Pineapple Grenade

by Tim Dorsey

  A loud crash in the back of the room.

  Serge turned. “What now?”

  “Coleman crashed into the laser.”

  The other guys helped Coleman back into his chair. They guzzled drinks and slammed glasses down in unison. Then they all stood.

  Felicia idly twisted a napkin. “I thought only women went to the restroom in groups.”

  Serge’s expression sank. “I know where this is leading . . .”

  Downtown Miami

  Dance music pounded from the clubs and Bayside Market. Streets jammed with honking taxis and limos. Summit traffic. One of the bridges across Biscayne glowed blue underneath from hidden neon lights.

  Diplomatic staff and international trade lobbyists continued arriving at the most expensive hotels between the river and the causeway to the beach.

  Registration desks stacked up at the luxury-suite high-rises on Biscayne. Except the line for platinum members. A man in an Italian shirt with a canvas shoulder bag opened his wallet on the counter. Fit, trim, dyed-blond crew cut like the bass player for U2.

  The cheerful receptionist took his driver’s license and credit card. “Welcome back, Mr. Peloquin!”—as if she personally remembered him, but the computer had prompted her greeting for a special repeat client. “How was your flight?”

  He left his sunglasses on, exhaling hard through nostrils.

  Her smile began to crack, and she rushed through the rest of the check-in. “Here are your room keys and drink coupons. Hope you enjoy Miami—”

  The man snatched them before she was finished and headed for the elevators. Enjoy Miami indeed. He remembered his last visit. First the dislocated shoulder. And after all his trouble planting that reporter’s belongings in a Costa Gordan motel—how was he supposed to know where sharks fed in Miami?

  The elevator reached the fifteenth floor. A magnetic key card opened a door. The luggage he hadn’t brought with him from the airport was already waiting in the room, courtesy of his employer.

  The man slipped off loafers. Wallet and cell phone went on the nightstand. He reclined on the still-made bed, staring at a TV that he didn’t turn on.

  A vibrating sound from the nightstand.

  He opened the cell phone. A text message.

  “?”

  He pressed a button.

  “.”

  Arrival confirmation.

  The cell phone closed. He picked up his wallet and took out the driver’s license. The name said Dreyfus Peloquin. Nobody knew what it really was. Or what he looked like. A few grainy, ten-year-old photos had been floating around, but good luck. The closest thing to a name was an offshore answering machine periodically checked by another number in Argentina. Anything worth passing on got typed into a free Internet mail account and saved as a draft.

  Conversely, Peloquin didn’t know anything about who was texting him, just that the deposits in Switzerland had all cleared. It wasn’t a first-name business.

  Another driver’s license came from a different part of the wallet. A different name, Winston Chabot. And a decidedly different look.

  The man opened one of the suitcases on a table and unloaded packs of cash until he came to a metal box. He took it in the bathroom, squirted the contents of an unmarked bottle into his hands, and rubbed his face. Then he looked in the mirror and began tearing off his forehead and cheeks. He cranked sink faucets. Another nameless bottle and soon his hair was black. He held up the second driver’s license.

  Perfect match.

  The new Mr. Chabot came back into the oversize bedroom. He was that peculiar blend of human who thrives on extreme adrenaline yet enjoys speechlessness. Good thing, because the suite was now his pampering prison cell until an undetermined time when the call came. If it ever came. He got paid either way, just to be on standby. Procedure called for him to stay in the room and not be seen. In Madrid, it had been over a month. And so began an arm’s-length relationship with the room-service staff, which he quickly trained to knock, leave the trays outside, and wait for the fifty-dollar tip to slide under the door.

  Chabot walked past the floor-to-ceiling windows. Most of the guests left the curtains wide open to enjoy the glittering nightscape of the Magic City, but these were pulled tight. In the distance, generators hummed. Floodlights. An around-the-clock crew continued final preparations on the main stage for the Summit of the Americas.

  Another piece of luggage opened, this one with a custom-fitting foam liner.

  With his left hand, Chabot removed the stock of an Israeli sniper rifle; with his right, he called room service.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Spy

  The DJ petted his cat.

  A new song cranked. The Mission: Impossible theme. A giant laser lit up. Men in lab coats scurried around checking pressure gauges.

  The men’s room in the back of the nightclub was even busier.

  Ted Savage, Coleman, and Escobar had made a beeline for the handicapped stall and barricaded themselves.

  Escobar extended the Phillips-head on a utility knife and, moments later, Ted and Coleman pulled the mirror off the wall. It lay across the sink.

  “Break that shit out!” said Savage.

  Escobar dumped a baggie of white powder. “Hold on to your fuckin’ heads, dudes. This is hundred-percent pure Peruvian flake. Couple lines of this primo blow and you won’t be able to find your own nuts.” He flicked open a giant barber’s straight razor.

  “Now, that’s a freakin’ blade!” said Coleman.

  “Cut those cocksucking rails!” urged Savage.

  Escobar sliced and diced. He pulled back the blade. “Who’s first?”

  Savage dove forward with a rolled-up twenty. A hard snort, then his head snapped back. Nose pinched between his fingers. “Goddamn. Where’d you get this shit?”

  Escobar was already cutting Coleman’s lines. “Had it flown up in the diplomatic pouch. Nobody checks. Nobody’s allowed to . . . Your turn.”

  Coleman bent over . . .

  Back in the lounge:

  Serge drained a bottle of water. “So the consulate sent you to check up on me?”

  “No, that was on my own,” said Felicia. “With the generals and that dead reporter, I can’t trust anyone. And Guzman’s still a little naive. I’m doing this for my country.”

  “What makes you think you can trust me?”

  “Because you’re not in the spy business. You aren’t connected to anybody, and I need independent help to see this through.”

  “But of course I’m a spy,” Serge protested. “You injected me. That’s like spy baptism.”

  “Come on.” Felicia laughed. “That was when I thought you were hooked up. But you told me a lot when you were under the serum.”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re just a local guy who foiled a random carjacking. But everyone now thinks you’re working for someone else, so you’re playing along.”

  “What about me showing up earlier in your office?”

  “Saw right through that.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course. You noticed me on the street and wanted a date. Happens a dozen times a week. All kinds of stupid excuses to talk me up, like delivering a package to the wrong address . . . Except you were actually pretty funny—and cute—but I didn’t want to let on.”

  “I can live with that account . . . So you know it was just a typical carjacking?”

  “The simplest explanation is usually the right one. But in the diplomatic world, imaginations run wild.”

  “But you won’t tell them, right? I’d kind of like them to go on thinking I’m Jason Bourne.”

  “I don’t think I could convince them otherwise.” Another laugh. “You’ve created quite a circular firing squad.”

  “How so?”

  “Guzman likes you, because you saved his life from a so-called hit squad, and the head of my consulate likes you because Guzman likes you, but he hates you because he doesn’t know your game and you might threa
ten his cushy gig in Miami, and Escobar thinks you’re after his job—or used to—but he’s more of a threat to himself and is now being courted by the CIA to find out more about you. And of course there’s the local boob twins, Oxnart and Lugar. Then Victor Evangelista, who’s dick-deep in gunrunning.”

  “Please keep talking to me like that.”

  “It’s no joke. Vic’s the key. We need to trace his shipments backward to the source and figure this whole thing out before another democracy’s overthrown by multinationals.” Felicia craned her neck around Serge, squinting toward the back of the club. “What’s taking those guys so long?”

  “Believe me, you don’t want to know.”

  What she didn’t want to know:

  “Dear God, help me!” screamed Escobar.

  “Holy crap!” yelled Savage. “Why the fuck did you do that?”

  “Wasn’t on purpose.” Crying now.

  “What do we do?” whimpered Coleman.

  “Okay,” said Savage. “Uh . . . Uh . . . First we have to remain calm.”

  “Then what?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Back in the lounge, Serge stretched and arched his back. “How do you get all your information?”

  “Mostly from the head of our consulate. He’s chatty in bed. Guy goes through Viagra like popcorn.”

  “Don’t you love those TV ads for the stuff?” said Serge. “Especially the medical warnings: ‘Discontinue use if experiencing diminished eyesight.’ I mean, who’s schlong out there is so limp it requires blood to be diverted in such quantities that the room starts to go dark?”

  “Serge, come back to me,” said Felicia.

  “What?”

  She gently placed a hand on his. “I know who you are.”

  “Right, I’m not a spy.”

  “No, I’m talking about everything.” She lit a dark brown cigarette. “Police records, psychiatric diagnosis, the bodies.”

  “How’s you learn all that—allegedly?”

  “I’m a spy.”

  “But if you know my whole history, you’re . . . not afraid to be sitting here?”

  She formed her mouth into a circle and blew smoke rings toward the ceiling. “Natural attraction has no master. You can’t diagram it logically.”

  “You’re attracted to me?”

  “Jesus, Serge. You’re otherwise so intelligent.” She rolled her eyes. “Do I have to spell it out for you?”

  “I don’t . . . I mean, you . . . me?”

  She stubbed the cigarette. Her hands disappeared.

  “What are you doing?”

  A huskier voice. “What do you think I’m doing?”

  Serge seized the sides of the table with his hands. “Whoa!” He glanced around to see if anyone was watching.

  The voice became even throatier. “You enjoy that?”

  “But we’re in the middle of a club full of people.”

  “I like it that way. Public places.”

  “Paraphilia?” said Serge.

  “And dangerous situations, particularly espionage. That’s why I was so good wrecking political careers.” Felicia’s mouth neared the side of Serge’s head. “Are you getting in the mood? I’m in the mood. In fact . . .” She whispered the rest, then plunged her tongue in his ear.

  Serge watched her other hand move to her own lap. He gulped with diminishing eyesight.

  “Serge, let’s do it right now, right here! I’ve never been so ready! Nothing could turn off my—”

  A restroom door crashed open. Three men ran screaming back into the lounge.

  “Serge! . . .”

  “Help us! . . .”

  “We’re in trouble! . . .”

  Serge’s head slumped to his chest. Eyesight returned.

  “Serge!” yelled Coleman. “You have to do something!”

  Serge closed his eyes. “Go away.”

  Felicia grabbed Serge by the arm. “Look at all the fucking blood!”

  “What?” His head perked up. “Holy shit, all three of you are covered in it! Where’s it all coming from?”

  “Mainly Escobar,” said Savage.

  “Where’s he hurt?”

  Savage and Coleman pointed at Escobar’s left hand, wrapped in a giant toilet-paper ball like a red boxing glove.

  “What the heck happened to his hand?” said Serge.

  “He cut his finger off,” said Coleman.

  “Call 911!” Felicia shouted to the bartender.

  Houselights came on.

  “How’d he cut his finger off?” said Serge.

  All three went back to crying and stomping their feet.

  Felicia jumped up and applied pressure to Escobar’s hand. She looked back at Serge. “They’re ripped on blow.”

  “For openers,” said Serge. He grabbed Escobar by the shoulders. “The doctor is on the case. This can be fixed with microsurgery. Where’s your finger?”

  “Got flushed down the toilet,” said Escobar. “You really believe they can fix it?”

  Serge closed his eyes tight again. “Why did you flush your finger down the toilet?”

  “Wasn’t on purpose,” said Escobar.

  “Yeah,” said Coleman. “We were dumping all the coke to get rid of the evidence because of the problem with his finger, and it just fell in.”

  “But Coleman really tried to save it,” said Savage. “His arm even got stuck.”

  “That’s why there’s so much blood,” said Escobar. “We had to stop and get Coleman’s arm out of the toilet first, and couldn’t attend to the other wounds.”

  “Other wounds?” said Serge.

  Savage displayed his left hand. “Me and Coleman cut ourselves on the broken mirror. That’s why Scooter lost his concentration and cut his finger off.”

  “Back up,” said Serge. “How did the mirror break?”

  “I leaned against the sink,” said Coleman.

  “How did you break the mirror leaning on the sink?”

  “The mirror was lying across it,” said Escobar.

  “Why was the mirror on the sink?”

  “There was no other place to put it,” said Coleman.

  Ambulance sirens. A burst through the club’s secret door with a stretcher. “Who’s hurt?”

  Serge pointed in different directions. “Those two are just scraped. The short one lost a finger.”

  “Where is it?” asked an EMT.

  “On the way to Biscayne Bay.”

  They hoisted him onto the gurney. The lounge’s door flew open again.

  Ambulance sirens faded into the breezy night.

  Felicia looked at Serge with regret. “Rain check?”

  Serge managed his best smile under the circumstances. “I’ll look forward to it.”

  She headed toward the door. “I need to check a few things out. Let’s meet again tomorrow and put my plan in motion.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  The Next Day

  Edge of the Everglades.

  Isolated. Buzzing insects. Melting heat.

  A cloud of chalky dust kicked up in the distance and drifted west behind an orange-and-green Plymouth.

  The gravel road swung south. A lone metal building appeared.

  “That’s the warehouse,” said Scooter.

  Felicia gestured toward a smaller dirt road. “Go around back.”

  Serge pulled up tight along the rear of the structure and parked beneath a ventilation fan frozen with rust. “You sure this is the place?”

  Felicia grabbed a crowbar and opened her door. “We’ll soon find out.”

  They walked around the front to a gravel lot. Coleman took a slug of Southern Comfort and passed it to his new buddies. Serge picked up a charred hubcap. “This used to be a nice car . . .”

  “. . . And here’s one of the bumpers,” said Coleman.

  “And a blast crater,” said Savage.

  “Scooter,” said Felicia.

  “What about him?” said Serge.

  Felicia approached the
warehouse entrance. “He blew it up.”

  “Scooter blew up a Ferrari?”

  “It was an accident,” said Scooter. “The thing just fired.”

  Felicia jammed the iron bar in a latch and popped off the padlock.

  “Coleman,” said Serge. “Stand lookout by the car. Just knock on the metal wall three times if you see anyone.”

  They slid open a door on screeching tracks. Shafts of sunlight hit the floor.

  Serge stopped in the middle of the empty building and looked around. “You probably didn’t know this about me, but I have a thing for women with crowbars. Actually not a thing. Crowbars just seem to come into play.”

  Felicia wasn’t listening. She squatted down near the back.

  “What is it?” asked Serge.

  She stood and rubbed something between her fingers. Tiny pieces fluttered to the floor. “Sawdust.”

  “I’m guessing they weren’t making cabinets.”

  “That’s the spot,” said Scooter. “Where they were checking the crates. I told you.”

  Felicia reached down again and picked up a scrap of plastic. “Packing shims from an RPG.”

  “The one that malfunctioned,” said Scooter.

  Felicia turned slowly and nodded. “Evangelista’s place.”

  “Victor Evangelista?” said Serge.

  “Ostensibly a respected businessman, highly connected politically. Rumors have been rampant for years, but nothing proven. And a lot of people who were doing the talking aren’t able to anymore.”

  “I know his backstory,” said Serge.

  “Then you know he’s arguably one of the biggest gunrunners in the hemisphere,” said Felicia. “According to the rumors, Victor’s been playing all sides for years. The generals, CIA, even the rebels.”

  “That’s a short life expectancy.”

  “Normally,” said Felicia. “Except everyone wants him to play all sides.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “CIA fronts pay him to secretly arm the generals, because Congress won’t let ’em do it themselves. And both the generals and the CIA want him to arm the rebels.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Welcome to spy town.” Felicia lit a thin cigar. “The rebels are a joke. Unless our governments arm them, they’re worse than harmless, except when they come out of the mountains to beg for food or wash people’s windshields.”