Sherm’s view was par for the course. The open flatbed of his rust-adorned pickup extended almost to the smudged glass. Beyond it was a strip of loose gravel just wide enough to count as a road and unkempt marsh on the other side. Wildlife he could only imagine slithered between knotty roots and bubbled under dark water. Home sweet home, Sherm thought.
He stepped out long enough for the heavy heat to calm him down and dry him out. Mr. Juan Carmel would be arriving in a half-hour, or so he promised, and that was more than enough time to visit the vending machine. Sherm shut his flatbed and locked it, then pulled a ratty denim shirt out of the passenger seat. Sweat glued it to him as soon as he pulled it on, but the sleeves fell over his fresh scratches and that was all he needed it to do.
The parking lot for the rest of the hotel sat on its longer side and only had a handful of cars to prove the place wasn’t abandoned. Sherm took special note of each of them, but none struck him as familiar. Maybe it was the heat or maybe it was nerves, but Sherm didn’t much care to think about the other temporary residents of Palmetto Springs. His mind wandered back to the plan. Back to how he was going to kill Mr. Juan Carmel.
Or Mr. John Carmel, Sherm reminded himself. He was only Juan Carmel to everyone he wanted to impress. Said Floridians trusted a Juan more than a John. Sherm didn’t know if that was racist or not, but he sure knew it was chickenshit. Hell, Sherm didn’t know too many pale, redheaded Juans. But John said it was an “image thing.” Sherm asked if hiring a gator-farm handler to scare business away from a gift shop on prime real estate with a few carefully placed animals was an “image thing.” He couldn’t remember what John said back, but it didn’t matter. Sherm smiled as he leaned against the lonely vending machine beside the front office of Palmetto Springs.
It was an old boxy kind of machine, with a Pepsi logo peeling off the front glass. Sherm bent to check if anyone forgot to take theirs and came up empty-handed. Between him and the machine, he had to admit that was funny, trying to play it cheap over pocket change. Once John Carmel, Orlando timeshare magnate, made his entrance and Sherm provided his exit, the alligator-handler-that-could would be a very rich man.
A few pounds on the bank of buttons and a 7UP banged out the bottom. It wasn’t what he’d ordered. He didn’t care. Sherm downed half the can in one tip. It helped that it was about as flat as the Keys. Maybe he’d move there, Sherm thought. But he shook that away.
“Plan before profit,” he said to the dead parking lot. “Plan before profit.”
Mr. John Carmel would walk in with his Don Johnson suit and Krylon tan and smile like he wasn’t stuck between a rock and five hundred thousand dollars. How did we end up here? he would ask with a laugh and a smile.
Sherm grinned like a gator in the sun. We ended up here because you flinched, my friend. He swirled the dregs around the can and paused to watch the road along the front of the hotel. A few cars passed, mostly rentals, mostly tourists. A billboard stood between two untended palms and provided a sun-bleached ad for a gun range. Sherm laughed and finished his drink — who comes to the vacation capital of the world to work on their aim?
He closed the door to his room behind him and fell back onto the bed. A stale cocktail of cleaning solution and cheap perfume slithered out from under the sheet, but Sherm didn’t care. He lost himself in the stucco canyons on the ceiling. Lost himself in just how he ended up in Palmetto Springs.
It was Scooby-Doo bullshit. Was from the minute Carmel hired him. Leave some gators in the underbrush around The World’s Largest Gift Shop and scare off business until the Arab has to sell the place. It was one of eight World’s Largest Gift Shops in the Greater Orlando area, but the only one in the way of Carmel’s next resort. Sherm didn’t know why he even agreed when it was that easy. Well, that’s a lie — money — but it didn’t make much sense — a lot of money — because tourists leave disappointed if they don’t see an alligator — a whole lot of money. But then the Arab — it was an F name — had to take a shotgun to one of the scaly bastards and get himself arrested.
Bernie pulled the shower rod down and derailed Sherm’s train of thought long enough for him to sit up. The alligator in the bathroom was restless. It was mad. It was hungry. Sherm lay back down.
Of course, the Arab getting arrested was the best thing that could’ve happened to Sherm and John Carmel. Hard to keep a store running when the owner’s in prison. Sherm heard an engine die outside and stared at the door until the only sound was the calming white noise of cicadas, mosquitoes, and other tropical pests. Still, Sherm got up and checked the room-temperature mini-fridge to make sure his brand new Dirty Harry hand cannon hadn’t grown legs. Someone at the ranch stole his last pistol within the week and he wasn’t about to let anybody, even himself, sneak off with this one. Satisfied Bernie hadn’t eaten the gun in his absence, Sherm slapped water on his face.
Neither of them expected the wily old son of a bitch to post bail and come knocking on their doors. But the wily old son of a bitch also didn’t expect Carmel to grow a pair and ask Sherm nicely to feed Mr. F-name Arab to the biggest alligator on the ranch.
Sherm pulled at his eyes until his sight blurred sideways. Well, Carmel didn’t specifically mention feeding anyone to anything; he just told Sherm to improvise. Sherm was good at improvising. He smiled at his reflection and his reflection smiled back. That’s why Sherm decided he could blackmail the upstanding Mr. Juan Carmel. He figured five hundred thousand was enough to make him take notice but not enough to make him think it was a bluff. And that’s why John Carmel would have no reason to suspect he’d die in the belly of Bernie the alligator in Room 122 of the Palm Springs Hotel.
I taped the evidence to the inside of the toilet tank, Mr. Carmel. Out of my hands. Out of yours. You don’t even have to give me the money first. Just go on in there and take a peek. Easy does it, see? Sherm definitely heard a car door slam that time. He took a precautionary stride to the minifridge and ducked like he was just sliding some fresh, flat 7UPs in for his business partner and pal. The prickly grip bit into his palm. His finger laid a tense bridge across the trigger guard.
It might be John Carmel come early. But it could be the bounty hunter, Ray Peach, come to learn a little respect.
Footsteps hurried on gravel outside.
Why did Peach care so much anyways? The Arab’s bail bond wasn’t enough to earn the bounty hunter a high-five. Certainly not enough to keep playing the pebble in their shoes, that’s for damn sure. Poking around the ranch. Poking around Carmel’s oh-so-special Gilded Dunes Resort and Clubhouse. And considering the bastard he was looking for was still being digested somewhere, Peach wasn’t going to make anything at all. Sherm nodded without noticing it, his finger sneaking off the guard and toward the trigger. Bounty hunting wasn’t even Peach’s day job. Son of a bitch did dinner theater. The one with the Eliot Ness gangsters or whatever. He played a bad guy every night and twice on Sundays. Sherm had to laugh at that one, playing a bad guy. Sounded like a lot of former coworkers. And he had all their numbers too. Just stupid animals acting like they weren’t. And what the hell kind of name was Ray Peach?
Stage name or not, he wasn’t worth much as a bounty hunter and he was about to be worth a lot less.