Jeffry Lindsay - Darkly dreaming Dexter

No. It wasn't simple at all, just simpleminded. It made absolutely no sense to pay any attention to the ghostly secret messages floating up at me from my dreams. Dreams had no existence in reality, left no Freddy Krueger-crossover claw marks on our wake-up world. I couldn't very well dash out of the house and drive aimlessly around in a psychic funk. I was a cool and logical being. And so it was in a cool and logical manner that I locked my apartment door and strolled to the car. I still had no idea where I was going, but the need to get there quickly had grabbed the reins and whipped me down to the building's parking area, where I kept my car. But twenty feet away from my trusty vehicle I slammed to a stop as though I had run into an invisible wall.

The dome light was on.

I had certainly not left it on-it had been daylight when I parked, and I could see that the doors were closed tightly. A casual thief would have left the door ajar to avoid the noise from closing it.

I approached slowly, not at all sure what I expected to see or whether I really wanted to see it. From five feet away I could see something in the passenger seat. I circled the car carefully and peered down at it, my nerves tingling, and peeked in. And there it was.

Barbie again. I was getting quite a collection.

This one was dressed in a little sailor hat and a shirt with a bare midriff, and tight pink hot pants. In one hand she clutched a small suitcase that said CUNARD on the side.

I opened the door and picked up the doll. I pulled the little suitcase from Barbie's hand and popped it open. Some small something fell out and rolled onto the floorboard. I picked it up. It looked an awful lot like Deborah's class ring. On the inside of the band was etched D.M., Deborah's initials.

I collapsed onto the seat, clutching Barbie in my sweaty hands. I turned her over. I bent her legs. I waved her arms. And what did you do last night, Dexter? Oh, I played with my dolls while a friend chopped up my sister.

I did not waste any time wondering how Cruise Line Hooker Barbie had gotten into my car. This was clearly a message-or a clue? But clues really ought to hint at something, and this one seemed to lead in the wrong direction. Clearly he had Debbie-but Cunard? How did that fit in with tight cold killing space? I could see no connection. But there was really only one place in Miami where it did fit.

I drove up Douglas and turned right through Coconut Grove. I had to slow down to thread my way through the parade of happy imbeciles dancing between the shops and cafés. They all seemed to have far too much time and money and very few clues beyond that, and it took me much longer than it should have to get through them, but it was hard to be too upset since I didn't actually know where I was going. Onward to somewhere; along Bayfront Drive, over to Brickle, and into downtown. I saw no huge neon signs bedecked with flashing arrows and encouraging words to direct me: “This way to the dissection!” But I drove on, approaching American Airlines Arena and, just beyond, MacArthur Causeway. In the quick glimpse I got on the near side of the arena, I could see the superstructure of a cruise ship in Government Cut, not a Cunard Lines ship, or course, but I peered anxiously for some sign. It seemed obvious that I was not actually being directed onto a cruise ship; too crowded, too many snooping officials. But somewhere nearby, somewhere related-which of course had to mean what? No further clues. I looked hard enough at the cruise ship to melt the poop deck, but Deborah did not spring from the hold and dance down the gangway.

I looked some more. Beside the ship, cargo cranes reared up into the night sky like abandoned props from Star Wars . A little farther and the stacks of cargo boxes were just barely visible in the dark below the cranes, great untidy heaps of them, scattered across the ground as if a gigantic and very bored child had flung out his toy box full of building blocks. Some of the storage boxes were refrigerated. And then beyond these boxes-

Back up just for a moment, dear boy.

Who was that whispering to me, muttering what soft words to all-alone darkly driving Dexter? Who sat behind me now; whose dry chuckling filled the backseat? And why? What message was rattling into my brainless, echo-empty head?

Storage boxes.

Some of them refrigerated.

But why the storage boxes? What possible reason could I have to be interested in a pile of cold, tightly enclosed spaces?

Oh, yes. Well. Since you put it that way.

Could this be the place, the future home of the Dexter's Birthplace Museum? With authentic, lifelike exhibits, including a rare live performance by Dexter's only sister?

I yanked my steering wheel hard, cutting off a BMW with a very loud horn. I extended my middle finger, for once driving like the Miami native I was, and accelerated over the causeway.

The cruise ship was off to the left. The area with all the boxes was on the right, surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. I drove around one time on the access road, wrestling a rising tide of certainty and a swelling chorus of what sounded like college fight songs from the Dark Passenger. The road dead-ended at a guard booth well before I got to the containers. There was a gate with several uniformed gentlemen lounging about, and no way through without answering some fairly embarrassing questions. Yes, officer, I wondered if I could come in and look around? You see, I thought it might be a good place for a friend of mine to slice up my sister.

I cut through a line of orange cones in the middle of the road thirty feet from the gate and turned around, back the way I had come. The cruise ship loomed on the right now. I turned left just before I came to the bridge back to the mainland and drove into a large area with a terminal on one end and a chain-link fence on the other. The fence was gaily decorated with signs that threatened dire punishment to anyone who strayed into the area, signed by U.S. Customs.

The fence led back to the main road along a large parking lot, empty at this time of night. I cruised its perimeter slowly, staring at the containers on the far side. These would be from foreign ports, needing to go through customs, access tightly controlled. It would be much too difficult for anyone to get in and out of this area, especially if they were carrying questionable loads of body parts and the like. I would either need to find a different area or admit that chasing vague feelings dredged up from a series of taunting dreams and a scantily clad doll was a waste of time. And the sooner I admitted that, the better my chance of finding Deb. She was not here. There was no reason she should be.

At last, a logical thought. I felt better already, and certainly would have been smug about it-if I had not seen a familiar panel truck parked right up against the inside of the fence, parked to display the lettering on the side that said ALLONZO BROTHERS. My private crowd in the basement of my brain sang too loudly for me to hear myself smirk, so I pulled over and parked. The clever-boy part of me was knocking on the front door of my brain and calling out, “Hurry! Hurry! Go-go-go!” But around back the lizard slithered up to the window and flicked its cautious tongue, and so I sat for a long moment before I finally climbed out of the car.

I walked to the fence and stood like a bit-part actor in a World War II prison camp movie, my fingers locked in the mesh of the fence, peering hungrily at what lay beyond, only a few impossible yards away. I was sure that there must be a very simple way for a marvelously intelligent creature like me to get in, but it was some indication of the state I was in that I could not seem to fasten one thought onto another. I had to get in, but I could not. And so I stood there clinging to the fence and looking in, knowing full well that everything that mattered was right there, only a few yards away, and I was completely unable to fling my giant brain at the problem and catch a solution as it bounced back. The mind picks some very bad times to take a walk, doesn't it?