“…And Darby Felsmere, who has a bunch of washing machines and doorless refrigerators marked offshore with GPS coordinates that he uses to supply the restaurants with lobster, and Ogden Ebb, who was about to lose everything in the divorce but instead talked his wife into faking his death at sea and splitting the insurance, and Noma Lovett, who’s also Lawtey Pierce and Sewall Myers according to the unemployment checks, and ‘Daytona Dave’ DeFuniak, the one-hit wonder who had that big song back in the seventies, ‘Island Fever,’ which caught the draft behind the
“…But not now. And Scanlon Elerbee, who peddles caffeine tabs as bootleg speed over the Internet to fraternities, and Yulee Richloam, who sells inferior roadbed to the state, and Perky Sneads, who signs off that roadbed for the state, and Eddie Perrine, who’s in between gigs and has a job, and Bud Naranja here, who keeps getting fired from newspapers and abandoned his car on the side of U.S. 1 next to the chamber of commerce…”
“I know that car,” said Coleman. “Some guy’s living in it.”
Daytona Dave raised his hand. “That would be me.”
“…And finally we have Rebel Starke,” said Serge, “who eluded a massive manhunt in Tennessee.”
“Wow, you’re really a fugitive?” said Coleman.
“Tell him,” said Serge.
“Not as bad as it sounds,” said Rebel. “Was living in Knoxville at the time and got mixed up with this cult that was deep into Sartre and Kierkegaard, only it was really about door-to-door cleaning products. Anyway, I get this existential license plate for my car: UNKNOWN. A year later, they put in those cameras that automatically take pictures of drivers who run red lights. If they can’t make out the license number in the photo, they manually type in, you guessed it, ‘unknown.’ In the first month I get like a hundred tickets. I went down to city hall at least a dozen times, and they always said they’d fix it, but I was still being pulled over two and three times a day. It was easier to just move.”
There was a series of loud crashes out the back door, metal garbage cans falling over.
“What was that?” said Coleman.
“Roger.”
“Roger?”
“Classic Keys story,” said Sop Choppy. “You may think
“Only two social rules on this island,” said Bud. “Don’t mess with the miniature deer and don’t steal the No Name dollars off the walls. Otherwise, anything goes. People who aren’t used to the freedom lose their minds.”
“Like Roger,” said Sop Choppy. “Used to be a lawyer, good one, too. Then he started deep-sea fishing down here. It was the eighties, so naturally he hung out afterward with the other guys at the Full Moon and the Boca Chica. Roger didn’t have a single bad habit, never even tried pot. But after three or four trips down here, he’s into everything. Drinking till dawn, snorting lines of blow as wide as your thumb. One weekend, he never goes home at all. His wife starts calling the police, and they find him barricaded in a suite at the La Concha.”
“He’s under one of the beds screaming about giant flying snakes,” said Bud. “The cops finally called animal control, and they dragged him out by slipping one of those lasso-sticks around an ankle, and he bites one of the officers, which got him ninety days in the Stock Island jail. On the seventy-fifth day, he runs away from a road detail and disappears into the mangroves, where he’s been ever since. There are still warrants, but the police just want to help him more than anything. He’s harmless except when he tears up the garbage cans all over the island — worse than the raccoons.”
The trash cans banged around some more.
“That’s Roger?” said Coleman.
Bud nodded. “The Skunk Ape.”
“Man, you guys have some great stories!” said Coleman, surreptitiously peeling a dollar off the wall.
Serge slapped Coleman’s hand.
“Ow.”
“You haven’t even heard the best ones,” said Bob the accountant. “No Name Key.”
“What’s No Name Key?” asked Coleman.
“Right across that bridge you saw when you came in,” said Rebel. “One scary island. People you never want to mess with. No sewer lines or power or anything. Just a bunch of no-trespassing signs at the ends of spooky private roads winding back to places you can’t see.”
“Bud,” said Serge. “Remember the time you got kidnapped?”
“You got kidnapped?” said Coleman.
Bud nodded. “This will tell you everything you need to know about No Name Key. I was doing freelance real estate photography of a stilt house back up one of those roads. I go and take my pictures, no big deal. I’m heading out and this woman in a Dodge Dakota is coming the other way. She blocks me with her pickup, gets out with this big gun.”
“Some crazy old hag?” asked Coleman.
