by Tim Dorsey
“It’s hot, so don’t touch the dish.” She stuck two big serving spoons in the casserole.
Serge got up and held her chair.
“Why, thank you, Serge.”
Lenny began chowing. Serge tucked a napkin into his collar and cleared his throat. Lenny looked up. “Prayer,” Serge whispered.
“Sorry.” Lenny put down his fork, folded his hands and bowed his head.
“May I, Mrs. Lippowicz?” asked Serge.
“Of course. Thank you, Serge.” She turned to Lenny. “Your friend has such nice manners.”
Serge bowed his own head and closed his eyes. “God, please protect us from your followers. Amen.”
They began serving.
“Good prayer,” said Lenny.
Serge piled his plate. “It’s from a bumper sticker.” He took a bite. “This is delicious, Mrs. Lippowicz. You’re an incredible cook.”
“Thank you. It’s tuna noodle casserole with browned Tater Tots on top.”
“The Tater Tots make it,” said Serge.
Mrs. Lippowicz passed Lenny the salt and pepper. “Why can’t you be more like your nice friend Serge?”
Midnight, Lenny’s bedroom.
Serge’s eyes opened in the bottom bunk. Something had awoken him. He looked around, then noticed the bed was vibrating. His eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement. The vibrations increased.
Serge looked up at the bunk above him. The shaking got worse. “What on earth—?”
He tried to sit up, but the bed pitched and knocked him back down.
“Lenny, what the hell are you doing up there?”
No answer. The bed started rocking violently, the bottoms of its four wooden legs rattling and tapping on the floor. Serge grabbed the sides of his mattress and hung on as the bunk began to slowly slide and rotate across the terrazzo bedroom floor like a puck on an air hockey table.
“Lenny! Take it easy! It’s not going anywhere!”
Serge stuck his head out the side of the bed and looked up. The bed bucked again and tumbled him onto the ground.
The rocking stopped.
“Lenny? You okay?”
“I’m pretty thirsty now.”
“No kidding. You were going at it like Chuck Yeager trying to pull an X-15 out of a terminal spin.”
Lenny swung his legs over the side of the bunk and jumped down. “I’m completely awake now.” He went over and opened a dresser drawer and took out a baggie. “And I’m out of weed. We have to go get some.”
“I’m not going to a drug hole, especially not at this hour.”
“How about a restaurant or a lounge? I’m pretty good at connecting on the fly.”
“My choice?”
“Sure.”
“Then I have a historic place in mind.”
Lenny checked the Magilla Gorilla clock on his dresser. Almost one. “Is this place still open?”
“Not even hopping yet.”
Two dark figures came out of the ranch house and walked down the driveway toward the van.
Ivan reached over to the Mercedes’s driver seat and shook Vladimir’s shoulder. “Wake up!”
“Wha—what is it?”
“They’re on the move!”
The Benz fell in line six cars back as the van merged southbound on I-95. They passed the executive airport, then Oakland Park and Sunrise Boulevard, the van accelerating the whole time, changing lanes.
“Keep up with them!” yelled Ivan.
“I’m trying!” said Vladimir.
The van cut left across three columns of traffic and squeezed between a Dodge pickup and the median retaining wall.
“Lenny, we’re not in a lane anymore,” said Serge. “You can’t drive with your head below the dash.”
“Just a sec. My beer rolled under the seat.”
Ivan pointed. “They’re getting away!”
“Hold on,” said Vladimir. He floored it and passed a BP tanker on the right shoulder. The van suddenly accelerated again. It seemed to fake right, then shot to the left and into a tight space that briefly opened between a Lexus and a Probe GT. Then another jump left, swerving a couple times within the lane, braking fast and sliding right again, almost going up on two wheels.
“You’re losing them!” said Ivan.
“They’re just too good.”
The van fishtailed as it came out of a banking maneuver. A fierce spray of suds shot around the inside of the vehicle, covering the windshield.
“Lenny, I told you not to open the can. It was bulging.”
“I didn’t think it had been shaken up that much.” Shooting streams of beer hit both of them in the face.
“Get it out of here!”
Lenny cut off a honking Bronco and rolled down the window.
“They’re going for the exit,” said Vladimir. “Stay close.”
“They just threw something out the window…. It just exploded…” Vladimir swerved around it.
“Foaming diversionary device,” said Ivan, nodding with respect. “Israelis.”
The Mercedes swung back in time to take the same exit and made a skidding left turn through the yellow light at the bottom of the ramp. They stayed with the van when it turned on Federal Highway and again when it grabbed the St. Brooks Memorial Causeway. Then, suddenly, nothing.
“Where’d they go?” asked Vladimir.
“Shit,” said Ivan. “He’s probably heading for a meet in one of the beach motels. That’s standard.”
Vladimir raced up the bridge over the Stranahan River, then slowed as they coasted down the far side, everyone looking around. Rippled reflections of white condo lights in the Intracoastal Waterway. Red and green running lights from sailboats.
They came off the bridge. Vladimir pointed. “There it is! There it is!”
They pulled up the hotel driveway, got out and headed across the valet parking lot. Ivan walked up to the van and looked through the windshield at the valet ticket hanging from the rearview. “It’s for one of the restaurants, not the hotel, so that narrows it. Igor, Dmitri—you wait here with the van, in case they come back. The rest of you, follow me!”
The inside of the elevator was brass. Ivan and the others couldn’t place the Muzak as they rode up to the top of the hotel. The doors opened into the big revolving rooftop bar with a raised, obstructing bandstand in the middle. Ivan directed them to split into two groups and go in opposite directions to sweep the place. They met back up on the far side, empty-handed.
“This is the only restaurant left open. They must have stopped in a rest room or something,” said Ivan, taking a chair at one of the few empty cocktail tables. “We’ll wait.” He turned and looked out the window, down at his men waiting by the black van.
Serge and Lenny watched the numbers climb inside their elevator car.
“I thought it was going to be a new place,” said Lenny. “We come here all the time.”
“How can you get too much of Pier 66?” said Serge. “If it was good enough for Travis McGee.”
“I can’t believe they detained us in the security office like that just because you were taking all those pictures.”
“History-haters.”
The elevator doors opened as a cell phone rang at the Russians’ table. Ivan answered it. Serge and Lenny headed around the opposite side of the bar.
“Yes, we received the flowers, Mr. Grande…. That was a very thoughtful gesture…. No, still no sign of the money, but I’ve got this feeling….”
Serge and Lenny grabbed two chairs. Serge laid the briefcase on top of the cocktail table. “Now watch carefully. This was the infamous Sea of Hands Play.”
Serge used a finger to draw a diagram in the dust on the side of the metal case.
“The date: December twenty-first, 1974. But it seems like just yesterday. The stage is set. The Dolphins are leading twenty-six to twenty-one with thirty-five seconds left. Looks like they’re on their way to a third straight Super Bowl title. But they were about to get bitten by the Snake.”
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“The Snake?”
“Kenny ‘the Snake’ Stabler, quarterback of the Oakland Raiders, a diabolical little shit from Mobile, Alabama.” Serge drew some more on the briefcase. “The clock is ticking. The Dolphins secondary is all over the mighty Fred Biletnikoff. Stabler has no place to throw. The Miami linesmen are closing. The heat is too much!…” Serge’s finger zigzagged in the dust. “The Snake lunges forward into the pocket and rolls left. But the legendary Dolphin defensive end Vern Den Herder stays with him, gaining fast from behind! Vern dives and tackles Stabler around the knees, and the Snake goes down! Dolphins win!”
“Wow,” said Lenny.
“But wait! What’s this?” said Serge, making an arc with his pinky. “As Stabler is halfway to the ground, he throws the ball toward the end zone. It could never even politely be called a pass. It was a desperation release, like someone flinging a bag of dope out a car window.”
“What happened?”
Serge drew three X’s and one O. “A trio of Dolphins surround the lone Raider receiver. Eight hands reach for the ball, the now famous Sea of Hands. But the two that come down with the pigskin belong to Oakland’s Clarence Davis…” Serge furiously erased everything on the briefcase fast with both hands. “…Touchdown! Oakland wins! The Dolphin Empire crumbles!”
He pounded the briefcase with his fists—“Why! Why! Why!”—then his forehead.
“Why! Why!…”
“So you were kinda into that game?” asked Lenny.
“Stabler might as well have stabbed me through the heart with one of the yardage poles!…Lenny?…Lenny, are you listening?”
“Why’s that guy at the bar looking at me?”
“Probably because you’re looking at him.”
“He looks familiar. Doesn’t he look familiar to you?”
“No.”
“Of course! I know who it is! That’s the drummer for——.”
Serge studied the man some more. “You know, you might be right.”
Lenny waved for their waitress. “Who’s that guy at the bar?”
“The drummer for——.”
“I knew it! I’m getting an autograph.” Lenny grabbed a napkin and went to the bar. “Aren’t you the drummer for——?”
The man killed a whiskey on the rocks and smiled. “Yes, I am.”
“Can I get your autograph?”
“Sure thing.” He took the napkin from Lenny and wrote his name.
“Thank you.” Lenny stuck the napkin in his pocket. “Mind if I sit here?”
“Go ahead.”
“Man, I can’t believe I’m meeting you! I loved you guys! Whatever happened to the band?”
“We’re still together.”
“Maybe it’s because you don’t have any new albums.”
“We’ve released one every year.”
“I don’t really go in record stores a lot. You guys should start touring again.”
“We tour all the time.”
“…Gee, sorry…. Well, anyway, I love you guys!”
“Thank you.”
“Can I buy you a drink?”
“Sure.”
Lenny waved over at Serge. “Buy this guy a drink. And can I get one, too?”
Serge got out his wallet.
Three drinks later, they were all back at Serge’s table.
“Serge, do you know who this guy is?”
“You told me.”
“I did? Well, let’s buy him a drink!…I’ll take one, too.”
Two more. Lenny turned to the drummer. He put his thumb and index finger together and put them to his lips and sucked. Then he raised his eyebrows in a question.
The drummer nodded.
“You get high?”
“Yeah, you?”
“Yeah, wanna get high?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
They got up from the table and headed for the men’s room.
“Uh-oh,” said Serge. “Here we go.”
Lenny checked the stalls. No one there. He met the drummer back at the sink and rubbed his palms together in anticipation.
“Okay, break it out,” said the drummer.
“What do you mean?”
“Break out your shit.”
“I don’t have any shit. I thought you had it.”
“You said, ‘You wanna get high?’”
“So?”
“So that’s the guy that’s supposed to have the shit.”
“No, no, no,” said Lenny. “You said, ‘Let’s go.’ That’s the guy with the shit.”
“Usually, but you said the other thing first, and that’s the thing that counts, first.”
“I’ve been doing this for a while, thank you.”
“So you don’t have any shit?”
“No!”
They sighed and left the men’s room.
“How’d it go?” Serge asked as they sat back down.
“Miscommunication…. Wait! I almost forgot! I have some emergency money in my sock. Let’s buy some dope!”
“Great!” The drummer got his own money out. “How much you got?”
Lenny pulled crumpled bills from his sock and piled them on top of the briefcase. “Looks like forty-three dollars. How much you got?”
“Sixty,” said the drummer. “That ought to cover us. A quarter’s still a hundred, right?”
“Last time I checked.”
“You’re not a cop, are you?”
“You kidding?”
“I’m a target, you know. They’re always looking for high-profile busts to get on the news.”
“Tell me about it.”
“So you’re not a cop?”
“Not remotely.”
“Okay, we’ll meet right here in, say, an hour?”
“Here in an hour?”
“Yep. You sure you’re not a cop?”
“Yep, you sure you’re the drummer for——?”
“Yep.”
“Then it’s all set.”
“Let’s do it!”
“We’re on!”
They sat there staring at each other.
“Well?” said the drummer.
“Well what?”
“Why are you just sitting there?”
“I thought you were going.”
“I thought you—”
“Shit.”
“But you were the one who said, ‘Let’s buy some—’”
“Stop,” said Lenny, shaking his head. “This is getting way, way too complicated. Let’s back up and start over.”
“Okay.”
They each grabbed handfuls of money off the briefcase and stuck it back in their pockets.
“How much you got?”
“Forty-three dollars. How much you got?…”
Serge smacked himself in the forehead. He slid the briefcase off the table and set it down on the floor between his leg and the wall. Except he unwittingly set the briefcase on the ledge of the wall. The bar was revolving. The ledge was not. The briefcase began rotating away.
“I know this pot dealer with a scar…” said Lenny.
“I know him, too!” said the drummer.
The briefcase kept moving, rotating past the legs of unsuspecting customers. Table after table, typical south Florida hotel bar culture, three airline pilots from Ithaca, pharmaceutical salesmen hooked on their own samples, a Dutch tour group, headhunters, plastic surgeons, food photographers, four motivational speakers in town for a seminar on how to make one hundred thousand dollars a year repairing cracks in windshields with a simple tube of adhesive. The briefcase kept going, past the legs of two men sipping goblets of vodka and grapefruit juice.
“You’ve gone into another printing!” Tanner Lebos told Ralph Krunkleton. “Have you seen the new cover?”
Tanner passed the glossy prototype across the table to Ralph, who noticed some additional words across the top: New York Times Bestseller!
“It made the bestseller list?” asked Ralph
.
“Haven’t you heard?”
“I didn’t see anything in the papers.”
“That’s because they only print the top ten or fifteen titles.”
“What number am I?”
“One hundred ninety-four.”
“That’s on the list?”
“The list is actually thousands long. Theoretically, every book is on the list, but for the sake of integrity, we cut it off at five hundred….”
“We have honor.”
“You know, I just reread the book,” said Tanner. “I’d forgotten a lot of it. It’s even better than I remembered.”
“Thanks.”
“Like that character the urinal guy. How’d you think that up? What an imagination!”
“Imagination nothing. I did that. I was on a roadtrip in college. This was before credit cards. I ran out of money and couldn’t get back….”
The briefcase kept going, more legs. Conventioning oncologists, conventioning lapidaries, conventioning Mary Kay sales leaders with pink cars in the garage. Another quarter of the way around the bar, under another table, a heated discussion, Russian accents.
“Dammit!” said Ivan. “We were this close to that money! This close!…”
Still rotating, more legs. Diamond dealers on sabbatical, gigolos on the make, Panamanian strongmen, Brazilian bombshells, American tragedies. The briefcase went past the legs of five women with five glasses of Sex on the Beach.
“I can’t believe you haven’t finished The Stingray Shuffle,” said Rebecca.
“I’ve been busy,” said Sam.
“You won’t believe what happens to the five million dollars.”
“Don’t give it away!”
Teresa stood and took a snapshot out the window. “So this is Travis McGee’s old stomping ground.” Another snapshot. “Let’s read a Travis book next.”
“Let’s not and say we did,” said Sam.
“What are you talking about?” said Maria. “They’re great!”
“The women are always objects,” said Sam. “In fact, the more I read, I’m not even sure I like Travis.”
That rocked the whole table.
“What?” said Maria. “You mean, you wouldn’t have slept with Travis?”
“Are you kidding?”
“I would have,” said Paige.
“I’d have slept with Meyer,” said Rebecca.
“Ewwwwww!” said the other four.
