Serge sat on the other side of the room, legs crossed, reading a copy of Historic Railroader Monthly. He was a lot more clean-shaven and fit — and armed — than they had expected a bum to be.
Serge looked up. “I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
They nodded quickly and hard.
“And that lesson,” said Serge, “is that you never really know whom you’re fucking with, so best not to do it at all.”
More nodding in agreement.
Serge patted the briefcase on the floor next to his chair. “And thanks for returning this. The little sucker almost got away from me again.”
He got up and walked over to one of the brick walls, gently touching the surface. “This is a pretty historic place itself. We’re out by the switching yards near the old West Palm depot. The mainland — I’m the local now. This used to be a major warehouse until they boarded it up twenty-five years ago. This room here was a giant humidor used to store cases of cigars that were boxcarred over from the factories in Tampa.” Serge ran his fingers along the doorframe. “It’s held up pretty well. The seals are in good shape. Except we’re not going to keep anything humid. We’re going to do the opposite.”
He picked up one of the granule-filled pails so they could read the side: “DampRid.”
“This stuff is incredible,” said Serge. “Sucks all the damn moisture out of the air. I mean all. If you reside in Florida, you can’t live without it. Until I found this stuff, my shower curtains were mildewed, the cabinets full of mold, all my album covers warped. But no more!”
An empty five-gallon bucket sat near the door. Serge picked up one of the smaller pails of granules and tipped it slowly so the water that had collected in the bottom trickled into the larger bucket. He repeated the process until he had drained all the pails. Then he grunted as he hoisted the big bucket.
“That sure is heavy,” said Serge. “I’ll be right back.”
He dumped the bucket outside the room, then crossed the warehouse and opened a jimmied door to the street. Lenny was under a broken awning, toking a roach down to his fingertips.
“Hi, Serge.”
“How’s lookout duty?”
“No problem except I’m almost out of dope, so I’m trying to conserve.”
“That’s being responsible.” He went back inside.
Serge repeated the pail-emptying exercise a dozen more times over the next twenty-four hours. He also drank two entire eighteen-packs of Perrier. Cameron and Brandon stared in terror as Serge knocked back another bottle and thumbed through his magazine. He set the empty green container on the floor. “You’re looking at me like, ‘Is he crazy or something, drinking so much water?’ No way — you have to make sure you take a lot of fluids in here or you’ll dehydrate, and you don’t want to die like that. It has a way of creeping up on you. Did you know that toward the end, you cry tears of blood?…Hey look! Here’s our train car!” — pointing at a photo in his magazine. “The one we were in last night. It’s called the Rambler. Bet you’re glad you got a chance to see it, huh?”
Serge got up and paced like a cheetah. “Actually, we’re lucky to have that car at all. In 1935, the Florida East Coast Railway sold it off to the Georgia Northern Railroad, along with a bunch of other stuff. Henry would have turned in his grave. They used the Rambler a few years and sold it again, and it eventually disappeared. When people finally realized its historic value, it was nowhere to be found.”
Serge stopped walking and fanned himself with the magazine.
“Damn, it’s hot in here!” Then he smiled. “But it’s a dry heat.”
By the fourth day, there wasn’t any more movement from the two young men. They were technically still alive, able to hear and understand, but that was about it. Serge had moved them up to the top of the warehouse, out on the flat pebble roof, where they now lay naked on top of two ultrareflective silver survival blankets. Serge walked to the edge of the roof and looked down; Lenny was still on lookout, helping a bag lady cross the street. Serge went back to his captives.
“You didn’t actually think I was going to let you die of dehydration, did you?” said Serge, wearing mirror sunglasses and a Miami Dolphins umbrella-hat. “I’m not that kind of guy.”
He sat back down in his lawn chair and tried to find something good on his beach radio. “WPOM ruled when I was in puberty here, Alice Cooper, ‘School’s Out for Summer’ and everything, right up until someone got the bright idea to make it all-news…. WPOM, get it? West Palm? Damn, that’s clever!”
Serge had a little cooler and a canvas beach bag beside his chair. He reached in the bag and pulled out a bottle of Hawaiian Tropic, squirting it on his arms and rubbing. “The key isn’t just the sun-protection factor, but also how well it blocks UV. The opposite would be, say, coconut cooking oil, which would accelerate the sun’s effects….”
The two men listened intently, their nostrils filling with the aroma of coconuts coming off their chests.
“You know, I never finished telling you about the Rambler. Sorry for leaving you in suspense. When we last left our tale, it had vanished from the face of the earth. Then, in 1959, they tracked it down miles from the rails, out on a Virginia farm where it was up on blocks, beaten all to hell, being used ironically enough as a tenant farmer’s house. Must have been a tear-jerking sight, like when those kids found E.T. near death by that creek. Years later, they located the original wheel trucks in Tennessee — talk about your detective work! — and with a lot of time and TLC, they restored it to original condition. So I’m sure you can understand my emotional reaction to all the vandalism, banging my head like that on the side of the car when I saw the graffiti. You wouldn’t have any idea who would do such an inconsiderate thing? It would have to be someone with a really low IQ, judging by the syntax and the reference to Equus asinus genitalia….”
Serge glanced at his wristwatch. “Whoa! I almost forgot. Time to add more salt….”
He picked up an extra-large blue Morton’s canister, walked over to the men and began sprinkling.
“You know what they say: ‘When it rains, it pours.’”
The medical examiner stepped out of the autopsy room and removed his surgical mask.
The homicide investigator got up from a chair in the hall and walked over. “What the hell happened to those two poor kids? The bodies must not have weighed an ounce over eighty pounds.”
“Seventy,” said the examiner.
“I had six cops lose their lunches back there when we found ’em,” said the detective. “What kind of a monster…?”
The examiner pulled off his latex gloves. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I always knew it was theoretically possible, but I’ve never actually heard of it being done to humans.”
“Are you gonna tell me or what?”
“Someone literally turned them into jerky.”
23
A white Mercedes Z310 cruised down US 1. Ivan was driving, pulling sandwiches from a fast-food sack in his lap. “Who had the cheddar melt?”
“Here,” said Alexi.
Vladimir leaned forward from the backseat and tapped Ivan on the shoulder. “Did you know there’s a disproportionate incidence of autoerotic strangulation among hockey players?”
“What?”
Vladimir sat back in his seat. “If you pass out, there’s still a chance you can come back to life, right?”
Ivan glanced at Vladimir in the rearview, then back at the road. “Who the fuck did they send me this time?”
A hand with a sandwich came up from the backseat, next to Ivan’s head. “I asked for no pickles.”