29
THE NO NAME PUB’S screen door flew open.
“I’m Gaskin Fussels! And I rule!”
Hearts sank around the bar.
Fussels was holding a large box with both arms. He marched up and set it on the counter. “Y’all come over and take a gander at this!”
Nobody moved.
“Okay, stay where you are. I’ll take it out of the box and show you.” Fussels reached in with both arms and carefully extracted the contents. He proudly placed it on the bar.
The pub went silent. Mouths agape.
“I knew you’d be impressed,” said Fussels. “This’ll teach him to fuck with me!”
They hopped off their stools and crowded around Fussels.
Bud looked at Sop Choppy. “I hope that isn’t what I think it is.”
“Uh, where exactly did you get that?” asked Daytona Dave.
“Just up the street,” said Fussels. He formed a vicious grin. “At the home of that dick-head who owns the motel.”
“What motel?” said Bud.
“Lazy Palms. The one that ripped me off.” Fussels nodded to himself with satisfaction. “We’ll see about that fucking refund policy.”
“Where exactly was this house again?” asked Sop Choppy.
Fussels waved an arm east. “Right across the bridge on No Name Key. Down one of those back roads.”
“That’s not where the owner lives,” said Bud.
“What are you talking about?” said Fussels.
“I know the owner. His place is up on Cudjoe.”
“Then who lives out there?” asked Fussels.
It slowly began filtering back to Sop Choppy through the haze of the other night’s boozing. “Oh, no.” He looked at Bob the accountant, who was just beginning to remember himself.
“What is it?” asked Bud.
Bob had his hands over his face. “Us and our stupid practical joke.”
Sop Choppy looked at the object on the counter. “How could we be so dumb?”
“Because we were drunk!” snapped Bob.
“This is a major fuck-up,” said Sop Choppy.
Jerry the bartender started shaking. “I-I-I thought it’s what you wanted me to tell him.”
Bob ran his hands through his hair. “We have to think.”
They became silent again and stared at the bar.
Fussels looked around at everyone. “Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on?”
Nobody answered. All eyes on the magnificent, scratch-built model of a nineteenth-century British schooner. Scarface carved into the base.
“I’m starting to get pissed off!” said Fussels.
“Shut the fuck up!” yelled Sop Choppy. “You didn’t steal from a motel owner. You stole from a drug kingpin. He’s going to kill you, okay?”
“What are you talking about?” Fussels pointed across the bar. “Jerry said—”
“Jerry lied!”
“Why would he do that?”
“So we’d like him!”
“This is so bad,” said Daytona Dave.
“We gotta get it out of here,” said Bud.
“I don’t understand,” said Fussels. “Why would you want Jerry to—”
“Because you’re an asshole!” said Sop Choppy. “We were trying to get rid of you!”
“Get rid of me? I thought we were friends.”
Five guys: “Shut up!”
“He’s got to take it back right now,” said Sop Choppy.
“I’m not taking shit back,” said Fussels. “Not until I get my refund.”
“Aren’t you listening? Jerry was fucking with you!”
“You really are serious about this, aren’t you?”
“Yes! The guy’s had dozens of people killed!”
Bud grabbed the empty box. “You have to pack it back up and return it right now before he discovers it’s missing.”
The color left Fussels’s face. “No way. I’m not going back anywhere near there.”
“You have to!”
Fussels looked like he might faint.
“Hold on,” said Sop Choppy. “We might be missing something here. How do we know there’s any way to connect him to this?”
“Think hard!” said Bob. “Did anybody see you go in the house? Did you leave any clues?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“What does that mean?”
“I left a ransom note.”
“You what!”
“How was I supposed to get my refund?”
“It’s still okay,” said Sop Choppy. “It’s just a ransom note. They’re anonymous.”
“I sort of signed it.”
“You idiot!”
“What did the note say?” asked Bob. “You’d be calling him or something?”
“No, I said I’d be waiting at the No Name Pub. Just bring my refund here.”
The guys jumped back and spun toward the door.
“Oh, my God!” said Bob. “They could be coming in here any second with machine guns!”
“You have to take it back right now!”
“I can’t!”
“You have to!”
Fussels’s legs got rubbery. “I need to sit down.”
“Jerry, get him a beer.”
Fussels upended the draft in one long guzzle. The others quickly packed the ship back up and pushed the box into his stomach. “Get going!”
Fussels walked meekly toward the screen door.
“Whatever you do, don’t drop it!”
“What?”
“Don’t drop it!”
He dropped it.
The gang screamed. They ran over to the box.
“Maybe it’s all right,” said Bud. “It’s a pretty tough box.”
They opened the flaps. Sop Choppy pulled out a handful of broken toothpicks.
Bob held up a snapped crow’s nest. “We’re fucked.”
“He’s gotta go back and get that ransom note!” said Bud.
“That’s right. You have to get the note!”
Fussels was frozen with fear. The gang picked him up by the arms and rushed him out the screen door.
“Go get the note!”
30
Scarface’s office
THE COCAINE USE was clearly out of control. He’d called the crew together for a late-night staff meeting, then forgot what he wanted to say. But it didn’t stop him. A torrent of disjointed, random thoughts, punctuated by lines of coke and Scarface surfing through chapters of his favorite movie on the big screen.
“I want my chu-man rights!”
The crew stood nervously on the other side of the desk, silent, hands behind their backs. They’d already had that big gun pulled on them four times. Scarface was currently nose down on his desk again for another line. He sat up and scratched his head with the gun barrel, trying to figure out why his desk looked so much more spacious.
“Hey, where’d the ship go?” He reached and grabbed a scrap of paper sitting where the model had been. “Who the fuck is Gaskin Fussels?” He tossed the note back, got out some more coke and turned up the television.
When the blow was gone, Scarface stood and pulled a large molded plastic case from behind his chair and set it on top of the desk. He flipped open the latches and nodded toward the TV. “This is my favorite scene!” He opened the case and removed a giant assault rifle complete with rocket launcher under the barrel, identical to the one Pacino now had on the screen. The crew ducked as the weapon swept across them. “You’re not watching the movie!”
The crew, anxiously glancing back and forth from the TV to their leader, who stood in the ready position with the weapon, repeating dialogue with Pacino:
“Say hello to my little friend!”
Scarface inadvertently pressed something.
Woosh.
A rocket fired.
“Oh, gee,” said Scarface. “I’m awfully sorry.”
The crew member in the middle had a half second to look down in surprise at the hole in his chest, before the projectile’s explosive charge blew him apart, knocking the other two crew members over in opposite directions like Scarface had picked up a spare in the tenth frame.
He leaned over the desk, looking for the survivors. “You guys okay?”
“Yes.”