by Tim Dorsey
No traffic at this hour. The Challenger rolled through woods with FOR S ALE signs offering five hundred acres and up. Another bulldozed clearing. Then a dense thicket of identical houses and screened-in pools around a man-made pond. A fountain that sprayed during daylight was still.
Developer world.
Serge turned off the highway and wound through residential streets that weren’t on the map yet. Only one completed house for every dozen lots. In between, fire hydrants, concrete footers and new streetlights waiting to be wired into the power grid.
Someone was awake in one of the homes, reading a book upstairs. Others had cars in driveways. Serge studied each passing residence. Nothing he liked. The Challenger drove on. More isolated homesteads. More checkmarks in the negative column.
The Challenger reached the back of the future subdivision and rounded a broad cul-de-sac with surveyors’ stakes. Serge parked and studied the last house three lots up. No cars or other signs of life, but the porch light was on, which meant electricity, essential to his science project. A rolled-up garden hose hung from its cradle by the back fence. The mailbox: THOMPSON.
Owner-occupied. Excellent.
Just one last thing. Serge got out of the car without closing the door and tiptoed to the mailbox. He opened it. Full.
Serge ran back, started the car and whipped up the driveway. “Coleman!” Shaking his pal’s shoulder with a hand holding a pistol.
“We’re here!”
Snoring.
“Wake up!” Serge jabbed him in the cheek with the gun.
A groggy Coleman startled. Another jab with the pistol. A loud groan. Coleman’s eye blinked and stared into the barrel of a huge gun. He grabbed his heart. “Thank God! I was having a nightmare I was out of dope.”
Thuds from the trunk.
Coleman found some potato chips in his pocket. “I wish they’d stop all that racket.”
“It will soon be peaceful in the jungle.” Serge aimed a rectangular plastic box at the house.
“What’s that?”
“Garage door opener.” Serge turned a knob.
“I didn’t know garage openers had dials. Or were that big.”
“Mine’s the only one.” More intricate twisting. “I bought a regular opener, extracted the gizzards and made a trip to my beloved RadioShack. Then I rebuilt the components inside a blank electronics box. All other openers have a button you temporarily press, so I soldered the power circuit to this on-off toggle switch, allowing continuous transmission. Also, openers only broadcast on a single, fixed frequency, which I bypassed with a variable gang capacitor attached to this dial, permitting me to tune it like a radio across the entire garage bandwidth.”
“Variable gang?”
“Long explanation.” The dial rotated farther. “But a childhood of building crystal radios put me in the kill zone.”
Crunch, crunch. “The door isn’t opening.” Crunch.
“What are you eating?”
“Potato chip pieces and lint.”
More careful tuning. “If my guess is correct…”
A quiet mechanical grinding in the night.
“It’s opening,” said Coleman. “It works.”
Serge grabbed his drugstore shopping bags and a broom. “Justice is afoot.”
The trunk lid popped open. Whining from two bound and gagged hostages.
“My manners,” said Serge, reaching over them for a small toolbox. “Forgot the formal introduction… Tourist-robbing motel dirt-bag, meet not-pulling-over-for-fire-truck horn-honking car-keyer, and vice versa… Eeny, meeny, miney, mo-which social goiter has to go?”
“What are you doing?” asked Coleman.
“Choosing.”
“Why not do both?”
“Want to save one for dessert. It’s like when fortune shined on me as a little kid and I found myself with two Reese’s peanut butter cups. I’d always hide one for later to make the magic last, but they always melted in my underwear.”
“That still happens to me.”
“… My… mother… said… to… pick… the… very… best… motherfucker… and… you… are… it!… Coleman, give me a hand with the dirtbag.”
After a forced gunpoint march, the would-be robber was flung down on cold cement. Serge flicked the toggle on his plastic box. The garage door lurched and cranked back down behind them.
“Coleman, hit that light switch on the wall.”
The hostage squinted in sudden brightness. Then puzzlement at the ensuing flurry of activity.
Serge dragged a ladder to the center of the garage, then climbed up with pliers and metal snippers. He stretched a tape measure along the lifting chain of the garage opener’s motor. Bending and cutting. Twisted links of broken chain bounced on the floor. He grabbed kite string in his teeth and flicked open a pocket knife…
Ten minutes later, Serge folded the ladder against a wall. He placed the broom on a workbench, sawed off the business end and carved a lengthwise groove down the shaft.
“Coleman, kill that light.”
In darkness, Serge raised the door again. He walked to the garage’s threshold, reached up and tore weather stripping off the bottom edge, then generously applied a ribbon of superglue. The truncated broom went in place, reinforced with duct tape. He knelt on the ground, unscrewing the back of his custom transmitter.
Coleman felt inside his other pocket and pulled out something round and tan. He tasted it. “What are you doing now?”
“Removing the nine-volt battery so I can wire my alternate power source.” He stood with the resulting configuration, left the garage and placed the automatic opener in the driveway. “I need your help. Grab that rope.”
Coleman threw a pebble over his shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”
“After I finish these knots, pull as hard as you can…”
Chapter Five
BOSTON
Patrick McKenna arrived for work, punctual as always. He got off the elevator. All the cubicle people stood and began clapping.
“What the heck?” Patrick went in his office and sat down at the computer.
A colleague opened the door and ran in. “Turn on the TV!”
“What’s happening?”
“Just turn it on!” He hit the remote.
“… It was an emotional homecoming after FBI agents raided a remote farmhouse in Essex County and rescued a college freshman who’d been held hostage for more than a week. The big break came when a local satellite imaging company…”
A commotion back in the doorway. His boss rushed in, followed by three TV crews jockeying for position. Patrick jumped up.
The boss threw an arm around his shoulders. “Here’s your hero!”
Blinding camera lights. Patrick shielded his eyes. “Get them out of here!”
“Smile,” his boss whispered sideways. “It’s great publicity for the firm.”
“I don’t want publicity.”
A thrusted microphone. “How does it feel to be a hero?”
FORT MYERS
Shafts of light hit the empty street.
“Sun’s rising,” said Serge. “We have to work fast.” He threw another rope to Coleman. “Pull!”
Moments later, they were done. Serge stood proudly before another enigmatic scene.
Their guest lay on his back, lashed into precise position with a spiderweb of thick rope stretching his limbs to the aching point and knotted around open wall studs and various heavy objects. His body was inside the garage, head resting on the ground outside, just over the threshold, staring up at the edge of the open automatic door.
Serge chugged a coffee thermos, then grinned gleefully and rubbed his palms together. “This is usually the part where I get a thousand questions! But I pride myself on being the perfect host and anticipate them all. Let’s get to it!”
Serge held a plastic box to the captive’s face. “Dig! RadioShack! I rigged my own universal garage door opener, conveniently tuned to this house’s frequency.�
� He reached up and carefully ran a finger along ultra-sharp metal. “Also sawed a horizontal groove in the broomstick attached to the bottom of the door. Now that’s patience! No need to thank me. Then I took the liberty of applying Kwik Dry superglue the entire length of the notch and inserting a bunch of razor blades I got at the drugstore.”
Coleman picked his nose. “Wondered what you were going to do with those.”
Serge squatted next to the head. “By your eyes I can tell you’ve guessed it. That’s right: Serge’s Garage-Door Guillotine! Patent pending.”
Fierce wiggling and gag-muffled screams.
“Better conserve energy because there’s a lot of work ahead if you want to make it out of here.” Serge looked back at the growing dawn light. “You’ll have at least an hour to free yourself.” Serge smiled again and tapped the man’s terrified cheeks. “Just joking. I wouldn’t put you through that kind of inconvenience. I made sure you can’t get loose… Although I could be bluffing. You’ve probably noticed I’m a different kind of cat. Maybe I made one of the knots a slipknot. Ain’t this a fun riot! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. More coffee for everyone!”
“But, Serge,” said Coleman, “garage doors come down pretty slow. It’ll just cut him a little. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not very impressed by your guillotine.”
“That’s the whole beauty.” Serge walked to the middle of the garage and pointed up at the motor mounted to the ceiling. “This is a newer model I wasn’t familiar with, so it took a bit of extra analysis, but I finally cracked the code. The special chain here is key, with sprocket holes that go around the main gear.” He kept pointing above as he walked forward. “And here’s the end of the chain, which reaches the gear when the door gets near the bottom. Notice how I’ve removed a section of metal links and tied the other two ends together with kite string. Then I used my pocket knife to slice partially through the twine.” Serge spread his arms upward like a preacher. “And there you have it!”
Coleman fired a jay. “Have what?”
“When activated by my remote control, the chain lowers the door halfway, until it reaches the string, which snaps because the load’s too heavy, and the door free-falls under its own weight.”
“Is that enough to chop his head off?”
“Of course not. What is it with you always asking about chopping heads off?”
He shrugged. “Never seen it done.”
“Razor blades aren’t that long, but more than enough to do a number on major blood vessels, like the jugular and carotid, just to name a couple.” Then, looking down: “Will you stop trying to scream? That’s so impolite when someone’s attempting to have a conversation.”
Serge dragged garbage cans and a lawn mower into the driveway- “Blocking views from the street, in case you were curious.”
“When do we get to watch?” asked Coleman.
“We won’t be here.”
“Knew you were going to say that.” Coleman sighed and took a hit. “I always wait bored while you do your hobbies, but then you don’t let me see the good stuff.”
“Coleman, it’s going to get ridiculously bloody.” He shivered at the image. “Not something a normal person would enjoy.”
“But how will it happen if we’re not here?”
“The crowning cherry!” Serge held up a shiny, square plate with a lacquered surface encasing loops of embedded metal strips. “My alternative power source.”
“What is it?”
“Solar cell. I’ve decided to go green.” Serge laid it in the driveway. A wire extended from the side and into his modified garage opener. “When the sun rises high enough, it’ll activate my transmitter.” Serge reached toward the box.
“Can I?” asked Coleman.
Serge stepped back. “Be my guest.”
Coleman threw the toggle switch to “On.”
Serge stood over his guest a final time. “My advice? Pray for rain.”
SOUTH OF MIAMI
The early-afternoon sun gave everything a harsh yellow haze. All across Metro-Dade, long lines spilled from convenience stores and bodegas, people handing pink-and-white cards across counters. Lottery machines clattered and spit out tickets at a blistering rate.
“Those are my grandchildren’s birthdays…”
“I just feel extra lucky…”
A royal poinciana struggled to rise from a tight alley between two pastel green apartment buildings in West Perrine. The rest of the landscaping was accidental. Weeds; abandoned tires; a smattering of old-growth palms, some dead, leaving withered, topless trunks. Spanish store signs and billboards for menthol. Children played in broken glass, throwing rocks at lizards.
A late-model Infiniti sat across the street with the motor running.
“How long are we going to wait?” asked Miguel.
Guillermo’s eyes stayed to his binoculars. “As long as it takes.”
Raul leaned forward in the front passenger seat and twisted a knob.
Guillermo lowered the binoculars. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Listening to the radio.”
“… With no winners for the last five weeks, Florida ’s Lotto jackpot now stands at forty-two million dollars, and merchants are reporting huge backups-”
Guillermo clicked it off. “We’re working.”
The sun drew down.
“Maybe they’re not even home,” said Pedro.
“They’re home all right,” said Guillermo.
“How do you know?”
“Here they come now.”
The Infiniti’s passengers looked up at the second-floor balcony, where a door had just opened. Three men filed out. Colombian. They trotted down a concrete staircase by the poinciana and piled into the boxlike frame of a vintage Grand Marquis with gray spray-paint splotches over body work.
Guillermo threw the Inifiniti in gear and followed.
Raul unzipped a small duffel bag, handing out Mac-10s with extended ammo clips. “When do we move?”
“Not until I say.” Guillermo made a right behind the Marquis. “Let’s see where they’re going.”
“But we could pull alongside right now.”
“And a cop comes around the corner,” said Guillermo. “I personally want to get away.”
The Marquis reached South Dixie Highway and turned left.
“Brake lights,” said Miguel. “They’re pulling into that parking lot.”
The Infiniti slowly circled the gas pumps of an independent convenience store with water-filled potholes and a lunch window for Cuban sandwiches. Four steel pylons had recently been installed at the entrance after a smash-and-grab where a stolen Taurus ended up in the Slim Jims. The Marquis’s passengers went inside.
Guillermo parked facing the quickest exit back to South Dixie. He opened the driver’s door. “Don’t do anything until I give the signal.”
“But they’re all in there.”
“And armed,” said Guillermo. “Wait until they’re in the checkout line. Otherwise we’ll be chasing them all across the store, shooting at one another over the top of the chips aisle like last time.”
The crew tucked Macs under shirts and slipped to the edge of the building. They peeked around the outdoor self-serve freezer of ten-pound ice bags.
“Look at that fuckin’ lottery line,” said Raul.
“They’re all up front,” said Guillermo. He pulled a wad of dark knit cloth from his pocket, and the others followed his lead. “Try to keep your spread tight.”
Customers forked money across the counter and pocketed tickets of government-misled hope, just as they had every minute since the owner unlocked the doors.
The Marquis’s passengers looked down at their own penciled-in computer cards. One sipped a can of iced tea. Another idly looked outside. Four ski masks ran past the windows.
“Shit.”
He reached under his shirt for a Tec-9. The others didn’t need to see the threat, just reflexively went for their own weapons upon noticing their
colleague’s reaction.
The doors flew open.
Then all hell.
Ammo sprayed. Beer coolers and windows shattered. Screaming, running, diving over the counter, two-liter soda bottles exploding.
Miguel took a slug in the shoulder, but nothing like the Colombians. A textbook case of overkill. They toppled backward, their own guns still on automatic, raking the ceiling.
Stampede time. Guillermo and the others whipped off masks and blended with a river of hysterical bystanders gushing out the door. After the exodus, an empty store revealed the math. Three seriously dead Colombians and four crying, bleeding innocents, lying in shock or dragging themselves across the waxed floor.
Sirens.
The Infiniti sailed over a curb and down South Dixie.
Chapter Six
TAMPA
A bong bubbled.
Coleman looked up from the couch. “Hey, I’m on TV.”
On the screen, a bong bubbled.
“Serge, when did you shoot that?”
“Couple minutes ago.” He loaded a fresh tape in his camcorder.
Coleman watched as the TV scene panned around their one-bedroom apartment. Souvenirs, ammunition, row of ten bulging garbage bags against the wall.
A cloud of pot smoke drifted toward the ceiling. “You filmed the inside of our crib?”
“The big opening of my documentary.” Serge switched the camera to manual focus and aimed it at the television. “I finally found my hook.”
“Why are you filming the TV? It’s only playing what you just filmed.”
“This is bonus material. The ‘making of’ documentary of the documentary. You need that if you expect decent distribution in Bangkok.”
“What’s your documentary about?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
The camera rolled as Serge walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug of coffee with his free hand. He filmed the cup coming toward the lens. “If you’re going to do something, shoot for the best. People have made documentaries about the Civil War, baseball, ocean life, Danny Bonaduce, but as yet nobody’s attempted to document absolutely everything. My director’s cut box set is slated to top out at seven hundred volumes.”
