Coleman reached for the ankles. “What if somebody sees us?”
“Today’s Saturday. I have the place to myself on weekends…. Lift!”
Coleman grunted. “Yeah, but what if someone happens to come off-hours?”
“Not a chance. This is a government operation.”
The new corpse fell on top of the first. Serge slammed the trunk lid. “I love science.”
They climbed back in the Buick.
“I still think the mangroves would have been better,” said Coleman. “They might find him here.”
“They’ll
“What do you mean?”
Serge began driving back out the dirt road. “They used to have one body in the trunk; now they have two.”
“So?”
“Everything’s backward at the cadaver farm. They may be dealing in dead bodies, but it’s still a bureaucracy, which means the cardinal sin is to
“What if they don’t?”
“These are professionals. It’s why we pay taxes.”
Serge stopped and got out of the car, locking the gate behind the Buick. He jumped back in and gunned the engine, sending up a thick cloud of dust as they whipped back onto the Tamiami.
A half minute later, another car appeared out of the cloud. A brown Plymouth Duster.
The Buick neared the end of the Everglades. It flew through the flashing red light at Dade Corners and kept on going for the turnpike. Serge and Coleman began seeing evidence of western Miami. Heavy industry, quarries, refining plants, paint-sample test institute.
“Hold everything,” said Coleman, watching something go by his window. “Turn around!”
“What is it?”
“Just turn around. We’re getting farther away.”
Serge veered off the right shoulder, making a liberal U-turn in the grass on the opposite side. “What’s the flavor of this wild-goose chase?”
“We passed a medical supply depot,” said Coleman. “The warehouse with the barbed wire around all those industrial tanks in the back lot. I think I saw nitrous.”
“Laughing gas?” Serge slammed the brakes and the Buick squiggled to a stop down the middle of the empty road.
“What are you doing?” said Coleman.
“I’m not going on some drug safari!”
“Why not?”
“Didn’t you read where those two guys in that van passed out and died from nitrous.”
“Because they were abusing it.”
Serge yanked the stick on the steering column. “I’m turning around.”
“No fair!” said Coleman. “We already got to do what you wanted to.”
“What are you, in second grade?”
“I didn’t kick the guy to death. I didn’t have to come out here and help you.”
Serge stewed a moment. “Okay. Since you appeal to my sense of fairness. But I’m not waiting forever.”
The Buick drove another hundred yards and pulled over next to chain-link with a red-diamond warning sign: VICIOUS DOGS.
They got out and walked to the fence. “You’re right,” said Serge. “These
Two Dobermans galloped across the storage yard. They jumped up on the fence and snapped teeth at the level of Serge’s face. “Hello, puppies.”
Coleman walked up next to Serge, pulled the dog whistle from his shirt and blew. The Dobermans yelped and scampered off to hide behind a stack of empty pallets.
Four hundred yards back, a brown Plymouth Duster sat quietly on the shoulder of the road with a clear view of the tiny Buick parked in the distance. Hands rested on the steering wheel. They were inside tan leather gloves, the kind with holes cut out for the knuckles. The hands came off the wheel. The driver’s door opened, then the trunk. Out came wading boots and a bolt-action Remington deer rifle. The boots started down the shoulder into the swamp.
“Where are your bolt-cutters?” asked Coleman.
“Trunk.”
Serge climbed up on the Buick’s roof and sat with his legs crossed, leaning forward with rapt curiosity. Coleman snipped away at the chain-link fence, the dogs repeatedly charging, Coleman dispatching them each time with another blast from the ultrasonic whistle.
A half-mile north of the highway, an eye pressed against the scope of a deer rifle. The 10X-magnification compressed the view, eight hundred yards of sawgrass and cattails, then two Dobermans, a fence and, finally, Serge, sitting yoga-style on the roof of the Buick. A finger curled around the trigger.
Serge was amazed. He had never seen Coleman put together such linear purpose. After a few minutes, Coleman had snipped a Coleman-shaped hole in the fence.
There was a faint pop in the distance. The car window shattered beneath Serge.
“What did you do to my car?” said Coleman.
Serge leaned forward and looked down at the empty window with jagged pieces of glass around the frame. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Yes, you did. All your weight.”
“Hope you’re not expecting me to pay for that.”
“Forget it. I was tired of rolling it down anyway….”
“Coleman!”
