They looked at each other, then at the sky, then over at the Buick’s low-riding trunk.
A RED FLAG with a diagonal white stripe snapped in the morning breeze.
The first dive boat of the day was returning. It rode a pair of silver pontoons and had a large, flat deck for all the scuba tanks and tanned people casting aside wet-suit tops. They were pumped from the morning run, endorphins, laughing, cracking beers, holding hands apart to represent the girth of barracuda and moray eels. The boat idled down an oolite canal cut through Ramrod and docked behind the Looe Key Reef Resort.
The “resort” label was a little dated, considering all the newer, sterile behemoths that had gone up in the last twenty years. More of a raggedy old Florida roadside motel, which was better. It had survived to become the last genuine diver’s joint. The back doors of the rooms opened right onto the dock; out the front doors was the tiki hut on the shoulder of U.S. 1. It was a big hut, as tikis go, and it was legendary. Every seasoned diver had done time there. The bar was always cranking, night, day, hurricane evacuation.
Three used-car salesmen climbed off the morning boat and headed for the thatched roof. They were the only ones still wearing wet-suit tops. The one worn by the chief partner of Pristine Used Motors was black and turquoise. He wore the wet-suit top for two reasons. First was the stud factor. He began sending free drinks to the women around the bar, and they began coming back. He decided to deliver the next drinks in person. He got off his stool with a rumrunner in each hand and slimed over to a pair of sorority sisters from Georgia Tech.
The women reluctantly accepted the glasses.
He hopped on the stool next to them. “Fuck me if I’m wrong, but haven’t we met before?”
That was the other reason for the wet-suit top. Drinks easily washed off.
A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA emerged from a side street on Ramrod Key and pulled onto U.S. 1.
Coleman looked out the passenger window as they passed the Looe Key Reef Resort. “Why don’t we just dump him in the mangroves like everyone else does?”
“Getting too crowded,” said Serge. “I found a better location.”
The Buick flew through Islamorada and Key Largo, back over the bridge to the mainland, Coleman bugging him for food the whole way.
“You just had a McMuffin.”
“I can’t taste it anymore.”
Serge acquiesced and hit a drive-through in Florida City, then raced straight into the heart of the Everglades.
Coleman reached in his Arby’s sack. “Want a sandwich?”
“Why’d you get five?”
“It was five for five dollars.”
Serge turned off the Tamiami Trail and onto a dirt road with a chained-shut gate. He hopped out with a pair of large bolt-cutters, glanced around and grabbed a link of the chain.
Coleman walked up with a soda cup. “Where are we?”
Serge leaned into the cutters. “Government research center.” The chain snapped. He pushed the gate open.
The Buick drove down the deserted road. Coleman’s nose twitched. “It stinks.”
“It’s supposed to.”
The road opened into a clearing. It looked like an abandoned movie set. Broken-down vehicles, rusty refrigerators, steamer trunks, fifty-five-gallon drums, some partially submerged in a pond. Coleman saw what looked like shabby mannequins draped in a variety of positions. They parked and Serge opened the trunk.
Coleman came up beside him. “I still don’t know where we are.”
Serge pulled a pair of hankies from his pocket. He covered his nose and mouth with one and handed the other to Coleman. “Necro-studies.”
“What?”
“The cadaver farm.”
“Cadaver?… You mean those mannequins are really… Oh, gross!”
“Forensic detectives face a particular problem in Florida. Decomposition is too aggressive, so the regular textbook decay tables are useless. Had to establish a local lab to come up with their own figures. The Everglades are ideal. Perfect breeding ground for everything that can ravage a corpse. Heat, moisture, bacteria, more insects than you can count. Some with little pincers and mandibles that bore right through the skin, others that get in through body cavities. It’s amazing how they know right where to go. Rodents, crabs, snakes. Oh, and birds. Don’t forget them. They go for the eyes.”
Coleman steadied himself against the car. “I don’t feel so good.”
Serge reached in the trunk and grabbed wrists. “Get his ankles.”
They hoisted Troy Bradenton out of the Buick, lugged him twenty yards and set him down behind the bumper of a tireless Impala. Serge retrieved a crowbar from the Buick and began working on the Impala’s trunk. “A body that lasts three months in the Virginia winter might be down to the wishbone in weeks….”
Serge put his weight into the bar. The trunk popped.
Coleman jumped back. “There’s already a body in there!… And some stuff’s moving—” His hand flew to his mouth.
Serge poked the second corpse with the crowbar. He bent down and grabbed Troy’s wrists again. “Coleman, give me a hand…. Coleman?”
Coleman was holding his stomach. His cheeks bulged.
“Stop fooling around!”
