Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (24 page)

T
HE COLLEGE STUDENTS POUTED
on the front porch of their rental.

“There’s nothing to do,” said Chip. “We don’t have any money. We don’t have any dope…”

“This sucks,” said Waste-oid, chin in his hands.

Bernie looked around. “Want to drive out in the county and tip cows?”

“We did that last night,” said Frankie.

“Why don’t we go out there and look for ’shrooms instead?” said Waste-oid.

“I’m tired of mushrooms,” said Bernie.

“I’m not!” said Waste-oid.

“What’s the point?” said Bernie. “Remember the last time you did ’shrooms and spent half the night in your closet?”

“Don’t make fun. There was a big storm with lots of thunder. It was very upsetting.”

“Is that why you puked?”

“No. I didn’t boil the ’shrooms long enough to get the toxins out when I made the tea. For about two hours it was like there were all these little knives trying to stab their way out of my stomach.”

“What happened?”

“Tried to get my mind off it by focusing on something else. I started staring at that painting of the lion we have in the living room. But then the lion came alive and looked like it was going to jump off the wall and I began screaming, and the knives in my stomach got worse. Then the thunder and lightning started and I barricaded myself in the closet.”

“Then you threw up and fell asleep in your own vomit?”

“Right.”

“So why on earth do you want to go back and get some more?”

“Because ’shrooms are the best!”

The front door opened and Siddhartha the solipsistic student walked out and punched Waste-oid in the shoulder.

“Ow! That hurt!”

“No it didn’t. You’re only a figment that I control. I can make you do anything I want. I can make you say ‘Ow’ again.”

“What?”

Siddhartha hit him again.

“Ow!”

Siddhartha walked back in the house.

The front door opened again and Bill the Elder came out.

“They said on TV it’s the Fourth of July tomorrow.”

“Wow,” said Waste-oid. “July already?”

“We need to buy fireworks,” said Bill.

“We don’t have any money,” said Bernie.

“Let’s collect aluminum cans,” said Chip.

“Let’s pick ’shrooms and sell them,” said Waste-oid.

“I know,” said Chip. “Let’s sell our textbooks!”

“I don’t know where mine are,” said Waste-oid.

A BLUE SIERRA
cruised north on rain-slick Dale Mabry Highway, Bernie in the driver’s seat, red afro pressed against the
roof. They passed the strip clubs and car dealerships and stopped at a light.

A Camaro full of University of Tampa women pulled up on the left.

Waste-oid leaned out the window and put the tips of his thumb and index finger to his lips. “Hey pretty things, wanna get high?”

The women laughed and peeled out when the light turned green.

“What’s wrong with you?” said Bernie, putting the Sierra in gear.

“What do you mean?”

“You’re always embarrassing us. It’s the same thing every time. ‘You wanna get high? You wanna get high?’…”

“What’s the matter with that?”

“What’s the matter is this isn’t 1973 and you’re not in Grand Funk Railroad.”

“The babes love it.”

“No they don’t. You have never gotten laid with that. Not once!”

“Yes I have!”

“When?”

“Well, it was Christmas break. You weren’t around.”

“That’s what I thought.”

“There it is!” said Chip.

A giant hot-air balloon stood in front of a red circus tent. A man in a gorilla suit waved cars into a dirt parking lot under a banner:
INDEPENDENCE DAY FIREWORKS BONANZA BLOWOUT
!

A chain-smoking ex-carny was on a portable phone when the students arrived. “Gotta go. Some live ones just walked in.” He hung up and stubbed out a Camel on a box of bottle rockets.

The students began pawing the cellophane on some Roman candles.

“I can tell you fellas know quality,” said the salesman. “Those are the best Roman candles in the world. Direct from China.”

The students walked through the tent in awe: Black Cats, M-80s, stink bombs.

“Take your time. I’ll be right over here.” The salesman went back to the register and lit another Camel.

The students finished browsing. The salesman was staring down at a magazine and heard them whispering. “You ask him!” “No,
you
ask him!”

The salesman looked up. “Got a question?”

Bernie glanced around to make sure nobody was listening. He leaned over the counter. “Got anything
special
?”

“Oh, right.” The salesman winked. “The
special
stuff. Follow me.”

He led the students to the “employees only” area of the tent and pulled back the curtain. He produced a box from under a table. The students gathered around. He began opening the box with slow drama, then stopped and closed the flaps. “You sure you’re cool? For all I know you could be cops. How do I know you’re not The Man?”

“I’ll show you my penis,” said Waste-oid.

“What!”

“You idiot!” said Bernie. “That’s how you prove you’re not a cop to prostitutes!”

“Oh.”

Bernie turned back to the salesman. “We’re not cops.”

“You know what? I believe you. Because I like you guys.”

He stepped away from the box and gestured toward it.
The students approached and cautiously opened the cardboard flaps.

“Oh, man!”

“I’ve heard about these!”

“Those are the professional models,” said the salesman. “Thousand-foot tricolored whistling air bursts. Same ones the city launches from barges in the bay.”

“We gotta have ’em!”

“I’m only allowed to sell to licensed fireworks handlers.”

The students hung their heads.

“You
are
licensed fireworks handlers, aren’t you?”

The students didn’t answer.

The salesman slowly repeated the question and nodded. “You
are
licensed fireworks handlers?”

“Oh, that’s right. We are.”

“Good. That’ll be three hundred dollars.”

“We don’t have three hundred dollars.”

“What do you got?”

“Textbooks. They’re in the car.”

“Same as cash in here. Go get ’em. I’ll wait.”

The students returned with armloads of books, and the salesman worked quickly with a calculator, tossing the books on top of the giant pile of textbooks already behind the register.

“Nice doing business with you,” said the salesman. He chain-lit another Camel and threw the old one over his shoulder.

AGENT MAHONEY SAT
at the bar in a tweed jacket and black fedora. He was on an island in the bay. The bar was called Yeoman’s Road.

“Another one, Louie,” he told the bartender.

The bartender poured whiskey. “My name’s not Louie.”

“It should be,” said Mahoney. He swiveled on his stool and pointed out the front window. “What’s the deal with the weird red phone booth, Louie?”

“It’s a British phone booth.”

“What’s it doing here?”

“This is a British pub.”

“Are we in Britain?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t like the idea.”

Mahoney pulled out a pack of Chesterfields, stuck his finger in the opening, then took his finger out and looked in the hole. Empty. Damn. He crumped the pack and got off the stool. “I gonna get some smokes at the machine. Don’t let anyone take my spot. The night’s still young, Louie, and full of irony.”

“It’s Rich.”

“It certainly is.”

Mahoney walked up to the silver machine and pulled hard on the Chesterfield knob. He bent down and grabbed the cigarettes from the tray and began smacking the end of the pack in his palm on his way back to the bar.

A stranger was waiting.

“Who’s this mug, Louie?”

“Says his name’s Blaine,” replied the bartender, wiping a beer mug.

“Blaine Crease,” said Blaine, extended a hand.

Mahoney looked down at it skeptically, then back at the stranger.

“I don’t like you, Blaine.”

“Fine. We don’t have to be friends. I have a business proposition—”

“Mickey.”

“What?”

“I might like you if your name was Mickey. You look like a Mickey. Or a Floyd. Blaine—that’s the name of some guy who drinks peach schnapps.”

Blaine looked at the bartender, who shrugged and walked away.

“I understand you’re looking for some bad dudes,” said Blaine.

“Who wants to know?”

“I’m a TV reporter for Florida Cable News. I can help. I’m the host of
Florida’s Most Wanted.
”

“You connected with
America’s Most Wanted
?”

“Only if you call stealing the name being connected.”

“Where do I fit in? Better yet, where do you fit in?”

“We can team up. You feed me information. Or disinformation—doesn’t matter to me. I’ll put a segment on the air and we flush ’em out into the open. You just give me the exclusive when it’s all over. What do you say?”

Mahoney took off his fedora, pulled a sawbuck out of the lining and tucked it under an ashtray. He put his hat back on and turned to Blaine. “Where’s the action in this town?”

THE SUN SET
on the third day of July.

John Milton walked down the street, waving his arms and talking to himself, repeating the same thing over and over. He had just called the phone company, asking for the address of one Jim Davenport, the name he had found on the back page of the consultant’s report that had gotten him fired from Consolidated Bank.

“…Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish Lane. Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish Lane. Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish Lane…”

John turned left on Triggerfish and began looking at house numbers. When he got to 888, there were a bunch of
people on the porch. John hadn’t expected that. He decided to come back when there was less of a crowd.

Jim Davenport looked off the porch at the man walking briskly down the sidewalk.

“That guy looks familiar. Where have I seen him?”

“Why is he trying to hide his face?” asked Martha.

“Where do you want these?” Gladys asked with an armful of Statue of Liberty mosquito candles.

“Put them around the railing,” said Martha. “What am I forgetting? I know I’m forgetting something.”

“Will you relax?” said Jim. “You’re like this every time before you entertain.”

Martha couldn’t relax. She’d worked herself silly getting ready for the big July Fourth costume party tomorrow. She couldn’t stop the checklist from looping through her head. Hamburgers, hot dogs, charcoal, marshmallows, American flag paper plates, Declaration of Independence napkins…

Across the street, the college students were making their own preparations. They had located some stale hash cookies and decided to pool all of their fireworks purchases and construct a single multistage rocketship held together with masking tape and hallucinogenic optimism. Its construction was conceived, directed and overseen by the students’ next-door neighbor, Serge A. Storms, who was paying particular attention to the scale and authenticity of the Saturn V replica. His assistant was a short old man wearing Serge’s nifty silver NASA jacket, his hands barely poking out the ends of the sleeves.

“Vehicle Assembly Building, Level Twelve, report in,” said Serge.

“Roger, control,” said Ambrose. “Stage coupling confirmed.” Then they did a secret NASA handshake that Serge had invented.

The students finally had to stop building when the rocket reached the living room ceiling. Serge said good night and advised the students not to stay up too late.

“Tomorrow’s the big day!”

T
HE SUN ROSE IN A WARM
, clear sky the morning of July Fourth.

John Milton got out of bed at Splendid Acres and went in the kitchen and ate a piece of dry toast. “
Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish, Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish
…” He watched seven hours of talk shows, then grabbed his stun gun and headed out the door to the apartment building parking lot, where he removed the protective tarp concealing a white Ferrari F50.

SERGE’S EYES FLEW
open when the beam of sunlight hit his pillow. He checked the date on his diver’s watch. July Fourth.

“Yessssss!” Serge threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. It was his favorite day of the year.

He stuck a Springsteen CD in the stereo and got to work. Serge was running around the house with a feather duster when Coleman and Sharon stumbled down the hallway.

“Why’s the stereo so fucking loud at this hour?” said Sharon.

“…Born in the U.S.A.! I was born in the U.S.A.!…”

“It’s Independence Day!” said Serge. “Look alive. We got a full schedule!”

“I’m not doin’ shit today!” Sharon plopped down at the
kitchen table and lit a cigarette. Coleman got a beer from the fridge.

“Oh, yes you are!” said Serge. “You think freedom is free? A lot of blood was spilled so we can live like this!”

Coleman held his beer at arm’s length and admired it. “You mean they fought for my right to party?”

“Exactly.”

“How can we show our appreciation?”

“By barbecuing.”

“I can’t believe what I’m listening to,” said Sharon. “You’re a couple of boobs. I’m going back to bed.”

“No, you’re not,” said Serge.

She began walking toward the bedroom. “Oh, yes I am!”

Serge followed.

Sharon took off running. “Get away from me, you freak!”

Serge chased her down the hall. “The redcoats are coming!”

THE ZUCKERMANS OF
Sarasota pulled into the Davenports’ driveway in a late-model Cadillac Seville.

Jim and Martha came down off the porch.

“God, I hate this,” Martha said through an artificial smile.

“They’re
your
parents,” Jim said through his own smile.

Everyone hugged.

“You look thin,” Mrs. Zuckerman told Jim. “Martha, have you been feeding him?”

“Don’t start.”

“What? So shoot me for caring.”

“Mom!”

Melvin came running out of the house. “Grandpa! Grandma!”

“You still sure you want to take them for the weekend?” asked Martha, installing Nicole’s safety seat in the Caddy.

“Are you kidding? I could take the little darlings for a year.” Mrs. Zuckerman looked around. “Where’s Debbie?”

“I’ll get her,” said Jim. He went inside.

He found Debbie on the couch, sullen.

“You need to get out there,” said Jim.

“I’m not going,” said Debbie.

“Why not?”

“Sarasota sucks. And their house smells bizarre.”

Jim just looked at her. It was his hurt look. Debbie could fight like cats and dogs with her mother, but not her dad.

“Stop looking at me like that!”

“Like what?”

“Okay, I’ll go!”

Jim returned to the driveway. “She’ll be out in a minute.”

Debbie finally came out the front door with a scowl. She had stringy black hair, black clothes and black lipstick.

“My little angel!” said Mrs. Zuckerman.

Jim and Martha waved at the departing Cadillac, then went back inside and continued preparing for the big block party.

There was a knock at the front door.

“I’ll get it, honey.”

Jim opened the door.

It was Elvis. At the curb sat a white van with a magnetic sign on the side. Elvis handed Jim an eviction notice. He put his head down and pointed at the sky.

“Vivaaaaaaaa, Las Vegas! Vivaaaaaa…”

Jim closed the door.

Martha walked into the room opening a box of red, white and blue plastic forks. “Who was that, dear?”

“I don’t understand it,” said Jim. “We’re paid up.”

Through the door:
“Thank you. Thank you very much.”
Then a van started up and drove away.

“There must be a mistake,” said Martha.

Jim turned the notice over. It said in big red letters that the appeals deadline was today at 4
P.M.
, and they both had to appear in person at the bank.

“But it’s a holiday,” said Martha. “They’re closed.”

“Something fishy is going on,” said Jim.

Martha grabbed her purse. “Let’s get to the bottom of this.”

LANCE BOYLE WAS
parked across the street in his gold Navigator, snorting speed and staking out the Davenport residence. He saw Elvis deliver the fake eviction notice he’d printed up on his computer, then saw Jim and Martha drive off for their bogus meeting at the bank.

When they were out of sight, Lance climbed down from the Navigator and walked across the street. He took a seat on the Davenports’ porch swing and waited.

He swung nervously and whistled and checked his watch. He started to worry that the loan officer he had talked to on the phone the day before would be late, and maybe the Davenports would return early after finding the bank closed. Just then, a car slowly turned the corner. A snow-white Ferrari F50. It stopped in front of the Davenports’.

“Wow! The bankers must be doing pretty good!” said Lance. He got off the swing and trotted down from the porch.

John Milton got out of the Ferrari.
“…Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish. Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish. Eight-eighty-eight Triggerfish…”
He met Lance in the middle of the lawn.

“Are you Jim Davenport?”

“Yes, I am,” Lance said with a big smile. He put out a hand to shake.

John stuck out his own hand, but it had a stun gun in it, and he jolted Lance in the chest.

John went back and stood next to the Ferrari with his hands on his hips, casual, as if Lance weren’t flopping around on the lawn behind him. So far, so good, John thought. He pulled out a piece of paper. It was
Plan
A. He crossed out Jim Davenport’s name at the top of the page, then looked at the next name. Rocco Silvertone, who was due back at the dealership after dinner.

John started getting back in the Ferrari when he realized a flaw in
Plan
A. If he pulled into the dealership in the Ferrari, Rocco would recognize it, and he’d lose the element of surprise. He closed the Ferrari’s door and walked over to Lance, twitching in the grass. He reached in Lance’s pocket and pulled out some keys. They said
Lincoln.
John turned and saw the Navigator. He got in and drove to the end of Triggerfish, and stopped to let four pedestrians cross the street.

Serge, Coleman, Sharon and Ambrose strolled single file across Triggerfish Lane in the crosswalk, a tropical
Abbey Road.
Coleman was barefoot. A Lincoln Navigator made a left behind them and drove away.

“Serge, you’re such a dipshit!” said Sharon.

“I’m warning you, woman! Get off my case!”

“Hey!” yelled Coleman, pointing up the street. “The Ferrari!”

Everyone except Sharon began running to the stolen car dumped in front of the Davenport residence.

“The keys are still in it,” said Coleman.

“There’s a guy flopping around on the lawn,” said Ambrose.

“That can’t be helped,” said Serge. “Get in.”

Serge took the driver’s seat, and Ambrose sat in Coleman’s
lap on the passenger side. “There’s no room for you,” Serge told Sharon. She gave them the finger and headed back to the house.

Lance slowly came out of his seizure. He pushed himself up into the sitting position, shook his head to clear the fog and saw the Ferrari pulling away.

“Man!” he said. “The banks are getting
rough
!”

VIC PACED THE
showroom at Tampa Bay Motors. He stared at Rocco’s office door. It was locked. Loyalty was one thing, but a man’s life was at stake and Rocco’s judgment was beginning to give off a bad odor. Vic decided to call the police. He picked up the phone.

CORRESPONDENT BLAINE CREASE
burst breathlessly into the office of the news director at Florida Cable News. He said he had to go on the air right away.

“Slow down. What’s this all about?”

Crease told him.

“I don’t know,” said the director. “Where’d the tip come from?”

“A police officer trying to nail the weather girl.”

“We get more stories that way,” said the director. “Details?”

Crease said a local captain of industry was being ransomed, and the victim’s corporate headquarters in New York wasn’t answering their phones. Crease had tried calling the number himself without luck. The company must be trying to avoid the cops and media. A briefcase was probably changing hands in Tampa right now.

“It’s airtight,” said Crease.

“Check the computer files,” said the news director.

“Do I have to?”

“We don’t even know if this Ambrose guy even exists, let alone if he has any money.”

A few minutes later, Crease ran back in the news director’s office out of breath again. “Nothing in the computers. Now can I go on the air?”

“Of course not!” said the director. “Nothing in the computers is a red flag. That means there might be a hole in your story.”

“So
that’s
what that means.”

“You sure there was nothing?” said the director. “Not even a charity ball grip-and-grin?”

Crease shook his head.

“Go back further,” said the director. “Check the hard files.”

Crease thought all this fact-checking was getting ridiculous, so he lateraled it to a nineteen-year-old intern named Sinbad, who came back in an hour, unable to find any files at all.

“Where are the old files?” Crease yelled across the newsroom. He got a group shot of puzzled expressions.

“Ask Bartholomew,” said one of the reporters, pointing over toward the oldest member of the staff.

“Hey, Bartholomew!” yelled Crease. “You know where the old files are?”

Bartholomew said he’d been forced to hide the files to prevent them from being thrown out by people who didn’t give a hoot about the profession.

“I can’t tell you how many times they’ve been
this close
to being trashed. With all the turnover, there’s no institutional knowledge anymore!”

“But what good are they if they’re hidden?” asked Crease.

“When was the last time you looked anything up?”

Crease was growing tired of Bartholomew’s stupid questions. “Where are they?”

“Will you promise not to let anything happen to them?”

Blaine nodded like he was dealing with a child. Bartholomew told them which closet. Crease and Sinbad ran down the hall, opened a janitor’s storeroom and began unsealing dusty cardboard boxes.

Luck was on their side. It was in the third box: a file marked
Tarrington
containing a single, fragile newspaper clipping.

“We’ve got it!” Blaine yelled. He started reading the yellowed clip on Ambrose.

Maintenance workers came by with a rolling bin. “Got anything to throw out?”

Blaine looked up, distracted. “What? Oh, yeah. Get rid of these old boxes.”

He ran back to the studio and burst in the director’s office.

“We got it!”

“How solid?” asked the director.

“Bedrock!” said Blaine. He proudly handed over the clipping with a smiling photo of a much-younger Ambrose. “It’s from 1978. It’s the only thing we got. Ambrose Tarrington the Third, wealthy owner of a chain of duty-free shops, just elected secretary of Tampa’s chamber of commerce.”

“Sounds legit. Run with it.”