Lenny reached in his shirt pocket and pulled out a Bok Tower lapel pin. He turned it back and forth to glint in the sunlight before passing it across the front seat.
“You’re humble and lovable,” said Serge. He removed a small plastic box from the gym bag at his feet and tucked the Bok pin inside with dozens of other pins.
“What are those?” asked Lenny, glancing over.
“Recent acquisitions. Sea World, Silver Springs, plus lots of train stuff, like the Flagler Museum.”
“Trains?”
“Yeah, I kind of got into them a little bit last year, because of the direct linkage to Florida’s evolution.”
“You? Getting into something a little bit?” said Lenny. “More like you completely obsessed, right?”
“I like to call it disciplined study habits.”
“I don’t buy it,” said Lenny.
“Neither did the cops.”
“You were arrested again?”
“It’s so unfair,” said Serge. “All these misunderstandings happening to the same person. What are the odds?”
“How did it happen?”
“Well, I’ll tell you,” said Serge, reaching in the glove compartment and taking out novelty glasses with 3-D spirals on the lenses and little pinholes in the middle.
Lenny looked over at him. “You going to do a flashback?”
Serge nodded. “I’m all about flashbacks.”
He slid the glasses on his face and raised his chin in concentration. “I can see it like it was just yesterday — a warm summer morning, the overnight dew burning off fast, mixing with the smell of just-mowed grass. A dark blue Buick LeSabre drove slowly down Cocoanut Row on the island of Palm Beach…”
Inside the Buick, two retired women sipped coffee from travel mugs. The passenger read the
“Must have been a small camera,” said the driver.
“Technology,” said the passenger, turning the page.
They took a left on Whitehall Way, toward a sprawling lawn and twin palms flanking a tall iron arch. The two museum volunteers parked and unlocked the gate, then the front door of a century-old mansion. They flipped on lights, adjusted the thermostat, opened the gift shop. One headed outside through the south door. There was an old banyan tree near the seawall, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway and the mainland, where the servants lived in West Palm Beach. In the middle of the lawn was a brief stretch of railroad track that led nowhere. On the rails sat a forest green Pullman passenger car custom-built in 1886. There were historical plaques and gold letters down the side.
One of the pull-down sleeping berths was open, holding a pile of blankets covering a human-sized lump.
The woman took a meek step backward.
The lump moved.
The woman seized up. She wanted to run, but her legs wouldn’t respond.
The lump moved some more, and a head of mussed hair popped out of the blankets.
“Are we there yet?”
The woman stood paralyzed.
“Are we there yet? Key West?”
The woman finally managed a light, trembling voice. “Key…West?…”
“Key West,” repeated the man. “This is my big day. The biggest day of my life.”
There was a pause. The woman’s voice quivered again. “Uh…what day is that?”
“January twenty-second!”
The woman looked through the windows at the beautiful summer day outside. “January?”
“Of course,” said the man, “1912.”
No reply.
“If we’re not there yet, I could use some more sleep.”
“We’re…uh, not there yet.”
“Good,” said the man, rolling over and covering his head with the blanket.
Two officers in a squad car were en route to a report of golf rage at a local country club when they received the intruder call from the Flagler Museum and made a squealing U-turn. The officers reached the museum’s south lawn and found a garden hose stretching across the grass to the side of the train car. They drew service pistols and quietly climbed up the observation platform. As they filed down the car’s tight hallway, they heard water running. Then singing. The first officer reached the door of the shower and peeked in. The curtain came up to the shoulders of the intruder. His eyes were closed as he rubbed shampoo into his scalp.
The officers looked at each other.
The intruder opened his eyes. “Oh, my VIP escorts. Be with you in a minute.”
