Pineapple Grenade (14 page)

Waiting by the computer,

Serge

Dear Serge,

Much gratitude for your kind concern, but I am not in Miami. The bank transfer procedure is secure and utmost safe. Please use the account number I sent, and contact immediately upon deposit.

Blessings,

Bobonofassi Gabonilar

Dear Bobo,

Jesus, you’re in more danger than I thought! I’m coming to your rescue! Sorry, but I also lied earlier when I said I only recently tracked you to Miami. I knew it from the beginning. It’s just that a lot of these e-mails are scams from Nigeria. Obviously you made it out of East Bum-fuck and reached Florida, but had to conceal your location because of any relatives who might have escaped the rebels and are still in hiding back home. I’m guessing you’re an exchange student because my computer friend narrowed the IP search to Coral Gables and the University of Miami. And the routing number on the account you gave me is also here—this big downtown bank just up the street. Change of plans: Too dangerous now to meet in public. E-mail me your location and I’ll come there. Or maybe I’ll just figure out your address first and surprise you. Meanwhile, stay put! (Maybe watch
Burn Notice
—seen it yet? Michael’s mother is Sharon Gless from
Cagney & Lacey
. Who would have thought?)

Your guardian angel,

Serge

Dear Serge,

I honestly am not in Miami. Please use the original money transfer plan.

Bobonofassi

Dear Bobo,

You’re scaring me! I had no idea you were in such peril! I wasn’t going to say anything, but Miami is also a huge rebels-in-exile city, so you’re not even safe here. Clearly you’re paranoid and don’t know who to trust anymore. And since we’ve never met, a little lingering skittishness is more than reasonable. What if I’m with the cops? I might confiscate the money or worse. So to put your mind at ease, I’m attaching a bunch of newspaper articles about these unsolved cases where my name unfortunately came up (am I embarrassed!). Meanwhile, my IP guy is getting close to your exact location, but it might be too late. For the love of God, tell me where you’re living! (Can’t wait to see your house. Did you watch that thing on the local news where this guy in Florida furnished his place entirely with chairs and tables and beds made from FedEx boxes? The anchor people laughed about it, but the FedEx people were pissed. Then, at this other house, paramedics responded to a NASCAR fan who built a roll cage around his toilet, with a steering wheel and a flat-screen TV on the wall so he could pretend racing, and he got too excited squeezing one off and had a stroke. Paramedic slang is a “commode code,” but they left that out of the news. Anyway, the cage release got jammed and the ambulance guys had to use the jaws of life on his toilet. I’m starting to like NASCAR.)

Ready to extract,

Serge

Dear Serge,

I truly appreciate all your efforts, but we have found someone else to assist us, and the money has already been transferred. We need no further contact.

Bobonofassi

Bobo!

Help is on the way! My computer friend just finished tracking. You’re going under the name Rollo Tomagallu and using broadband connections at the school library and your off-campus house near LaJune Road. Since I now know your home address, it’s too risky to continue this correspondence. Under no circumstances are you to e-mail me anymore. The next time we make contact, it’ll be when I bring the money in person. Luckily I’m a professional (and now a spy!). The safest course of action, to avoid a counterstrike from rebel agents, is for me to sneak into your place under cover of darkness. So if some stranger wakes you in your bed at four
A.M.
, don’t freak out. It’s just me. I’m guessing your room is the one on the southwest corner of the house. The light was still on last night when I was sitting outside in my car looking through the windows, and you were on the computer wearing a Nigerian soccer jersey. If I’m wrong, put some kind of school decal on the right window so I don’t give one of your roommates a heart attack.

Sleepless in Miami,

Serge

Dear Serge,

I am so sorry. This was all a scam. There are no rebels. I was just trying to make some money. Please leave me alone!

Dear Bobo (or Rollo),

No can do. You’re obviously cracking under the pressure and your judgment is shot—like telling me lies about this being a scam and violating my instructions not to e-mail anymore. So from now on, I’ll be making the decisions for both of us. Have to move fast now. My advice to you: Just relax and go to sleep.

It’s almost over,

Serge

Downtown Miami

“But, Serge,” said Coleman. “I thought Sarah Palin was your new pen pal.”

“She is.” Serge led the way down the sidewalk along Biscayne Boulevard. “But she’s also swamped with the rallies and hasn’t been able to write back yet. In the meantime, I’m just a man. I have my corresponding needs.”

“So writing to your other friend was like a pen-pal booty call?”

“Something like that.” Serge opened his wallet and counted through cash.

“Holy cow!” said Coleman, peeking over his pal’s shoulder. “Your pen pal just gave you a thousand dollars for nothing?”

“Not for nothing. To leave him alone.” Serge finished thumbing through the fresh currency in his wallet. “Some people are too jumpy these days. That’s why you have to cover their mouths after breaking into their bedrooms.”

“So you knew it was a rip-off all along?”

Serge turned the corner onto Flagler Street. “Of course.”

“Then why’d you answer his e-mail?”

“Needed start-up money for spying expenses,” said Serge. “I’m not sure, but in all the spy movies, I’ve never seen them get a paycheck. It might take a while.”

“Will a thousand be enough?”

“For openers,” said Serge. “That’s why I have a secondary plan. Miami is full of opportunities if you know where to look. That’s why I need to come here every few months for a brain flush: all these different, layered worlds existing simultaneously, some off the grid, invisible to the average observer.”

Coleman looked around. “Where?”

Serge pointed up at bank towers. “We’re in the financial capital of Latin America.” He lowered his arm and swept it across street level. “But down below are all these crazy shops.”

“The ones with roll-down burglar shutters?”

“For when the yellow crime lights come at night and life clears off the streets like a nuclear winter,” said Serge. “But during the day, a bustling economic furnace.”

Coleman looked in windows as they walked. “But who needs this much luggage?”

“The island people.” Serge pulled out a pamphlet for an art exhibit. “And they come in two styles: tourists and professional shoppers.”

“Professional?”

“That’s the hidden opportunity I mentioned. I had no idea until a few years ago, but there’s a bunch of sub-budget hotels downtown, whose lobbies are completely full of giant cargo boxes. All these people with rope and packing tape. Barely room to walk.”

“What are they doing?”

“The same thing
I’m
going to be doing soon to get more money.” Serge pocketed the pamphlet. “Fill you in on the rest later. Right now the museum’s coming up.”

“Then why are you turning into this luggage store?”

“Shhhh! We’re spies now.”

A clerk smiled. “Can I help you find something?”

“Briefcases.”

“Any kind in particular?”

“The kind that you have two of.”

“We’re well stocked in several brands.”

“I’ll take those two.”

The pair headed west on Flagler Street.

“Why do we need briefcases?”

“For the museum.” Serge trotted up steps toward the courtyard. “I love the art museum!”

They reached an expansive, elevated piazza with a mosaic of beige and Tuscan tiles. On the west end, the main Miami library; to the east, the Museum of Art.

“Stop here,” said Serge. “We have to enter separately. I’ll go first, and you come in ten minutes later.”

“Why?”

“That’s just the way it works. Then once inside, here’s what you do . . .” Serge explained the plan. “Think you can handle that?”

“Piece of cake. So what kind of cool mission are we on?”

“No mission.”

“Then what does your plan accomplish?”

“Nothing. Sometimes it’s just about bursting with a zest for life and letting yourself become an unjaded kid again, playing fort in the woods, or spy in Miami. And sometimes your mission is just to act like a spy. Especially when there’s no mission. Confuses the enemy into thinking there’s a mission, which distracts them from your real mission. That’s our mission.”

“Does this have something to do with one of your Secret Master Plans?”

“Yes. I’ve got the tingles again.” He showed Coleman goose bumps on his arm. “Something big is about to go down in Miami, probably during the summit, and only a spy can save the day.”

Serge trotted toward the museum, and Coleman walked toward a wall on the far side of the courtyard that cut the wind so he could fire up a fattie.

“One, please,” Serge told the ticket seller. He strolled through various galleries. Oils, acrylics, charcoals. The museum silent and empty. Only a handful of others: a family with two small children; a couple having an affair on lunch break; a man in a business suit staring at an abstract, then tilting his head to look at it sideways. Three guards in different doorways pretended not to look but seemed to be following Serge.

Serge reached the central gallery and took a seat on a large, continuous bench that formed a rectangle in the middle of the room. A Japanese garden sat inside it. Serge placed his briefcase on the floor.

Moments later, Coleman came in. He stood next to the businessman and stared at the abstract painting. “I am so stoned.”

“Excuse me?” said the man.

“That painting.” Coleman pointed. “Gremlins and flying snakes and naked chicks playing trombones while masturbating with wax fruit.”

The man glanced at Coleman, then back at the painting. “I don’t see anything.”

“Because they hung it upside down.” Coleman walked away as the man twisted his head.

Serge gazed up at a vibrant watercolor. Coleman clandestinely sat next to him. He placed his briefcase on the ground.

“Serge,” said Coleman. “Why’d you pick a museum?”

“Shhhhh! We’re not supposed to know each other.”

“We could be strangers talking about art.”

“Speaking of which, what’s the deal with that guy you were talking to? His face is like an inch from that painting.”