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as harmless as hangman. Their enthusiasm for hanging the little stick figures made me feel a bit more
like we might all be part of the same general species. As they happily murdered their anonymous
hanged men, I felt a certain kinship.
Astor quickly learned to draw the gallows and the lines for the letters. She was, of course, much more
verbal about it. Seven letters, she would say, then tucking her upper lip between her teeth add,
Wait. Six. As Cody and I missed on our guesses she would pounce and call out, An ARM! Ha!
Cody would stare at her without expression, and then look down to the doodled figure hanging from
its noose. When it was his turn and we missed a guess, he would say in his soft voice, Leg, and look
up at us with something that might almost have been triumph in someone who showed emotion. And
when the line of dashes under the gallows was finally filled in with the spelled-out word, they would
both look at the dangling man with satisfaction, and once or twice Cody even said, Dead, before
Astor bounced up and down and said, Again, Dexter! My turn!
All very idyllic. Our perfect little family of Rita, the kids, and Monster makes four. But no matter how
many stick figures we executed, it did nothing to kill my worry that time was gurgling rapidly down the
drain and soon I would be a white-haired old man, too feeble to lift a carving knife, tottering through
my horrifyingly ordinary days, shadowed by an ancient Sergeant Doakes and a sense of missed
opportunity.
As long as I couldn t think of a way out, I was in the noose as surely as Cody and Astor s stick figures.
Very depressing, and I am ashamed to admit that I almost lost hope, which I never would have done if
I had remembered one important thing.
This was Miami.
CHAPTER 7
O F COURSE IT COULDN T LAST. I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN that such an unnatural state of
affairs had to give way, yield to the natural order of things. After all, I lived in a city where mayhem
was like the sunshine, always right behind the next cloud. Three weeks after my first unsettling
encounter with Sergeant Doakes, the clouds finally broke.
It was just a piece of luck, really not quite the falling piano I had been hoping for, but still a happy
coincidence. I was having lunch with my sister, Deborah. Excuse me; I should have said, SERGEANT
Deborah. Like her father, Harry, Debs was a cop. Owing to the happy outcome of recent events, she
had been promoted, pulled out of the prostitute costume she had been forced to wear by her
assignment with vice, whisked off the street corner at last and into her very own set of sergeant s
stripes.
It should have made her happy. After all, this was what she thought she wanted; an end to her tenure
as a pretend hooker. Any young and reasonably attractive female officer assigned to vice would sooner
or later find herself in a prostitution sting operation, and Deborah was very attractive. But her lush
figure and healthy good looks had never done anything for my poor sister except embarrass her. She
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hated to wear anything that even hinted at her physical charms, and standing on the street in hot pants
and a tube top had been sheer torture for her. She had been in danger of growing permanent frown
lines.
Because I am an inhuman monster, I tend to be logical, and I had thought that her new assignment
would end her martyrdom as Our Lady of Perpetual Grumpiness. Alas, even her transfer to homicide
had failed to bring a smile to her face. Somewhere along the way she had decided that serious law
enforcement personnel must reshape their faces until they look like large, mean-spirited fish, and she
was still working very hard to accomplish this.
We had come to lunch together in her new motor-pool car, another of the perks of her promotion that
really should have brought a small ray of sunshine into her life. It didn t seem to. I wondered if I should
worry about her. I watched her as I slid into a booth at Café Relampago, our favorite Cuban
restaurant. She called in her location and status and then sat across from me with a frown.
Well, Sergeant Grouper, I said as we picked up our menus.
Is that funny, Dexter?
Yes, I said. Very funny. And a little sad, too. Like life itself. Especially your life, Deborah.
Fuck you, Charlie, she said. My life is fine. And to prove it, she ordered a medianoche sandwich,
the best in Miami, and a batido de mamey, a milk shake made from a unique tropical fruit that tastes
something like a combination of peach and watermelon.
My life was every bit as fine as hers, so I ordered the same thing. Because we were regulars here, and
had been coming here most of our lives, the aging, unshaven waiter snatched away our menus with a
face that might have been the role model for Deborah s, and stomped off to the kitchen like Godzilla
on his way to Tokyo.
Everyone is so cheerful and happy, I said.
This isn t Mister Rogers Neighborhood, Dex. It s Miami. Only the bad guys are happy. She looked
at me without expression, a perfect cop stare. How come you re not laughing and singing?
Unkind, Deb. Very unkind. I ve been good for months.
She took a sip of water. Uh-huh. And it s making you crazy.
Much worse than that, I said with a shudder. I think it s making me normal.
Coulda fooled me, she said.
Sad but true. I ve become a couch potato. I hesitated, then blurted it out. After all, if a boy can t
share his problems with his family, who can he confide in? It s Sergeant Doakes, I said.
She nodded. He s got a real hard-on for you, she said. You better keep away from him.
I would love to, I said. But HE won t keep away from ME.
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Her cop stare got harder. What do you plan to do about it?
I opened my mouth to deny all the things I had been thinking, but happily for the good of my immortal
soul, before I could lie to her we were interrupted by the sound of Deb s radio. She cocked her head to
one side, snatched up the radio, and said she was on her way. Come on, she snapped, heading for the
door. I followed meekly behind, pausing only to throw some money on the table.
Deborah was already backing out her car by the time I came out of Relampago s. I hurried over and
lunged for the door. She was moving forward and out of the parking lot before I even got both feet in.
Really, Deb, I said. I almost lost a shoe. What s so important?
Deborah frowned, accelerating through a small gap in traffic that only a Miami driver would have
attempted. I don t know, she said as she turned on the siren.
I blinked and raised my voice over the noise. Didn t the dispatcher tell you?
Have you ever heard the dispatcher stutter, Dexter?
Why no, Deb, I haven t. Did this one do that?
Deb swerved around a school bus and roared up onto 836. Yeah, she said. She turned hard to avoid
a BMW full of young men, who all flipped her off. I think it s a homicide.
You think, I said.
Yeah, she answered, and then she concentrated on driving and I let her. High speeds always remind
me of my own mortality, especially on Miami s roads. And as for the Case of the Stuttering
Dispatcher well, Sergeant Nancy Drew and I would find out soon enough, particularly at this speed,
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