by Tim Dorsey
“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
T HE 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.
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.timdorse
y.com.
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The critics are juiced about
DORSEY, SERGE, and
TORPEDO JUICE
“The literary equivalent of a pie in the face and a Three Stooges marathon. And, yes, that is a compliment…Quirky is an understatement…Dorsey doesn’t just invite the reader to laugh, he insists on those great belly laughs that sometimes end in a snort and water spewing all over the place.”
Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“While [Carl] Hiaasen’s books are always devilishly hilarious, Dorsey somehow manages to take things a step further. Anyone who has ever read a Hiaasen novel knows that is saying a lot…Dorsey can indeed spin a truly warped yarn, one that is at times wackier than anything Hiaasen could dream up…Torpedo Juice is a wildly entertaining read…The misadventures of Serge, Coleman, and the rest of the Key dwellers are guaranteed to amuse those with a sick sense of humor.”
Charleston Post and Courier
“Serge A. Storms is a notable character in the crime and mystery genre. He’s passionate, determined, articulate, and has a moral compass, however skewed, that he lives by. He’s also a serial killer…A novel that features a serial killer as its central character had better be extremely dark or brutally funny. Tim Dorsey’s Torpedo Juice is both.”
Pittsburgh Tribune Review
“Imagine the violence of Edna Buchanan married to the skewed worldview of Dave Barry. Now you’re ready to meet Tim Dorsey.”
Booklist
“Another hilarious adventure featuring Serge, the lovable Florida killer…Dorsey’s wacky humor and his hilarious hitman…combine to create some of the funniest crime novels being written today.”
Montgomery Advertiser
“A boozy blast that will leave readers toasted, exhilarated, and maybe a little exhausted at the end of the ride…[Dorsey] has all but cornered the market on manic Sunshine State crime fiction…His work may not be as deep or as provocative as that of Carl Hiaasen…but Dorsey’s stories are consistently more funny, and they move along at a much faster clip.”
