Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (22 page)

H.
AMBROSE TARRINGTON III
awoke the next morning to the sound of a woodpecker tapping on a dead cabbage palm outside his window. Ambrose didn’t know it yet, but this was going to be the day that would change his life forever. Before it was all over, he’d make the national news and get married on the
Today
show.

Ambrose polished off his Pop-Tarts, put on a three-piece suit and inspected himself in a full-length mirror. Then he packed swim trunks and a Polaroid camera in his briefcase and headed out the front door of 918 Triggerfish. He walked three blocks to a cement bench advertising bail bonds, sat down and waited for the Number Eight.

ROCCO SILVERTONE
jumped to his feet in the showroom of Tampa Bay Motors.

“He’s back!”

“Who’s back?” asked Vic.

“I didn’t think this chance came twice in a lifetime!”

Rocco ran to the door to greet Ambrose Tarrington III. They shook hands and exchanged business cards.

“I’d like to drive the Rolls again,” said Ambrose.

“But I thought the color didn’t match your house.”

“Changed my mind,” said Ambrose. “I’ll paint the house.”

They took the golf cart out to the luxury cars. Ambrose and Rocco got in the Rolls and drove a mile up and down Dale Mabry Highway.

“Rides like a dream, don’t she?” said Rocco. “A real cream puff.”

Ambrose pulled back into the dealership. “Don’t like it.”

Rocco felt like he had taken a gunshot. He had been on top of the world, and in an instant he was back at the bottom again. “What is it? I can probably fix it. The leather? Is it the leather? Gas mileage? I’ll take off the catalytic converter—”

Ambrose pointed. “I want one of those.”

Rocco turned and saw a snow-white Ferrari F50.

My God, he thought, that costs more than the Rolls. He became light-headed from the rapid swings of fortune and steadied himself against a Saab.

“You all right?” asked Ambrose.

Rocco nodded. “Wait here.” He zipped back to showroom and grabbed the Ferrari’s keys off the pegboard. He returned and opened the driver’s door. Ambrose climbed down into the Ferrari. There was a pair of brown, open-knuckled driving gloves on the dash. Ambrose slid them on.

“Let me switch the dealer tags from the Rolls,” said Rocco.

Ambrose turned on the car, put it in gear and gunned the engine until the tachometer was pegged.

“Okay, forget the tags.” Rocco jumped in as Ambrose bolted off the lot.

Ambrose quickly ran through first gear, then second and third, agile coordination of clutch and shift. Rocco leaned over. “Maybe you should be a little easier—”

Ambrose grabbed the mahogany shift knob with the
trademark gold stallion crest, jerked it into fourth and let her unwind. The G-force pasted Rocco into his seat as the Ferrari split Tampa like the Bonneville salt flats. Ambrose let off the fuel and coasted seven blocks.

Rocco’s color returned. “She’s got some pickup, eh?”

“But how does she handle in a turn?”

“I don’t think you should—aaaaaaauuuuuuuu!”

Ambrose held the wheel left, against the edge of the centrifugal envelope, executing a perfect bullwhip half-spin. After the U-turn, he spun the wheel back to twelve o’clock, straightened her out.

Rocco opened his eyes. They were still alive.

“I love it,” said Ambrose.

Time for the kill, thought Rocco. He sized Ambrose up as an ethnic joke man.

“A priest and a rabbi walk into a bar—”

“Ethnic jokes are the last refuge of a bankrupt intellect.”

Rocco was knocked off balance. “Even the Mexican jokes?”

“Especially the Mexican jokes.”

Rocco panicked. Those were his funniest jokes. What now? He thought a second.

“How about faggots?” asked Rocco. “I can tell butt-burglar jokes, right? They’re not an ethnic group. And
everybody
hates them…”

Ambrose pulled the Ferrari off the road. He turned and stared at Rocco.

“You want me to get out?”

Ambrose nodded.

It was a long, lonely walk back to the dealership. Rocco kept telling himself it would all work out. He had broken the rules, but the rules were for losers like John Milton. Nobody ever made it to the top without risks. He’d walk right in the
owner’s office and tell him that. Surely he’d understand. Of course he’s not going to understand! Are you insane?

Rocco made a big walking loop to avoid being spotted. He slipped inside the ice cream hut across the street from Tampa Bay Motors, where he could stake out the dealership until Ambrose returned.

“Chocolate smoothie, waffle cone, extra nuts.”

AMBROSE DROVE OVER
to Bayshore and put the Ferrari through the paces. He raced up the circular drive of the biggest mansion on Bayshore and got out with a Polaroid camera and snapped a picture.

A butler came to the door shaking a fireplace poker. “I thought I told you to stay out of here!”

Ambrose jumped back in the car and shot out of the driveway, speeding across the peninsula, looking for something to eat. He pulled into a shopping-center parking lot and entered the drive-through for Wendy’s, home of the ninety-nine-cent menu.

S
ERGE CALLED A MEETING
.

Coleman sat on the couch.

“Fuck this stupidness,” said Sharon.

Serge pointed. “Sit down.”

“You guys can play house. I’m going out,” said Sharon. She headed for the door.

“I said, sit down!” Serge grabbed her and threw her on the couch.

Sharon folded her arms and frowned. “I’m not going to listen.”

Serge paced in front of the couch, tapping his clipboard with a pencil.

“We’ve got cash-flow problems. I blew too much money on our night out with the Davenports. And I misjudged the electric bill. That means no more coke.”

That got their attention.

“It gets worse,” said Serge. He turned up the volume on the TV.

It was a local newscast. A bunch of people sat at a long desk with microphones and nameplates.

“That’s the Tampa City Council,” said Serge. “They’re meeting on the lap-dance ban. There goes Sharon’s income.”

“They can’t do that!” said Sharon.

“They just did,” said Serge. “Better dust off those nursing textbooks.”

The TV station cut from the city council to extended stock footage of a stripper swinging around a pole.

“Shocking!” said the anchorman, shaking his head in disgust. “Can we see that again?”

Serge turned down the volume and resumed pacing. “I’ve been doing some figuring. With our current reserves, we have about a week until two of us will have to kill the other and harvest their organs for the black market.”

Coleman began to perspire. He knew Serge and Sharon were sleeping together, and that could mean a voting bloc. He raised his hand.

“We have a question in back?” said Serge.

“There’s got to be another way!” said Coleman.

“There is, my fine hookah-sucking friend. It’s time we put my kidnapping plan into motion.”

“Kidnapping?” said Sharon. “You have to be kidding!”

Serge flipped a page over on his clipboard, revealing a storyboard. Coleman and Sharon saw three stick figures running around with guns, another stick figure with a sack over his head and other crude pencil drawings of telephones, getaway cars and bags of money with dollar signs on the side. Then Serge got a little carried away and there were lots of dotted lines for bullets flying through the air and cars exploding and stick figures lying around with X’s for eyes and their heads chopped off.

“Don’t worry about those last pictures,” said Serge. “That’s the worst-case scenario. Had to consider everything.”

Serge flipped to another page.

“What’s that?” asked Sharon.

“Chronology of historic kidnappings. The Lindbergh baby, Frank Sinatra Junior, Patty Hearst and of course the big one in Florida, Barbara Jane Mackle, daughter of Miami developer snatched December 17, 1968. Survived more than three days underground in a coffin equipped with a ventilation fan. Wrote a best-seller,
Eighty-three Hours Till Dawn.
Reader’s Digest condensed it.”

“What’s that got to do with us?”

“This could be a two-fer,” said Serge. “I want a book deal.”

“What about your diet book?” asked Coleman.

“That was last week. I have no idea what I was thinking.”

“That’s the stupidest plan I’ve ever heard!” said Sharon.

“Is not!”

“Is so!” said Sharon. “And you haven’t said who we’re gonna grab.”

“Whom,” said Serge.

“What?”

“Whom to grab.”

“That’s what I said.”

Serge closed his eyes hard, silently counted to ten, then opened them. He looked at his watch. “We have to start getting ready. It’s almost time.”

“I’m not going anywhere!” said Sharon.

Serge pulled a tiny baggie of coke out of his pocket and dangled it in front of her.

The three sat around the kitchen table. It was covered with bullets, clips, pistols and brass knuckles. The stereo played “Helter Skelter” with extra bass.

Sharon pressed nine-millimeter rounds into a clip, then did some blow. She rammed the clip home in the butt of the Beretta and smiled wickedly with a cigarette clenched in the corner of her mouth. “I’m really gonna fuckin’ enjoy this!”

Coleman tried on the brass knuckles and hit himself on the jaw to see how it felt. “Ow!”

Serge used a speed-loader on his .357. This was Serge at his finest, before a job. Distilled focus, fluid movements—loading weapons and packing gym bags with clothes and rope. His lucky untucked floral shirt gave him the elegance of a stalking cougar before the strike. Lanky, quick, chilling.

“…Tell me, tell me, tell me the answer. You may be a lover, but you ain’t no dancer…”

Serge stood up. “Let’s rock!”

SHARON WANTED TO
kill something right away, but Serge told her to be patient. Coleman was content in the backseat with his
Cracked
magazine. They found their mark by midmorning and began a loose tail.

“What are we waiting for!” said Sharon, powder across her upper lip, waving her gun.

“The right moment,” said Serge. “This is delicate stuff. We have to make a surgical strike.”

The target pulled into a parking lot and rolled to a stop. Serge eased the Barracuda in from behind. “Okay, remember: timing, precision and stealth.”

Sharon and Coleman jumped out yelling and waving guns.

“Open the fucking door!” screamed Sharon, banging on the window.

“This is a kidnapping!” shouted Coleman.

“Open the door right now or I’ll blow your fucking head off!”

“Resistance is futile!” yelled Coleman.

Sharon stepped back and aimed her pistol. “Die, motherfucker!”

Serge walked up and snatched the gun from her hands—“Gimme that before you hurt someone!”—and opened the unlocked door of the Ferrari F50 in the Wendy’s drive-through. “Would you mind coming with us?”

They climbed back in the Barracuda as the Wendy’s people phoned the police.

Serge floored it and raced to the side of the parking lot for a quick getaway on Interstate 275. But when he got to the edge of the lot, there was no exit. Just a cement curb along a strip of Bermuda grass.

“Damn! It’s one of
those
parking lots!” said Serge, cutting the wheel.

“What kind is that?” asked Coleman.

“The new kind that doesn’t let you out where you want to go. Instead it deliberately channels you to some place you don’t want to be at all. Hold on!”

Serge accelerated toward a free-standing building in the front of the parking lot. “We’ll exit at Miami Subs.”

But when Serge got to the restaurant, he saw another long curb with no opening.

“We can’t get through! Miami Subs is connected to the next shopping center, and it won’t let us in unless we enter from the highway!”

“But how do we get to the highway?” asked Coleman.

“Who the fuck knows?” said Serge, slapping the dash. “What the hell do they want from us?”

Serge turned the wheel again, making a skidding one-eighty on open asphalt, and headed back.

Witnesses had begun gathering outside the Wendy’s to exchange accounts of the abduction. Latecomers arrived and wanted the story repeated. Employees were still on the phone with police.

Someone pointed. “They’re coming back!”

Everyone pressed against the side of the Wendy’s as the Barracuda blew by.

“We were just here!” said Sharon.

“Hello, Cleveland!” said Coleman.

“Shut up! I can’t think with all this chatter!”

“What about over there?” said Coleman, pointing to a string of palm-tree islands. “There must be a break.”

“I see it!” said Serge. He raced over to the islands, searching for an opening.

“Look. A new store,” said Coleman. “
The High Seas.
Paraphernalia and nautical gifts. I’ll have to come back.”

Serge got to the end of the palm-tree islands without finding a break. Instead, a concrete abutment jutted from the left, shunting the Barracuda back to the shopping center.

Serge banged his head on the steering wheel. “What kind of satanic parking lot is this!”

People pressed against Wendy’s again as Serge made another pass.

J
OHN MILTON HAD DECIDED THAT HE WAS INVISIBLE
. That’s what his days on the streets of Tampa had taught him. That’s how people treated all street crazies, looking right through them. John liked being invisible. It opened up options.

John walked down a Dumpster alley, talking and gesturing. He came out from behind a shopping center and started across the parking lot. There was a large gathering of people outside the Wendy’s. John walked right through them until he came to a white Ferrari with the driver’s door open and keys in the ignition. John began to hear police sirens in the distance. God told him to get in the car.

ROCCO SILVERTONE FINISHED
his second smoothie cone and wiped his hands with a napkin. What could be taking Ambrose so long? He balled up the napkin and made a jump shot off the side of the wastebasket.

When he looked up, he saw a white Ferrari coming down the street.

“Finally.”

He walked to the edge of the road. The Ferrari didn’t stop—didn’t even slow. Rocco looked in the window as it went by.

“Oh, no.”

Rocco waited for a break in traffic and sprinted across the street to the dealership. He ran in the sales office, pulled Ambrose’s business card from his wallet and got on the phone.

Vic showed up in the doorway. “What’s up, Rocco?”

Rocco ran around the desk, grabbed Vic by the arm and jerked him into the office. He slammed the door.

“Rocco, what’s going on?”

SERGE PULLED THE
Barracuda off the highway and into the grid streets. Coleman and Sharon got out their respective stashes.

Coleman and Sharon did drugs like an algebra equation. If Coleman has a hundred dollars of Panama Red and starts smoking at three o’clock, and Sharon has two hundred dollars of Peruvian Marching Dust and begins vacuuming at four o’clock, at what time will they drive Serge absolutely batshit?

Sharon snorted up an amazing amount of coke in the front seat of the Barracuda. She raised her head, her eyes not working in tandem. “When do I get to shoot the little bastard? I could get off on that!”

“We’re not shooting anyone,” said Serge. “That’s the whole point. We gotta get some money for him.”

Serge glanced over his shoulder at Coleman. “Found his wallet yet?”

“Hold on,” said Coleman, patting Ambrose down. “…I got it!”

“What’s inside?”

“Hey! There’s no money!”

“We’re not looking for money this time. Any ID?”

Coleman peeled the billfold apart. “Here’s a business card.”

“What’s it say?”

“Tarrington Import…H. Ambrose Tarrington the Third, President and CEO.”

“I knew it!” said Serge. “I knew he had to be somebody important! I’ve seen him all over Tampa driving fancy cars…Anything else on the card?”

“Says they have offices in Tampa, New York City and Beverly Hills.”

Serge smacked the seat. “Jackpot! I’ll bet they’ll pay anything to get him back alive. Not that they care about him. But stock prices tumble when a corporation is decapitated. It could mean a billion off the Dow, take down the whole industrial thirty…”

“What the fuck are you talking about!” screamed Sharon, waving her gun at Serge. “Nothing can be simple with you! You have to complicate it with all your bullshit! When do we get the coke?”

“What coke?” asked Serge.

“That’s what we’re here for! The big coke score!”

“What are you talking about?”

“That was the plan! We grab the guy and he takes us to the coke!”

“Sharon, you’re fucked up. Come back to us. This is just like the time you started seeing rats and chiggers on your skin.”

Sharon scratched her head rapidly like a spider monkey. “No coke? Where did I get that from?”

Coleman lit a joint and took a deep drag. “Sharon, you have to learn to handle your drugs a little better…Ooo, shit! I dropped it. Where’d it go?”

Ambrose picked the joint off the carpet and handed it back to Coleman.

“Thanks.”

Serge looked in the rearview. “Did you burn something again in here? You know I love this car!”

Serge then checked Ambrose in the mirror. “You don’t look so good, Ambrose. You okay? You’re not going to stroke out on us, are you? Tell me if you are…”

Ambrose yawned. “No, I just usually take a nap about this time.”

Serge smiled in the mirror. “That’s what I like. Someone who can handle pressure. My two partners are falling apart, but Ambrose is solid as a rock. Ambrose, this your first time?”

Ambrose nodded.

“You’re doing great. Keep it up.” Serge tossed a cell phone over his shoulder to Coleman. “Time to make the call.”

“Which number should I use?”

“The New York office. That’s where the decision-makers will be.”

Coleman punched up the two-one-two area code.

“Remember to use the voice scrambler I gave you,” said Serge.

“Right,” said Coleman. He reached under the seat and pulled out a Dixie cup and put it over his mouth. He pressed the bottom of the cup against the phone.

Sharon looked at Coleman, then Serge. “You’ve got to be joking.”

“Shhhhhhhhh! He’s making the call!” snapped Serge. “They’ll recognize your voice. You don’t have a scrambler.”

Serge handed Coleman a scrap of paper with the script he’d written. Coleman took the phone away from his ear. “It’s an answering machine.”

“Read it anyway,” said Serge.

Coleman put the Dixie cup back over his mouth and began reading. “We have Insert Name Here…”

“Ambrose!” said Serge.

“We have Insert Name Here Ambrose. Do not call the authorities. Put ten million dollars in small, marked bills…”

“Unmarked!”

“…correction, unmarked bills in a duffel bag and await further instructions. This is the Simian Liberation Army.”

Coleman hung up. He popped a beer and poured it in the scrambler.

Serge stopped the car and turned around.

“What?” said Coleman. “What are you looking at me like that for?”

“What the hell was that last part?”

“What last part?”

“The Liberation Army. That wasn’t on the script.”

“Oh yeah,” said Coleman, smiling proudly. “I added that myself. I found it in your history papers. Pretty cool, eh?”

“Symbionese.”

“What?”

“It’s Symbionese, not Simeon. You’ve made us into some kind of radical animal-rights brigade.”

Coleman chugged the beer. “I thought you’d like it.”

Serge turned back around and resumed driving. “Next time I read the note.”

“Fine,” said Coleman. “I didn’t ask to read any note.”

“But I’m driving. I can’t do everything. I need some help in here…Sharon, what the fuck are you doing?”

Sharon was taking off her clothes as fast as she could. “Things are crawling on me! Get ’em off!”

Serge turned to their hostage. “Ambrose.
Ambrose!
…Coleman, he’s dead! We killed him!”

Serge reached back and shook Ambrose, and he woke up.

“Jesus, Ambrose! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry.”

“Ambrose, you’re a maniac!” said Serge. “The rest of us are all jumpy, and
we’ve
got the guns. But you’re back there catching some winks. You are stone cold, my man!”

ROCCO SILVERTONE GOT
a busy signal in New York. He sat at his desk with Ambrose’s business card in his hand. He hung up and tried again.

“You really think John stole the Ferrari?” asked Vic.

“I don’t think—I know! I saw him driving it!”

“But what did he do with the old man?”

“I don’t know,” said Rocco. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Maybe we should tell the boss?”

Rocco reached across the desk and grabbed Vic by the arm. “No! We can’t say anything! I wasn’t supposed to get out of the car.” He let go of Vic. “I have to figure out a way to handle this without anyone finding out.”

“Good luck.”

Rocco dialed the New York number on Ambrose’s card again. This time he got through.

“Shoot,” Rocco said under his breath. “Answering machine.”

He hung up and tried to think.

“
CHECK IT OUT
,” said Coleman, pulling a driver’s license from Ambrose’s wallet. “He lives on Triggerfish Lane. Don’t we live on Triggerfish Lane, too?”

“Can’t be the same one,” said Serge. “Let me see that.”

Coleman passed the license forward.

Serge looked at his license. His rubbed his eyes and held the license closer. He looked up and hit the gas.

The Barracuda whipped around the corner of Triggerfish Lane and skidded to a stop in front of a tiny house with
918
over the door. Serge double-checked the license. 918.

He looked at Ambrose. “Tell me this isn’t your home.”

Ambrose stared down and nodded.

“Would you mind explaining what the hell’s going on?”

Ambrose looked away, out the window.

“I’m talking to you!” yelled Serge. “We’ve gone through a lot of trouble for you! Now what’s the story?”

Ambrose wouldn’t look at him.

“That wasn’t your Ferrari, was it?” said Serge.

Ambrose shook his head.

“The other cars. None of them yours?”

He shook his head again.

“Then what gives?”

Ambrose mumbled.

“Louder,” said Serge. “I can’t hear you.”

“Test drives,” said Ambrose.

Serge started punching the roof of the car. “Dammit! Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!…” His knuckles started to bleed and he stopped. He turned back to Ambrose. “Would you just tell me why?”

Ambrose hung his head.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you! I asked you a question!”

Ambrose looked up.

“Well?”

Ambrose’s voice was barely a whisper. “I was lonely.” A tear started down his cheek.

“No! Not that! Anything but that!”

More tears.

“Stop it! Stop it right now!”

It only got worse.

Serge kneeled backward in his seat, grabbed Ambrose by the shoulders and shook him. “What have I ever done to you! What is it you want from me!”

“Can I stay with you?”

“No! No, you can’t stay with me!” Serge reached over and opened Ambrose’s door. “Get out right now! You’re free to go!”

“I promise I won’t make any false moves.”

“Didn’t you hear me? Go!”

Ambrose looked down and the tears started again.

“Okay, okay! You can stay! But only briefly. Very temporarily. Just until I can figure out what to do, so don’t get all attached or anything.”

Ambrose raised his head and smiled.

Coleman took a hit on his joint and tapped Serge’s shoulder. “Does this mean his company won’t pay the ransom?”

“Oh no. They’re going to double the amount.”

Coleman grinned. “Really?”

Serge faced forward and gripped the steering wheel. “All right. What’s done is done. Can’t get paralyzed by this. Have to do damage assessment…” Serge’s brain time-lapsed through the last hour. “…The Ferrari! Dammit! We had a three-hundred-thousand-dollar car! Ohhhhhhh—this nightmare just won’t end!…Okay, keep going. Don’t get hung up on that SAT question. What else?…The ransom demand…”

Serge turned back to Coleman. “We have to get that ransom message off the voice mail. It’s evidence. Those things have retrieval codes.” He turned to Ambrose. “What is it?”

“Eleven.”

“Coleman, dial the number again, punch in eleven and follow the instructions to erase messages.”

Coleman dialed. He tapped Serge’s shoulder again. “I’m getting a busy signal.”

“Who could be calling?” said Serge.