Jeff Lindsay - Dexter by Design

I stepped around in front and stood beside Debs. “Don't say that” I said, and he just glared at me. “It's so pedestrian, and you're much better than that. What was that part, “turd-sucking bag of possum vomit?” Wonderful.” And I gave him his due with some light applause.

“Plug me in, perro de puta,” he said. “We see how funny you are then.”

“And have you run us over with that sporty SUV of yours?” I said. “No thanks.”

Deborah lurched up out of her stunned appreciation of the performance and back into her alpha role. She pushed me to one side and resumed her stone-faced staring at Meza. “Mr Meza, we need you to answer a couple of questions, and if you refuse to cooperate I will take you down to the station and ask them there.”

“Do it, cunt” he said. “My lawyer would love that.”

“We could just leave him like this” I suggested. “Until someone comes along and steals him to sell for scrap metal.”

“Plug me in, you sack of lizard pus.”

“He's repeating himself”1 said to Deborah. I think we're wearing him down.”

“Did you threaten to kill the director of the Tourist Board?” Deborah asked.

Meza started to cry. It was not a pretty sight; his head flopped nervelessly to one side and mucus drooled from his mouth and nose, joined the tears, and began to march across his face. “Bastards” he said. “They shoulda killed me.” He snuffled so weakly that it had no effect at all except for the thin wet noise it made. “Looka me, looka what they done” he said in his hoarse, husky voice, a croak with no edge to it.

“What did they do to you, Mr Meza?” Debs said.

“Looka me” he snuffled. “They did this. Looka me. I live in this chingado chair, can't even pee without some maricon nurse to hold my dick.” He looked up, a little defiance once again showing through the mucus. “Wou'nt you wanna kill those puercos, too?” he said.

“You say they did this to you?” Debs said.

He sniffled again. It still didn't do anything. “Happened on the job” he said a little defensively. I was on the clock, but they said no, car accident, they don't pay for it. And then they fire me.” Deborah opened her mouth, and then closed it again with an audible click. I think she had been about to say something like, “Where were you last night between the hours of 3.30 and 5.00” and it occurred to her that he had most likely been right here in his powered chair. But Meza was sharp if nothing else, and he had noticed, too.

“What?” he said, snuffling mightily and actually moving a small stream of mucus, ever so slightly. “Somebody finally killed one of those chingado maricones? And you don't think it could be me “cause I'm in this chair? Bitch, you plug me in I show you how easy I kill somebody piss me off.”

“Which maricon did you kill?” I asked him, and Deborah elbowed me, even though she still had nothing to say.

“Whichever one is dead, motherfucker” he wheezed at me. I hope it that cocksucker Jo Anne, but fuck, I kill them all before I finish.”

“Mr Meza” Deborah said, and there was a slight hesitation in her voice that might have been sympathy in somebody else; in Debs it was disappointment at realizing that this poor blob of stuff was not her suspect. Once again, Meza picked up on it and went on the attack.

“Yeah, I did it” he said. “Cuff me, cunt. Chain me to the floor in the back seat with the dogs. Whatsa matter, you afraid I'll die on you? Do it, bitch. Or I kill you like I kilt those asshole-suckers at the Board.”

“Nobody killed anyone at the Board” I said.

He glared at me. “No?” he said. His head swivelled back to Deborah, mucus flashing in the sunlight. “Then what the fuck you harassing me for, shit-pig?” Deborah hesitated, then tried one last time. “Mr Meza” she said.

“Fuck you, get the fuck off my porch” Meza said.

“It seems like a good idea, Debs,” I said.

Deborah shook her head with frustration, then blew out a short, explosive breath. “Fuck” she said. “Let's go. Plug him in.” And she turned and walked off the porch, leaving me the dangerous and thankless job of plugging Meza's power cord back into the battery.

It just goes to show what selfish and thoughtless creatures humans are, even when they're family. After all, she was the one with the gun —shouldn't she be the one to plug him in?

Meza seemed to agree. He began running though a new list of graphically vulgar surrealism, all directed at Deborah's back. All I got was a quick, muttered, “Hurry up, faggot” as he paused to catch his breath.

I hurried. Not out of any desire to please Meza, but because I did not want to be standing around when he got power back to his chair.

It was far too dangerous —and in any case, I felt that I had spent enough of my precious and irreplaceable daylight listening to him complain. It was time to get back out into the world, where there were monsters to catch, even a monster to be, and with luck, there was also at some point a lunch to eat. None of this could happen if I remained trapped on this porch dodging a motorized chair with mouth to match.

So I pushed the power connection back into the battery and vaulted off the porch before Meza realized he was plugged in again.

I hurried to the car and climbed in. Deborah slammed the car into gear and accelerated away even before I got the door closed, apparently worried that Meza might disable the car by ramming it with his chair, and we were very quickly back in the warm and fuzzy cocoon of Miami's homicidal traffic.

“Fuck” she said at last, and the word seemed like a soft summer breeze after listening to Meza, I was sure he was going to be it.”

“Look at the bright side” I said. “At least you learned some wonderful new words.”

“Go shit up a rope” Debs said. After all, she wasn't exactly new to this herself.

There was time to check two more names on the list before we broke for lunch. The address for the first one was over in Coconut Grove, and it took us only about ten minutes to get there from Meza's house. Deborah drove just slightly faster than she should have, which in Miami is slow, and therefore a lot like wearing a “Kick Me” sign on your back. So, even though the traffic was light, we had our own soundtrack along the way, of horns and hollering and gracefully extended middle fingers, as the other drivers swooped past us like a school of ravenous piranha darting around a rock in the river.

Debs didn't seem to notice. She was thinking hard, which meant that her brow was furrowed into such a deep frown that I felt like warning her that the lines would become permanent if she didn't unclench. But past experience had taught me that interrupting her thought process with that kind of caring remark would invariably result in one of her blistering arm-punches, so I sat silently. I did not really see what there was to think about so thoroughly: we had four very decorative bodies and no clue who had arranged them. But of course, Debs was the trained investigator, not me. Perhaps there was something from one of her courses at the Academy that applied here and called for massive forehead wrinkling.

In any case, we were soon at the address on our list. It was a modest old cottage off Tigertail Avenue, with a small, overgrown yard and a “For Sale” sign stuck in front of a large mango tree. There were half a dozen old newspapers scattered across the yard, still in their wrappers, and only half visible through the tall and untended grass of the lawn.

“Shit” said Deborah as she parked in front of the place. It seemed like a very sharp and succinct summary. The house looked like it had not been lived in for months.

“What did this guy do?” I asked her, watching a brightly colored sheet of newsprint blow across the yard.