by Tim Dorsey
“Taco? What’s going on?”
“I’m losing reception . . .” Serge threw the phone in the corner, then pinched the hostage’s nose shut until he had to come up for air. “In goes the taco!”
“Mgrmmghphmmm . . .”
Serge stepped back as the man spit out what he could.
Coleman stumbled over with a joint and giggled. “He’s got guacamole all over his face.”
“For the rich, this is worse than water-boarding.”
“That’s it?” said Coleman. “You’re only going to make him eat a taco?”
“Just batting practice,” said Serge. “I’ve been planning this one for so long, but never had an asshole in the right tax bracket. All the logistics are already in place.”
Serge duct-taped the man’s mouth, then gave him a booster shot of tranquilizer. The prisoner’s chin fell to his chest.
“What now?” asked Coleman.
“Back to the Ferrari,” said Serge. “I like how it handles.”
A half hour later, the sports car pulled out of another rental business with a small moving trailer in tow. It skirted the underside of Lake Okeechobee and turned into a parking lot surrounded by a fence topped with spools of barbed wire. Row after row of garage-type doors.
Coleman accidentally inhaled a tiny roach, and washed it down with Southern Comfort. “You’re going to rent a storage unit?”
“Already have one.” Serge pulled the Ferrari up to unit 127. “Told you the logistics were in place.”
He twisted a combination lock and raised the door.
“Look at all these bags,” said Coleman. “They’re like giant sacks of fertilizer.”
“Fifty pounds each.” Serge hoisted the first one onto his shoulder.
“How many are there?”
“Fifty.” Serge walked to the back of the trailer and tossed the bag inside.
“But what’s in them?” asked Coleman.
“Let me give you an impenetrable hint: Read the labels.”
Coleman crouched and slowly moved his lips. “Where on earth did you get this stuff?”
“Only takes money and the Internet,” said Serge. “And it’s far easier to procure than fertilizer, because that contains nitrates that can be converted into explosives. But this stuff is totally harmless. It’s just that average citizens never have the imagination to ask for it. You simply find a big distributor that supplies the kind of massive factories you see all the time on cable shows about how things are made.”
“You’re going to make things?”
“I won’t be able to do anything if you don’t stop yapping and give me a hand.”
Coleman strained to raise a bag and decided to just drag it on the ground. “Serge, help me get it over the bumper.”
“Here you go.”
Thud.
Coleman paused and stared back at the Ferrari’s trunk.
Bang, bang, bang . . .
“Serge, I think your new friend has a question.”
“Soon he’ll have more answers than he’ll know what to do with.”
Thud . . .
Eventually the last sack landed in the trailer, and Serge wiped his hands on his pants. “That about does it. Forty-seven bags for me, three for you.”
They closed up the storage unit and headed south again. The Ferrari left Lake Okeechobee behind and dove down into the vast low-horizon wasteland of sugarcane country. No traffic, just a raised berm of a road that let them see thirty miles in all directions across the top of the fields. The road ran alongside a drainage canal of deceptive depth and reached a place called Okeelanta, a town so small that it’s literally only a name on a map. Just a crossroads in the middle of nowhere with four empty corners and nothing else in sight but more endless miles of cane waving in the wind.
Even farther south, they turned off the pavement and onto a dirt road running through one of the anonymous cane fields. About a mile in, Serge stopped and pulled a GPS from his backpack, setting coordinates. Then he pulled the hostage from the trunk.
A groan as a rib cage slammed the ground.
Serge crouched like a baseball catcher. “Here’s the deal: That tranquilizer’s pretty much worn off. You’re still tied up good, but don’t penalize me for a savant gift with knots. And I think by now you’ve learned a valuable lesson about courtesy that you’ll never forget. Did I guess correctly?”
The man nodded emphatically.
“It’s amazing how often I get that one right. It’s like thirty in a row. Anyway, here’s the bonus round and your chance to escape. I’ve tied your hands in front of you, which means you can crawl the mile back to the main road. I’m afraid it’ll seriously suck to slither that far, but consider it the price of personal growth. No need to thank me. And just because I’m a people person, I’ll leave a knife on the side of the road so you can cut off your bindings when you get out of this field. Then it’s a long walk to the nearest town, but a migrant truck or something will probably come along first.”
Serge and Coleman climbed back in the sports car and sped off, kicking up a billowing contrail of dust and pesticide. Crawling commenced . . .
“Don’t take this the wrong way,” said Coleman. “But what you did to that guy back there didn’t seem up to . . .” He snapped his finger. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”
“Par?”
“No, that’s not it.”
Serge grinned. “You’re forgetting the fifty-pound sacks o’ fun.”
“Yeah, I did forget,” said Coleman. “When do I find out what they’re for?”
“It’s the next item on today’s zany schedule,” said Serge. “Another piece of logistics already in motion.”
The northbound Ferrari reached the lake again and turned west. Off a spur into the countryside sat a large metal shed and a small house. Grassy acres lay flat and sprawling.
A man came out of the cottage when he heard visitors. The mailbox said BABCOCK. First name was Dylan. Sixty-eight and still going strong from a regimen of strenuous chores around the property. Full head of white hair, faded jeans and a large Western belt buckle with crossed rifles. He’d done the same thing for a living his entire life, marking years with the seasonal cycle of the burning of the sugarcane. He strolled up to the driver’s door. “Got the rest of my money?”
“Right here.” Serge climbed out and handed Dylan a thick envelope.
They both went around the back of the trailer and unloaded sacks.
“Done the same thing my whole life,” said Dylan. “And I ain’t never done this.”
“It’s the movie business,” said Serge. “Our lawyers want us to use something that’s absolutely harmless to humans, animals and plants. Plus, white is so bland. This stuff will add a bit of color to our filming.”
“That it’ll accomplish,” said Dylan. “How realistic do you want me to make this?”
“We’ve taken every safety precaution with our actor,” said Serge. “So cut it as true to life as possible.”
Once the truck was empty, they opened wide doors on the metal shed and wheeled out an unusual-looking aircraft with a small bubble cockpit. “You realize there’s only room for two.”
“Coleman needs to stay and watch the car anyway.”
Soon the glazed-red airplane picked up speed as it bounded across the field and lifted off. Serge handed Dylan a scrap of paper with the GPS coordinates.
“What kind of movie did you say you fellas were doing?”
“Another remake,” said Serge. “It’s an homage to Hitchcock.”
“Think I saw the original when it first came out in the fifties,” said Dylan. “The one where Cary Grant gets stuck at the crossroads?”
“An all-time classic,” said Serge. “How can anyone not love that flick?”
“Except for w
hat happened to the pilot.”
“Don’t worry,” said Serge. “We took care of that in rewrites.”
Travel by air was much quicker than even a limited-edition Ferrari.
“We’re almost over your site,” said Dylan. “Where are the movie cameras?”
“Hidden,” said Serge. “Since this is the big scene, we’re filming from multiple angles and can’t have other cameras show up in the footage. Made that expensive mistake the last time.”
“Think I see your actor now.” Dylan looked down from the side of the cockpit. “He’s coming out the cane field and heading up that road.”
Dylan pushed his stick forward, putting the plane into a shallow dive.
“Can I pull the release lever?” asked Serge.
“Be my guest.”
The crop duster swooped low over the road, spraying a thick orange cloud that settled broadly over a hundred-yard swath.
Joe Ferrari began coughing and rubbing his eyes. He was barely able to see when he heard the plane returning for another pass. He looked around. Only one place to hide. He dove back into the rows of sugarcane. Another orange cloud wafted gently over the crops.
More coughing and spitting on his hands and knees. He stood up as the plane banked in the eastern sky for a third run. He took off deeper into the sugarcane.
“How many times do you want to do this?” asked Dylan.
“Until we’re empty,” said Serge. “He’s got a gas mask, so there’s no such thing as overkill.”
“Where’d your actor go?”
“Just follow the ripple through the cane field.”
“He’s really thrashing around,” said the pilot.
“One of the best actors working today,” said Serge. “Take her down.”
“You’re the boss,” said Dylan, putting the plane into another dive. “I can cross this off my bucket list.”
“So can he.”
Chapter THIRTY-TWO
THE NEXT MORNING
Open-bed trucks of migrant workers waited behind police lines. The only people getting through on the lonely road south of Clewiston were detectives and a coroner’s van. Onlookers gathered as the satellite trucks set up shop.
“This is Roberta Blanco reporting live from sugarcane country just south of Lake Okeechobee, where authorities have discovered the body of a hedge-fund trader who was first thought to be the victim of a freak accident. But police are now interviewing a local crop duster who appears to have been the unwitting accomplice in a bizarre murder plot. Also cooperating is the sales department of a regional food processing distributor. The preliminary coroner’s report identifies the cause of death as asphyxiation from a severe lung coating of dust that was an equal mixture of Doritos cool ranch, mesquite barbecue, and sour cream and onion . . .”
A Ferrari Berlinetta raced by the TV cameras. Serge opened her up along the deserted eastern shore of the lake and made it back to the Primrose Motel in record time. The sports car skidded to a stop next to a chopper as Matt burst out of a room.
“There you are! I’ve been calling and calling!”
“My bad,” said Serge. “I’m sure you can understand that in my line of work, a lot of people unexpectedly make demands on my time.”
“But I wasted another whole day in a motel room,” said Matt. “The only reason I didn’t head back north is I felt responsible for your chopper.”
“And I’m going to make all that up to you,” said Serge. “Get your stuff. We’re heading to another inspirational event where the spirit of the sixties still thrives in a most unlikely location. If you thought the Suwannee River fest was great . . .”
Matt was staring next to the motorcycle. “Where’d you get the Ferrari?”
“I have friends who just give me things. It’s weird.”
“That’s the same car from outside the restaurant the other day.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Coleman’s got bruises, and it looks like you have spots of blood on your shirt, just like the last time you disappeared.” Matt carefully looked them over. “Something’s going on. You’re keeping secrets from me! I’m not leaving here until you come clean and tell me what you’re really up to!”
Serge slowly lowered his head. “Okay, when you’re right, you’re right.” He looked up and placed a trusting hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Matt, you’re one of the good guys, and we’ve been traveling together long enough to establish bonds of trust. If you’re going to continue on with us, it’s only fair to reveal something important that you don’t know about me. And after I tell you, you’re free to go your own way if you so choose, no strings attached . . . Ready?”
Matt took a deep breath and braced himself. “What is it?”
“I’m able to create thousand-island dressing from the condiment section of any convenience store,” said Serge. “Packets of ketchup, mayo and relish. Comes in handy on the road.”
“That’s your secret?”
“I haven’t told anyone but Coleman because there are millions of dollars at stake. It’s the perfect business model: Condiment packets are free, and I can bottle and sell the dressing endlessly with no ingredient cost. Plus, my recipe is a close molecular cousin of sandwich spread, and if you subtract the ketchup, you’ve also got tartar sauce. A whole product line is ready to explode . . .”
“Serge . . .”
“Except the grand plan hit a kink. Sure, they say the condiments are free, but try walking out of a convenience store with a bulging backpack. So now I’m forced to hit a million places and get only a few at each, like the meth guys running around town all day buying Sudafed. The meth dudes are called smurfs, and we’ve started crossing paths, nodding at each other out of professional courtesy . . .”
“Serge . . .”
“Except the condiment crackdown is much more severe.” He reached into his pants to show Matt some packets, then put them back. “I’ve been banned from every convenience store where I live. That’s why I can only make my collection rounds on the road and sometimes, when funds are low, I’m forced to go missing for otherwise inexplicable periods of time. I did it all for you, Matt, to continue financing your thesis journey.”
“All right, all right,” said the student. “Let’s just go.”
“I was ready to leave a while ago, but you’re the one who’s acting all suspicious.”
WOBBLY
The front door opened at the First National Bank.
Men in overalls looked up from newspapers.
“Steve!”
“You made bail?”
“Even better. All charges dropped.”
“But how?”
He took a seat. “Good lawyer. The transport driver and car dealer were clean and passed voluntary polygraphs. And the vehicle with the dope was bought by one of the guys I hired to hit the auctions, who turned out to be clean as well. It never came within miles of me, so they had nothing.”
“Then how’d the drugs get in there?” Vernon asked with a wink.
A sly grin. “The only possible explanation is that they were already in the vehicle when we bought it just a week ago, and, as my attorney pointed out, it had numerous previous owners, including one with substance issues.”
“If I ever need a lawyer . . .” said Jabow.
“I’ll give you his card,” said Steve. “Now my turn: How’d that blue moon work out for you the other night?”
Vernon sighed. “Terrible.”
“Trouble getting down in the hole?”
“Worse. Right after we entered the house, the sheriff showed up,” said the mayor. “Out of nowhere. We had to abort.”
“But you’re going to try again?”
“Not right now.”
“Why not?”
“Because deputies have increased patrols ever s
ince,” said Vernon. “And I believe we have a more immediate problem. Don’t you think it was a little too coincidental that you got pulled in by the sheriff? A few hours before he happens to come by that house when we were about to recover the money?”
“I was already wondering about that,” said Steve. “Who do you think the informant is?”
“Follow the motive,” said Vernon. “Who stands to gain the most by neutralizing both of us?”
“That son of a bitch! I knew I should have taken care of Pugliese when I first had the chance.”
Steve stormed out of the bank, and men in overalls picked up newspapers.
“Yup.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
MEANWHILE, TWENTY MILES AWAY
Night fell. Coleman waddled through the darkness with a crooked smile and a beer in each hand. It was a giant wooded expanse way out in the sticks, which meant DeLand, Florida.
Coleman was properly roasted to dig the weirdness of the place. Here and there in the moss-draped trees, strands of twinkling little lights. And all around, faint, competing music of unseen origins: rock, zydeco, mystical twangs from India.
Ahead of him, a form took shape in the forest. The person approached Coleman, also grinning with two beers. They silently exchanged looks of kinship as they passed. Coleman continued deeper into the woods, scraping his legs on brush. He began hearing drums, then noticed flames flickering through branches. By the time he reached the clearing, his beers were empty. He saw some people lying on blankets outside a cluster of tents. A man in a fringed leather vest played a homemade flute. A peace flag flapped from an old-growth oak. Coleman adjusted his course.
He reached the group and tripped, ending up on his back like a turtle. “Hi, I’m Coleman . . .” He rolled onto his stomach and pointed at their cooler. “ . . . Can I buy a beer for a dollar?”
The man stopped playing the flute. “No, but you can have one. There are no possessions here. We are all connected; the separateness of our beings is but an illusion.”
A young girl with daisies in her hair gave Coleman a Budweiser; another handed him a tambourine.
Coleman began chugging and banging the percussion instrument on his hip. “Far out.”
