Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (23 page)

D
AMMIT
,
I’M STILL GETTING A RECORDING
,”
SAID ROCCO
.

“Are there any other menu options?” asked Vic.

“It says if you don’t want voice mail and need to speak to someone right away, hit one. I’ve been hitting one but nobody answers!” Rocco began banging away in frustration at the number one. There was a click on the line and a new recording. “Hold on,” said Rocco. “I’m getting something.”

It was a robotic voice:“You…have…one…new…voice mail…message.” Then a beep and another voice. “We have Insert Name Here…”

“What is it?” asked Vic.

“Shhhhh!”

Rocco listened to the entire message, then quietly hung up.

“Rocco, you look like you’ve seen a ghost!”

“It’s a kidnapping,” said Rocco. “It’s John.”

“John’s been kidnapped?”

“No, the old man’s been kidnapped. John’s the kidnapper!”

“You recognized his voice?”

“No. He was using a scrambler.”

“You have to call the police!”

“I told you—this can’t get out.”

“What are you going to do?”

Rocco thought a second, then nodded to himself. “His company. Maybe I can work through them. I’ve got information they need, and big corporations always like to keep kidnappings quiet.” He dialed again.

“But there’s nobody there,” said Vic.

“I’ll leave a message.”

“Maybe they’ll give you a reward.”

The recording started and Rocco waved for Vic to keep it down. The machine told Rocco to wait for the beep. Rocco waited.

Beep.

“Hello, this is Rocco Silvertone in Tampa, Florida. I understand your president, Ambrose Tarrington the Third, has been kidnapped. I have some important information you may be able to use…”

“Remember to ask about a reward,” whispered Vic. Rocco pushed him away.

“…I think I know who the kidnapper might be, and I may even be able to help you locate Mr. Tarrington…”

Vic held up a piece of paper with
REWARD
in big letters.

“…I’m not seeking anything for myself, but any gratitude you might wish to show my favorite charity, I’d be happy to handle the delivery…”

Rocco left his phone number and hung up.

“
I’M STILL GETTING
a busy signal,” said Coleman, hanging up.

“Try again,” said Serge.

Coleman dialed again. “I’m getting through this time.”

“Remember to hit eleven,” said Serge.

Coleman pressed one-one. He heard his ransom demand begin to replay, then followed the instruction to erase it. He
was just about to hang up when another message started. He listened and began to shake.

“Coleman. What’s wrong?”

“They’re on to us!”

“Who is?”

“Rocco Silvertone. He says he knows who we are!”

“Who the hell’s Rocco Silvertone?”

“I can’t go to prison!” His hands trembled as he lit another joint.

“Nobody’s going to prison,” said Serge. “Now who’s Rocco Silvertone?”

Coleman handed him the phone. “Listen to the message.”

Serge dialed again and pressed eleven and listened. He closed the phone. “Who on earth is Rocco Silvertone?”

“I know,” said Ambrose.

He told Serge all about the most successful salesman at Tampa Bay Motors.

Serge popped a stick of gum in his mouth. “As if the plot isn’t thick enough!”

Coleman took another deep hit and tapped Serge on the shoulder again.

“What is it?”

“Remember the two Darrins in
Bewitched
?”

“Yeah?”

“Their names were Dick Sargent and Dick York.”

“Your point?”

“Don’t you see? Dick Sargent. Dick York.
Sergeant York
!”

“So…?”

“So it makes you wonder.”

“Uh, yeah, Coleman. It makes me wonder all right. I’m going to turn back around now and start driving again. But
please feel free to report in with any more bulletins as they become available.”

Coleman nodded and took another hit.

Serge made a left. Before they knew it, they were back on Triggerfish Lane. Serge pulled up in front of Ambrose’s house.

“Well, here she is! Home sweet home!” said Serge.

Ambrose didn’t move.

“I told you when this started it was only temporary. We have to go our separate ways. Fly high, oh freebird, yeah!…Come on, Ambrose, get out of the car.”

Ambrose began moving slowly. He took off his wristwatch and held it out to Serge.

“Ambrose, really, that’s not necessary.”

He kept holding it out to Serge.

“Okay, if you insist.” Serge took the watch and looked at it. “Nice Rolex.”

“It’s a fake,” said Ambrose.

“The thought that counts.”

“Sure I can’t stay?”

“No, I—” Serge looked at the watch again. “Holy cow! Look at the time! Today’s Friday, right?”

“What is it?” asked Coleman.

“I’ve got a commencement address to deliver at the University of South Florida! The dean asked me back when I was teaching there this summer.”

“Ha!” Sharon laughed. “You’re no teacher!”

“Can’t you let me have my little dreams?”

“What about Ambrose?” asked Coleman.

“I guess he’s coming. I can’t argue with him now. I have to think of the students.”

THE DEAN WAS
onstage in a cold sweat, checking his real Rolex.

Serge turned the Barracuda off Fowler Avenue and blew through the security gate. The floor of the Sun Dome was already a sea of gowns when Serge hopped a curb and parked on a downed handicapped sign.

“You go ahead,” said Coleman. “We’ll catch up.”

Serge took off on foot.

The dean was wiping his forehead with a handkerchief when Serge bounded up the stairs and slapped him on the shoulder. “Sorry I’m late, teach.” He ran out onstage.

The audience quieted as Serge walked up to the podium. He tapped the microphone.

“Has anyone heard that Jerry Springer now has a place in Sarasota?”

A few people nodded.

“I mention this because I’m still waiting for Tonya Harding to move down here and make it a clean sweep. I’m going through withdrawal because I haven’t heard anything about her since she beat that guy in the head with a hubcap at a hoedown. And what about the poor guy? I don’t think there’s any better time to sit down for that little heart-to-heart with yourself. ‘Good morning. This is your wake-up call. It’s from Darwin.’ But that’s just one person’s tiny drama, meaningless except in the bigger picture, which is trying to isolate the exact moment we turned into Trash Nation, and nearest I can tell, it was one second after Nancy Kerrigan took a telescoping blackjack to the knee. Now there was a cute little soap opera. What an absolutely fascinating underwater view into the Kmart inflatable backyard American gene pool. I have a dirty little confession. I loved it! We may have learned everything we needed to know about life in kindergarten.
But you know what? We can learn everything we need to know about the incredibly rude, selfish, infantile country we’ve become by observing the human spokes revolving around the Tonya Harding sociocultural axis. The Greeks reveled in Homeric tragicomedies; the English lived out Shakespearean dramas. But we, America, are the cast of the Kerrigan farce. Is it any wonder we’ve thrown manners, compassion and respect out the window? We’ve become one big, self-absorbed nation holding up an ice skate, pointing at a broken lace and blubbering our eyes out. We don’t know our neighbors anymore. We have no shame, no consideration, no sense of duty or sacrifice. Need more metaphors? We won’t go the extra mile, meet anyone halfway, and if, somehow, somewhere, anything at all goes wrong in our pathetic daily wanderings, if some random misfortune drops at our feet and splatters like a Taco Supreme, we don’t co mmence to tidying up the floor and getting on with our lives. We start making a litigious radar sweep of the room, seeing if there’s anyone in recrimination range, some entitlement cadet to whom we can construct a Bridge-over-the-River-Kwai blame-path of tortured logic and sheer, reality-sculpting self-deception. Maybe they handled a taco once, maybe even
made
tacos. Maybe they could have warned you—yes, they knew all about that treacherously viscous emulsion of grease and sour cream on wax wrapper. They deliberately chose not to say anything as they saw it slipping out of your hand in Peckinpah slow motion while you were trying to eat, talk on the phone and log on to eBay at the same time. Well, here’s a news flash for you. Believe it or not, the blacks and the gays and the Jews did not drop your taco.
You
dropped the fucking taco, my friend! It doesn’t make you a bad person. It doesn’t even mean it’s your fault.
What it does mean is that this cosmic slapstick we call life has just elected you the shmuck who has to go get the mop. So go get the goddamn mop already! Don’t just stand there staring down, reliving the lunch-that-could-have-been and trying to figure out how affirmative action did this to you. That’s just the way life is. It can be exquisite, cruel, frequently wacky, but above all utterly,
utterly
random. Those twin imposters in the bell-fringed jester hats, Justice and Fairness—they aren’t constants of the natural order like entropy or the periodic table. They’re completely alien notions to the way things happen out there in the human rain forest. Justice and Fairness are the things
we’re
supposed to contribute back to the world for giving us the gift of life—not birthrights we should expect and demand every second of the day. What do you say we drop the intellectual cowardice? There is no fate, and there is no safety net. I’m not saying God doesn’t exist.
I
believe in God. But he’s not a micromanager, so stop asking Him to drop the crisis in Rwanda and help you find your wallet. Life is a long, lonely journey down a day-in-day-out lard-trail of dropped tacos. Mop it up, not for yourself, but for the guy behind you who’s too busy trying not to drop his own tacos to make sure he doesn’t slip and fall on your mistakes. So
don’t
speed and weave in traffic; other people have babies in their cars.
Don’t
litter.
Don’t
begrudge the poor because they have a fucking food stamp.
Don’t
be rude to overwhelmed minimum-wage sales clerks, especially teenagers—they have that job because they don’t have a clue. You didn’t either at that age. Be understanding with them. Share your clues. Remember that your sense of humor is inversely proportional to your intolerance. Stop and think on Veterans Day. And don’t forget to vote. That is, unless you send money to TV preachers, have more than a passing interest in alien abduction or recently
purchased a fish on a wall plaque that sings ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy.’ In that case, the polls are a scary place! Under every ballot box is a trapdoor chute to an extraterrestrial escape pod filled with dental tools and squeaking, masturbating little green men from the Devil Star. In conclusion, Class of Ninety-seven, keep your chins up, grab your mops and get in the game. You don’t have to make a pile of money or change society. Just clean up after yourselves without complaining. And, above all, please stop and appreciate the days when the tacos don’t fall, and give heartfelt thanks to whomever you pray to…You’ve been a fine audience!”

Serge stepped back from the microphone, and a loud cheer rose from the crowd. Mortarboards filled the air, students hugged each other, parents snapped a thousand Instamatics. Serge ran over to the dean and slapped him on the shoulder again. “Well, I’m outta here.”

T
HE FOURTH OF JULY WAS COMING
.

You could feel it in the neighborhoods, gathering steam. Kids selling lemonade, parents barbecuing, the Tampa Bay baseball team mathematically eliminated…Ambrose was still hanging around after two weeks, and Serge had long since stopped trying to ditch him. Serge refused to admit it, but the little bugger was growing on him. Ambrose was ready at a moment’s notice to go check out some arcane historic site with Serge, and he became a dependable pinch hitter when Coleman was too fucked up to leave the house.

“Right up there! See that window?” said Serge, pointing at the former Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater. “That’s the room where Keith Richards wrote ‘Satisfaction’ while the Stones were on tour in sixty-five.”

“Cool!” said Ambrose.

“Don’t get the idea I’m starting to like you or anything,” said Serge. “Hey! Want to go to the Museum of Science and Industry? They have a new IMAX movie on the space shuttle!”

“What are we waiting for?”

Ambrose sat and cheered between Serge and Coleman at a minor league game, drank a beer between them at The
Press Box, had a roast beef sandwich between them at the Tahitian Inn lunch counter. On the third of July, the three sat on the porch eating Serge’s secret Cuban recipe for calamari.

“This is great,” Ambrose said with his mouth full.

“See, Coleman? Finally, someone who appreciates a gourmet meal!”

“I like your cooking,” said Coleman.

“You always ruin my
boliche mechado
with ketchup.”

“My body tells me it needs ketchup.”

“What’s Jim doing over there?” asked Serge.

Across the street, Jim Davenport tacked up red-white-and-blue banners along the porch soffits with a staple gun.

“Looks like he’s getting ready for a Fourth of July party,” said Ambrose.

“I haven’t heard about any party,” said Serge.

“Jim is Serge’s role model,” Coleman told Ambrose.

“Jim’s one of the unsung heroes,” explained Serge. “He quietly goes about holding our society together without thanks or fanfare.”

“What does he do?” asked Ambrose. “Work on the bomb squad? In the emergency room?”

“He’s a parent.”

“Have you told him how you feel?” asked Ambrose.

“Not in so many words.”

“Then you should go over there.”

“See if he’s having a party,” said Coleman. “I love parties.”

Serge stood up. But just then, Jim stapled the last banner in place and went inside. Serge sat back down. “Now he’s inside. You can just show up if they’re out on the porch. But you have to pick your spots if people are inside. It’s one of those invisible borders of courtesy. I’d hate to be annoying.”

“Maybe he needs help with the party,” said Ambrose. “You could volunteer to pitch in, then it would justify the intrusion.”

“You’ve got something there,” said Serge. “But I want to bring something over.”

“We have most of that bag of Dunkin’ Donuts left in the fridge,” said Coleman.

“But you took a bite out of every one of them and put ’em back,” said Serge.

“I couldn’t tell the kind of jelly from the outside,” said Coleman. “Just cut the bite marks off with a knife.”

“Isn’t it kind of late in the day to be eating doughnuts?” asked Ambrose.

“Every time is doughnut time,” said Coleman.

MARTHA DAVENPORT WAS
standing by the window. “He’s coming over here again!”

“I’ll get rid of him,” said Jim.

“No! Remember what happened last time? Don’t answer the door! Maybe he’ll just go away.”

A knock. “Hello? Anybody home?”

“He knows we’re here,” whispered Jim.

“Maybe he’ll take the hint.”

“This is embarrassing. We’ve already stopped hanging out on the porch ’cause of this.”

“I know you’re in there!” Serge said cheerfully.

“I have to answer the door. We look silly.”

“He’s looking in the window! He’s spotted us!”

Jim turned to see Serge smiling and waving through the window, holding up a Dunkin’ Donuts bag and pointing at it. Jim smiled painfully and waved back.

“Now I feel stupid,” said Jim, walking toward the door.

“Don’t mention the party!”

“There are streamers all over the place. He already knows there’s a party.”

“Don’t invite him. And if he asks, say he can’t come.”

“How do I do that?”

“Say anything you want. If he shows up, I’m leaving.”

Jim opened the door a crack and slipped out onto the porch.

Serge tried to look around him into the house, but the door closed. “What were you doing? Hiding in there?”

Jim turned red. “What’s up?”

“Looks like you’re going to have a party. I must have been away when you handed out invitations. I’d love to help any way I can.”

“No, everything’s taken care of. Actually it’s not really a
party
party. It’s just going to be an intimate little gathering of immediate relatives—”

“That’s great!” said Serge. “I’ll get to meet all your kin!”

“What I’m trying to say is—”

Serge held out a paper bag. “Doughnut?”

“No, look Serge—”

“They’re still good.”

“Serge, Martha and I—”

“You’ll hurt my feelings.” Serge opened the bag so Jim could see inside.

“Okay, I’ll take a doughnut.” He pulled one out. The right third had been sliced off.

“I had to cut out Coleman’s bite marks.”

Jim put the doughnut back.

“Don’t blame you,” said Serge. “God only knows where he’s been.”

“Serge, there’s something very important I have to say. You can’t—”

“Wait,” said Serge. “I want to go first. I’ve got some big
news. Sharon and I are engaged! We’re going to get married and have kids, just like you!”

“Serge! Congratulations!”

“Isn’t it great? After we went out to dinner the other night and I saw what a wonderful marriage you and Martha have, it really got me thinking. It all started making sense. So I decided to marry Sharon and raise a family.”

“Really? When?”

“Well, I have to tell her first. And then I have to convince her to have kids, because she doesn’t want any. And of course she’ll have to give up the cocaine. And the stripping. But right after that!”

It sounded shaky to Jim.

“I want to have what you have,” said Serge. “It’s these last few weeks living across the street from you, seeing what an incredible thing a family is. You must be a very proud man. I was telling Coleman, you’re my new hero. I’ve decided to model my life after yours.”

Jim blushed.

“Okay, now your turn,” said Serge. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

“We’re having a Fourth of July party. Would you like to come?”

“Great! I’ll bring my fiancée!”

LANCE BOYLE ASSIDUOUSLY
waxed his gold Lincoln Navigator. He had gone over the whole vehicle four times now with a hirsute rag and had been working on this one particular spot on the door for the last hour. He checked his watch. Still time for some more buffing before his appointment with the new renters.

Lance pulled out his nitroglycerin container and snorted. Nothing happened.

“What? Empty?” He held it up to his eyeball. “How could I have gone through all that speed? I better slow down. I need to exercise some discipline. I have to get some more right now.”

Lance jumped in the Navigator and took off.

He pulled his appointment book out of the glove compartment as he drove across the center line. Cars honked. Lance made a left on red. He opened the book on the steering wheel. Two o’clock: Turn over keys to new tenants renting the home of the late Jack Terrier. The three brothers had unnerved Lance the moment they walked in his office. They propped their boots up on Lance’s desk and put out their Pancho Villa cigars on his restored wooden floor. They called themselves the Snyders. The smallest one had this horrible scar that deeply cleaved his left cheek. The middle one had a milky right eye and black gums. The biggest one had tattoos across his knuckles.
H-A-T-E
and
H-A-T-E.
They were the worst applicants he had ever seen. They were perfect.

Lance checked his watch again—still a few minutes before they were due to arrive. He dropped in at the college rental and knocked.

“Coming, dude.”

Bernie opened the door.

Lance’s eyes were ostrich eggs. “Haveanymorespeed?”

“Man, you are toasted!”

“Haveanyornot?”

“Maybe you should drink a beer instead.”

“Iwantspeed.”

“Your call,” said Bernie. He turned and yelled. “Wasteoid! Got any crank left over from finals?”

Lance walked across the street, covering his nose, tooting up. He stopped in front of the Davenports’ porch and sniffled.

“Readytosellyourhouse?”

“What?” said Jim.

“Readytosell?”

“We already told you!” said Martha. “We’re not selling. And even if we were, it wouldn’t be to the likes of you!”

Lance sniffled and pointed across the street. “Newtenants.”

“What?”

“Newtenants. Don’t you under stand English?”

“I’m sure we’ll get along fine,” said Jim.

“If you change your mind,” said Lance, placing another business card on the porch railing.

A brown Cutlass pulled up across the street, and Lance went to meet it.

“What was wrong with him?” said Martha.

“Probably too much coffee.”

“Coffee doesn’t do that. He wasn’t blinking.”

Jim and Martha looked back across the street. Three huge, frightening men got out of the Cutlass.

“I don’t like the looks of this,” said Martha.

“Me neither.”

“Let’s go inside.”

Lance turned over the keys to his new tenants and climbed back in the Navigator. He had had it with unreasonable people like the Davenports. Fair was fair, but they were standing in his way. He had done some checking, totally illegal but incredibly easy. He found out that Consolidated Bank held the mortgage on their house. They were paid up but consistently late, seven to ten days a month. Lance also learned some other things. He called Consolidated Bank and told the loan officer that he was Jim Davenport and had lost his job and tried to trade in his car for a cheaper one, but the loan got kicked back. Now, he said, he couldn’t afford the
house and wanted a way out of the mortgage. The loan officer said he’d call him right back. Lance gave him his cellphone number.

The loan officer did some checking, totally illegal but incredibly easy. Jim Davenport had indeed lost his job and applied for a loan to trade down his car, but for some reason it had never gone through. The guy’s in bad shape, he thought. But the officer had taken three defaults already this summer and his keys to the executive washroom hung in the balance. He called Lance back and said he was sure they could work something out. Lance said it looked bleak.

“Let’s meet.”

“Great,” said Lance. “I’ll come to your office.”

“No, I’ll come to your home. Tomorrow.”

Lance panicked. “But it’s a holiday! It’s the Fourth!”

“Not a problem. Anything for a customer. Because we have babies, too.”

They set the meeting for 4
P.M.
on Independence Day.

Lance hung up. Shit, he thought. I never even considered he might come out to the house. Now I’m screwed! Why did I think this idiotic plan would work? It’s all because of this stupid speed I’ve been taking. I need some more.

He tapped out the rest and did it, then got a brainstorm. He picked up his cell phone and called Insult-to-Injury Process Servers.

“…The address is eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish…Yes, Elvis will be fine…”