don’t have anybody else to tell you what to do or how to do it, and that generally means that a great deal of deliberation is required before you get to the actual Action part. I pride myself on my vast talent for deliberation, but for some reason the circuits all seemed a bit rusty today. Maybe I had been sidelined for too long. Perhaps sitting in a tiny cell with every decision made for you tended to encourage your mental processes to take early retirement. Whatever the case, it was surprisingly hard to kick-start the mighty turbines of Dexter’s Giant Brain, and it was another five solid minutes of stupid blinking before I began to have cogent thoughts.
Finally I got up and staggered to the little bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face, and watched in the mirror as the water dripped off and ideas began to trickle back in. “Independent action”—at the moment I wasn’t really even independent. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized that I was stuck here, just as certainly as I’d been stuck in TGK, because Miami is not a city built on the premise that mass transportation is a really good idea. And in spite of the fact that I was only a few blocks from the Metromover, I couldn’t really get anywhere and do anything without a car. Kraunauer’s office, for example, was miles from the nearest Metromover station. I needed a car.
And I had one—somewhere. With any luck at all it was still mine, and still somewhere within the Metro Dade area.
So my first step was to get my car back. I nodded at my reflection:
Nice work, Dexter. That was real thinking there.
The last time I’d seen my battered but trusty little car, it had been parked on the street near the house that was supposed to become Our New House, the Dream Home that had a pool and separate rooms for the kids and nearly every modern convenience. Instead, it was now the house where Robert Chase and Rita had died and, not coincidentally, where I had been arrested. I had to assume that it, too, was evidence now. I could also be pretty sure that somebody had found my car nearby—probably not Anderson himself, but somebody a few pegs down on the food chain who had to do some actual grunt work.
It might well be that my car was now evidence, too—but at least I knew how to find out. I pulled off the wire charging my phone and began to call around.
Half an hour later I had found out that my car was, in fact, impounded—but it was not
in
the actual impound lot. In fact, nobody seemed to have any idea where it might be, and I was not successful at getting anybody to see this as their problem. Since losing an impounded vehicle was highly irregular, I had to assume that I was seeing Anderson’s fine handiwork again. He had probably donated my car to an artificial-reef program and taken the tax deduction for himself.
I actually admired Anderson’s thoroughness; he seemed to have thought of nearly everything. It wasn’t at all his usual slapdash knuckleheaded style of doing things—or to be more accurate, his style of Not Doing things. He had clearly taken a special interest in making me as miserable as possible.
Whatever the case, I didn’t have a car, and I needed one. And because my Magnificent Mind was functioning at last, it was the work of mere moments for me to find a solution to this vexing problem. I called a nearby rental office. It took two more phone calls, but I found one that agreed to bring the car to me, and within a surprisingly short time the agreeable clerk called me from the lobby. I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on my doorknob and went down, and before I knew it I was behind the wheel of my very own vehicle again, relishing the new-car smell and the security of knowing that I’d bought the supplemental insurance and I could hit something if I really wanted to. Now if only I could find Detective Anderson in a pedestrian crosswalk…
I drove the rental clerk back to his office and then turned out onto Dixie Highway. I was free, I
Finally I got up and staggered to the little bathroom. I splashed cold water on my face, and watched in the mirror as the water dripped off and ideas began to trickle back in. “Independent action”—at the moment I wasn’t really even independent. In fact, as I thought about it, I realized that I was stuck here, just as certainly as I’d been stuck in TGK, because Miami is not a city built on the premise that mass transportation is a really good idea. And in spite of the fact that I was only a few blocks from the Metromover, I couldn’t really get anywhere and do anything without a car. Kraunauer’s office, for example, was miles from the nearest Metromover station. I needed a car.
And I had one—somewhere. With any luck at all it was still mine, and still somewhere within the Metro Dade area.
So my first step was to get my car back. I nodded at my reflection:
Nice work, Dexter. That was real thinking there.
The last time I’d seen my battered but trusty little car, it had been parked on the street near the house that was supposed to become Our New House, the Dream Home that had a pool and separate rooms for the kids and nearly every modern convenience. Instead, it was now the house where Robert Chase and Rita had died and, not coincidentally, where I had been arrested. I had to assume that it, too, was evidence now. I could also be pretty sure that somebody had found my car nearby—probably not Anderson himself, but somebody a few pegs down on the food chain who had to do some actual grunt work.
It might well be that my car was now evidence, too—but at least I knew how to find out. I pulled off the wire charging my phone and began to call around.
Half an hour later I had found out that my car was, in fact, impounded—but it was not
in
the actual impound lot. In fact, nobody seemed to have any idea where it might be, and I was not successful at getting anybody to see this as their problem. Since losing an impounded vehicle was highly irregular, I had to assume that I was seeing Anderson’s fine handiwork again. He had probably donated my car to an artificial-reef program and taken the tax deduction for himself.
I actually admired Anderson’s thoroughness; he seemed to have thought of nearly everything. It wasn’t at all his usual slapdash knuckleheaded style of doing things—or to be more accurate, his style of Not Doing things. He had clearly taken a special interest in making me as miserable as possible.
Whatever the case, I didn’t have a car, and I needed one. And because my Magnificent Mind was functioning at last, it was the work of mere moments for me to find a solution to this vexing problem. I called a nearby rental office. It took two more phone calls, but I found one that agreed to bring the car to me, and within a surprisingly short time the agreeable clerk called me from the lobby. I hung the Do Not Disturb sign on my doorknob and went down, and before I knew it I was behind the wheel of my very own vehicle again, relishing the new-car smell and the security of knowing that I’d bought the supplemental insurance and I could hit something if I really wanted to. Now if only I could find Detective Anderson in a pedestrian crosswalk…
I drove the rental clerk back to his office and then turned out onto Dixie Highway. I was free, I
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