Nuclear jellyfish, p.21
Nuclear Jellyfish, page 21
part #11 of Serge Storms Mystery Series
“Coleman, was I just talking to myself?”
He shook his head.
“You didn’t hear a word?”
“No, what’s the matter?”
“Nothing.” Serge reached for the sun visor and pulled down some kind of yellow styrene implement.
“What’s that?” asked Coleman.
“Florida device nobody up north would ever recognize: canal-survival tool.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You know how in Michigan they have windshield ice scrapers? This is the Sunshine State’s counterpart. Down here we don’t have ice; we have drainage canals. Friggin’ deep too, often running right alongside the road. Some of the ones south of Lake Okeechobee go down twenty feet or more. Combine that with south Florida’s well-earned ‘Most Reckless Drivers in America’ crown, and you’ve got pimped-out whips constantly spinning off roads and diving into the drink. Miami-Dade actually has police vans that say, ‘Submerged-Vehicle Response Unit.’”
“That little tool thing keeps you from going off the road?”
“No, it gets you out of the car.” Serge tapped the end of the tool on the side of his head. “Ow … Lots of people were drowning from not being able to get their electric windows open. Became so common in south Florida that it barely warranted a paragraph on page twelve of the metro section. Luckily some corporations took notice of grieving relatives at the funerals and said, Hey, I see a way to make a buck here.”
“How’s it work?”
“The windows are safety glass, so smacking it with your elbow won’t make the grade. These survival tools don’t look particularly threatening, being small and plastic, but it’s the brilliance of elemental engineering that turns them into lifesaving super-hammers. The metal head is tapered to a fine point, concentrating the pounds-per-square-inch force at impact.”
“Can I see?”
“Sure.” Serge passed it across the front seat.
Coleman turned the tool over and ran his finger along a sharp strip of metal indented in the side. “What’s this razor thing halfway down?”
“Second challenge of canal submersion. Seat belts. People panic or the buckle jams in the crash. And tearing the strap with your bare hands is even less possible than breaking windows. So just slip the edge of the strap in this indentation, give it a yank, and the razor edge slices like butter. Out of the car you go.”
Coleman reached into his lap and pulled. “You’re right.”
“Coleman, you fucked up the seat belt. You’re supposed to be underwater first.”
“But that would be harder.”
“Gimme that thing.” He jerked it from Coleman’s hands. “Now I’m going to have to tie you to the seat with a boat-trailer strap.”
“When do you think we can use it for real?”
“Never. I rarely drive by canals.”
“Then why’d you get it?”
“Coolest gadget by the cash register. It was this or the tire gauge, but I decided to be practical.” Serge slid it into his hip pocket. “It’s my new good-luck charm. From now on I’m carrying it everywhere.”
YET ANOTHER EXTENDED COMFORT EXPRESS SUITES USA
“Serge,” said Coleman. “All these motel lounges look the same. Why don’t we go to a cool bar?”
“Because I’m working on my travel service …” Serge twisted his stool toward a group of pushed-together tables. “… And keeping Steve under surveillance.”
“Still?”
“The Master Plan takes patience.”
“But we’ve seen him in like ten hotels now where you could have nailed him. I thought you were in a hurry to take revenge for Howard.”
“Steve’s a minnow,” said Serge. “But he’s also the sole person that Howard ever met who was connected to the robbery crew. It was the only name he could give me.”
“When you talked to him in the hospital?”
Serge nodded. “I’ve been waiting for Steve to make personal contact with the gang and lead me to bigger fish, but so far just cell phone calls.”
Coleman turned and looked toward the far end of the bar, where Story sat with militant disinterest as a storm-shutter salesman chatted her up.
“What’s she doing?” asked Coleman.
“Working on her twenty-dollar-bill collection.”
“Let’s go to a cool bar.”
“Hold everything.” Serge suddenly perked. “I think our luck just changed.”
“What is it?”
“Those two goons with stringy hair talking to Steve.”
“He looks scared.”
“Now one grabbed his arm and is pulling him toward the lobby.” Serge tossed currency on the bar. “We’re rolling.”
Serge and Coleman shadowed the bodyguards as they hustled Steve into an alcove where pay phones had been removed.
“What do you think they’re talking about?”
“If my hunch is correct, Steve’s been tardy with inside dope on their next mark.”
Steve gestured excitedly.
“Looks like he’s making up for lost time.”
“Act inconspicuous,” said Serge. “Whatever you do, don’t attract the least bit of attention.”
“How do I do that?”
“Like me. Pretend you’re looking at this rack of tourist .pamphlets …”
Crash. The goons looked.
“… Or knock the whole thing over.”
“Don’t worry.” Coleman got on his knees. “I’ll pick ‘em all up.”
“No time. They’re on the move.”
The goons left Steve behind. Serge and Coleman followed them to the fifth floor.
“Think that’s their room?” asked Coleman.
“Not the way they’re buttering up the maid and patting their pockets in the universal lost-key signal.”
“She’s letting them in.”
“Must be the next mark,” said Serge, picking up the pace. “Keep walking by the room or they’ll get suspicious.”
“Is this the beginning of your revenge?”
“Remember the end of the first Godfather movie during the baptism?”
“It ruled! All those guys killed in a row. My favorite was the dude who got a bullet through his glasses.”
“What I’ve got planned will make that look like The Bridges of Madison County.”
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER
The burglary “talent” had thinned to the point that bodyguards were pressed into service, and the art of the silent search gave way to Attila the Hun.
“Find anything?” asked one of the goons, smashing a phone on the nightstand.
“Not yet,” said the other, flinging a dresser drawer against a wall. “The stones have to be here somewhere.” Smash. Numbered phone buttons flew.
Knock-knock.
They spun.
“Who the hell’s that?”
“Maybe the guy came back early.”
“You idiot. He’s not going to knock on his own door.” He set the phone chassis down. “Just be quiet and whoever it is will go away.”
Knock-knock-knock.
They stood still.
Knock-knock-knock.
A whisper: “He’s not going away.”
Knock-knock-knock.
“He will.”
Knock-knock-knock.
“Dammit.”
“You better check the peephole.”
Knock-knock-knock.
A goon’s eye went to the small glass hole.
“See anyone?”
The man at the door shook his head. He pressed his eye closer for a wider field of vision, not noticing the flattened end of a brown paper bag sliding under the door.
“See anyone now?”
“Nope.”
Suddenly, a muffled pop outside the door. The man looked down, pants leg splattered with shaving cream. “Son of a bitch!” He opened the door and lunged, expecting the prankster to be hightailing it down the hall.
Instead, the end of an emergency canal-survival tool landed between his eyes.
He reeled backward, hands over his bloody face. “Fuck!”
Serge’s other hand held a chrome automatic. “Down on the floor! Both of you! Hands behind your back!”
The two-tone Javelin sped through Indiantown on the Bee Line Highway. Deeper into the state, into the night. They were riding the new moon. No illumination but stars and the Javelin’s high beams, occasionally reflecting off mystery wildlife eyes in dense thickets of cabbage palms.
Coleman strained to see above the beams. “Serge, there’s nothing out here.”
“Everything’s out here,” said Serge. “Nature’s what it’s all about, but our people have been brainwashed into thinking that life is a cell phone against your head and the TV on a beer commercial with hot chicks.”
“It isn’t?”
Serge reached over and lightly tapped the top of Coleman’s head with the window punch.
“Ow!” He rubbed his skull. “What was that for?”
“Debriefing you.”
Two lights appeared in the distance. Serge grabbed a lever on the steering column, popping down to low beams.
“Serge?”
“That’s me.”
“I don’t like being tied to my seat with a boat-trailer strap.”
“I say this with complete sincerity: It’s you.”
An oncoming poultry truck passed precariously close on the narrow two-laner that slanted across the state, connecting West Palm Beach with Lake Okeechobee. Serge clicked back to high beams. “When you say Florida, everyone thinks the coasts. But inland, there’s an entire ‘nother world to appreciate. The Highwaymen picked up on this, and before them the Tin Can Tourists.”
“Who were they?”
“Started as a loose movement of noble people from up north, who appreciated the state for its intrinsic magnificence and began driving down way before all the motels and tourist attractions. Many slept roadside in tents and bathed in rivers. Others soon began towing small aluminum campers. The first official group coalesced in 1919 at Tampa’s DeSoto Park.”
“What’s the name mean?”
“Subject to debate. Some consider it a sobriquet for those shiny campers, while others think it’s because many of the original visitors cooked soup in tin cans placed on radiator caps.”
Coleman turned around in his seat. “There’s that banging sound again.”
“Note to self: soundproof trunk.”
“What are you going to do with those two dudes we grabbed in the motel room?”
“Serve up a feast of inland Florida splendor. With a side order of revenge.”
The Javelin’s red taillights blew through a junction at the county line. A vulture took flight. Coleman’s joint glowed. “So, like, if there weren’t any theme parks, then these Tin Can guys drove down here just to hang around doing nothing?”
“Coleman, that’s my whole point. They came purely for spiritual communion with our rapidly diminishing natural beauty, perfectly happy to just sit out among pristine tributaries, marshes, prairie vistas, upland hammocks. To enjoy it today, people think they need Mickey’s Upland Hammock Flume of Terror and Alligator Jug Band Jamboree.” Serge grabbed a slender book off the dash.
“What’s that?”
“Audubon field guide to identify flora and fauna. A must if you’re going to dig inland Florida,” said Serge. “People have no idea all the critters that roam these parts.”
Bang, bang, bang, bang.
Coleman turned around again. “I think they want out.”
“Their wish will soon come true.” Serge stuck his head through the driver’s open window and looked up at constellations. “Let’s see how many I can name. There’s Gemini, Pegasus, Ursa Major and Minor, Benny the Truculent Dry Cleaner.” He brought his wind-blown head back inside. “Couldn’t have picked a better night to reenact the Tin Can lifestyle.”
“Serge! Watch out!”
But Serge had already seen it. A husky dark form dashed across the road. Serge swerved right.
From miles of back-road experience, he knew its mate could be right behind. Sure enough, a second, smaller form exploded from the underbrush. Serge slalomed the other way.
“Jesus!” said Coleman. “What the hell was that?”
Serge handed Coleman the field guide. “Page three-seventy-four.”
“You know it by heart?”
Bang, bang, bang.
Serge glanced back at the trunk, then the field guide in Coleman’s hands. “That gives me an idea.”
OKEECHOBEE COUNTY
Serge leaned into the Javelin’s open trunk with a tape measure. “Stop flopping around or I won’t get your right size. Trust me: You definitely don’t want the wrong size …”
“Serge,” said Coleman. “I’m getting tired.”
“Just keep digging.” Serge slammed the trunk and let the tape measure zip itself shut. He grabbed his own shovel and opened a low, rickety wooden gate in a barbed-wire fence. They began digging side by side. Every few minutes, Serge stopped and extended his tape measure into each of the two holes. All around them: nothing but peaceful darkness, trees bending in the wind. The only sign of human life nearly a mile away.
Coleman leaned against the end of his shovel for breath. “What if the farmer sees us?”
Serge stood chest deep in his own hole. A spade of dirt flew over his shoulder. “Too far away and probably asleep. Plus, his view is obstructed.”
Coleman looked up through a line of trees, where a porch light from a very distant farmhouse flickered in the branches. “Hope you’re right.” He resumed digging. A continuous grunting sound. Some of it was Coleman; some wasn’t. “Those things give me the creeps.”
On the far side of the fenced-in pen, dark forms milled about with guttural communication. “They’re totally harmless,” said Serge. “At least to us.”
A half hour later, another check with the tape measure. Serge was satisfied with his own hole. He walked over to Coleman’s and extended the metal strip. Not even close.
“Coleman, climb out and let me finish or we’ll be here all night.”
The edge of the second hole was at Coleman’s bellybutton. He tried to pull himself out. He fell six inches back down. He tried again. Same results. He panicked and attempted to scramble up the side, sneakers digging into the soil wall.
“Coleman, stop that. You’re just pulling dirt back down into the hole.”
“I’m going to die!”
Serge yanked Coleman up by the armpits. Then he jumped in the second hole and quickly finished the task with a flurry of shovel action. One last measure with the tape. He nodded. “Time to welcome today’s lucky contestants.”
Serge went back to the trunk, pulled out the first hostage and slammed the hood. The man’s hands were bound behind his back, but his feet were free. Serge ordered him at gunpoint through the squeaky gate. The man saw the holes. Terror. About to be buried alive! He took off running, but Serge quickly tackled him in the mud.
“Listen to him trying to scream,” said Coleman.
“That’s why I love duct tape.” Serge dragged the squirming man by the ankles and reached the edge of a hole. He pushed him in feet first. A horrified scream from behind the mouth tape. Until the man’s shoes hit bottom. Confusion replaced dread. The man looked around, the hole’s edge only up to his neck.
Serge grabbed a shovel and began filling dirt in around their guest.
“Putting the dirt back around a guy looks easier,” said Coleman.
“That’s always been my experience.”
Minutes later, Serge was done. He stomped in a circle around the man’s head, packing ground firmly.
“What now?” asked Coleman.
