Dexter in the Dark (8 page)

“Gross,” muttered Astor.

“Absolutely wonderful,” I said, fighting for breath. “Plenty of corpses for everybody today. And I got to use my cotton swabs, too.”

Rita made a face. “Ugh. That’s—I don’t know if you should talk like that around the children. What if they get bad dreams?”

If I had been a completely honest person, I would have told her that her children were far more likely to cause someone else bad dreams than to get them, but since I am not hampered by any need to tell the truth, I just patted her and said, “They hear worse than that on the cartoons every day. Isn’t that right, kids?”

“No,” said Cody softly, and I looked at him with surprise. He rarely said anything, and to have him not only speak but actually contradict me was disturbing. In fact, the whole day was turning out to be wildly askew, from the panicked flight of the Dark Passenger this morning and continuing on through Vince’s catering tirade—and now this. What in the name of all that is dark and dreadful was going on? Was my aura out of balance? Had the moons of Jupiter aligned against me in Sagittarius?

“Cody,” I said. And I do hope some hurt showed in my voice. “You’re not going to have bad dreams about this, are you?”

“He doesn’t have bad dreams,” Astor said, as if everyone who was not severely mentally challenged ought to know that. “He doesn’t have any dreams at
all
.”

“Good to know,” I said, since I almost never dream myself, either, and for some reason it seemed important to have as much as possible in common with Cody. But Rita was having none of it.

“Really, Astor, don’t be silly,” she said. “Of course Cody has dreams. Everybody has dreams.”

“I don’t,” Cody insisted. Now he was not only standing up to both of us, he was practically breaking his own record for chattiness at the same time. And even though I didn’t have a heart, except for circulatory purposes, I felt an affection for him and wanted to come down on his side.

“Good for you,” I said. “Stick with it. Dreams are very overrated. Interfere with getting a good night’s sleep.”

“Dexter, really,” Rita said. “I don’t think we should encourage this.”

“Of course we should,” I said, winking at Cody. “He’s showing fire, spunk, and imagination.”

“Am not,” he said, and I absolutely marveled at his verbal outpouring.

“Of course you’re not,” I said to him, lowering my voice. “But we have to say stuff like that to your mom, or she gets worried.”

“For Pete’s sake,” Rita said. “I give up with you two. Run outside and play, kids.”

“We wanna play with Dexter,” Astor pouted.

“I’ll be along in a few minutes,” I said.

“You better,” she said darkly. They vanished down the hall toward the back door, and as they left I took a deep breath, happy that the vicious and unwarranted attacks against me were over for now. Of course, I should have known better.

“Come in here,” Rita said, and she led me by the hand to the sofa. “Vince called a little while ago,” she said as we settled onto the cushions.

“Did he?” I said, and a sudden thrill of danger ripped through me at the idea of what he might have said to Rita. “What did he say?”

She shook her head. “He was very mysterious. He said to let him know as soon as we had talked it over. And when I asked him talked what over he wouldn’t say. He just said you would tell me.”

I barely managed to stop myself from the unthinkable conversational blunder of saying, “Did he?” again. In my defense, I have to admit that my brain was whirling, not only with the panicked notion that I had to flee to some place of safety but also with the thought that before I fled I needed to find time to visit Vince with my little bag of toys. But before I could mentally choose the correct blade, Rita went on.

“Honestly, Dexter, you’re very lucky to have a friend like Vince. He really does take his duties as best man seriously, and he has wonderful taste.”

“Wonderfully expensive, too,” I said—and perhaps I was still recovering from my near-gaffe with almost repeating “Did he?” but I knew the moment it was out of my mouth that it was absolutely the wrong thing to say. And sure enough, Rita lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Really?” she said. “Well, I suppose he would, after all. I mean, it most often goes together, doesn’t it? You really do get what you pay for, usually.”

“Yes, but it’s a question of how much you have to pay,” I said.

“How much for what?” Rita said, and there it was. I was stuck.

“Well,” I said, “Vince has this crazy idea that we should hire this South Beach caterer, a very pricey guy who does a lot of celebrity events and things.”

Rita clapped her hands under her chin and looked radiantly happy. “Not Manny Borque!” she cried. “Vince knows Manny Borque?”

Of course it was all over right there, but Dauntless Dexter does not go down without a fight, no matter how feeble. “Did I mention that he’s very expensive?” I said hopefully.

“Oh, Dexter, you can’t worry about money at a time like this,” she said.

“I can too. I am.”

“Not if there’s a chance to get Manny Borque,” she said, and there was a surprisingly strong note in her voice that I had never heard before except when she was angry with Cody and Astor.

“Yes, but Rita,” I said, “it doesn’t make sense to spend a ton of money just for the caterer.”

“Sense has nothing to do with it,” she said, and I admit that I agreed with her there. “If we can get Manny Borque to cater our wedding, we’d be crazy not to do it.”

“But,” I said, and there I stopped, because beyond the fact that it seemed idiotic to pay a king’s ransom for crackers with endives hand-painted with rhubarb juice and sculpted to look like Jennifer Lopez, I could not think of any other objection. I mean, wasn’t that enough?

Apparently not. “Dexter,” she said. “How many times will we get married?” And to my great credit I was still alert enough to clamp down on the urge to say, “At least twice, in your case,” which I think was probably very wise.

I quickly changed course, diving straight into tactics learned from pretending to be human for so many years. “Rita,” I said, “the important part of the wedding is when I slip the ring on your finger. I don’t care what we eat afterward.”

“That’s so sweet,” she said. “Then you don’t mind if we hire Manny Borque?”

Once again I found myself losing an argument before I even knew which side I was on. I became aware of a dryness in my mouth—caused, no doubt, by the fact that my mouth was hanging open as my brain struggled to make sense of what had just happened, and then to find something clever to say to get things back onto dry land.

But it was far too late. “I’ll call Vince back,” she said, and she leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek. “Oh, this is so exciting. Thank you, Dexter.”

Well, after all, isn’t marriage about compromise?

SEVEN

N
ATURALLY ENOUGH
, M
ANNY
B
ORQUE LIVED IN
S
OUTH
Beach. He was on the top floor of one of the new high-rise buildings that spring up around Miami like mushrooms after a heavy rain. This one sat on what was once a deserted beach where Harry used to take Debs and me beachcombing early on Saturday mornings. We would find old life preservers, mysterious wooden chunks of some unfortunate boat, lobster-pot buoys, pieces of fishnet, and on one thrilling morning, an exceedingly dead human body rolling in the surf. It was a treasured boyhood memory, and I resented extremely that someone had built this shiny flimsy tower on the site.

The next morning at ten Vince and I left work together and drove over to the horrible new building that had replaced the scene of my youthful joy. I rode the elevator to the top in silence, watching Vince fidget and blink. Why he should be nervous about facing someone who sculpted chopped liver for a living, I don’t know, but he clearly was. A drop of sweat rolled down his cheek and he swallowed convulsively, twice.

“He’s a caterer, Vince,” I told him. “He isn’t dangerous. He can’t even revoke your library card.”

Vince looked at me and swallowed again. “He’s got a real temper,” he said. “He can be very demanding.”

“Well, then,” I said with great good cheer, “let’s go find somebody else more reasonable.”

He set his jaw like a man facing a firing squad and shook his head. “No,” he said bravely, “we’re going to go through with this.” And the elevator door slid open, right on cue. He squared his shoulders, nodded, and said, “Come on.”

We went down to the end of the hall, and Vince stopped in front of the last door. He took a deep breath, raised his fist, and, after a slight hesitation, knocked on the door. After a long moment in which nothing happened, he looked at me and blinked, his hand still raised. “Maybe,” he said.

The door opened. “Hello Vic!” the thing in the doorway warbled, and Vince responded by blushing and stammering, “I only hi.” Then he shifted his weight from one foot to the other, stammered something that sounded like, “Er wellah,” and took a half step backward.

It was a remarkable and thoroughly engaging performance, and I was not the only one who seemed to enjoy it. The manikin who had answered the door watched with a smile that suggested he might enjoy being in the audience for any kind of human suffering, and he let Vince squirm for several long moments before he finally said, “Well come
in
!”

Manny Borque, if this was really him and not some strange hologram from
Star Wars
, stood a full five foot six inches tall, from the bottom of his embroidered high-heeled silver boots to the top of his dyed orange head. His hair was cut short, except for black bangs which parted on his forehead like a swallow’s tail and draped down over a pair of enormous rhinestone-studded eyeglasses. He was dressed in a long, bright-red dashiki, and apparently nothing else, and it swirled around him as he stepped back from the door to motion us in, and then walked in rapid little steps toward a huge picture window that looked out on the water.

“Come over here and we’ll have a little talk,” he said, sidestepping a pedestal holding an enormous object that looked like a giant ball of animal vomit dipped in plastic and spray-painted with Day-Glo graffiti. He led the way to a glass table by the window, around which sat four things that were probably supposed to be chairs but could easily have been mistaken for bronze camel saddles welded onto stilts. “Sit,” he said, with an expansive wave of his hand, and I took the chair-thing nearest the window. Vince hesitated for a moment, then sat next to me, and Manny hopped up onto the seat directly across from him. “Well,” he said. “How have you been, Vic? Would you like some coffee?” and without waiting for an answer he swiveled his head to his left and called, “Eduardo!”

Beside me Vince took a ragged breath, but before he could do anything with it Manny whipped back around and faced me. “And
you
must be the blushing bridegroom!” he said.

“Dexter Morgan,” I said. “But I’m not a very good blusher.”

“Oh, well, I think Vic is doing enough for both of you,” he said. And sure enough, Vince obligingly turned just as scarlet as his complexion would allow him to do. Since I was still more than a little peeved at being subjected to this ordeal, I decided not to come to his aid by offering Manny a withering remark, or even correcting him on the subject of Vince’s actual identity as “Vince,” not “Vic.” I was sure he knew the right name quite well and was simply tormenting Vince. And that was fine with me: let Vince squirm—it served him right for going over my head to Rita and getting me into this.

Eduardo bustled in holding a vintage Fiestaware coffee service in several bright colors, balanced on a clear plastic tray. He was a stocky young man about twice the size of Manny, and he, too, seemed very anxious to please the little troll. He set a yellow cup in front of Manny, and then moved to put the blue one in front of Vince when he was stopped by Manny, who laid a finger on his arm.

“Eduardo,” he said in a silky voice, and the boy froze. “Yellow? Don’t we remember? Manny gets the blue cup.”

Eduardo practically fell over himself grinding into reverse, nearly dropping the tray in his haste to remove the offensive yellow coffee cup and replace it with the proper blue one.

“Thank you, Eduardo,” Manny said, and Eduardo paused for a moment, apparently to see if Manny really meant it or if he had done something else wrong. But Manny just patted him on the arm and said, “Serve our guests now, please,” and Eduardo nodded and moved around the table.

As it turned out, I got the yellow cup, which was fine with me, although I wondered if it meant that they didn’t like me. When he had poured the coffee, Eduardo hustled back to the kitchen and returned with a small plate holding half a dozen
pastelitos
. And although they were not, in fact, shaped like Jennifer Lopez’s derriere, they might as well have been. They looked like little cream-filled porcupines—dark brown lumps bristling with quills that were either chocolate or taken from a sea anemone. The center was open, revealing a blob of orange-colored custardy-type stuff, and each blob had a dab of green, blue, or brown on top.

Eduardo put the plate in the center of the table, and we all just looked at it for a moment. Manny seemed to be admiring them, and Vince was apparently feeling some kind of religious awe, as he swallowed a few more times and made a sound that may have been a gasp. For my part, I wasn’t sure if we were supposed to eat the things or use them for some bizarre, bloody Aztec ritual, so I simply studied the plate, hoping for a clue.