“We better get that looked at,” said Maria.
“You must have the wrong person,” said Serge.
The helicopters got louder and louder. Then thuds on the top of the car as a National Guard rescue team rappelled down.
Voices outside. “Hold on! We’ll have you out in a second.”
Rebecca touched Serge’s arm. “You need to sit down.”
“Really, you’ve got me mixed up with someone else,” said Serge, warily backing away from the women. “It’s been nice talking to you, but I have to be going.” And with that, Serge jumped through the ruptured side of the dining car.
“Serge!”
But Serge kept going, deeper and deeper into the swamp.
EPILOGUE
A Greyhound bus cruised down the Florida Keys on a perfect cloudless day. The ride was comfortable on the Overseas Highway. The bus had plenty of air-conditioning, the tinted windows kept out the heat and bright light, and the insulated diesel provided a soothing, rhythmic amniotic hum.
The wino thought the passenger sitting next to him was nice enough, but he sure was different, even by wino standards.
Click, click, click, click.
The passenger lowered his camera from the window. “Excellent day for photography. The polarized filter is giving me killer stuff.”
The wino offered a bottle. “Night Train?”
“No, thanks…. Hey! There’s the Grassy Key Dairy Bar!” The passenger raised his camera again. Click, click, click, click, click. He lowered it. “The Overseas Railroad has been gone many a year, but the concrete arches remain. You can see them at Long Key and elsewhere, still going strong after a century of Florida hurricanes, outliving the critics and their worst predictions for Flagler’s Folly. The trains only ran for twenty-three years, from 1912 to 1935, until an unnamed hurricane dropped a curtain on the works. Then they slapped roads down and built new spans to accommodate more lanes. And now, if you book Amtrak to Key West, you have to get off the train in Miami and take a bus the rest of the way. But imagine what it was like for just a brief period in history. You drive a car over the bridges today, and you sit low on wide bridges with tall railings. But back then, you sat high up in the train, perched naked on the narrow rails with nothing on the sides, just a wide-open view of the sea all around. How precarious and exciting it must have been!…Ooooo, there’s the Brass Monkey Lounge!” Click, click, click.
The wino began to stand, but Serge grabbed him by the arm and pulled him back down. “You know, the closest you can get today to that Overseas Railroad experience is what we’re doing right now: riding the Greyhound, way up high, the illusion of no guardrails.” Click, click, click. “Did you know that?”
The wino indicated he hadn’t considered it.
“It’s true,” said Serge. “The place we’re in now is called Marathon. And that’s the Seven-Mile Bridge coming up. The view is spectacular — better than any mind-altering drugs. I should know. They keep trying to get me to take them, but I just tell them, no way José!…”
The wino got up again before Serge could stop him and went up front and told the driver he would like to get off now.
“Hey, where are you going? I didn’t tell you how it got the name Marathon yet!…It’s because of how long it was taking them to build the…oh, well…Alone again, naturally…” Click, click, click.
Hydraulic brakes wheezed as a Greyhound bus pulled into Key West an hour before sunset, the fading orange light glancing off the silver frame. Passengers carried battered luggage and cardboard boxes into the station. The driver thought the bus was empty until he noticed one last passenger sitting in back, not moving.
The driver walked toward the rear of the bus and looked the man over with concern. The passenger’s eyes were unfocused, staring.
“Hey, buddy. You okay?”
Serge nodded.
“We’re here. We made it to Key West.”
“I know,” said Serge. “I can hear the children, but I can’t see them.”
“Will you get off my bus, already?”
Six months later.
A red Jaguar convertible pulled up the drive of the historic Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. A valet in white shorts ran around to the driver’s side and opened the door for Samantha Bridges.
A red BMW convertible pulled up behind the Jag; Teresa Wellcraft got out. Then a red Mercedes convertible, a red Audi and a red 1962 Corvette. Rebecca Shoals, Maria Conchita and Paige Turner.
The women hugged on the steps of the Mediterranean resort before crossing the lobby for the courtyard.
They set five books on the table and pulled out chairs. Meeting time.
The waiter arrived.
“Strawberry coladas,” said Sam. “Five.”
“Diplomatico rum,” said Maria.
The waiter nodded and left.
Sam patted the cover of her new hardcover. “Did everyone finish it?”
“Imagine that,” said Teresa. “Sam’s a Krunkleton fan.”
“Of course I am. He put us all in the book.”
“I think it’s his best yet,” said Maria.
So did the critics, and Ralph Krunkleton’s career had rocketed into mediocrity with the release of Blender Bender. Ralph turned Sam’s character into an undercover OSS agent, judo-chopping her way through a human jungle of deadly narco-criminals and ex-husbands. Paige became a plucky crusader against the bloody ivory trade in West Africa who is marked for death and overcomes the odds with an unwavering moral code and trusty machine gun. Maria and Teresa teamed up to run a prestigious New York fashion house until their top designer is snuffed by the mob, and they go on a merciless rampage of vengeance and cleavage. Rebecca became a nun with attitude, who finds no sin in hair that holds up under all conditions. Ralph even created cameos for Dee Dee Lowenstein and the other performers from the train, which Tanner Lebos was able to parlay into small but crucial roles in Police Academy Eight and Nine.
The five women all stopped for a long moment and looked at each other with knowing smiles, all sitting there in thousand-dollar sundresses.
“Has it sunk in yet?” asked Teresa.
“Not remotely,” said Maria. “I’m still walking on air.”
“It’s like I’m permanently trapped in the moment I opened my suitcase,” said Paige. “A million dollars takes up a lot less room than I would have thought.”
“I remember every second, every detail,” said Maria. “We’re all standing there looking in Paige’s suitcase, thinking, what the heck is going on? That can’t be real money.”
“Then Sam opened her suitcase…”
“No, Teresa opened hers next,” corrected Maria. “I told you, I remember every single detail. The National Guard rescued us, Amtrak put us up in suites at the Hilton, and there we were in the room, Paige’s open suitcase full of money, nobody breathing, so Teresa opened hers. When we saw the second million dollars, the rest of us literally dove for our own suitcases…”
“…every one full of money,” said Rebecca. “And then we all looked at each other and said it at the same time: ‘Serge!’ ”
“I still can’t believe we’re being allowed to keep it,” said Paige.
“Believe it,” said Sam. “We paid that lawyer enough. We paid everyone enough.”
“What a country,” said Rebecca. “You can buy anything.”
“You sure we don’t have anything to worry about?” said Maria. “I’m still expecting a knock at my door.”
“I told you, it’s all a matter of knowing which lawyers are wired in with the current administration,” Sam explained. “Our attorney knows the Washington attorney who had lunch with the IRS attorney…”
“What on earth did he tell him?”