“I don’t get it.”
“Leverage,” said Serge. “Usually my brand of leverage is permanent, but the punishment has to fit the crime, and you’re just buffoons. I wouldn’t want to be accused of going overboard.” He tossed Nigel some car keys. “Your SUV is still parked back at the road where you left it earlier. But remember: Not a word about my friends, or I’ll send this tape to the police. Then it’s prison for life, and your next reality show will have an adult rating.”
“My lips are sealed,” said Nigel. “We’ll only air the footage we shot in Cassadaga.”
“Like hell you will.”
“But you even said you wanted us to show it.”
“No, I didn’t. Why are you speaking such nonsense?”
“Because I heard you,” said the producer. “Back at the cabin, remember?”
“The number one rule in life is when people point out that you lied, just flatly deny it. Of course The Daily Show will run clips of you saying it, but nobody’s paying attention. Don’t you follow elections in this country?”
Chapter 19
The Next Day
Another sunny morning in Miami.
Nothing out of place. Drivers sipping coffee, pedestrians reading newspapers, drifters with rolling Samsonite. People on cell phones reported credit-card issues. Some checked their wrists to see how many steps they had taken.
A decade-old Hyundai sat at a red light with a dripping brake drum and a bumper sticker from the driver’s alma mater: Go Terrible Swedes (Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas). The employee badge clipped to his pocket said Dagwood Foote, named for some great-great-grand-uncle, but he preferred Darren. His mind wandered without attention, as did the traffic around him: His namesake relative was said to have perished a hero in Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders. Were the Swedish even aware of the nickname? His family lied more than most. Maybe the first Dagwood actually died in a tragic stevedore accident in Spokane, leaving behind a modest collection of vice-presidential autographs. What was the deal with Norway? He decided that life was immeasurably complex and required another bumper sticker about his son making straight B’s. He took a bite of a Hot Pocket.
The radio was tuned to a Spanish news station for the English: Someone was found at sea. Someone else wasn’t. Raúl Castro is still a jerk. Don’t buy ranch salad dressing dated February 17 or else.
The driver leaned forward as a Marilyn Monroe drag queen sprinted through the crosswalk—“Get away from me!”—followed closely by a JFK look-alike—“But I love you! . . .”
The red light turned green. The Hyundai had just started to move when it was cut off by a flying-V formation of Mercedes sedans.
Tires screeched to a stop. Hands seized through the driver’s window.
“Excuse me,” said Foote. “I’m having breakfast.”
A sausage Hot Pocket flew as a coat was thrown over his head. Another man shoved him in the backseat of the getaway vehicle and fired gunshots in the air to intimidate bystanders, who weren’t interested anyway because the same thing was happening for unrelated reasons at the other intersections.
Elsewhere
Mid-morning settled over the sleepy wooded settlement. Residents with gardening gloves pulled weeds from the yards of pastel cottages, and guests sipped sweetened tea on the veranda of the old Cassadaga Hotel. A silver Corvette arrived at a pink house with a silk flag. The TV could be heard from the street.
“Looks like Coleman is still awake,” said Serge. “That’s a good sign.”
“I don’t know if it was the best idea to leave your friend guarding my ex,” said Trish. “He was unconscious on my rug most of the time I saw him.”
“Coleman may be a fool, but he’s also fool-proof.” Serge walked up the steps with her key. “My knots were so intricate that the two of them together couldn’t untie Gil.”
They opened the front door, and Serge’s face drooped. A human form lay sprawled again on the Tibetan carpet, gun still in hand. The hostage had managed to tediously inch his chair across the parlor until its back rested against an antique writing desk. Then the ex-husband had blindly worked his fingertips into various drawers and nooks until he felt a knife, which he was now using to saw through the ropes around his wrists.
“Thanks a lot, Coleman.” Serge walked over and glared disapprovingly at the captive. “You’re not being safety-conscious. Haven’t you ever heard to cut away from yourself?” He reached for the blade. “Let me take that before you hurt yourself.”
Coleman arose from the dead. “Hey, Serge, when did you get back?”
“Apparently just in time.” Serge dragged the whimpering hostage and his chair back to the center of the room. “I thought you already took a nap.”
“Just resting my eyelids,” said Coleman, gesturing with the gun. “But the rest of the time I kept him covered just like you asked.”
Bang.
Ker-sploosh.
Serge shrieked. “My Eight Ball!”
“Sorry.”
Serge snatched the pistol away. “What’s wrong with you?”
“It just went off like the other times.” He lay back on the floor. “Closing my eyes again.”
Serge turned to the ex. “You’re a neutral party. Who’s in the right here? Am I crazy?”
“Serge.” Trish tapped him on the shoulder. “I hate to mention it, but we have a situation here. I’m starting to get really scared. What if the police—?”
Serge wrapped his arms around her in a gentle embrace. “Don’t you worry about a thing. Just go in the bedroom and catch up on sleep. When you wake up, all this aggravation will be a fading memory.”
“I thought you needed cover of darkness,”
“Plans have accelerated due to last night’s events. Plus, it fits nicely into my new master plan. Go take a nap.”
“But you’re . . . I mean, you wouldn’t, uh . . .”
“Kill him?” said Serge. “Oh, no, no, no, no. But I have terrific powers of persuasion. I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse.”
It was almost as if she had been holding her breath ever since her ex arrived. Now a huge exhale of relief. “Thanks, I owe you big-time.”
“No, you don’t.”
She padded down the hallway in exhaustion and was practically out before she hit the mattress.
“Now then . . .” Serge grinned at the ex. “It’s just you and me. What can we possibly do for fun? I got it!”
Serge disappeared behind him, and the captive’s neck jerked back and forth. Then he felt his whole body tipping backward as the chair was dragged toward the rear door.
“Mmmmm! Mmmmm! . . .”
North Florida
Two ghostly-white fingers carefully parted dusty blinds. A bloodshot eyeball slowly rotated.
Outside on the highway, occasional vehicles drove by at relaxed intervals. Otherwise, still air.
It was an empty stretch of U.S. 98 running through the Panhandle somewhere below Tallahassee, and it was getting late into the afternoon. A warm orange light traced the tops of the pines across the road. The trees were about all there was, except for the motel with the eyeball in the window. It was at least a mile of thick woods east or west to the next nearest anything, which was a Primitive Baptist church or an abandoned grain elevator, depending on the direction. The motel was a single-story row of rooms that was built with a hometown bank loan and the post-war optimism of a roustabout oil hand from Lubbock named Earl, who erected a sign with a giant cowboy that said Rancho Deluxe. The parking lot was always full back before the interstate came through. Now the motel office was cluttered with the crayons and toys of a deferential family from India. There was only one car in the lot. Earl was buried nearby.