Hammerhead Ranch Motel

5

C. C. Flag stared out of his third-floor office in Los Angeles. He daydreamed and squeezed a small exercise ball with one hand; with the other he held binoculars to ogle a woman on the eighth floor of the landmark Capitol Records building across the street. He relit a cigar and stuck the antique gold lighter in the breast pocket of his elephant hunter jacket. Got to cut down, he told himself, and blew smoke rings at the ceiling.

The office appeared more spacious than it was from the paucity of furniture. Like someone was moving out, only it was supposed to be taste. Flag sat in an ultramodern chair that looked ready to buckle. It had a thin frame of shiny alloys invented on the space shuttle and was covered with a film of polymers. His desk was a triangle of safety glass atop a giant golf tee. The only other furniture was the retro bar and antique Coke machine. The floor was oak parquet. Ceiling tracks of boron spotlights emphasized the framed photographs of Flag covering the walls. Flag with Buddy Holly, Flag with The Who, Flag with Hendrix, all carefully cropped, just before security grabbed Flag and his personal photographer.

For his sixty-four years of unhealthy living, time had not been unkind to Flag. He was a large, husky man, but his paunch was modest. His hair was thick, his complexion bent toward ruddy, and he always dressed as if he were on his way to Mayan ruins. Thick pants tucked in the tops of high, rugged boots. Double-stitched shirt, wide-brimmed hat, riding crop.

C. C. was making a comeback from obscurity after his heyday as “ America ’s Daddy-O of Rock ’n’ Roll.” Flag gave himself the nickname because no one else would. Dick Clark was much more popular. Flag had tried everything: jokes, cash giveaways, sexy women, on-location dances. Nothing worked. Then he stumbled on a gimmick that would forever vault Flag into the rock ‘n’ roll pantheon of distant also-rans. One Saturday afternoon in 1958, Flag became the first person in rock music history to destroy musical instruments at the end of a performance. He just forgot to tell the band ahead of time. It was a melee.

News of the brawl boosted viewership the following week, when Flag and three stagehands beat the crap out of the crooning group the Wind-Breakers. After that, the show was forced to adopt an all-record format. But the brief excitement was enough to keep Flag’s career from dwindling out for another three years.

Flag’s elbowing personality hadn’t been heard from in decades until the mid-1990s, when he turned up at four A.M. on the ex-celebrity infomercial circuit. He was still recognized by the same demographic burp that had watched his dance show as kids and now was the target audience for advertisers of denture adhesives, confidence-inspiring undergarments and term life for the near-dead.

His phone rang. Flag pressed the button that activated the speakerphone, which he prized for its irritation value. His secretary said someone was here to see him. Then he heard his secretary yelling out in the hall. “Stop! You can’t just barge in there!”

Flag’s office door flew open and slammed into the wall. A courier from Insult to Injury Process Servers stormed into the room and tomahawked a subpoena into Flag’s chest. “Consider yourself served, defendant-boy! Have a nice fucking day!”

The federal indictment was from the Middle District of Florida, United States v. C. C. Flag and Hammerhead Ranch et al. It looked like C. C. Flag was going to take that Tampa vacation ahead of schedule.

Flag’s biggest celebrity endorsement was a magazine sweepstakes out of Florida. Apparently the contest people had exaggerated a little too much in their mass mailing, and a handful of elderly people from across the country were showing up in person to claim their million-dollar prizes.

I n the seventh game at the Tampa Jai Alai Fronton, Testaronda II dropped an easy killshot.

“Shit-on-a-keychain!” shouted Zargoza as he tore his quinella tickets and threw them in the air over his ten-ounce sirloin and vodka tonic. C. C. Flag, wearing a Daktari expedition ensemble, had just arrived from Tampa International Airport. He sat down at Zargoza’s table in the Courtview Club on South Dale Mabry Highway.

“I can’t believe they’re gonna close this place down,” said Zargoza. “Nobody goes to jai alai anymore. There’s no respect for the old ways.”

“No luck?” asked Flag.

Zargoza grumbled. New jai alai players trotted out into a presentation line on the court before the next game and saluted the crowd with their cestas.

Flag looked at the row of players. “I hear you’re supposed to bet on the one that takes a dump.”

“Wry.”

Flag turned to face Zargoza. “Why am I getting subpoenaed?”

“Because you’re a toad!” said Zargoza, suddenly raising his voice. “And not just your regular happy garden toad, but one of those lumpy, putrescent amphibious tumors you find under a bunch of rotted lumber in a ditch next to a closed-down industrial plant… How’s Marge and the kids?”

“They’re fine, Z…but I’m worried…”

“Take a chill pill,” said Zargoza. “It’ll blow over.”

“You said it would never come to this. You said you’d diversified so the complaints would be spread out…”

“It’s that damn Dick Clark and Ed McMahon scandal,” said Zargoza. “It’s gotten too much press. Everyone who does any kind of sweepstakes fraud is getting unfairly tainted.”

“Dick Clark again,” said Flag. “I should have known!”

They were engrossed in the next jai alai match when Flag unexpectedly began crying. “I can’t go to jail!”

“Stop it! You’re embarrassing me!” snapped Zargoza. “Don’t make me bitch-slap you!”

Flag settled into a light whimper, shoulders popping up and down.

“I have another job for you, unless you’re going to start crying again,” said Zargoza.

Flag said he was okay.

“Good. Get over to Vista Isles. Their nursing home division wants to get rid of the Medicare residents and replace them with private payers. They’re losing fifteen grand a bed per year. Guess who got the removal contract?”

“How are you getting rid of them? You’re not killing them, are you?” asked Flag.

“Of course I’m not killing them!” said Zargoza. “I’m, uh, liberating them. Don’t worry. I’ve got some hired muscle handling it. I trust these guys-we go way back. What they do is-”

“I don’t want to hear the details,” interrupted Flag, covering his ears with his hands. “I’m a respectable businessman!”

“Then it’s settled. Get over to the nursing home and meet the staff, shake hands with the Q-Tips, hang out, show you care,” said Zargoza. “There’s not much to do now, but management is bracing for when someone notices the radical shift in Medicare beds. It’s the newest trend in the industry, and advocates for the elderly are watching closely. People are difficult like that.”

Z argoza had emptied twenty beds in two months. The management at Vista Isles was surprised and thrilled.

“It’s nothing,” said Zargoza. “What we do is-”

“No, no, no! Don’t tell us how you’re doing it!” said Vista Isles president Fred McJagger, waving both hands at Zargoza. “As long as you’re not killing them. You aren’t killing them, are you?”

“Nope. What I do is-”

“Don’t tell me!” shouted McJagger. “I can’t know these things. I’m a respectable businessman!”

What Zargoza was doing was driving them out of state. Most were senile or had Alzheimer’s. He’d strip them of ID and pack them in vans. Then he’d drive north and scatter them around bus stations from Macon to Shreveport.

It was the perfect cover. Old people wandered away from group homes every day in Florida. Barely made the news anymore. They were impossible to identify unless fingerprints turned up something, and even then, none of the victims could remember anything-nothing could lead back to Hammerhead Ranch. As long as Zargoza was handling it, the plan came off without a hitch. But then other business endeavors distracted him. The nursing home scam was going so smoothly, he decided to franchise it out to the Diaz Boys, who got greedy and lazy and eliminated the long drives out of state. They started cutting the patients loose at bus stations around Tampa Bay.

Z argoza’s desk was the largest in the boiler room. It was made of teak and stood at the west end of the operation. Zargoza sat behind the desk with reading glasses halfway down his nose, writing out a series of checks for Amalgamated Eclectic Inc. On the other side of the desk were three Spartan chairs, which held three of his goons. The first wore a T-shirt that read, “It’s not the heat-it’s the stupidity”; the second wore an “I’m with stupid” shirt with an arrow pointing at the third goon, who simply wore a plain white T-shirt with a large cherry Slurpee stain in the middle that, at a distance, made him look like a Japanese flag. The three goons were silent and uncomfortable. Zargoza made them wait.

Finally Zargoza looked up and took off his glasses. He began reaming them out. They were in charge of Zargoza’s chop shop in Ybor City and they had not stolen a car all week and only four the entire month.

“You call yourselves car thieves!” yelled Zargoza. “You have twenty-four hours to turn this around or it’s the egg-stamping detail for you.”

The three unproductive car thieves looked over at the depressed goon stamping inferior eggs in a listless manner, and they winced. Egg-stamping was considered the lowest social stratum in the boiler room, and an air of disgrace enveloped the position.

S erge stepped out of the shower in his room at the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. He had just arrived minutes earlier and compulsively went right for the tub. Now, he toweled off and happily strutted across the carpet in his new skin. He slipped on swim trunks and drew the curtains open to admire the Gulf of Mexico. Instead, he saw three men in T-shirts patching out of the parking lot in a scorched Chrysler New Yorker. Serge let out a terrified, sucking scream. He ran out the door and into traffic on Gulf Boulevard. He stopped on the center orange line, looked around desperately, and dashed the rest of the way across the street. At the curb was a small building in the shape of an ice cream cone, and a man was at the pass-through window ordering a Neapolitan “Brain Freeze.” The customer’s beige Montego was parked next to him with the keys still in it, and Serge jumped in and sped off.

The Chrysler was four blocks ahead in stop-and-go traffic, but Serge kept it in sight and caught up on the Howard Frankland Bridge. He shadowed the trio over to a brick warehouse in Ybor City, where he watched them pull the Chrysler into a freight bay at the warehouse. One of the goons looked around outside suspiciously before pulling down the roll-top garage door.

S erge drove to a Home Depot and then back to the motel to make preparations.

Midnight. Serge looked more handyman than cat burglar. He peeled back the bottom of the chain-link surrounding the warehouse and rolled underneath with a full toolbelt and a spelunker’s flashlight on his forehead. Slow, patient work with a mini-hacksaw and bolt cutters got him through the garage door and into the freight bay, and a simple lock punch popped the Chrysler’s trunk. He checked behind the panel over the wheel well; it was still there, next to the jack and crowbar-a Halliburton briefcase with the exquisite pewter satin finish. He opened the case to check on the money. All there. Serge salvaged the small homing device off the Chrysler’s bumper-he could never waste a cool gadget-and crammed it in the side of the briefcase. Then he let himself out quietly from the back of the warehouse, but the three goons were waiting and jumped him. They clocked him in the head with a piece of rubber tubing and used a monkey wrench to play his rib cage like a xylophone. Two held him down while the other opened the briefcase. The pair restraining Serge were so mesmerized by the sight of the money that they unconsciously released their grips and walked in a trance toward the cash.

Serge took off and dove under the fence, rolling in a single motion and coming up running on the other side. He didn’t stop sprinting until he hitched a ride on Adamo Drive with an anhydrous ammonia tanker heading for the port.

As Serge went one way, the car thieves went the other. They jumped in a Bronco and raced out of the warehouse lot, taking Nuccio Parkway downtown. The one riding shotgun flicked on the map light and opened the briefcase on his lap-to make sure they hadn’t been seeing things-and they all drank in another long look. The cash was crammed so tight it practically blew the lid on its own. Wall-to-wall packs of hundreds still in bank bands. Their hearts beat like snare drums. They stared hard at the money, and the driver had to swerve at the last moment to miss an Alzheimer’s patient stumbling off a curb at the bus station. They pulled over in the dark by the railroad trestle over the Hillsborough River for an emergency meeting. First they needed to stash the money. Then they agreed to keep word of the briefcase an airtight secret. Absolutely not a word to another soul. And they wouldn’t spend any of the cash for a while, either. Maybe wait six or seven months in case there was any heat. They’d play it smart. Because they were smart guys.