“It’s Gary’s,” Ian said, twisting his hips to his right so that he could push the gas pedal with his left foot. “The serial killer prick just tried to take me out. He must know I’m onto him.”
Troy thought about this and concluded that there was absolutely no way that this Gary person could know that Ian was on his trail. The SUV lurched forward and Ian yelped in pain.
“You know,” Troy said, leaning his forehead on the metal grate separating them, “I could help out if you’d just—”
“Not a chance, cowboy,” Ian Bass said, his knuckles as white as his cheeks on the steering wheel.
Troy slumped back into his seat, his wrists aching from the cuffs. As they picked up speed, he felt a cool draft of air coming from somewhere to his right. He shook it off without realizing that his door was ajar.
41
Le Voyeur
Chad Harrison felt the strings of sanity losing their tenuous hold on his composure as he pedaled furiously in the darkness of mile marker eighty-one. His beach-classy date night outfit was a soggy, muddy mess. The rusted fenders on the “borrowed” bicycle did next to nothing to staunch the rooster tails of road spray splashing him in the face and back. If Jackson Pollock had chosen highway sludge and linen as his medium, it would’ve had cleaner, simpler lines than Chad’s clothes.
He pedaled in a fury, driven by all that had happened to him in the last couple of days. He clenched his teeth and spat epithets around like watermelon seeds.
No one heard the story he was telling about how his kayak—the one prized possession he had kept from his first marriage—had been stolen, pirated out from under his nose. He imagined a vagrant selling it to a local pawn shop that would not care if it were not properly purchased and would demand no proof of ownership. And then, a thought occurred to him. It wasn’t a sane thought by any means, but it came to him in a flash and he began to chuckle at the possibility.
“Jenise, you sly witch, you,” he called through fits of coughing laughter.
Jenise, his ex-wife of fifteen years, had bought him the kayak as an anniversary present and, in his eyes, was the only thing of any excitement that had happened in their marriage. If he had known how down-to-earth and sensible Jenise was going to be, he would never have married her. Maybe that was what he’d wanted in the beginning, but a strip club and pornography habit—not the filthy internet porn, but the classy, magazine kind shot with soft focus filters and closed legs—had turned him into a bit of a pervert. He tried on more than one occasion to get her to expand her horizons and she had brushed him off with little more than a giggle.
“Oh, Chad. You know good girls don’t do that sort of thing,” she’d told him.
And she was right, but he discovered he could get the girls up in Miami’s red light district to do those things—for a price. So, he’d claim the paper was sending him on story after story and he’d have to travel nearly every weekend. Jenise had been oblivious. She was proud of her husband and his amazing work ethic, which was similar to her own. So industrious she was, that one weekend while he was away, she had taken it upon herself to clean out the attic of their Islamorada bungalow. She found a black suitcase with strange instruments made of chrome, plastic, leather, and rubber. She had to run an internet search to discover the medieval uses for most of them.
When he arrived home that Sunday night, she met him at the door with a suitcase of her own. She handed him her attorney’s business card and said they would work out the details in court. The only things Chad had been allowed to keep were fifty percent of his earnings, the house in Islamorada, and the kayak.
He raised his fist in the air, shaking it wildly at the menacing clouds overhead. “If you took my kayak, I’ll cut your—”
His thought was interrupted by a bizarre scene solidifying in front of him in the steamy aftermath of the evening’s rainstorm. He stopped the bike with a screeching protest from its rusty brakes. Something big and boxy—maybe a tractor trailer—was standing still, the motor running in the middle of the highway. He pedaled forward slowly and the whole wild thing played out in front of him.
He watched as men, maybe three of them, ran circles around the idling RV he’d thought was a trailer. Then there was gunfire, one of the men went down, and then a gator—holy crap, that’s a big alligator—dove on him, dragged him away off the side of the road. Even with the slo-mo he was experiencing while watching it all happen, it only took a few minutes from the chase, to the shots, to the gator chomping one of the dudes. He put his left foot down, preparing to race his bike onto the scene to help. Unfortunately, he never noticed the fact that his special order Orlebar Brown boat shoes had come untied, a shoelace dangling precariously near the single gear between his ankles. Before he could launch the bicycle forward, he saw a car stop at the far end of the scene, silhouetting the two remaining men in the dim beam of a single headlight.
There was some talking, some smacking of cheeks, the drawing of a pistol, and eventually, the two men who’d been left in the wake of the alligator attack, getting into the car with the new man on the scene. Chad, who wasn’t feeling particularly like himself heard a voice inside his head tell him to stay back. He had a short argument with the voice.
“Do you know who I am?” He asked the voice.
“I do, I’m you.”
“You’re who?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“The one and only.”
“Exactly, which is why I’m confused as to why there seems to be two voices in my head right now.”
The third voice kept quiet, but somehow, Chad knew it was there, lurking, waiting for the right time to be heard.
He shook his head to clear the zany, and for the time being, it worked. As the car with the three men—the two alligator hunters and the older guy with the pistol—pulled away, Chad pushed off and cranked twice on the bike’s pedals wondering at the sheer incompetence of the Islamorada Sheriff’s Department. That this could happen in the middle of the Overseas Highway with nary a blue light or siren anywhere nearby was at the same time shocking yet not surprising at all.
Before he could get very far, a sudden tsunami of road grime, sewer filth, and something that smelled like wet cat, splashed up on him from a vehicle screaming past him. He raised a hand, dripping with the grossness of the rooster tail spewing up from the SUV’s tires, and gave the driver the middle-finger salute. As he did, he saw the green and yellow reflective logo on the tailgate of the Ford Explorer.
“Why is it okay for a cop to blast his way across the island at that speed?” He yelled to the disappearing vehicle.
“You of all people should know that’s how the local-yokels operate around here.” Voice number one said.
“Did you really expect anything different?” The second voice couldn’t help but chime in.
“Kill,” voice number three hissed, feeling it was finally his time.
“Wait, what?” Chad said, startled by the new voice. “What did you just say?”
Voice number three remained quiet, but pleased that he had planted the seed.
“I think he said there’s a hill up ahead,” voice number two said, covering for his counterpart.
“Oh, shut up,” Chad blasted, pushing forward again. “All of you keep quiet so I can just get back home. Then I will deal with the police in my own way.”
He could have sworn one of the voices called him something vaguely homophobic and offensive, but he couldn’t be sure. The bike lurched forward and the shoestring that had been white before the evening started, wrapped around the gear and got hopelessly tangled in the chain. It jerked Chad forward so hard that he launched over the handlebars, leaving the bike and his left shoe tumbling along behind him. Reflexively, he threw his hands out in front of him to catch himself.
As he flew toward the rutted pavement, he remembered the piece his counterpart at the Seattle Times had penned just yesterday. Chad had laughed that the prestigious paper would print such a stupid article
, but as he fell, he realized he was too late to heed its advice.
“Pivot to your side, tuck your head into your chest, and avoid the FOOSH at all costs,” Kate Moriarity, senior wellness editor had penned. “FOOSH, or falling on outstretched hands, is a sure way to concentrate all the force on your wrists. The risk of breaking one, or both, is quite high.”
Chad had nearly spit out his coffee reading the ridiculous acronym, but now, as he saw the ground rushing up at him around the outline of his hands, he knew exactly what was going to happen.
The jolt and following excruciating pain in his arms had so many textures, it was hard to follow them all. The first sensation he had was the skin on his delicate palms grinding along what felt like bits of broken glass and sandpaper. The second, located squarely in his right wrist, was a snap. If a fracture can feel clean, this one did. The third pain, like the third voice in his head, felt evil. It wasn’t in his wrist, but farther up. It was closer to the elbow than his hand. And unlike the other break which had a sudden, twig-snapping feel, this one was more … splintery. He was certain the x-ray of that one would have the doctor shaking his or her head and calling in others to take a look at the complexity of the thing.
He pulled his hands in close to his stomach after the first gut-wrenching impact and tumbled for at least ten feet. He rolled to a stop, flat on his back, head lying in an inch deep puddle of cat urine. It had to be pregnant cat urine as it stank with the sharp acrid odor of a litter box that had never been scooped.
Looking up at the clearing night sky, he tried to slow his breathing. Both arms throbbed from the shoulder down to his fingertips and he was sure his palms were oozing blood and puss, but he dare not look. Not yet. He didn’t want to see what was going on down there until he’d had a second to come down from the initial shock.
An intense white point of light with a long tail streaked across the sky. Then another. They were followed by dozens more and Chad recognized them as the Perseid Meteor Shower.
“It’s beautiful,” he whispered, tears forming in his eyes, then running down his cheeks and into his ears.
Thankfully, the other voices were quiet. He realized as he lay and watched the startling fireworks display in the night sky that—in his forty-something years as an inhabitant of the Keys—he had never seen the famous meteor shower. It was a constant visitor this time of year, but Chad had never taken the time to come outside and watch the show. He was about to make a resolution to change his life, to stop and smell the roses, to be a more positive influence on the world, when he heard the rumble.
It was distant, but coming on fast. Part of what he heard was engine noise from some kind of truck. There were also undertones of low and deep vibrato, maybe oversized tires with big knobby tread. Realizing that he couldn't use his hands to lift himself up, he cursed his recent lackadaisical attitude toward his abs. He had to roll over on his side, get a foot up under his body and raise up to one knee.
As he did, he was blinded by the high beams of something. Piercing white headlights, small, round, close together, shone into his eyes like paparazzi flashbulbs. He had never actually been the subject of the paps, but he’d been near a few celebrity frenzies that had left ghosts of white circles on his eyes for days.
“I’m dead,” he whispered and screwed his eyelids shut as tight as they would go.
Big tires make a strange sound when they grind to a halt. They don’t sound anything like the wheels of ordinary cars, screeching and screaming. They make more of a groan or maybe a moan. Chad waited on the impact, his bladder emptying its comforting warmth down his thighs, but it never came. He could feel the heat and hear the pinging of an engine just inches from his face.
He opened his eyes and saw the distinctive grill of a white Jeep CJ-7. It tickled the back of his mind and he was sure it should be familiar. But like the lyrics to an old song you knew back in high school, but could only remember the first line, it was there, but then gone.
The doors of the Jeep opened at the same time, spreading like an angel’s wings and Chad tried to say something. His voice caught in his throat at the sight of the two women walking toward him. He didn’t know the old broad in the passenger’s seat, but the other girl—young, pretty, nice legs, firm butt—snapped the hazy memory into focus.
He knew the girl, oh yes, he knew her. She was the wench who’d been talking about his kayak at Robbie’s. He started to lunge at her, reaching out his ruined arms, but the pain lanced up his arms, into his shoulders, and finally up into his neck.
He tried to scream at her, but all that came out was a moan. A strange, Quasimodo sound echoed out of his throat and for a second, he thought it was the third voice making itself heard. He slumped back to his knees and tucked his arms back into his chest.
“Ugh, look at this Svo-lach’,” the old woman said, jutting her chin at him. “The vagrants have gotten so bad since we moved here. Look, he’s even pee-peed on himself. What a wretch.”
“Olga,” the younger woman said, her tone softer and kinder, “Don’t be so cruel. I mean, look at the poor man. He’s obviously homeless and starving.”
She pulled out a wad of cash and held it out toward him. Condescending witch, don’t you know who I am? He considered for a second about taking the money out of spite, but realized he couldn’t, his broken arms wouldn’t allow it. He gritted his teeth and shook his head.
“See?” The younger woman said, tucking the money away. “He has too much pride to take any money.”
“Whatever,” the woman called Olga said, crossing her arms in a huff. “He might be homeless, but he doesn’t have to be homeless in the middle of the road.”
The younger woman leaned down, her face close to his. She smelled good, like Linda. Was that Chanel she was wearing? He was about to snap at her with his teeth, but before he could, she hooked her hands under his arms and pulled him up. The pain was so intense that he nearly fainted. He couldn’t support his own weight and allowed the woman to drag him to the side of the road. As they reached the shoulder, he saw that his single remaining shoe had come off and was lying on its side near the white center line of the highway.
The young woman pulled out the money again and dropped it into his lap. “I know you don’t want to take it, but you look like you really need it. Consider it a gift and pay it forward one day.”
“Come on, Cinnamon,” Olga said. “Let’s go wash your hands of this filth.”
As the headlights of the white Jeep disappeared down the road, and he limped over to retrieve his shoe, Chad Harrison’s voices came back.
“Pay it forward?” Voice number one asked. “What a load of crap.”
“Oh, we will pay it forward,” voice number two said. “She’ll get exactly what she deserves.”
And voice number three finally got to come forward to be heard in earnest. His message was a simple one and for once, Chad agreed wholeheartedly.
“Kill.”
42
Back To The Beginning
Dante Caparelli almost spit in the water he was carrying back to his office for Gary, but he had two glasses—one for the gay Winnebago guy who had just lost his husband-type-thing and one for the idiot who had killed his son—and he was afraid he would mix them up. While he had cause to be pissed at Gary, he had no beef with the other guy.
“Why you even givin’ ’em any water, boss?” Sully asked as he locked the door behind them. “In my estimation they don’t deserve nothin’.”
“Because, Sully,” Dante said, as if instructing a third grader, “I want them to be able to tell me what the hell I just witnessed on the road down there.”
Sully shrugged his shoulders in a classic fuhgeddaboudit move and sat down in a chair beside the door.
Outside the office, the now ubiquitous banging of the band was in full swing and hearing what was being said was difficult at best. Woody’s was packed tonight, rain always had that effect, so Dante had told the band to be on their best behavior.
The lead si
nger—Big Dick, aka Jack Snipes—had said they’d been rehearsing with the new drummer and the sound was close to normal. Dante was promised the reckless Keith Moon wannabe would be on his best behavior tonight or he’d be gone. They would all soon find out that this was a prophetic statement in every way. As they roared into “Break on through to the Other Side” by Jim Morrison and the Doors, Dante handed the two men sitting at the far ends of a well-worn leather couch the glasses of lukewarm water. Gary drank his down in one gulp. Frankie just stared into the glass in his hands, his lips pursed in distaste. The poor man looked as if he was trying not to make direct contact with anything in the office, including the couch.
Dante ignored him and pulled out a massive bottle of antacid tablets. He shook out the last three chalky TUMS and popped them into his mouth. His belly hadn’t been feeling well since he’d come to work this morning. The whole damn world was going insane and his ulcer didn’t appreciate the extra stress.
Long, silent, anxious moments hung in the air just under the cloud of hazy smoke. Frankie stifled a cough and Dante shot him a glare that he felt sure made the man squeak, but the pitch was too high to hear over the band.
“Can I get another glass of water?” Gary said, looking up under swollen eyelids.
The sassy kid had sobbed all the way to Woody’s and wiped away enough snot to fill a milk jug. Dante had given him his handkerchief and Gary had soaked it through and through before they’d gone a mile from the Winnebago.
“I think you’ve had enough,” Dante growled. “What I really need from you now is the details.”
“The details?” Gary’s eyelashes fluttered.
“Can you believe dis guy?” Dante asked Sully over his shoulder.
Like a good mob wise guy, Sully echoed, “can’t believe it, boss.”
When he turned back around, he smacked Gary across the cheek. It immediately flamed into a red handprint and Frankie yelped in surprise—this time loud enough to hear over the band.
Gator Wave Page 21
