Manny nodded. “They’re wonderful, aren’t they?” he said. “But so-o-o-o last year.” He picked one up, the one with the blue top, and gazed at it with a kind of aloof fondness. “The color palette really got tired, and that horrible old hotel over by Indian Creek started to copy them. Still,” he said with a shrug, and he popped it into his mouth. I was glad to see that it didn’t seem to cause any major bleeding. “One does grow fond of one’s own little tricks.” He turned and winked at Eduardo. “Perhaps a little too fond sometimes.” Eduardo went pale and fled to the kitchen, and Manny turned back to us with a huge crocodile smile. “Do try one, though, won’t you?”

“I’m afraid to bite one,” Vince said. “They’re so perfect.”

“And I’m afraid they might bite back,” I said.

Manny showed off a few dozen teeth. “If I could teach them 56

JEFF LINDSAY

that,” he said, “I would never be lonely.” He nudged the plate in my direction. “Go ahead,” he said.

“Would you serve these at my wedding?” I asked, thinking perhaps somebody ought to find some kind of point in all this.

Vince elbowed me, hard, but it was apparently too late.

Manny’s eyes had narrowed to little slits, although his impressive dental work was still on display. “I do not serve,” he said. “I present.

And I present whatever seems best to me.”

“Shouldn’t I have some idea ahead of time what that might be?”

I asked, “I mean, suppose the bride is allergic to wasabi-basted arugula aspic?”

Manny tightened his

fists so hard I could hear the knuckles creak. For a moment I had a small thrill of hope at the thought that I might have clevered myself out of a caterer. But then Manny relaxed and laughed. “I like your friend, Vic,” he said. “He’s very brave.”

Vince favored us both with a smile and started to breathe again, and Manny began to doodle with a pad and paper, and that is how I ended up with the great Manny Borque agreeing to cater my wedding at the special discounted price of only $250 a plate.

It seemed a bit high. But after all, I had been specifically instructed not to worry about money. I was sure Rita would think of some way to make it work, perhaps by inviting only two or three people. In any case, I didn’t get a great deal of time to worry about mere finances, as my cell phone began its happy little dirge almost immediately, and when I answered I heard Deborah say, without even attempting to match my cheery hello, “I need you here right away.”

“I’m awfully busy with some very important canapés,” I told her. “Can I borrow twenty thousand dollars?”

She made a noise in her throat and said, “I don’t have time for bullshit, Dexter. The twenty-four hours starts in twenty minutes and I need you there for it.” It was the custom in Homicide to convene everybody involved in a case twenty-four hours after the work began, to make sure everything was organized and everyone was on the same page. And Debs obviously felt that I had some kind of DEXTER IN THE DARK

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shrewd insight to offer—very thoughtful really, but untrue. With the Dark Passenger apparently still on hiatus, I didn’t think the great light of insight would come flooding in anytime soon.

“Debs, I really don’t have any thought at all on this one,” I said.

“Just get over here,” she told me, and hung up.

E I G H T

The traffic on the 836 was backed up for half a mile right after the 395 from Miami Beach poured into it. We inched forward between exits until we could see the problem: a truckload of watermelons had emptied out onto the highway.

There was a streak of red-and-green goo six inches thick across the road, dotted with a sprinkling of cars in various stages of destruction. An ambulance went past on the shoulder, followed by a procession of cars driven by people too important to wait in a traffic jam. Horns honked all along the line, people yelled and waved their fists, and somewhere ahead I heard a single gunshot. It was good to be back to normal life.

By the time we fought our way through the traffic and onto surface streets, we had lost fifteen minutes and it took another fifteen to get back to work. Vince and I rode the elevator to the second floor in silence, but as the doors slid open and we stepped out, he stopped me. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said.

“Yes, I am,” I said. “But if I don’t do it quickly Deborah will kill me.”

He grabbed my arm. “I mean about Manny,” he said. “You’re going to love what he does. It will really make a difference.”

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Tags: Jeff Lindsay Dexter Mystery
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