by Tim Dorsey
“No,” said Otis. “I don’t have any naked photos of my wife.”
“Want some?” asked Vernon.
The tables filled with hearty laughter.
“Hey, that’s not funny!”
“Oh, lighten up.”
The front door opened.
“Look,” said Jabow. “It’s Steve.”
“Hey, Steve.” Vernon waved him over. “Join us . . .” He stopped and appraised the newcomer’s black Under Armour outfit. “Looks like you just got back from Miami. Better change those clothes before someone mistakes you for a city slicker.”
More laughs from the table.
“Steve,” said Jabow. “Steve? . . . Is something the matter?”
A worried look. “I can’t reach my cousin.”
“He was just here yesterday,” said Vernon. “We saw him at the bank.”
“And you don’t have any idea where he might be?”
“No, why should we?” said Otis. “Told us he was heading back south.”
“He always stays glued to his cell phone when out of town.”
“You know the terrible reception around here,” said Clem.
“I haven’t heard from him in almost twenty-four,” said Steve. “That breaks our ironclad rule. You sure nobody’s seen or heard from him?”
“We’d definitely say something if we had,” said Vernon. “But I’d be happy to put the word out for our patrolmen to keep their eyes open.”
“His Mercedes had a GPS that we tracked,” said Steve. “Found it abandoned in the next county behind a strip club.”
“Gee,” said Vernon. “That could mean any number of things might have happened.”
“It’s also the first place where people ditch cars when they want you to think any number of things might have happened,” said Steve. “Everyone knows that.”
Blank looks from the tables.
“One more thing,” said Steve. “Just after midnight I got a text message from him.” He handed his phone to the mayor.
Vernon’s eyes widened as he read.
“What’s it say?” asked Jabow.
“Yes,” said Steve. “Why don’t you read it to everyone?”
“Uh, ‘They’re crawling under a house with the money.’ That’s odd.”
Steve took the phone back. “Yes, very odd. And I think it rings a bell.”
“What? . . .” “Us? . . .” “We don’t . . .” “Huh? . . .” “Strangest thing . . .”
“I think all of you know exactly what that message means,” said Steve. “What have you done with my money?”
“Laundered it, like you asked.”
“So where is it right now?” said Steve. “I want it back.”
“Can’t,” said Vernon. “It’s out being laundered.”
“I’m paying you eight percent to wash that cash, and you’re just burying it! What was I thinking?”
“Steve, calm down,” said Jabow. “You know we really like you—”
“Knock off the country-fried horseshit!” A fist pounded the table, spilling iced tea. “I want my money.”
“Okay,” said Vernon. “We all understand you’re upset about a missing relative and not thinking clearly, so we’re going to let it pass this one time.”
“Fuck you!”
Vernon stood and began opening his mouth. When he did, he saw something he hadn’t noticed before in the crowded restaurant: two immense men in white suits standing silently by the door, hands clasped in front of them and weapons bulging under their jackets. “Who are they?”
“I’ll be back!” said Steve. “I want my money! And my cousin!”
He stormed out of the rib joint, and the linen suits followed.
“What the hell was that about?” asked Jabow.
“Goddammit!” snapped Vernon. “I hate a pissing contest when the other guy knows more about my dick than I do.”
“What now?”
“Get ahold of those three morons and bring them here as soon as possible so we can find out what really happened last night.”
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
CENTRAL FLORIDA
An eclectic line of humanity stood at a counter.
“Next . . .”
Everyone moved up a space. Envelopes, brown boxes. FBI Wanted list on the wall. Poster for new commemorative stamps featuring mallard ducks. Typical post office.
“You can’t use twine in the mail . . .” “It’ll never make it to New Zealand taped like this . . .” “You forgot to address all of these . . .” “It has to be under seventy pounds even if it is a rock collection . . .”
“Have any of these people ever mailed anything before?” asked Coleman.
“Unfortunately, many times.”
“Serge, I agree it’s a good idea to stake out the PO box, but we don’t know when someone will show up,” said Coleman. “We could be waiting here all day.”
“Not when money’s coming.”
They finally reached the counter. “How may I help you?”
“What time do you deliver to the PO boxes?”
“Guaranteed by noon.”
“Thank you,” said Serge.
“Is that all?”
At the next window, someone placed a large ceramic unicorn on the counter. No box, nothing. “Can you help me mail this?”
Serge aimed a thumb sideways. “How often does that hap-pen?”
“More than you’d ever imagine.”
“My sympathies . . . Come on, Coleman.”
They waited outside on a parked motorcycle, talking with radio helmets.
“It’s hot,” said Coleman. “I’m bored.”
“Promise it won’t be long.” He checked his watch. “One minute past noon . . . Wait, see that guy through the window? He’s going for the PO box.”
“What’s our move?” said Coleman.
A hand reached into a knapsack. “You’re going to have to ride bitch behind me.”
“But I like the sidecar . . .”
Serge hopped off the bike as a man exited the post office flipping through a stack of envelopes containing money orders and personal checks. His silk shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest. Gold chains, dark monogrammed sunglasses, pointy Spanish boots.
“Excuse me,” said Serge. “Lizards were my childhood companions.”
He raised his face. “Huh?”
“I think you know what I’m talking about.”
“Do I know you?”
“We might even get to be friends,” said Serge. “As soon as you take down all your animal-crushing videos and promise never to do it again.”
“Oh, I get it. A dissatisfied customer.” The man nodded. “Did you pay for something and not receive it?”
“I’m not a customer, but I’m definitely dissatisfied,” said Serge. “I totally understand there’s no accounting for sexual fetishes. One person’s Wiffle ball is another’s butt whistle. But can’t you use animation or special effects or something?”
“Shit,” said the man. “Another animal-rights wingnut. How many of you assholes are out there?”
“Don’t worry,” said Serge. “I’m not like anyone you’ve ever met before.”
“Just get the fuck out of my way!” Shove.
Serge stumbled backward, and the man took a step forward, misjudging his adversary’s reflexes.
Serge was right back in his face. “You must have slipped. Because otherwise that would be no way to launch our summit talks.”
“You’re a fruitcake!” The man cocked his arms back for another hard push. But before he could deliver: “Ow! What the hell was that?”
Serge raised a syringe and flicked a clear drop off the end of the needle. “Just a little something for your nerves. Everyone’s so uptight these days.
”
“I am talking to a dead man! You’re going regret ever . . . eeeeee-ooooooo.”
“Easy, big boy,” said Serge. “Take it slow. Let me give you a hand walking . . .”
Ten minutes later, Serge’s chopper cruised west through relaxing miles.
“Coleman, ease up on your grip around my stomach. I can’t breathe.”
“But I’m scared to fall off the back.”
“Can’t you just chill out like our guest?”
Coleman glanced over at the sidecar. The passenger’s head was in a helmet, slumped to his shoulder.
“How long will that tranquilizer last?”
“Long enough to get him out of sight,” said Serge. “Why are you laughing?”
“Easy Rider has become Weekend at Bernie’s.”
THAT NIGHT
Another quiet evening in the charmingly restored two-story country home. No lights. A balmy breeze blew through lace curtains.
Peter Pugliese lay peacefully in a Queen Anne bed.
His eyelids flew open. “I can’t sleep.” He looked at the digital alarm clock. “A sandwich and milk would help me sleep.”
Peter put on slippers and shuffled to the kitchen. He stood indecisively in front of the open refrigerator door for an extended duration of time that men only do when their wives are out of town. “Baloney.”
He grabbed the Oscar Meyer and a jar of mayo, then put the jar back. “No, I want it fried, like in college,” also because his wife wasn’t home. He got out a skillet and made strategic slices in the meat so the middle wouldn’t bubble up. While it began to sizzle, he opened the fridge again. “Ooo, didn’t see the cottage cheese before. That goes great with corn chips.”
Peter sat at the table with his fried baloney and milk and used a remote control to turn on a tiny kitchen TV that flipped down from under the cabinets. He felt mildly guilty about using a remote for such a close distance and decided to mow the lawn in the morning. The cable channel showed a controversial rancher holding a dead calf to somehow prove he was justified in not paying taxes because of Negroes . . . “I’m feeling sleepy.”
He took the cottage cheese and corn chips back to bed and munched until his eyelids drooped. Peter dozed a second, then startled awake in terror at the messy snack on his chest, reflexively spinning his head to locate his wife. Then he remembered . . . He set it all aside on the nightstand and rolled over, burying a smiling face in the pillow.
Peter lay tranquil. He sprang up. “I can’t sleep.” He looked at the alarm clock. “It’s still only ten o’clock in Sacramento.”
He went back in the kitchen with his cell phone and dialed.
“Peter, what are you doing up?”
“I can’t sleep. How’s the trial?”
“The killer wore these Velcro shoes from the Payless chain called Cross-Trekkers, and I thought we’d caught a big break, but didn’t realize how popular they were because the social stigma against Velcro shoes is lifting among certain youth subcultures. Then we lucked out because the killer kept going to this video store . . .”
Peter got a curious expression. His ears perked up at a faint, low-frequency sound that he wasn’t sure he was actually hearing. Then it grew louder and he became sure. But what was it? Wide-open possibilities: plumbing pipes, joists adjusting to temperature, a stereo playing too loud on the other side of the hill. He decided to walk to the window.
“ . . . Peter? Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“Were you listening to me?”
“Absolutely.”
“What was the last thing I said?”
“Velcro.”
“That isn’t the last thing I said. Video store.”
“Who has those anymore?”
“Cold case, twenty years.”
“Sorry, I just went to the window.”
“Why?”
“Looking for pigs.”
“Pigs?”
“They live in the woods, but that might just be rumor.”
“Are you interested in what I’m saying? It’s a really exciting trial. I’m in a Marriott. I’ve had a little wine. So the murderer wore these shoes a million other guys now wear—not ones that I personally would marry, but some women—except the shoes were like a fingerprint because the guy’s video store had a parking lot experimenting with a new silica aggregate that was supposed to change everything but only bankrupted the company and convicted the defendant because of teensy-weensy jade granules—”
The vibrations became louder. Peter ruled out pigs and thought, What else?
“—which were distinct hexagons that stuck in his soles and will probably send him to death row. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“What?”
“You said you were listening to me.”
“I am. It’s just . . . this noise in the house.”
“What’s it sound like?”
“Odd.” He poked his head toward another window. “Do they have earthquakes here?”
“I don’t know. But whatever it is, it must be getting loud,” said Mary. “I can hear it over the phone. Sounds like a herd of buffalo outside.”
Peter grabbed the kitchen counter for balance. “Now it’s like the buffalo are inside.”
“What’s happening back there—”
Mary didn’t hear an answer because her phone was filled with the sound of a bomb going off . . .
. . . Back in Florida, the phone had shattered. Peter found himself dazed on the floor. A thick cloud filled the room. Peter got his bearings and pulled himself up at the sink, splashing his eyes and rinsing dust from his hair. He was definitely convinced there’d been some kind of detonation. “Was that a gas explosion? Because there’s no way someone would want to bomb me. I don’t have any enemies . . .”
Peter wanted to call 911 but remembered the useless phone. So he grabbed a D-cell flashlight from the junk drawer and went investigating through the haze. Room after room, all clear. He reached the end of the hall and the master bedroom, where he had just been lying down.
The flashlight’s beam swept the space, but he couldn’t see anything because the cloud was impenetrable. This had to be ground zero of whatever craziness had happened. He took a cautious step forward but still wasn’t able to make anything out. Then another step. He peered closely as the smoke and dust began to clear. His eyes must be playing tricks. The haze wasn’t the only reason nothing was visible. Because nothing was there. No dresser, nightstand, not even the bed. “What the—”
Peter took another bewildered step forward. His front foot slipped, and he fell backward on the wooden floor. He moved forward again, this time crawling and feeling with his hands for what had made him trip. His fingers found something that didn’t compute.
An edge.
He aimed the flashlight down. Not just any edge. The side of a cliff. More haze dispersed, exposing a twenty-foot-deep hole in the earth the size of the entire room. “A sinkhole?” The bright beam searched the bottom but found nothing. The cave-in had covered all the furniture and everything else with dirt and clay. He grabbed his pounding heart. “My God, if I hadn’t gotten up to call my wife . . .”
Peter knew sinkholes, knew they could spread. Some dirt clods broke loose from under the floorboards beneath his hands and tumbled into the abyss. He prepared to crawl backward as gingerly as possible. Just before he did, the flashlight caught the only discernible feature at the very bottom of the collapse. “Is that what I think it is? . . . No, you’ve been having too many nightmares lately. That can’t possibly be . . .” Peter and the flashlight patiently waited for more dust to settle. “Dear God!”
He abandoned composure and scrambled in dizzying panic out of the room, then the house, and threw up in the geraniums. “I have to get to a phone!”
Chapter TWENTY-TW
O
THE NEXT DAY
Coleman stared at the yellow sign.
VENOMOUS SNAKES IN AREA.
“Will you come on!” yelled Serge, feeding coins into a coffee machine.
Coleman trotted up and pointed over his shoulder. “This rest stop has poison snakes?”
“Of course,” said Serge. “Those signs are at dozens of our welcome areas.”
“That’s odd.”
“Here’s what’s even stranger.” Serge collected his cup of joe. “Check out that vending machine.”
“The candy bars?”
“No, the other one with sundries that travelers forget: toothbrush, razor, aspirin.”
Coleman stooped in front of the glass. “I didn’t know you could buy snake-bite kits from vending machines.”
“They’re adapting to local needs, like how McDonald’s in Paris sells Cabernet,” said Serge. “Snake-bite kits in rest-stop vending machines bring up another daily hurdle only encountered in Florida: ‘I’m starting to see spots and I don’t have correct change.’ ”
Coleman looked back at their motorcycle’s sidecar. “He’s still out cold. Aren’t you worried that everyone can see him?”
Serge shook his head. “The best place to hide something is in plain sight.”
“But I think people are getting suspicious,” said Coleman. “They’re staring at him as they walk by.”
“That’s more out of disgust than suspicion, because his head is hanging over the side with drool coming out,” said Serge. “They were staring at you the same way earlier in the trip, except you weren’t around to see it.”
The chopper roared away from the rest area and took an exit below Ocala. It pulled through the gates of a parking lot with rows of orange-striped vehicles.
“Why do we need a U-Haul?” asked Coleman.
“Because U-Hauls are the best! They have limitless possibilities!” said Serge. “I’ve been fascinated with U-Hauls since I was a kid. Back then, I desperately wanted one because it would be the perfect escape pod for when the adults disappeared.”
He went inside the rental office and approached the desk. “I need a U-Haul for a sensitive experiment.”
