And then he stopped suddenly in his tracks and slowly moved away down a different aisle.
Because the other’s car had a very noticeable placard lying on the dashboard.
A police parking permit.
He was very glad he had been patient. If the other was with the police . . . This could be a much bigger problem than he had expected. Not good at all. This would take some careful planning.
And a great deal more observation.
And so the Watcher slipped quietly back into the night to prepare, and to watch.
F I V E
Somebody once said that there’s no rest for the wicked, and they were almost certainly talking about me, because for several days after I sent dear little Zander on to his just reward poor Dogged Dexter was very busy indeed. Even as Rita’s frenetic planning kicked into high gear, my job followed suit.
We seemed to have hit one of those periodic spells Miami gets every now and then in which murder just seems like a good idea, and I was up to my eyeballs in blood spatter for three days.
But on the fourth day, things actually got a little bit worse. I had brought in doughnuts, as is my habit from time to time—especially in the days following my playdates. For some reason, not only do I feel more relaxed for several days after the Passenger and I have a night encounter, but I also feel quite hungry. I’m sure that fact is filled with deep psychological significance, but I am far more interested in making sure I get one or two of the jelly doughnuts before the savage predators in Forensics shred them all to pieces. Significance can wait when doughnuts are on the line.
But this morning I barely managed to grab one raspberry-filled doughnut—and I was lucky not to lose a finger in the process. The DEXTER IN THE DARK
33
whole floor was buzzing with preparation for a trip to a crime scene, and the tone of the buzz let me know that it was a particularly heinous one, which did not please me. That meant longer hours, stuck somewhere far from civilization and Cuban sand-wiches. Who knew what I would end up with for lunch? Considering that I had been short-changed on the doughnuts, lunch could prove to be a very important meal, and for all I knew I would be forced to work right through it.
I grabbed my handy blood-spatter kit and headed out the door with Vince Masuoka, who despite his small size had somehow grabbed two of the very valuable filled doughnuts—including the Bavarian cream with the chocolate frosting. “You have done a little too well, Mighty Hunter,” I told him with a nod at his plun-dered loot.
“The gods of the forest have been good,” he said, and took a large bite. “My people will not starve this season.”
“No, but I will,” I said.
He gave me his terrible phony smile, which looked like something he had learned to do by studying a government manual on facial expressions. “The ways of the jungle are hard, Grasshopper,”
he said.
“Yes, I know,” I said. “First you must learn to think like a doughnut.”
“Ha,” Vince said. His laugh was even phonier than his smile, sounding like he was reading aloud from a phonetic spelling of laughter. “Ah, ha ha ha!” he said. The poor guy seemed to be faking everything about being human, just like me. But wasn’t as good at it as I was. No wonder I was comfortable with him. That and the fact that he quite often took a turn bringing the doughnuts.
“You need better camouflage,” he said, nodding at my shirt, a bright pink-and-green Hawaiian pattern complete with hula girls.
“Or at least better taste.”
“It was on sale,” I said.
“Ha,” he said again. “Well, pretty soon Rita will be picking your clothes.” And then abruptly dropping his terrible artificial jollity, he said, “Listen, I think I have found the perfect caterer.”
34
JEFF LINDSAY
“Does he do jelly doughnuts?” I said, truthfully hoping that the whole subject of my impending matrimonial bliss would simply go away. But I had asked Vince to be my best man, and he was taking the job seriously.
“The guy is very big,” Vince said. “He did the MTV Awards, and all those showbiz parties and stuff.”
“He sounds delightfully expensive,” I said.
“Well, he owes me a favor,” Vince said. “I think we can get him down on the price. Maybe like a hundred and fifty bucks a plate.”