by Tim Dorsey
Serge explained all the chemistry that he had just told Coleman under the house.
“Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!”
Coleman tugged his pal’s cheerful tropical shirt. “What about the neighbors? An explosion is hard to control, and you always take care in your science projects not to hurt innocent civilians.”
“As I did this time.” Serge reached into the tub to prop the captive into a sitting position. “The exposed wiring is down in the two-foot hole, and the surrounding dirt provides a natural berm like a bunker to absorb the horizontal blast. All that’s left is vertical energy thrust upward toward this bathroom in the middle of the house, like a directional charge from an improvised explosive device in the Middle East, which essentially is what this is.”
“Mmmm! Mmmm! Mmmm!”
“I know, I know,” said Serge. “You’re in a serious pickle. So listen up. The bonus round is a Houdini act. I’m going to loosen your ropes a bit. It still won’t be easy, but the wiggle room is in the realm of possibility. And to show you what a nice guy I am”—he twisted one of the tub’s faucet handles—“I’m turning it on just a trickle to give you an extra-long bonus round. I’m lying. I want it to trickle so you’ll have plenty of time to think about the Petrocellis and all the others.”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “I don’t get it. If the house doesn’t have electricity, then how does it have water?”
“My curb key from Home Depot. They don’t cut the pipes when they disconnect water. They just turn it off at the sidewalk meter.”
“Curb key?” asked Coleman.
Serge grabbed something off the floor. “This long metal pole that looks like rebar, with a precise slot on the end. Another readily available tool of empowerment that people walk right by in the plumbing aisle. You can cut off the water to your entire neighborhood if you want, which would be a prick thing to do, but just knowing you can ratchets up your self-worth. Till now, I’ve only used it when I want to draw someone out of a house without knocking.”
Serge’s forehead beam swung back to the scam artist. “If you were paying attention in school, you’ll remember Archimedes’s principle, about a body displacing water, which, if you contort properly as the water rises, should give you even more time.” Serge covered his mouth. “I just remembered, Archimedes also was in a bathtub when he had his ‘Eureka’ moment. Maybe you’ll scream ‘Eureka,’ too. . . . Come on, Coleman.”
Two beams of light headed out the door, leaving the bathroom in total darkness.
The blue-and-white Ford Cobra sat in a parking lot next to a Cuban takeout joint.
Coleman held a newspaper in his lap. “Serge, do I really have to?”
“Do you see what’s going on here?” He pointed down at wax paper covering his legs. “You’re only drinking beer, but I got paella going on. That’s a two-fisted job.”
Coleman responded by holding out hands with an open beer in each. “I’m two-fisting, too.”
“So put one down. If you haven’t noticed, I’m the one who’s been bringing in all the money lately.” Serge noshed into a messy piece of squid. “The least you can do is read aloud and catch me up on the day’s critical watershed moments. I need the tactical advantage over the other guys.”
“But reading kills my buzz,” Coleman said with a burning roach clenched in his teeth. “Like if I’m really high and have to, you know, work.”
Serge snatched one of the beers and held it out the window. “Read or I start pouring!”
“Dear God! Anything but that!” Coleman quickly flipped pages. “Okay, I’ll read! Just be careful with that beer.”
Serge brought it back inside the car as Coleman found an article in the metro section. “Here’s something: ‘Woman on meth rides mobility scooter through Walmart, drinking wine and eating chicken . . .’”
“Seen it,” said Serge. “Next story.”
“‘Jacksonville man turns himself in to police for murdering imaginary friend.’”
“Again? Next story.”
“‘Police discover golf cart chop-shop at the Villages retirement park.’”
“I saw that one coming a mile away. Next.”
“‘Miami robber with bucket on head as a disguise tries to steal pigeons from pet store.’”
Serge twirled a finger of boredom in the air. “On with it. Next.”
“‘Twenty-year-old Florida man stabs dad who tried to circumcise him.’”
“And they call that rag a distinguished paper?” said Serge. “That’s not even news—”
Boom!
Coleman’s head snapped up.
“What was that?”
Serge pointed at a wooden bungalow with flames flickering in the windows. “Real news.”
“Did you see him escape?” asked Coleman.
“Nope,” said Serge. “Another bonus round reject.”
Fire trucks raced down U.S. 41 as the Cobra sped the other way, off into the deepening night.
“Eureka!”
Chapter 33
The Next Day
The main street through the small town was one of those quaint ones. So quaint, in fact, that all the buildings were now antique shops that tourists visited on the weekend. The street T-boned into another rural courthouse with a big clock on top.
Heather smartly entered the clerk’s office with an attaché case under her arm. She was about to request a file when she saw one already sitting on the counter in front of her. A murder file. She checked the name on the tab.
“Excuse me?” she asked a clerk. “Did someone from my office call ahead?”
“Which office?”
“FDLE, Miami.”
The clerk shook her head. “Why do you ask?”
“Because this file on the counter is the one I came here to see.”
“Oh, that,” said the clerk. “A guy was just in here who asked to look at it.”
“What kind of guy? Another state agent?”
“Seriously doubt it,” said the clerk. “A real oddball. Kept talking about all the huge clock towers on the courthouses he had been visiting, and for some reason he couldn’t get Flavor Flav out of his head. He kept slapping himself.”
“That is odd,” said Heather. “Anything else?”
“Yeah, he did this . . .” The clerk slowly began waving her arms, snake-like, in front of her.
“What was that about?”
“Said he was doing a fade-out,” said the clerk. “Then he told me the strangest story.”
Heather closed her eyes and took a full breath. Then she opened them. “Thank you.” She began reading the file.
A Half Hour Earlier
A court clerk stared with puzzled eyes. “What exactly are you doing?”
Serge continued waving his arms, serpentine. “A fade-out. Another of my great-grand-uncles. I remember it like it was just yesterday . . .”
A sturdy man with broad shoulders and leathery hands stood in the woods of North Florida. There was a hatchet in one set of his calloused fingers, and in the other a large metal pail. It was 1896. His name was Ezra Snog.
Snog continued hiking off-trail through pine trees. Back then, before radio and TV, people liked to talk and sing to themselves more than today. Snog more than most.
“Going to be a turpentine man, a turpentine man, turpentine man. Hot-diggity-damn, a turpentine man is what I am! . . .”
Turpentine was huge in Florida, at least in the nineteenth century. In Orange County around present-day Orlando, the industry was second only to citrus. But in North Florida, after the great freezes of 1894 and ’95 drove the groves south, turpentine was king.
It was rugged work that generally involved chopping a pair of gashes in a pine tree that were variously called chevrons or cat’s whiskers. Then a small metal chute was hammered in, and a pail hung to catch the tree’s gum or resin.
Through upcoming branches, Ezra spotted a work camp and entered the clearing. “. . . A turpentine man is what I ammmmm! . . .”
Nobod
y else was singing. They all just stared at Snog before resuming solemn work. A single pail hung from each tree beneath a carved woodworking design that was practically artisan from the repetition of toil. Slow, patient, grinding work.
Not Snog. He dropped his pail. Actually five pails nested together as one for convenient transport. And he went to town on his chosen tree in a ferocious blur of endeavor. By the time he was done, all the pails hung from a pine that now looked more like a totem pole. He stood back and beamed with pride as the resin began to drip.
“. . . A turpentine man is what I am! . . .”
Another voice: “No singing!”
He turned around. “Why? Who are you?”
“The foreman,” said the approaching man. “Now who are you?”
An excited smile. “Ezra Snog.” He extended a hand.
The foreman just looked down at it with contempt like Snog was insane. “I don’t recognize you. Are you with the camp?”
“Nope.” Ezra peeked down inside one of his pails of hope.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I’m going to be the world champion turpentiner!”
The foreman got a funny look. “There isn’t such a thing.”
Another peek in the bucket. “I’ll be the first. I’m taking turpentine big!”
Now the foreman was convinced of Snog’s mental faculties. “Where did you come from?”
Ezra pointed west. “Just over on Cedar Key. I worked in a general store selling nails and taffy.”
“You had a store job, and you chose to be a turpentiner?”
“That’s right! Couldn’t wait to get started!” said Ezra. “I got the idea last night! On the other side of the haberdashery is a place called the naval store. They have them all up and down the coast because we don’t really have a bunch of roads yet, and everyone gets around by boat. Anyway, I was drinking in the old Cedar Saloon with a guy who works in the navy place, and I said, ‘Hey, Obadiah, what’s with all the metal canisters I see going out of your store at all hours? Some of those customers are carrying like a half-dozen,’ and Obadiah says, ‘It’s turpentine pitch, or tar. Just flies out of the place. We can’t keep it in stock.’ I asked, ‘Why not?’ He said all the boat crews now use it to plug holes and seams in their wooden vessels, and to coat riggings so they don’t come apart at sea. Then he asks me if I have any connections to get more of the stuff, and he’ll pay top dollar, and I told him, ‘Enough said!’” Another broad smile. “And here I am!”
“Shut up!” said the foreman. “I don’t need your whole life story! If you’re going to work here, you need to join the camp. Here’s the arrangement: It’s a dollar a day and you get paid in trade coins that can only be used in the camp’s store or to pay lodging.”
“A dollar? Are you kidding?” said Ezra. He looked around the camp. “Obediah didn’t mention any of this. No wonder everyone looks so sad. All those people agreed to work for that little?”
“No, half of them are convicts that we lease from the state on the cheap,” said the foreman.
“They don’t get paid at all?”
“Not a penny,” said the foreman. “And the credit at the store I mentioned? If you get behind, you’re not allowed to leave the camp until you work it off.”
“Or what?” said Ezra.
“The law allows us to bring you back, by force if necessary.”
“That’s bullshit!”
The foreman got in his face. “What did you say to me?”
“Was I stuttering?” asked Ezra. “I said, that’s bullshit! How can you treat people that way?”
Snog had noticed the ax handle in the foreman’s fist, but just figured he had been interrupted in the process of repairing an ax.
Wham!
Ezra felt a stinging pain in the side of a leg. “What the hell? Did you slip?”
Wham!
Now the other leg throbbed. “What are you doing?”
Here was one last detail about the iron-fist power of the turpentine camp owners. The foremen were allowed to beat the workers without repercussion. Just couldn’t kill them.
Wham!
Ezra rubbed an elbow. “Okay, I’m now required to inform you that I’m starting to get mad.”
Wham! Wham! Wham!
“Have it your way,” said Ezra. Despite his husky size, Snog was swifter than the foreman had gauged. Ezra quickly disarmed the supervisor, and now he had the ax handle.
Wham! Wham! Wham!
The whole camp was on its feet now, unable to believe their own eyes.
“Ow! Shit! Stop!” yelled the foreman. “You bastard! You’ll go to jail!”
Ezra didn’t stop. Wham! Wham! Wham! But then he did something else.
The foreman was staggering like a boxer taking a standing count. That’s all the time Ezra needed. He dashed over to a nearby worker whose pail had been on the tree since the day before. Ezra looked inside. “Fantastic job.” He yanked it off the tree. “I’ll pay you back.”
Snog returned to the foreman, who was still groggy and swung a punch that missed and left him stumbling. Ezra grabbed the pail and slammed it upside down over the foreman’s head. The gummy resin inside was blinding and acted as an effective glue. Then Ezra picked up the ax handle and began banging the pail like a bell.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The camp was usually completely silent, but now for the first time anyone could remember, there was robust laughter. Ezra chased the foreman in a figure eight.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Besides working nicely on boats, turpentine also is unpleasant and toxic, but not in that order.
The clanging and laughter continued. Officials later wouldn’t be able to determine whether the tree resin or repeated concussions had done the foreman in, but he wouldn’t last the night.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Someone eventually sounded the alarm, and foremen from other parts of the camp came running. “Hey, you with the ax handle! . . .”
Snog looked up. “Uh-oh.”
A final Clang! He dropped the wooden shaft and made a dash for the woods. Yelling as he went: “Turpentiners rise up! You have nothing to lose but your pails! Turpentiners rise up! . . .”
The rest of the camp heard his voice trailing off as he disappeared deep into the woods. “Turpentiners rise up! Remember that motto! I think it’s catchy . . .”
Serge stopped waving his arms and blinked hard a few times, returning to the real world. “Yep, he definitely had my genes.”
Then Serge looked up at a stunned clerk of the court. “I guess my uncle expected that his rallying cry would take off like ‘Remember the Alamo,’ but it never did . . . I just love history fade-outs! It’s fun! You should try it. What do you say? Get those arms moving and give me a big fade-out!”
She just continued staring.
“Not your thing?” Serge sulked. “All right, instead of a fade-out, I guess I’ll have to settle for a file. Snog, Ezra . . .”
Chapter 34
Miami
A middle-aged man with three-day stubble stood on a street corner, muttering to himself.
“I could have been a U.S. senator! I’m Jack Grayson, for God’s sake! This is so unfair!”
It had indeed been a tough run for Grayson. His wife left him, and she had a good attorney. Then the regulators began looking into irregularities. It was like pulling a tiny thread on a coat and the sleeve falls off. An entire career that was a road map of malfeasance. By the time it was over, wholesale forfeitures and fines to stay out of jail. He wasn’t broke. He was in debt. Jack was only able to grab some loose cash from the safe before they changed the locks on his house, and he drove off before his car could be repossessed.
And now he stood at an intersection in South Florida, mumbling grievances about how poor people had done this to him. It had been going on for a week now, and it was approaching full boil.
“Motherfuckers!” Grayson flung a cardboard sign into traffic and began tearing o
ff his green Statue of Liberty costume. He stomped on the pointy felt hat. “Son of a bitch!”
The ex-candidate then stormed up the road and into the nearest bar. The door was propped open to sunlight and cars. He ordered a whiskey sour.
“What happened to you?” asked the bartender. “You look like you’ve been sleeping in the woods.”
“Shut up.” He stewed and stared out the door as a blue-and-white Cobra sped by.
The Cobra continued on until it arrived at an official-looking building near the Dolphin Mall.
Inside the office, men in starched white shirts gathered around a box.
“Who took all the jellies again?”
On the other side of the room, a woman stood at a corkboard on the wall. More notecards went up with pushpins.
One of the other agents came over, chewing with glaze on the corner of his mouth. “Someone’s here to see you.”
“Who?”
“Wouldn’t tell me.”
“Where is he?” asked Heather.
“Out in the lobby.”
“Did he say what it’s about?”
“A case.”
“What case?”
“Said he would only talk to you about it.”
“Okay,” said Heather. “Send him in.”
The other agent nodded and took another bite on the way to the lobby.
Actually, two people arrived at Heather’s desk. The first extended a hand.
“My name’s Storms. Serge Storms. And you must be Heather Sparrow—”
A small crash as Coleman stumbled into a chair. “Whoa, a little gravity problem again.”
“Is he okay?” asked Heather.
“No.” Serge helped his friend into the seat.
“The other agent told me this was about a case,” said Heather. “But you wouldn’t tell him what.”
“That’s right,” said Serge. “Except I kind of fibbed. It is about a case, just not the kind you’re thinking of.”
“Wait, I know you from somewhere,” said Heather. “But I can’t place the face. Have we met?”
