The Stingray Shuffle

8

The sun hung just below the Atlantic horizon on another clear Florida morning. Cigarette wrappers and cellophane bags blew across a grimy alley on the sour north end of Miami Beach. Another ocean gust, and a Burger King cup started rolling toward the gutter and was flattened by an all-weather tire. The tire belonged to a white Mercedes Z310 that drove down the alley and backed up to a service door behind a strip mall. Five men in tropical shirts got out and unloaded brown cartons from the trunk and carried them in the back door of The Palm Reader.

The owner checked his wristwatch. A minute till ten. He parted the strings of beads under the Employees Only sign and walked to the front of the store, flicking on fluorescent lights that revealed a skimpy, outdated selection of dusty books. He checked his watch again. Ten on the nose. A long line had already formed outside. The man flipped the CLOSED sign over, unlocked three large bolts and pushed the front door open.

Back in the storeroom, the staff was busy with box cutters, slicing open a dozen cases of paperbacks, 576 books in all, every one the same title.

The customers were not browsers. They went straight to the counter.

The owner stood behind the cash register and smiled. “Can I help you?”

“Uh, yes,” said the first customer. He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “I’d like The Stingray Shuffle.”

“I think we might have one left,” said the owner, reaching under the counter and producing a paperback. “Yes, here it is. But it’s a rare collector’s item. First edition. A hundred dollars.”

The customer handed over five twenties, took the book and left quickly.

The next customer stepped up.

“May I help you?”

The customer opened his wallet. “The Stingray Shuffle, please.”

“We might have one left,” said the owner, reaching down. “Yes, here it is…”

The line still had a dozen customers left when the owner felt under the counter and found an empty shelf. He yelled toward the bead curtain in the back of the store: “Need some more books up here!”

One of the workers burst through the beads and trotted up to the register with a fresh box. The others in the storeroom were hard at work with box cutters, slicing secret compartments into the middle of the paperbacks and inserting grams of cocaine.

A half hour later: “We need more books again!”

“We’re almost out.”

“So reorder,” yelled the owner. “Call the distributor.”

The phone rang in the back room. It never stopped ringing. Always the same question. “Yes, we have that title.”

But this call was different.

The employee who answered it got a nervous look. He cupped his hand over the receiver. “Boss! Come quick!”

The owner stuck his head through the beads. “What is it?”

“Some nosy person asking a lot of questions about books. Really suspicious.”

“Who is it?”

“Says he’s a publisher.”

“You idiot! Of course it’s a publisher! This is a fucking bookstore. Just get rid of him.”

“Right.” The employee uncovered the receiver and had a short conversation, jotting something on a scrap of paper before hanging up.

“What did they say?”

“They wanted an author to do a book signing here.”

The boss started laughing. “Here?” He broke up again. “That’s a riot!”

The employee started laughing, too.

The laughing gradually tapered off, and the boss caught his breath. “How’d you get rid of him?”

“Said Tuesday would be fine.”

“What! We can’t have a book signing here!”

“You just told me to get rid of him. You didn’t say no signing.”

The boss pulled a gold bullet of coke from his shirt pocket, stuck it under his nose. “Who’s this author, anyway?”

The employee checked his piece of paper. “Ralph Krunkleton.”

The boss sniffled and bunched his eyebrows in concentration. “Ralph Krunkleton, Ralph Krunkleton. Where have I heard that name before? Hmmm…”

The others continued slicing books.

“…Ralph Krunkleton, Ralph Krunkleton…” The boss looked down at the table full of paperbacks. “Oh, my God! Not Ralph Krunkleton!”

“Who’s Ralph Krunkleton?”

“The guy who wrote this book!” The owner snorted up again, and the coke began marching him in a circle. “We don’t need this kind of attention! We’ve worked hard to develop this book as our code title — one of the worst-selling novels in history, one that no law-abiding customer would ever, ever ask for. A signing is the last thing we need — it’ll screw up the entire procedure. And there’ll be press, TV…”

An employee slit into another paperback. “We’ll need snack mix.”

9

At the end of the twentieth century, major drug cartels were displaying enormous ingenuity and limitless finances. Cocaine was found encased in concrete posts, dissolved in soda pop, injected in breast implants.

But nobody expected what was discovered one cool morning high up the mountains twenty-eight kilometers west of Cartagena. Police were tipped off by farmers in a remote village, who said three strangers had moved into an old warehouse, never came out and appeared to subsist entirely on takeout delivered from God knew where. They heard drilling sounds at night.

There was no sign of the three men when the policia swarmed the warehouse in a coordinated predawn raid and found precision tools, welding tanks and Russian engineering manuals. But nobody was looking at that stuff. They were staring up at The Tube — the arc-welded, double-hulled, twenty-foot-wide steel cylinder running the entire length of the building. It couldn’t possibly be what they thought it was, not at this altitude.

Military experts soon confirmed their worst suspicions: a nearly complete military-class submarine that could dive to three hundred feet and carry ten tons of cocaine. The sub was to be built, then dismantled and trucked to the coast for reassembly. The estimated cost: twenty-five million U.S. dollars. The police had to shake their heads with grudging admiration. This was even more ambitious than the previous high-water mark in 1995, when the Cali Cartel attempted to purchase a used Soviet navy sub before the deal was uncovered and scuttled. But that was dismissed as a grandiose scheme doomed from the start. This, on the other hand, was frighteningly close to fruition. There was a wave of relief. Thank heaven they’d arrived when they did.

A police captain with as much imagination as the cartels deflated the mood. “How do we know there aren’t other subs already in the water?”

A tall, rugged man in a white linen suit stood on a sandy beach near the southern end of the Windward Islands and looked out to sea with binoculars. It was a beautiful horseshoe harbor of clear blue water, the shore ringed with quaint pastel buildings. Behind the man, the island rose quickly through coconut palms and a rain forest to the volcanic peak of Mount St. Catherine, the highest point in Grenada.

The man kept his binoculars trained on the water and for some reason remembered reading that Grenada had 154 TV sets per thousand residents. He looked a little like Gene Hackman and wore an expression of grave concern. Nobody knew the man’s name, but they all called him Mr. Grande, head of the infamous Mierda Cartel.

The cocaine business had always been a tricky proposition, and everyone knew the risks. The absurd amounts of money made it worthwhile. Except for the Mierda Cartel. It was the sixty-eighth-largest cartel in the world, which was last place, and it was broke. The other cartels fought extradition; the Mierda gang was hounded by bill collectors.

Everyone naturally assumed that all cartels were extremely rich and ruthless, and the residents of Grenada initially treated their hometown traffickers with the appropriate mixture of respect and fear. But a different picture soon emerged. The cartel was running up tabs all over town. Nobody wanted to say anything at first. They had heard the stories. But when the cartel couldn’t pay for transmission work on a Mercedes, and the mechanic impounded the car — and was still alive a week later — everything changed. The merchants started getting nudgey, and the cartel began avoiding town.

It was eating at the Mierda organization. The newspaper stories touting the triumphs of the other cartels only rubbed it in. The cocaine business was an intensely competitive one, with a pecking order as rigid as the seating chart at the Oscars. Word of the submarine discovered in the Colombian highlands had reached Grenada, and it got under Mr. Grande’s skin.

This called for a sit-down.

Mr. Grande drove his golf cart up the winding road to cartel headquarters, a top secret mountain hideaway concealed in the thickest part of the rain forest, near the top of Mount St. Catherine. He stopped at the mailbox and removed a stack of threatening collection notices. His men were already waiting in the study, submachine guns hanging from shoulder straps. They stood when Mr. Grande entered, and they sat when he sat. When they did, one of the submachine guns accidentally went off, a quick burst of bullets whistling across the room into the saltwater aquarium.

“Who did that?” demanded Mr. Grande, clownfish flopping on the floor.

They pointed at Paco.

“Give it!”

“But—”

“Now!”

Paco shuffled across the room, head down, and handed the weapon to Mr. Grande, who stuck it in the bottom drawer of his desk and closed it.

Mr. Grande then held up the newspaper with the submarine article. He slapped the page with the back of his hand. “This is what we should be doing!” He picked up the phone.

After a brief conversation, he hung up and turned to his men. “Our problems are solved.”

Mr. Grande had phoned the cartel that lost the submarine. He knew the raid had put them behind schedule, and he made a persuasive argument to subcontract his own boys for rush delivery of a new thirty-million-dollar sub.

“Where are we going to get a sub?” asked Paco.

“Estupido!” yelled Mr. Grande.

The men crowded around as their boss rolled his office chair over to the computer and logged onto Yahoo! Five minutes later, he stood at the printer. Out came a crosshatch schematic blueprint of the submarine H. L. Hunley. What attracted Mr. Grande was the Hunley’s elegant simplicity.

“We can build one of these with our eyes closed,” he said. “Then we’ll have all the money we need…and some respect!”

The phone rang.

“What now?” said Mr. Grande.

It was the power company.

“Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?” he screamed in the receiver. “I could have you killed just for saying that! One word from me and your whole family will be blown up!…Hello? Hello?…”

Mr. Grande put down the phone, and the lights went out.

A month later, the Mierda Cartel packed themselves into a convoy of pickup trucks and drove down from their mountain headquarters to the coastal capital of St. George’s. The curious townspeople came out of the shops and restaurants as the cartel backed a trailer up to the water. The residents faintly recognized the object on the trailer but couldn’t quite place it.

One of the cartel stood knee-deep in the surf and motioned to the driver, who watched in the side mirror as he backed up.

“Keep coming. Keep coming. Keep coming…” He held up a hand. “Stop!”

They untied the restraining straps, and a large, bulbous object slid gently into the water. Then they opened a hatch on top and the entire cartel got inside except Mr. Grande, who stood on the beach focusing binoculars.

The onlookers inched forward and formed a semicircle around their local kingpin. Mr. Grande didn’t look at them, but he knew they were there, and he swelled with pride. Finally, respect.

The craft began its maiden voyage, moving under its own power at modest speed until it reached deeper water and submerged, just the periscope showing. The impressed crowd murmured.

Mr. Grande had become supremely confident the moment he saw the H. L. Hunley on the Internet. He immediately recognized the shape and knew exactly where he could lay his hands on something watertight to use for the pressure hull. He cajoled Grenada Power & Light to turn the electricity back on and talked a local merchant into extending credit one last time. “You won’t be sorry.”

The cartel took delivery of the “hull” the next afternoon and worked round the clock with drills, jigsaws and rivet guns, carefully following their computer diagrams. They attached hand cranks to underwater paddles with axles fitted through greased nylon gaskets in the hull, and they employed a similar shaft design for the rudder. They bought plastic fifty-gallon outboard gas containers for ballast tanks, which also acted as the keel. A shuttlecock valve let water into the tanks, and an air-mattress foot pump pushed it out. And finally, they installed a periscope, a hatch and a series of portholes in the hull, which was a fiberglass septic tank.

Mr. Grande’s smile broadened as he watched through the binoculars. The crowd’s approval grew louder until cheering broke out. The sub moved into deeper and deeper water, until the periscope finally disappeared. Bubbles. Then nothing.

They waited.

The reason for the Hunley’s simplicity: It was the first submarine ever used in combat. Built during the Civil War, it was launched off Charleston in 1864.

The Mierda Cartel couldn’t read English, so they didn’t know the vintage or history of the Hunley, but they had no problem with the diagrams. They followed them perfectly. Too perfectly, in fact, and, like its historic predecessor, the cartel’s sub promptly sank on its maiden voyage with all hands.

Mr. Grande lowered his binoculars. “Damn.”

The crowd was silent. The cartel owed all of them money, but they decided it was an awkward time to bring it up, and they parted and let Mr. Grande pass through unmolested.

10

A pink Cadillac sat quietly at the end of an empty parking lot, catching shade from some jasmine. Lenny sat alone in the car, head back over the headrest, exhaling smoke straight up, flicking the nub of a roach out on the pavement. He turned and squinted toward the long, bright-white building with the string of Mediterranean arches facing some train tracks. The building had twin cupolas in the middle, topped with Moorish domes, and between them, curved over the main arch: ORLANDO.

“Will you come on!” yelled Lenny.

Serge’s shout came back faintly: “A couple more seconds!” Lenny watched him in the distance, standing in the middle of the train tracks, snapping photos of the back of a departing Amtrak heading south to Kissimmee. A handful of weary passengers had just gotten off and carried suitcases across the pavement toward the depot. Otherwise, the place was deserted, the Florida sun directly overhead without clouds. No wind. Crickets, sandspurs. The stagnant heat seemed to have weight.

“Will you come on! I’m getting something on the tracker!”

Serge took a couple parting shots, then sprinted back to the car and vaulted into the passenger seat without opening the door.

“What the hell were you doing?” asked Lenny.

“I’ve decided to completely dedicate my life to the study of trains and things that look like trains.”

Lenny started up the engine. “I knew I should never have asked you about trains. Now we’ll never catch up with that briefcase.”

“This was on the way to the briefcase — sort of. And besides, we’ve got them cornered with the five million.”

“Really?” said Lenny. “I thought this was just fucking around. Not that I’m against that.”

Serge pointed his arms in two different directions. “The logical escape routes are Daytona and Miami. But the tracker’s pinging due east, which can only mean the port and the cruise ships out of the country. The next one leaves Friday.”

“How do you know?”

“I have the schedule memorized,” said Serge. “I go over my own escape routes all the time. To survive in this state, you have to think like the French Resistance.”

Lenny took the entrance ramp for I-4, and Serge stood to snap a final elevated photo back toward the train station. He sat down and stowed the camera. “I can’t believe nobody visits that depot anymore. They’re all too busy heading for the Tower of Terror or the Aerosmith roller coaster. What’s happening to us as a people?…”

“They have an Aerosmith roller coaster?”

“…The depot’s barely changed since it was built in 1926. This is where the town began, for heaven’s sake. People should be flocking here whether they’re taking a train or not. But now the only people who still come are forced to after making a horrible mess of their lives through a series of gross miscalculations until they can’t scrape together airplane money.”

“Now I can see how you got arrested that time in that old train car.”

“You mean the first time.”

“There were others?”

“I’m telling you, it’s like life is out to get me,” said Serge, reaching in the glove compartment for his novelty 3-D glasses.

“Flashback?” asked Lenny.

Serge nodded, slipping on the glasses. “Courtroom scene.”

“You ever watch The People’s Court?” asked Lenny.

“Shhh,” said Serge. “The flashback is starting…”

One year earlier, courtroom 3C, Palm Beach County Judicial Circuit.

The judge levied a stiff fine and probation on a retired banker for killing a prize swan with a pitching wedge at a local golf course.

“Bailiff, call the next case.”

“Number six-nine-seven-two-five, People versus Serge A. Storms.”

“Will the defendant please rise…” The judge stopped midsentence and took off his glasses. “Back already?”

“I can explain, Your Honor,” said Serge. “This is all a tragic miscarriage. A mockery of justice. If what I did was wrong, I don’t wanna be right!…”

“Your Honor,” interrupted the prosecutor. “The defendant is charged with burglary, trespassing, disturbing the peace, resisting arrest and vandalism, to wit: applying paint to an object of historic national importance.”

“What does that mean in English?” asked the judge. “Spray-painting graffiti? Throwing paint balloons?”

“Not exactly.”

“Then what exactly?”

“Uh, um…”

“You’re mumbling,” said the judge.

“He was in a historic railroad car, restoring some detail work that was chipping.”

The bailiff handed the judge an evidence bag marked “Exhibit A,” an extra-fine camel’s-hair brush with dried gold paint on the tip.

“There I was,” said Serge, “minding my own business…”

“Your Honor,” said the public defender. “This is really a mental-health case. The defendant needs professional care. He shouldn’t be in criminal court at all.”

“Why is he in my court?” asked the judge. “As I understand it, this all happened in Miami’s jurisdiction, at the…” He paused and flipped through some papers. “The Gold Coast Railroad Museum.”

“Your Honor, this violates the conditions of the probation that you placed upon him last week for breaking into the railroad car at the Flagler Museum, so it throws it back here,” said the prosecutor. “Most disturbing is the resisting-arrest charge.”

“What’s that about?” asked the judge.

The prosecutor picked up a copy of the police report. “When officers arrived, the suspect was applying paint in the dining compartment of an antique passenger car. When said officers attempted to effect arrest, the suspect dove from the car and ran across the museum, where he proceeded to climb into a nearby locomotive engine, refused to come down, and began singing, and I quote: ‘Riding that train. High on cocaine…’”

The judge ran his fingers through his hair and turned to the public defender. “Is your client on drugs?”

“That’s just the problem, Your Honor. He refuses to take his drugs.”

“That locomotive was number one fifty-three, Florida East Coast Railway,” said Serge, “which pulled a rescue train out of the Keys during the Labor Day hurricane of 1935…”

The judge held up a hand for Serge to stop and turned to the public defender. “So what’s with all the trains, anyway?”

Serge kept talking in the background: “…and that railroad car I was painting was the famous Ferdinand Magellan, built in 1928 and later retrofitted with armor plating and bulletproof glass for none other than the president of the United States!…”

“Your Honor, Mr. Storms, like so many other unfortunate Americans, is battling severe mental illness. He’s going through a phase right now.”

“A phase?”

“…You see,” said Serge, “this was in the days before Air Force One, when the president had to travel by rail. The Magellan was first used by Franklin Roosevelt in 1942. And it was on the rear platform of this very car that, on November 3, 1948, a grinning Harry Truman held up the Dewey Defeats Truman newspaper in the now-famous photograph…”

“Your Honor, he gets on these compulsive tangents,” said the public defender. “He has to find out every single thing there is to know about a subject, talk to as many experts as he can, see and touch everything…”

“I object!” said Serge, jumping to his feet. “He’s making it sound weird.”

“Weirdness isn’t grounds for an objection,” said the judge. “And that’s your own attorney.”

“Then I respectfully withdraw.” Serge sat back down and turned to the public defender. “Proceed.”

“Your Honor, why is this man even being allowed to speak?” complained the prosecutor. “He’s not even representing himself anymore, and he’s completely out of line. As a matter of fact, we’re not following any of the procedures at all!”

“First thing — relax,” said the judge. “This is a minor case. Second, this is my court, and third, I kinda like the guy. Is that okay with you?”

The prosecutor sat down and sulked. The judge turned back to the public defender. “Continue.”

“He’ll go days without sleep, covering incredible distances on foot, and he only stops when he passes out from sheer exhaustion.”

“Interesting,” said the judge. “And right now it’s railroads?”

“Railroads.”

Serge raised his hand.

“You’re not in school,” said the judge.

“May I?” asked Serge.

The judge leaned back in his chair and got comfortable again. “Go ahead.”

The prosecutor snapped a pencil in two and threw the pieces on his table.

“You see, the railroads made Florida,” said Serge. “They played a major role in most states, but not like here, where their influence was an iron fist, the train companies owning much of the land and businesses along their routes. I’m not saying it was wrong or right; I’m just saying it worked. Completely opened up the peninsula.”

“What about air-conditioning?” asked the judge. “I understand that when Mr. Carrier went into mass production, it jump-started all kinds of development.”

“Your Honor,” interjected the public defender, “Mr. Storms had, uh, a number of arrests last year dealing with the air-conditioning and refrigeration industry. I don’t think we want to go there.”

“Understood,” said the judge. “Continue, Mr. Storms.”

“Thank you, and Your Honor’s point is well taken. But that never would have been possible if it wasn’t for the rail pioneers. It all started with Flagler…” Serge began pacing in front of the empty jury box. “Time? The Gilded Age! Place? Jacksonville! The rich valued their leisure, and the railroads went down to Florida just to get to the new luxury hotels, which were built just for the railroads. After traversing the St. Johns, Flagler erected the Ponce de Leon in St. Augustine, then the Alcazar, and remodeled the Cordova and Ormond, laying tracks all the way. The Royal Poinciana and the Breakers went up in Palm Beach, more tracks, still going south, right through the big freeze of 1895 — chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…” — Serge shuffled across the courtroom, arms going in circles like pistons moving the wheels of a steam engine — “…chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug. Woo-woo! The tracks reached the bottom of the state, and residents were so happy they wanted to name their town Flagler. But did Big Henry accept this honor? Hell, no! He said, ‘Why don’t we name this place after the Indian word they use for the river.’ That little town? Miami! Fresh produce moved north, tourists south, the Florida East Coast Railway kept on going, right up to the beach, then into the sea. He had to be crazy to keep going — crazy like a fox!…Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…Another Henry, Henry S. Sanford, ran the South Florida Railroad down the middle of the state in the 1880s. And on the Gulf Coast, yet another Henry — where were they all coming from? — this one named Plant, built a third railroad and more hotels. His line made it down to Cedar Key, and the little fishing village exploded as it became the southernmost port at the end of the tracks. But then the tracks continued south, and Cedar Key was forgotten. The tracks stopped again at another tiny outpost. Its name? Tampa!…Bang, bang, bang! War breaks out in Cuba! Troop trains to Florida, Teddy Roosevelt, the Rough Riders, Hearst, José Martí. The war ends! We win! More trains, more tourists, more hotels! The Boca Grande Line, the Gasparilla Inn, hope and prosperity for all!…Chug-a-chug, chug-a-chug…Train fares drop, the bourgeois climb on board, everyone riding south on The Havana Special, The Florida Special, The Orange Blossom Special. Then, daring! Railroads unveil the deco streamliners! In 1939, The Silver Meteor debuted its New York–Miami night runs with a sleek Electro-Motive diesel. The Atlantic Coast Line countered with The Champion and Illinois Central rolled out The City of Miami…”

The judge looked over the top of his bifocals. “Don’t you mean The City of New Orleans, like the song?”

“And a great song it is. But no, I mean The City of Miami. Few people realize there ever was such a train, but what a train! The trademark orange-and-green paint scheme, the coach cars with those wonderful names: Bougainvillea, Camellia, Japonica, Palm Garden, Hibiscus, Poinsettia and the Bamboo Grove tavern-observation car — very popular…. Ridin’ on The City of Miami… Don’t you know me? I’m your native son…”

“No singing in court, Mr. Storms.”

“Sorry. Then came the twin enemies of the iron horse — airlines and interstate highways. The trains hung on gallantly until the 1960s, when all appeared lost…. But wait! A last-second reprieve! The government stepped in, and Amtrak was born in 1971. The old Silver Meteor came back into service, now joined by The Silver Star, The Silver Palm and The Silver Stingray. But then, the stake through the heart — apathy! Nobody gave a damn. The depots deteriorated, and Overseas Railroad spans were torn up and sold off. A few noble groups fought uphill. They restored Union Station in Tampa, and my heart just goes pitter-pat every time I see that cute little spruced-up depot in Lake Wales. Unfortunately, it’s looking like too little, too late. Amtrak isn’t making the grade, and there’s been talk of pulling the plug in a couple years. Our kids will probably only see the pictures in the history books. Right now could be your last chance to head up to New York, hop a train in the snow and take the slow ride south to the Sunshine State, the way you’re supposed to…”

A half hour later, everyone in the courtroom was silent, leaning forward on Serge’s every word.

“…So in conclusion, Your Honor, and the good people of this courtroom, I may not have had a right to do what I did, but I had a duty. I did it for all of us, not just those alive here today, but for the memory of our ancestors and the future of our unborn descendants.” Serge’s lip began quivering and he sat down.

The judge took off his glasses again. “Mr. Storms, I’m going to give you yet another chance. Probation and community service. But I never want to see you in my courtroom again.”

Courtroom 3C, Palm Beach County Judicial Circuit.

“Bailiff, call the next case.”

“Number nine-three-five-one-two, People versus Serge A. Storms.”

Serge smiled and waved at the judge.

“You were just here yesterday!”

“There’s a very simple explanation. Then we can all laugh about it and go home—”

The judge stopped Serge and turned to the prosecutor. “What’s the charge?”

The prosecutor glanced at his docket. “There are any number of possibilities, but we’ve decided to file under disturbing the peace.”

“What exactly did he do?” asked the judge.

“I think you need to see the video. Words cannot do justice.”

A bailiff wheeled a twenty-seven-inch Magnavox and VCR to the front of the courtroom.

“This was shot at a local funeral. It was taken by one of the mourners, the deceased’s only brother, who was later x-rayed for chest pains.”

The bailiff inserted a tape and handed the remote to the prosecutor. The courtroom saw a tent in the middle of a sunny lawn full of tombstones. Folding chairs, people in black, a preacher.

The prosecutor hit pause and pointed to the right side of the screen. “This is where Mr. Storms enters the picture and takes a seat in the back row of chairs.” He hit play; on the screen, a wiry man in swim trunks and tropical shirt joins the mourners.

“Hit pause again,” said the judge. He folded his hands and looked toward the defense table. “I know I’m going to regret asking this, but did you even know these people, Mr. Storms?”

“Never met them in my life.”

“What were you doing in the cemetery?”

“Taking rubbings of a historic headstone, a famous train engineer. Suddenly, a funeral breaks out.”

“And you just walked over and helped yourself to a seat?”

“I like people.”

The judge nodded at the prosecutor, who restarted the tape. “Okay, now here’s the point when Mr. Storms approaches the podium and tells the preacher he’d like to say a few words.”

“Hit pause again,” said the judge, turning. “You never even met these people before! What on earth could you have to say at a time like this?”

“Anything,” said Serge. “The preacher was bombing. You should have seen the long faces, people crying…”

“It was a funeral!”

“That’s the whole problem,” said Serge. “Everyone takes that view. I don’t buy it.”

The prosecutor started the tape again. “Mr. Storms opens with a few jokes, talks about the deceased in generic terms, praises the Greatest Generation, blah, blah, blah, a few more jokes…”

The judge pointed at the TV. “It doesn’t look like the audience is too distressed. A few are even beginning to smile. What he did may have been highly inappropriate, but I don’t see any criminal disturbance of the peace here…. See? He’s even starting to get some laughs.”

“Hold on. The good part’s coming up,” said the prosecutor. “Mr. Storms wraps up his little talk and steps away from the podium. That’s the urn that he’s picking up now, and he starts walking away. The audience is confused. They begin to realize they better do something. They go after him. Mr. Storms begins running. The funeral party starts running — that’s all the bouncing and jiggling you’re seeing from the camera now. This is the ditch at the edge of the cemetery. Mr. Storms takes the lid off the urn. An uncle grabs him by the arm, and now the full-scale free-for-all gets under way. That’s some off-camera screaming you’re hearing, and this is where the ninety-year-old mother accidentally gets punched in the eye by the uncle, and Mr. Storms breaks free and runs to the edge of the ditch and yells — we’ve had an audio technician verify this — ‘It’s for your own good. You need closure.’ And, as you can see…he dumps the ashes in an open sewer.”

“How was I supposed to know it was a sewer? I thought it was a little river,” said Serge. “It was supposed to be very symbolic. Obviously it didn’t work out that way, but at least I tried. These are the kind of people who cling. It’s not healthy.”

The judge’s face was in his hands.

He finally looked up. “Mr. Storms, this doesn’t give me any pleasure, but you leave me no choice but to commit you to the state hospital at Chattahoochee for a period of observation not less than three months.”

They dragged Serge from the courtroom, kicking and yelling.

The judge banged his gavel. “You’re out of order, Mr. Storms!”

“I’m out of order? You’re out of order! And he’s out of order! They’re out of order! This trial’s out of order! The whole courtroom’s out of order!…”

The bailiffs pulled Serge into the hall, and the double doors swung closed.

11

In the fall of 1960, five very special little girls entered the fourth grade in five different schools across Florida.

A nine-year-old girl in Fort Lauderdale named Samantha told her father she wanted a baseball glove.

“You mean a softball glove.”

“What’s that?”

He was a kind father, and the next day he brought home a nice pink Spalding softball glove and a ball the size of a grapefruit.

“It’s pink,” said Samantha. She knew baseball gloves weren’t pink.

“I know,” said her father, smiling fondly. “Isn’t it pretty?”

Samantha could see her dad’s happiness, and she didn’t make a fuss about the color and hugged him.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

She stuck her little hand inside.

“I can’t move the fingers.”

“That’s because you have to break it in first.”

“How do you do that?”

“You oil it up good and put a softball in the palm and wrap twine around it and set it aside overnight. Then you have to play lots and lots of catch so the leather takes on the shape of your own hand, and pretty soon it fits like a glove.”

“But I don’t want to wait that long. I want to play right now.”

Her father laughed. “Life’s not like that.”

After dinner they oiled and wrapped the glove, and when her father came home from work the next evening, Samantha and her glove were waiting on the front porch to play catch.

“Okay, let me set my things down first.”

That was the beginning of a lot of catch. Samantha got pretty good. Soon she could even move the fingers. One afternoon, she ran outside with her glove and down the street to the park, where the boys wouldn’t let a girl play ball, pink glove or not. They were practicing for the big Little League tryouts that weekend. They all wanted to be on the Yankees.

When Samantha’s father came home that night, she told him she wanted to try out for Little League.

Her father laughed and crouched down and rubbed her yellow hair. “Honey, girls don’t play Little League.”

“But I want to.”

“Life’s not like that.”

That Saturday, her parents thought Samantha was down at the playground, but she had taken her bike and ridden to the Little League park, where she lined up with the boys waiting to take the field and catch grounders, pink ribbon in her hair and pink glove on her hand. The boys weren’t happy.

“Get out of here! You’re a girl!”

“Yeah, get out of here!”

Samantha dug in and snarled.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Yeah, girl. You don’t even know how to play baseball.”

“That’s not even a baseball glove!”

“Is so!” said Samantha.

“Is not!”

The coaches on the infield heard a commotion by the dugout. “Is that a girl?”

They came over. The boys were playing keep-away with the pink glove.

“Gimme my glove!” Samantha ran back and forth.

“Missy,” said one of the coaches, “where are your parents?”

“At home…. I said, gimme my glove!”

“What’s your name?…”

“Samantha.” Running back and forth after the glove. Why wouldn’t the grown-ups help her?

“Samantha what?”

“Samantha Bridges…. Give it!”

The coaches didn’t help retrieve her glove because the boys were within rights, provoked as they were by Samantha’s presence, which threatened to cheapen their whole ritual.

Samantha finally caught up with her glove. The coach’s son had it and they were tugging. The boy shoved her to the ground.

“All right, that’s quite enough, Missy,” said the coach. “You’ve caused your share of trouble today.”

No she hadn’t. She got up from the dirt and punched the boy in the nose, drawing tears.

The public shame of his son crying at the hands of a girl was too much, and before the coach knew it, he had grabbed Samantha by the arm and slapped her face hard enough to make any of the boys cry.

Samantha didn’t.

She kicked him in the shin.

“Ow! Shit!”

Samantha struggled for the coach to let go of her arm, and the other men had to help restrain the thrashing child. Everything else stopped. A crowd gathered. They looked up her parents’ phone number, and her father arrived in minutes.

“What are you doing to my daughter?” her dad yelled, jumping out of his car.

“She disrupted the whole tryout!”

“She’s just a little girl!” he said, walking quickly toward the group. “Let go of her right now!”

“Only if she promises not to kick me again.”

The father turned his angry glare toward Samantha. “Did you kick him?”

“After he slapped me.”

“You slapped her?” asked her father.

“She hit my boy. She was out of control—”

The tooth-loosening right cross sent the coach to the ground. Her father took Samantha by the hand, and they walked away.

The police showed up in Samantha’s driveway after they got home, and there was a big stink. But the cops talked everyone out of pressing charges and suggested Samantha stay away from the ballfield.

Dinner was pork chops and mashed potatoes and beets. Samantha asked for the beets in a separate bowl because the beet juice ran into the potatoes and made them pink.

“I just don’t understand these people,” Samantha’s father told her mother across the table. “What’s the big deal?”

“You know what you always say? Life’s not—”

“I know, but this is so petty. Why can’t they just let girls play? It’s stupid.”

Samantha wasn’t saying a word and wasn’t eating, just following the conversation back and forth with her eyes.

“You know what I should do? I should file a lawsuit!”

“Oh honey, please don’t,” said her mother, reaching across and putting a hand on her father’s arm. “Isn’t it bad enough that everyone already calls her Sam?”

There was a successful court challenge, and girls were allowed to play Little League. But the challenge didn’t come from Samantha’s father and not for another ten years, until Samantha was in college.

Samantha had a growth spurt when she was thirteen, and she would always be among the tallest in her class, either sex. By high school she found an outlet in girls’ basketball. She became what’s known as an “enforcer,” delivering retribution for rough play against her smaller teammates, fouling out of every game.

“You elbowed me on purpose! That’s not fair!”

“Life’s not like that.”

In Daytona Beach, another nine-year-old girl, this one named Teresa, sat in her classroom drawing airplanes. It was the first day of the new school year.

“And what do you want to be when you grow up?”

“Fireman.” “Football player.” “Nurse.” “Mommy.”

“Teresa, what do you want to be?”

Teresa looked up from her planes. “A pilot.”

“You mean a stewardess.”

“I don’t want to be no stewardess.”

“I don’t want to be a stewardess,” said the teacher.

“Me neither,” said Teresa.

“No, I mean you used a double negative.”

“I’ll be a stewardess,” said a boy named Billy, whom the teachers were already concerned about.

“Boys can’t be stewardesses, and girls can’t be pilots.”

“I’m going to be one,” said Teresa, coloring in the airplane and nodding with conviction.

“But you can’t, dear.”

It came out of the blue. Teresa threw all her crayons on the floor and ripped up her picture and knocked over her desk. The teacher tried to calm her, but Teresa spit at her. She was still stomping and crying when they led her to the principal’s office.

Compared with Teresa, Samantha was living a fairy tale. Teresa’s mother and stepfather were called in for a conference, and they decided to put her in a special school. Nobody could understand it. Teresa had been such a marvelous child the previous school year, before the incest had started that summer.

“Do you have any idea what might be causing this?”

“Not a clue,” said her stepdad.

They tested for dyslexia, tried some autism drugs, sent her to camp, where a counselor fondled her. Funny, but she was only getting worse.

Teresa began smoking when she was twelve and drinking at thirteen. Her stepfather was out of the picture now, and her mother blamed Teresa for the breakup. He left them with a pile of bills and without warning. Teresa’s mom took up a minimum-wage job and sudden fits of hysterical crying. Teresa became fat.

She stayed away from the house as much as possible, becoming what you’d call a loner, hanging out next to the airport and watching the planes land, cutting herself with razor blades.

Nobody saw the warning signs because her grades had rocketed to straight A’s. Everything had to be exactly right, and once it was, it wasn’t good enough for Teresa, who worked some more.

Teresa didn’t become promiscuous, but she wasn’t frugal either. She was more or less desensitized, losing her virginity at fifteen to a boy who was also a virgin, behind a movie house, in a defining moment that was memorable for its clumsiness.

“Is this it?” Teresa asked herself, although the boy seemed to be having an out-of-body experience: “I can’t feel my legs!”

“Do you want to stop?”

“No!”

Meanwhile, an undersized child named Paige was growing up in Okeechobee, near the lake. She didn’t speak much.

Paige kept bringing home stray and injured animals.

Her mother had died from postdelivery infections that would mean a seven-figure malpractice verdict today. Her father was killed by a drunk driver when she was two. She lived with her grandparents. They were nice, but man, were they old. They took lots of naps and didn’t have any idea what Paige was talking about half the time. But Paige rarely spoke as it was, and nobody seemed bothered by the arrangement.

Her grandparents were understanding enough with the little birds and frogs, which she kept in boxes on the porch, but a dog or cat was out of the question, because they had heard something on Paul Harvey about germs. Paige loved her grandparents, who weren’t permissive as much as just plain tired. By the time she was nine, they were going to bed before she was, and Paige stayed up late watching Laugh-In and Carson.

Children are natural explorers, and they’re influenced by the media material they discover around the house. Paige grew up in a museum. What were these records? Guy Lombardo and Mario Lanza? There was also about nine hundred pounds of old Reader’s Digests and a few stacks of Life that her grandparents wouldn’t throw out. They never threw anything out. It had something to do with the Depression.

They left Paige to the orphaned and wounded animals in her room, which was crowded with fish tanks and terrariums and plastic turtle ponds and hamster wheels and a maze of interconnecting gerbil tubes that ran all over the place like berserk plumbing.

When Paige was fifteen, her grandparents died within a month of each other, and Paige was passed around the family, attending four different high schools in four years, and she started talking even less. There are many roles in a high school: star quarterback, prom queen, class clown, brain, stoner. Paige was an extra.

Maria’s parents would have loved Paige.

Maria learned to talk early, and she never stopped.

“What’s this?” “What’s that?” “Why is that?” “Can I have one of those? What is it?” “You know what I think?…”

It accounted for her parents’ permanent expression of having teeth cleaned.

Maria demonstrated at age four her talent for mismatching clothes. “Can I dress myself?” “I want to dress myself.” “I’m going to dress myself now.” She ran into her bedroom and came out in a raincoat and bikini bottom. “I’m ready to go to school now.”

Maria had lots and lots of accidents, big scary-looking tumbles, skinned knees, twisted ankles — her parents awakened every other night by a loud thump, Maria falling out of bed in her sleep again, then yelling down the hall, “I’m okay!”

They thought she might need glasses, but the tests came back twenty-twenty. The spills seemed to bother Maria less than her parents, who would jump out of their chairs on the porch and grab their hearts before Maria dusted herself off and guaranteed nothing was broken. It finally dawned on them that Maria never cried, no matter what, going over the handlebars of her bike, popping right up, “I’m okay!” Jumping back on the bike and taking off again into the side of a parked van. “I’m okay again!”

Maria seemed to have a high threshold for pain, and she could definitely take a punch, which were administered by boys everywhere. Ooomph, the wind leaving her. “I’m okay!”

Maria’s true passion lay in the arts. Maria was a frustrated painter, a frustrated musician and a hopeless romantic. She tried oils, pencils, watercolors, all to no avail. That hemisphere just wasn’t firing. Same problem with music, made that much more glaring by her fondness for the tuba. She was an open book, all things to all people, wanting to be liked and trying to become whatever you wanted, except quiet. She dated a lot, but was saving herself for marriage. Trying to at least. But boys will be boys, and there were lots of struggles in backseats of cars outside dances and burger joints, a car door finally popping open and the other students seeing Maria tumble out of the car with a broken bra strap. “I’m okay!”

You couldn’t help but like her. And hate her. She was the kind of gentle person who made you feel horribly guilty every time you lost patience with her. She made the other members of the pep club suicidal. Then there was the cheerleading squad, where her natural zest won her the top position on the human pyramid — each game the parents pointing in alarm, “Jesus, did you see the fall that girl just took?”

“I sure hope she’s okay.”

“She said she was.”

Rebecca had talent coming out her ears. Her first teachers couldn’t believe it. They quickly took her off finger paints and gave her oils and acrylics. Everything was a photograph. Same with music. She skipped reading sheets and mastered the scales by ear — piano, flute, guitar.

Rebecca was one of the most well adjusted children you’d ever meet, which meant she was weird. Her parents were semiprofessional folk musicians, playing in bars and coffeehouses in the Tampa Bay area, taking Rebecca along since she was five.

The nightclub experience made her a bit precocious, and life in the sandbox was never quite as exciting after that. She spoke a different language from the other children, refusing to play dodge ball because it was “too much like Vietnam.” But she was able to duck the menu of neuroses that afflicted her peers, mainly because her parents were so well adjusted and weird, too.

Her friends’ bedrooms were covered with the usual teeny-bopper pinups, but they didn’t recognize any of the posters on Rebecca’s walls: Dylan, the Mamas and the Papas, Donovan, Joan Baez. “Who are all those old people?”

It was a stress-free life, and Rebecca was content to just lie in a field and watch the clouds. That was Rebecca all over, ephemeral and surreal, like some kind of unicorn.

Not quite of this world, catch it while you can because it won’t be here for long, and it definitely can’t be possessed.

“Daddy, how come poor people are poor?”

“I don’t know, dear.”

“But that’s not fair.”

“Life’s not fair.”

“It should be.”

“I know, dear.”

Her parents were remarkably youthful and good-looking, and you could tell that she was going to be beautiful, too. Rebecca was one of the few individuals who actually deserved to be pretty, because it wasn’t going to make her full of shit. She took after her parents that way.

People generally hated the whole family.

12

A de Havilland twin-engine turboprop banked at four thousand feet over the turquoise water of Florida Bay and lined up its approach. Samantha Bridges pressed her face to the window and looked down at the A1A traffic, moving only slightly slower than the plane.

Samantha felt a Bogart sensation of intrigue as her plane landed on the single, short runway with faded markings, bleached and hot, carved into the salt flats and coconut palms. The terminal was smaller than some houses in her neighborhood and needed paint.

Key West International Airport. International — they used to fly to Havana once upon a time. Propeller plane was the only way in now; local ordinance prevented jet noise from disturbing residents and wildlife.

Stairs flopped down from the side of the plane, and Samantha appeared in the hatch. Two women waited on the edge of the runway outside the Conch Flyer Lounge, grinning, hoisting fruity drinks in toast. Sam almost didn’t recognize Teresa in the lavender dress. She was thin. And blond. Maria looked great, too, despite the fashion error of matching vertical stripes with gila monsters.

A pair of Beechcraft B 100s landed in quick succession, Paige and Rebecca, and suddenly they were all there, piling in an airport shuttle van.

It started two months earlier, a chance occurrence. Samantha Bridges was now an assistant state attorney in Miami, and her youngest daughter had just left for Florida State. She turned the extra bedroom into a home office with a new computer and AOL account.

Sam began fooling around with search engines one Sunday evening. Midnight came and went. She still couldn’t believe her screen. She had plugged in the names as a lark, and it had become a chain reaction of long-distance phone calls. Then they all hung up and hopped back on their computers, five women typing nonstop in the new Books, Booze and Broads chat room. Layoffs, surgeries, relocations to Boston and Belgium, a total of four new marriages that had gone south. Then, full circle, all back in Florida and single again. With one big difference. Empty nests.

“Let’s revive the book club.”

“Have a reunion.”

“What do you want to read?”

“Where?”

“What?”

“The reunion.”

“Slow down!”

“Let’s pick a book and visit where it’s set.”

“Or pick a place and find a book that’s set there.”

“I like the first idea better.”

“They’re the same.”

“No they’re not.”

“Whatever.”

First stop: Key West, Cayo Hueso, The Rock, Island of Bones. Rebecca had recommended the book, passed along by her parents. It was about a bunch of Jimmy Buffett fans on a pilgrimage to the Keys, and they spend the whole trip wasted on frozen drinks until they’re mysteriously murdered one by one. Parrot Droppings, by Ralph Krunkleton. The women liked it so much they had torn through four other Krunkletons before boarding their planes.

The courtesy van pulled up in front of the Heron House on Simonton Street. The women wheeled luggage through the orchid garden and past the mosaic of a big wading bird tiled into the bottom of the swimming pool. They entered their suite through the sundeck, and there was no doubt where they were. Watercolors everywhere. Paintings of tropical plants, bedspreads with tropical fish. Rattan, marble, French doors, stained transoms. They crossed “the fulcrum” — that long-anticipated turning point when you’re traveling to a party town and finally get in your room and drop the suitcases, and it all lifts off your shoulders with a sudden buoyancy. This called for a meeting of the book club. They headed out the door to find one of the taverns in their Krunkleton paperbacks.

The five started north on Duval Street, past the Lost Weekend Liquor Store, into the drinking district. Freaks on the street, squares in the bars. Bars with plastic bulls crashing through walls, parrots and flamingos on the counters, sailfish over the taps, pinball machines in back and pitchmen out front barking about double-jointed strippers upstairs. People who should never limbo doing so, reggae bands joined onstage by bald drunks from Cincinnati, derelicts riding bicycles with iguanas in the baskets and big snakes around their necks, drunk couples necking, transvestites on stilts, dogs wearing sunglasses, college students falling off mopeds and vomiting all over their SEE THE KEYS ON YOUR HANDS AND KNEES T-shirts.

The women came to the end of Duval and headed up a twisting garden path behind the Pier House, through schefflera and hibiscus, onto a boardwalk next to a lagoon where hotel guests were throwing Chicklets to a school of feeding tarpon, then winding back to the patio until they finally stood near a hall tucked under the hotel by the supply rooms and the mops.

“This can’t be it,” said Teresa.

Sam pulled a paperback from her purse and opened to a bookmarked passage. “That must be the door.” She grabbed the handle.

A row of faces along the bar squinted at the silhouettes of five women backlit by bright sunlight. The BBB stood still in the doorway a few seconds — that awkward, territorial moment when newcomers first set foot in a regulars’ bar. They started moving again toward a table in a corner of the tiny room, hanging purses over the backs of chairs.

“So this is the Chart Room,” said Maria, shifting in her seat, straightening panties. She looked around for a waitress.

“I think this is the kind of place where you have to go to the bar,” said Sam, getting up.

Teresa turned her paperback over, scanning blurbs on the back — “…Stunning…” “…Dazzling…” “…Important…” — the kind of terse praise surgically lifted from the bodies of damning reviews. Sam returned with a pitcher of Michelob. They poured, clinked glasses and checked out the interior, mostly bare, except for a pair of nautical charts and a black-and-white photo of an early Key West street scene. But there was all kinds of stuff on the wall behind the bar, overlapping Polaroids of bent patrons making faces and hugging, business cards, newspaper clippings, scribbled-on dollar bills and a handmade sign: TIP BIG.

Maria reached out and touched the plain cinder-block wall. “So this is where Buffett got his start?”

“Right here in this corner,” said Paige, referring to her own paperback. “Arrived with Jerry Jeff Walker. Played six-string for tips while writing his early songs.”

“Wow,” said Rebecca, and they all gazed at the ground under their feet with a sense of reverence usually reserved for mangers.

Teresa stood up. “I’ll get the next pitcher.”

And so it went. Another pitcher. Then another. Then liquor.

“How’d we get so drunk?”

“It’s a fuckin’ mystery,” said Rebecca, slamming a shot glass down on the table.

“Sam, how come you aren’t drinking as much as we are?” asked Teresa.

“Lost its luster. Half the men I prosecute are wife-beating alcoholics.”

“Prosecute? I thought you were a public defender.”

“Was. But I kind of got tired interviewing clients in jail who asked me if I liked to take it in the ass.”

“I can see how that would get tedious,” said Rebecca. Then she asked if any of the others owned an SUV. They said they didn’t and asked why. Rebecca wanted to know if anyone else had a problem with men who liked to pull up at stoplights next to female drivers in taller vehicles so the women have a clear view of them beating off.

“How often does this happen?” asked Maria.

“More like how often doesn’t it happen.” She turned to Paige. “So what kind of work do you usually get as a vet?”

“Patch up cats shot with BB guns and dogs set on fire and pelicans who’ve been thrown fish filled with needles and M-80s.”

“Who would do such things?” said Teresa.

“Obviously the work of women,” said Sam.

“I wouldn’t necessarily go easy on our own kind,” said Maria.

“You’re right,” said Sam. She raised her glass for a toast. “Fuck Dr. Laura.”

“Hear! Hear!”

The alcohol got the best of Maria. “Do you remember…” she said, then stumbled into forbidden territory.

The other four glowered at her. “We never talk about that!” snapped Teresa. The others nodded.

“Excuse the hell out of me.”

They all sighed and sagged.

“Nothing exciting ever happens to us,” said Rebecca.

Teresa suddenly straightened up and got out her organizer. “We should make a list.”

“Of what?”

“Things to do as a group to break out of our ruts. Adventures, risks.” Teresa clicked her pen open. “Okay. New bylaw. Everything that goes on the list we all have to do together. No exceptions.”

“Sounds like disaster,” said Sam.

“The psychology of group behavior. It’ll embolden us to do things we’d never attempt as individuals.”

“That’s how we got suffragettes,” said Rebecca.

“And lynchings,” said Sam.

“I don’t think I want to lynch anyone,” said Maria.

“What about your ex-husbands?”

“New bylaw,” said Teresa. “Those in favor?”

“Aye.” “Aye.” “Aye.” “Aye.” “Nay.”

“What sort of things do we put on the list?” asked Paige.

“Stuff like sky-diving,” said Maria.

Teresa sat poised with pen. “Item number one. Anybody?”

“Sky-diving,” said Rebecca.

“Sky-diving,” Teresa repeated as she wrote. “Number two?”

“Okay, I’ve changed my mind. Let’s lynch my husbands.”

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.”

“Who’s got ideas, besides Maria, who needs to get in the proper spirit?”

“Get a tattoo.”

“Use a powerful man before he uses you.”

“Watch the New Year’s ball drop in Times Square.”

“Skinny-dip.”

“Shoplift.”

“That’s going too far,” said Sam.

“We’ll give the stolen item right back,” said Teresa. “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“I know,” said Rebecca. “Let’s get arrested at a protest.”

“What kind of protest?”

“Rocks and bricks and Molotov cocktails.”

“No, I mean what cause?”

“World peace.”

“Anything else?”

“Let’s meet Ralph Krunkleton.”

“That’s a great idea,” said Teresa. “We’ve read what? Five of his books now?”

Rebecca nodded hard. “He’s our newest favorite author, now. New.”

“You might want to slow down on those shots.”

“Why for?”

Sam grabbed the purse off the back of her chair. “I’m going to the rest room.”

“It’s outside around the corner,” said Paige.

Sam walked down the corridor under the lobby, mumbling to herself; they were her friends and all, but their judgment was stinking up the joint. Sam found the door to the men’s room, stopped and looked around for the women’s. They were usually in pairs; she was hoping this wasn’t one of those places with some artsy unsymmetrical layout. She kept walking. Where was it?

A man came around the corner. She could ask him. As he walked closer, Sam got a better look. Trim, muscular, flowing black hair, tight tennis shirt, solid chin. Rrrrrrrow! This could be two birds with the same stone. She’d ask where the women’s room was, and it would also be a perfectly innocent icebreaker.

The man smiled as he got closer, great teeth.

“Excuse me,” said Sam. “Can you tell me where—”

The man took off running.

“My purse!” Sam broke into a sprint.

People lounging by the pool sat up and turned as the pair raced by the tiki bar, the man glancing over his shoulder, darting down the garden path, crashing through palm branches. He came out in the alley for the service vehicles, climbed up on a Dumpster and jumped over a fence. He ran another few yards, slowed up and turned around to see Sam jump down from the fence. He cursed and took off again. They were soon running along the wharf, past oyster bars and sailboats and antique shops. Sam was twenty yards back, not gaining but not falling off the pace either. They came around a street corner, running up a sidewalk by a multilevel parking deck with fresh graffiti: They paved over paradise and put up a parking lot. The man looked back again. Sam was still there. What was her problem? He ran through the streets of Old Town. Historic wooden cottages, gingerbread trim. He stopped and panted in front of a picket fence with pineapple-shaped holes. He looked back. Finally lost her. No, wait, there she was, coming around the place with the Bahamian shutters. He took a deep breath and charged south on Elizabeth Street, coming to an iron fence too tall to scale. He ran along it until he found an open gate. Ten seconds later, Sam dashed in the gate. They zigzagged through the cemetery, Sam catching glimpses of him between palm trees, above-ground crypts, whitewashed mausoleums and royal poincianas. The man stumbled, chest heaving. Sam cruised at the comfortable aerobic pace of daily after-work runs. The man finally put out his arms as he crashed into a crypt with a cement cherub on top. He turned and braced his back against it and flicked a stiletto knife open. Sam broke stride and stopped a few feet away. The man waved the knife weakly in the air, his back slowly sliding down the side of the crypt until he was in the sitting position, gasping for breath, the knife resting in a hand on the ground that he no longer had the strength to raise.

Sam stepped forward and picked up her purse without interference. She turned and started walking away, the sound of desperate breathing behind her, then a single, barely audible word.

“Cunt.”

Oops.

Sam stopped and stood a few moments with her back to him. The man was beginning to catch his breath and pushed himself to his feet. He picked up the knife. “Yeah, you heard me.”

Sam spun around. She took a half-hop step at the start of her run, like a gymnast beginning a floor exercise, and galloped toward him with measured strides. She hit the brakes three feet away, where she correctly anticipated the knife swing. It lacked energy, and the blade floated by without menace. Before the man could begin the backslash, Sam planted her left foot and cocked her right leg to her flank, the way they taught her at the police academy when they let the prosecutors work out. The man only saw a blur as the side kick punched his lower ribs. Something snapped inside. He flew back against the crypt and went down to stay this time. The show was over, but Sam took the key-chain tear gas out of her purse anyway. She heard gagging and high-pitched screaming as she soaked him down good, for instructional purposes.

When Sam got back to the hotel room, the others were mixing something in the blender, all wearing T-shirts from Captain Tony’s. Paige’s face had been painted by a street artist.

“Where the hell’d you go?” asked Maria.

“We thought you were taking a big dump or something,” said Rebecca. “But we couldn’t find you in the rest room.”

“I went for a walk.”

Teresa threw some more ice in the blender. “You missed all the fun.”

13

The pink Cadillac raced east out of Orlando on the Bee Line Highway.

Unfortunately it was in the westbound lanes.

Serge and Lenny screamed their lungs out as honking, swerving dump trucks and tractor-trailers passed by on both sides. All four of their hands tightly gripped the steering wheel, Serge pulling one way, Lenny the other.

Serge: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Lenny: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The stretch of highway was currently undergoing roadwork, and cement retaining walls on both sides of the highway prevented the Cadillac from escaping down the grassy shoulders. Pickup trucks and Harleys split and passed around them.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The Cadillac began weaving back and forth across all three lanes of highway, dodging head-on collisions. A minivan came straight at them; the Caddy veered left. Then a PT Cruiser; they swung right.

The construction zone ended and Serge pulled hard on the steering wheel, taking the Eldorado down into the median strip, bounding back up the far side and into the correct lanes. He gave the wheel back to Lenny, who put on his right blinker, slowed and pulled over in the breakdown lane. He and Serge stared at each other, both sheet-white, feeling their hearts pound through their chests like the coyote after the roadrunner almost runs him off a cliff.

“What happened?” said Lenny, taking shallow breaths.

“How much of it do you remember?”

Lenny shook his head.

“You don’t remember anything?”

He shook his head again.

“It all happened pretty fast…”

Ten minutes earlier.

Lenny stubbed out a joint in the Cadillac’s ashtray. “Are we there yet… hic…?”

“A half hour to the Atlantic Ocean, then we swoop down on the money,” said Serge, holding the global tracker in both hands like he was flying a model airplane. “We have a solid transponder lock now, which means we should be able to pinpoint the briefcase’s signal within a half meter. We’re ‘go’ all the way!”

“What do you plan to do with the money?… hic… Crap. These hiccups won’t go away… hic… Maybe if I smoke another joint and calm down… hic…” Lenny stuck a twistie in his mouth and fired up.

“You know, I actually thought of taking up drugs once,” said Serge.

“I thought you were against getting high… hic…”

“I wouldn’t do it to get high,” said Serge. “I just like the sneaking-around part. You have to gain the confidence of your connection, set up the meeting, make the buy, hide your shit, make preparations whom you’re going to do it with, where, how, all without detection. Sort of like being a secret agent.”

Lenny beamed proudly. “You mean like me?… hic…”

“Afraid not, Condor. It’s just a matter of time before you gift-wrap yourself for the police. You’re the guy who gets caught after triggering a twenty-car pileup on the freeway by simultaneously trying to shotgun a beer and fire up a six-foot Cambodian bamboo peace pipe.”

Serge opened a book.

“What are you reading?… hic…”

Serge showed him the cover of the book. Hypnosis Made Easy. “I got the idea from reading The Stingray Shuffle.”

“The what?”

“This novel by my favorite author. I first picked it up because it had a lot of stuff about Florida. And trains. Lots of trains. But it also had a bunch of hypnosis stuff, so I decided to research further.”

“What kind of a name is Stingray Shuffle, anyway?”

“You’ve never done the stingray shuffle?” asked Serge.

Lenny shook his head.

“When it’s stingray season in Florida during the summer, stingrays lie on the bottom of the water near the shore, under a thin blanket of sand, and you can’t see them. The stingrays would much rather flee than fight, but if you walk normally in the water and step on one, you pretty much pin it to the bottom and leave it no choice but to hit you in the leg with its poisonous tail barb.”

“That’ll wreck a buzz.”

“So instead of walking normally when you’re in shallow water, you shuffle your feet along. That way, if you accidentally come across a ray, you just bump it on the edge, and it spooks and swims away. It’s also a perfect metaphor for the on-your-toes, aware-of-your-surroundings, ready-to-jump-any-second dance you have to do every day in Florida to stay alive and ahead of the dangerous humans.”

Serge opened his hypnosis book again. Lenny leaned across the front seat and looked over his shoulder, trying to read along.

“Why are you reading about hypnosis?”

“Because I’m into it now. I’ve decided to completely dedicate my life to the study of hypnosis.”

“I thought you’d dedicated your life to trains.”

“Trains and hypnosis.”

“That’s an odd combination.”

“I’ve learned not to question my muse…” Serge pointed forward at the road. “Will you please?”

“What’s the book about?… hic…”

“I told you. Hypnosis.”

“…Hic… I know that from the cover.”

“That’s what it’s about. I can’t change it.”

“I mean, what specifically about it?… hic…”

“Well, there’s a story here about a hypnotist in Europe who killed a woman onstage in 1894 by commanding her soul to leave her body. She had a heart attack.”

“Oh… hic… right!”

“I wasn’t there, but that’s what it says…. Lenny, you can’t read over my shoulder and drive at the same time. Pick one.”

Lenny reluctantly returned to his side of the car and the approved ten-o’clock, two-o’clock steering-wheel grip.

“Okay, Mr. Skeptic,” said Serge. “Want to get rid of those hiccups?”

Lenny nodded. “Hic.”

Serge turned sideways in his seat and spoke in a monotone. “Concentrate on my voice.”

“What are you going to do?… hic…”

“Make your hiccups leave your body.”

“Not with my soul!… hic…”

“Good point. I’ll try to make sure I get the pronouns right in the incantation.”

“Don’t you need to swing a pocket watch… hic… or have me look at a pinwheel or something?”

“That’s bullshit. Besides, you’re challenged enough with just the road.”

“Hurry up,” said Lenny. “I hate hiccups… hic…”

“Focus on my voice. Relax. Take deeper and slower breaths. Hiccups cannot survive at low rates of respiration….”

“…Hic… I still have the hiccups.”

“Shhhh! Don’t listen to the hiccups…. Only my voice…. You will continue to relax, the interval between hiccups growing longer each time…. Each hiccup is one less until they’re gone for good…. Okay, I’m not talking to Lenny anymore. Hiccups, do you hear me? I’m talking to you now. I command you — in the name of Christ, leave Lenny’s body!”

Serge heard a rattling sound. He turned forward and saw they were off course, running over the raised reflectors as they crossed the inside breakdown lane, then down into the narrow median. Serge looked over at the driver’s seat and saw Lenny’s head slumped to his chest. He reached over and grabbed the wheel, but it was too late. They had already entered the construction zone, and the temporary cement retaining walls funneled them into oncoming traffic.

“Lenny! Wake up!”

“Huh? What? What is it?… Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“So that’s what happened,” said Lenny. “I hate it when I wake up driving.”

“How are your hiccups?”

Lenny thought a second. “They’re gone.”

“What do you think about hypnosis now?”

“Gimme a break,” said Lenny. “That didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean? It did it and then some. You were fuckin’ out.”

“That was the weed,” said Lenny. “It was already making me feel like nappy time.”

“Atheist.”

Lenny lit another joint, started up the car and pulled back on the road. Serge put down the hypnosis book and picked up the morning paper as they passed a thousand-acre brush fire.

“Anything good?” asked Lenny.

“Second-grader brings gun to school. Jesus, what ever happened to just sticking out your tongue?”

“I still do it.”

“Here’s an item on a drunk bridge tender who sent a car airborne,” said Serge, oblivious to the wall of flame down the side of the highway. “And someone stole the Picasso cat again from the Hemingway House. A funeral home is being sued for putting voodoo dolls in a chest cavity. Eleven more Floridians die from smoke inhalation trying to stay warm by barbecuing indoors. Man convicted of killing his dog because it was homosexual….”

“How did he know?”

“It says the Yorkshire made advances on another terrier named Bandit. That’s when the owner decided to put a stop to the godlessness.”

“What is it about this state?” asked Lenny. “All my friends up north keep asking me: Does the freak show ever take a break down there?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Serge looked back down at his newspaper.

Up ahead, Lenny saw a small stampede of flaming rabbits running from the brush fire and into the road, where they were snatched up by turkey buzzards circling overhead, whose claws were singed by the burning fur, and the rabbits began dropping by the dozen on passing vehicles, one splattering on the Cadillac’s windshield and bouncing over Lenny’s head.

Serge looked up from his newspaper at the sound of the thud. “What the hell was that?”

Lenny’s jaw fell open, the joint sticking to the spit on his lower lip.

Serge pointed at the bloody stain on the windshield. “What kind of bug did you hit?”

“It was a bunny.”

“How’d you hit a bunny with your windshield?”

Lenny pointed up at the sky.

Serge shook his head. “You’re higher than a motherfucker.” He went back to his newspaper.

Lenny took the joint out of his mouth, looked at it a second, then threw it out of the car.

“Serge.”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m dysfunctional?”

“No, Lenny. You know those nagging sensations you’re always having? Total alienation, utter lack of self-worth, chronic-masturbation guilt and perpetual dread of impending death?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s all normal. Feel better now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Your problem is you lack focus. The key to life is hobbies, otherwise you’re asking for trouble. You know what they always say — if Hitler only had a train set…”

“Who says that?”

“Nobody ever says that. I have no idea where I get some of these thoughts, and you know what? I don’t care! Because I’m alive and the sun is shining!” Serge reached in his back pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper.

“What’s that?”

“It’s my Life List.”

“What’s a Life List?”

“The list of things you want to accomplish before you die. The idea is to keep you planning for the future or else you end up seventy years old on your porch with a rusting chain-link fence around a front yard full of barking Dobermans and a dismantled Skylark, and you never know why.”

“Where’d you come up with this list idea?”

“First heard about it from Lou Holtz. ‘Become coach of Notre Dame’ was on his list, and you know what?”

“He became coach of Notre Dame?”

Serge nodded. “I said to myself, ‘I gotta get me one of them lists.’”

“So what’s on yours?” asked Lenny.

“Item number one: space flight.”

“You’re too old to join NASA.”

“That’s why I’ll have to deal with the Russians. After the Soviet collapse, everything’s for sale over there.”

“What else?” asked Lenny.

Serge held up his piece of paper: “Swim the Florida Straits, communicate with the monkeys on Key Lois, steal the DeLong Ruby, break a bull at the Okeechobee Rodeo, get into a Disney ride in less than an hour, locate the Fountain of Youth, win the Daytona 500, bring the panthers back to healthy numbers, travel in time…”

“But time travel’s impossible.”

“I know,” said Serge. “I wanted to keep the list realistic, so that’s why I only want to travel one week. And that way, if something goes wrong with the time ship and I can’t get back, I’m not stuck in some strange future land where the government makes everyone wear tunics and report unwelcome behavior.”

“I hate that,” said Lenny.

“Tell me about it.”

Serge stuck the list back in his pocket and got out the global tracker.

“How’s the signal?” asked Lenny.

“Real strong. Solid all the way.” Serge pointed at a traffic sign. “Take the causeway. It’s our best bet.”

They crossed US 1 and the Indian River, then went down the bridge onto Merritt Island.

“Are those real alligators in that canal?” asked Lenny.

“That’s what those are.”

The pair began seeing the tips of shiny metal tubes over the trees.

“Look,” said Lenny. “Kennedy Space Center.”

“And there’s the new shuttle mock-up they put on display at the visitor center.” Serge grabbed his camera from under the seat and snapped half a roll of film as they went by. He faced forward again. “Oh my God!”

“What is it?”

“The signal!” said Serge, holding up the tracker. “It changed direction. It’s pointing back at the visitor center. Turn around!”

Lenny swung across a break in the median and headed back. The Cadillac turned in the entrance of the space complex and parked next to a row of idling Gray Line buses. Serge jumped out and tucked a pistol in his waistband. He reached back in the car and grabbed the global tracker off the passenger seat. The signal pointed toward the admission gate.

“This is it! Payday!”

They took off running.

14

Another month, another book club meeting. Miami Beach this time. Books, Booze and Broads cruised down A1A in a rented Grand Marquis.

“We’re finally going to meet Ralph Krunkleton,” said Maria.

“Not at this rate,” said Sam, checking her wristwatch. “Just look at this traffic jam.”

“We’ve still got plenty of time,” said Teresa.

“How much farther?”

“Twenty miles.”

Twenty miles ahead, a strip mall:

“Get a move on!” the owner shouted in the back room of The Palm Reader. He leaned over and did a line. “We have to close up and clear out before that stupid author shows up for his stupid signing!”

The buzzer at the rear service door rang. The boss jumped. “What was that?”

“The door.”

He opened it a crack. Four people stood behind hand trucks stacked with brown cartons. In the background, a white commercial van from a book distributor in Hialeah.

“Hi, I’m your wholesaler,” said a smiling woman holding a dachshund.

No response. The door stayed open only a slit.

“Is everything all right?” she asked, trying to see inside.

“Fine. Go away.”

“But we brought some more books.”

“We didn’t order any.”

“I know,” said the woman, smiling again. “We got so much more press than we expected that I was afraid you’d run out. I took it upon myself to bring extras. You’ve been such good customers…”

A pause.

“Go away.”

“If you don’t need them, then we do. We’d like to get them signed for our other stores. This is our hottest title.”

One of the tropical shirts tapped the boss from behind. He jumped again. “What?”

“Someone’s out front asking for you.”

“Get rid of them.”

“I think it’s the author.”

“Shit!”

“What should I tell him?”

“Tell him we’re out of books.”

“You’re out of books?” said the woman at the back door. “Then I’m glad we came.”

The employee tapped the boss again. “I don’t think I can get rid of them.”

“Why not?”

“There are others.”

Blinding lights came on in the front of the store, the strings of beads breaking them into hundreds of bright shafts that showered the back room. The boss shielded his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”

“TV cameras. I was trying to tell you….”

“Who called the TV station?”

“I did,” said the woman. She had pushed the back door open and was directing hand-truck traffic. “Just set those cases over there.”

The tropical shirts scrambled to hide cocaine. A man stuck a microphone through the beads. “Sir, can I get a quick interview?”

“No! Go away!”

More TV people arrived, then writers from the Herald, the Sun-Sentinel and the Post.

The boss burst through the beads. “Everybody out!”

A long line of regular patrons waited at the cash register, and they weren’t leaving until they got what they came for. Neither were the reporters. A TV camera panned down the customers, who for some reason were all covering their faces. The camera swung to a newswoman: “As you can see, the rising popularity of Ralph Krunkleton seems to cross all economic, ethnic and social lines…”

“Turn that camera off!”

The boss grabbed the newswoman’s arm, but she jerked free and stomped on his instep with a high heel.

“Ouch!”

“You, sir, what does Ralph Krunkleton say to you?” The woman held her microphone toward a businessman, who froze in the lights, then broke from the line and sprinted out of the store.

“Obviously camera shy…. What about you, sir?”

“Uh, good plot?” said a schoolteacher, grinning nervously.

“Good plot. That seems to be everyone’s verdict tonight at The Palm Reader, where author Ralph Krunkleton will be signing copies of his latest bestseller in just a few moments. Back to you, Jerry…”

The camera lights died, and the newswoman spun on the store’s owner. “Don’t you ever fuck with me while I’m on the air!” She jammed her microphone in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and walked away.

The owner doubled over. “Can this get any worse?”

“Hi, I’m Ralph Krunkleton.” A big man in a fishing cap extended a hand.

“The signing’s off. We don’t have any more books.”

“What are those?” asked Ralph, pointing at three tall stacks of his books behind the counter, selling quickly at a hundred dollars each.

“Those are special. They’re on reserve. People have already bought them.”

Ralph took out a pen and stepped toward the piles. “I’d be happy to sign—”

“No!” The owner grabbed him by the arm. He stopped and lowered his voice. “I mean, no, that won’t be necessary.”

A college student had just purchased a book. Ralph reached for it. “How about you, son? Would you like an autograph?”

“Touch it and I’ll kill you!” The student jerked the book away and left the store.

The owner turned and gasped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

People were unfolding Samsonite chairs. “Setting up for the reading,” said the woman with the wiener dog.

“No!” shouted the owner, grabbing a chair out of someone’s hand. “No reading! Go away!”

A TV cameraman looked through his viewfinder, talking to his news director. “There’s something strange about these people. I can’t quite put my finger on it….”

“I know what you mean,” said the director. “I’ve never seen an author appearance where nobody gets an autograph or stays for the reading. Smells fishy, like this is some kind of front….”

The owner overheard them and began clapping his hands sharply. “Okay, we’re about to start the reading. Everybody take a seat.”

A debutante paid for a book and started for the door. The owner blocked her path.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“My boyfriend’s.”

“You’re staying for the reading.”

“I’ve been waiting all day to get off.”

The owner lifted the edge of his tropical shirt to reveal a pistol tucked in his Dockers. “Have a seat.”

The owner kept lifting his shirt at departing customers, and the chairs began filling with fidgeting, sniffling people.

Unsuspecting readers who had seen the TV spot started arriving, a few at first, then dozens. The parking lot overflowed. Police officers came into the store.

“Are you the owner?”

He fell into a chair and grabbed his heart.

“We’ll take care of traffic. The chamber of commerce already called and is paying for the overtime, so there’s no charge. Just wanted you to know.” They went back out into the street, waving lighted orange batons.

The legitimate customers began mixing with coke fiends in the book line. The books kept selling, although the cost dropped sharply to the regular cover price when the new customers expressed outrage and the cashier panicked. Everyone was happy again, especially the dopers, who discovered the price of cocaine in Miami Beach had just fallen to $6.99 a gram.

The normal people took their new books and joined the others in the audience until it was standing room only.

“I guess we were wrong,” the TV director told his cameraman. “They’re staying for the reading. Some of them still seem a little weird, but on average it’s about what you’d see in any mall around here.”

The owner slid up to the cashier and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “How are you keeping the books with the cocaine separated from the others?”

“How am I doing what?”

Ralph stepped to the front of the chairs. “Good evening and thanks for coming. I’d like to start by reading one of my favorite passages—”

“What the heck’s this?” interrupted a woman in back, holding up a little white baggie.

“There’s one in my book, too,” said a man on the other side of the room.

“Me, too!”

“It looks like cocaine.”

“What’s going on here?”

The owner stood on a chair in the corner, holding a match up to an emergency sprinkler head.

“Come on! Come onnnnnnnnn!”

Teresa leaned over the steering wheel of the rented Grand Marquis. “I think I can see the bookstore on the next block. I told you we’d make it.”

“Why are all those police jumping out of those vans?”

15

Collins Avenue.

The BBB lounged behind dark sunglasses and recovered with morning coffee on the front patio of the Hotel Nash.

Sam stared into her decaf.

“Sam, were you listening?” asked Rebecca.

“What?”

“I was saying you missed all the fun.”

“Where’d you run off to?”

“After missing the book signing, I decided to head back to the room and call it a night.”

“It was because you didn’t want to skinny-dip with us in that hotel pool, wasn’t it?”

“I can’t put anything over on you.”

“We only did it for ten seconds,” said Maria.

“Just long enough to check it off the list,” said Rebecca.

“We were careful,” said Teresa. “Slipped our clothes off, held them in our hands, slipped ’em back on again. No big deal.”

“It was the alcohol,” said Sam.

“Of course it was the alcohol,” said Teresa. “That’s the whole point of alcohol.”

Sam pointed at their rented Grand Marquis, parked at the corner. “What’s wrong with our car?”

“What do you mean?”

“The back end’s riding low. And dripping.”

Maria stood up and smiled. “I was going to surprise you. Come on.”

They walked over to the car and Maria popped the trunk. A mountain of ice cubes covered dozens of beer cans and mini wine bottles.

“I discovered something new about rental cars,” Maria said proudly. “The trunk is a self-draining cooler.”

They went back to their spot on the patio and looked up as the shadow of an inbound 747 crossed Collins Avenue and their table. Men sat at other tables, behind Porsche sunglasses, leering at the book club. The café society was in full swing, everyone aloof, clandestinely checking each other out, posing, trying to get laid by acting like people who got laid way too much. The bouillabaisse of sexual tension caused those least likely to have sex to play their stereos at top volume, and the street was quite noisy. But the designers at Mercedes-Benz had anticipated this, and the interior of a white Z310 was virtually soundproof as it rolled north up the avenue, the air conditioner set at a nippy sixty-six. A red light stopped it outside the Nash. Five dark-haired men in tropical shirts filled the Benz, two in front, three in back, eating ice-cream cones, nodding heads slowly to easy-listening hits. Its trunk was also dripping, holding five soggy cartons of paperbacks.

“Boss, what are we going to do about all those books?”

“Shut up!” said the driver. “I don’t want to hear about books right now.”

The light turned green; the driver prepared to go. Before he could, a horn blared and a purple Jeep Wrangler whipped around the Mercedes and passed in the oncoming lanes. The Benz’s driver hit the brakes. He felt something cold and stared down at the ice-cream cone squashed on the front of his tropical shirt.

The Jeep accelerated toward the intersection at Hispañola, but it got boxed in behind a slow-moving Oldsmobile. The light ahead turned yellow, plenty of time to make it, but the Olds slowed to a crawl and stopped.

“Motherfucker!” screamed the Jeep’s driver, punching the roll bar. He and his three passengers were muscle-bound from constant weight lifting and creamy protein shakes, and they experienced considerable difficulty turning their torsos to exit the Jeep. They walked toward the Olds, arms swinging well out from their bodies because trapezius muscles were in the way. All four were in their early twenties, wearing baseball caps and T-shirts from a “world-famous” little-known sports bar.

They reached the front door of the Oldsmobile and began kicking it, causing the tiny old man behind the wheel to turn up his hearing aid and look around. He got the Beltone adjusted in time to hear, “Come out of there, you fuck!” The Oldsmobile’s door was jerked open and the old man dragged into the street. They threw him to the pavement and began stomping him in the stomach. People froze in horror. An elderly woman dropped groceries on the sidewalk and screamed.

“Where’d you learn to fucking drive!” Kick.

Tires screeched. The Jeep guys looked up. Four doors opened on a Mercedes; ice-cream cones flew out. Easy-listening music piped into the street.

“…On the day that you were born, the angels got together…”

The Jeep’s driver stopped kicking and began laughing. He turned to his pals. “Look at the funny guys with ice cream on their shirts!”

The Mercedes’s driver walked up to the Jeep and saw a baseball bat sticking out of the back. He grabbed it.

The young driver loved his Jeep, with the Fold-and-Tumble rear seat and legendary off-road prowess. His smile dropped. He pointed at the vehicle, then at the man with the baseball bat. “Don’t even think of messing with it!”

He didn’t. He walked past the Jeep and swung with a sharp uppercut, catching the driver under the chin. Teeth scattered across the intersection like a broken pearl necklace on a wooden dance floor.

The other punks fled, but the slowest was caught from behind and swarmed. The tropical shirts knocked him to the ground and formed a tight circle for synchronized groin-kicking.

Mr. Grande sat alone in the mountain hideaway of the Mierda Cartel, tapping his fingers on a wicker desk, gazing out the window at fruit trees. A cockatoo strutted across the porch. It was quiet except for the ceiling fans and a gibbering monkey somewhere in the hills that Mr. Grande had come to believe was personally mocking him.

The phone rang. It was the cartel in Colombia, and they wanted to know where their submarine was.

“There’s been a setback,” said Mr. Grande.

“Setback? It sank with your whole fucking cartel! You’re an embarrassment to the industry!”

“I just need a little more time.”

“You’ve got a week. Then you know what happens.” Click.

It had been a rough year for the Mierda Cartel. It hadn’t started out that way. They had been riding high with five million in the black, all laundered through a Tampa insurance company called Buccaneer Life & Casualty. To make the insurance company appear legit, they employed legit, unsuspecting adjusters, who accidentally paid out all of the cartel’s money in a fraudulent disability claim.

Mr. Grande had dispatched every cartel member to Florida to get the money back, but they were all dead now, the money last seen in a briefcase in Key West. Mr. Grande had replaced the deceased cartel members by recruiting a handful of trusted smugglers, and he had intended to send them back to Florida for the money, but they were now all at the bottom of St. George’s Bay in a modified septic tank. Turnover was getting to be a problem for Mr. Grande, who could no longer get anyone to underwrite group health except Buccaneer Life & Casualty in Tampa.

Complicating matters was the language barrier. The Mierda organization was the only cartel that wasn’t Latin. It was Russian. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, mobsters from Moscow and Leningrad flooded south Florida and the Caribbean, which was a good thing. It infused the region with fresh blood and new ideas. Plus, everything of value in the former republic was being dismantled with cutting torches, crated up and shipped to the West for quick sale. You could buy absolutely anything — suspension bridges, nuclear triggers. The Russians quickly became valued partners. But, as they say, ten percent of all college students graduate in the bottom tenth of their class, and the same held true for the new wave of criminals. Mr. Grande had to take what he could get.

The timing of that last phone call from Colombia was not good. What the hell did they expect him to do, buy a sub?

Wait, that’s it! Soviet subs were all over the place. The Cali gang had tried to buy one a couple years ago, but they had gone about it all wrong. Mr. Grande was Russian. He knew all the right people, where every pitfall lay. He wouldn’t make the same mistakes. What was a sub going for these days, anyway? Mr. Grande checked the Blue Book. Ski lift, styptic pencils, subatomic centrifuge…Here it is: Submarine, like new, never fired, five million dollars, firm. Call Yuri, afternoons. Hmm, thought Mr. Grande, that’s the same amount of money we lost in Florida. That sure would come in handy now.

Mr. Grande flipped open his address book, then picked up the phone.

The old man who had been driving the Oldsmobile regained consciousness in the middle of Collins Avenue. He moaned and grabbed his stomach and fought his way to his feet. The tropical shirts saw him staggering, and they steadied him by the arms and walked him over to the punk from the Jeep.

“Go ahead,” said the tallest.

The old man began kicking. “You ungrateful little prick! I fought in the Big One for you!…”

A phone rang.

The Mercedes’s driver pulled a cell from his pants. He cupped a hand over it and turned to his colleagues. “I have to take this.” He stepped onto the sidewalk and covered his other ear to block out the screaming.

“Mr. Grande, an honor, sir…. I’m sorry, but you’ll have to speak up. Miami Beach is pretty noisy this time of day…. I see…. I see…. No, that won’t be a problem…. Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Grande. You won’t regret this….”

The driver closed his cell phone and turned back to the street. “We have to go.”

Police sirens grew louder as they piled back in the Mercedes and sped away.

The old man was still kicking when the cops arrived. The first officer realized what was happening and jumped out of the squad car. “No! Stop!” he yelled, running toward the old man and pulling his nightstick. “Here — use a baton.”

16

An astronaut in a pressure suit heard his own amplified, labored breathing as he slowly navigated his moon buggy over the treacherous terrain.

The buggy rolled past a man in a tropical shirt, banging the side of his handheld global tracker.

“What’s it say?” asked Lenny.

“The vector’s gone haywire,” said Serge. “Must be jammed by all the space transmissions here.”

“In a tourist attraction?”

“No, but the attraction is in the middle of a working launch complex, and next to a pair of classified Air Force installations.”

“What’ll we do?”

“We simply have to start canvassing,” said Serge. “There’s the gift shop.”

“You just want souvenirs.”

They pushed open the glass doors. No briefcase in immediate sight. Serge walked rapidly down the aisles, spinning display racks of pins, magnets and key chains. He picked up a stack of official launch photos and discarded them one by one: “Already got it, got it, got it, got it, got it…” He scanned the rows of personalized NASA coffee mugs, Adam to Zelda. “They never have Serge.”

“I think that last joint is wearing off,” said Lenny.

“Hang on. I just found something I don’t have.” He grabbed it off the wall, paid at the cash register and went into the rest room. He came out ten minutes later wearing a royal blue astronaut jumpsuit. “How do I look?”

“Babe magnet.”

“It’s not about sex. It’s about the human spirit,” said Serge, tucking his folded Life List in a zippered utility pocket on his shoulder.

“I thought it was about sex,” said Lenny.

They left the gift gantry and began combing the exhibits. It was a thorough, time-consuming search, from the IMAX theater to the walk-through space shuttle. The crowd was heavy, getting autographs from authentic NASA astronauts who were assigned public relations duty on a rotating basis. One of the astronauts zipped by on a replica moon buggy. A family from Minnesota flagged him down for photos. Other families stopped Serge in his royal blue jumpsuit, asking him to pose with their kids.

“Come on!” yelled Lenny.

“Hold up,” said Serge. “I cannot deny the children.”

They worked their way through the Gallery of Manned Spaceflight, taking a break to peer down into a dimly lit bulletproof display case.

“That moon rock looks awfully familiar,” said Serge.

“I need a joint,” said Lenny. “I’ll crouch down behind the lunar module.”

“I’ll stand guard,” said Serge.

Paul and Jethro stopped in front of the Astronaut Memorial with their Cocoa Beach travel guide and silver briefcase.

“I can’t take the stress anymore,” said Paul, gazing up at the polished granite monument. “We’ve got a whole twenty-four hours before our ship leaves.”

“Character is grace under pressure,” said Jethro. “Consider the early astronauts. Those were the days of giants, when destiny did not choose men, but men chose destiny.”

Paul and Jethro heard shouting in the distance. They turned and saw a security guard chasing two men — one in a royal blue jumpsuit — away from the Gallery of Manned Spaceflight. But the guard was in mall-cop weight range, and he quickly became winded and broke off pursuit.

Serge peeked out from behind a ticket booth. “I think we lost him.”

“I’m fairly sure I have the munchies now.”

Serge began gently rubbing all the official space patches on his shoulders and chest.

“Must have snack,” said Lenny, feeling his tongue with his fingers. “And beverage.”

Serge unzipped and rezipped the dozen utility pockets on his thighs, knees and forearms.

Lenny grabbed his throat. “Parched!…Can’t…breathe!…”

“Don’t embarrass me.” Serge zipped a pocket.

“Life…functions…terminating…”

“Okay, let’s get a bite.”

“Cool.”

They entered the Launch Pad Café. Lenny got a chili-cheese dog. Serge sat across from him in his jumpsuit, eyes closed, sucking on a foil pouch of astronaut ice cream.

“Serge…” said Lenny.

“Shhhh! Don’t talk. I’m having a moment.” Serge stuck the metallic pouch back in his mouth and squeezed it dry. He opened his eyes. “Okay, what is it?”

“Isn’t this the best chili-cheese dog you’ve ever seen in your life?”

“I’ve never felt comfortable about any cheese that comes out of a condiment pump.”

“I need another joint.”

“You’re too high as it is.”

“That’s what I mean,” said Lenny. “I need to smoke myself down.”

“It’s all in your head,” said Serge, unzipping a pocket and pulling out his Life List. “You have to learn how to master your quirks.”

Lenny chewed and pointed with his chili dog. “You left off with time travel.”

“Let’s see, what’s next? Ride Shamu, tend the Jupiter Lighthouse, dive the Atocha, perform my one-man salute to Claude Pepper at the Kravis Center, become a surf bum in Jensen, join the harvesting of the oysters at Apalachicola, take a billfish on flyrod, double-eagle at PGA National, ride with the Blue Angels from Pensacola, deliver peace and justice to my Cuban exile community…”

“I didn’t know you were Cuban.”

“Lenny, my name’s Serge.”

“So you’re part of the Miami Mafia?”

“No, Tampa Cuban, different gang, much earlier. We’re the group that came up by way of Key West when they opened the cigar factories in the 1880s. My great-great-grandfather was the noble Juan Garcia. Used to be a reader in Ybor City.”

“Reader?”

“They sat in tall chairs and read stuff, newspapers, magazines, so the workers wouldn’t get bored rolling stogies. Then he started reading D. H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Production increased, but the owner didn’t like the idea. Then he bounced around a bit and ended up working the bolita games by the time of the big trouble.”

“What’s bolita?”

“The old Latin street lottery. Illegal but winked at. They put a bunch of numbered ivory balls in a sack and Juan would reach in and pick one. No way to cheat, right? Wrong. The crime bosses would tell Juan which number they wanted, and he’d freeze that ball in an icebox. At drawing time, he’d just feel around in the bag for the cold ball.”

“You said there was trouble?”

“One Friday he thought they said thirty when they actually said thirteen. Froze the wrong ball. It got ugly. They had stacked their bets, and a fortune was lost. They decided to ice him.”

“They shot him?”

“No, they stuck him in an icehouse. One thing about Cubans — we love our irony.”

“Froze to death,” said Lenny, nodding. “I hear it’s like going to sleep.”

“What about you?” asked Serge. “Any interesting background?”

“Not really,” said Lenny. “Born in Pahokee. Family never kept up with their roots, so I didn’t hear much. Did a little bit here and there. Worked in an airline parts depot in Opa-Locka because I got to fly around the country for free. I’m a Jets fan but the games aren’t broadcast here, so I’d fly up to La Guardia or Newark every Sunday to watch them in the airport lounge and fly right back after the game. Then one Wednesday I’m at the airport here. I’m driving the parts van on the edge of the runway and I hear yelling. ‘Stop him! Stop him!’ I see some guy in a silk shirt and gold chains running from a Cessna being chased by a Jack Webb type. So I blocked him off with my van at the corner of a building. The guy reaches in his pants. I think he’s going to blow me away, but he pulls out a kilo bag and throws it at my window and it explodes in this white cloud and I can’t see anything. The federal agent tackles the guy from behind and his face comes through the cloud and smashes up against my window, a big blood streak where his nose hit the glass and dragged down. The agent cuffs him and starts yelling his head off, punching the guy in the liver: ‘Don’t… you… ever… make… me… run!…’ They haul the guy off and he’s shouting that he’ll come back and get me, and the other employees said I should leave town, so I head to Broward and get a job cleaning the inside of cop cars because of all the drugs you find where handcuffed suspects stuff them in the backseat crack. I moved again when my dad died and the will gave me a little condo they used to rent out in Kendall. I was up visiting some friends in Georgia one weekend, and I’m coming home at sunset on a Sunday and the other side of I-95 is jammed with cars heading north, barely moving. But there’s absolutely nobody on my side of the highway. I mean nobody. I must have driven a hundred miles without seeing another car. And the people crawling along in the northbound lanes are pointing at me. I’m thinking, That’s odd. Is there something going on I don’t know about? But I dismiss it and keep going. I get to my neighborhood and it’s ghost town. Even the twenty-four-hour convenience stores are closed, plywood on the windows. Now I’m thinking, Okay, something’s definitely up. I turn on the TV, and they’re talking about this Hurricane Andrew. I try to find some sports or cartoons, but every channel is the hurricane. So I figure screw it — I’ll go work on my car. Which is real drudgery unless you’re high, so I’m out there at midnight laying on the ground, blowing a fat one and draining my oil pan, and the wind starts to pick up and I begin getting this sideways rain under the car, really hard, stinging like hundreds of little pins. But I’m thinking it’s just really good dope. A fence picket tears loose and hits the car, then something else breaks the passenger window. I finally put two and two together — can this Hurricane Andrew be what all the hoopla’s about? I make a mental note to start reading the papers. I head to the house, but there’s no power and my sliding glass doors have buckled, but luckily I’ve got two twelve-packs in the fridge. So I sit down and start drinking. But after a while it’s not fun anymore. With the sliding doors down, there’s way too much wind in the room, and everything’s flying around and hitting me. I start to take a real beating. My beer can collection, CDs, Playboy videos. I’m getting my butt kicked by my own shit. I don’t need it. I say, Fuck this, and I go out in the stairwell. It is one of those sturdy concrete jobs with a padlocked storage area underneath for bicycles and lawn mowers. I crawl in there with the rest of my beer and a radio and a candle. I’m not sure exactly when I passed out, but the next morning the only thing left standing was that stairwell. The insurance company paid for everything, and I spent the money on a six-month kick-ass cocaine party. I’ve never had so many friends. Then I was living in my car for a while. I got like a million parking tickets, and I was towed once while passed out in the backseat. They must not have noticed me. I woke up, climbed over into the front and drove out of the towing yard when they opened the gate for one of the trucks. Did you know you can get all your parking tickets canceled just by mailing in your death certificate? Doesn’t matter how many you have — they erase every one. But after I died three times, they got really upset. So I had to leave town again….”

Serge was staring with his mouth open.

“Serge?”

“What?”

“Why are we here?”

“That’s an awfully big question, Lenny. I guess if you believe in God, it’s a little easier. If not, you might have to go with the unified field theory.”

“No, I mean, why are we here right now? Why did we come to this place? I forget.”

“We came here to…” Serge stopped. “Why did we come here?”

Serge and Lenny looked at each other, then at the ground, then back at each other, scratching their heads, looking off in the distance, across the concourse, where two men walked toward the exit with a silver briefcase.

Serge and Lenny looked at each other: “The briefcase!”

They jumped up and took off after the men, rounding the corner of the building and sprinting through the Rocket Garden, giant silver and white tubes towering skyward all around.

“That’s an Atlas. Had a sixty percent fail ratio before John Glenn climbed in. This is the suborbital Redstone that took up Shepard and Grissom…” — Serge breathing hard, not breaking stride — “…and the big one is the incredible Gemini Titan, an ICBM converted for human flight. Pulled some serious Gs off the pad…”

They made it to the car and patched out. Serge grabbed the tracking device. “It’s working again! Must be because we’ve left the complex!”

Serge was driving now, pushing the Cadillac across the causeway, accelerating as they rounded A1A by Port Canaveral. “Take the wheel.”

“Man, I’m way too fucked up to drive, especially from the passenger side.”

But Serge had already let go and was pointing the tracking device out the side of the car. Lenny began steering with his left hand.

The tracking signal grew stronger. Serge aimed it at each passing building. “…There’s the Durango steak house, formerly the Mousetrap. Legendary astronaut hangout. If those walls could talk…. And there’s the Econo Lodge, which used to be the Cape Colony Inn owned by the Mercury Seven. There’s still a little commemorative sign out back by the oriental restaurant….”

“Who’s your favorite astronaut?” asked Lenny.

“I’d have to give the edge to Frank Borman or John Young. What about you?”

“Major Healy.”

“Ah yes, the master thespian from I Dream of Jeannie, a very strange TV show,” said Serge. “The one that always made me wonder was The Flying Nun. Think about it. There was actually a prime-time show on a major network about a nun whose hat made her fly.”

“They did a lot of drugs back then,” said Lenny.

“That might explain the Sid and Marty Croft stuff, but this idea was brain-dead on arrival. I would have loved to have sat in on that pathetic pitch meeting. I mean, what the fuck were they rejecting? The wacky yet sexually frustrating escapades of the disembodied-head-in-a-jar sharing an apartment with three voluptuous flight attendants?”

“I’d watch that show,” said Lenny.

“I’m in the wrong business.”

They passed the Orbit Motel. The tracking signal went nuts. Serge stomped the brake pedal with both feet, leaving a big cloud of dust and burned rubber as the convertible screeched to a halt in the middle of the road.

A Mazda honked and swerved around the Cadillac. “Asshole!” The driver gave them the finger but quickly retracted it when he saw Serge slamming an ammunition clip into the butt of a .45.

“Let’s hit it,” said Serge. They turned around and headed back toward the Orbit Motel.

17

There was trouble brewing elsewhere in the United States. Which could mean only one thing. It would eventually come to Florida.

This time, Nevada. The caked desert changed colors five times after sunset, from burnt orange all the way to an eerie purple. A horned lizard lay belly up on a rock and blinked.

A towering sign with a thousand colored bulbs came on, a man in a cowboy hat holding up a big gold nugget. Some of the bulbs flashed on and off, making the cowboy wave at cars.

The Gold Rush Hotel stood outside Reno. Way outside. Just desert and cactus and cattle skulls. It was out on the highway toward California, designed to catch the people coming in, who couldn’t wait to get to Reno, and those leaving, who hadn’t learned. There were slot machines at the reception desk, a slot machine in each booth of the restaurant, and long lines of clanging machines against the walls in the Sapphire Room.

The Sapphire Room held forty dark nightclub tables, each with its own tiny cocktail lamp. Two keyboards sat onstage, facing each other.

Rock groups are notoriously lax about protecting names and trademarks, which often revert to record companies. By the time the reunion tours roll around, all bets are off. If you’re lucky, you might see a band missing only the lead singer. If not, you get half of Chicago. If you’re really unlucky, you’ve paid to get in the Sapphire Room.

An emcee walked onstage with a microphone. Behind him, two men in tuxedos sat down at the opposing keyboards.

“May I have your attention? It is with great pleasure that I introduce Dave and Jeff on the Dueling Wurlitzers….” The pair began playing a rousing number. “Ladies and gentlemen, the Sapphire Room is proud to present Bad Company!”

Jeff leaned to his microphone. “…I feel like makin’ — what do I feel like makin’? Can anybody out there help me? — that’s right! love!… I feel like makin’ love, oh yeah!…”

Three tables got up and left.

Bad Company finished their concert, roadies packed up the Wurlitzers, others began setting up for the next act. They unfurled a silk banner. “The Great Mez-mo, amazing feats in mesmerization.” A sinister eyeball gave off lightning bolts.

Preston Bradshaw Lancaster took the stage in a blue velvet tuxedo and powder-blue shirt with ruffles. Soon, four volunteers sat in a row of chairs across the stage, a family, their heads slumped to their chests. Disneyland T-shirts.

The forty nightclub tables now held exactly three people; one was passed out. Welcome to show business.

Preston snapped his fingers, and the family of four awoke and looked around disoriented.

“Have a nice nap?”

They nodded.

Preston walked around behind the chairs and put his hands on the father’s shoulders.

“I sure am getting hungry,” said Mez-mo. “I could really go for some noodles.”

“Quack, quack, quack,” said the dad. Two people in the audience cracked up. Dad looked confused.

“Yes, sir,” said Mez-mo. “I think I could eat a whole plate of noodles!”

“Quack, quack, quack.”

“Thanks, Dad.” Mez-mo took a couple steps and put his hands on the mother’s shoulders. “Mom — the Great Mez-mo would like you to go to the blackboard and write the numbers one to ten.”

She walked across the stage and began writing with chalk. “1, 2, 3, I like to swim out to troop ships…” Two people laughed again; Mom looked around.

“Thank you, Mom,” said Mez-mo. “You can take your seat…. Oh, by the way, would you happen to have a spare paperclip?”

She looked down. “Dammit!”

Mez-mo handed her some paper towels, and Mom began wiping invisible dog poop off her shoes.

“Sonny,” said Mez-mo, putting his hands on the shoulders of a nine-year-old butterball. “What’s your name?”

The boy thought he was saying Benny, but instead he answered, “Agent X-18, the Dreaded Mongoose.”

“And Mr. Mongoose, do you know who your assigned targets are today?”

The boy nodded, and Mez-mo handed him a starter’s pistol.

“Mr. Mongoose, did you know I just bought a new telephone?”

Benny got up from his chair and began firing blanks at his parents. “Die, you bastards!”

“Hey,” the father yelled at Mez-mo. “That’s not funny!”

“Not as funny as, say, noodles?”

“Quack, quack, quack…”

“That leaves just you, little lady.” Mez-mo put his hands on the teenager’s shoulders. “What’s your name?”

“Jessica.”

“Jessica, did you ever learn to play the harmonica?”

Her eyes got big, and she put a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God! It’s Brad Pitt!”

The Great Mez-mo walked to the front of the stage and raised his hands for the room to hold down its non-applause.

Behind Mez-mo, the parents were growing angry over the shooting incident. “What gives you the right! This is the most outrageous…!”

“You’ve been a great audience!” said Mez-mo. “And now I have to order some noodles on the telephone and clean my harmonica with a paperclip.”

Benny opened fire again on his parents, who quacked and wiped crap off their shoes. Jessica jumped up and down next to Mez-mo, begging for his autograph.

“…Thank you and good night!”

Mez-mo ran down the stairs on the right side of the stage, slapping hands tag-team-style with the next performer coming up the steps, Andy Francesco, the Pickpocket Comedian.

Preston headed down the hall to the Flash in the Pan Restaurant.

“There he is! The Great Mez-mo!” someone yelled from the corner booth. “Oooo, oooo! Don’t look in his eyes! He has supernatural powers!…”

Preston turned toward the voice. It was Spider, the one-armed juggler. Preston hated Spider. He hated them all — all the other performers. Look at them, sitting there so smug in that booth. Wearing the same fancy blue velvet tuxedos, the snap-on bow ties hanging from their collars, elbows over the backs of the seats. Preston still couldn’t believe he had been reduced to associating with these losers. After all, he had a Ph.D. in hypnosis.

The corner booth was their turf. Big and curved, shiny red vinyl, it was where all the performers waited while the other acts were onstage, comparing notes, trying out new material, drinking coffee, smoking, maybe ordering a steak when it started getting light out.

“Scoot over,” said Preston.

The guys slid around to make room, Spider; Bruno Litsky, America’s Favorite Jay Leno Impersonator; the Saul Horowitz Tribute to Vaudeville; Frankie Chan and His Incredible Hand Shadow Revue; Xolack the Mentalist; and Bad Company.

“How’d it go tonight?” asked Saul.

“Like fuckin’ death out there,” said Preston. “I need a smoke.”

Bad Company handed him a cigarette. Xolack gave him a light. The waitress refilled coffee. “Can I get some eggs?” asked Preston. “Not too runny.”

“Maybe if you worked on your script,” said Spider. “The way you weave the hypnotic trigger words into the conversation — seems a little forced.”

“The script’s fine,” said Preston. “The script’s perfect.”

“It’s a perpetual non sequitur,” said Spider. “You’re talking about wanting a bowl of noodles, then you have to borrow a paperclip and answer the phone. If I’m in the audience, I have to ask myself, where the hell is all this going?”

“There’s nothing wrong with my script!” said Preston.

“It doesn’t make any fuckin’ sense!”

“Oh, pardon me, Mr. Entertainment, Mr. ‘I can juggle with one hand. Everybody, look at me!’”

“I’ll kick your ass with this one hand!” said Spider. “Let’s go!”

Spider jumped out of the booth and stood next to Preston. “I know what you’re thinking. ‘He’s just got one arm — I can take him!’” Spider began bouncing on the balls of his feet, throwing quick left jabs in the air. “You want a piece of me? I’ll fuck you up!”

“Sit down, Spider,” said Preston. “I respect you as a performer and a man.”

“All right, then.” Spider tugged his left lapel defiantly and sat back down.

“I think he’s right about the script,” said Frankie. “What you need is a good story line.”

“No!” said Preston. “No story! It’s just a goddamn hypnosis show!”

Frankie turned to his left. “What do you think, Xolack?”

Xolack shrugged and went back to bending spoons with his hands against the edge of the table.

Sparse applause filtered down the hall. Spider nodded at Bruno. “You’re up.”

Bruno Litsky, America’s Favorite Jay Leno Impersonator, stood and straightened his suit. “How do I look?”

“Not remotely like Jay Leno. Break a leg.”

Andy Francesco, the Pickpocket Comedian, came back to the table.

“How was it out there?”

“Fuckin’ oil painting. Give me a cigarette.”

Frankie passed him a Winston. They heard a punch line down the hall: “…sounds more like a night out with Bill Clinton and Charlie Sheen!”

The waitress arrived with Preston’s eggs and another pot of coffee.

“Did anyone read where Steppenwolf’s coming to town?” asked Frankie. “Man, I love Steppenwolf.”

“So what? It’s not really Steppenwolf,” said Spider.

“What do you mean?”

“Ask Bad Company over there.”

“What are you getting at?” Jeff said defensively.

“Nothing that everybody here doesn’t know already.” Spider lit a cigarette and threw the Zippo on the table.

Preston stabbed his egg yolks with a corner of toast. He picked up his fork, stopped and looked at it, then checked the rest of the utensils around the table. “They’re all bent…Fuckin’ Xolack!”

“Are you vaguely implying we’re not Bad Company?” asked Jeff.

“No, I’m saying it directly,” said Spider. “Watch my lips. You’re not fucking Bad Company.”

“We played session on one of the albums,” said David.

“In the studio.”

“That counts.”

“Sure it does. In your little make-believe rock ’n’ roll castle.”

“You son of a bitch!” David jumped up to slug Spider, but the other half of Bad Company grabbed him. “Are you nuts? You can’t hit a guy with one arm!”

“Is that so?” said Spider. He sprang out of his seat and began bouncing around next to the table again. “Let’s go! You and me — right now!”

“Knock it off!” yelled Preston.

“Make him take it back,” said Jeff.

“No, he has to take it back,” said Spider, still bounding in the aisle.

“Everyone’s going to apologize,” said Preston. “Then we sit down and act like fuckin’ grown-ups…. You first, Spider.”

“All right,” Spider said reluctantly. “I’m sorry I even brought it up. If it’s that important to you, you’re really Bad Company.”

“Damn straight we’re Bad Company!” said Jeff, nodding and leaning back in his tuxedo.

“Your turn,” Preston told Jeff.

“Sorry,” said Jeff. “I’m sure you have a helluva left hook…”

“That’s better,” said Spider, sitting back down.

“…But your right’s a little weak.”

“That’s it!” Spider dove across the table at Bad Company, knocking over ice-water glasses and ketchup bottles before the others pulled him back down.

“Look at this mess,” said Frankie. “Waitress!”

“My wallet! My wallet’s gone!” Preston patted his jacket and pants pockets, then stopped and stared across the table. “Give it!”

The Pickpocket Comedian grinned and handed Preston his wallet.

Preston snatched it out of Andy’s hand and stuffed it inside his jacket. “Very fucking funny!”

“The Little Mermaid,” said Frankie.

“What?”

“That’s got a good story. You could use new hypnotic code words like enchanted and sea horse…”

Preston lost his appetite. He threw a bent fork down in his plate and pushed it away.

“Frankie, try to stay up with the class,” said Spider. “That was six fuckin’ subjects ago.”

“I didn’t know it was closed.”

“Just work with us, okay?” said Spider.

“Will you guys shut the fuck up! You’ve already ruined my breakfast!” yelled Preston. “I can’t believe I’ve been reduced to associating with you people. I have a Ph.D., for Chrissakes!”

“What are you saying? Because I have only one arm, I’m stupid, too?”

“I’m just saying it’s the same shit every night. Frankie starts up with The Little Mermaid, and you and Bad Company knock over all the drinks, and thanks to Xolack and his spellbinding silverware tricks, I can’t take a bite of eggs without almost putting my fuckin’ eye out!”

Bruno Litsky came back to the table.

“How was it?”

“Like a goddamn wake,” said Bruno. “Cigarette me.”

“Frankie, you’re up.”

Frankie went down the hall and climbed onstage for his hand-shadow rendition of The Little Mermaid.

A gaggle of young girls entered the restaurant.

“Hey, Preston,” said Andy. “Isn’t that girl on the end the one you had onstage tonight?”

Preston turned around. “So it is.”

He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled across the diner: “Harmonica.”

The girls turned around. One of them began shrieking. She ran over to the corner booth and begged Preston for his autograph again.

Preston stood up and put his arm around Jessica’s shoulder. “I think that can be arranged. Let’s go back to my suite.”

He winked at the other guys as he led her away from the table, toward the men’s room.

Bruno shook his head.

“What’s the matter with you?” asked Spider.

“There’s a line you don’t cross,” said Bruno, pointing at Preston and the teenager. “That’s just not right.”

“It’s not right because you’re not getting it,” said Spider.

“Speak for yourself,” said Bruno.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“What does what mean?”

“Oh, I know what you’re thinking. ‘He’s only got one arm — I’ll bet he doesn’t get any.’”

Preston held the men’s room door for Jessica. Nobody inside except one guy playing a slot machine over a urinal.

“Wow!” she said. “I’ve never been in a presidential suite before. This must cost a fortune!”

Preston pushed open a stall. “Let me show you the bedroom….”

Preston Bradshaw Lancaster had gotten nine women pregnant. That was by his own count. Who knew the true total? That Preston — such a life-giver. Maybe that was why he was against abortion.

The first pregnancy — and again, this is all inexact science — came during his junior year in college. Preston was working on his undergrad in abnormal psych when he became fascinated by the subject of hypnosis. He soon learned the technique itself really wasn’t that difficult; the trick was finding the right personality type, someone in the twenty percent that researchers had identified as highly susceptible to mesmerization.

He walked around the lobby of his dorm approaching women, swinging a pocket watch. “You are getting sleepy.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“This is for a class project.”

“Get away from me, you pig! I’m studying!”

Preston went to the next woman.

“Get lost!”

To his benefit, Preston couldn’t take a hint. He figured it was all in the numbers. He waited until a party, when everyone had been drinking. The first woman laughed but let him try anyway. She went under quickly. Preston led her to his room. He swung the pocket watch again. “You want to have sex with me.”

Even under hypnosis, the woman laughed.

It happened three more times at the party, three different laughing women. Preston had hit a wall, the so-called Svengali effect. He couldn’t get them to do something under hypnosis that was against their nature in real life, and having sex with someone like Preston was against the universal nature of women everywhere.

Preston thought about it and read his textbooks. Something in the espionage chapter caught his eye, the way the CIA and KGB liked to turn the tables during hypnotic interrogations, making the subject believe they’re from the other side in order to uncover double agents. Preston decided to tinker with the scenario.

The next party. A woman was in his room. A watch swung. “I’m Richard Gere.”

Bingo.

Preston couldn’t believe the amount, quality and unusualness of the sex he started getting.

Two months later, back in his room. “I am Robert Redford—”

A knock at the door.

“Go away.”

More knocks.

“I said, go away! I’m doing homework!”

“It’s me, Becky. I have to talk to you. It’s an emergency.”

“Damn it!”

Preston opened the door a crack.

“I’m pregnant.”

“You can’t be.”

“I am.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Yes, it was.”

“Your word against mine. Who knows how much you sleep around?”

“I was a virgin.”

“Trying to trap me in marriage? I know what I’m worth! Don’t think I can’t see through this.”

“I don’t want to get married. I need an abortion. I don’t have any money.”

“Oh, so this is about money! You have sex and now you want me to pay. There’s a name for women like you.”

“I need two hundred dollars.”

“Go to hell!”

He slammed the door.

Becky began calling, and knocking again.

“Stay away from me!”

She didn’t. Preston got nervous. Two hundred might just be the start. And what if she had the kid? There could be child support, no end in sight, and all because she was fucking around.

Preston went to his parents, who called their minister. They met in the family’s living room.

“Son,” said the reverend. “You have to tell her you’ll marry her.”

“But I don’t want to marry her.”

“Don’t worry, son,” said the preacher. “You’re not marrying anyone. This is just to prevent her from having an abortion.”

“Preston,” said his father. “The minister and I have already discussed this. There’s no point in letting some bimbo ruin your life.”

“You have a bright future,” said the preacher. “We’re not going to let this woman destroy it. We just need you to make her believe you’ll really marry her.”

“Say whatever you have to,” said the father.

“Just string her along until the third trimester, when it’ll be illegal,” said the minister.

“Isn’t that lying?”

“You’ll be doing God’s work.”

“Preston, obviously you’re not completely blameless, but we know how it is,” said his father. “You’re a devout young man. You go to church. You’re just the type they’re looking to lead astray.”

“She had sex before marriage, so she’s a harlot,” said the minister.

“But I had sex before marriage, too.”

“Because she used her harlot ways. You were obviously seduced.”

“Well, there was a little of that.”

“Of course there was. Now go and do the right thing.”

Preston was convincing. She had gotten him into this, and now it was up to him to prevent a double tragedy. Preston saw it as a test of character, kind of a proud moment. His parents even helped; they had both of them over for Sunday dinners and talked about the future.

Becky bought the act, even started looking at wedding and nursery stuff. A few months later, she went up to Preston’s dorm room with exciting news. She had the sonograms — it was a girl!

The door to the room was open. She approached slowly. “Preston?” She looked inside.

Empty. Stripped to the walls.

Becky drove to his parents’ house and rang the doorbell. His mother opened the front door, but the screen door on the outside stayed latched.

“Yes?”

“Where’s Preston? His dorm room is empty.”

“Who are you?”

“What?”

“We don’t know anyone named Preston.”

“…I don’t understand… what—?”

“Never come back here, tramp!”

The door slammed.

They had shipped Preston across the country to finish up at another college in Nevada. That was years and years ago. Where was his daughter today? Preston had never really given it any thought. He went on to postgraduate work in the East, then teaching, building an impressive résumé of being fired from some of the most prestigious institutions in the country. He could pull the hypnosis-for-sex stunt as a student, but it was receiving less than enthusiastic applause now that he was on faculty. Women from other parts of the country began showing up on campus looking for him, pushing strollers. In three short years, he was drummed completely out of the teaching field.

His life fell apart in short order, and he ended up living in a Reno flophouse working nights and weekends as a dishwasher. He called his parents for money.

“Didn’t you hear?” said his mother. “We gave it all to the church. And we sold the house, too. We’re going to become missionaries. Isn’t that great news?”

A week later, Preston saw his first stage hypnotist. He was taking a break from scrubbing tureens, standing in the swinging kitchen doors, watching this incredible guy onstage. Some poor salesman from Omaha was making out with an inflatable woman.

Preston returned from the men’s room at the Flash in the Pan, tucking in his shirt. An ecstatic teenager emerged behind him and ran to her friends.

“Scoot over,” said Preston.

Xolack the Mentalist was onstage bending spoons.

“How do you do that, anyway?” asked Andy.

“Do what?” asked Preston.

“Get all these women to fuck you. I thought you couldn’t get people to do things under hypnosis they wouldn’t do in real life.”

The audience down the hall grew angry. “Hey! He’s using his hands! He’s not even trying to hide it!”

“You mean the Svengali effect?”

“I don’t know what it’s called. I just watch a lot of TV.”

“The popular notion you can’t get someone to do something against their nature is a myth. If you rearrange the context, you can get anyone to do anything.”

“Bullshit,” said Spider.

“True story,” said Preston. “The CIA was messing around with hypnosis about the same time they were losing people out high-rise windows on LSD. They were able to get one of the office secretaries to pick up an unloaded gun, point it at another secretary and pull the trigger.”

“How do you know they didn’t hate each other?” asked Andy. “Secretaries can be vicious.”

Preston shook his head. “It’s all documented in government files released under the Freedom of Information Act. These guys were reckless cowboys. They had no idea what they were fooling around with. They should have left this stuff to the universities, where we handled it cautiously and professionally.”

“By screwing your students?” asked Bruno.

Preston ignored him. “Did you know you can place a cold needle in the palm of someone’s hand and tell them it’s red-hot, and it will leave a burn mark?”

“You’ve done that?” asked Saul.

“Hundreds of times.”

“People actually leave your stage with burns?”

Preston nodded proudly.

“You guys are a bunch of rubes,” said Spider. “I don’t believe any of this hypnosis garbage!”

Preston whispered: “Parsley.”

Spider’s eyelids snapped a couple times like he had just awoken from a long nap. He looked around the table. “What’s going on? Why are all of you staring at me like that?”

The others tried to keep straight faces, but when Andy cracked up, they all fell apart.

“Is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” Spider demanded.

Andy wiped tears of laughter. “Sorry, we’re really laughing with you. Preston hypnotized you to think you were a one-armed juggler…”

“With a complex,” added Saul.

“That’s ridiculous!” said Spider. He held out both his arms, like evidence.

They laughed even harder. “You should have seen yourself,” said Jeff. “Trying to pick fights with everyone, holding one arm behind your back.”

“You’re making this up! All of you! I’ve never been hypnotized in my life!”

That just made them laugh more.

“Who ever heard of a one-armed juggler? Fuck all of you!”

Spider stood up and marched away from the booth. Preston yelled parsley, and Spider tucked his right arm behind his back and stormed out of the restaurant.

18

It was a dark and starry night down the long, straight road through the mangroves, miles from anything. A white Mercedes sat at the dead end.

Five men in tropical shirts got out of the Benz and went to the trunk. Ivan, Igor, Pavel, Nikita and Leonid, all former KGB now gone freelance, working for themselves in the land of opportunity, most recently running The Palm Reader bookstore in Miami Beach before landing a contract with Mr. Grande. South Florida was a natural fit for them. Lots of ex-spooks around, CIA, MI6, Mossad, and nobody held grudges. Couldn’t afford to. With constantly shifting political terrain, they depended on each other to network for gigs. Still, there was a loose hierarchy. The Russians were considered among the best. Most of them.

These five began their intelligence careers in different branches of the service, but soon distinguished themselves. Pavel accidentally sat on a plunger, blowing up an elite demolition team. Nikita was the helicopter pilot who misjudged crosswinds during a labor riot and sent a commando unit rappelling down the chimney of a Ukrainian steel foundry. Assigned to protect an emissary to Kazakhstan, Leonid offered him an after-dinner mint — no, wait! That’s my suicide pill! Igor was driving a specially equipped limo in the big May Day parade, past the VIP bleachers on the Kremlin Wall, trying to get something on the radio when he inadvertently flipped up the machine guns and took out the back two rows of a marching band. Their leader was Ivan, who had done something either less stupid or grossly more stupid than the rest. He slept with the wife of someone in the Politburo.

Only one thing to do with people of such intelligence: put them on the torture squad.

Ivan’s boys were well suited to their work, able to blithely perform tasks that made even the most veteran agents queasy. After all, someone had to work with the electric prods and pliers and train the sexual attack dogs. But there were the good times, too. They had been together a decade now, and when they started reminiscing — oh, the memories. Like how about the time Nikita drank too much vodka and passed out and got raped by one of the German shepherds? Whew! They laughed until they cried about that one!

Tonight would be another for the scrapbook. The Mercedes had made good time across the state and now sat at the end of Cockroach Bay Road on the southeast shore of Tampa Bay. The nearest house was four miles; the only reason the road went this far was to reach one of the most remote boat ramps in the state. There were no streetlights and rarely any traffic this far back except the occasional pickup with blood-spattered upholstery engulfed in flames. You stayed far away from here at night unless you were getting rid of human evidence, which faced accelerated swamp decomposition and what detectives liked to call “animal interference.”

On this particular evening, all was quiet except croaking frogs and the weeping coming from the trunk of the Mercedes. Ivan unlocked it.

“But I’m only an insurance adjuster! Please let me go!”

They carried him to the shore, which had that low-tide smell. They drove long stakes into the muck and began tying the man down.

“Please don’t kill me!”

“You work for Buccaneer Life and Casualty?”

The man nodded.

“Tell us what we want to know.”

“But I don’t know anything! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Nikita walked over to Ivan, standing by the Mercedes. Ivan lit a cigar. “Has he said where the five million dollars is yet?”

“No, but I think he’s about to crack.”

“What method are you using?”

“Crabs.”

Ivan winced. “Terrible way to go.”

“The worst,” said Nikita. “Let’s go watch.”

They strolled back over to the insurance man.

“Tell us what we want to know!” snapped Nikita.

The man couldn’t stop crying.

“All right then!” said Nikita. “We’ll just leave you to the crabs!”

The man whimpered a couple more times, then stopped and looked side to side at the little mangrove crabs dancing around the shore, darting in and out of their sand holes as each wave from the bay advanced and retreated on the rising tide. The insurance man looked up at Nikita. “That’s it?”

“Don’t even try asking for mercy!”

“Okay,” said the man.

“Why isn’t he scared?” Ivan asked Nikita.

“He’s so scared he’s in shock!”

Ivan bent over and picked up one of the little crabs, which repeatedly pinched his thumb and forefinger.

“Watch out!” said Nikita. “Built to scale, those claws have the crushing power of a great white shark!”

The crab continued pinching Ivan. “I barely feel anything.”

“Maybe it sliced clean through your nerve endings.”

“It’s not doing anything.”

“That’s because it’s just one,” said Nikita. “They’re like piranhas. It’s all in the numbers. Imagine hundreds of those crabs!”

Ivan stared at his hand. “It’s just leaving little red marks.”

“But imagine hundreds of little red marks!”

Ivan smacked Nikita in the back of the head. “You idiot! They’re the wrong kind of crabs!” Ivan pointed at the insurance man. “And he knows it. He lives around here.”

“What now?”

“Break into the insurance office,” said Ivan, handing Nikita his car keys. “Get the Mercedes.”

“Right.” Nikita jumped behind the wheel as the others waited on the side of the mangroves.

They noticed the Mercedes’s engine was racing, but it wasn’t going anywhere.

“Does he have it in neutral?”

“I don’t think so.”

The Mercedes was backed too close to the boat ramp, and the rear tires were spinning on algae.

“Nikita! Give it more gas!”

Nikita gave it more gas.

“I think he’s starting to go backward.”

The others watched curiously as the sedan slowly slid down the boat ramp and into the water. It was three-quarters under when the panic hit — Nikita struggling in the dark bay with his safety harness and the shorted-out child-safety locks. Then a gun started firing out the roof, letting the air pocket escape, and down she went.

“Well,” said Ivan. “That was certainly different.” He turned to the adjuster. “You know the way back to town?”

He nodded.

“Untie him.”

“I promise I won’t tell anyone,” said the adjuster, tied up again, this time to an office chair in the headquarters of Buccaneer Life & Casualty in downtown Tampa.

The Russians didn’t answer. They dumped out desk drawers, pulled paintings off walls, smashed vases and cut the stuffing out of couches and chairs.

“What are you looking for? Maybe I can help.”

No answer. They ripped acoustical tiles from the dropped ceiling and pulled up carpet. They checked the toilet tanks, unscrewed wall sockets. They gouged the drywall with a fire ax. They used an acetylene torch to cut into the plumbing and electrical conduits.

“No use,” said Igor, wiping insulation dust off his shoulders. “It’s not here.”

“What’s not here?” asked the adjuster.

“The file on the five million you paid out in September.”

“In the filing cabinet.”

Ivan looked sternly at the others. “You didn’t check the filing cabinet?”

They removed their hard hats and shrugged.

Ivan walked over to the cabinet and retrieved the thick file. It had everything — names, dates, addresses, bank accounts. Then it ended abruptly.

Ivan walked back to the adjuster. “It’s not complete. Just stops cold. There’s no current address for the guy.”

“I know. He fled. He was last seen at a local bank. Witnesses told police he made a withdrawal and stuffed the money in a silver briefcase.”

Ivan cursed under his breath and turned to the others. “I thought you interrogated him!”

“We did.”

Ivan looked at the adjuster again. “Where is he now?”

“Six feet under. They never found the briefcase.”

“When did this happen?”

“Couple months ago.”

“Where?”

“In a motel room in Cocoa Beach.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know which motel, would you?”

“The Orbit. Room two fourteen.”

“And you just happen to know all this because…?”

“It was in the papers.”

Ivan dropped his head in exasperation and closed his eyes. He slowly looked up again. “Why didn’t you tell us this down at the boat ramp? You could have died!”

“Your guys never asked,” said the adjuster. “They just kept saying, ‘Tell us what you know!’ What the hell does that mean?”

Ivan looked at the others. “Do we have to go over this every time?”

“I think it’s a trick,” said Igor, putting his goggles back on and firing up the acetylene torch again. “Pull down his pants. I’ll find out what he really knows.”

“Igor! Turn that thing off before you hurt yourself!”

Leonid stepped forward holding the live electrical conduit. “I think Igor’s right. It sounds like a trap. Let me attach these wires to his nuts, just to be safe.”

“Bend him over,” said Pavel, squeezing the trigger on the concussion drill.

“I can’t believe you guys!” said Ivan. “You’re the most perverted bastards I’ve ever met! Leonid, what’s with always wanting to put wires on a guy’s nuts?”

Leonid grinned and blushed. “I’ve never seen it done before.”

“Can I use the torch if I’m extra careful?” asked Igor.

“No! No! No!” yelled Ivan, pounding his fist on the file cabinet. “We kill him normal! Nothing fancy! Nothing sick! He keeps his pants up! That how all the trouble started last time.”

The men sagged with disappointment.

“Igor. Shoot him,” said Ivan.

“All right,” Igor said reluctantly. He turned the valve on his acetylene torch. Only he turned it the wrong way and a flame shot out and caught some drapes on fire.

“Sorry.”

They stood and watched the curtains burn.

“Is somebody going to put that shit out, or do I have to do everything?” said Ivan.

Igor grabbed the fire hose off the wall and hit the drapes with a stream of water. He also hit Leonid, holding the five-thousand-volt electrical conduit, who departed the planet in a bright flash and a shower of sparks.

19

“We’re in Cocoa Beach,” Ivan said in his cell phone. “We’re at the motel right now, Mr. Grande.” He slid bills through a slot in thick Plexiglas.

“Yes…. Yes, sir…. As smooth as can be expected, except we lost two men…. No, it couldn’t be helped….”

Jethro and Paul locked up their motel room and headed out with their silver briefcase. They walked past the office window of the Orbit Motel.

“I don’t think I can make it,” said Paul. “I’m gonna crack up for sure.”

“Relaxation,” Jethro said as they reached the edge of A1A. “That’s what golf is all about.”

The traffic let up and the pair started across the street for the driving range.

Ivan held the cell phone with one hand and stuck a paper cup under the water cooler with the other. “…Yes, sir…. Yes, sir, Mr. Grande….”

Pavel tugged on Ivan’s sleeve and pointed out the window.

“…Yes, sir…. Hold on a second, sir….”

Ivan covered the phone. “Not now!” He nodded with importance at the phone in his hand. “I’m talking to You Know Who!”

He uncovered the phone. “No, sir…. There’s no problem….”

Pavel kept looking out the window and kept tugging. Ivan swatted him away.

Serge and Lenny locked up their motel room. They ran past the office window.

Pavel tugged harder. Ivan covered the phone again. “What is it?”

Pavel pointed again. Jethro and Paul were halfway across the highway with the briefcase, followed by two other guys they didn’t recognize.

“That’s them!” yelled Ivan, dropping the phone.

Three Russians ran out of the motel office.

“We’re home free,” Jethro said as they reached the other side of A1A and the miniature golf complex. “Nothing can go wrong now.”

Paul heard footsteps. He looked back and saw Serge and Lenny.

“Run!”

They sprinted for the Japanese footbridge over the lagoon by the driving range.

Serge stopped and grabbed Lenny by the arm. He pointed at hole number five, the pink elephant on the surfboard. “Split up! You go that way! We’ll ambush on the other side!”

“Right!” Lenny ran for the elephant, and Serge took a hard left at the T Rex.

Jethro and Paul looked back as they reached the bridge. The two guys were gone, but now there were three others, way back, their colorful shirts visible through the trees. Jethro and Paul started up the bridge. Serge had made a complete circle and was closing fast on the far end of the span for the ambush, but Lenny was tired from all his pot smoking and had to sit for a moment on a plastic turtle.

Jethro and Paul hit the crest of the bridge. Jethro was still looking back, but Paul faced forward again.

“Aaauuuhhhhh!”

Serge was charging full speed. Paul panicked. He threw the briefcase as hard as he could up in the air. They all stopped and watched it sail end over end, tumbling weightless at the top of the arc, reflecting in the sunlight, then falling again, over the bridge’s railing and splashing next to the scuba diver collecting golf balls.

There was some yelling from behind a cluster of palm trees. Russian accents. “I think I saw them go over there!”

Everyone started running again. Paul and Jethro continued down the far side of the bridge, away from the tropical shirts. Serge kept charging in the opposite direction, up the bridge, letting them pass, concentrating on the briefcase. He never slowed as he reached the top of the bridge, swan-diving over the railing into the murky lagoon.

The scuba diver had mistaken the briefcase’s splash for a feeding alligator diving into the pond, and he surfaced and jerked his head around, standing at the ready with his bang stick. Just then, another big splash, some guy diving into the water next to him.

“What the hell?”

It had been a long footrace, and the Russians were spread out along the path according to endurance. Pavel was the fastest, the only one who had made it around the last bunch of palms at the base of the bridge in time to see Serge dive over the railing.

The scuba diver stared dumbfounded at the rippling water where Serge had gone in. Serge stayed submerged for the longest time, and the diver started thinking he might have drowned. Just then, Serge broke the surface of the water with an irrepressible smile, holding the briefcase over his head like the Stanley Cup. “I got it! I finally got it!”

From the top of his vision, Serge saw the fastest Russian dive off the bridge. “Uh-oh.”

Boom.

The Russian belly-flopped on the end of the upright bang stick, and a shower of red hamburger rained on Serge and the scuba diver.

From down the path: “They went that way!”

Serge grabbed the scuba diver by the arm and pulled him under the Japanese footbridge. He put a finger over his lips for the diver to be quiet as feet clomped across the wooden boards above. The footsteps faded. Serge looked up at the slits of sunlight coming through the bridge. “I think the coast is clear.”

He looked back down, but the scuba diver was already scrambling up the far bank of the lagoon.

Fog rolled in from the ocean. A deep steam horn sounded from across the dark, night water. A cruise ship headed for the Bahamas.

Paul was not on it. He was strapped to a lawn chair at the deserted end of the Port Canaveral jetty.

“Where’s the briefcase?” said Ivan.

“I told you, I threw it in the lagoon!”

Ivan backhanded him across the face. “We already checked. I’ll ask you again. Where’s the briefcase?”

“That’s where I threw it!” said Paul. “Someone must have grabbed it!”

Slap.

“All we found was Pavel floating facedown, his lunch in the trees. Where’s the briefcase?”

“I don’t know!”

Slap.

A new Mercedes drove up, with dealer stickers still in the windows, headlights slicing through the fog, shining in Paul’s eyes. Igor got out and unlocked the trunk. He took the blindfold off Lenny and dragged him to the front of the car.

“Where’d you find him?” asked Ivan.

“Hiding in the windmill.”

“Any sign of the fat one with the beard?”

Igor shook his head. He tied Lenny to a second lawn chair next to Paul.

“Where’s the briefcase?”

“I never saw the briefcase,” said Lenny. “Can I go?”

“Sure thing,” said Ivan. “And would you like some cab money?”

Lenny smiled. “Yeah.”

Slap.

“We can do this all night,” said Ivan. “I don’t have to be anywhere.”

“I do,” said Lenny.

Slap.

“Let me pull his pants down!” said Igor, holding up a cage of scorpions.

Ivan smacked the cage out of Igor’s hand. “What is wrong with you? I mean it! You’re not normal!”

Igor pointed at the ground. “They’re getting away! Give me a piece of paper or something to scoop them up.”

Slap. “Forget about the scorpions!”

Igor rubbed his sore cheek. A foghorn blared. “Is that a cruise ship?”

“Probably,” said Ivan. “They go out of here all the time.”

“Ever been on one?”

“What?”

“Ever taken a cruise?”

“A couple times.”

“I heard you can eat all you want all the time, that they keep refilling the buffet twenty-four hours.”

Ivan stared at him.

“Do they really do that? If they do, that’s a pretty good deal.”

Ivan put a hand to his own temple and closed his eyes. “Don’t talk anymore. I have a headache. Just turn the car around and we’ll stick them in the trunk and handle this later at the motel.”

“You got it.” Igor hopped back in the Mercedes and started the car.

Ivan cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled over the engine: “Remember, you have trouble with English…R is for—”

Igor ran over Paul.

“…reverse.”

Igor put the car in reverse and backed over Paul. He got out and walked around the front of the car. “Is he okay?”

“Absolutely. Ready to dance all night.”

“But he looks dead.”

Slap.

“He is dead! You ran over him! Twice!”

Igor picked up a crumpled lawn chair and tried to unbend it, then turned quickly. “What was that?”

“What was what?”

“That noise. I heard something.”

“We’re outside in a park. There’s a million squirrels and birds.”

Igor stepped forward and peered into a palmetto thicket. “I could have sworn I heard someone.”

Two Russians still alive. Ivan and Igor. They drove back to the motel in silence.

“What do you want to eat?” asked Ivan.

“I don’t know. Something different.” Igor turned on the radio.

“It’s after midnight. We only have so many options.”

Igor thumbed through his CD wallet. “But we always go to the same place.”

“It’s a good place.”

Mosquitoes buzzed around fluorescent lights. Outdoor speakers played faint Muzak. A deep, rhythmic pounding came up the street, quiet at first, but getting louder. A white Mercedes Z310 came around the bend on A1A. The tinted windows were down, Igor’s head bobbing.

“…Everybody Wang Chung tonight…”

Lenny tried to adjust his eyes in the jet-black trunk. He screamed and he banged. The car came to a stop and Lenny listened carefully. The engine turned off. Lenny started screaming and banging again.

The trunk lid suddenly opened, bright light. Lenny shielded his eyes.

“Seven-Eleven,” said Igor. “What do you want?”

Lenny crunched his eyebrows in thought. “Jumbo dog…no, chicken salad. And a cookie. But if they don’t have chicken, don’t get the tuna—”

The trunk lid closed.

Ivan and Igor hit the chips rack, then the beer case. Hiding Paul’s body in the underbrush hadn’t been easy, and they still had quite a bit of blood on their shirts, but no more so than the other customers.

“Coors good?” asked Ivan.

“It’s all right.”

“You want me to get it or what?”

Igor scanned the rest of the display. “Have you had the new Killians with the pressurized ball in the can for real draft taste?”

“Come on! We’re fogging up the door!”

Coors it was. They moved on to the deli. Ivan grabbed the first sub he saw. Igor picked up three in succession, put each back. He waved at the cashier. “Are these salads fresh?”

“Made this morning.”

“What time?”

Ivan grabbed a salad and jabbed it in Igor’s stomach. “Take it and let’s go!”

They dumped their purchase on the counter. The cashier began ringing.

“The slot for the little bags of croutons was empty,” said Igor. “I don’t think I should be charged full price for the salad.”

“I have to charge what the label says.”

“But I didn’t get my croutons.”

“We’re out.”

“I know.”

“All I can do is void it.”

Ivan smacked the back of Igor’s head again. “Pay the man and get in the car!”

Further into the night. A1A became deserted, the last decent people straggling home. Traffic lights cycled through their colors with no cars. Next shift. A hooker rode to work on a bike with a banana seat. A police cruiser slowly rolled by, shining a search beam down each alley. A pack of wild dogs came out from behind a muffler shop, fighting over a large piece of unidentified meat, scattering when headlights hit them and a Mercedes turned into the parking lot of the Orbit Motel.

Ivan and Igor carried plastic convenience store bags to their room. The dogs took off down the street after a banana bike.

“I don’t know why you’re in such a grouchy mood,” said Igor.

Ivan stopped walking. “Did your mother, like, fall down several flights of stairs when she was pregnant?”

“No.”

“Get kicked by a horse?”

“No.”

“Handle a lot of plutonium?”

“No. Why do you ask?”

Ivan resumed walking to the room. He unlocked the door, and they dumped their stuff on the dresser.

“Go get him out of the trunk,” said Ivan. “You think you can handle that?”

Five minutes later, Ivan stood in his socks in front of the TV, looking for something with the remote and shaking a bag of sunflower seeds into his mouth. Then he remembered Igor was taking a long time.

Ivan opened the door and stuck his head out. “Igor?…Igor?…”

Igor hadn’t blinked for five minutes. His hands were bound, mouth taped.

Serge snipped away with heavy-gauge metal shears.

“It’s important to have the right tool for the job.” Snip, snip. “They’re Sears, you know. Lifetime guarantee.” Snip, snip. “Aren’t you just fascinated by the place we’re at?”

Igor didn’t blink.

“Me, too,” said Serge. “Cape Canaveral, from the Spanish for ‘cape of canes’ because of all the reeds the sailors saw. Say the name today, and people think modern, futuristic, space travel. Yet it also has one of the oldest histories of any place in the country.” Snip, snip.

Serge stepped back to inspect his work, then nodded to himself and began snipping again. “The cape jutted out so much, it became Florida’s most prominent navigational feature for early explorers. That’s why there are so many shipwrecks around here. Hence, the Treasure Coast.”

Serge switched to bolt cutters. Snap, snap.

“The area was mapped as early as 1502. The Spanish tried to establish their first settlement here, but the Indians were too savage, so they moved a bit farther north to a little place called St. Augustine. Isn’t that a fun fact? Did you know they had to bulldoze historic Indian grounds when they were building some of the launch pads? Talk about your symbolism overload.”

Igor finally figured out Serge’s plan and started screaming under the mouth tape.

“You’re right,” said Serge. “It was a tragedy. All kinds of archaeological opportunities lost.”

Serge snipped a few last times and stood up straight. “There!”

He reached down next to Igor’s leg and turned a key. A quiet electric motor came to life. “You realize you kidnapped my best friend. I saw you with that cage of scorpions. You weren’t exactly planning a Hallmark moment.”

Serge produced a pistol with a silencer, took aim, and shot out four floodlights in the distance. He picked up a concrete block and placed it in front of Igor’s feet, on a pedal. The electric motor grew louder, and Igor slowly pulled away from Serge.

“Don’t forget to write.”

Ten p.m. A homicide detective and the county medical examiner stood on a Japanese footbridge, interviewing witnesses. EMTs were down on the bank of the retention pond, zipping up Pavel’s body in a black plastic bag.

The detective took notes on a spiral pad. “And you say you were scuba diving in the pond for golf balls.” The detective looked up. “Is that actually a job?”

The diver nodded.

“And the deceased just came out of nowhere and jumped on the end of your bang stick?”

The diver nodded again.

“Hey!” the complex’s owner yelled over to the detective. “Can I open the driving range now? I’m losing a lot of money!”

The detective said it was okay.

“Go ahead!” yelled the owner. Twenty golfers began swinging.

They loaded Pavel’s body into the back of the coroner’s van.

“Range cart!”

The golfers dumped out the rest of their buckets and began swinging as fast as they could, dozens of balls clanging off the side of the cart. But other shots, which appeared to have found their mark, didn’t make much noise at all. With the floodlights shot out, the golfers couldn’t see that the driver’s protective metal cage had been cut away.

The police and medical examiner had to drop Pavel’s body off at the morgue and head right back to the driving range.

The detective wasn’t happy when he met the owner in front of the windmill. He pointed at the range. “They’re still hitting golf balls!”

“I have to make a buck.”

“This is a crime scene!”

“They’re not aiming at the cart anymore.”

“Tell them to stop!”

The owner stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled toward the driving tees. “Hey! The police say you have to stop!” Most of them did, although some tried getting in a few last balls.

“Stop hitting!” yelled the detective. “What are you, children?”

The detective and coroner walked out to the two-hundred-yard marker and peeked in the range cart at Igor. The detective cringed. The coroner threw up.

The detective offered him a handkerchief and tapped the corner of his own mouth. “You got vomit.”

The coroner dabbed it.

“Other side.”

The EMTs carefully extracted Igor from the range cart.

The detective stared off in thought and shook his head. “What the hell kind of Goony Golf are they running here?”

A golf ball whizzed by.

Ivan sat in his motel bathroom with a cell phone.

“Calm down, Mr. Grande…. Please calm down…. Nobody feels worse about this than I do…. No, someone else has the briefcase now…. We’re still trying to find that out…. Look, I know this is a bad time to bring this up, but I need some more men…. I ran out…. What do you mean, what happened to the ones I had? They’re all dead…. Stop shouting…. Please stop shouting…. I’d like to point out that they died trying to recover your five million dollars…. Yes, that’s right, the five million I still don’t have…. If you can just send some more guys, I think we can wrap this up pretty quickly…. Okay, I’ll meet them at the airport….”

The next morning Ivan headed west on the Beeline Expressway, listening to books on tape. He took the exit for Orlando International and parked in short-term, then got on a moving sidewalk for the new airside. He found a seat and folded his hands in his lap.

A wide-body pulled up to the terminal. Ivan stood and walked over to the gate. Passengers poured off the plane. Couples embraced, children cried, others ran for the smoking area. Ivan got on tiptoe in the middle of the human stream, craning his neck for a better view, holding a white sign in front of him with both hands: MIERDA CARTEL.

Four men in tropical shirts walked up and introduced themselves. Dmitri, Alexi, Vladimir and Chuck.

“We’re on a tight schedule,” said Ivan. “We have to head to an address right now. Then drinks on me.”

Jethro was back in his room at the Orbit Motel, sitting on the foot of the bed. He had decided to end it like a man. There was no other choice. The money was gone and so was his little buddy. He had already read the grisly details in the paper. Jethro blamed himself. He drank straight from a bottle of George Dickel and muttered as he loaded the shotgun he had purchased at Space Shuttle Pawn for twenty-five dollars.

“If only I had not run like a coward, possibly I could have prevailed in the struggle and offered protection and comfort. Instead, I abandoned my faithful traveling companion. Men do not do such things. Not even dogs do such things….” He took another swig. “I am not even a dog. Where was my grace under pressure? There is no honor in this anymore. Just the burning sting of truth like a morning urination in Madrid. Galanos!”

He braced the butt of the shotgun on the floor and placed the other end in his mouth. He kicked off his right sandal and stuck his big toe in the trigger guard.

He pressed down with his toe.

Nothing.

He pressed again. Still nothing. The damn thing wouldn’t budge. He took the barrel out of his mouth and looked down. The safety was still on. He reached for it but the gun was too long, and he couldn’t get to it with his toe still in the trigger. He tried to pull the toe out, but it had swollen and was stuck.

Jethro sulked on the end of the bed, hanging his head pitifully, his big toe turning purple. He grabbed the bottle of Dickel again. “Exquisite,” he sighed. “Even in suicide I have become a buffoon.”

The motel room door crashed open. Five tropical shirts stood in the doorway.

“Where’s our briefcase!”

Jethro screamed. He jumped up and ran for the bathroom.

“Get him!” yelled Ivan.

It was difficult for Jethro to run, dragging the shotgun. The sixteen-gauge swung out and hit the bottom of the dresser, knocking off the safety.

Jethro took another step for the bathroom.

Bang.

Another step.

Bang.

Jethro hobbled as fast as he could, the shotgun firing with each step, spraying a tight pattern of lead pellets at everything within six inches of the floor.

The homicide detective was conducting follow-up interviews at the driving range. His beeper went off.

The detective parked behind the Orbit Motel and trotted quickly toward an upstairs room but slowed when he noticed five sets of bloody footprints coming down the steps.

A paramedic was inside, trying to get Jethro’s toe out of the shotgun with Vaseline.

“Ah, yes, you drive the ambulance,” said Jethro. “Like the courageous young men of the Parisian countryside during the Great War…”

“Jethro, straighten your leg out some more,” said the paramedic. “I can’t get leverage.”

“Did you check to see if it was still loaded?” asked the detective.

“Of course.”

Bang.

“Jethro?… Jethro?…”

The detective pulled out his notebook. “This is going in your file.”