Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (97 page)

Serge glanced at his wristwatch. “Whoa! I almost forgot. Time to add more salt….”

He picked up an extra-large blue Morton’s canister, walked over to the men and began sprinkling.

“You know what they say: ‘When it rains, it pours.’”

The medical examiner
stepped out of the autopsy room and removed his surgical mask.

The homicide investigator got up from a chair in the hall and walked over. “What the hell happened to those two poor kids? The bodies must not have weighed an ounce over eighty pounds.”

“Seventy,” said the examiner.

“I had six cops lose their lunches back there when we found ’em,” said the detective. “What kind of a monster…?”

The examiner pulled off his latex gloves. “I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. I always knew it was theoretically possible, but I’ve never actually heard of it being done to humans.”

“Are you gonna tell me or what?”

“Someone literally turned them into jerky.”

A
white Mercedes Z310 cruised down US 1. Ivan was driving, pulling sandwiches from a fast-food sack in his lap. “Who had the cheddar melt?”

“Here,” said Alexi.

Vladimir leaned forward from the backseat and tapped Ivan on the shoulder. “Did you know there’s a disproportionate incidence of autoerotic strangulation among hockey players?”

“What?”

Vladimir sat back in his seat. “If you pass out, there’s still a chance you can come back to life, right?”

Ivan glanced at Vladimir in the rearview, then back at the road. “Who the fuck did they send me this time?”

A hand with a sandwich came up from the backseat, next to Ivan’s head. “I asked for no pickles.”

Ivan slapped it away. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a pink Cadillac. A pimp saw them pulling out of the old train depot.”

Serge was driving
south on US 1 again. Actually Lenny was driving; Serge was just sitting in the driver’s seat.

“My arm’s getting tired,” said Lenny, steering from the passenger side.

“Just a few more pictures,” said Serge. “I can’t believe how much has changed. The Dairy Belle’s still here, but not much else.” Click, click.

Lenny tried lighting a joint with his free hand but couldn’t get it going. The car began swerving.

Serge lowered his camera and looked over. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“What?” said Lenny, taking the joint out of his mouth.

“You’re driving, for Chrissake!”

They ran a yellow light, followed by a white Mercedes.

“Where are they going?” asked Dmitri.

“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Ivan.

“They keep changing lanes for no reason.”

“Classic evasion tactic,” said Ivan.

“Woah!” said Lenny. “I almost hit that bus. I think I’m too high to drive.”

Dmitri snapped pictures of the Cadillac with a spy camera. “Did you see how he angled around that bus?”

Ivan nodded. “Must have been trained by Israelis.”

Lenny reached under the seat and yanked a Bud off a plastic ring. “I need a beer to level out.”

“That’s where Indian River Citrus used to be,” said Serge. Click, click, click.

“Those two poor bastards back at the depot,” said Lenny, shaking his head. “On one hand, I feel sorry for them. On the other, we almost lost the briefcase. Did you really have to kill them like that?”

“They handled the briefcase.”

“But only for a second.”

“I told you it was cursed.”

Lenny took a swig of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and looked up at the sky. “What a great place to live!” The car swerved.

Click, click, click. “That’s where the Publix used to be, and that’s where they tore down the bazaar tower, and they closed Spanish Courts over there and…oh my God!…”

“What is it?”

Serge focused the camera. Click, click. “They bulldozed the porn theater!”

“You’re nostalgic about a porno joint?”

“No, but it used to be the regular Main Street theater back in the sixties when I was going to parochial school. That’s where the nuns took us to see
The Sound of Music
when it first came out.”

“You were taught by nuns?” said Lenny.

Serge nodded. “That’s how I became an altar boy.”

“Wait a minute. Hold the fuckin’ phone.
You
were an
altar boy
?”

“Good one, too. Right up until I was defrocked.” Click, click, click. “There was absolutely no reason for them to expel me from the program like that.”

“This is explaining a whole lot,” said Lenny. “Now it’s all starting to make sense.”

“It was Easter Mass, and we were wearing all those heavy vestments, the cassock and surplice. There were extra stage lights, and the place was packed—really hot. I had never fainted before, so I didn’t know what it felt like. I’m kneeling on the side of the altar ready to ring the bells and everything starts getting dim, and I’m wobbling around on my knees like a duckpin. Then it goes completely black. I’m right on the verge of fainting but for some reason I didn’t. The conditions were just perfect so I
remained on that cusp, semiconscious and upright, but lights out. I’m just a kid—what do I know? I think some kind of miracle is going on. I feel around the ground and push myself to my feet and face the congregation. They say the priest was in the middle of the consecration when I raised my arms in the air and yelled,
‘I’m blind! God has made me blind!’
Then I fainted in the Easter lilies.”

The Cadillac sailed through the intersection at Okeechobee Boulevard, then Southern, Lake Worth, Lantana, Hypoluxo, down into Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach.

“Lenny, you’re from this area. Know any good safe houses?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Because I’d like to get this car off the road. It’s probably not a hot idea to keep driving it.”

“Didn’t you say the people were looking for us on US 1?” asked Lenny.

Serge nodded.

“Then why don’t we just switch to a different road?”

“Because I love US 1, and besides, most of the people on lookout are really, really, really fucked up. They can probably correctly make out the color pink, but after that it gets dicey. We drive by them, and maybe they see a Cadillac, maybe they see a giant laughing vulva with whitewall tires.”

Lenny unwrapped a Twinkie. “I don’t see what’s so great about this road.”

“It’s tradition. This is the same road that Magluta took when he was on the run.”

“Who?”

“Magluta, as in the Falcon and Magluta. Augusto ‘Willie’ Falcon and Salvador ‘Sal’ Magluta, local boys made good. Went to Miami High and struck it rich in the
coke biz, something like five hundred million dollars, took up speedboat racing before the feds closed in. Magluta jumped bail, and they finally found him right here along this stretch of road, driving a Lincoln Continental, wearing a wig and carrying twenty grand in cash and a fake passport. US 1 has all kinds of character like that.” Click, click, click, Serge snapping photos of condemned motels and discarded malt liquor bottles in piles the size of ancient shell mounds. “I’ll take this any day over the suburbs and your Bed Bath and Beyond.”

“What a horror show,” said Lenny.

“Out here on US 1, life is close to the skin. Anything can happen at any time.” Serge knelt backward in the driver’s seat and took pictures out the rear of the car. Click, click. “This is where the armored car thieves shot it out with the FBI, and the raccoon jumped off that garbage truck and crashed through the windshield of those tourists, and they found the tractor-trailer full of pirated stone crab claws, and the box of Tide detergent fell out the back of a van and split open and three hundred thousand dollars blew all over the place except the local residents told police it was only like eleven dollars.” Click, click. Serge lowered the camera. “Is that Mercedes following us?”

“Don’t fuck with me, man. I’m so high,
everything’s
following us.”

“S
hit. That Mercedes is still behind us,” said Serge.

“This car’s getting too hot. Is that safe house you know any good?”

“One of the best,” said Lenny. “Not only that, but a quick phone and they’ll come pick us up, extract us from just about anything.”

“Can they be counted on?”

“Stone-solid. Used ’em dozens of times.”

“I’m impressed. Very good, Lenny…. Dump truck.”

“What?” Lenny looked up. “Woahhh!” He cut the wheel, narrowly missing the truck making a slow left turn, forcing Lenny to make his own hard left across several lanes of braking, blaring cars.

The traffic light turned red; a white Mercedes eased up and stopped at the intersection as the Cadillac disappeared around the corner.

Lenny stepped up
to the concession stand. He turned to Serge. “Espresso?”

“Better not.”

“It’s good.”

“Okay.”

“Two espressos, please.”

“You say the safe house is nearby?”

“Real close, but they’re still not answering the phone.”

“Try again.”

Lenny dialed and listened. “I think I’m getting through.”

“Ask them to send the extraction team.”

Lenny nodded. He said a few words in the phone and closed it.

“Well?” asked Serge.

“They’re on their way.”

“That should give us time for a race. I love the races here!”

Serge and Lenny walked down a ramp and through the glassed-in lobby, lines of people at teller windows, the floor covered with torn paper stubs. A big funky sign on the wall,
POMPANO BEACH HARNESS RACING
.

“Let’s go out to the grandstand. We absolutely must go to the grandstand,” said Serge. “I love the people, the culture, the smell of the food, the insane betting strategy conversations. We have to go to the grandstand! It’s the only way!”

“What about the briefcase?” asked Lenny, glancing at Serge’s hand. “We don’t want to attract any trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” said Serge. “Not only will there not be trouble, but a parimutuel park is the one place where they
want
you to arrive with a briefcase full of money.”

Lenny looked around at the numerous other people scattered across the lobby with silver Halliburton briefcases—standard for carrying cash around Florida—each being graciously waited on by track staff.

“Good evening,” said a uniformed man, smiling at the
briefcase, then at Serge and Lenny as he opened the door for them.

Serge smiled back. “We absolutely, positively must go to the grandstand.”

“I understand,” said the man.

A fresh night breeze caught them as they headed across the patio. “Forget the grandstand,” said Serge. “I just remembered I hate the fucking grandstand. We’re going all the way down to the railing, where you can see the little pieces of dirt flying off the hooves. We need to be as close to the horses as possible, breathing the same air.”

A dozen hard-core Type AAA personalities had already assembled along the railing when Serge and Lenny took their spot at the end. The starting gate filled up with horses pulling jockeys in small harness carriages.

“I want to place a bet,” said Lenny, opening his racing program. “Number eight sounds good.”

“What’s the name?” said Serge. “It’s all in the name.”

“Entry Withdrawn.”

“Sounds like a winner to me.”

Serge chugged his espresso. “Uh-oh, pole time. You’ll have to wait for the next race to bet.”

A bell rang, the gates flew open.
“They’re off!”

Identical descriptions of
an unusual pink Cadillac began to crop up in crime scene reports from Tampa to Cape Canaveral to Palm Beach. The all-points bulletin went out with a warning in tall letters: “Call for backup.”

A patrol officer was making routine afternoon rounds in a quadrant west of 95, south of Atlantic Boulevard. He swung through a parking lot on standard auto-burglary sweep. Something caught his eye in the third row. He called for backup.

Police were everywhere. Seven cruisers clustered around the pink car in Section D, Row 3, of the Pompano Beach harness track. Evidence handlers with gloves went through the convertible; other officers questioned the valets.

“Look, Ivan! There’s the Cadillac!” said Alexi.

“The place is crawling with cops!” said Dmitri.

“So it is,” said Ivan. He eased the Mercedes slowly past the end of Row 3, then turned in the VIP parking lot. Five men with bandaged feet got out.

The horses went into the first turn.

Serge was strangely quiet. Lenny noticed the empty, crumpled paper espresso cup clutched in his fist. “Are you okay?”

Serge shook himself vigorously like a dog coming in from the rain.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lenny.

“Can’t you smell it?”

“Smell what?”

“The air. It’s crackling with the electricity of memories.” Serge’s arms went up to the sky, his fingers wiggling like he was feeling two big tits. “It’s overwhelming. I’m not sure I can stand it.”

“You all right?”

“I feel like this every once in a while when I get hit with a memory bolt.”

“Memory bolt?”

“My folks used to come here in 1964. Each time I blink, for a microsecond I see the way it looked back then on the inside of my eyelids…”

Lenny nodded. “I’ve gotten acid like that.”

The horses went into the second turn.

“What triggers it?” asked Lenny.

“Espresso and déjà vu. Like a light afternoon rain at the beach, or the sound of lawn mowers on a hot Saturday morning in July, or just before sunset when I’m on the turnpike and I go through those fucking great tollbooths made of coral, or I’m driving back from Miami International on the Dolphin Expressway, and I pass the Orange Bowl and accelerate for that magical skyline, no longer in control, suddenly finding myself in this crazy interchange, then I’m flying south, faster and faster, up on the raised highway, looking out across the sea of coconut palms and orange roof tiles and crime lights, and I’m pulled down a ramp into the city, vibrant murals on the sides of ethnic corner groceries, billboards in Spanish, kids rolling tires up the sidewalk with sticks, radios playing, flowers blooming—and it’s too much beauty, both my eyes feeling like they’re having simultaneous orgasms, an aching inside because I want to consume it all at once, like Van Gogh in Kurosawa’s
Dreams,
and I race over the Rickenbacker, through the sea grapes out to Cape Florida, jumping from the car, running along the seawall and screaming out to sea: ‘Touch one splinter of Stiltsville and I’ll rip your carpetbagging nuts off!’ and then I’m usually asked to leave.”

The crowd roared as the horses came out of turn number three. A knot of five husky men hobbled through the harness track lobby.

“Keep your eye out for a silver briefcase,” said Ivan.

“There’s one!” said Dmitri.

“There’s another one over there!” said Alexi.

“And there’s another one!”

“Of course,” said Ivan. “We’re at a parimutuel facility. These guys are good.”

“Ivan! Down by the track!”

The horses rounded the fourth turn, into the homestretch.

Lenny had a two-handed grip on the back of Serge’s belt as he hung over the railing near the finish line. “C’mon, Entry Withdrawn!”

Five men with bandaged feet came out a door on the left side of the building and began moving toward the track. On the right side, up by the grandstands, police officers questioned members of the track’s staff, who pointed at the finish line.

“Whew! What a race!” Serge jumped down from the railing. He saw something out the corner of his eye. “When’s the extraction team due?”

Lenny checked his wristwatch. “Just a few more minutes.”

“Start walking for the exit, real casual.”