by Tim Dorsey
Serge slid back into the driver’s seat. “People who interrupt! Jesus! . . . Where was I?”
“Empathy.”
“Right. In order to treat people with the utmost sensitivity, you must become acutely in tune with their every emotion: happy, sad, anxious, melancholy, introspective, that awkward sensation in the grocery store when you see someone you know really well but you’re in a rush and don’t have time for the kind of chitchat that nobody knows how to end gracefully, but they haven’t seen you yet, so you quickly duck down an aisle.”
“Especially if you owe them weed money.”
“Which leads us to my Empathy Continuum,” said Serge. “At one end are the totally chill cats: Mother Teresa, Gandhi, the Salvation Army, and at the opposite, Stalin, Pol Pot, Son of Sam, Ike Turner.”
“But how does this unite everyone?”
“Noted psychotherapists claim empathy can’t be taught, but they’ve never tried with the level of zeal I apply when I put my mind to something.” He glanced over his seat as thumping resumed from the trunk. “And I’m going to launch my clinical trials with someone who could stand to learn empathy the most.”
The hamster twitched its whiskers and strained to reach the eyedropper in Coleman’s hand. “How did you find out about Roscoe in the first place?”
“It was in all the papers. Remember that rookie police officer in Manatee County who was brutally gunned down in the line of duty? Pulled over a carload of crack smugglers with UZIs on the Tamiami?”
“Sort of.”
“Roscoe must read the papers, too.” Serge got out of the car and walked toward the back bumper. “Because after the first of the year, Nash falsely filed the officer’s tax return and had the refund check diverted to a PO box.”
“How do you even figure out how to do that?” asked Coleman.
“I don’t know, but Roscoe must have because it actually happened.” Serge popped the trunk. “Just when you think you’ve seen all depravity, someone raises the bar again.”
“He’s another wiggler,” said Coleman.
Serge rolled Roscoe over and ripped the duct tape off his mouth.
“Ow! Shit!” The captive looked up. “Who the hell are you?”
“Your new empathy coach, and if you pass, it could go a long way to getting you out of this jam. Believe me, you won’t like my detention hall.” Serge pulled a square from his back pocket and unfolded it. “For our first day of class, you’re going to write a lot of apology letters. I took the liberty of composing a sample to get you started.” He held the letter down to Roscoe’s eyes. “I have you referring to yourself as ‘the biggest prick in the world,’ but if you’d like something stronger, feel free to substitute.”
Roscoe spit in Serge’s face.
Serge nonchalantly found a rag in the trunk and wiped it off. Then he cracked Roscoe in the head again with the iron rod and made his way back to the driver’s seat. He picked up the binoculars and stared across the street.
Coleman stuck the eyedropper in a can of Bud. “What now?”
“I love Busch Gardens! Especially after it’s empty at night when the staff doesn’t force you to limit the park’s possibilities with their rule-crazy narrowness.”
“No, I mean, that guy back there.”
“Roscoe?” The binoculars panned from the Montu to the Kumba roller coaster. “In his case, the psychologists were right: Empathy can’t be taught.”
“But you said your zeal . . . I mean, you gave up pretty quickly.”
The binoculars reached the gondola over the Serengeti Plain. “I thought maybe we had environmental differences, but hocking a giant loogie in someone’s face is a language that crosses cultural lines.”
Chapter Three
PALM BEACH
The drive down South Ocean Boulevard, along the sand and surf of the Atlantic, is one of the most inspiring in the country. People come away describing an almost morphine-like sense of euphoria and bliss.
“Motherfucker!” screamed Courtney Styles, punching the ceiling of her Geo Prizm that needed transmission work and non-bald tires.
She pulled up the driveway of her uncle’s vacation cottage and couldn’t stay mad for long. It was the cutest little bungalow, and only three doors down from the ocean, cozily tucked in a nest of traveler’s palms and banana trees. Courtney especially liked the color combination of the villa’s yoke-yellow Bahama shutters and a phosphorus tropical green from those giant rain-forest leaves draping over the trim.
She unlocked the front door. One step inside before her fingers went numb. Keys hit the polished, blond-pine floor. Courtney’s unbelieving eyes worked their way wall to wall. “What on earth—?”
The first phone call was to the owner.
“No,” said her uncle. “We’ll call the cops. You go over to the neighbors where you’ll be safe.”
Before Courtney could ring the doorbell on the next house, nine squad cars and two vans from the Palm Beach Police Department arrived like they were paid massive bonuses for response time and overwhelming force to protect wealth, which they were. Black helmets dashed in a low crouch through the snapping foliage and took up an eight-point interlocking perimeter with laser sights and flash-bang options.
“Miss, are you okay?”
“Yes, but—”
The leader held up a hand as his walkie-talkie squawked. “Go ahead, Team Indigo? . . .” He listened, then turned to Courtney with a reassuring wink. “Indigo went in and cleared the kill box.”
“Kill box?”
“Office language,” said the commando commander. “Important thing is you’re safe. Come with me . . .”
Courtney decided she was beginning to like the thought of going back to school for her graduate degree. They reached the front of the bungalow, and the commander introduced her to a pair of detectives with mirror sunglasses and clipboards.
“So if I understand, ma’am, a few minutes ago you returned to this unfurnished cottage when something seemed suspicious?”
“Yes, it used to be furnished.”
“Of course,” said the second detective. “And the previous owners took their stuff when they left.”
“No, my uncle still owns it,” said Courtney. “They’re letting me live here this summer after graduation.”
“But they stripped the place down after the season, right?” said the first detective. “Very common here. I can give you statistics.”
“I’m saying it was furnished this morning.” She pointed. “Seventy-inch LED flat-screen in front of that jimmied-open wall safe.”
“But the safe is empty,” said the second.
“That’s the point,” said Courtney. “They got everything. I can’t believe how thorough they were.”
“I see.” The first wrote something on his clipboard. “When was the last time you saw this furniture?”
“About nine this morning when I left.”
“And where did you go?”
“Worth Avenue.”
“Did anyone see you there?”
“Wait a minute,” said Courtney. “I didn’t do it.”
“We’re not saying that,” began the first detective. “Some homes are hit at random . . .”
“. . . Others are targeted,” completed the second. “We’re just trying to determine if someone was watching you to establish your patterns.”
“Seen anyone out of place in the neighborhood?” asked the first. “Maybe in a parked car on your street?”
“No,” said Courtney. “Nobody.”
“What about a suspicious truck from the power company, where a guy is up in a cherry-picker basket supposed to be working on the lines, but instead he’s looking in bedroom windows with a zoom lens?”
“I would have noticed that,” said Courtney.
“You’d be surprised how many don’t,�
�� said the first detective.
The second detective flipped back through his notes. “You said it’s your uncle’s place? So you’re not actually a resident of Palm Beach?”
“No, just the summer—”
The detective wrote quickly. “That changes everything.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” asked Courtney.
“Nothing,” chimed his partner. “So you were on Worth Avenue this morning. What did you do?”
“I met someone for lunch.”
“What time?”
“Just before ten A.M.”
“That’s brunch.”
“Okay, brunch.”
“Are you changing your story?”
“No,” said Courtney. “Lunch, brunch, what’s the difference? I was robbed blind.”
“Interesting.” A pen pressed against a clipboard. “What was the name of this person you had this so-called brunch with?”
“Gustave.”
“Gustave what?”
“I don’t know,” said Courtney.
The pen came off the clipboard. “You don’t know your friend’s last name?”
The second peeked over the top of his sunglasses. “Do a lot of your friends not have last names?”
“No,” said Courtney. “I mean, when I say I met someone for lunch, I literally just met him.”
“Where?”
“On the sidewalk. He struck up a conversation and seemed nice enough, so we went to grab something to eat.”
Writing on both clipboards now. “Where did you go?”
Courtney opened her mouth, then realized she didn’t know how to say the name of the restaurant, and closed her mouth.
The first detective nodded. “I know that place.”
“Was it a long lunch?” asked the second.
“Pretty long.”
“You probably had a few drinks,” said the first. “How many?”
“Two . . . wait, three. I’m not sure.”
“Hard to remember?” More clipboard writing. “And given the hour, I’m guessing Bloody Marys.”
“Mimosas.”
“You seem to know your way pretty well around a bottle in the morning.”
“What are you implying?” said Courtney.
“Do you often discover vehicle damage you can’t remember?” said the first.
“Have all your relatives stopped lending you money?” said the second.
“No!”
“So you’ve been borrowing large amounts of money lately?”
“No!”
“Can’t keep your facts straight, can you?”
The first detective held an index finger in front of her eyes and slowly moved it side to side. “Just follow it best you can.”
“I am not a drunk!”
“Tell me, how much did you have to eat today?”
“Just one bite. And a shrimp cocktail, but it was the strangest—”
“So you’ve been drinking all morning on an empty stomach.” The first detective glanced at the second. “Gee, that fits no problem behavior model we know of.”
“Look,” said Courtney. “This polite guy asked me to lunch, we ordered— Can you please take your finger out of my face?”
“Is it making you dizzy?”
She just shook her head. “And when we were all finished at the restaurant, he got a phone call, and then he—”
“Stop,” said the first. “He got a phone call at the end of the meal?”
“And went to take it in private?” said the second.
“But he never came back,” said the first. “Sticking you with the check?”
“Probably said he had an expensive car out front?”
Courtney’s head swiveled back and forth like a tennis fan’s. “How’d you know?”
The detectives put their pens away.
Courtney looked from one to the other. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll need to get you with a sketch artist.”
“What for?”
“Ma’am, I’m afraid you’ve fallen victim to the dating bandit.”
“Dating bandit?”
“He finds his mark and follows her until he can arrange an ‘accidental’ meeting,” said the first.
“Sometimes they go to lunch right then . . .” said the second.
“. . . Sometimes he makes a date for later,” said the first.
“Depending on whether his crew is in position.”
“Crew?” said Courtney.
“He keeps the target occupied until getting the phone call telling him his crew is clear of the residence. Victims all over the state, from Orlando to Miami to Naples and Sarasota.”
Courtney was astonished. “If he’s done it so many times, how come he’s never been caught?”
“The term dating bandit is generic,” said the first.
“There are dozens of guys working separately,” said the second.
“Usually it’s lonely older women with a lot of jewelry.”
“That’s why we initially didn’t suspect it in this case, because of your age.”
Courtney’s brain raced to process data. “I don’t see any broken windows. How did they get in the house?”
“Probably a ‘bump’ key,” said the first detective.
“What’s that?”
“About twenty brands of locks cover ninety-five percent of the residential market, so they buy blanks to cover the spread . . .”
The other pulled out his own key chain. “See these ridges? They go up and down, high and low . . .
“. . . But on a ‘bump’ key, they’re all at the maximum height. Then they simply match the blank to the lock brand on your house.”
Courtney checked her own keys. “That’s kind of disconcerting. It just opens the door?”
“No, they have to practice,” said the first.
“An accomplice grabs the doorknob and applies torque, trying to turn it . . .”
“. . . And the other sticks the key in the opening of the lock and whacks it with a rubber mallet . . .”
“. . . If all goes right, the internal tumblers momentarily bounce, and the knob pops open in the hand of the guy applying pressure.”
Courtney leaned back against the door frame. “So what now?”
“We’ll have the sketch artist call . . .”
“. . . In the meantime, get your locks changed.”
“I’ll do it this afternoon,” said Courtney. “Will that stop another bump key?”
“No.”
The detectives headed out the door and down the front porch steps. The first stopped and turned. “Just one more thing, ma’am . . .”
“Yes?” said Courtney.
“How’d you like the shrimp cocktail?”
They walked away laughing.
STATE ROAD 60
High beams from a Firebird Trans Am was the only illumination for miles, splitting the thick night in that long no-man’s run between Lake Wales and Yeehaw.
A hamster crawled out of a bong. “Serge, I thought you were going to take care of this guy back at Busch Gardens.”
Serge slowed to let a rabbit cross the road. “I was, but realized they don’t have what I need there anymore. It would have been perfect back in the seventies, except I’m guessing the safety people decided to lower the risks.”
“Change of plans?”
“No, same plans. Plenty of other places have since cropped up that’ll work just as well.”
A few more minutes and the black Pontiac pulled up alongside a barbed-wire fence. There was a gate with a gnarled wooden sign across the top. Coleman read it and turned to Serge. “You’ve got to be kidding. He’s going to be tickled to death?”
Serge grabbed a pair of bolt cutt
ers. “You’d be surprised.”
Soon the muscle car bounded across one of the most wide-open plains in all of Florida.
Coleman leaned toward the windshield. “Are you going to let me watch this time?”
“From a safe distance.”
“Yes!”
They finally reached the approximate center of the prairie flats. Coleman started opening his door.
Serge lunged and yanked the handle shut. “Are you crazy! Want to get us killed?”
“Why are you so freaked out?” said Coleman. “There might be another bunny out there?”
“It will soon become more than evident. But whatever you do, don’t get out of the car.”
Serge pulled his gun and stepped out of the Firebird, pointing it into the darkness. He slowly inched his way to the back of the Firebird.
The trunk popped.
Eyes blinked like a waking child.
“Good, you’re still dazed,” said Serge, ripping the tape off Roscoe’s mouth. “Listen, I’ve done some thinking and, whatever you’ve done, I’ve been displaying a complete lack of empathy. So you’re free to go.”
“Huh, what?”
Serge untied Nash and helped him out of the trunk.
Roscoe just stood and stared.
Serge waved with the gun. “Go on. Git!”
“Uh, okay, sure.”
Roscoe took slow steps backward as Serge scrambled into the driver’s seat and hit the gas like he’d just gotten the green flag at Daytona.
Coleman bounced against the ceiling as the Firebird sprang across dips and mounds. “Ow, ow, ow, what’s the hurry? Ow, ow . . .”
“We need to get back outside the fence and lock the gate as soon as possible.” Serge veered and barely missed a watering hole. “I didn’t tell you this before because of your marijuana situation, but we’re not even safe in this car.”
“What!”
“It’s got a tight suspension that doesn’t let us go very fast in this terrain. And the windows aren’t tempered to the proper strength.”
Moments later, the Trans Am was back on the shoulder of State Road 60 with the gate adequately secured. Serge and Coleman leaned against fence posts, peering into the dark expanse.
“Just remembered something,” said Coleman. “You mentioned at the jail that you posted his bail?”
