Insane City (16 page)

exhibiting critters in crates.

These critters still included snakes, one of which—an anaconda named Trixie—had this day

swallowed a lady tourist’s backpack, which is how Duane, as Primate Encounter’s backup snake guy, got

the emergency call. He’d driven out in his brother’s truck and, with effort, managed to get Trixie to

swallow a doctored rat, which eventually caused her to regurgitate both the rat and the backpack. Neither

came back out in great shape, but that was not Duane’s problem.

Duane’s plan had been to retrieve the backpack, then drive over to the Ritz and give Seth his

suitcase. But he’d received another emergency call, this one from Miccosukee Resort & Gaming out by

the Everglades, where a seriously large python had somehow got onto the casino floor and wrapped itself

around a
Wheel of Fortune
slot machine, where it apparently intended to stay. This had attracted a lot of

attention, none of which was proving to be good for business; even the seriously dedicated slot players—

people who had been known to continue feeding quarters into their machines while a neighboring player

keeled over with a heart attack—were giving the python a wide berth. This meant many machines were

going unused; hence the casino’s urgent summons to Duane, who had developed a reputation as one of

Miami’s go-to python wranglers.

And so it was that Duane elected to leave Seth’s suitcase at Primate Encounter. He entrusted it to a

man named Gene Singletary, whose official title was Director of Operations, in which capacity he spent

the bulk of his day picking up monkey shit. Duane had told Gene a guy named Seth would be coming by

for the suitcase, but as the day wore on, no Seth appeared, and closing time was looming. Gene tried to

call Duane but got voice mail. After giving the matter some thought, he called Duane again and left a

message, saying that he’d leave the suitcase under a tarp behind the animal cages so his friend could pick

it up after hours. He said it’d be safe enough because to get back there after hours you had to go through

the security gate, which had a keypad lock. Gene included the code in the message to Duane.

And so as dusk approached, Seth’s suitcase was sitting on the ground under a tarp next to a cage

occupied by an orangutan named Trevor, who had a lot of time on his hands.

15

Seth woke up in a chair in the living room of his suite, looked at his watch and said, “Shit.”

He’d meant to close his eyes for just a few minutes, then go get the suitcase. But instead, despite the noise

in the suite—LaDawne and Cyndi mothering the Haitians, the baby fussing, Wesley watching

SportsCenter—Seth had fallen sound asleep. Now it was too late to go for the suitcase. He’d have to get

it after the rehearsal dinner.

He rose and stretched, surveying the suite. Little had changed. The inert mass of Wesley was still on

the sofa, surrounded by still more room service platters. Tina’s parents were paying for the suite; Seth

hoped they wouldn’t look too closely at the bill. Wesley had been joined in front of the TV by Stephane,

the two of them watching ESPN’s top ten plays. At the moment, LeBron James, in open defiance of the

laws of physics, was leaping over another player’s head to snare a pass from Dwyane Wade, then slam

the ball through the rim.

“You see that?” said Wesley, nudging Stephane with a forefinger the size of a salami. “Lemme see

Kobe do
that
.”

Stephane, eyes wide, looked at Wesley, then back at the screen.

Seth crossed the suite and poked his head into the estrogen festival that was the bedroom. The TV

was tuned to
Say Yes to the Dress
. LaDawne and Cyndi were sitting on opposite sides of the bed, Cyndi

holding the baby. Laurette was between them, propped up in the pillow forest. When she saw Seth, her

face lit up with a radiant smile, brilliant white teeth against dark skin, eyes shining. She said something in

Creole, holding both hands out toward Seth. He responded with an awkward wave.

“She thinks you’re Superman,” said LaDawne.

“I wish,” said Seth.

“The Haitian guy called,” said LaDawne. “Carl. While you was asleep.”

Seth brightened. “And?”

“He said he’s still looking.”

Seth’s shoulder’s sagged; he put his face in his hands. “Great.”

“He said don’t give up,” said LaDawne. “He’s still looking. He’ll be here later.”

“Duane called, too,” said Cyndi.

Seth looked up. “Don’t tell me there’s a problem with the suitcase.”

“No, it’s at Primate Encounter.” She relayed Duane’s message that the suitcase had been left under a

tarp in back of the animal cages. Duane also told Cyndi the code to the security gate, which she’d written

down.

“I’ll have to get it after the rehearsal dinner,” said Seth. “Are you still up for showing me where that

place is?”

“Sure,” said Cyndi. “I can wait here until your dinner’s over and we’ll go.”

“Thanks,” said Seth. He glanced at his watch again. “Jesus, the rehearsal’s in an hour.”

“You gonna wear that?” said LaDawne, looking at Seth’s wrinkled, stained clothes, which he’d been

wearing for more than a day.

“All my other clothes are in my suitcase.”

“The hotel store sells clothes,” said Cyndi.

“Like, clothes that I could wear to the rehearsal dinner?” said Seth.

“Anything is better than what you got on,” said LaDawne.

It took Seth ten minutes to rouse the Groom Posse, who were sound asleep in a darkened suite

reeking of BO and farts. Seth herded them down to the hotel store, Marty and Kevin wearing hotel

bathrobes, as neither had pants. The store had a limited selection of men’s clothes, so they ended up

buying overpriced golf outfits, which Seth, wincing, charged to his room. They went back to the Groom

Posse suite to shower and change, after which Seth headed to his parents’ room to escort them to the

rehearsal.

He paused outside their door, put a smile on his face, knocked.

Rose opened the door, wearing a Hawaiian Punch–red pantsuit and what looked like a pound of

matching lipstick. Her hairstyle had been sprayed to the point where it could deflect rifle fire.

“Hi, Mom!” said Seth.

“This is what you’re wearing?” she said. “A bowling outfit?”

“It’s really more golf, but—”

“Who is that?” said Sid. Sid was wearing the brown suit he had worn to Seth’s bar mitzvah.

“It’s Seth,” said Rose. “He’s wearing a bowling outfit.”

It took several minutes, but Seth managed to get his parents moving toward the door. They’d almost

made it when Sid declared that his gout was acting up and he needed his medicine.

“You don’t need it now,” said Rose.

“I’m telling you,” said Sid, “this gout is killing me.”

“He just wants a brownie,” Rose informed Seth. Seth had forgotten about the brownies.

“I do
not
just want a brownie,” Sid declared. “I have a
medical condition
.”

“All right, already,” said Rose. “You’ll get your brownie, but not until after you eat your dinner.

Seth, go get the brownies from your father’s suitcase.”

“Mom, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“So now you’re a doctor? In your bowling outfit?”

Seth sighed and rummaged through Sid’s suitcase, where he found a shoe box–sized plastic box with

a pharmaceutical label on it. He opened it and stared: There were several dozen individually wrapped

brownies inside. He started to take one out.

“Just give me the whole box,” said Rose.

“What? There’s a
lot
of brownies in here, Mom.”

“I don’t want to leave them in the room,” she said. “The people who work in these hotels, you never

know. Plus I might need one later also, for my digestion.”

Seth stared at her. “You eat these things, too?”

Rose showed a trace of embarrassment but quickly recovered. “It’s
medical
. Now, give it to me.”

Seth handed her the box. She put it into her enormous black purse, from which Seth had seen her pull

a wide variety of objects over the years, including air fresheners, a spatula and, once, a fire extinguisher.

Seth looked at his watch again: They were late for the rehearsal. He started down the hall. Halfway to the

elevator, he looked back; Rose and Sid had managed to move about five feet. Seth sighed, turned and

trudged toward them.

“Are we going back already?” said Sid.

16

Trevor was a mature male orangutan. He weighed 250 pounds, and though he stood just a little

over five feet tall, he had an arm span of nearly eight feet. He was, like all orangutans, very strong

compared to humans—stronger than five large, fit men.

Trevor had been imported illegally to South Florida from Malaysia as an infant. He spent his early

years in the possession of a series of dimwits in the narcotics business who thought it would be cool to

have an orangutan as a pet. All of them had quickly learned otherwise. Several had been hospitalized; one

lost an ear. Trevor had suffered retaliations, having been stabbed twice and shot once in the leg. He

recovered each time, but had developed a deep-seated distrust for men.

Women were a different matter. There were no female orangutans in Trevor’s life and he had his

needs. He was attracted to human females and found that they treated him much better than males,

although, with the exception of one incident involving the very wasted girlfriend of an Oxycontin dealer,

they had resisted his efforts to mate with them. But Trevor was an incurable romantic: He never stopped

trying with the ladies.

After five years of being passed from dimwit to dimwit, growing larger and stronger all the time,

Trevor had been dumped late one night at Primate Encounter in a packing crate. He was received

enthusiastically by management and soon became a star attraction, although he was a headache for the

animal handlers—hostile to the men, always hitting on the women.

Trevor lived alone in a large cage with ropes, a tire swing and a log climbing structure for his

amusement. By the standards of Primate Encounter, it was fairly lavish. But orangutans are not goldfish;

they know when their recreational options are limited. There are only so many times an orangutan can

swing on the same tire or climb up the same log before it thinks the orangutan equivalent of
Fuck this
.

Trevor had reached that point. And he was only five years old. In captivity, he could live to be sixty.

Basically, he was serving a fifty-five-year life sentence with no possibility of parole. He didn’t know this

exactly; neither law nor math was his strong suit. But he did know he was bored shitless.

And so when the male human who smelled like a snake went around behind his cage and left

something there, Trevor perked up. This was new, and new was interesting. When the humans had left

Primate Encounter, Trevor went to the back of his cage and peered through the bars. He saw the tarp

several feet away in a clump of tall grass. He studied it for a few moments, then reached his right arm

through the cage. With effort, he managed to get his hand on the edge of the tarp and pull on it. It came

easily.

Trevor pulled the tarp through the bars and into the cage. He held it up to his huge moony face and

smelled it. It was not particularly interesting. He tossed it aside.

Trevor went back and peered through the bars. He saw the suitcase. He reached his arm through the

bars but could barely touch the suitcase with his fingertips. He shifted his position and reached his arm

through again, straining. This time he was able to get enough purchase with his fingers to pull the suitcase