Dexter by Design (Dexter 4)

And so I braced myself for some angry gibberish and he stood there looking at me with an expression that is usually reserved for grandmother-rapers, and I began to wonder if I could possibly just push past him, and nothing else happened until the elevator doors began to close automatically. But before I could escape back downstairs, Doakes shot out his right hand—actually a gleaming steel claw—and stopped the doors from closing.

“Thank you,” I said, and took a tentative step forward. But he did not budge and he did not blink, and without knocking him down, I did not see how I could get by.

Doakes kept his unblinking, loathing stare on me and brought up a small silver thing about the size of a hardcover book. He flipped it open to reveal that it was a small handheld computer or PDA and, still without looking away from me, he jabbed at it with his claw.

“Put it on my desk,” said a disjointed male voice from the PDA, and Doakes snarled a little more and jabbed again. “Black with two sugars,” the voice said, and he poked again. “Have a nice day,” it said, really a very pleasant baritone that should have come from a happy and pudgy white American man instead of this glowering dark cyborg so bent on revenge.

But at least he finally had to look away, down to the keyboard of the thing he held in his claw, and after staring for a moment at what was clearly a cluster of prerecorded sentences, he found the right button.

“I am still watching you,” said the happy baritone voice, and the cheerful and positive tone should have made me feel very good about myself, but the fact that it was Doakes saying it by proxy somehow spoiled the effect.

“That’s very reassuring,” I said. “Would you mind watching me get off the elevator?”

For a moment he thought he did mind, and he moved his claw to the keyboard again. But then he remembered that it hadn’t worked out too well before to poke it without looking, so he glanced down, punched a button, and looked up at me as the cheerful voice said, “Motherfucker,” in a tone that made it sound like “Jelly doughnut.” But at least he moved aside slightly so I could get by.

“Thank you,” I said, and because I am sometimes not a very kind person, I added, “And I will put it on your desk. Black with two sugars. Have a nice day.” I stepped past him and headed down the hall, but I could feel his eyes on me all the way to my cubicle.

FIVE

THE ORDEAL OF THE WORKING DAY HAD BEEN NIGHTMARISH enough, from being stranded without doughnuts in the morning all the way through the terrifying encounter with what was left of Sergeant Doakes, vocally enhanced version. Even so, none of this prepared me for the shock of arriving home.

I’d been hoping for the warm and fuzzy glow of a good meal and some downtime with Cody and Astor—perhaps a game of Kick the Can out in the yard before dinner. But as I pulled up and parked at Rita’s house—now My House, too, which took some getting used to—I was surprised to see the two small and tousled heads sitting in the front yard and apparently waiting for me. Since I knew full well that SpongeBob was on TV right now, I could not imagine what would make them sit out here, instead of in front of the TV. So it was with a growing sense of alarm that I climbed out of my car and approached them.

“Greetings, citizens,” I said. They stared at me with a matched set of mournful looks, but said nothing. That was to be expected from Cody, who never spoke more than four words at a time. But for Astor, it was alarming, since she had inherited her mother’s talent for circular breathing, which allowed them both to talk without pausing for air, and to see her sit there without speaking was almost unprecedented. So I switched languages and tried again. “What up, yo?” I asked them.

“Poop van,” said Cody. Or at any rate, that’s what I thought I heard. But since none of my training had prepared me to respond to anything remotely like that, I looked over at Astor, hoping for some hint about how I should react.

“Mom said we get to have pizza, but it’s the poop van for you, and we didn’t want you to go away, so we came out here to warn you. You’re not going away, are you, Dexter?”

It was a small relief to know that I had heard Cody right, even though that now meant that I really was dealing with trying to make sense of “poop van.” Had Rita really said that? Did it mean that I had done something very bad that I didn’t know about? That didn’t seem fair—I liked to remember and enjoy it when I do something bad. And one day after the honeymoon—wasn’t that just a little abrupt?

“As far as I know, I’m not going anywhere,” I said. “Are you sure that’s what your mom said?”

They nodded in unison and Astor said, “Uh-huh. She said you’d be surprised.”

“She was right,” I said, and it really didn’t seem fair. I was totally at a loss. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll go tell her I’m not going.” They each took one of my hands and we went inside.

The air inside the house was filled with a tantalizing aroma, strangely familiar and yet exotic, as if you sniffed a rose and instead smelled pumpkin pie. It was coming from the kitchen, so I led my small troop in that direction.

“Rita?” I called out, and the clatter of a pan answered me.

“It’s not ready,” she said. “It’s a surprise.”

As we all know, surprise is usually ominous, unless it is your birthday—and even then, there are no guarantees. But I pushed bravely into the kitchen anyway, and found Rita wearing an apron and fussing over the stove, a lock of blond hair falling unnoticed down across her forehead.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked.

“What? No, of course not. Why would—damn it!” she said, sticking a singed finger into her mouth, and then stirr

ing the contents of the pan furiously.

“Cody and Astor say you’re sending me away,” I said.

Rita dropped her stirring spoon and looked at me with an expression of alarm. “Away? That’s silly, I—why would I…” She bent to pick up the spoon and jumped to the skillet to stir again.

“So you didn’t call the poop van?” I said.

“Dexter,” she said, with a certain amount of stress in her voice, “I am trying to make you a special meal, and I’m working very hard not to ruin it. Can this please wait until later?” And she jumped to the counter and grabbed a measuring cup, and then rushed back to the skillet.