He slapped a box on the counter.
“I’ll take ten,” said Brook.
“What about a tactical carrying case?”
“Sure.”
He gestured toward the rows of bottles in the package section. “Want anything to drink with that?”
“Not right now.”
“What about a hacksaw?”
“Why would I need a hacksaw?”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
THE NEXT MORNING
Two men with dirty fingernails shoveled quickly, burying the body in an eight-foot hole.
A number of people saw them but didn’t pay attention because the body was in a casket, and the men wore the green work uniforms of the Fort Lauderdale cemetery.
In the background, a second casket rested on a series of straps above another hole. There was a tent and rows of folding white chairs. At one end of the casket, a preacher opened a Bible as his vestments began to blow. Black clouds rolled in from the Everglades. The tent had been meant for the sun, but now held back rain. Only three of the chairs were occupied, a young widow and her children. It was hard to hear the preacher because of the heavy traffic on the adjacent freeway. The widow had her own Bible in her lap, and restless fingers kept busy rubbing the crinkled, tearstained newspaper obituary in her hands. It mentioned her husband’s five tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The rain chased the gravediggers away from the other plot and back to the maintenance shed. Someone else who had been laying a bouquet on a grave took shelter under a royal poinciana. He had placed the bouquet at the tombstone of someone he never knew or cared about. Now he watched the preacher in the distance and held a cell phone to his head. “Yeah, it’s started. You’re on.”
Several miles away, a cable-TV van was parked at the curb of a residential street. It became un-parked. The truck rolled slowly and turned up the driveway at the appointed address.
The house was a turquoise bungalow with potted yellow-and-red crotons that are popular with local landscapers and as economical hospital gift plants for less serious ailments, like whooping cough. An American flag hung from the porch, and a swing set stood out back.
The cable workers exited the van and walked around to the side door for privacy. The first one glanced back a last time, then stuck a bump key in the lock. Another person twisted the knob as the rubber mallet struck. The door popped open with facility. They entered the laundry room, opened their burglary sacks and marched single file toward the kitchen. The living room was around the corner past the refrigerator, which created a blind spot. When the first in the crew reached it, the baseball bat caught him in the throat.
He promptly dropped to the tiles in writhing voicelessness. The others jolted to a surprised halt as Serge stepped out from behind the fridge with a Louisville Slugger and a .45 ACP. That was the official signal to run.
The cable van screeched out of the driveway just before Coleman screeched up in a Firebird.
Six hours later. Darkness and traffic and croaking frogs. All businesses along the industrial access road were shuttered for the night. A black Firebird sat in front of a warehouse. Serge had already slipped a damage deposit under the door of Alfonso’s office for having to use the bolt cutters on the entrance gate’s padlock—and a few more bucks for what would come later.
Coleman torched a fattie and smiled down at the man in the chair. The man’s eyes bulged with terror. But not from threats he understood. Because every element of his predicament was so weird and fresh that his brain hadn’t caught up yet.
First there were his captors, beginning with this Belushi character in front of him. During the ride over, Coleman had continually spilled vodka on himself and puffed nonstop on a bong made from a decorative aquarium treasure chest. Then there was the driver. Where to start? . . .
