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would find a bit hard to forgive, and even though I am not capable of feeling actual love, I did want to keep Debs relatively happy with me. And so once again I was left with virtuous patience and a feeling of long-suffering rectitude.Dour Dutiful Dexter.It will come , I told my other self.Sooner or later, it will come. Has to come; it will not wait forever, but this must come first . And there was some grumbling, of course, because it had not come in far too long, but I soothed the growls, rattled the bars with false good cheer one time, and pulled out my cell phone. I dialed the numberDoakes had given me. After a moment there was a tone, and then nothing, just a faint hiss. I punched in the long access code, heard a click, and then a neutral female voice said, Number. I gave the voiceDoakes s cell number. There was a pause, and then it read me some coordinates; I hurriedly scribbled them down on the pad. The voice paused, and then added, Moving due west, 65 miles per hour. The line went dead. I never claimed to be an expert navigator, but I do have a small GPS unit that I use on my boat. It comes in handy for marking good fishing spots. So I managed to put in the coordinates without bumping my head or causing an explosion. The unitDoakes had given me was a step up from mine and had a map on the screen. The coordinates on the map translated to Interstate 75, heading for Alligator Alley, the corridor to the west coast ofFlorida . I was mildly surprised. Most of the territory betweenMiami andNaples isEverglades , swamp broken up by small patches of semidry land. It was filled with snakes, alligators, and Indian casinos, which did not seem at all like the kind of place to relax and enjoy a peaceful dismemberment. But the GPS could not lie, and supposedly neither could the voice on the phone. If the coordinates were wrong, it wasDoakes s doing, and he was lost anyway. I had no choice. I felt a little guilty about leaving the party without thanking my host, but I got into my car and headed for I-75. I was up on the interstate in just a few minutes, then quickly north to I-75. As you head west on 75 the city gradually thins away. Then there is one final furious explosion of strip malls and houses just before the toll booth for Alligator Alley. At the booth I pulled over and called the number again. The same neutral female voice gave me a set of coordinates and the line went dead. I took it to mean that they were no longer moving. Page 112 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html According to the map, SergeantDoakes and Dr.Danco were now settling comfortably into the middle of an unmarked watery wilderness about forty miles ahead of me. I didn t know aboutDanco , but I didn t thinkDoakes would float very well. Perhaps the GPS could lie after all. Still, I had to do something, so I pulled back onto the road, paid my toll, and continued westward. At a spot parallel to the location on the GPS, a small access road branched off to the right. It was nearly invisible in the dark, especially since I was traveling at seventy miles per hour. But as I saw it whiz past I braked to a stop on the shoulder of the road and backed up to peer at it. It was a one-lane dirt road that led nowhere, up over a rickety bridge and then straight as an arrow into the darkness of theEverglades . In the headlights of the passing cars I could only see about fifty yards down the road, and there was nothing to see. A patch of knee-high weeds grew up in the center of the road between the two deeply rutted tire tracks. A clump of short trees hung over the road at the edge of darkness, and that was it. I thought about getting out and looking for some kind of clue, until I realized how silly that was. Did I think I was Tonto, faithful Indian guide? I couldn t look at a bent twig and tell how many white men had been past in the last hour. Perhaps Dexter s dutiful but uninspired brain pictured him as Sherlock Holmes, able to examine the wheel ruts and deduce that a left-handed hunchback with red hair and a limp had gone down the road carrying a Cuban cigar andaukelele . I would find no clues, not that it mattered. The sad truth was, this was either it or I was all done for the night, and SergeantDoakes was done for considerably longer. Just to be absolutely sure or at any rate, absolutely free of guilt I calledDoakes s top secret telephone number again. The voice gave me the same coordinates and hung up; wherever they were, they were still there, down this dark and dirty little road. I was apparently out of choices. Duty called, and Dexter must answer. I turned the wheel hard and started down the road. According to the GPS, I had about five and a half miles to travel before I got to whatever was waiting for me. I put my headlights on low and drove slowly, watching the road carefully. This gave me plenty of time to think, whichis not always a good thing . I thought about what might be there at the end of the road, and what I would do when I got there. And although it was a rather bad time for this to occur to me, I realized that even if I found Dr.Danco at the end of this road I had no idea what I was going to do about it. Come get me, Doakes had said, and it sounded simple enough until you were driving into theEverglades on a dark night with no weapon more threatening than a steno pad. And Dr.Danco had apparently not had much trouble with any of the others he had taken, in spite of the fact that they were rough, well-armed customers. How could poor, helpless Docile Dexter hope to thwart him when the MightyDoakes had gone down so fast? And what would I do if he got me? I did not think I would make a very good yodeling potato. I was not sure if I could go crazy, since most authorities would most likely say that I already was. Would I snap anyway and go burbling [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |
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