The Pope of Palm Beach Page 29

  Chris sat up and looked back. “Are they gone?”

  “Not for long.”

  “But you lost them.” The rumble of the engine suddenly dropped in pitch and volume. “Why are you slowing down?”

  “Have to,” said Serge. Overhanging vegetation closed in on both sides of the boat. “Drafting’s touchy from here on.”

  Two consecutive hairpin bends in the river.

  “Now you’re stopping and coasting.”

  Serge pointed ahead at the dark forms of water plants and a grassy flat in the middle of the river. “It’s unnavigable beyond there.”

  “You deliberately took us up a dead end?”

  “I took them up a dead end.”

  The skiff drifted toward the left bank as Chris strained to see. “Is that some kind of falling-down dock?”

  “Trapper’s old place.”

  “You mean the myth I heard about as a kid?”

  “Everyone ashore.” Serge helped her by the hand. “We don’t have much time.”

  “But why’d you bring us here?”

  “Home-field advantage.”

  A V-hull slowly idled through the branches. A search beam swept the water.

  “Why are we stopping?”

  “We didn’t stop,” said Salenca. “It’s too shallow. We just hit bottom.” The searchlight found something in the distance. “There’s their boat!”

  “But we’re stuck. What do we do?”

  “It’s also shallow enough to walk,” said Salenca. “Afraid of a little water?”

  They all hopped over the side with a series of splashes. Single file, trudging through the muck toward a decrepit landing.

  “Aaaahhhh!” Tito screamed from the back of the line.

  They spun around. “Where’d he go?”

  Tito’s face popped out of the water for another scream. Then he was pulled away and under.

  “What happened to Tito?”

  “Alligator,” said Salenca. “Can’t help that now. Keep moving.”

  The rest of them took off in a motivated dash through the river until they made it up the bank at Trapper’s . . .

  . . . Chris raised her head. “I just heard something.”

  “They’re coming,” said Serge. “You’re all concealed in the woods behind the old animal cages, the best hiding spot on the whole property. Just remain still and quiet until I come back. Take this.”

  “I can’t take your gun.”

  “Sure you can,” said Serge. “I have a spare.”

  “No, I mean I could never shoot anyone.”

  Serge wrapped her fingers around the pistol’s grip. “From my experience, if you have to, you will. Now, whatever else happens, do not leave this spot.”

  “Wait,” said Chris.

  But Serge was gone.

  Salenca led the remnants of his crew into the murky compound of primitive shelters and wildlife pens, crisscrossed with trapping trails through the hostile Florida brush.

  He stopped in a clearing and faced a pair of his men. We’re really down to three? He did the math. They’d started with five, but left one back to watch the Mercedes, and then Tito. Salenca was getting seriously pissed off. “Victor! Pablo! Spread out! Kill them all!”

  They crept in various directions with guns drawn, jumping at every noise—insects, frogs, owls. Serge sprinted silently at his fleet-footed best up one of the trails, barely making a sound. “If I remember Trapper correctly . . .” He stood at the edge of another clearing and threw a rock. Vague movement. “There they are.”

  Serge retraced his path fifty yards and stopped. There were only so many trails for them to check. He waited patiently. Soon, clumsy footsteps and a shadow. Serge picked up a thick twig and snapped it.

  “What was that?”

  Serge watched the shadow walk off in the wrong direction.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” He snapped another twig.

  The shadow came back and veered off another errant way.

  “It can’t be this difficult,” Serge said to himself, cupping hands around his mouth. “Hey! Over here!”

  He took off sprinting down the trail, bullets hitting trees on both sides. Good, Serge thought, he’s shooting. That’ll do the trick.

  It did. Everyone and everything at Trapper’s perked up at the sound of the gunfire.

  Serge reached the edge of the previous clearing and shinnied up the nearest tree.

  Victor stopped and stared ahead at something coming toward him. “What the hell is that?”

  “Wild boar,” Serge yelled down from the tree. “Four hundred pounds and charging. Might want to avoid those tusks.”

  “Aaaahhhh!”

  “Nobody listens to me.” Serge dropped back down to the ground and vanished . . .

  . . . Salenca and Pablo converged from different directions. “The gunshots came from over here!” Thud. “What the—”

  Pablo looked down. “You tripped over Victor?”

  Salenca pushed himself up from the ground. “I’m really getting mad at this guy! Go! . . .”

  . . . Serge was on his belly, alone with more flashbacks. Trapper: “It’s all about scent.” He was on another trail, but not human, much smaller. That’s why he had to crawl, just like he had as a child on the rabbit trail. He easily could have trapped a rabbit for bait using a vine snare, but that would be time-consuming and cruel. He continued slithering until he found a pile of scat. A sneaker came off a foot and was smeared with the scent. Then he tied a vine to one of the laces and tossed it down the trail. He waited a short while before tugging it to simulate a small mammal in distress. He waited. Voices and footsteps coming within yards and passing. It took a half hour, but it worked. Serge scrambled on hands and knees and rescued the sneaker, grabbing his prey by the throat. “Got you! . . .”

  . . . Pablo crept forward in the blind. One silent step at a time. “Where can he be—”

  Serge pounced from the brush behind him, wrapping the four-foot python around Pablo’s neck before disappearing again.

  Pablo quickly learned that once a constrictor snake is coiled around the airway, a human isn’t strong enough for the task. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t speak, could barely stagger. But he still had his gun.

  He began shooting the snake, which released him and slunk away with flesh wounds.

  Pablo stood still a moment, comprehending the folly of shooting multiple times into anything that’s around your neck. He toppled over.

  Serge circled back toward the river landing. Only one adversary left. Serge decided to hunker down where he could keep the animal pens—and his friends’ hiding spot—under watch. Just in case. He picked up a vine and fashioned a larger-than-usual loop, then a slipknot . . . when he felt cold metal against the back of his head.

  “Don’t move or you’re dead!” said Salenca. “Now stand up!”

  “Which is it?” asked Serge. “Don’t move or stand up?”

  “I’ve grown tired of you! On your feet!” Salenca marched him into open ground by the main cabin. “You’d already be dead if I didn’t also want to kill your friends. Now call them!”

  “They’re all gone.”

  “I understand. Loyalty.” He paraded Serge at gunpoint along the front of the animal cages. “Then I’ll call them! Come out, come out wherever you are, or I’ll blow your friend’s head off!”

  “Okay, don’t shoot, don’t shoot!”

  Coleman crawled from behind the last pen.

  Salenca motioned him over with the gun. “Where’s the girl?”

  “Coming out! Don’t shoot!” Hands raised.

  “That’s more like it,” said Salenca, untensing with the chaos brought to order. “Now, finally, where’s that author? Probably curled up in a sniveling ball back there. Pretty please, where are you?”

  “Right here.” A gun to the back of Salenca’s head. “Drop it.”

  Serge stood inches from Kenny’s ear. “Don’t do it. Listen to me. You’ll regret this forever.”


  “I don’t care anymore.” The gun barrel pushed Salenca’s head forward, and Kenny’s finger was halfway through the trigger’s pull. “This whole trip up the river, lying back there by the pens. All I could think of was Darby. More and more. It started coming back.” Tears rolled down cheeks. “I owe it to him to stop cowering and wimping out. He gave me the strength.”

  “What a time to snap out of it,” said Serge.

  “And now this fucker’s going to pay!” Squeezing . . .

  “Don’t move! Don’t flinch!” said Serge. “Just give me a second. This isn’t you. And this isn’t a bell you can un-ring . . . Hand me the gun and go back to the boat with the others. I give you my word I’ll do right by Darby.”

  Kenny shook his head. “I need to kill him. This ends here!”

  “Okay, then forget it’s my voice you’re hearing,” Serge whispered. “What would Darby tell you right now? You claim you’re doing this for him? What you really owe him is to listen to what he’d say, and in your heart you know what that is.”

  It was a minute that lasted a year.

  A finger began to relax.

  “That’s better,” said Serge, gently taking the pistol.

  Kenny hung his head. “I failed him.”

  “Just the opposite.” Serge stuck the gun in Salenca’s back. “You’ve done him proud.”

  Chris took Kenny’s arm. “Come on . . .”

  The others went back to the boat.

  A strap tightened around a wrist.

  Serge was singing. “. . . Alone again, naturally . . .”

  “Mmmmm! Mmmmm!”

  “What is it, Lassie? You want to sing, too, but the duct tape won’t let you?”

  “Mmmmm! Mmmmm!”

  Serge finished with the last ankle strap, leaving Salenca suspended upright in an X shape. “I might as well just tell you. This handmade wooden rack is where Trapper used to stretch out his animal pelts while preparing them for sale.”

  “Mmmmmmmmmmmm!”

  “I’m not going to stretch you out or skin you alive, so don’t get a bowel syndrome . . . Okay, too late. Anyway . . .” Serge reached down into his gym bag, pulling out a half-dozen stuffed sweat socks that he tied to various parts of Salenca’s body.

  “You know how you can always learn something from even the most unlikely person? Coleman taught me about catnip. I did further research and learned that house cats aren’t the only ones who go bonkers over this stuff. Because of genetics, a lot of the bigger felines are crazy about it, too. And something else: Catnip has the same effect on felines as pot does on Coleman. After they’re done wigging out, they’re really hungry.” He patted Salenca on top of the head. “Have to get going now. But I wouldn’t worry, there are no lions or tigers in these parts.”

  Salenca’s head snapped toward the sound of growling in the dark brush. Then it snapped the other way at another growl.

  “I’m guessing you’re curious what made that noise.” Serge pointed. “Can you read the sign that Trapper painted on that last animal pen?”

  Salenca’s eyes strained in the moonlight.

  Bobcats.

  Epilogue

  The fishing skiff made its way back down the Loxahatchee to the inlet by the Jupiter lighthouse, where the river dumped into the Atlantic.

  A nosy neighbor had called in the tip, and police lights flashed onshore by the docks where they had stolen the boat. The last member of Salenca’s crew was arrested and vehicles impounded, including a seafoam-green Chevy Nova.

  Flat-bottom skiffs weren’t meant for the ocean, but it was calm enough for Serge to navigate down the coast a few miles. Then it wasn’t calm, and a wicked chop caused the boat to take on water. Serge was able to fight the waves and make landfall on the beach where the Amaryllis had grounded during Hurricane Betsy.

  They walked to the Ocean Mall and caught a cab back to the bungalow. Serge told the driver to leave the meter running.

  “Listen, Chris, for reasons that have now become all too obvious . . .”

  “I get it.” She gave him an extended, tearful hug. Then, “Wait here. I need to give you something . . .”

  Moments later, the cab drove away, and Serge and Coleman and a plaid shirt disappeared into the night.

  Thanks to an anonymous satchel of bearer bonds left at city hall, Darby Pope became the largest single benefactor in the history of Riviera Beach.

  According to the simple instructions, massive donations were made in his name to school improvements, college scholarships, health care, the police department’s benevolent fund, and a public park with a bronze surfing sculpture of uncanny resemblance.

  When the “Pope Endowment” was initially announced, everyone said they knew him.

  A maintenance man entered the office at the Deep-Discount Motel. “You wanted to see me?”

  “You set all the air conditioners to sixty and burned out the compressors!” said the owner. “You’re fired!”

  Two men in dark suits entered a Fort Lauderdale bookstore and approached the author’s table.

  “You have a couple more customers,” said the writer’s assistant named Chris.

  Kenny looked up and smiled. “Would you like me to sign something?”

  Badges flashed. “We’d like to talk to you about your book.”

  Oh no. After all these years, just when Kenny thought he was in the clear and breathing easy. He tried to maintain his smile at the agents, but the trembling had already begun. He decided that this was no way to continue living. Might as well come clean.

  “What do you want to know about the port?”

  “What port?” asked the first agent.

  Kenny glanced at the stack of hardcovers on his table. “The port in those books.”

  “Not that book,” said the second agent. “Your next one.”

  “But . . . it’s not out yet.”

  “You posted a blog about it on your website,” said the first agent. “What can you tell us about this character of yours named Serge?”

  A royal-blue ’78 Ford Cobra sat parked outside the Contemporary Hotel at Walt Disney World.

  Up in room 317, Serge stomped his feet in a tantrum. “But it’s no fun doing it alone!”

  Coleman lay in bed on the verge of consciousness, sipping a bottle of Mad Dog. “Give me a few more minutes.”

  “You said that hours ago!” Serge frantically pointed out the window. “Space Mountain is right there!”

  “Let’s just visit a little longer.”

  About the Author

  Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999, and is the author of twenty other novels: Clownfish Blues, Coconut Cowboy, Shark Skin Suite, Tiger Shrimp Tango, The Riptide Ultra-Glide, Pineapple Grenade, When Elves Attack, Electric Barracuda, Gator A-Go-Go, Nuclear Jellyfish, Atomic Lobster, Hurricane Punch, The Big Bamboo, Torpedo Juice, Cadillac Beach, The Stingray Shuffle, Triggerfish Twist, Orange Crush, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, and Florida Roadkill. He lives in Tampa, Florida.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  Also by Tim Dorsey

  Florida Roadkill

  Hammerhead Ranch Motel

  Orange Crush

  Triggerfish Twist

  The Stingray Shuffle

  Cadillac Beach

  Torpedo Juice

  The Big Bamboo

  Hurricane Punch

  Atomic Lobster

  Nuclear Jellyfish

  Gator A-Go-Go

  Electric Barracuda

  When Elves Attack

  Pineapple Grenade

  The Riptide Ultra-Glide

  Tiger Shrimp Tango

  Shark Skin Suite

  Coconut Cowboy

  Clownfish Blues

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organiz
ations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  the pope of palm beach. Copyright © 2018 by Tim Dorsey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  first edition

  Map by Virginia Norey

  Cover design and illustration by Christopher Sergio

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Dorsey, Tim, author.

  Title: The pope of Palm Beach : a novel / Tim Dorsey.

  Description: First edition. | New York, NY : William Morrow, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017031747| ISBN 9780062429254 (hardback) | ISBN

  9780062429261 (tp) | ISBN 9780062791733 (lp) | ISBN 9780062429278 (el)

  Subjects: LCSH: Storms, Serge (Fictitious character)—Fiction. |

  Florida—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Humorous. | FICTION / General.

  GSAFD: Humorous fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3554.O719 P67 2018 | DDC 813/.54—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031747

  Digital Edition January 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-242927-8

  Print ISBN: 978-0-06-242925-4

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