“They’re ruining my life! They keep putting me in danger!”
“What! They’ve threatened you?” Serge exclaimed. “Say no more. And put a hold on that tape.”
“No, not threatened—”
Serge hung up and stared at the pair.
“We’re ready,” said Nigel. “Let’s go.”
Serge shook his head. “On second thought, change of plans . . . Willard, blindfold them.”
Chapter 18
Meanwhile in Miami
The clattering noise was loud and machinelike and nonstop. All across the city, it was the same, a mesmerizing rat-a-tat at thousands of locations.
Lottery machines spit out tickets at a feverish pace to feverish people. News stations kept breaking in to update the record number of sales. Lines wrapped around 7-Eleven.
A group of serious men from South America fanned out across the metropolitan area and beyond, in an equal division of land, like precinct captains. It was a process that had begun a couple of days earlier. It involved school buses. Now it was Saturday night, and the official Ping-Pong ball drawing was precariously near.
The biggest crowds of all came at the last minute because people bad at math also weren’t on time. One particular line wound down a sidewalk on Biscayne Boulevard. A school bus arrived. An intimidating Latino with a thick mustache waited on the sidewalk as the migrant workers filed off. He gave each of them a five-dollar bill as promised, plus an envelope with more cash and pre-filled lottery forms.
Once the bus was empty, he led his assemblage inside the store, passing the rest of the customers who had been waiting forever. He cut to the very front of the line with predictable reaction. Shouts, a polyglot of cursing, and overt threats of physical harm.
All the man had to do was turn and look with those dark, bottomless eyes. The reaction changed: By all means, be my guest.
Identical scenes played out at various other locations as buses drove into Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach.
At 11:01 p.m., the gang of five collected the last of their tickets and regrouped in the luxury suite of an extended-stay hotel near the airport. Mr. Pelota was waiting. He never had to speak loud. “How much?”
They compared tallies. “Half the board. We hit every store we could within the time possible.”
“That’s ten million dollars, fifty-fifty shot,” said Pelota, his pulse predictably steady according to the Hare PCL-R psychopathy index for low reaction to high risk. Response to negative outcomes was another matter.
The TV neared the end of the local news. The room went silent as a pink flamingo logo appeared, followed by a game-show host in a sports coat. The night skyline of Miami was projected in the back of the studio as Ping-Pong balls frolicked deliriously in some kind of clear-plastic vortex bin before being suctioned up six tubes and read off: 48, 39, 53, 51, 43, 46.
“What’s with all the high numbers?” asked one of the lower-ranking men, prompting a sharp poke to his ribs.
The suite had floor-to-ceiling plate-glass windows with a view of the skyline that matched the one on television. It efficiently shattered, left to right, and the shards rained down into the storm-water retention pond behind the hotel. Mr. Pelota calmly re-holstered his TEC-9 machine gun under a white jacket. He headed for the mini-bar, hair whipped up in a crisp new open-air breeze off Biscayne Bay. He uncapped a nine-dollar miniature of Patrón and picked a sliver of glass off his shoulder. “Juan, go down and pay the man at the front desk.”
The Apalachicola
There’s a good reason that horror movies often choose remote, dark forests at night. They have their own creepy soundtracks. A sizzling buzz of insects with a bullfrog backbeat.
The moon was full, and wind through the thick tree canopy produced a weird effect of scattered white circles dancing in the dead leaves.
Nigel and Günter wept like colicky babies as they were prodded forward into the woods. “I don’t want to die!”
A rifle poked Nigel between the shoulder blades. “Keep movin’!”
The trail of tears led into a mossy cluster of hardwoods. “Where are we going?”
“That’s far nuff,” said Willard.
“Don’t be turnin’ ’round,” said Jasper.
Then Nigel saw it. “Ahhhhhhhhh!”
Dirt tumbled from under the toes of his shoes and into the freshly dug grave they had seen earlier. “No! No! No! . . .”
“Shee-it,” said Willard. “You fellas is more nervous than long-tailed cats in a room full of rockin’ chairs.”
“Don’t kill us!”
“Stop pissin’ and moanin’,” said Willard. “We’re letting you go.”
“Wait, what? You’re not going to bury us alive?”
“You ain’t worth the trouble,” said Jasper. “No way you can find us or our cabin.”
“That’s right,” said Nigel. “We’re horrible with directions.”
“This here’s the part where we skee-daddle,” said Willard. “You know how you always see on TV where they make folks count to a thousand or some such?”
Nigel nodded with vigor. “We can count.”
“Heck with countin’,” said Willard. “We want you to work.”
“And . . . do what exactly?”
“Bury that stupid body!” said Jasper. “You interrupted us before.”
Nigel gazed across the grave. Yep, the dead guy was still there.
“Two birds with one stone,” said Willard. “We’re getting rid of you and we don’t need to bust our butts filling that damn hole back up.”
Jasper aimed his own rifle. “Now throw him in and start a-shovelin’. And don’t even think of running out of here before the job’s done. We might be watchin’ or comin’ back . . .”
The body was in the hole so fast that it startled the brothers. Soil began flying.
“Y’all behave now, ya hear?” The brothers propped rifles over their shoulders and marched off into the darkness until they seemed to dematerialize like a nightmare that had never existed.
“What are you doing?” Günter asked Nigel. “Keep shoveling!”
“They’re gone.”
“So what?”
“So right now we’re free,” said Nigel. “We can make a run for it. Every second we spend here, they could be changing their minds.”
“And if we don’t finish the hole, they will change their minds!”
“I really think they’re gone.” Nigel strained his eyes into the forest. “Look for yourself.”
“I don’t see anything.”
“That’s my point.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here.”
Click, click.
They spun around at the sound of the rifles. “Ahhhh! How’d you get behind us?”
“Finish the damn hole.”
Soil flew as if there was a soil-spraying machine.
A half hour later, they tamped down the top of the not-so-shallow grave.
“There,” said Nigel. “No way they can say we didn’t finish the job. Let’s get out of here!”
They prepared to fling the shovels aside.
Bright lights blinded them. Shouting. A camera in their faces.
“What are you hiding? Who are you burying out here?”
“Nothing! Nobody!” Nigel held a hand up to shield squinting eyes. “It was these other people. They made us fill the hole. You have to believe us!”
“Cut! That’s a wrap.” The lights went out.
Nigel uncovered his eyes. “You?”
“Who else?” said Serge.