Homemade Sin (36 page)

When Deputy Ignatius Jones arrived at the police station there was a folder sitting on his desk with a yellow sticky note from the Chief attached which said ‘See me when you get in.' Jones flipped through the folder; it was a faxed medical report from Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Tampa.

The report detailed a complete work-up on the fighter, Dutch ‘The Cleanser' Lewis. Dutch had doubled over in the ring and lapsed into a coma on the way to the hospital. The doctor there had run a computer check on the chemicals found in Dutch's body and cross-checked them other hospitals around the country. The computer inquiry had produced a match between the tetrotoxins, and other rather odd substances, found in Dutch's system and the results on Rebel Buford posted by Daytona General Hospital. So Our Lady of Mercy had contacted Frank East, lab technician at Daytona General, and Frank had referred them to the St. Petersburg Beach Sheriff's Office.

The results in the report Jones was reading showed an exact match. When Jones had finished perusing the lab report he strode down the hall to the sheriff's office.

“Hey Jones,” Sheriff Jackson said as he looked up from shuffling paperwork. “I have some more weird stuff for you. Did you read the medical report on the fighter?”

“Yes, it looks like he had the same stuff in his system as the race car driver,” Jones said.

“There are some other similarities in the two cases.” The sheriff smiled.

“Let me guess,” said Jones, “the Boxer stayed at the Santeria Hotel before the fight?”

“Yes. According to his trainer, he had some kind of free coupon.”

“I'll go check it out,” Jones said.

It was no easy task but Stinky had finally managed to pull the stopper from the vial of Mambo powder with his teeth. “OK, you degenerates,” Stinky addressed the copulating cats. “Stop fucking and get over here, I have dinner for you.”

Reluctantly the felines untangled themselves from the kitty orgy and wandered over to the dumpster. They sat on their sore haunches and stared at Stinky in anticipation. Stinky dug into the dumpster and returned with a large bag. The aroma of raw fish filled the alley. With one swipe of his claw he ripped the bottom out of the bag and fugu fell out like candy from a piñata. The felines attacked the fish hungrily.

My disciples have eaten the sacred fish and now it is time to turn them into my minions, Stinky thought. He nosed the vial over the fish and let the powder sprinkle down upon the fish the cats were busy devouring. The vial tumbled down with the powder. “Chow down my minions,” he growled “my meowing mercenaries. You will be the first of a great feline army that will take over the world and rid this miserable planet of the tiresome humans.”

“So this is where it went to,” said Dee Dee as she reached past the dozen or so munching cats and retrieved what was left of the Mambo powder. She found the stopper a few inches from the vial, re-corked it and shook it to see how much was left. “Enough for at least one more zombie,” she said.

When she sashayed off, Stinky snarled after her, “You can take the magic powder away but already I have my first loyal soldiers, my terrible reign will begin. And I retrieve the magic powder. I know where you sleep.”

Clint, the coulrophobic rodeo rider, sat at the bar at the Fugu Lounge, sipping a gin and absinth martini and hating clowns. Dee Dee slid onto the barstool beside him.

“You look like someone ran over your horse, Tex”, Dee Dee said to Clint, employing a sexy, yet sympathetic, voice. “You look like a cowboy. I was always partial to cowboys.”

“I ride with the rodeo,” Clint said. “At least I did until that damn clown started messing with my life.”

“Clown problems?” She knew this had to be the bull rider.

“Yeah, damned clowns, the sight of those people, all painted up with those big rubber noses and the fright wigs … just gives me the willies.”

“I bet you'd feel better if you ate something,” Dee Dee said. “Let me make you a special dinner.”

“You sure are nice, darlin',” Clint said. “I've had a hell of a day.”

“You grab a table and I'll fix you something guaranteed to take the pain away.” Dee Dee smirked as she rose from her barstool and headed over toward her sushi station. On the way she stuck her head into the kitchen where Cutter was lurking over the oven and said “Got one ‘special' coming up.”

“Is the bull rider here?”

“Yep, we're back in business.”

Dee Dee approached Clint's table with a tray laden with exotic food. As Clint smiled and dug into his dinner Dee Dee winked at him and said, “Now, you eat up, honey, and when you finish, maybe we should have a drink together.”

Deputy Jones drove toward the Santeria Hotel as drunken charcoal-gray clouds, in the shape of beer kegs, staggered across wine-purple sky like dark spirits coming together for a cloud coven. A storm was brewing. The wind churned the thunderheads until they glowed from within as luminous as black pearls. As he pulled into the parking lot, the sky opened up and began spewing projectile raindrops the size of cocktail onions. By the time he had made it across the parking lot, the pelting rain drenched his shirt and the clouds were varicose with fiery red gin blossoms of spider lightning.

Deputy Jones dashed past the pool on the way into the Fugu lounge. As he passed, he noticed the old folks standing around in the pool staring at the Gulf through the pouring rain. “You folks better get out of the pool,” he shouted over the booming thunder “You'll be struck by lightning.” Nobody responded. Something seemed odd about the pool population. They seemed to be in a trance.

He stopped under the awning, out of range of the rain, and tried again. “Anybody got pictures of your grandchildren you want to show me?” No response came from the pool zombies; they continued to stare at the Gulf, rain dripping off their noses.

“Anybody want to talk about their operations?” Jones said. The old folks in the pool remained silent.

“I think they ought to do away with social security.” Silence.

Damn, that should have gotten a rise out of them. There's definitely something seriously wrong.

Jones saw some large birds circling high in the sky through the driving rain. They seemed to be swinging lower and lower in concentric circles toward the pool. They looked too big and dark to be seagulls. “Buzzards,” he said. “A sure sign of something dead”. He turned back to the people standing in the pool. “I heard they were going to close down the Cracker Barrel,” he shouted through the rain to the floaters.

They stood and stared. “Zombies,” he said. “Somebody has turned all these old folks into zombies.”

As Jones neared the door he heard a commotion around the side of the building, near the dumpster. He stuck his head around the corner and saw Stinky addressing the clowder of cats that had now stopped fornicating and were sitting in the pouring rain, staring at him with wide staring eyes. Their fur was sodden and matted to their bodies. It appeared as though Stinky was meowing some kind of commands to the rapt beasts.

Cats don't stand in the rain like that, he thought, they hate water. What the hell is that feline up to now?

“I think you got zombies in your pool,” Jones informed Roland as he stepped up to the bar, shaking the rain out of his hair.

Dee Dee, cutting fish at the sushi table, picked up on the word zombies and pricked up her ears, trying to hear what the man was saying.

“Zombies?” Roland stepped over to where the deputy had taken a seat on a bar stool. “You mean those old geezers? They're old and kind of slow.”

“Well, they're standing there in the rain and staring and I tried to get them to talk but they won't say a word.”

Dee Dee thought quickly, “It's the initiation,” she said to Jones as she approached the bar.

“Initiation?” Jones said.

“Yeah, they just joined the ‘Federation of Silent Snowbird Inanimate Loungers.' It's kind of an offshoot of the Grey Panthers.”

“FOSSIL?” Jones said.

“Sure … it has something to do with migrating south in the winter, and as part of the initiation they all take a vow of silence. They can't talk for a week.”

“Uh huh,” Jones said. Dee Dee's explanation sounded dubious but he was here to investigate the strange toxins found in Rebel Buford and Dutch Lewis. He would look into the folks in the pool in due time.

“What do you know about Rebel Buford and Dutch Lewis?” Jones said to Roland. “Rebel stayed here before he raced in Daytona, right? And I believe Dutch stayed here the night before the fight in Tampa?”

“Yeah, they both stayed here. Rebel was a nice guy, had a couple of drinks at the bar, ate dinner. Then he wasn't feeling well, so Dee Dee helped him to his room.”

“And Dutch?” Jones said.

“He had a couple of drinks at the bar and dinner and wasn't feeling so good, so Dee Dee helped him to his room.”

“Was that the last time you saw either of those men?” asked Jones.

“Uh …well,” Roland said, “I saw them when they left the bar with Dee Dee and I saw them when they checked out the next day. I did see Rebel blow up on television and I saw Dutch get beat on Pay-per-View. Come to think of it,” Roland cocked his head seeing the connection, “Dee Dee went to the race in Daytona and she was at that fight.”

The common denominator, thought Jones. “Did either of these men seem different when they checked out from when they checked in?”

“Well, yeah, now that I think about it,” Roland said, “both of them seemed a lot more relaxed, more subdued when they checked out, not very talkative, sort of stared off into space. I just figured staying by the Gulf relaxed them. The waves do that. Those folks in the pool are probably just relaxed too.”

As Dee Dee moved away from the bar, the Deputy reached out and touched her arm. “I understand you were with both Rebel Buford and Dutch Lewis the day before each had a serious accident. You were at the racetrack in Daytona and the boxing arena in Tampa. What was your relationship with each of these men?”

“I can't talk right now and we're closing soon. So why don't you come back another time.” She turned and looked over at the rodeo rider who was looking kind of green.

Turning back to the deputy, Dee Dee saw Cutter peeking out of the kitchen door. Before Jones could object, she said, “Excuse me, I think something's burning in the kitchen,” and pulled away from him. She made a bee-line into the kitchen, letting the door swing closed as she slipped through.

“That Deputy is at the bar,” Dee Dee whispered to Cutter as he dropped a basket of battered, blue ring octopus calamari into the deep fat fryer. “He's asking a lot of questions about Rebel and Dutch.”

“Stay cool,” Cutter said. “He's just fishing, he can't prove anything.”

“What about the bull rider?” Dee Dee said. “He's already got enough fugu in him to zombie-ize ten people.”

“He'll have to wait until the cop leaves,” Cutter said. “See if you can get rid of him.”