Free Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark by Jeff Lindsay Page A

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 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 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.

Dexter 3 - Dexter in the Dark
    EIGHT
    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.”
    I was already aware that it
would really make a difference in my bank account, but beyond that I still
didn't see the point. Would