlemen, this could be the deal-breaker. I grab the box out of her hands and call my friend again in West Palm. There’s screaming in the background on his end. He says I have to stop calling — his wife overheard our last conversation. I say it’s important. I’ve lost all domestic territory except a little corner in the closet, and now that’s under siege. If I give it up, I’ll have to start walking around the house with a backpack all the time. He says the last piece of turf is important, and he wishes he still had his. Do I have a garage to hide stuff? I say, “I don’t.” He says, “You’re screwed.” Then more screaming on his end and the line went dead.

The phone rang. Serge put down his journal.

“Hello?… Coleman did what? Of all the stupid — Yes, I’ll be right there.”

Serge ran out the door.

MOLLY LOOKED UP at the wall clock in the branch library on Big Pine. Quitting time. She stood and hoisted a purse strap over her shoulder.

Her colleagues at the front desk waved goodnight as Molly walked past the flowers under Brenda’s memorial plaque.

She drove to the apartment and opened the door. “Serge, I’m home!… Honey? Are you here?” Molly took the purse off her shoulder. Something on the coffee table caught her eye. “What’s this?”

She picked up the journal.

38

Sheriff’s substation, Cudjoe Key

THE FRONT DOOR opened. Walter looked up from the coffee machine. “Gus, what are you doing in that suit?”

Gus walked toward his desk. “Have a meeting in Key West.”

“Oh, that’s right,” said Walter. “Internal Affairs. The pot business.”

Gus looked surprised. “It’s a confidential proceeding.”

“They’re going to suspend you.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“The coffee shop.”

Gus grabbed some papers from his in-basket and headed out the door.

“Maybe you can say you have glaucoma.”

“Later, Walter.”

A STARK, WINDOWLESS room in Key West. An uncomfortable metal chair under a bright fluorescent light. Gus was in it.

There was a desk in front of him and two men in dark suits and thin black ties. The one sitting behind the desk was known as R.J. The one leaning against the side of the desk with a leg hitched over the corner was J.R.

“Serpico,” said R.J. “Why are you sweating?”

“It’s hot in here.”

R.J. turned to J.R. “I’m not hot. Are you hot?”

“I’m not hot.”

“This is ridiculous,” said Gus. “The pot was part of an official presentation. The department does it all the time.”

“Don’t worry about the pot,” said R.J.

“But I heard you were going to suspend me.”

“You heard?” said J.R.

“You’ve been snooping around?” said R.J. “Interfering with an internal investigation?”

“That’s a serious crime,” said J.R.

“No,” said Gus. “I mean my partner mentioned it in passing—”

“Turning on your partner?” said R.J.

“Breaking the Blue Wall of Silence?” said J.R. “There’s a name for cops like you.”

“It’s not a nice name,” said R.J.

Gus looked confused. “So you aren’t going to suspend me?”

“We already did,” said R.J.

“But we suspended the suspension,” said J.R.

“I don’t understand,” said Gus. “Then why am I here?”

J.R. handed a sheet of paper to R.J., who held it up in front of Gus. “Is this your dick?”

“Where’d you get that?” said Gus.

“A guy was passing them out with restaurant flyers on the corner of Southard,” said J.R.

“I’m not believing this,” said Gus.

“He hasn’t answered the question,” said R.J.

“Why won’t you answer the question?” said J.R.

“Look,” said Gus. “There’s a very simple explanation….”

R.J. produced a coffee mug from Las Vegas. “Is this yours?”

“What?”

“Don’t try to deny it,” said J.R. “We found it in your desk.”

“The bathing suits disappear,” said R.J. “The lab boys tested it numerous times under a variety of conditions.”

“Inappropriate material in a government office,” said J.R. “That’s a serious offense.”

“But I was going to take it home,” said Gus.

“We get the picture.”

“No, you don’t,” said Gus. “I didn’t even want it. That was a gift.”

“Who from?”

“My partner.”

“Oh, still trying to give up your partner?” said J.R.

R.J. held up the Xerox again. “Is this your dick?”

Gus wiped sweat off his forehead. “I can explain that piece of paper.”

“By all means.”

“It’s not what you think,” said Gus. “I wasn’t involved.”

“But this is your dick?” said R.J.

Gus nodded.

“And you weren’t involved?” said J.R.

“Yes, no, I mean it was done without my knowledge.”

“Someone drew on your dick without your knowledge?”

“No, I agreed to the drawing part.”

“That’s all the questions we have for now,” said R.J.

“Wait, I have to explain.”

“You have a funny way of explaining,” said J.R.

“The more you do it…” said R.J.

“…The worse it gets,” said J.R.

ANOTHER OFFICE IN Key West. This one had windows and diplomas. The marriage counselor flipped through the pages of a handwritten journal.

From time to time, his eyes bugged. He solemnly closed the book and looked up at Serge. “I want to thank you for allowing me to read this. It shows a commitment to making your marriage work.

“Why not?” Serge said in resignation. “I’m worn out.”

Serge and Molly were sitting as far apart on the couch as possible. Molly was all scrunched into herself at one end, trying to occupy minimum space. Serge was at the other, lounging with legs spread, tapping a foot. The counselor sat across from them in a padded chair. He wore a toupee that was too black. He patted the cover of the journal. “I think you subconsciously wanted her to find this.”

“That wasn’t it,” said Serge. “I had to run out. Coleman ended up in the emergency room again after a bar bet trying to uncap a beer bottle with his eye socket.”

“Coleman!” blurted Molly, folding her arms tight and looking away.

“Who’s Coleman?” asked the counselor.

There was a quick knock at the door, then it opened. A man with an eye bandage stuck his head inside. “Are you going to be much longer?”

“What are you doing?” said Serge. “This is a private meeting.”

“Yeah, but I have to go see the guy.”

“Excuse me, sir.” The counselor gave the man a stern look. “Do you mind?”

“Sorry.” He looked at the empty beer in his hand. “You have a place I can throw this?”

“There’s a wastebasket in the lobby.”

“Thanks.” The door closed.

The counselor looked at Serge. “Coleman?”

Serge shrugged. “What are you gonna do?”

The counselor opened a file in his lap. “Okay, who wants to start? Serge?”

Serge stared at his watch. “This wasn’t my idea.”

“But you did come,” said the counselor.

“I buckled. It was like a land-for-peace swap.”

“Molly?” said the counselor. “How about you?”

“I made him a sandwich last week, and he took off the top piece of bread and added potato chips. He’s not the man I married!”

“I need my space,” said Serge.

The counselor looked at him with concern, thinking, You never make the potato-chip sandwich around your wife. “Let’s talk about your space—”

“His space!” said Molly. “So he can write more mean things about me in that evil little book of his?”

“She’s completely unreasonable,” said Serge. “I even gave her the double balloon — the one with the heart balloon inside the clear one. That’s supposed to get me off the hook. You know the rules. Tell her!”

The counselor took a deep breath and wrote something in the file. “How about we start with intimacy? How’s that going?”

“Sex?” said Serge. “Exhausting! The woman’s a machine! Molly may look like a wallflower, but she’ll suck you dry! Half the time my testicles are like little walnuts….”

“Serge…”

“…The closets are filled with all these costumes and props and this plywood thing she built with leather straps. Then there’s her incredible Tibetan muscle control that’ll make your hat spin….”

“Serge!”

“What?”

The counselor had his hand up. “Details aren’t necessary.” He made a notation in the file. “Intimacy not a problem.” He looked toward the other end of the couch. “Molly, what would you say the problem is?”

She stared away.

The counselor read his file. “You told me you got engaged and married almost immediately. You had to expect some surprises.”

Still silent.

“Molly, since it was your idea to come here, I’m going to need your help. You have to open up.”

She hesitated, then turned her head. “I need a quieter lifestyle. I’m scared all the time. I never know what’s going to happen next.”

The counselor got a new expression. “Has he ever struck you?”

“Oh, no, no, no. He’d never. That’s not what I’m talking about.”

“What are you talking about?”

“His job. I… I can’t take it anymore.”

The counselor glanced at the file. “What’s wrong with social worker. It’s an honorable profession. You must learn to support his career.”

“I thought I could. I was proud at first, watching him talk at the meetings. All that respect. But then the other stuff started. Strange phone calls. Clothes always ripped like he’s been wrestling. Sometimes he stays out all night. Then he rushes in and hides something and tells me if anyone asks, he wasn’t here. Once I saw him digging a hole behind the apartment building.”

“That’s the business we’re in,” said Serge. “I’m sure you have your own unorthodox methods.”

“I just want it to stop,” said Molly. “I want a safe family, dinners at home, maybe children. But his insane rhythms are making me a wreck.”

“Rhythms?”

“Everything’s crazy all the time. When he isn’t running all over the place, there are souvenirs and gadgets spread all over the bed. Or he gets into his books and suddenly decides we’re going to live like the pioneers and only allowed to eat roots, so I try to be understanding and eat roots with him for two solid weeks until he jumps up from the table and says he’s always hated roots and he’s going out for tacos, and I don’t see him until the next morning when he’s covered in mud and cleaning a claw hammer in the sink. Then there’s his best friend, Coleman. He’s there all the time, almost like he’s living with us….”

“I thought you liked to entertain,” said Serge.

Molly’s head snapped toward his end of the sofa. “Having some drunken oaf break all our shit isn’t entertaining!” She turned to the counselor and began enumerating on her fingers. “He broke one of the dishes that was part of a matched set, a lamp, the TV remote, a glass picture frame on the wall, a leg on the couch. I found a spaghetti sauce handprint on the bathroom ceiling. Oh yeah, he broke the toilet roll holder, snapped the shower rod out of the tiles, and I had to throw out one of our guest towels because it looked like he had — I don’t even want to know….”

Serge’s head fell back against the wall. “Those fucking towels again!”

Molly spun toward her husband. “What is your stupid friend doing using the guest towels in the first place!”

“He was a guest!”

“They’re the guest towels!”

Serge threw up his arms. “To this very day I don’t understand the towel rules!”

Molly turned to the counselor. “He said my towels cost more than blow jobs.”

The counselor raised his eyebrows. “You did?”

“In certain countries.”

“Coleman’s an idiot!” shouted Molly.

“He is not!” Serge shouted back.

Another knock at the door. It opened. “Where’s the rest room?”

“Down the hall on the left,” said the counselor.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Molly. She folded her arms, gave Serge a look, then stared away and refused to talk.

“There!” Serge pointed at Molly. “She’s doing it again! What the fuck is that?”

“Serge, please calm down—”

“No, I want to know what the hell that is. An amazing spectacle of nature. Lasts as long as a week. I’ll wake up in the morning all happy at the prospect of another day of life, then she’ll walk through the room and shoot me that look. Uh-oh, almost forgot: Shit’s still on! Where do they get that kind of endurance? I mean, check the frost in that body language! Plummeting toward absolute zero degrees Kelvin, where all life ceases to exist and electrons refuse to orbit their atoms…”

“Serge, I don’t think this is help—”

“…If I have something on my mind, I say it. But if she’s got an issue, it’s the sixty-four-dollar question. Did I forget an important date? Did I not compliment you on dinner? Did I track dirt in? Did I leave the seat up? Did I look at one of your girlfriends the wrong way? Did you think I was about to do something? For the love of God, just please tell me, what the fuck did I do this time?…”

“Serge, it might be better if—”

“…She wants to know why I spend time with Coleman?” He extended an upturned palm toward Molly. “Exhibit A. Men don’t do that. We just hang out and watch the game and not harbor festering shit. Of course, we’re responsible for almost all the homicides, so I guess there’s a tradeoff. But in between the murders, it’s really quite pleasant. Women, on the other hand…. Watch out! Have you ever heard them talk about their friends behind their backs? Pick, pick, pick, pick!…”

The counselor looked at the clock on the wall.

Molly was crying in her hands. Serge made a hissing sound and clawed at the air like a cat. “…They’ll rip you to pieces!”

A woman shouted in the hall. “Look out! You’re going to break that!”

Crash.

The counselor closed his file and smiled. “Same time next week?”

39

DAWN BROKE OVER the Florida Keys. It began like any other day. But by sunset, the TV people would have the footage of a lifetime.

It started with unusually heavy traffic on U.S. 1. A giant vinyl banner hung across the road:

FIRST ANNUAL DONALD GREELY

COMMUNITY APPRECIATION JAMBOREE

Small print underneath:

Paid for by The Committee for Fairness to Donald Greely

There was much to do. People busily handled festival preparations at a variety of locations.

A car pulled up to the sheriff’s substation on Cudjoe Key, Deputy Gus arriving for overtime security duty at the festival.

He opened the door and walked to his desk. There was a cardboard box on top of it. All the APBs and photos that he’d taped to the wall were inside.

Walter strolled over wearing an orange traffic vest. “Sorry to hear.”

“Hear what?”

“You getting fired.”

“I was?”

“Actually it’s not till Monday,” said Walter. “It’s a secret.”

“They’re really going to fire me over those Xeroxes of my—?”

“No, you just got probation for that,” said Walter. “They compromised with the union under the new tolerance for sexual deviants. Remember the precedent with the undercover guy who had the vagina surgery?”

“What? A transsexual?”

“No, he kept his penis, too. Then he started dating himself. The union argued you were just as weird.”

“How’d you find out?”

“Newspaper called me for comment.”

“Wonderful.”

“Don’t worry; I took your side. Told them you made a valuable contribution to law enforcement, despite your lifestyle choice.”

Gus began removing APBs from the cardboard box. “I don’t understand. Then why are they firing me?”

“Taping stuff to the wall. I warned you about that.”

“You’re joking.”

“Wish I was. Internal Affairs just left after taking it all down.”

“They can’t fire me for that.”

“They can under the new Three-Strikes Rule. First pot, then your dick. I’m afraid this is going to be our last shift together.”

“But it’s only taping stuff to the wall.”

“The Three-Strikes Rule has a Zero-Tolerance Policy.”

A FINGER PRESSED the doorbell button on Coleman’s trailer. The button fell off. A hand knocked.

Coleman had the stereo up all the way, watching a Girls Gone Wild tape to AC/DC. Serge gave up knocking and walked around the side of the trailer, scooting down the narrow, overgrown space between the mobile home and a chain-link fence. Empty bottles, damp leaves, mosquito larva in a tire. He banged on the window.

Coleman looked in various directions, trying to place the noise. More banging. Coleman turned around, kneeled on the couch and opened the curtains. “Serge…”

“Open the door!”

“What? I can’t hear you.”

“Open the door!”

“Can’t hear you. Meet you at the door.”

Coleman opened up. Serge came in with his knapsack. “You idiot.”

“What are you doing here?”

“What do you mean? Aren’t you ready?”

“For what?”

“The Greely festival!” said Serge. “Our big operation. The one I’ve been talking about all week.”

“That’s today?”

“Yes!” Serge pulled a pair of walkie-talkies from his backpack and handed one to Coleman.

“Cool.”

“Get your stuff. We have to move out.” Serge raised the walkie-talkie to his mouth and keyed the mike. “Tango Zulu, come in…”

A VAN SAT in the parking lot of Paradise Transmission. On the side, a smoked bubble window and an airbrush mural of a Yes album cover. The back of the van was full of people crouched on the shag carpet like a S.W.A.T. team.

The walkie-talkie on the dashboard squawked. “…Tango Zulu, come in… Tango Zulu, are you there?…”

Sop Choppy was behind the wheel. He turned to Mr. Blinky in the passenger seat. “Are we Tango Zulu?”

The clown passed a joint back over his shoulder. “I don’t know.”

“…Tango Zulu, where are you?…”

Sop Choppy grabbed the walkie-talkie. “Are we Tango Zulu?”

“Who is this?”

“Sop Choppy.”

“Yes!”

“Tango Zulu here.”

“Is everyone ready?”

Sop Choppy looked back. “Yep, they’re ready.”

“You got the oxygen tank?”

Sop Choppy glanced at the metal cylinder Mr. Blinky was holding between his legs, Coleman’s old nitrous tank that had been refilled with O₂. “Check.”

“Let’s do it.”

A METALLIC GREEN Trans Am rested under a tarp in the driveway of a waterfront home on Big Pine Key.

Anna Sebring was alone inside her late brother’s vacation place. She sat at the kitchen table, gazing out the back windows at the fishing boats filling Bogie Channel. The weather was perfect.

Anna looked down at the table. A big brass safety deposit box key lay in the middle.

She looked at her watch and took a deep breath.

“Now or never.”

She stood and picked up the key.

THE SOUTHERN SHORELINE of Key West was crammed before noon.

South Beach, Higgs Beach, Rest Beach, Smathers Beach, wall-to-wall cabanas, bikinis and umbrellas sprinkling the sand with bright primary colors. Two cocker spaniels chased each other through a volleyball game on Dog Beach. The swim areas were full of happy, splashing bathers dodging Jet Skis. Farther out, an ocean highway of pleasure craft. Bowriders, cabin cruisers, sailboats and catamarans that bobbed in the wakes of cigarette boats, which in turn were passed by giant hydroplanes and open-sea racers in paint schemes for Budweiser and Little Caesar’s pizza. Beyond that, on the horizon toward Cuba, fleets of shrimp trawlers with boom-arrays extending from both sides. Overhead, news helicopters, parasailers, an ultralight with pontoons and six circling Cessnas pulling banners for drink-till-you-drop specials in Old Town. Atlantic Boulevard and South Roosevelt were jammed with parked cars, traffic at a standstill, convertibles and rentals and VW microbuses with competing music. Matchbox Twenty, 50 Cent, Third Eye Blind.

The sun approached zenith, but it was only ninety degrees with a light breeze that smelled of salt, tanning oil and hot dogs cooking in a relentless line of sidewalk stands. Also, Sno-Kone stands, cotton candy stands and stands with battery-operated blenders serving alcohol-free daiquiris and piña coladas that were openly spiked. Standby ambulances sat at strategic intervals, paramedics already running stretchers back and forth across the beach in front of the concert stage. Passed-out exposure victims burned down one side of their bodies, a college kid who tried to stand on the seat of his jet ski, the ultralight pilot who crashed into the giant inflatable Corona bottle.

Nothing would stop the party. And what a party it was. Donald Greely was paying for it all with his own personal money, which used to be other people’s personal money. He wasn’t supposed to have the money under the court agreement, so it was filtered through judgment-proof combinations of lawyers and Caribbean accounts. It wasn’t cheap. Ten thousand free hot dogs, gallons of soda, city overtime, insurance, upcoming concert by the Beach Boys tribute band and, finally, after sundown, the big offshore fireworks extravaganza. Total bill: thirty grand. Greely had gotten the idea from the block parties John Gotti used to throw in Queens after each acquittal.

All that was missing now: the big entrance.

A corporate jet helicopter skimmed over the breakers.

“Almost there,” said the traveling publicist. She rechecked her organizer, a full schedule of photo ops synchronized to the minute.

TV cameras clustered as the helicopter swooped in from the Gulf Stream and gently touched down. Greely, in a tropical shirt, got out, waving both arms Nixon-style. A crowd surged forward.

The publicist checked her organizer. “Eleven thirty-seven. Hot dogs.”

The mob moved with Greely toward one of the food stands on Rest Beach. An aide fitted a chef’s hat on Greely’s head as he grinned and tonged wieners into buns. People shouted from the back of the crowd.

“We love you, Donald!”

“We’re behind you all the way!”

“You da man!”

The traveling publicist had paid them each twenty dollars and told them to wait till the cameras were rolling. Picking crowd-shouters was always an imprecise science, especially at events with alcohol.

“Don’t take no fuckin’ shit from those assholes, Donald!”

Another wave from Greely. “Just trying to be a good neighbor.”

Greely’s expensive smile filled the field of vision in Serge’s binoculars. He and Coleman were down by the shore, where a large contingent of Greely’s personal security team and local police had sealed off one of the docks and was giving a parasailing boat the thorough going-over. Serge continued surveillance with the binoculars and raised his walkie-talkie. “Tango Zulu, whenever you’re ready.”

“Roger.”

Greely had picked the southern shore of Key West for his festival because it was so magnificent. The perfect place to ruin. A cartel of financial backers had already been meeting for a year. If everything went according to plan, this stretch of real estate, from the Southernmost Marker to the salt ponds to Cow Key Channel, would sprout a solid wall of condos.

That’s why Greely needed their love. He was planning to parlay goodwill into city council fiat. A couple more of these parties and he could pack any council chamber with an audience of enthusiastic, poster-waving local supporters who would swear until the end of the universe to vote against any politician who didn’t give Greely his rezoning. The financiers had asked Greely to be their front man because of his rare talent. He could make people smile while he fucked them.

Of course it wasn’t all greed. He was going to give back to the community. The blueprints included a provision to donate a portion of the land to descendants of the first Native Americans in the Keys, because the backers also wanted a casino.

The publicist snapped her leather organizer shut. “Eleven-fifty-one. Limbo.”

An assistant removed Greely’s chef’s hat. A van with a Yes mural inched past the hot dog stand.

Sop Choppy monitored the second hand on his wristwatch. “Readyyyy… readyyyy… Now!”

The side door of the van flew open. Mr. Blinky slapped each person on the back as they jumped from the vehicle. “Go!… Go!… Go!…”

The team hit the ground, angling off in the different directions for their respective stations. When the back of the van was empty, two clowns grabbed the oxygen tank and advanced on the beachhead.

THE BANK WAS a fortress. Built like a German pillbox on the Atlantic Wall.

It wasn’t for robbers. It was for hurricanes.

The bottom of the building was the truncated base of a pyramid. It rose above the storm-surge plane before a tiny slit opened where people and money went in and out. On top of that, another huge concrete slab that displayed an iron sculpture of the island chain as seen from orbit. A metallic green Trans Am sat under a tarp in the parking lot. A black sedan pulled up six slots away.

Anna couldn’t stop fidgeting in the glass office of the bank vice president. A woman smiled at her from the other side of the desk. Anna smiled back, wearing dark sunglasses, picking her fingernails, hyperventilating with alcohol on her breath, just like everyone else in the Keys who comes to check safety deposit boxes. The vice president examined Anna’s driver’s license and looked something up in the computer. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Follow me.”

A guard opened the vault. The women went inside and simultaneously stuck keys in a drawer like a missile launch.

“Call if you need anything,” said the vice president. She left Anna alone.

Anna looked up at the wall of brushed metal boxes, various sizes. She felt her heart beating in the still room. The wall seemed to tower. What was going on in the other boxes? Were they all like her brother’s — debris from life wreckage? This being the Keys, the answer was yes. If Anna had X-ray vision, she would have seen pornographic detective photos, bloodstained packs of hundred-dollar bills, serial number–filed pistols, ledger books entirely in code and recently drawn maps of backyards with Xs over flower beds. Anna pulled her box from its slot and lifted the long metal lid. One item inside. Polaroid photograph. Anna immediately recognized it.

THE CLOWNS HAD been busy. They finished filling a hundred elongated balloons with oxygen and twisted them into parrots and monkeys and dachshunds. The balloon-animals were tied together, forming gigantic bouquets that the clowns carried off in opposite directions.

A small child walked up to Uncle Inappropriate. “Mr. Clown, how much for one of the balloons?”

“Fuck off.”

The traveling publicist checked her schedule. “Twelve-thirteen. Schoolchildren bury you in sand.”

A personal assistant lifted the limbo bar. Serge’s binoculars followed Greely over to a group of first-graders vetted with background checks. Greely lay down on the beach. Children began digging with plastic shovels. The binoculars panned across the shore. Everyone was in position. Serge raised his walkie-talkie. “Get it going, Dave.”

An emcee climbed the steps of the concert stage and grabbed the microphone. “Let’s kick this off with a real treat! We have with us today the legendary ‘Daytona Dave’ DeFuniak, singing his mega-hit ‘Island Fever,’ which appears on the new album ‘One-Hit Wonders of the ’70s: The Rehab Collection.’”

Dave walked out and waved to a smattering of applause. He turned to the band and snapped his fingers. “A one, and a two… I burnin’ up with that island…”

Mr. Blinky and Uncle Inappropriate glanced at each other from opposite sides of the beach and simultaneously lit cigarettes.

In another direction: demonstrators in Serge T-shirts ran toward Greely, shouting and waving picket signs. STOP DONALD’S DEVELOPMENT! FIGHT THE RESORT-IFICATION! WHERE’S MY LIFE SAVINGS!

The traveling publicist turned toward the noise. “Where the hell did they come from?… Security!”

The head of Greely’s security team barked into his own walkie-talkie. “Get him out of the sand! Now!”

The TV cameras swung from Greely to the demonstrators. A shoving match broke out between the protesters and the bodyguards. The security detail at the parasailing boat was called in as reinforcement.

From the concert stage: “It’s always good to have that Island Fever… Uh-oh—” Dave fell writhing onto the stage.

“Daytona Dave’s having a seizure!”

Cops and paramedics rushed over.

Two clowns taped their cigarettes to long sticks and raised them toward the balloon bouquets.

Bodyguards pulled Greely from the sand and hustled him from the melee. At opposite ends of the beach, balloon-animal fireballs exploded into the sky. People ran screaming, crashing into each other — “Look! The Skunk Ape!” — a full-scale, multidirectional stampede. Sop Choppy’s biker associates arrived and joined the fray with the bodyguards, now spilling into the street. The remaining cops at the parasailing boat abandoned their posts and ran to help.

Serge and Coleman climbed aboard the vessel. “Hey!” yelled one of the parasail’s two operators. “You’re not supposed to be here!”

Serge produced a gun. “Down in the cabin. Both of you.”

The traveling publicist shuddered at the PR carnage. TV cameras pointing everywhere except at Greely. Ten reporters interviewed a naked woman. The publicist ran over to the head of Greely’s security team. “We have to save this.” She opened her organizer. “Twelve-forty-nine. Parasailing.”

ANNA RACED AWAY from the bank and parked behind the nearest gas station. She ran to the pay phones and dialed. The man at the next phone was on meth. Anna sprang up and down on her legs. “C’mon, answer!”

A dark sedan rolled up to one of the gas pumps.

Then, shouting. Anna jumped. The man on the next phone slammed the receiver. It bounced off the hook and swung on its metal cord as he stomped away. A click in Anna’s ear. “Hello?” She turned and burrowed into the phone booth. “I got it… no, just a photograph… you’ll understand as soon as you see it… right, I know the place.”

THE OFFICIAL ENTOURAGE whisked Greely down to the dock. The publicist grabbed a couple of TV cameramen along the way. “There’s nothing worth shooting over there….”

They arrived at the parasailing boat. One of the deckhands reached over the railing. “Let me help you aboard.”

Cameras filmed as twin three-fifties throttled up. The boat blasted away from the dock.

The deckhand fitted the ex-mogul into his Coast Guard — rated life vest and parasailing harness.

“Have to make sure this thing is good and tight,” said Serge, yanking up hard on the strap between Greely’s legs.

“Ow!”

“You’re all set,” said Serge. “Let’s get you back to the launch area.”

Greely stood in position on a specially welded platform and grabbed the chest-high safety bar in front of him. Serge screwed down the metal O-rings attaching Greely’s harness to the parasail, ready for deployment in its cradle. He bunched the little drogue chute in his hand and threw it into the wind, pulling the main sail out of the holder. It quickly inflated, yanking Greely a few inches off his feet. Serge grabbed the handle on the winch.

“Okay, I’m going to start unreeling you.”

Greely immediately popped up to an elevation of ten feet. Serge turned the handle faster, letting out more rope. Twenty feet. Greely pointed at the boat’s driver.

“Is he drinking beer?”

“A few.” Still unspooling. Thirty feet.

Greely had to shout now. “How much experience do you have?”

“Tons,” Serge yelled back. “Oh, you mean parasailing? This is our first time.”

Fifty feet. “I want to come back down!”

“What?” yelled Serge, still cranking.

Greely’s shouts grew faint. Serge finally tied him off at two hundred feet and went up front with Coleman. They made a swing by the dock. Greely saw the TV cameras and figured he better stop screaming and start waving.

He stayed up a half hour without incident, starting to relax, numerous happy passes by the dock for the cameras. “This is more like it,” said the publicist.

The parasail began swinging side to side, only slightly at first, then more and more until Greely was whipping across the sky horizontally.

“My turn to drive.” Serge pulled the steering wheel away from Coleman, hard to the left.

“You just had a turn,” said Coleman, pulling back to the right.

“But you had an extra long one. That counts as two.” Serge pulled back.

“You’re making up rules.” Coleman pulled back. Serge pulled. Coleman. Serge.

Greely was flying all over the place, then an upside-down loop.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!…”

The TV people on the dock zoomed in. “I didn’t know he could do tricks.”

Greely finally leveled off after Serge and Coleman struck a truce, each steering with one hand, snarling at each other.

Another pass by the dock, the publicist checking her watch, growing puzzled.

Serge checked his own watch. He released the wheel. “It’s all yours. Happy?”

“My turn anyway.”

Serge walked to the stern and picked up a megaphone. “Ready to come in?”

All he heard was faint shouting. Serge grabbed the winch’s handle and began reeling. When Greely was halfway down, Serge could make out words. “…I’ll destroy you! You’re finished in this town!…”

Serge stopped cranking and raised the megaphone again. “I’ll bring you in under one condition.”

“Condition? Fuck you!”

“Give back the money.”

“What money?”

“The money you stole. Sell your house and give the money back.”

“Take me down this instant!”

“As soon as you give back the money.”

“I’ll have you arrested! I’ll put you out of business! I’ll take your boat!”

“This isn’t my boat,” said Serge.

“It isn’t?”

“No, it belongs to the two guys tied up down in the cabin.”

Greely paused. “Who are you then?”

“Shareholders.”

“You had stock in my company?”

“We have stock in America!”

“You’re insane!”

“Give back the money.”

“Help! Help!”

TV people back on the dock: “He’s yelling something.”

“What’s he saying?”

“I think he’s just whooping it up.”

Serge pointed the megaphone. “Give back the money.”

“Not a chance!”

“You stole. It’s wrong.”

“I didn’t steal anything. They made bad investments. Nobody put a gun to their heads!”

“Old people had to go back to work. It’s caused premature deaths.” Serge produced a scuba knife and placed the blade against the rope.

“What are you doing?”

“Disconnecting this call. All I’m getting is static.”

“You wouldn’t—”

Serge started sawing through the rope. He yelled up front to Coleman. “Swing toward land.”

The boat made a slow starboard arc until it was in line with the dock.

“Stop!” yelled Greely. “I’m ordering you!”

“You’re not the boss of me.” More sawing.

Greely looked up at the dock, then down at Serge again. “What are you planning?”

“These parasails are incredible. One guy accidentally broke loose and was dragged a mile over land. Nothing stopped him, concrete benches, cars, fences. They said nearly every bone in his body was broken.”

“Okay, I’ll give back the money.”

Serge stopped sawing. “You will?”

“Absolutely!”

“What about your Key West development project?”

“Dead. I’ll kill it. Anything! Please!”

“Promise?”

Greely nodded urgently.

Serge thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t believe you.” Sawing resumed.

Greely screamed all the way in to shore. Serge was three-quarters through the rope. The dock closed rapidly.

“Oh, my God! Coleman! Look!”

“What?”

“Over there! Turn the boat around!”

“I see it.” Coleman swung the wheel hard in a tight one-eighty. Greely whipping directly over the dock. “Help! Help! They’re crazy!”

The cameramen pointed straight up. “I didn’t catch that.”

“I think he said, ‘I’m wild and crazy.’”

The cameras kept filming, gradually lowering trajectory as Greely neared the horizon. That’s when one of the cameramen saw it. “Holy mother! Look over there!”

Greely saw it, too. He began crying. “Oh, please! Don’t! I’m begging you!”

Serge went up front. “I’ll need to take the wheel from here. It’s going to require expert driving.”

“You can have it,” said Coleman. “This is out of my league.”

The boat raced across the Gulf Stream, a smile spreading over Serge’s face. “This is what I’m talking about, Coleman. Life’s a crapshoot. But just keep fighting the good fight and sooner or later it turns your way.”

They were on a direct bearing for the Sand Key lighthouse, five miles southwest, but they wouldn’t need to go nearly that far.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Coleman. “I mean, I’ve never heard of it being done before.”

“Because it hasn’t.”

Back at the dock, pandemonium. “Doesn’t he see it?” “Why isn’t he turning?”

The wind picked up. Serge and Coleman’s hair flew around, needles of rain hit their cheeks.

Serge had to squint to see. “Come on, baby, just a few more seconds…”

“Pull back!” Coleman grabbed the port railing to keep from being thrown over the side. “We’re too close!”

“Here we go… almost there… Now!”

Serge cut the steering wheel all the way starboard, closing the angle around the vortex and going into a tight circle, drawing the parasail into the cone. A final scream from Greely and the rope snapped.

Serge and Coleman looked back as they accelerated away — the parasail going up, up, up into the waterspout, the end of the rope whip-snapping as it was sucked in like a piece of spaghetti. Then nothing but colorful silk shreds jettisoned from varying heights.

“What a horrible way to go,” said Coleman.

“It’s the Gulf Stream,” said Serge. “Has a nasty way of creeping up on you.”

The dock was silent. A leather organizer slipped from a hand and fell in the water. The boat disappeared over the horizon.

40

A SHERIFF’S CRUISER returned to the substation on Cudjoe Key.

“What an insane day,” said Gus. “I’ve never seen an event like it.”

“I don’t know. Fantasy Fest gets pretty out of hand.”

They went inside. Walter found a film of burnt coffee bubbling in the bottom of the pot. “Did I leave that on?”

The fax started up. Gus grabbed it. A mug shot. “Oh, no.”

“What?”

“I should have known! A serial killer right here under our noses!”

They ran out the door and jumped in the cruiser.

Walter radioed for backup. They told him the nearest unit was in Marathon.

“That’s at least twenty minutes,” said Gus. “Can’t wait that long. We have to find Serge before we have another body on our hands.”

“Where do you think he is?”

A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA pulled into Coleman’s driveway. Serge stepped on the brakes, but nothing happened. The Buick hit the trailer at low speed, buckling the bedroom wall.

“What the hell?” Serge got out and shimmied under the car.

“What is it?” asked Coleman.

Serge crawled back out and looked at a hand covered with hydraulic fluid. “The brake line’s leaking.”

“Did we hit something?”

“No, it looks like it was cut. That’s strange.”

“Just great. I don’t have money for a repair.”

“Don’t need any.” Serge opened the trunk and held up a gray roll. “Just wrap it in a lot of duct tape.” He crawled back under the car. “Of course you have to do it again every twenty miles, but this is about value.”

Coleman headed for the front door. “I’m pooped.”

Serge crawled out from under the car and followed him inside. “Boating does that.”

AN EMPTY QUART bottle sat in the road. A tire rolled. Pop.

The tire belonged to a brown Plymouth Duster. The door opened. Two black combat boots swung out and settled onto the ground. The driver wore gloves. One hand had a plastic bag of dynamite sticks and blasting caps. The other, copper wire and tools.

The driver walked a short distance and went to work. The explosives were soon taped under a driver’s seat, the one where Serge often sat. Copper wire was routed out of sight and up to the back of the ignition switch, just behind where the key was inserted.

A SHERIFF’S CRUISER raced into the parking lot of an old apartment building on Big Pine Key. Gus and Walter jumped out with guns drawn. They ran up the stairs and knocked on the door of unit 213. No answer.

Walter tried kicking in the door but only hurt himself. Gus shot the lock. They ran through the apartment, swinging around blind corners with guns in outstretched arms. They shoved open closet doors. Gus started going through a dresser.

“We don’t have a warrant,” said Walter.

“Look what I found.”

GLOVED HANDS FINISHED twisting copper wire to the ignition posts. Two black combat boots walked back to the Plymouth Duster and climbed in. The door closed. The Duster pulled away. Molly looked up in the rearview, making sure her hair was in place.

THE SHERIFF’S CRUISER raced back down Key Deer Boulevard.

Walter was driving faster than he had in years. Gus grabbed the radio again.

“What about that Coleman guy he hangs out with?” said Walter. “The one we met at the community hall?”

“What was his last name?”

“Don’t remember.”

“I’ll have the dispatcher look up all utility records with that first name.”

Walter hit the siren and swung onto U.S. 1. Gus radioed in his emergency request and started pulling on a bulletproof vest. Walter looked over at his partner. “This is your last shift. You sure you want to do this?”

“The fax mentioned the car in the Everglades had been wired with explosives, and we found blasting caps in the dresser.” Gus pulled the strap tight on the side of his vest. “She may have already rigged his car.”

The dispatcher came back. No records under Coleman.

“Must be a nickname,” said Walter.

“Wait. He had this cool car. An old Riviera,” said Gus. “Early to mid-seventies.” He got the dispatcher again and asked for a trace through Motor Vehicles.

A METALLIC GREEN Trans Am raced over the Bogie Channel Bridge to No Name Key. Anna held her purse to her chest. She stopped near the end of the street and checked a scrap of paper with directions. She looked at her watch. Early. She turned onto a dirt road.

Nothing but bumps and brush as she drove north until she ran out of island. The Trans Am entered a small clearing with an ad-hoc boat ramp, just a space in the mangroves and a dirt incline to the water. She got out and walked a few yards to the shore. No sign of anyone yet. Just something silver flashing through the branches. An aluminum hull.

The quiet was freaking her out. That’s when she heard the other car. She didn’t recognize the dark sedan, but it was raising a major dust trail flying down the road.

She ran for the Trans Am. The other car skidded to a stop. A man jumped out and sprinted toward her. Anna dove in the car and locked the doors. She stuck her key in the ignition.

“Anna, stop!” The man slapped an open wallet against her window. She saw a gold badge against the glass.

“Open the door, Anna. DEA, Agent Wilson.”

The badge looked real. It looked fake. She didn’t know what to think anymore or why she opened the door.

The man grabbed her arm. “We have to get you out of here!”

Anna pulled away. “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

“Your life’s in danger.”

“Now I recognize you! You’re that asshole from the pub, what’s-his-name….”

“Gaskin Fussels.”

“You’re supposed to be in jail, but…” She pointed at the badge in his hand. “What’s going on?”

“Explain later. We can’t stay here.” He stepped forward to take her arm again. “I know about Scarface… Fernandez’s murder.”

She jumped out of reach and started walking backward. “You’re lying.”

“We don’t have any time,” said the agent. “He’ll be here any second.”

Anna just kept backing up. She reached the water’s edge.

Wilson could see she was on the brink. She’d bolt, even if it meant swimming. He decided to talk fast.

“I’ve been watching Fernandez for a long time. I also know about the safety deposit box. I followed you from the bank.”

Anna stopped backpedaling.

“Listen to me. You were used. I can help with the judge, even if you pulled the trigger—”

“I didn’t!”

“We just want the head of the organization. I’ll need you to testify.”

Anna gave him the weirdest look. “What do you mean? Fernandez is dead.”

“Right.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?” said the agent.

“Fernandez was the head of the organization. And now he’s dead. So why do you need me to testify?”

“Oh, my God!” said the agent. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“The head guy is the one you’ve been having all those meetings with at the No Name. You spent the morning with him at your brother’s vacation place. I saw him go in. I was parked up the street.”

“Jerry?”

Agent Wilson nodded. “The bartender.”

“But if he’s the top guy, what’s he doing bartending?”

“That how he stays off-radar. It’s a historic stratagem. Since ancient times, generals have been known to dress as common foot soldiers to avoid assassination…. It’s also a great way to gather intelligence. If you want to know what’s going on in these parts, there’s no better place than behind the counter of the No Name.”

Anna felt faint. Flashbacks streamed through her head. Jerry talking about how Scarface liked to move anonymously through his own organization, pretending to be other people, really talking about himself.

“Then who was Fernandez?”

“His first lieutenant. He was hiding money with your brother. Jerry wanted it. That’s why he let Fernandez continue living, even though he was on the indictment with the others.”

“I’m so stupid!” said Anna.

“Unfortunately, Jerry knew your name was also on that bank box. Then you phoned from the turnpike… we had his phone tapped, and just like that” — he snapped his fingers — “Fernandez’s death warrant was signed.”

“But why involve me? Why didn’t he just shoot Fernandez himself?”

“Leverage. He needed you to go to the bank. He’s going to kill you right after you give him the contents.”

Anna’s world started to swirl. Wilson ran down to the water and grabbed her by the arm. “We have to go!”

They ran for the agent’s sedan.

Anna felt his hand come off her arm. She looked back.

Wilson was down, a fatal head wound.

Jerry stepped out of the woods with pistol and silencer.

Anna took off for the water. Jerry tackled her in the muck and began punching her in the face. Birds took flight. Nobody to hear her screams.

“Why!” Struggling under his weight.

He hit her again and began going through her pockets. He found the Polaroid. He started laughing. “I don’t believe it. Right in front of us the whole time!”

He slugged Anna again, then pulled a pint of cheap vodka from his pants. He took the first swig before jamming the bottle into Anna’s mouth. Jerry was just too strong and heavy. Her gums bled from struggling against the glass lip of the bottle. A lot of the booze was going down her cheeks, but enough was getting in. When the bottle was empty, he whipped it aside into the bushes.

“On your feet!”

Anna stayed curled on the ground. Jerry stuck his gun in his pants and grabbed her around the waist. He took a few big steps and threw her out into the water. Anna stood back up, coughing and clearing hair from her eyes.

Jerry pulled the gun again and sloshed out into the shallows. He shoved Anna. “Move!”

She stumbled forward. He shoved her again. It went like that until she was a hundred yards from shore. But being the flats, the water was still only to her knees.

“That’s far enough!”

THE SHERIFF’S CRUISER flew down U.S. 1. The dispatcher came on the radio. She had a ’71 Buick Riviera registered to an address on Ramrod Key.

Gus grabbed a cell phone and dialed. “It’s ringing.”

Walter glanced down at the seat between them and the latest fax, the one that had finally put a mug shot with the unsolved murders down the west coast. “She looks so harmless.”

“Pick up the phone!”

“I can’t remember the last time we had a female serial killer.”

“Aileen Wuornos.”

“That’s right,” said Walter. “They got some kind of memorial garden to her at a bar in Daytona.”

“It’s still ringing.”

“Two islands to go.”

“Answer the phone!”

SERGE AND COLEMAN climbed back in the Buick for a chow run.

“I’m telling you, Coleman, I think somebody’s trying to kill me.”

“You’re crazy.”

“What about the cut brakes?” Serge stuck the key in the ignition. “And I could swear I’m being followed.”

“Hold it,” said Coleman.

Serge took his hand off the key. “What is it?”

“I think I hear the phone ringing.”

“I don’t hear anything.” Serge grabbed the key again.

“No, I’m sure it’s the phone.”

“Probably your landlord,” said Serge. “Let’s get going.”

Serge began turning the key. Coleman grabbed his hand. “But what if it’s weed? I have an order in. I’ll bet that’s what it is. It’s hard to get hold of the weed guys. You usually only get their beeper or voice mail. You have to take the weed calls when you can. Otherwise the order goes to someone else, and you have to start all over calling their beeper and waiting. That’s why you can never miss a weed call. I’ll bet it’s the weed guy….”

Serge was banging his forehead on the steering wheel.

Coleman opened the passenger door. “I’ll be right back.”

ANNA’S EYES STAYED locked on the gun in Jerry’s hand. A hundred yards from shore, alone in the open, expecting a bullet any second. The alcohol started doing its thing, and she stumbled sideways and fell again. She pushed herself back up. This was the moment. Her head told her to make a break for it. She’d probably still get shot, but she wasn’t going without a fight. Readyyyyy…

Just as she was about to spring, Jerry started walking backward toward shore, still aiming the gun.

“Now stay there!”

A SHERIFF’S CRUISER leaped the bridge to Ramrod Key. It skidded around the corner at the Chevron station and sped up the block.

“I think I see the place,” said Walter. “There’s the Buick.”

“Oh, no. Someone’s already in the driver’s seat!”

COLEMAN TROTTED OUT of the trailer and jumped back in the car. “Okay, let’s go.”

“Who was it?”

“They hung up.”

“You moron.” Serge grabbed the ignition key.

A loud whoop from a police siren. Serge glanced in the rearview as a sheriff’s cruiser screeched to a stop, blocking the driveway. Deputies jumped out.

“Take your hand off the key! Get out of the car! Now!”

Serge momentarily thought about the gun in the glove compartment, then sighed. “I guess the jig is up.”

“…Out of the car! Out of the car!…”

They opened the doors.

“Step away from the vehicle!”

They stepped away. Serge laughed offhandedly. “I’ll bet you want to talk about all those murders.”

Gus looked at Walter, then Serge. “You know?”

“What are you, a comedian? If anyone knows, don’t you think I would?”

Gus had a confused expression. “You’re taking this awfully well.”

“I try to keep an even disposition,” said Serge. “Do you really think we’re talking the death penalty?”

“Afraid so.”

“What if there’s cooperation?”

“Could help,” said Walter. “But we can’t promise anything.”

“Sure would appreciate it.”

“You don’t mean you actually still have feelings for her.”

“Who?”

“Your wife. Some guys would get pretty sore if they found out their spouse was trying to kill them.”

“She was?”

“That’s what we’re here about,” said Gus. “We came to warn you your car might be rigged.”

“She’s a serial killer,” said Walter.

“Just got the mug shot this afternoon,” said Gus. “Murdered her last four husbands or boyfriends. All after extremely quick courtships.”

“Oh, those murders,” said Serge.

“Yeah. Why? What murders did you think we were talking about?”

“Uh… the same ones.” Serge smiled to himself: So that’s why I got the soul-mate vibe.

JERRY KEPT WALKING backward through the water until he reached the mangroves. His hand found the side of a flat-bottomed aluminum hull.

The airboat. So that’s it, thought Anna. The reason for the alcohol. He’s going to stage a boating accident. She looked down into the shallow water. The flats. Not enough room to dive under anything.

Jerry jumped up into the captain’s seat in one motion. Anna’s heart seized on a strong beat. The moment froze; sound dropped out. Her eyes stayed straight, her mind thumbing through the final details. The roseate spoonbill on that branch. The tarpon fin to her right. The perforated mangrove islands across the horizon. The sound came rushing back in her head with a tremendous roar, and she found herself running.

Jerry enjoyed himself watching her pitiful escape attempt, high-stepping with awkward splashes, falling down over and over. He was mildly aroused. His empty eyes saw all the vectors. Her distance and slow progress, then the future path of the airboat that would cut her down well before shore. He turned the ignition key. Twelve volts of DC current zipped to the blasting caps on the sticks of dynamite duct-taped under the airboat driver’s seat.

Anna was knocked down in the water by the force of the explosion. The demolition was over-engineered, at least three times the TNT needed for the job. Jerry’s ballistic path was almost straight up, still strapped in his chair like an F-16 pilot bailing out at altitude. Except he was on fire.

Anna watched him sail higher and higher before arcing over and coming down headfirst in the muck. Just legs and seat bottom showing. It took a full minute for the last of the flaming pieces to flutter down and hiss into the water around Anna as she splashed back to shore.

EVERYONE ON THE front lawn of Coleman’s trailer turned toward the sound of the explosion.

“That was dynamite,” said Gus.

They looked northeast. A black cloud rose from the horizon in the direction of No Name Key.

Gus hopped back in the cruiser and stuck his head out the window. “Walter, stay here until the bomb squad arrives and clears their car.”

“Be careful.”

The cruiser took off. It jumped islands in quick succession. Traffic on U.S. 1 heard the siren and halted at a green light as Gus made a squealing left on Big Pine and raced up the long, straight road that would eventually lead to No Name Key.

Soon, a single car appeared a mile in the distance, coming toward Gus through the road’s shimmering heat waves. The car grew larger and larger until Gus couldn’t believe his eyes. A metallic green Trans Am. He hit the brakes and turned the wheel. The cruiser skidded to a sideways stop, blocking both lanes. The Trans Am ran off the road into a palmetto thicket.

Gus jumped out and drew his gun. The driver’s window rolled down. Gus immediately recognized Anna from TV, the missing woman presumed dead. He holstered the pistol and ran to her door.

“Ma’am, are you okay?”

“Let’s make a deal.”

TWO HOURS LATER, an otherwise quiet lane on Ramrod Key was jammed with gossiping neighbors. The trailer and yard were wrapped in crime tape. Serge and Coleman chatted with Walter while demolition experts crawled everywhere.

A member of the bomb squad came over. “The car’s clean… except for this unregistered gun I found in the glove compartment.”

“Must have been my wife’s,” said Serge. “You think you know someone….”

Another bomb technician emerged from the trailer. “Clean inside… except I found this.” He held out an ashtray. “At least twenty roaches. There are four or five more just like it.”

“She also turned out to be a burglar — and a drug fiend,” said Serge. “Constantly breaking into Coleman’s trailer and smoking joints.”

Walter made a dismissive wave with his hand. “Don’t worry about it.”

The bomb squad guy dumped the ashtray in his pocket and walked off.

Suddenly, more explosions. Bright bursts of light in the sky over Key West.

“Look,” said Serge. “The fireworks are starting.”

Walter checked his watch. “I wonder what’s taking Gus so long.”

COLORFUL FIREWORKS REFLECTED off the windshield of a sheriff’s cruiser parked down by water’s edge on Big Pine Channel.

The people in the front seat weren’t watching them.

“Tell me again about the money,” said Gus.

“We split it fifty-fifty,” said Anna. “There’s at least three million. We get the hell out of here and start over. You’ll have to quit your job, of course, but how much can that be paying?”

Epilogue

THE QUIET TIME just after sunset in the Florida Keys. Scarlet hues burning through the mangroves. Strings of headlights on U.S. 1.

The incoming tide quietly lapped the northern shore of No Name Key. A ring of seaweed formed. Another soft wave carried a six-pack ring. Some of the water washed over a Polaroid photo in the sand. It had singed edges. Another wave came in and the photo began to float. It was a picture of a house, the typical kind you’d find in this part of the Keys. One of the older ranch deals. The front yard was made of smooth landscaping stones. In the middle was an old ship’s anchor. Another wave came and carried the photo off.

A METALLIC GREEN Trans Am sat in the driveway of a vacation home on Big Pine Key. There was a long gouge through the stones in the front yard — from the crab-trap floats to the driveway — where Anna and Gus were dragging a heavy anchor.

The pair got the thing to the lip of the trunk. But between Anna’s petite frame and Gus’s back, it was hard to tell who was having the worse of it. An old-timer watched from the porch of the house next door. He had a white T-shirt, suspenders and bedroom slippers. When Gus and Anna dropped the anchor again on the third try, the old man came over.

“Let me give you a hand.”

It went in with a thud. “Thanks.” Anna tied the trunk lid down with string.

“Heard about the owner. You related?”

“His sister.”

“My condolences.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Only saw him a couple times,” said the neighbor. He caught Anna looking down at his slippers. “You reach a certain age, you just don’t give a damn anymore. I don’t know why.”

Anna smiled.

“You gonna be selling the place or coming back?”

She put her hands on her hips and looked around in the twilight. A miniature deer hoofed across the street. “Don’t know yet.”

The animal began gnawing on one of the flowers that surrounded the anchorless space.

“Go on, now,” said the old man. “Git!”

“No,” said Anna. “Let him eat.”

The man pointed back at his own property, where all the plants were circled with chicken mesh. “You have to use the wire.”

Gus climbed in the passenger seat. Anna went to the driver’s side.

“You’re lucky if you already got property in the Keys,” the man told Anna across the Trans Am’s roof. “Too expensive to buy in anymore. I could sell my house and get a giant place in Lakeland. I got brochures.”

Anna climbed in the car. The old man came around to her window. “Let me know if you decide to sell. I know people. Actually, I get a kickback, but we can split it.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.” She buckled her seatbelt. “Thanks again with the anchor.”

The old man looked up at the sky and scratched his whiskers. “There’s a big storm coming.”

Anna started the car. “There is?”

“No. That’s something this old guy tells Linda Hamilton before she drives away at the end of The Terminator….” The man began walking back to his house. “I just like to say it all the time.”

The Trans Am backed out of the driveway, the rear end riding low from a three-hundred-pound solid-gold anchor painted with marine primer and verdigris stain.

Stuart, Florida

A SMALL TOWN, but, as they say, a great place to live. It’s up on the east coast. Jensen Beach to the north, Hobe Sound to the south. Beautiful beaches, arts, health care, the rest of the state’s problems another world away. The best part is the neighbors. Always saying hello in the supermarket, the bank, the library. Particularly the library.

Today, the library’s parking lot was mostly empty, but that was because of the hour. Didn’t open for another thirty minutes. Just a few cars in the employees’ section. Red Nissan, black Mazda and the vehicle of the library’s most recent hire, a brown Plymouth Duster.

The staff was gathered inside for an announcement.

“May I have your attention,” said the library director. “I’d like you to meet Pam, the newest addition to our staff.”

Pam’s makeup was rosy, her hair down. She grinned wide, crinkled her shoulders and gave a spunky little wave. The director urged everyone to drop by their new co-worker’s desk and get acquainted.

Shortly after noon, a couple of young professionals came in on lunch break to return books.

“Hey, who’s that new girl over in fiction?” said the first guy.

“Don’t recognize her,” said the second.

“What do you think?”

“Too conservative.”

“Those are the ones you have to worry about.” He started walking in the woman’s direction. “I’m going to ask her out.”

A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA left the Florida Keys and headed west through the Everglades.

Windows down, bright sunlight.

Serge had weighed their investment options and advised Coleman to skip out on the rent. He grabbed a radio knob and turned Moby up loud.

“…Extreme ways are back again…”

The swamp air was sticky and thick, the horizon low across the sawgrass.

“What’d you say?” asked Serge.

Coleman cracked a Schlitz. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes you did. About swamp air and the horizon.”

“Wasn’t me.”

“You’re stoned.” Serge faced the road again. A snowy egret swooped low over the Tamiami Trail.

“There,” said Serge. “You’re doing it again.”

“Doing what?”

“You mentioned an egret.”

“I didn’t say a word.”

“Well if you didn’t—” Serge turned around and saw a grinning man sitting in the middle of the backseat. “…Who the fuck are you?”

Narrator.

“Narrator?”

Ex-narrator, actually.

“What are you doing here?”

Kept telling them I wanted a little screen time but they just strung me along. Now that I’ve been fired, what can they do? I’m taking matters into my own hands.

“More power to ya,” said Serge.

“Want a beer?” asked Coleman.

Sure. The narrator accepted the can and popped it open. He tapped Serge on the shoulder. So, you don’t mind if I continue?

“Knock yourself out.”

Thanks. Serge accelerated and whipped around a slow-moving tractor. Coleman chugged the rest of his beer and grabbed another. The Buick continued across the Tamiami, past the cadaver farm, where a civil servant stood at the open trunk of an Impala, glanced around, then erased a number on his clipboard.

A Note on the Type

The text of this book was set in a face called Kartonia Linotype, a style first developed by a guild of radical underground printers in seventeenth-century Luxemburg, whose audacious use of kerning almost ended the monarchy and… A NOTE ON THE TYPE IS TEMPORARILY CLOSED. PLEASE COME BACK LATER.

KEY WEST, Fla. — A joint federal and state strike force launched a coordinated predawn raid at a local Note on the Type, uncovering six kilos of cocaine, $280,000 in cash, 120 illegal lobsters, 23 prizefighting cocks, and 17 undocumented Haitians living in subhuman conditions and forced to fact-check for the equivalent of eight cents a day.

Contacted out of town, the author who owns the Note on the Type said he had no knowledge of the activities on the premises but plans to reopen in the future, possibly as a preface and epigraph clearance outlet.

Acknowledgments

Gratitude is due once again to my agent, Nat Sobel, and my editor, Henry Ferris. I also owe another round of thanks to Michael Morrison, Lisa Gallagher, Debbie Stier, and David Brown.

About the Author

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

Books by Tim Dorsey

THE BIG BAMBOO

TORPEDO JUICE

CADILLAC BEACH

THE STINGRAY SHUFFLE

TRIGGERFISH TWIST

ORANGE CRUSH

HAMMERHEAD RANCH MOTEL

FLORIDA ROADKILL