The Jeep rounded the corner at South Lake and turned up a winding slab driveway to a private waterfront residence inspired by the Acropolis. The Jeep’s doors opened; two men in loafers got out. Cameron and Brandon, home for semester break from the Ivy League. They had started vacation as a group of four frat brothers, but the other two had been beaten to pâté in a Miami Beach traffic misunderstanding and were respectively undergoing orthodontic surgery and groin reconstruction.
“Don’t forget the beer.”
“Whoops.”
They were fairly good-sized boys, 215 pounds each at the start of the year, now 240 with the anabolics — stars of the sculling team and Greek intramural touch football. Everything was going their way. They had just made it home without a DUI, and that called for a celebration. Time to get out the speedboat.
According to the manufacturer’s literature, the thirty-three-foot Donzi Daytona can reach speeds of a hundred miles an hour, but it was only going sixty when it ran over the pelicans in the darkness under the Royal Palm Bridge and spread a wide wake across the Intracoastal Waterway.
“Do you think we’re going too fast?” Brandon yelled over the wind and spray.
“What?” yelled Cameron. “Go faster?”
He pushed the throttle forward and headed for the next bridge, Flagler Memorial. The draw spans were up and a yacht was coming the other way.
“There’s a bunch of cars stopped up there,” said Brandon. “Can you do a rooster tail?”
“In my sleep,” said Cameron. He slowed and hit a switch, raising the pitch of the propellers, and a small geyser of water shot a couple feet into the air behind the boat.
“This is going to be so great!”
They didn’t go under the draw spans, instead picking a solid span three to the left. When they came out the other side, Cameron slammed the throttle all the way forward, and a giant rooster tail shot thirty feet in the air, up onto the bridge. Ninety gallons of salt water flooded the interior of a convertible BMW, killing the electronics and the engine.
Cameron and Brandon looked back and saw the Beemer’s headlights flicker and go out. They were still giggling as they idled the yellow-and-white boat up to the seawall just past the bridge. That was the thing about Palm Beach — all the best off-limits places were wired tighter than Fort Knox. You couldn’t get near them from the street. A different story from the water.
The brothers only banged the prow of their father’s boat into the seawall four times as they moored and climbed over the wall into the backyard.
“You remember the beer?”
“Yep. You remember the spray paint?”
Brandon rattled the can in his right hand.
Cameron pointed. “There it is!”
“This is going to be so excellent!”
It was a huge yard, and their target of opportunity stood alone in the middle. They stumbled across the grass and giggled some more and began spray-painting something ungrammatical about a rival fraternity sucking donkey dicks.
They finished and stood there looking at the dripping paint. They felt empty. That’s it? This is as fun as it gets? They stood there some more, in case it would change, drinking and smoking, but no luck. Cameron got an idea. What if they broke something? That usually felt good.
They climbed some stairs and smashed a pane in the back door. They found their way around inside from the moonlight coming through the windows. Brandon put a cigarette out on a century-old sofa. “What’s a train car doing out here anyway?”
“Do I look like a fucking conductor? Here — help me break this.”
Legs snapped crisply off the antique divan.
“Let’s go get the baseball bats,” said Cameron.
“Good idea.”
They ran back to the boat. The brothers always took baseball bats with them in case they came across someone in traffic who needed a licking, but they also brought gloves and balls, on the advice of their attorney father, to disprove premeditation.
They found some more Budweiser and decided it would be a good idea to bring that, too. Soon they had returned with the bats and beer, ready for a successful future.
“Hold it,” Cameron said in the middle of the train car. He stopped and peed on something.
“That was great! Watch this!” Brandon dropped his trousers.
“You’re going to pinch a loaf?”
Brandon nodded.
“Radical!”
Brandon finished his business and pulled up his pants.
Cameron raised the baseball bat and smashed the arm off an Elizabethan chair.
“Let me see that.” Brandon shattered the cherry top of a library cabinet, gold-edged books spilling. The end of the bat got stuck in the hole through the busted-up wood. He braced his left arm against the cabinet to free the bat. “Hold it a second. There’s something shiny in here.”
He swept the rest of the books off the shelves, and Cameron helped him pull the shelving out. In back was a silver briefcase. They opened it up.
“Holy God!”
They picked up the briefcase and headed out of the train car.
Brandon spun around. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“I heard something.”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Up there.”
They were in the sleeping compartment. The top bunk was down, holding a big pile of blankets.
“I saw it move!”
“I did, too!”
The blankets shifted some more and a sleepy head finally poked out and looked around.
“Dig it!” said Cameron. “Some old bum is sleeping in here!”
“I hate bums!”
“Get a job, bum!”
Movement in a second bunk. Another head poked out. Then a whisper: “Serge, someone’s in the hideout.”
“Look! There’s two of ’em!” said Brandon.
“You know,” said Cameron, picking up his baseball bat and slapping it in an open palm, “they’re trespassing.”
“That’s right,” nodded Brandon, slapping his own bat in his hand.
“We’re going to teach you bums a lesson!”
Serge raised his hand. “Pardon me, but I think you’re making a mistake—”
“Shut up, bum! If you don’t have any respect for yourself, why should we?”
“Yeah! You make us want to puke with your laziness, your begging on street corners…”
“Your rude, unambitious, filthy lifestyle and your disgusting habits…”
“Time out,” said Serge, sitting up and making a T with his hands. He pointed out in the hall. “Which one of you brought the dog in here?”
“What dog? There is no dog,” said Brandon.
“But there’s a big pile of shit on the floor,” said Serge.
“Oh, that’s Brandon’s,” said Cameron.
“Will you shut up, bum?” yelled Brandon. “You interrupted me! Now I can’t even remember what I was saying!”
“You were talking about my disgusting habits,” said Serge.
“Right!” said Brandon. “You sicken us! We don’t want your kind near our island!”
“We’re going to make sure you two think twice before you ever break in here again!”
The pair advanced and raised their bats.
“Don’t even think of asking for mercy, bum!”
They stopped. Brandon tapped Cameron. “Is that a gun in his hand?”
Serge had their undivided attention. Brandon’s and Cameron’s eyes were open as far as they would go, their mouths taped. They were tied to straight-back chairs, wondering what all the pails were for — dozens of open buckets around their feet, filled with some kind of granular material.