Coconut Cowboy (26 page)

Serge turned to Steve. “I see you got my text.”

“I don't know how you pulled this off, but it's a thing of beauty. We should work together again.”

“Something tells me this is a one-­off.” Another quick push, this time from Serge, and into the hole went Steve.

Serge shined his flashlight, illuminating a standoff: Steve's back against one of the walls, aiming his pistol, and Jabow with his recovered .44, aiming from the other side.

“How's it going down there?” yelled Serge. “Looks like you're in a bit of a pickle.”

“Fucker!”

“Hold that thought,” said Serge. “Coleman, you know what to do.”

Serge waited patiently until hearing several gas engines behind the house start up in succession. He went to the kitchen and found a thick outdoor extension cord snaking through the window. It had a switch in the middle. Serge walked backward, unrolling the wire until he returned to the pit.

“What's that noise?” yelled Vernon.

“The generators,” said Serge.

“Why do you need generators?”

“Because geology is a fascinating science,” said Serge, sitting on the floor with his feet hanging over the edge of the hole. “I got to talking with Peter this morning and he taught me so much, like how they do inspections to determine if the ground is stable enough to lay a foundation. Have you noticed those new metal rods stuck all around the perimeter of the hole near your feet?”

“What are they?”

“I came in this morning and installed them,” said Serge. “I know, trespassing. Guilty as charged. But science can't wait for the law to catch up. Anyway, one of the inspection tests is soil resistivity. Here's the fun part: Dirt is highly resistant to voltage, so you need a whole bunch of electricity just to get a half-­decent reading. But electricity also is quite lazy and constantly looking for alternate paths of least resistance. Did you know a human body contains so much water and salt and other electrolytes that it's a rather good conductor?”

Serge grabbed the cord and flicked the switch. Electricity did what it does best.

Screams of agony echoed out of the pit. Then:

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang . . .

Steve and Jabow were vibrating like robots gone haywire, involuntarily emptying their guns with spasming arms. The pistols wildly missed their marks and sprayed unstable dirt walls that began to give way.

“Yowza!” Serge quickly yanked his legs up. “Didn't see that coming.”

He took off running as an aggressive dust cloud chased him out the front door.

Coleman came trotting around the corner from the backyard. “What happened?”

“Another cave-­in,” said Serge. “Glad I tested to see if it was safe.”

 

Chapter
THIRTY-SEVEN

MAIN STREET

C
lowns twisted balloon animals. Contestants sat with hands behind their backs, facedown in blueberry pies. Raffle tickets were sold to win a year of oil changes. Tubas sparkled in the sun as a high school band marched past Lead Belly's. Followed by a chopper.

“Parading without a permit!” exclaimed Serge. Then a boyish smile. “I've always wanted to say that.”

The motorcycle pulled over to the sidewalk, where the Pugliese family was waiting after getting the all-­clear phone call back at the motel. “Didn't I tell you everything would turn out fine?”

“What happened?” asked Mary.

“You don't want to know.” Serge dismounted and locked up his helmet. “But you're totally safe now.”

“Are you sure?” said Peter. “I mean, is it wise for us to be out in public like this so soon?”

“Absolutely,” said Serge. “It would be a crying shame to miss the rest of Founders' Day. I
love
small-­town jamborees. It's the perfect thing to get your minds off what you've gone through.”

“We're just relieved our son's safe.” Mary gave him another too-­tight squeeze, and Matt had the expression of a small dog tolerating overaffection.

“Yes,” said Peter. “Thanks for looking after Matt.”

Coleman pointed. “Beer tent.”

“Well . . .” Serge waved as he headed off behind his friend. “Got to keep an eye on this one. Enjoy yourselves.”

They did.

Candy apples, guess your weight, throwing Ping-­Pong balls into goldfish bowls. Overhead, an aerobatic plane performed somersaults to the delight of the crowd. Workers began loading a platform of fifty vertical tubes for the evening's fireworks display.

The afternoon wore on. A clown chased Coleman out from behind a face-­painting booth, but his big shoes wouldn't let him keep up.
“If I catch you smoking dope again . . . !”

Volunteers loaded pigs into starting gates. Serge leaned against the railing near the finish line.

“And they're off! . . .”

Coleman arrived out of breath and collapsed against the fence.

“What just happened to you?” asked Serge.

Coleman grabbed his heart and panted. “There are good clowns and scary clowns.”

A herd of pigs ran by.

“Serge . . .”

He turned around. “Mary. Is everyone having a great time?”

“Have you seen Matt?”

“No, why?”

“He's been gone since lunch.”

“It's a fair, and he's a kid,” said Serge. “The whole object is to avoid your parents.”

“I'm just worried because it's so soon after . . . you know.”

Serge nodded. “You're a good mother. I'll find him for you. I'm guessing his phone is GPS enabled?”

She nodded.

“Do you know his password?”

“I think he uses
mpugliese
for just about everything. Lowercase, no spaces.”

Serge tapped it into his own cell and hit Find My Phone. “It worked. I'll be right back.”

He followed the tracking program up the street like a divining rod. The blue dot on his small screen brought him to the sidewalk in front of Lead Belly's. He went inside. A roomful of happy diners in bibs. No Matt. He went through the employees-­only swinging doors to the kitchen.

“You can't come in here!”

“Orders from the mayor,” said Serge. “I'm looking for a missing child.”

“Haven't seen one.”

Serge check his phone again. “Is this the whole restaurant?”

“Yeah, I mean there's a storeroom, but nobody's been in there today.”

“Thanks.” Serge wandered out behind the kitchen and down a hallway. He checked the men's and women's rooms. Nothing. By process of elimination, he arrived at a final door. Locked. But flimsy. He put his shoulder into it, and the wood easily popped open.

“Matt, what are you doing back here?”

“Serge . . .”

“You've got your mother worried sick!”

“Serge . . .”

The door closed behind them, and Serge turned around.

A man in a button-­down oxford shirt pointed a gun.

Serge rubbed his chin. “Did I forget someone again? Why do all my adventures end like this?”

“It's Senator Pratchett to you.”

Serge smacked himself in the forehead. “Of course!”

“I got a call from the mayor on his way to Peter's house, and when I didn't hear back, I drove out there myself.” Pratchett stepped closer and stiffened his arm. “You've ruined everything!”

“We can talk this out,” said Serge.

“Too late for that!”

M
ore balloons hung atop a sign on the north side of town.

W
ELCOME TO
W
O
RLD-­
F
AMOUS
W
OBBLY
S
PRINGS.

Children shrieked and laughed as families splashed in the town's highly touted attraction. The cave divers not so much.

Ripples filled the water as small arms flailed. The ripples got bigger. Then a shaking sensation. Parents looked up and saw small rocks crumble from the walls of the grotto.

“Everyone out of the water!”

The last child was pulled to land as larger rocks crashed into the spring. Then a massive shudder.

Underneath the sinkhole, a huge slab of limestone collapsed all the way to the aquifer, and joyous cave divers were sucked deep into the earth.

The tremor was felt all the way to Main Street, but it was mixed in with so much else that nobody gave a thought. Soon it couldn't be ignored. The festivities ceased as revelers stopped where they stood, mumbling to each other.

A heavy lurch silenced everything.

They all waited and wondered.

Then a tremendous jolt.

“Look! The barbershop!”

It sank in slow motion, red-­striped pole and all, until there was nothing left. Followed in equally slow cadence by the pharmacy, hardware store and Shorty's Garage.

The crowd was no longer quiet or still. They ran screaming past Lead Belly's, where boxes fell off shelves in the storeroom.

“What the hell's going on?” yelled Pratchett.

“It's a sinkhole,” shouted Serge. “We're going down! . . . Matt, come on!”

“Don't move another inch!” said the senator.

“You can shoot me outside,” said Serge. “But we're all dead if we stay here!”

“Wait up!”

The senator chased them into the pandemonium of the street, fighting against the oncoming human tide. “I'll shoot!”

“Matt, this way!”

Pratchett quickly gained ground because he didn't mind shoving children and pregnant women. A clear shot was about to open up . . .

Lead Belly's crumbled next, then the old Railroad Hotel. A fireworks mortar accidentally fired sideways, freaking out livestock that burst through a gate.

The stampeding crowd screeched to a halt and reversed direction.
“Pigs!”

The senator's finger began pulling the trigger just as he was overrun, first by ­people, then swine. He got up. “Where'd they go?”

Another fireworks shell went off. All the explosives technicians leaped off the platform and ran for cover. The remaining forty-­eight cannons fired in unison at random angles, blanketing the sky with brightly colored explosions.

Up in the wild blue yonder: “What on earth?” An aerobatic pilot flew into an unexplained storm of chromatic flak.

The earth swallowed a red caboose. A parachute popped open as a smoking aircraft did loop-­de-­loops on the horizon. Pigs circled the block, from their race training, chasing ­people back the other way.

Pratchett spotted Serge and Matt again, hiding behind a row of newspaper boxes on the corner. A sadistic grin as he headed across the street. “I can
seeeeeeeee youuuuuuuu
!”

He stood in the middle of the street with a wide-­open shot behind the boxes. Serge arose with his hands in the air.

“Can you find it in your heart? For Founders' Day?”

Pratchett aimed the pistol again as a deafening buzz fell over the street.

The senator looked up—­
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
—­straight into the propeller end of a nose-­diving stunt plane.

It finally became still as Serge surveyed the dusty, flaming post-­apocalyptic wasteland.

“Just like I planned.”

 

Epilogue

DELAND, FLORIDA

A
quaint two-­story bungalow with ample acreage sat on the outskirts of a non-­scandalous small town. A woman in the kitchen set a rhubarb pie on the window sill and thought of Norman Rockwell. The home had recently been purchased with an insurance settlement over a sinkhole. She heard someone coming up the driveway.

The front door opened.

“Honey, I'm home.”

Mary Pugliese trotted out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel.

She gave her husband a quick kiss. “I see you have a guest.”

“I'd like you to meet Billy,” said Peter. “And this is my wife, Mary.”

Billy gave a respectful nod. “Ma'am.”

“I know I'm dropping this on you,” said Peter. “But if it's okay, I'd like Billy to stay with us for a while. Since Matt is away at college, the house is kind of empty.”

“I'm sure that will be fine.” Mary smiled at the young man. “Peter, can I talk to you for a second?”

“Sure thing.” He looked back at Billy. “Be right back.”

Another polite nod.

The ­couple met privately in the hallway. “You're bringing home strays now?” She wasn't angry, but, well, it was just unexpected.

“He needs to get his GED, then hoping to attend trade school.”

“What's the connection with this kid?” she asked. “You old war buddies or something?”

“Something like that.”

“I'm guessing there's quite a story behind this.”

“Oh, there's a story all right,” said Peter.

“Then why don't you tell me over dinner?”

Peter sniffed the air. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Your new favorite.” Mary called down the hall: “Billy, why don't you join us for dinner.”

The kitchen table was the kind of distressed wood now known as shabby chic. The two men took seats, and Mary opened the oven. Soon it was all bibs and ribs.

“Ma'am, this dinner is delicious.”

“Why thank you, Billy. More iced tea?”

He nodded with a mouthful of black-­eyed peas.

“Okay, then, Peter. I'm ready to be knocked out.” Mary refilled her own glass of tea and squeezed a lemon wedge. “What's this big story of yours?”

Peter finished swallowing and wiped his face with a napkin. “It all started a month ago during the last full moon. That was the evening, the investigators later told us, that Vernon and his gang went out to our house in the middle of the night. Remember?”

“Quite vividly.”

“They said that particular full moon was a blue moon. Everyone's heard the term a million times, but I never knew what it meant until I checked it out on the Internet. Whoever came up with the cliché ‘once in a blue moon' could have simply said ‘every two or three years' . . .”

“The story?” said his wife.

“Oh, right. So just after dark . . .”

THE NIGHT OF THE BLUE MOON

Two shadows crept across the lawn behind an isolated farmhouse, and ducked under crime tape. Peter unlocked the back door with his own key. It was safe to turn on the flashlights. “This way.”

The pair reached the edge of a sinkhole where the bedroom had been. Two heavy canvas duffel bags hit the floor with a clang of metal.

Peter unzipped one and removed coils of recently purchased mountain-­climbing rope. Then he pulled out a contraption that was some odd configuration of steel wheels.

“I don't know if I'm strong enough to handle the line,” said the second man. “Wouldn't want to be responsible for hurting you.”

“Won't be a problem,” Peter said as he strapped himself into his harness. “That's not like the old pulley. It's a
compound
pulley.”

A facial reaction of non-­understanding.

“Billy, that means it uses physics to divide the weight,” said Peter. “You'll have to pull four times as much rope, but it'll only be a quarter of the normal weight.”

Peter snapped a clasp to his harness and smiled at his new partner. “All right, Billy, now the easy part. Grab hold of that line.”

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure thing.”

“Why are you so nice to me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You call me Billy.”

“That's your name.”

“Nobody else calls me that. It's always been ‘Slower.' And you never say I'm stupid and stuff.”

“Because you're not stupid.”

He looked askance. “I know what I am.”

“Hey, Billy, look at me,” said Peter. “You can't be what other ­people say you are, especially if they're unkind. I know you. You're a really good guy.”

Billy looked down.

“Don't go tearing up on me. We've got work to do.”

Billy wiped his eyes. “Sorry.”

“And don't apologize.”

“I never thanked you for saving my life. I don't think the others would have.”

“We'll talk more about this later. Just don't let go of that line.”

Peter stepped off the edge and swung gently over the center of the hole. He slowly descended as his helmet light split the darkness.

Billy kept letting out rope until it went slack. “You okay?”

“Just reached bottom.” The shovel came off his belt and dirt began to fly.

Nothing for the longest time as Billy concentrated on that line. He thought he heard a noise. Yes, he definitely did. Whatever it was kept growing louder until it echoed down the hole. Peter stopped digging. “Billy, what's that sound?”

Before he got an answer, the room above lit up. “Are those headlights?”

Billy set the line down and ran to the front windows. “Oh no.” He raced back to the hole. “They're here.”

“Who is?”

“All of them. Vernon, Jabow, the rest.”

“Shoot.” Adrenaline ran options through Peter's brain in microseconds. He pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Darn, no reception down here . . . Billy, this is very important. You have to catch this and make sure you don't fall.”

“Okay.”

Peter wound up and pitched the phone hard. It fumbled off Billy's fingers.

“Sorry, it fell back in the hole.”

Peter's helmet lantern searched the bottom. “Where is it? . . .”

Outside, a small platoon with shovels marched toward the house.

“What if something goes wrong like last time?” said Jabow.

“Nothing will go wrong,” said Vernon, ducking under the crime tape.

“Then why don't
you
go down the hole?”

“Because I'm the supervisor . . .”

Inside, Peter reached back again and hurled. The phone flew over Billy's head.

Crash
.

“Did it break?” yelled Peter.

“Hold on, the battery just popped out.”
Snap
. “Still works.”

“Listen carefully,” said Peter. “You need to run out the back door and hide. And after you do, I need you to dial . . .”

A crowbar cracked the frame of the front door.

“The bolt's still in,” said Jabow.

“Try again.”

This time the wood splintered but good. Vernon led the way with a Rayovac flashlight until they all stood at the edge of the hole. “Luckily the rope's still here. Pull the line back up.”

Otis gave a tug. Then harder. “It's stuck on something.”

Vernon shook his head in disgust, then tilted it. “Jabow?”

Jabow spit in his palms and rubbed them together, then grabbed the line. Several grunts. “He's right. It won't budge.”

“I'll see what it is.” Vernon crawled to the edge of the hole and reached his hand down with the flashlight. The beam hit the far wall and began sweeping toward Peter, who cringed as he delicately eased the clasp off his harness. The beam reached his feet.

“Vernon, the line's free.”

The flashlight turned off. “You're up to bat.”

Jabow climbed in a harness. “Where do I snap the clasp to the rope? . . . Dang, it's on backwards.” Another fitting of the harness. “Now my legs are in the wrong holes.” Another attempt. “That's no good either . . .”

“What's taking so damn long?” said Vernon. “Slower could do it faster.”

“You want to try?”

“Every extra second is more risk of being spotted!”

“Good news.” He fastened the clamp to his properly arranged harness and swung out over the hole.

Otis began lowering him. Ten feet, fifteen feet . . .

A voice echoed up out of the depression. “You better not drop me.”

Otis dropped him.

“Ow, damn!”

Jabow stood and arched his back.

“What's going on down there?” called Vernon.

Jabow's head swiveled in darkness. “I lost my flashlight.”

“So find it—­ . . . Uh-­oh.”

“What is it?” yelled Jabow, staring up as the room above grew brighter.

“Headlights,” said Vernon. “Somebody's outside.”

They all ran to the windows. “Shit, it's the sheriff,” said Otis. “What's he doing here?”

“Quick, get Jabow out of the hole!”

Three ­people grabbed the line and reeled hard. Jabow's feet leaped off the ground.

Dirt flew as Peter sat up quickly from his self-­burial spot.

Sheriff Highsmith and three deputies came through the door. “I'd ask who's in here, but judging by the cars in the yard, I'd be wasting my breath. Are you messing with a crime scene that's still under dispute with the circuit judge?”

“Sheriff, no, we heard there might be a break-­in, so we came out to investigate,” said Vernon.

“Yeah, I heard the same thing,” said Highsmith.

“You did?”

The sheriff looked at the still-­swinging rope and the harness around Jabow's waist. He laughed inside. “Looks like someone busted up that front door pretty good with a crowbar. Wonder who it could be.”

Vernon itched his neck. “Us, too. So we're just going to take a look around.”

“No objection from me.”

“Okay, then . . .” Vernon smiled.

“Okay . . .” The sheriff smiled back.

They continued standing in place, silently grinning.

“So we'll take it from here,” said Vernon.

“Go right ahead.”

“You're staying?”

“Thought I'd stick around and learn from the best,” said the sheriff. “There isn't any particular reason you want me to leave, is there?”

“Of course not.”

Vernon headed toward another bedroom, followed by a whispering Jabow. “There's no way we can do anything with the sheriff snooping around.”

“Don't you think I know that?” Vernon checked a bathroom. “Let's act like we're clearing the house, then come back later.”

The mayor returned to the living room. “Looks like everything's in order. Whoever was here ain't no more, so we'll just skedaddle.”

Highsmith tipped his Smokey the Bear hat. “Give my best to the missus.”

The brooding gang slunk out the door, followed by the deputies, and the sheriff was left alone.

In the crawl space under the house, Billy lay on his back with a cell phone that had recently dialed 911 about a burglary in progress. He stared up through slits in the floorboards as the sheriff's shoes slowly creaked toward the I-­beam.

Highsmith's eyes moved from the pulley down into the hole. “What the heck is so important down there?”

BACK TO THE PRESENT

Mary Pugliese leaned over the kitchen table on her elbows. “So what happened?”

“Let's take a walk.”

All three of them went outside to the driveway and circled around behind Peter's car. He popped the trunk.

“Holy cow!” said Mary. “How much money is that?”

“Four million, give or take. Our share is two.” Peter patted Billy on the shoulder. “You're a rich man.”

“I still want to get my GED and go to trade school.”

“Good for you.”

Mary was phasing in and out of shock. “This can't be legal . . . We'll be arrested! . . . Where did it come from?”

“The hole. Before that, it's just unsubstantiated speculation according to the law.” Peter slammed the trunk. “We hired an attorney, who said the issue is rampant in Florida because ­people are always ditching money and other contraband, and innocent ­people are constantly finding it in the cushions of a love seat from a yard sale. We just follow his instructions to report it with the proper authorities, and if nobody comes forward within a specified period of time—­which my lawyer says never happens in these circumstances—­it's ours.”

“I need to go inside and sit down,” said Mary.

“I need to get this to a bank.”

M
att Pugliese returned to New Jersey.

His thesis wasn't officially rejected. But the ethics committee strongly suggested he withdraw it under grave overtones of making up shit.

“But it's all true.”

“Many of the details, especially some of the more arcane history and culture, don't show up anywhere, even on the Internet.”

“I thought you told us not to use the Internet for research.”

“It would be better if you remained quiet.”

“But it all came from this academic in Florida doing firsthand research,” said Matt. “That's why I flew down there. My extra effort must count for something.”

“Son, we contacted Florida authorities, and your source's website is connected to a suspect in multiple homicides.”

“What?”

But even before returning to Prince­ton, Matt had already decided to change majors. He withdrew the thesis without regret and walked across campus.

A week later he was back in another imposing university office.

A professor reclined in his chair and flipped pages. “Are you sure you have the correct department?”