#

Two weeks later.

An unconscious man in a blue astronaut jumpsuit lies face-down on the shore of a breezy mangrove island in the Gulf Stream. He's coming around, talking in his sleep. "Jeannie! Come out of that bottle right now!" His eyelids flutter in the sand, squinting at the bright sunlight. He raises his head and sees hundreds of eyes staring back at him.

They're still here. What do they want from me? Serge stands up.

"I told you. I'm having memory problems. I can only recall textbook history, plus some stuff about a briefcase and a recent trip I took, but I can't piece it all together yet."

The eyes silently stay on him. Some blink.

"Okay, okay. One more lesson."

Serge steps forward in the sand and spreads his arms in an encompassing gesture:

"Railroads had a seismic impact on the development of Florida, beginning with the fabled East Coast line slashing its way through the swamps a hundred years ago, opening up the bottom half of the state, an unforgiving no-man's land of eccentric pioneers, cranky Indians and alcoholic hermits ..."

Serge. Serge A. Storms. Wiry, intense, unhinged, standing on a beach in the lower Florida Keys, leaves rustling in the salt wind, surrounded by his students, hundreds of small attentive monkeys.

"... Then the railroads unveiled the fancy deco streamliners of the 1930s, introducing the northerners to frost-free vacations and society-page beach sex in Palm Beach ..."

Serge stops speaking. One of the monkeys in back is chattering.

"Buttons, please, I'm trying to talk up here."

The monkey stops chattering.

"Thank you ... As I was saying, the histories of the railroads and Florida are inextricably entwined. By the end of the twentieth century, Amtrak had unveiled its latest high-speed express train, The Silver Stingray, for its New York-to-Miami route. The train didn't have the seminal influence on the state as it predecessors, but it played a crucial role in one of the most infamous mysteries in the annals of Florida crime: the missing briefcase with five million dollars. Remember? The one with the curse that I was telling you about?"

The monkeys stare.

"It was a Wednesday. The Silver Stingray clacked down the tracks on its regular afternoon run. The train entered a tunnel near a phosphate mine, and everything went dark. The train came out of the tunnel. Someone screamed! A body lay in the aisle of the dining car!"

Serge lies down in front of the monkeys for effect.

"The victim wore a blue velvet tuxedo and ruffled shirt, one of the lounge reptiles entertaining the tourists on the trip south. It was murder! All the passengers eyed each other suspiciously. Who was the killer? Was it one of the other performers in velvet tuxedos? The blues singer from New York? The Russian? The Jamaican? Or perhaps one of the women in that book club? And why? Did it have something to do with the five million dollars rumored to be on board? ..."

Serge stops talking again, his hyper-keen senses twitching. He jumps up and runs to the edge of a mangrove outcropping, peering out at the ocean through the branches. His head suddenly spins back to the monkeys.

"A boat's coming! Battle formations! ..."