Coleman reached under the couch and pulled out a clear plastic bag attached to a tube. He clenched the tube in the corner of his mouth and sucked.
“Morphine drip bag?” said Serge.
Coleman took the tube out of his mouth. “Security guard at the hospital owed me for some weed.”
“What’s right is right.”
“Who are you going to marry?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“Is this going to be one of those Dennis Rodman things where you wear a gown and marry yourself?”
“No, that’s weird. I’m going to find women in public places and study them from a distance with binoculars. That’s the only way to really get to know someone.”
“Why do you want to get married, anyway?”
“I’ve come to the conclusion men don’t do well as bachelors,” said Serge. “It’s like a state of arrested development.”
Coleman poured Cheetos in his lap and took the tube out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”
“All my married friends are so much more mature.”
“I don’t have any married friends,” said Coleman. “Whenever a guy gets married, his wife won’t let him see me anymore.”
8
A PAIR OF Monroe County sheriff’s deputies stood in the backyard of a modest ranch house on Big Pine Key. The landscaping was spare but neat. Crape myrtle, trumpet honeysuckle, jasmine. Chicken wire surrounded the flowers.
The deputies listened sympathetically as an eighty-year-old woman talked nonstop, pointing at knocked-over trash cans and garbage strewn across the lawn to where a clothesline had been snapped. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers in the afternoon. One of the deputies jotted down the high points in a notebook.
“He was big and hairy.” The woman got on her tiptoes and raised a hand high in the air. “At least seven feet tall.”
Gus wrote six feet, allowing for excitement.
The woman tapped the notebook. “I said seven.”
Gus smiled and made a correction.
“I could smell him clear across the yard. The worst odor.” She crinkled her nose, then held up a disposable camera. “Going to send these to the Enquirer. They pay.”
Gus closed his notebook and smiled again. “We’ll get right on it, ma’am.”
The woman shuffled back toward her house. “Patronizing prick.”
The deputies headed up U.S. 1 in their white-and-green sheriff’s cruiser. Gus was driving. He kept shifting his weight. The seat had one of those wooden-bead seat covers.
“Is that thing helping your back?” asked Walter.
“Actually hurts more.”
“Why do you still use it?”
“I paid for it.”
Walter looked out the windshield at a tiny, white balloon flying high on a tether. It had tail fins. “Fat Albert’s up today.”
“So it is.” The anti-smuggling radar blimp was flying in a stout offshore wind above the federal installation on the north side of Cudjoe Key. Whenever it was up, there was much less boat traffic in the back country.
“Hey, Serpico. I want to ask—”
“Walter. You mind?”
“Sorry. Forgot,” said Walter. “Force of habit from listening to the other guys. Is the story true?”
“What story?”
“How you got the nickname.”
“Depends on how it was told.”
“It made fun of you.”
“Then I guess it’s true.”
“It’s a funny story.”
“Is that what you wanted to talk about?”
“No, I got sidetracked. Gus…”
“Thank you.”
“I heard your ex-wife is dating the lieutenant.”
“She is.”
Walter looked across the front seat at his partner. “It doesn’t bother you?”
“No.”
Walter faced forward. “That’s what Sergeant Englewood said.”
“Said what?”
“It didn’t bother you.”
They drove over a bridge.
“It would bother me,” said Walter. “The lieutenant knowing all those embarrassing sex stories.”
Gus did a slow side-take at his partner.
“What?” said Walter. “You do know the stories she’s telling, don’t you?”
“No.”
“Oh, my God, they’re hilarious! Apparently she’s blabbing about everything. All your weird sexual quirks…” Walter started laughing. “There was this one time she was seriously pissed off at you, so that night she asked you to wear her bra to bed, said it would ‘get her motor running.’ Those were the exact words Deputy Valrico used. Except she was really just trying to humiliate you!”
Walter noticed his partner’s knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
“You did know she was just messing with you?”
Gus stared ahead.
“Gee, I’m really sorry.” Walter looked down at his lap. “This is kind of awkward now.”
“What other stories?”
“I’m not going to tell you. I feel bad.”
“Don’t,” said Gus. “It’s not your fault. It was a long, long time ago.”
“It really doesn’t bother you?”
“Not a bit.”
“Okay, there’s this other really great one. Remember the time she said there was something she’d always wanted to try in bed, but was too embarrassed and didn’t want you to laugh at her? And you told her you’d do anything for her? So she made you lie on your back while she peed on your face. Remember that? I guess you would — you were there. Anyway, it wasn’t to turn her on. She was just mad at you again.”
Gus took a deep breath. “How many people know? You said Englewood and Valrico. Is that how you heard?”
“No, they told Brevard and La Belle, and somehow it got around to the second shift before winding through the other substations until it reached the sheriff. I was at a barbecue at his house, and his wife had a little too much sangria, and she sees you out the window in the yard, standing alone eating a hot dog. And she just cracks up and blurts it all out.”
“Was anyone else there?”
“No. Yes, just a few guys.”
“A few?”
“A lot. It started with about ten, but the crowd really swelled when word got around what she was talking about. By the end of the story I think everyone at the barbecue was jammed in that room except you.”
“So that’s who knows? The whole department?”
“No. I also heard them talking about it in the ice cream parlor and at the marina and the video store. I think the guy who came to work on my cable mentioned something….”
“Walter—”
“I’d say pretty much the whole town. Can’t believe it doesn’t bother you. I’d be mortified, everywhere I go people looking at me picturing stuff…”
“Walter—”
“I’d quit my job and move away. Maybe change my name. Then I’d probably kill myself….”
“Walter!”
“What?… Oh, it does bother you. See, I knew it.”
“No, it’s just that we’re starting to dwell.”
The cruiser turned off the highway and pulled up to a bright new mobile home on Cudjoe Key. The sheriff’s substation.
Gus and Walter went inside with the full-occupancy expressions of men who had reports to write. The only other person was Sergeant Englewood, sitting at a desk under an air conditioner that made the whole trailer vibrate with an oscillating hum.
“Hey, Sarge,” said Walter. “What’s the word?”
Englewood hunted and pecked. “Someone took a bunch of plants last night from the nursery.”
Gus handed Walter some papers, and they split up. Gus walked to his desk. There was a photo of a bearded Al Pacino sticking out of the typewriter. Someone had drawn a bra. Gus crumpled it and got to work.
You could honestly say Gus was one of the good guys. Nice to a fault. When Gus started at the department, he made a strong first impression. Deference, respect, dedication. Gus didn’t have any connections in the department. Didn’t want any. He was determined to make his own way in the world through hard work and character. His supervisors immediately took notice and fast-tracked him into the category of new recruits who needed to be kept down.