Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (111 page)

“Golf is also a great window into a person’s character. Friend or adversary, doesn’t matter,” said Dempsey, picking up one of the large pink spiked balls marking the ladies’ tee and firing it off the side of Belvedere’s golf cart as it drove past. “A person’s true nature comes out.”

By the time Marlon graduated from college, he had been introduced to everyone who mattered in the state of Florida.

Except one.

They were waiting until Marlon was absolutely ready.

“You keep telling me about this guy, so why can’t I meet him?” asked Marlon.

“Believe me,” said Dempsey, “you’ll meet him soon enough.”

Marlon was unimpressed. “What kind of a goofy name is
Helmut
anyway?”

HELMUT VON ZEPPELIN
made his money the old-fashioned way.

He fucked people.

Helmut always had his eye out for cheap land, which meant natural habitat. Before the last brick was mortared into Cinderella’s Castle, von Zeppelin had bought up everything he could on all sides of Orlando. Then he started buying up politicians.

Von Zeppelin worked with deliberate speed. First the bulldozers. Ancient Indian burial ground? Whoops! Endangered species? Damn, didn’t even see the little buggers! Then came the pavement, stud framework, cheap hip roofs, biologically engineered sod, and, finally, trusting families with high-interest loans from Zeppelin Mortgage, which were backed by Zeppelin Insurance and closed at Zeppelin Title. It was a contained-loop ecosystem. Helmut percolated every last drop from his fellowman, and he was better at it than anyone else because he knew a weakness stronger than sex.

No money down!

Helmut loved the rules and laws of society. They slowed his competition. In every regulation, Helmut saw a tiny margin to be made. A bit less drainage than required, shorter nails, thinner beams, paint that would peel a year earlier, roofs that blew away at just three miles per
hour less than code. A little here, a little there, and before long Helmut was a happening guy.

At every city, county and state meeting, von Zeppelin demanded tougher regulations. He knew laws were only as good as the inclination to enforce them, and Helmut torpedoed any remaining will through broadside circumnavigation of campaign finance laws. Soft money, in-kind contributions, bundling, and—most influential of all—delivering cash from others. Helmut was the rainmaker’s rainmaker. He strong-armed business brethren for a thousand dollars a plate or they’d never work again in five counties, and he brought together the worlds of politics and industry for mixers at his mansion that were like gigantic Tupperware parties for assholes.

So much money was flowing through von Zeppelin to the political parties that it shifted the paradigm. Instead of Helmut trying to gain access to politicians, they fought to get close to
him
. When party officials had a budding young candidate, they brought him in to kiss Helmut’s ring. Von Zeppelin’s financial imprimatur could lock up an election. More important, funding your opponent would ruin you. Nobody had ever, ever crossed von Zeppelin.

After three decades of better business, the landscape of central Florida, from Polk County clear to the Atlantic, was embossed with von Zeppelin’s HO-gauge vision. The whole region moon-pocked with developments named Buena Bay, Bay Harbor, Harbor Islands, Island Vista, Vista Palms, Palm Ridge, Ridgedale, Daleville, Villa West, Westwood, Wood Lakes, Lake Shores, Shore Acres and Mayberry-by-the-Sea. Tight grids of flooding, chipping, falling-down homes slipping inexorably into Dante’s circle of lower-middle-classdom, each commu
nity erected by a separate corporate entity that was promptly bankrupt after the last house was sold, a series of
jus civile
firewalls that made it harder for customers to sue Zeppelin than to travel back in time.

Now were the golden years—time for Helmut to relax and watch his empire’s neoplastic growth and enjoy the good life in his dream palace. It was a fabulous residence. But Helmut hadn’t built it. Shoot, he had no idea how to build a house. He brought in the most skilled artisans and the finest raw materials from Europe. And he watched them like a hawk because he suspected the builders of trying to cut corners and cheat him. People were like that.

The results were breathtaking. A courtly Tudor Revival manse with a working vineyard, meditation garden and Italian statues of Italians. The compound was the site of von Zeppelin’s unyielding daily routine. Each morning Helmut would awaken at dawn in the Athenian Room, where he was served crumpets before being dressed by his valet in the Carthaginian Room. He preferred light French suits because he thought they flattered his tall but unremarkable frame. He inspected himself in the mirror, the shaved dome, the lines of sixty years in his face, the bushy gray mustache. The valet handed Helmut his monocle. Helmut had perfect eyesight, but he wore the monocle because he wanted to evoke the robber baron days. After dressing, he spent the morning in the dark-paneled Constantinople Room, consummating phone deals. At the stroke of noon, the maid served a cucumber sandwich in the Caligula Library. She stood by until he finished, then poured a half inch of Courvoisier Erté Edition I into an antique snifter. He would dismiss her and take the cognac into his favorite space in the house, the Rockefeller Room, where he sipped and talked to the life-size paint
ing of John D. and sometimes got a wistful tear appreciating the hanging sepiatones of coolie laborers driving railroad spikes. At sunset, Helmut strolled through the meditation garden with his hands clasped behind his back, reflecting on his accomplishments. He stopped to sniff a lilac. He was nearing the rarefied peak of Mount Bastard. When Helmut walked by, even the other most vicious corporate bastards said, “Now
that’s
a bastard!” There was only one more level above him, and von Zeppelin was determined to reach it.

Sport team owner.

IN LATE
2000, two years before the next gubernatorial election, newsrooms across Florida began buzzing. There was word a major sports story would break at noon out of Orlando.

A hundred sportswriters in sartorial squalor waited anxiously outside the locked doors of a conference room at the Hyatt.

Inside, the staff completed preparations, plugging in microphones and adjusting the temperature of the warming trays at the complimentary buffet along the back wall.

Rumors were rampant outside the doors. The story was expected to lead all newspapers and broadcasts. The stench of competition coming off the sportswriting corps was thick, everyone checking the time, ready to make their move. Stations prepared to go live at noon.

At one minute before noon, an aide neatly stacked press kits on a table just inside the entrance. Then she opened the doors. The sportswriters stampeded past the table and gang-banged the taco bar in the back of the room. The live broadcasts cut to commercials.

Twenty minutes later, the hot bar looked like an Amtrak derailment, and the last sportswriter straggled to his seat. It was quiet. Someone burped.

NFL Commissioner Pete Petrocelli stepped up to the podium, smiled and shuffled papers.

“The National Football League is proud to award the latest expansion team to Orlando.”

The room was electrified.

“It is my pleasure to introduce the team’s owner, Helmut von Zeppelin.”

Petrocelli stepped back and clapped as Helmut got up from his chair and walked to the mike.

“I guarantee I will bring a championship to Florida in three years!”

The sportswriters scribbled furiously. One raised a hand; Helmut pointed.

“How can you make such a brash prediction?”

“Son,” said Helmut, “when you die, they’re going to put one of two things on your tombstone: ‘Dud’ or ‘Stud.’”

More scribbling. Another hand went up.

“Does the team have a name yet?”

“The Florida Felons.”

“Where and when will they play?”

“In a new state-of-the-art stadium, to be constructed in time for the 2002 season.”

“Team colors?”

“Orange and green,” said Helmut. “All this is in your press kits….” He looked around and saw none of them had press kits, then noticed the untouched stack by the door.

Another hand.

“What’s with the monocle?”

Helmut pushed out his chest and grabbed his lapels. They were obviously responding to his bold sophistication.

Another reporter: “It makes you look like Colonel Klink.”

“You little—!”

Helmut was around the podium in a flash, but he was restrained by the NFL security assigned to all press conferences since the Bears coach went berserk last season and beat a writer unconscious with the metal lid of a warming tray.

Commissioner Petrocelli grabbed the mike.

“Any more questions?”

All hands went up.

“Great. Thanks for coming,” and the NFL rushed Helmut out to a waiting limo.

DESPITE
his inauspicious start, Helmut von Zeppelin became an instant hit inside the National Football League.

At the owners meeting the following month in Honolulu, everyone sat at a giant Lemon Pledged conference table. Commissioner Petrocelli was about to call the meeting to order. He saw von Zeppelin wave a hand.

“Yes, Helmut?”

“Can we have a lockout?”

“Why?” asked a puzzled Petrocelli. “We’re in complete agreement with the players’ union.”

“Ah, come on,” said Helmut. “Just for fun!”

The room roared.

Unfortunately, things were not going as smoothly back in Orlando. The politicians were having trouble finding a location for the new stadium. They’d also been unable to persuade the citizens that a stadium construction tax to enrich Helmut was in their best interest. They met behind closed doors.

“What’s the snag? I pay you well!” complained Helmut.

“It’s the word
tax
,” said the chairman of the County Commission. “It’s gotten a bad name. It’s those damn liberals.”

Helmut shook his head. “And now
I
have to suffer.”

“Maybe if we call it something else,” said the chairman, “something more palatable—something they actually want…”

They brainstormed.

“A ‘prize’…”

“A ‘bonus’…”

“A ‘rebate’…”

“A ‘blow job’…”

“Wait! I got it!” said the chairman. “How about ‘Community Reinvestment Fee’?”

“That issue’s settled,” said Helmut. “Now talk to me about location.”

“Nothing’s working,” said a councilman. “Everyone’s heard about the stadium and jacked up the price on all available land.”

“Isn’t there a law against that kind of unfair business practice?”

They looked at each other and shook their heads no.

“Then make one!” said Helmut. “In the meantime, who knows the solution to our problem? Anyone?”

The youngest member of the council raised an unsure hand in back. “Uh…knock down a bunch of poor people’s houses?”

“Ding, ding, ding!” said Helmut. “We have a winner!”

THE
stadium went up in record time. It was a gleaming American testimony to all things big. Prior to leveling a dozen blocks of homes, von Zeppelin held community and church meetings, promising the neighborhood that it would share in the prosperity.

It happened just like he said. Residents around the stadium started charging five bucks for fans to park in their
front yards. And tiny, withering restaurants and taverns around the stadium sprang back to life.

Von Zeppelin was outraged. Someone else was making money. He sicced business regulators on the residents for operating parking concessions without a license, and he threatened restaurants and bars with infringement suits for televising games “without the express written consent of the National Football League.”

Business around the stadium dried up. Helmut was happy again. He initiated the highest season-ticket prices in the league with massive five-year deposits that grew in his interest-bearing accounts. Was there anything he was forgetting?

Oh yes, and he wanted love.

Before the first game, Helmut had walked onto the field with his biggest Cheshire grin, waving to the cheering crowd with twin victory/peace signs like he was taking off from the White House lawn.

Marching bands played. Lasers flickered. Doves were released. A man in a personal jetpack flew around the inside of the stadium. Out ran the Felonettes, the giant-breasted cheerleading squad, who fanned out along the sidelines and began jumping rope.

The Felons charged out of the tunnel from their locker room, and the fans went wild. The team showed how tough it was by running through a big piece of paper. Then they ran through dry-ice fog. The fog diminished visibility, and the man in the jetpack lost his horizon and plowed into the “Up with People” singers.

The extravaganza took an intermission to play the football game.

The Felons’ defense held the Pittsburgh Steelers to just five eighty-yard touchdowns in the first half.

The Felons were losing forty-two to nothing in the third quarter when the first object struck the glass of von Zeppelin’s skybox.

“What was that?” Helmut asked his personal assistant.

“Might have been a pass, given our quarterback’s accuracy.”

Something else hit the window.

“Okay, that was no pass!” said Helmut.

The dregs of a warm beer slimed down the outside of the glass.

Then a hot dog bounced off the window, but the sauerkraut stuck. Followed by a glob of cheese nachos. A triangle of pepperoni pizza. A tampon.

“Where’s all that stuff coming from?” said Helmut, walking to the floor-to-ceiling window for a better view of the seats below. His assistant followed.

“I think they’re throwing it on purpose, sir.”

“On purpose? I don’t understand.”

“I would guess they’re upset with you.”

“But they
love
me. They told me before the game.”

“That was before we were losing—what is it now?—forty-nine to nothing.”

“That’s how shallow these people are?”

The assistant nodded his head sadly. “Afraid so.”

“That’s pretty heartless.”

Thwack, thwack. A snowcone. Sushi.

“Do you love them?” asked the assistant.

“Of course not. They’re bourgeois.”

Helmut and his assistant were facing each other, silhouetted against the giant window that was now completely obscured. Sunlight filtered through the mustard and ketchup, and the owner’s booth was bathed in a warm, dim crepuscular glow.

They stood silent for a moment. The tempered glass muted the hollering of the crowd into a faint white noise. They began to hear soft sirens from emergency vehicles.

“You know, sir, it’s actually kind of pretty. This part up here…”—the assistant got on his toes and indicated with a circular motion of his palm—“…Jackson Pollock.”

“I was thinking a Monet sunset over water,” said Helmut, pointing to the left side.

An out-of-breath police officer opened the door to the skybox, letting in a thunder of crowd noise. People were running back and forth in the background behind the cop.

“Keep this door locked and don’t open it until I come back!” The officer slammed the door shut, and the room was soundproofed again.

A rotten head of lettuce hit the window, then a giant one-pound meatball of raw hamburger.

“We don’t serve that stuff,” said Helmut.

“They must be ransacking the VIP kitchen now.”

“Oh,” said Helmut, nodding. He looked around. “It’s really sort of peaceful. I could get some thinking done in here.”

“Yes, sir. Very soothing.”

“What’s happening now?”

“I think they’re trying to land your private helicopter and get you out of here, sir.”

“Are we in danger?”

“Yes, sir. It looks that way.”

“I see,” said Helmut. He looked around the room again. “This points up a design flaw. Every owner’s booth should have an escape system.”

“Wouldn’t that be expensive?”

“What do I care? I won’t be paying for it…. Take a note: Bring up ejection pod at next commission meeting.”

Something hit the window and burst into flames upon impact, and the condiments ignited in a blue-and-yellow flambé.

“I don’t think the commission will go for it,” said the assistant.

“What can they do? I’ll threaten to move the team.”

“Gotta hand it to you, sir.”

Helmut tapped the side of his head with an index finger, indicating one smart cookie.

The door to the owner’s skybox opened again and the roar came in. It was the police officer. “It’s time, sir.”

Helmut and his assistant walked past the officer, who was staring curiously at the burning window.

“All that food…” Helmut said as he left the room. “I’m hungry.”

“Arby’s has a big parking lot,” said the assistant. “We can land the bird.”

“Are they the ones with curly fries?”

“I think so.”

“We’re there.”

The police officer closed the door behind them.