The Riptide Ultra-Glide

by Tim Dorsey

  “Parsons! Parsons Gram! You son of a bitch!”

  The man looked up and squinted into the darkness at the barn doors. “Catfish?”

  Smiles broke out. They approached for a macho, back-slapping hug. Parsons held him out by the shoulders. “How long has it been? And what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Thought I’d take me a little Florida vacation.”

  Parsons simultaneously pointed in opposite directions, east-west. “The beach is that way. And that.”

  “It’s a working vacation.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Parsons. “Here it comes now.”

  “I’ve got a business proposition.”

  Parsons shook his head. “I’ve heard this tune before. Look, I know we had some times—boy, did we. But I’m too old for that shit.”

  “Don’t tell me you’ve settled down.”

  “Like Ward and June.”

  “At least hear me out.”

  Parsons folded his arms and smiled. “For entertainment value.”

  “What are you doing with your horse blankets these days?”

  “Same as usual. Shipping them to Versailles.”

  “Versailles?” Gooch chimed in. “Our Versailles?”

  “My manners,” said Catfish, making way for his traveling companion to step forward. “This is Gooch Spivey, my assistant.”

  Parsons reached out and shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet.”

  “Why do you ship those blankets to Versailles?”

  “For cleaning.”

  “But the shipping cost must be nuts,” said Gooch.

  Catfish and Parsons looked at each other and laughed.

  Gooch glanced back and forth at the two. “Did I miss the joke?”

  Parsons put a hand on his shoulder. “Son, these ain’t regular horses. And those aren’t regular blankets. Actually they are regular blankets, but you can’t just clean them any old way . . .”

  Catfish jumped in: “After morning warm-ups, you got to put blankets on the horses so they don’t chill during the warm-down. And you can’t transfer the blankets horse to horse because they could pick up parasites or skin diseases and such. It’s just not done with Thoroughbreds.”

  “There are only a few places that can clean them right,” said Parsons. “The shipping is nothing to protecting the investment.”

  “But who in Versailles?” asked Gooch.

  “Remember our friend Bing, the firefighter who retired with partial disability?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He got an idea from the department,” said Catfish. “After every blaze, they took the firefighters’ bunker gear and mailed them to Chicago or Philly or some bullshit.”

  “Why?”

  “Federal regulation. Potential carcinogens from burning building materials. They had to be cleaned according to very specific occupational standards before the department could put them back in use. Which means special washing machines that aren’t very common, ten thousand a pop. So Bing bought one, and started doing his old department’s gear for a lower price. Then other departments heard about it, and he bought a second machine and a third. Gear started coming in from Tennessee and Kansas. Ran the operation on the cheap out of an old gas station that had been shut down for leaky tanks.”

  “But what’s that got to do with horses?” asked Gooch.

  “Remember in the nineties when we had to lay low? The pot helicopters? And I had to do odd jobs in a stable?” said Catfish. “So I’m drinking margaritas one night in a Mexican restaurant in Lexington, and run into Bing and we catch up, and he tells me about the new business, and I’m like, you’re sitting on a gold mine and don’t even know it. He draws a blank, and I say, where are you living? Surrounded by horse farms. And I explained my work in the stables and the hassle with the blankets. His machines were perfect. More than perfect. Now he’s got like thirty employees and a new big building near the Keeneland track. He owes me.”

  “I get it,” said Gooch. “We ship all our problems in the horse blankets.”

  “Not a chance,” said Parsons. “Whatever you’re talking about shipping, count me out.”

  “But it will be like old times,” said Catfish.

  “I like the new times . . .”

  A trotting sound outside the doors. A jockey brought in another stakes winner.

  Parsons took the reins as the jockey dismounted. “Thanks, Eddie.”

  Catfish grabbed a second set of reins off an iron hook on the wall. He watched until the jockey was out of sight.

  Then from behind, he wrapped the leather straps around Gooch’s neck.

  “Catfish!” yelled Parsons. “Have you lost your mind?”

  Catfish was too busy with the reins; Gooch turned out to be stronger than he looked. He kicked backward and threw elbows. Eyes bugging out, gasping for breath, thrashing side to side. They crashed into a stable door and went down in the hay, Gooch on top.

  Parsons grabbed a horseshoe and leaped. Bashing Gooch in the head over and over. The body went limp. Blood everywhere. Catfish released the reins and pushed the body off him. “Motherfucker!” He grabbed a hooked knife off a Peg-Board, repeatedly slashing Gooch’s chest and stomach.

  Parsons grabbed Catfish from behind. “He’s dead, man. He’s dead.”

  Catfish was still kicking and cursing the body as Parsons pulled him off. “Jesus Christ! What the hell’s going on?”

  “Let go of me!” Catfish jumped back down and ripped open Gooch’s shirt. “They flipped him.” He pulled a taped mini-microphone and wire off his chest.”

  “Oh my God!” Parsons grabbed his head. “They recorded all this?”

  “Out of range.” Catfish threw the listening device in a pail of water. “That’s why I took these back roads, to make sure there was no tail.”

  Hoofbeats outside the barn.

  “A jockey’s coming!”

  They quickly dragged the body into an empty stall just as another mare came in the stables.

  Parsons took the reins. “Thanks, Willie.”

  The jockey dismounted tentatively, staring at blood spatter on their faces and shirts. “Are you okay?”

  “A bird got trapped in here and was spooking the horses, but we got him.”

  The jockey didn’t answer, just stared some more as he backed away.

  A half hour later.

  “The sun’s already up,” said Parsons.

  “I’m digging as fast as I can,” said Catfish. “You sure they’re not going to develop this land?”

  Parsons threw a shovel of dirt. “Been in the family forever. And I think there’s some kind of historic horse designation . . . Duck.”

  Hoofbeats went by. They peered out of the woods as a jockey disappeared.

  Catfish pulled something out of his pocket.

  Parsons leaned against his shovel. “Why do you have smelling salts?”

  “Because I just felt a pulse. Gooch is only unconscious.” He waved the packet under his victim’s nose. “Ain’t no way I’m letting him sleep through this.”

  Gooch came out of it with a start and moan. “Ooooooo . . . What?” Thoughts of sitting up, but he was beaten too badly.

  Catfish smashed the flat side of his shovel down on Gooch’s nose. “Don’t be passing out on me again! . . . After you stabbed me in the back, I’m going to enjoy every minute of this!”

  “Ooooooo . . .” Gooch’s head fell to the side and he instantly recognized the general dimensions of the rectangular hole they were digging. “Please! Catfish! Don’t bury me!”

  “Sucks to be you.”

  Parsons jabbed the spade back in the rich earth. “So you never told me what we’re smuggling.”

  Catfish explained. “Had some problems lately with our I-95 pipeline.”

  “I saw those intercepted buses on th
e news.” A shovel full of dirt went flying. “That was you?”

  “We got a deal?”

  “Sounds risky. And this ain’t pot we’re playing with.”

  “You know how many horse blankets are moving between Ocala and Kentucky? Nobody will ever suspect.”

  “I should have my head examined,” said Parsons. “Okay, I’m in. When do you want to get started?”

  “How about now? They didn’t find our third bus.” Catfish got on his hands and knees. “The goods are in my trunk.”

  They ducked again. The trotting sound went by and became faint.

  Catfish looked up. “Shit, Gooch passed out again.”

  Another wave of the salts.

  “Oooooo, where am I? . . .”

  Parsons shook his head at Catfish. “A live burial and a life sentence of drugs in your car . . . Man, when you decide to drop in out of the blue, you drop in.”

  They rolled Gooch into the hole.

  “Catfish! Stop! . . .”

  “Shut up!” Catfish jumped down in the hole. “And you’re just the kind of asshole who would pass out again. Well, I’m going to make sure you stay awake as long as possible, and then some.” He violently crammed the smelling salts all the way up one of Gooch’s nostrils.

  “Ahhhh! Ahhhhhhhhhh!”

  Catfish climbed out of the hole and picked up his shovel.

  “No, Catfish! Don’t throw dirt on me!”

  He threw dirt on him.

  Chapter Ten

  TAMPA

  A ’76 Gran Torino cruised along Columbus Drive in West Tampa.

  Serge finished off a large cup of 7-Eleven coffee. “ . . . And another problem I have with Charles Manson. He created image problems with the British.”

  “Not the British again,” said Coleman.

  “Oh, yes,” said Serge. “In jolly old England, a helter-skelter is a child’s playground slide. Can you imagine what we’d think if some Liverpool mass-murder cult smeared their victims’ blood on the walls to spell ‘teeter-totter’?”

  “It’s just embarrassing,” said Coleman.

  “Manson is the gift that keeps on giving.” Serge checked his rearview, then checked it again.

  Coleman lowered his joint. “The police?”

  “No, a Toyota. The driver’s acting suspicious.”

  “How?” asked Coleman.

  Serge looked back again. “Keeps checking his mirrors.”

  “He just changed lanes,” said Coleman. “Coming up on our left.”

  “I’ve seen this movie before.” Serge took his foot off the gas. “He’s making sure there are no witnesses behind us.”

  “Carjacking?” asked Coleman.

  “Nope, the classic Swoop-and-Squat.”

  The joint came back up. “What’s that?”

  “Tampa is now the national insurance-fraud champ. And one of the oldest but still effective methods is the Swoop-and-Squat. The scam artist targets a victim and tails him until conditions are optimal. Then he zooms past and cuts back in front of him and hits the brakes. It’s nearly impossible to avoid a rear-end crash. And under Florida law, the person in back is automatically at fault in the accident because theoretically the person in front has no control over someone following too close. If you’re lucky, they’ll just go for collision damage; if not, they’ll fake whiplash and jam you up for thousands in medical, pain and suffering . . . But I’ve developed a foolproof strategy to not only defeat this tactic, but punish the scofflaw and hopefully illuminate the error of his ways.”

  “He’s racing past us,” said Coleman.

  “The Swoop.”

  “Now he cutting back in. He’s hitting his brakes.”

  “The Squat.” Serge was already applying his own brakes.

  “Wow,” said Coleman. “You were right. He was trying to make us crash.”

  “The fucker,” said Serge. “It’s like Manson all over again.”

  “You’re really hung up on that.”

  “It’s my conscience,” said Serge. “I’ve never admitted this to anyone, but I secretly dug the Manson chicks.”

  “Really?” said Coleman. “Me, too.”

  “You’re kidding,” said Serge. “And all this time I’ve been thinking there was something wrong with me.”

  “No, those babes definitely had it going on.” Coleman took a hit. “They smoked weed. Very hot.”

  “But only until they shaved their skulls and carved Xs in their foreheads,” said Serge. “If you’re on a dinner date with someone like that, your eyes just involuntarily drift upward.”

  “That’s always awkward,” said Coleman.

  “Then you nervously fill up on bread sticks and don’t have room for the T-bone.”

  “What about punishment?”

  “I think some of the women got out of jail.”

  “No, I mean the guy in the Toyota.” Coleman pointed at the windshield with his roach. “You said you were going to teach him a lesson.”

  “Oh, right,” said Serge. “I’m still on it. I’m following him until I can employ my own patented maneuver: Serge’s Squat-and-Scoot.”

  “What’s that?”

  “First I keep tailing him until we come to a red light with a bunch of other cars already waiting.”

  “That light up there just turned red,” said Coleman. “The Toyota’s stopping.”

  “And there are a bunch of cars in front of him,” said Serge. “Now here’s the Squat . . .”

  The Gran Torino eased to a halt in front of a motel converted into an office complex.

  “What about the Scoot?” asked Coleman.

  “ . . . And then I ease forward ever so gently until our bumpers are in contact.”

  “I just felt us touch.”

  “And now I give a quick burst of gas, followed by perfectly timed brakes . . .” Serge used both feet simultaneously on the pedals with coordinated heel-toe action. “ . . . Sending the Toyota crashing into the rear of the car in front of him, but leaving us back here unscathed.”

  “And since he’s the car in the rear?” said Coleman.

  “He gets the blame—no insurance money.” Serge cut the steering wheel. “And then we just back up and take a left to depart down this side street so the guy can’t point fingers when the police arrive . . .”

  Coleman turned around as they drove off. “He’s grabbing his neck. I think he’s screaming in pain.”

  Serge aimed his camcorder. “We don’t even have to fake this.”

  * * *

  A loud noise made Arnold Lip glance up from a patient folder and out the window of his examination room. A Toyota had rear-ended someone at a traffic light; a Gran Torino whipped down a side street.

  Lip swung a rubber hammer.

  “Ow! Bastard!”

  Lip clicked his pen open. “Bruised eyeball.”

  Later that afternoon, an attorney with a Tour de France haircut knocked on the reception window.

  Lip slid it open. “Oh, Hagman, glad you’re here. Listen, I think I’ve got a patient who’s actually injured. What do I do?”

  The lawyer shook his head. “He is injured. One of our guys was pulling a Swoop-and-Squat and went and fucking rear-ended someone. Hurt him pretty bad. Is it too much to ask to drive well enough to cause a simple wreck?”

  Lip pointed over his shoulder. “How’d the victim end up in here?”

  “Luckily, the accident happened right outside our building, and I was able to run out there and tell the banged-up driver that I’d represent him and get some big bucks.”

  “You can get him a lot of money?”

  “No, our guy’s at fault. Make it go away.”

  Lip looked at the file. “The patient can’t move his head, has second-degree facial burns from the air bag and is spitting up some bl
ood.”

  “Tell the insurance company it’s a pre-existing condition.”

  Lip made a notation. “You’re the doctor.” He began closing the reception window.

  Hagman grabbed the edge to hold it open. “That’s not why I came to see you. I’ve got another proposal . . .”

  Arnold finished listening to the concept. “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “We’re already at that dance,” said the lawyer. “What’s the difference?”

  Arnold shrugged.

  “Good,” said the attorney. “We’ll get started tomorrow. I know some people who will play ball . . .”

  The next morning, Arnold and Hagman arrived at the same time in matching Porsche 955s. They parked in adjoining spaces and waved cheerfully at each other.

  “Like your new lifestyle?” asked the lawyer.

  The doctor buffed a spot on the hood with his sleeve. “Yes, thank you.”

  “There’s a lot more where this came from.”

  “So when, uh, do you think we’ll start seeing a return on what you mentioned yesterday?”

  “It’s going to be big, but it’ll take some time . . .”

  Before it had time:

  Hagman Reed locked up his office at the end of the day and headed down to his coupe.

  Arnold was waiting.

  “You don’t look so hot,” said Hagman. “What’s the matter?”

  “I need a lawyer.”

  “Why?”

  “I was indicted this afternoon. I need someone to represent me.”

  “That’s legal stuff. I don’t know any of that.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  “First off, what did they indict you for?”

  For greed. Arnold liked the car, and new clothes and champagne. He’d gotten the taste, and he wanted more. So he bought a second Porsche. He needed the second because he totaled the first after getting hold of a friend and staging their own little accident. Skidded into each other at a remote boat ramp and sank both vehicles. No small percentage of cash from someone else’s wreck this time—they got to keep it all.