Nuclear jellyfish, p.2
Nuclear Jellyfish, page 2
part #11 of Serge Storms Mystery Series
“I say something wrong?”
Steve stared down into his cocktail. “Stamps guys are faggots.”
Ted crouched and lowered his voice. “Some exhibitors pulled out of the tour. Forced to let philatelists in or we’d get creamed on the hall deposits.”
“Speaking of exhibitors …” Ted looked around the room. “Where’s Ralph?”
“Stayed back at the conference,” said Steve.
“What? The hotel where we had the show?”
Steve nodded curtly, biting an olive off a plastic spear.
“But Ralph should know better. You never stay at the show hotel.”
“He’s an adult.”
“So was Buffalo Nickel Bill.”
“How’s he doing?” asked Henry.
“Getting out of the hospital next week.”
“Who would have thought he’d be hit in Panama City?”
“Whole state’s gone crazy.”
“Police think it’s one of the new professional gangs.”
“Good,” said Steve.
“How’s that good?”
“Because pros only hit when they’re absolutely sure you’re out of the room. And we’re insured.”
“Then why’d they jump Bill?”
“Must have varied his routine and come back at the wrong time.”
“I’m worried,” said Henry.
“You all worry too much,” said Steve. “It’s an isolated incident …”
“… That required sixty stitches.”
“Listen,” said Steve. “Bill got sloppy.”
“And some punks got lucky,” said Henry. “Police found a few loose gems in the carpet that were scattered in the attack. How’d they know there’d be such a score?”
“Back up,” said Ted. “What was Bill doing with stones? He’s a coin guy. Not even good coins. Warned him about loading up on buffalo nickels.”
“Do you have to talk about him like that while he’s still got tubes ?” said Henry. “We all took a beating when the buffalo bubble burst.”
“But what was Bill doing with stones?”
“Police said they were definitely pros who knew exactly what they were looking for. Didn’t even touch the nickels.”
“Screw the nickels already! What the hell was Bill doing with stones?”
“Just telling you what I heard.”
“Makes perfect sense now,” Steve said with authority. “Read all about it in the paper: the latest thing …” Everyone turned and waited.
“… Traveling businessmen secretly moonlighting as diamond couriers.”
“Diamond couriers?” said Henry.
“Little-known fact, but secret networks of highly trained couriers are crisscrossing Florida at all times. With the state’s insane growth, there’s more than enough work to go around, and they’ve started recruiting part-timers.”
“Don’t they use armored cars?” asked Ted.
“Sometimes.” Steve opened his wallet, removing an iridescent plastic card. “But you do the math: too many jewelry stores and not enough vehicles. Plus, those trucks are neon advertisements. So couriers go under the radar, no security, dressing down, the last people you’d ever expect, like Bill. Unfortunately, there’s also a secret network of professional robbery crews who know the deal, and it’s become a high-stakes game of cat and mouse from Pensacola to Key West.”
“But if couriers are undercover, how do the gangs find out?”
“Police theorize paid informants …” Steve tilted the shiny card back and forth in the light. “… People very close to the couriers, possibly the same line of work. Maybe even staying at the same hotels …”
Everyone at the tables hushed and leaned back. In their minds, Vincent Price played the pipe organ. Eyes darted from person to person in a round-robin of suspicion. Steve’s card found the perfect angle; a hologram appeared.
“When did you reach platinum?” asked Henry.
“Last week.” He began sliding it back into his wallet.
“Can I touch?”
“No.”
MEANWHILE …
Serge grabbed a briefcase from the Javelin’s backseat and opened it in his lap. Pockets brimmed with tourist pamphlets aggressively harvested from hotel-lobby racks, then alphabetized. Florida Theater, Fort Caroline, the symphony, the zoo …
Coleman cracked another beer. “When do we get to the part about making money?”
“We’re already there.” Serge pawed through flyers. “This is the perfect spot to take in all the bridges.” A digital camera sat on the dash, and Serge rotated it ten degrees at half-minute intervals for an overlapping panorama of time-lapse night shots. “I love bridges, and Jacksonville loves me! Hard to find more spans in one spot except Pittsburgh, but then you’re in Pittsburgh. Here we have seven bridges downtown alone, because of the mighty St. Johns, and even more downstream.”
“What about tunnels?”
“Love them too, but in the current climate of homeland security, authorities now frown on my tunnel routine of taking twenty photos while standing in the moon roof steering with my knees. I think they frowned on it before as well.” Serge hit the recline lever on the driver’s seat for the required bridge-appreciation angle, smiling as he scanned sparse evening traffic crossing respective west-to-east spans: Corporate climbers from skyline insurance buildings heading south to the suburbs after another late night at the office, rental cars and hotel shuttles driving down from the northside airport, Disney-bound families in minivans with New York and New England plates getting some last miles under their belts before putting up, a stretch limo full of non-limo people who’d pooled money for a birthday party, a windowless white van with ladders on top and magnetic licensed-contractor signs on the side.
Outside the Javelin, in Serge’s blind spot, an ominous shadow grew larger.
Serge raised his eyes toward old girders of the bridge they were beneath. He grabbed his travel mug off the dash and refilled from a thermos. “Now I’m milking the last few moments of simple pleasure.”
Coleman crumpled a beer can. “From what?”
“Lightbulbs. I can’t get enough of the bulbs.”
“Bulbs?”
“Blue. All along this bridge as well as the neighboring John T. Alsop built in 1941. Rare remaining treasure of a center-steel sensibility.”
“Why blue lightbulbs?”
“Monday Night Football.” Serge chugged his travel mug. “Jacksonville now has the Jaguars, and network people are always broadcasting nightscapes of whatever city they’re in before cutting to commercials. But downtown Jacksonville was about as hopping as the Andromeda Strain when everyone’s dead from an extraterrestrial virus. TV cameras might as well have been panning the dark side of the moon. A PR windfall from professional football was about to turn into national disgrace.”
“Dear Jesus,” said Coleman. “What happened next?”
“Genius struck!” Serge took another long pull of coffee. “Someone who will forever go unrecognized said, ‘Let’s put blue lightbulbs all over the bridges.’ It’s dark; they won’t see the rest of the shit. Shazam! For pennies on the dollar, they created the illusion of a modern civilization.”
“Wow,” said Coleman. “And all because of Monday Night Football?”
“Just a guess, but fuck it: I’m going with that anyway!”
“You’re at the party!”
“Damn straight!” Serge stared down at his wristwatch, counting along with the sweep-second hand. He looked back up at the bridge. “Aren’t those lights absolutely beautiful? I feel drunk just looking at them. My soul wants to devour it all so badly that it makes me want to weep. Those lights scream Jacksonville to me. More Skynyrd for everyone!” He clicked the iPod and looked back at his watch. “Ten, nine, eight…”
“… Seven years of hard luck …”
“What are you counting down?”
“… from the Florida border …”
“They turn off the lights this time each night to save money … three, two, one …” Serge looked up. The bridge went dark. The shadow behind the car grew closer. “Damn. Now I’m depressed. All life eventually dies. How could God have allowed Hitler to be born?”
“Remember your psychiatrist?” said Coleman. “Accept what you can’t change.”
“Good thinking.” Serge closed his eyes and smiled. “The bulbs are still on in my mind.”
A sharp knock on the driver’s window. Serge and Coleman jumped.
A bearded man stood outside making a vigorous twirling signal with his hand.
Serge rolled down the window. “My name’s Serge. I’m wearing a diaper for the space race.”
“Have any money?”
“Yes, but you’re only going to buy beer.”
Coleman leaned across and handed him a Schlitz. “Thanks.”
“Coleman!”
The man pointed at the wax ball on the dashboard. “Food?”
“Tuna salad,” said Serge.
“Soggy,” said Coleman.
“Soggy’s better,” said the man.
“Right-o.” Serge tossed the ball out the window.
The man peeled paper and took a bite. “Is that Skynyrd?”
“We’re in Jacksonville,” said Serge. “I just drank a lot of coffee.”
“I love Skynyrd.”
“The lightbulbs are still on in my mind.”
The man pointed beneath the underpass. “I need to get back to my cardboard box.”
“Have a pamphlet.”
“The zoo?”
“Who’s to say?”
“Later.”
Serge rolled up the window.
Coleman pulled a joint from over his ear. “What now?”
“Next bridge.” He reached for the ignition. Something caught the corner of his eye. “What was that?” He turned quickly. Two more dark forms appeared and moved fleetly toward the underpass.
“Who are they?” asked Coleman.
“Skinheads with baseball bats and a camcorder,” said Serge. “In certain societies, that’s a sign of bad luck.”
“What are they doing?” asked Coleman.
“Oh my God!” said Serge. “They’re beating the shit out of that cardboard box!”
“They’re attacking a Skynyrd fan!” said Coleman.
Serge was out of the car in a flash, followed by Coleman at a lesser marijuana rate.
The bearded man spilled from his box and curled defensively on the ground. “Don’t hurt me!”
A Louisville slugger came down hard in his ribs. “Fuckin’ bum!”
A second bat found a kneecap with a nauseating clack. “You make us want to puke!”
The man screamed like a child.
The first skinhead turned on the camcorder and held the glowing viewfinder to his face. “Hit him again!” The camera kept filming, but there was no swing.
“What are you waiting for?”
The answer came in the sound of a baseball bat bouncing impotently on the pavement.
The first skinhead lowered the camcorder to see his partner with a knife at his throat. “Who the hell are you?”
“The Lone Road Ranger,” said Serge. “We’ve had complaints of aggravated stupidity. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to come with us.”
“Fuck you!” said the one at knifepoint. “We’re not going anywhere!”
“You’re a traitor to your race!” shouted the other. He began pumping a fist in the air. “White pride! White pride!…”
“White pride?” asked Coleman. “What’s that?”
“You’ve heard the joke,” said Serge. “White pride is rotating the tires on your house.”
100 MILES AWAY
A young woman took a sip of Diet Coke on the rocks. Slender, freckles, sandy-blond. Severely sexy, but dressed down in a way that was deliberately trying to hide it, which only made her more so. A purse sat next to a small backpack with the name of a community college. She turned the page in a history textbook and asked for a refill.
The woman escaped notice of not a single businessman in the hotel lounge, staring shamelessly at her tight bottom on a stool at the bar.
The gang had already nominated their designated hitter. Someone elbowed Steve again. “Go for it.”
“I am.”
“You’ve been saying that for the last hour.”
“Leave him alone,” said another voice. “He knows what he’s doing. Don’t you, Sh-teve?”
“These things need to be handled very delicately.”
“Someone buy him another drink …”
New guys came through the lounge entrance, rolling a pair of styrene expo-booth organizers. “Jerry, Tom, National Association of Trade Shows …”
No hellos.
Jerry looked at Tom, then back at the tables. “Something wrong?”
A data implementer nodded toward the bar.
“Holy mother,” said Jerry. “Where’d she come from?”
“Sh-teve’s about to make his move.”
Steve, already sloshed, fortified himself with a final drink and stood up. The rest of the gang scooted chairs around in stadium configuration as he staggered toward the bar and grabbed a stool on the woman’s left. “You live around here often?… Ha! I got a million of ‘em!”
No answer.
“My name’s Sh-teve. What’s yours?” Still staring down at the textbook. “Story.”
“Story? What kind of name is that?”
“Like Musgrave, the astronaut.”
“You have a man’s name?”
She highlighted something with a yellow marker.
“That’s okay,” said Steve. “Lots of two-way names now. Alex, Mickey …” He extended a hand to shake.
She gave it a look like it was covered with raw sewage.
Steve changed tactics and opened his wallet. “Let me buy you a drink.” He set a twenty on the counter and raised a finger. “Bartender!”
She grabbed the bill and stuck it in her pocket.
The barkeep came over. “What can I get you?”
“Uh, nothing.” Steve turned. “What brings you to town?”
“Meeting my brother.”
“What are you reading?”
She sighed deeply and closed her eyes.
“Something bothering you?”
“An asshole sat down next to me.”
“Look,” said Steve. “If you don’t want company, just say so.”
“I don’t want company.”
“That means you’re lonely.” He grinned. “And there’s only one cure for what ails you: Sh-teve!”
“Go away.”
“I got coke.”
“I’m not going to ask you again.”
“Can I have my twenty back?”
“No.”
Steve bit his lip in thought. Then under his breath: “Bitch.”
Story slowly raised her head, eyes boring holes in a blank spot on the wall. Blood pressure zoomed into the red zone. The bartender was looking at them. He smiled. She smiled back until he turned around to run an American Express card. Like lightning, her left hand shot out, seized the hair on the back of Steve’s head, and smashed his face down into the bar. It happened so fast, the guys in the cheap seats weren’t exactly sure what they’d seen. Then, just as quickly, her hand withdrew before the bartender could spin around at the sound of the attack.
“Good God!”
Story looked up from her textbook. “What?”
The bartender ran over with a thick stack of napkins and handed them to Steve, blood pouring from his nose all over the counter. “You okay, fella? What happened?”
Between booze and kissing the bar, Steve could only manage incomprehensible slurring.
“I think he’s drunk,” said Story, turning a page.
AN HOUR LATER
Two young men with shaved heads couldn’t move. They lay crammed in the trunk of a 1971 Javelin. The hood opened. Serge stood back-lit by an energy-saving streetlight. The pair glanced up with puzzled faces.
“You’ll absolutely love it!” said Serge, panning the camcorder from one skinhead to the other. “I’m filming the perfect ending to your movie.”
“What are you going to do with us?”
“First I’ll tape your mouths, because I don’t like interruptions when I’m teaching class.”
On the side of the road, Coleman pushed himself up from where he’d lost another dance with gravity. “Serge, what gave you this idea?”
“Back when we were renting on Triggerfish Lane.” Serge set the camcorder on the ground and tore off long stretches of duct tape. “Had that embarrassing near-fatal accident in the front yard performing my one-man interpretive dance honoring those natives in National Geographic with the big neck hoops.”
“That’s right. I saved your life with just seconds to go by turning off the hose.”
“And don’t think I haven’t forgotten,” said Serge. “Sixty more times and we’ll be even. After the blood returned to my brain, I said to myself, I may have just tripped over a major advancement in my chosen field. Let’s take it to the next level! But until today I never had the right dick-wads.”
Serge finished with the tape, stood back up and smiled proudly with arms outstretched in an encompassing gesture. “Welcome to the First Coast! The chambers of commerce name them all: Space Coast, Treasure Coast, Gold Coast, Nature Coast, Emerald Coast. But you’re at the First! Florida is a paradox that way, one of the youngest states, yet with some of the oldest European settlements. And this particular section of the northeast shore was home to a couple of the earliest sixteenth-century Spanish and French fortifications. You mentioned before your admirable devotion to pride, so I can tell by your buggy eyes that you’re overwhelmed being bound and gagged at a seminal site of Euro-centrism in the New World. I built that into tonight’s program just for you! … Coleman, give me a hand.”
Coleman grabbed a pair of wrists. “What about the neighbors?”
“What neighbors?” said Serge, gripping ankles. “It’s the only house at this end of the new development. And there’s extra newspapers in the driveway, which means they’re on vacation. That’s why I picked it.”
They hoisted the skinheads out of the trunk. Legs tied tightly together with rope; more coils secured arms against their sides. Serge pulled one by the feet and dragged him across a lush lawn. “We’re heading down to St. Augustine next. Well, you won’t. Sorry, those are the rules. But get this: It’s St. Augustine grass I’m dragging you over! What a coincidence! America’s oldest continuous city and name of the grass. I’m getting dizzy. St. Augustine is my favorite lawn, reeks of childhood. But it need lots of watering, which means these homeowners were more likely to have an automatic sprinkler system that is essential for converting my accidental discovery a decade ago into practical, everyday use. There’s the timer on the side of the house. I reset it to twenty minutes before opening the trunk. And that’s the pump and main PVC line aesthetically hidden in those bushes … Stay put. Just be a sec …” He left them in the middle of the yard and ran back toward the car.
