by Tim Dorsey
Jacinto shook his head.
“Because I’m a careful man. I have a careful life. Such a thing requires much time and effort,” said Rogan. “And all that work was undone the minute you started scamming scratch-offs. They’ve identified most of our straw buyers and are attempting to connect them back to me. But in the end, they will have nothing. Do you know why they will have nothing?”
“Uh, because you’re a careful man?”
“Because they will no longer be able to locate any of the straw buyers.”
Gulp.
“You are beginning to understand,” said Rogan. “I simply asked that my instructions be followed, but you did not follow them, and now somewhere in some office, they have started a file with my name on it. I like that even less than interrupted lunch. From now on you will follow my instructions, and you will not be told again . . . You may nod now.”
Jacinto nodded fast.
“That is very good,” said Rogan. “You may stop nodding . . . Now then, I have another piece of business in which you might be useful. I have begun noticing a drop in brokered tickets, even before all these raids. Not much of a decrease, but enough that it’s no accident. And in my business experience, that usually means one thing. Someone is moving in on my territory. That is not a good thing. You wouldn’t happen to be involved, would you?”
“No! I swear!” Trembling again as Jacinto downed the rest of his drink. “I would never! . . .”
Time for one of Rogan’s dramatic pauses, which caused the old man to suddenly become verbally incontinent. “On my mother’s grave! I give you my word! Please! Listen! I heard some talk on the street! Some people are going elsewhere! I don’t know where! I didn’t know anything. You have to believe me!”
“Talk on the street?” Rogan said calmly. “That is very interesting. What else did this talk indicate?”
“Nothing!” said Jacinto. “All I heard is that some lawyer is supposedly behind it. Someone trusted in the Latin community. That’s it!”
“See how easy that was?” Rogan turned toward two of the goons. “Check out this talk on the street. I would like to have an appointment with this attorney.”
The pair raced out of the room.
“My day is improving,” Rogan told the old man. “That is a good thing . . . But you still seem to have a look on your face.”
Jacinto desperately tried to change the look on his face so that it was no look, but that just made it a bigger look.
“I think I get it now,” said Rogan. “You have one last question: Of all the stores that were raided, why did my nephew have to be the one to pay? . . . Go ahead, ask.”
“W-w-why did my nephew have to pay?”
“Because he was on TV.”
Chapter 25
One Hour Later
Coleman chugged. Serge scribbled on a clipboard. A boom box blared.
“. . . Get down tonight! Get down tonight! . . .”
Serge hopped up on a bed and fastened something to the drop ceiling with string and thumbtacks. “The Party Store has everything!” He jumped down as a small disco ball began to twirl, sending hundreds of flecks of light across the walls. Other parts of the room were decorated with balloons and crepe-paper streamers and a piñata. A box of cupcakes sat on the nightstand.
“. . . Do a little dance . . .”
Coleman gyrated off balance in a Chubby Checker twist, swinging a bottle of whiskey by the neck. Serge repeatedly sprang up and down around the room in a hyper-spastic version of the pogo.
The captive sat in motionless terror. Wide eyes swung back and forth—Coleman wearing only his undershorts and a panda head, boogying past the TV set; Serge with a beauty-contestant sash from the Party Store across his chest, jitterbugging the other way, waving a gleaming hatchet.
“This is some party!” said Coleman.
“Reminds me of my sixth birthday,” said Serge, attacking the piñata with the small ax. “Die, motherfucker!”
Candy scattered. Serge and Coleman dove on the floor and began wrestling. “I saw the Pez dispenser first!” “It’s mine!” “Give it to me!” “Ow, my hair!” “Ow, you’re bending my finger back!” “I’ll hit you with my whiskey bottle!” “I have a hatchet! . . .”
They released each other and sat on the carpet, gathering Milk Duds and Hershey’s Kisses. “That was fun,” said Coleman. “Can we do it again?”
“We still need to pace ourselves,” said Serge. “This is how Elvis went.”
The candy-collecting jamboree continued. A Baby Ruth stuck out of the panda’s mouth. “What a party!”
“It’s how we roll.”
“Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! . . .”
Coleman pointed. “Our guest doesn’t seem to be having fun. In fact, he looks scared shitless.”
“Probably worried about us because he’s not used to seeing people rock out with Roman warrior stamina.”
Serge walked over to the captive’s chair with the hatchet.
“MMM! MMM! MMM!”
“Oh, that. Sorry.” Serge tossed the ax aside. “Where are my manners! You’re the guest of honor, but we’ve been having all the fun.” He tore the duct tape off the man’s face, mashing a cupcake in his mouth and sticking something on his head like a hat. “That’s your celebration tiara.” Then he replaced the tape.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Someone’s at the door!” Coleman jumped back. “Who can it be?”
“Relax.” Serge unlocked the dead bolt. “We ordered a pizza. It’s automatic with a hostage, remember?”
The door opened and a man with a name tag stepped inside.
“Watch your step,” said Serge. “There’s candy everywhere.”
The delivery guy was about to place the pizza on the bed when he suddenly stopped. He looked Coleman over, then Serge, the disco ball, the hatchet, and finally a bound-and-gagged man with frosting up his nose and an orange traffic cone on his head like a high-visibility dunce cap.
Serge took the pizza and handed over some cash. “There’s a little extra for you in there.” Then he pointed at the candy-strewn floor. “The piñata was bigger than I thought. Need anything?”
“I’m good.”
“Mmm! Mmm! Mmm! . . .”
The delivery guy pointed at the chair. “What’s the deal with him?”
“Just getting his freak on,” said Serge, adjusting his beauty-contestant sash. “Why? Does something seem weird in here?”
“No, I deliver to Miami motel rooms all the time. Have a good one.”
“Thanks for the prompt response.”
The delivery guy was about to leave when he stopped again and looked back in the room. “Wait a second. Didn’t I deliver a pizza to you a few years ago on Collins Avenue?”
“I doubt it.”
“Yeah, you told me it was the Goldfinger Suite or something.”
“You must be thinking of another room where everything was completely okay.”
The pizza man shrugged. “It’s Miami.”
“Thanks for your service.”
The door closed.
Serge stared back at the hostage chair and rubbed his palms together. “Alone at last. And have I got the perfect lesson to help with your people skills. It just came to me . . . Which is why we didn’t only go to the Party Store. We also stopped at the Home Depot! You’re probably wondering why? Because Lowe’s has a color scheme to attract chicks, and that’s a slippery slope. Wait here . . .”
Serge made a few quick trips to the car, returning with a custom-cut piece of plywood and a bunch of cement blocks. “. . . We also went to Sam’s Club . . .” More excursions outside, each time Serge laboring with an outrageously heavy sack, until ten were stacked against the wall. “I know I’m not supposed to like Sam’s Club, but the quantity prices are insane!”
“Another science experiment?” asked Coleman. “What is it?”
“Actually our guest gave me the idea.” Serge ripped the tape off again and got face-to-face with the captive. �
�I don’t know how I can ever thank you. Actually I do, but that’s not in the cards. Sorry, dealer’s choice. The best you can hope for now is the bonus round.”
“W-w-what’s the bonus round?” asked the hostage.
“I’m so glad you asked!” Serge patted him on the shoulder. “If you thought you were in a quandary before, it’s going to get exciting in a big hurry. And the bonus round is this: I used a spray-mist bottle on your cell phone instead of, say, dropping it in the toilet. That way there’s still the possibility it can come back to life. Or maybe not. Who knows or even cares? You obviously didn’t when you splashed me.” He playfully pinched the man’s cheek. “That’s the whole joy of the bonus round! It so unpredictable! . . . If that thing eventually comes back on, you can call 911 before it’s too late. And the bonus round takes points off for lateness.” Serge shivered at the thought. “So here’s the most important part that you must remember above all else. If you turn your phone back on too soon, before it’s sufficiently dry, it’ll fry the circuits. You taught me that concept as well, so additional kudos if I don’t see you again. And if the phone fries, it’s game over. Game over is really bad . . . Well, that’s about it. Welcome to my latest science project!” The tape went back over the mouth for the last time.
A finger pressed a button on the boom box. Sly and the Family Stone came on.
“. . . Dance to the music! . . .”
Serge and Coleman locked arms for a do-si-do square dance, twirling in a circle.
Serge singing: “Welcome to the science world . . .”
Coleman: “Let’s give it up for science world . . .”
“Edison, Newton, the periodic chart . . .”
“Did you know you can light a fart? . . .”
The pair continued crooning as they spun the chair around and tilted it backward until the man’s feet left the floor. Then they began dragging it backward toward the bathroom.
“Mmmmmmmm! Mmmmmmm! . . .”
“Will he survive the bonus round? . . .”
“No one freaking knows . . .”
The bathroom door slammed shut.
Chapter 26
The Next Day
A knock on a door in the Miami Women’s Legal Aid Clinic.
“Come on in.”
The office assistant named Danny took a seat. “I just wanted to thank you for all your help again on the lottery-ticket thing.” She opened her purse and pulled out a large plastic bag full of paper stubs.
“Jesus!” said Brook.
Danny placed the bag on the desk. “There’s so much goodwill toward you in the community that if you ever moved there, you’d never pay for another meal the rest of your life.”
Brook stuck the bag of tickets in a briefcase. “I’ll get moving on this right away.”
“Thanks. There’s plenty more where that came from.”
Danny left and the phone rang.
“This is Brook Campanella . . . Wait, what kind of case? . . . He’s being held where? . . .” She got out a yellow pad and pen. “Okay, back up to the beginning, and don’t leave anything out . . .”
. . . The Florida Keys are unto themselves. No point in trying to make sense. They’re just the Keys being the Keys.
The only road to the string of islands is U.S. 1 out of Florida City. In 1982, the U.S. Border Patrol established a checkpoint on this route outside the Last Chance Saloon, looking for illegal immigrants and drugs. If you know anything about local geography, the bottleneck at Mile Marker 126 is bad enough as it is, the worst possible site for a federal choke point. Traveling by car to the Keys became unworkable. The tourism-dollar lifeblood was cut off. Objections from area officials went ignored.
So they declared independence from the United States.
No kidding. But this time Keys logic actually was logical: If there was a border-crossing station for anyone attempting to either enter or leave the islands, then they were essentially being treated as a separate sovereign state. So they called themselves the Conch Republic. It was all tongue-in-cheek, very silly and quite savvy. The mock celebrations were tailored for TV, and the story made news across the country and overseas. There were T-shirts and hats and beer koozies and even fake passports. The official blue flag with a conch shell began flapping from flagpoles. The U.S. government bowed under the pressure of embarrassment, and the border station was closed.
But the movement became such a hit that sales of Conch Republic keepsakes remain brisk to this day. A huge sign on the runway at the Key West airport welcomes visitors to the fictitious nation. And locals began a contest of sorts. The souvenir passports didn’t just look kind of official; they were dead on. The goal was to see how many times you could use it to enter a foreign country without detection and get it officially stamped. It was great fun and games, especially when showing them off in bars.
There was no official tally, but a man named Ennis Keefe was arguably in the lead with twenty-two official stamps.
Then came 9/11. Homeland Security. The Patriot Act.
Ennis was still sailing smoothly, until he decided to go for the most coveted customs stamp of all. The United States of America.
A twin-prop commuter flight from the Bahamas landed at Miami International on a quiet Tuesday afternoon. Ennis arrived at the international air side and presented a small leatherlike booklet from the Conch Republic. He was still smiling when they slapped on the cuffs.
“It’s just a joke,” said Ennis. “I’m really a U.S. citizen and my regular passport is in that bag, so you can release me now.”
Customs people were on phones and walkie-talkies. More agents arrived. Then a transport van.
“Seriously, guys, I do this all the time,” said Ennis. “It’s harmless.”
“I’m listening,” said a senior agent. “What exactly do you do all the time?”
Ennis exhaled with relief. “Thank you! Finally someone reasonable! Just call anyone in Key West. It’s this game we play in the bars to see how many stamps we can collect.”
The agent flipped the pages of the ersatz passport. “How many foreign stamps have you collected in this game?”
“Twenty-two! I was in the lead but someone just tied me,” said Ennis. “So if you’d be kind enough to just hit that thing with your own stamp, it would really make my day.”
“Let me see if I have this straight,” said the agent. “For a couple of decades now, you’ve been traveling all over the world and entering these countries illegally with a forged document?”
“No, not forged,” said Ennis. “They sell them in the T-shirt shops all over Duval Street.”
His luggage was quarantined and taken out to a remote field. They had determined that the suitcases posed no threat, but blew them up anyway because it was fun. Frightened eyes stared out the metal screen in the back of an INS van as it drove through the barbed-wire entrance gates of a sprawling, fortified facility surrounded by the equally sprawling migrant farmlands near Homestead. Ennis became the only U.S. citizen detained in the infamous Krome Detention Center . . .
. . . Brook finished scribbling. “Thanks . . . Yeah, I have a pretty good idea where to get started. Just tell your brother not to say another word.”
She hung up and dialed again. “Reevis, it’s me, Brook . . . Yeah, I’ve been busy. How about dinner tomorrow night? . . . Listen, you know how you’re always asking me if I’ve got a good story and press coverage will help my client? . . . Oh, it’s a real beauty . . .”
A Few Miles South
A plump man sat on a bus bench along U.S. Highway 1 in North Miami, angrily folding furry black-and-white arms.
“Coleman, I thought we talked about this,” said Serge. “Pandas are out.”
“I don’t want to be set on fire again.”
“It was a controlled burn,” said Serge. “You saw all the business we brought in.”
“My lips still hurt,” said Coleman. “And my hair is singed!”
“It’ll grow back. Here’s some ChapStick.”
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Coleman looked away in a rare stand of defiance to his lifelong friend.
“Don’t you see what is happening across the street?” said Serge.
“Yeah, the gorilla.”
“He’s twirling flaming batons,” said Serge. “He stole that from us. I’m telling you, fire is the future! The first caveman who said that also got blowback.”
“Pandas are as far as I go.” Coleman rubbed his fluffy white chest. “If you like fire so much, why don’t you do it?”
“You think I’m afraid of a little fire?” Serge jumped up. “I’ll show you!”
He went over to the trunk of his car, pulled out a bag and began slipping his legs into a suit.
Coleman wandered over in curiosity. “Where’d you get that outfit?”
“At the Party Store. You were busy checking out the beer funnels.”
Coleman scratched an armpit as Serge finished climbing into the costume.
“A cheetah?”
“Not just any cheetah.” Serge put on the head. “Chester Cheetah.”
“Who’s that?”
Serge pulled more equipment from the trunk. “The Cheetos mascot.” He began connecting a series of curved metal tubes.
Coleman removed his head as he watched his pal insert the assembly into a large metal base. “You like cheetahs?”
“I like Cheetos.” Serge grabbed a bottle that said Flammable. “Besides, the cheetah is the perfect animal to match my wiry, spring-loaded persona.”
“But you said you didn’t have time to do the costume thing—that I was the talent and you were the manager.”
“It’s this economy,” said Serge. “Business is booming. I just got a lead on a pair of high-paying gigs at a nearby strip mall, so I’m forced to step off the sidelines.” He poured the contents of the bottle into a hole at the top of the contraption.
“Where’d you get that thing?”
“Also from the Party Store. They have everything!”
Coleman glanced around furtively, then lit a short joint and put the panda head back on.
People on the sidewalk stopped to watch as Serge dragged his assembly to the middle of the lot. He went back to his trunk, retrieving a pair of gymnastic tumbling mats that he placed in strategic positions. Other onlookers began peering out store windows.
