The Pope of Palm Beach Read online

  “You’re allowed to honk after your team wins the championship,” said Serge. “This is bigger. I was just privileged to follow in the footsteps of the giant Stetson, renowned author and earlier chronicler of Florida folklore, who studied under Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings of The Yearling fame, and traveled the state extensively with Zora Neale Hurston of Their Eyes Were Watching God fame. That’s a rarefied club, Florida’s version of expatriate Paris.”

  Honk! Honk! Honk! . . .

  “Serge, you’re just attracting drug dealers. They’re starting to block the street.”

  “Don’t be so quick to judge.” Serge rolled down his window. “They could simply be history buffs with lots of underwear showing. I’ll have a little chat to share the special word . . .”

  . . . The Nova’s passengers ducked as they screeched away from the mob in the street.

  “Told you,” said Coleman, licking the suction cup and sticking it back on the windshield. “They tried to take my cat toy.”

  “At least now I know that drug dealers aren’t down with the history fairy.” He cut the wheel as they approached a stucco structure painted a sweet-potato shade of orange. “The House of Meats is still here! Our family’s old butcher shop! This was still in the sentimental, small-town America era before supermarkets! Nothing says ‘land of the free and home of the brave’ like having to go to a separate building to buy liver.”

  “Now a Jamaican place,” Coleman said as it went by. “There’s a handwritten sign in the window for whole pig.”

  Serge uncrumpled a scrap of paper from his pocket.

  “What’s that?” asked Coleman.

  “I wrote down a second address from another old phone book in the library, this one 1986.” Serge smoothed it out in the middle of the steering wheel. “I told you how much I dug Kenneth Reese’s books. He had this recurring character who was an actual person in real life, a legendary local surfer called the Pope of Palm Beach.”

  “The Pope?” said Coleman. “Jesus!”

  “His full name was Darby Pope.” Serge crossed over to the east side of U.S. 1. “Tragically killed under hazy circumstances at the port in the late eighties.”

  The Nova turned onto a quiet street south of Blue Heron near the bridge. Royal palms and bottle palms and fishtail palms grew wild among the low-slung row of ranch houses with bright white tile roofs. The sore thumb in the middle was an older wooden home that had survived the demolition of the fifties. Its dark brown planks were unpainted, lightly sealed with varnish. The front yard had become a feral pasture of grass and weeds.

  The Nova rolled up in the driveway. “I called the number from the phone book, but only got an answering machine message from Guido Lopez.”

  “Who’s Guido Lopez?” asked Coleman.

  “The person whose lucky day this is.” Serge hopped out of the car. “Let’s rock!”

  “Give me another second.” Jingle, jingle. He snatched the cat toy off the windshield. “I’m ready.”

  They headed up the stone path to the front door.

  “I’ll give it one last try for the day,” said Serge. “If these folks aren’t totally blown away to hear they’re living in the former home of Darby Pope, then they’re dead people with a pulse.”

  He stepped up to the door.

  Knock, knock, knock . . .

  Part Two

  Chapter 30

  Riviera Beach

  Kenneth Reese awoke from a light nap in his lounge chair.

  Knock, knock, knock . . .

  He sprang up and grabbed the rifle. “What the hell was that?”

  Harder knocking. Bang, bang, bang . . .

  What the heck? Nobody had come knocking at his door in years. Well, not nobody. There were the occasional solicitors and urban missionaries who left literature for discount carpet cleaning and the kingdom of God. Except it wasn’t unique to his home; those people were hitting all the houses on the street.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! . . .

  But this kind of prolonged knocking was specific. Kenny crept slowly to the door and pressed his eye to the peephole. He saw a giant eyeball staring back.

  “Aaahhh!” He tumbled backward with his rifle.

  Serge looked at Coleman. “I just heard someone inside. They’re deliberately not answering and rejecting the Good News. They’re not getting off that easily!” He moved sideways from the door.

  Bang! Bang! Bang! . . .

  Kenny tiptoed to a window, lifted the towel and parted the blinds. Serge was staring directly back. “Shit!” He let the blinds snap shut. “What do I do now?”

  Serge pointed at the window. “Someone was just peeking at us.”

  “What do we do now?” asked Coleman.

  “Follow me.”

  They walked around the side of the house. Serge loped like a ballerina and sliced the air with karate hands.

  “Why are you doing that?” asked Coleman.

  Serge gestured along the edge of the crawl space. “Look at all those surveillance microphones,” he whispered, pirouetting and high-stepping. Chop, chop. “Something weird is going on.”

  “Microphones?” Coleman bent down. Burrrrrrrp. “Sorry.”

  They heard the belch amplified through a stereo from inside the house, then a paranoid shriek.

  “This is more urgent than I thought,” said Serge. “Someone in there might need the Good News and my professional lifestyle assistance.”

  They reached the back steps. Coleman bent down again. “Hey, Serge, look what I almost stepped on.”

  Snap.

  “Owwwww!”

  “Hold still.” Serge pried off the mousetrap.

  “My thumb’s bleeding.”

  “Just wipe it on your shirt. It’ll blend with the other blood.” Serge climbed the steps and inspected the doorframe. “Reinforced steel to house the dead bolts. No entry here. Let’s find a window that doesn’t have bars . . .”

  Inside, Kenny followed the sounds around the perimeter of the house, tiptoeing with the gun. It had been a brief glimpse out the front blinds, and he had expected assassins to look different, especially the chubby one.

  He heard a snap. That would be a screen popping loose. He ran to the window over the kitchen sink. Shoot, it was so small and high off the ground that he’d never considered installing burglar bars. He opened the cabinet doors under the sink.

  “Serge, my back is getting tired,” Coleman said on his hands and knees. “You’re heavy.”

  “Stop whining. I’m almost in.” He worked diligently with a thin metal shim.

  Another pop.

  “It’s open.” He raised the window and squirmed through the tight opening, grappling over the sink and falling headfirst in a tucked roll on the floor. “Hello? Anyone home? I know you’re in here!”

  “What about me?” Coleman yelled from the backyard.

  “You’ll never fit. Go back to the side porch and don’t pick up anything.” Serge went to the door and undid all the locks, turning the knob. “Welcome! Watch your step. It’s dark and the light switches don’t work.”

  Coleman entered with his cat toy.

  Snap.

  “Aaahhh! My leg!”

  “What now?”

  “A better mousetrap.”

  Serge pulled down a towel and opened the blinds. “More like a bear trap. I have to find whoever’s in the house. Stay right here.”

  “That was my plan.” Jingle, jingle.

  Serge wandered room to room. “Helllllooooo? Guido Lopez? There’s nothing to fear. Everything’s normal. It’s just the history fairy . . .”

  “Serge . . .”

  “Not now, I’m busy.” Another room. Opening closet doors, checking the shower. “Guido? Are you there? This isn’t healthy.”

  “Serge . . .”

  He came back into the kitchen. “What’s so important?”

  Coleman nodded toward the stove. A rifle leaned against the counter. Serge’s eyes lowered. He quickly opened the cabinet doors under the sink a
nd jumped back.

  Hands shot up to shield a face. Someone curled in a ball around the gooseneck plumbing. “Don’t hurt me.”

  “Nobody’s going to hurt you, Guido.” Serge offered a hand. “We’re pacifists. We only fight people who claim they’re bigger pacifists.”

  Serge carefully helped the trembling resident out from under the sink. “Guido, what were you doing under there?”

  “Who’s Guido?”

  “You are,” said Serge. He walked over to the phone and pressed a button on the answering machine.

  “You’ve reached Guido Lopez. Please leave a message after the beep.” Beep.

  “Oh yeah.” The resident nodded. “I get a lot of nuisance calls.”

  “Well, all that’s behind you because this is about to become the luckiest day of your life! Are you ready? Hold on to your hat!” Serge had a painfully wide grin as he hopped up and down. “You’re living in the home of real-life literary character Darby Pope! Isn’t that super?”

  The homeowner’s eyes practically popped out of his head.

  “What?” said Serge. “Not super?”

  “Darby Pope!” exclaimed the resident. “You knew Darby? He was my best friend!”

  “No, I didn’t know Darby. Just read about him in these books, but— . . . wait a minute. You said he was your best friend?” Serge stepped forward to study the man’s face, mentally comparing it to book-jacket photos. “This actually might be the luckiest day of my life. You wouldn’t by any chance happen to be . . . Kenneth Reese?”

  “Okay, you found me,” said Kenny, dropping down into a chair at the table. “But I didn’t do anything! And I swear I never told anyone!”

  “Stop! Slow down! Back up, and don’t be a spaz.” Serge grabbed the chair across from him. “Now what exactly are you talking about?”

  Kenny sniffled. “You’re not here to kill me?”

  “Hell no! Besides the pacifist thing, you’re one of my favorite authors!”

  “You aren’t pulling my leg?” Kenny uncoiled and momentarily set his head on the table. “That’s a relief.”

  “Kenny! Why did you ever stop writing?” Serge looked around the home’s interior. “More important: What’s happened to you? You’re living like a nut.”

  “Serge,” said Coleman, “can you help get the bear trap off me so I can enjoy my cat toy more?”

  “Not now! We’re in the presence of greatness.” He faced Kenny again. “What’s the deal?”

  “This is on the level? You really are just a reader?”

  “Only your number one fan!”

  A heaving sigh of resignation. “Why not? After all these years, I’ve kept it in so long . . .” And Kenny began giving Serge the short version, which became the long version.

  The Greek tragicomedy wrapped up after dark, and Serge whistled. “That’s some story! But don’t you worry another moment. Serge and Coleman are on the case now.”

  “What case?”

  “Fixing your life.”

  “But I don’t need my life fixed.”

  Serge laughed heartily. “No offense, but ask yourself: ‘What’s wrong with this picture?’”

  Jingle, jingle.

  “Kenny, first we have to get you writing again.”

  “I’ve been writing.”

  “When?”

  “This whole time.”

  “But I haven’t seen any new books at the store since Hang Ten.”

  “Oh, I don’t get them published,” said Kenny. “I just write. If you write, it’s what you do.”

  “Holy moly!” said Serge. “You’ve got unpublished manuscripts lying around?”

  “A few.”

  “How many is a few?”

  “Maybe a dozen.”

  A gasp as Serge’s head rolled back toward the ceiling. He sprang to his feet. “You have to show me! Right now!”

  Kenny shrugged and walked over to a cabinet, pulling out three full drawers in succession and leaving them open. Serge grabbed his own head, then seized one of the piles of pages and ran back to the table.

  “I need light.”

  Kenny lit the kerosene lantern as Serge began flipping through the pile of loose typed pages, his jaw falling lower and lower. Hours passed. Midnight came and went. Serge stopped and stretched. “This is fantastic stuff! Even better than the old books! You have to get this published as soon as possible!”

  “No way.”

  “But the public is hungry!” Serge grabbed the manuscript. “Be right back. I’m getting this out to the masses . . .”

  Chapter 31

  Publish or Perish

  Kenny barred the door.

  “Stand aside,” said Serge. “This is for your own good.”

  “Weren’t you listening to that story I just told you?” said Kenny. “Somehow I skated out of that whole mess, and nobody has bothered me for almost three decades. Only bad things can come of attracting any attention to myself. And publishing a book about smuggling at the port couldn’t be any more attention.”

  “We’ll table that topic for later, but don’t think I’m done.” Serge got up and looked around at the towel-covered windows. “I have to get you back in proper mental health. I’m a professional.”

  “Sort of like a psychiatrist?”

  “Emphasis on sort of.” Serge picked up the lantern and walked around like a railroad engineer. “So you mean to tell me you’ve stayed inside all these years?”

  “I used to put on a big floppy hat and sunglasses in the middle of the night if I really needed something from the convenience store. But too many police are out at that hour, and I haven’t renewed my license in forever, so I knocked that off as too risky. My nerves.”

  “But how does the whole thing work?” asked Serge. “It doesn’t seem possible.”

  “I still get royalties from the books that pay for everything,” said Kenny. “My lawyer takes care of the rest: banking, taxes, lawn service once in a while. He had a dentist sign a confidentiality agreement, and I pay a lot extra for house calls to get my teeth cleaned. And a doctor for physicals, but those are the only people I see. I didn’t realize how much equipment they have to bring.”

  “What about everyday needs, like groceries and mail and the all-important new underwear when it’s time?”

  “The lawyer has an assistant who brings things by. After all these years, I’m on my twelfth deliverer . . .”

  Serge jumped up as he heard amplified footsteps from the microphones outside. “What’s that?”

  “Just the assistant,” said Kenny. “Leaves brown bags on the steps.”

  Serge ran to the door and swiftly flung it open. “Hello, assistant!”

  A woman was leaning down with paper bags. She leaped back and grabbed her heart. “You scared the shit out of me! . . . Who are you?”

  “Kenny’s new life coach.” He waved urgently. “Come on in!”

  She shook her head. “I’m not supposed to. Just drop the bags and avoid contact. Strict instructions.”

  “Kenny,” said Serge. “Tell her it’s okay.”

  “It’s okay,” called an unseen voice.

  The woman tentatively crossed the threshold. “Actually, I’ve been making these deliveries for so long that I was dying to know what was going on inside.”

  Jingle, jingle.

  She looked down. “Then again . . .”

  Serge had entered a rare laconic moment.

  “What are you staring at?” asked the assistant.

  “You,” said Serge. “You’re a mature woman.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Most guys are only interested in giggling young twits. But you’re the full course: intelligent, poised, self-assured enough to wear hospital scrubs and a ponytail and not dye that coal-black hair blond. Kind of a Zeta-Jones thing going on. Right in the wheelhouse of any thinking man.”

  “You don’t even know me.”

  “And unfortunately I won’t get the chance,” said Serge. “If
I didn’t have this zany travel schedule, I’d ask you out right now! Spare no expense! Because the women who don’t carry themselves like they deserve to be pampered are the ones who deserve it most. We’d form deep emotional connections by visiting state parks, landmarks, galleries, reading the same books together. You’re not the first woman a guy would pick out in a nightclub, but you have the kind of disarming cuteness and substance of thought that lives on long after the first night of sex and the clumsy morning that follows with fuzzy teeth. But as I said, I’m a ramblin’ kind of guy, so you’ll have to wait for the next man just like me to come along. Sorry.”

  “Do you always talk like this?”

  “Life’s short. What’s your name?”

  “Chris.”

  “Chris, I have some publishing business to discuss with Kenny.” He took the bags from her arms. “So you’d better be going before you torture me further with beguilement.”

  “Hey, no problem.”

  She walked briskly out the door and back to her car. “I thought it might be a little strange in there . . .” But as she drove from traffic light to traffic light in the loneliness of two a.m., she found herself thinking more and more about the impromptu visit.

  Back inside, Serge called out from the living room. “Are these Darby’s boards up there in the rafters?”

  Kenny came around the corner. “Most of them. The last one’s mine. You would have liked him.”

  “I said I didn’t know him, but we actually did meet once.”

  “You did? When?”

  “At Trapper Nelson’s,” said Serge, moving on to inspect the classic titles in the bookcase. “I was just a little kid and stole a canoe at Jonathan Dickinson, then paddled upriver to see what everyone was talking about. Turned into a big commotion because my parents reported a lost kid at the park, which wasn’t accurate because I knew exactly where I was the whole time . . . Anyway, Darby came along—”

  “Wait,” said Kenny. “You were that little kid? I was with Darby that day.”

  “You were?”

  “Yeah, and Darby called the rangers on the radio to say he was bringing you back. But you took off first and we had a devil of a time rounding you up. You were a slippery little sucker.”