The Death Box by J. A. Kerley

was riding a pillow of purple clouds to the horizon and a golden light suffused the air. A wobbling strand of pelicans skimmed across the cove barely a foot above the waves.
    “Hey neighbor,” a voice called, suspending my unsettled thoughts. I saw Dubois Burnside at the point of the cove. “You doing anything important?” he called through cupped hands.
    “Not sure I ever have,” I returned.
    “How about you come by the house?” he said, overlarge gestures miming the pouring of a drink.
    I shot a thumbs up. “There in fifteen.”
    I threw on a fresh shirt and snatched up a bottle of liquor I’d received at a going-away party last month, dropping it into a brown bag. Burnside’s home was past a football-field-long buffer of vegetation and surrounded by a cream-colored wall with an ornamental gate at the entrance, a pair of mirroring flamingos perched on single legs. I hit the buzzer and heard the gate unlatch.
    I walked down the drive to his home, a combo of styles, Moorish Art Deco, I suppose, the Moorish displayed in two stories of textured stucco tinted yellow and topped with terracotta tiling, the Deco reflected in flamingo-themed grating over wide and manteled windows. The drive ended in a portico shading a blue 500-series Mercedes and a spiffy red Beamer convertible. The plate on the Merc said FUNRL 1, the Beamer’s said ZAZZI.
    The front door was iron-belted mahogany recessed within an arched vestibule, more Moor. Marble slabs framing the portal sported bas reliefs that echoed the Deco flamingos. The door opened as my hand reached for the iron handle. Instead of Dubois Burnside, I beheld a handsome black woman in a floor-length red gown with a décolleté my eyes did not follow to its conclusion because that would have been impolite. I judged the lady in her early forties, and she was not much shorter than my six feet.
    “You must be Mister Ryder. I’m Delita Matthews.”
    She extended her hand on a long and slender arm dressed in silver hoops. “Dubois will be with us in a minute. I told him to change into some decent clothes and not wear them saggy old pants. Every time I catch up to them pants I toss ’em in the trash.”
    “And every time I fish them out, baby,” Burnside said as he strolled into the room in threadbare cargo shorts beneath an extravagantly embroidered Mexican wedding shirt. His feet flapped in ancient huaraches.
    Delita aimed a long red fingernail at me like I was Exhibit A in a courtroom. “We got company.”
    “He ain’t company, he’s our neighbor.”
    The woman shot Burnside a raw glare but when she spun to me the eyes were Kahlua and cream. “You must be thirsty, Mr Ryder. May I get you a drink?”
    “Actually,” I said, pulling the bottle, “I brought this along. It’s supposed to be pretty fair and I thought—”
    “Hot damn,” Burnside said, plucking the bottle from my hand and squinting at the label. “This is thirty-year-old brandy.” He held the bottle up to Delita Matthews. “ Company brings hoity-toity wine, girl, neighbors bring fine brandy. Grab us a couple tumblers.”
    “We have brandy snifters, Dubois.”
    “I wanna drink it, not slosh it around.”
    But snifters it was and I poured hefty tots for Burnside and myself, Miz Matthews demurring. “I’m meeting friends at the Saddle Club in a few minutes,” she said. “There’s an orchestra and dancing, but Dubois refuses to go.”
    “I boogie,” Burnside proclaimed. “I don’t cha-cha.”
    Miz Matthews sashayed across the floor to the door, opened it and started out. A second later she leaned back in. “You using them coasters ain’t you, Dubois?”
    “Baby, you got ’em covering the table from end to end,” Burnside called over his shoulder. “A man can’t set down his glass without landing on a coaster.”
    The door closed and Burnside took a sip of brandy. “I don’t know what this thing is I got for bossy-ass women, but I got it. Had four wives and ever’ one had a face like an