The Stingray Shuffle

by Tim Dorsey

  The briefcase kept going, more legs, litterbugs, bookworms, social butterflies, midlife counselors, postmodern sculptors, premature ejaculators.

  Serge looked up. “Oh no.”

  Two large-chested men in black suits, black shirts and pointy shoes. They walked quickly toward Serge’s table, coats over their arms concealing something.

  Serge’s eyes locked on the men. His right hand slowly reached for the pistol in his waistband, his left felt blindly under the table and grabbed the handle of the briefcase as it came rotating by. “I knew this would happen,” he whispered to himself. “I knew they were bound to send someone sooner or later.”

  The men were twenty feet away, then ten. Serge cocked the pistol under the table. The men turned and climbed onto the musicians’ bandstand. They pulled a flute and a mandolin from under their coats and began playing Kenny G.

  Serge fell back in his chair with a breath of relief. He set the briefcase back down, not on the ledge this time.

  “…We meet back here in an hour, okay?” asked Lenny.

  “How will I know who you are?” asked the drummer.

  “I’ll be wearing this shirt.”

  Serge smacked his forehead again.

  “What’s the matter with your friend?” asked the drummer.

  “I need some air,” said Serge. He picked up the briefcase and headed around the curved side of the bar and pressed the elevator button. He overheard conversation fragments behind him. “…Nyet!” “Vladimir!”

  Hmmm, Serge thought, Russian mob….

  He walked back to his table and handed Lenny the briefcase. “I need you to hide in one of the stalls with this and wait for me.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Ivan.

  “What is it?” asked Dmitri.

  “I think it’s him. Dummy up!”

  Serge approached the table. “Hi guys. You the Russian mob?”

  The Russians reached under the table for ankle holsters. Ivan discreetly waved them off. He turned to Serge. “No, we’re with Amway.”

  “Right,” said Serge, winking. He pointed. “What happened to your feet?”

  “Amway accident.”

  “Mind if I join you?” Serge pulled up a chair before they could object. “I have a proposition for Amway.”

  A half hour later, everyone was laughing, shaking hands and slapping backs. Serge stood. “Then it’s all set?”

  “All set.”

  “Sunday at midnight,” said Serge. “You remember the place?”

  “We remember.”

  26

  Serge sat with Lenny at the bar in the B&H Deli near Cape Canaveral. Lenny dialed a number on his cell phone. No answer. He hung up and dialed again. It began ringing again. He turned to Serge.

  “I still don’t understand why we had to pay for a taxi from Pier 66 when we had the van.”

  “I told you already. Because they were going to ambush us in the parking lot. That’s standard. Didn’t you see the two guys waiting for us?”

  “But I thought you made a deal with them.”

  “I did. We’re still on.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You’d never make it in the business world.”

  Lenny hung up and dialed his cell phone again. He put the phone to his ear.

  “Will you stop that?” said Serge. “You’ve been doing it all night. It’s getting on my nerves.”

  “I have to reach the drummer for——. He’s supposed to get me some weed.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to happen.”

  “But he’s got my forty-three dollars.”

  “Write it off as the stupidity tax.”

  “No way,” said Lenny. “The drummer for——would never rip me off.”

  “Lenny, he’s not trying to screw you by not coming through. It’s because he’s hapless, just like you.”

  “He’s not coming back?”

  Serge put his arm around Lenny’s shoulder. “It’s a cruel world.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Lenny hit a series of numbers again on his cell phone. No answer.

  Serge swung around to face the barstool on his other side and began hitting on an off-duty stripper…. Well, not really hitting on.

  “Did you know that after every successful liftoff, the launch team eats the exact same thing—biscuits and beans?”

  “Don’t talk to me,” said the dancer, lighting a Camel.

  “It’s tradition!” said Serge. “You look like a bright girl. Ever think of going out for the space program?”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Drunk with enthusiasm for life!” said Serge, hoisting a briefcase onto the bar.

  Lenny punched numbers on his phone. “Why doesn’t he answer?” He dialed again. “Hold on! Someone’s picking up!”

  A woman’s sleepy voice answered. “Mmmm, uh, hullo…?”

  “May I speak to the drummer for——?”

  Serge and the stripper heard the yelling from Lenny’s phone. “What are you, a fucking comedian?…(Click.)”

  Lenny closed the phone with a stunned look. “The drummer for——gave me the wrong number.”

  “Lenny, this is how bad you’ve gotten. Almost everyone else goes out partying and they wake up the next morning and look in their wallet and say: ‘Where the hell did all my money go?’ But you’re such a mess you invert the paradigm. People get wrecked and run into you and the next morning they go, ‘Where’d all this money come from?’ Do you understand what I’m getting at here?”

  Lenny nodded.

  “Good.”

  “So how do I get my forty-three dollars back?”

  Serge turned to the stripper and slapped the top of his briefcase. “Guess what’s in here.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “Five million dollars! You know what I’m going to use the money for? Want me to tell you?”

  “No.” She blew out a big stream of smoke.

  “It’s been my lifelong dream. I’m going into space!”

  “Goodie for you.”

  “Haven’t you read the Dennis Tito articles? Everything’s for sale now in the former republic. Tanks, bombs, Fabergé eggs. I met some mobsters in Lauderdale. Turns out they also do some work for the Russian space agency. The deal’s all set up. We make the swap at the rendezvous tonight. I give them the money and they give me my space suit, to show good faith. Then I fly out to the Baikonur Kosmodrome, go through six months of intense training, blast off on a Soyuz, and next thing you know I’m in the International Space Station helping mice copulate in zero gravity.”

  She stubbed out her cigarette. “Buy me a drink.”

  “Don’t have any money.”

  “Thought you said you had five million.”

  “They might count it.”

  “Your whole story’s horseshit,” she said. “I’ve fucked people in the space program, and they won’t even give me a damn launch viewing pass. There’s no chance you could bribe your way onto the Space Station.”

  “Not through NASA, but it’s a totally different culture over in Russia,” said Serge. “They’re Communists, which means it’s all about money.”

  Serge stood with Lenny in the dark at the rendezvous point, checking his illuminated wristwatch: 12:01 A.M. “Where can they be?”

  “How can I get my forty-three dollars back?”

  “Sometimes you just have to let go.”

  A slight breeze came off the ocean. A twig snapped.

  “Ivan?” Serge whispered. “Is that you?”

  Out of the distant shadows came a silhouette, then a second, a third, a fourth, and finally five dark forms stood abreast thirty yards away.

  “You got the money?”

  “Right here,” said Serge, tapping the briefcase.

  “Put it on the ground.”

  “Where’s my space suit?”

  “It’s in the car.”

  “Forget it,” said Serge. “First I get my space suit, with
my name over the pocket. Spelled right. That was the arrangement.”

  “You really are crazy.”

  “No space suit, no deal.”

  The five pulled automatic weapons. “The deal’s changed,” said Ivan. “Put the money on the ground and step away.”

  Serge pointed at them. “Hey! You’re not really with the Russian space program!”

  Bullets began flying.

  “I’m hit!” Lenny yelled, going down and gripping his leg. Serge grabbed him by the armpits and pulled him to cover. Bullets pinged off the missile they were slouched behind in the Rocket Garden at Kennedy Space Center.

  “Stop it! Stop shooting!” yelled Serge. He ran out from behind the rocket and threw himself across the front of the Titan, spreading his arms wide, a human shield. “I’m begging you! This is our history!”

  Ivan grinned. He turned and fired at a Juno II.

  “No!” screamed Serge.

  Then an Atlas-Agena got it right between the tail fins.

  “Please!” yelled Serge. “Anything!”

  Ivan walked over to the next rocket and pressed the muzzle of his gun against the first stage.

  “Hand over the briefcase or the Mercury-Redstone gets it!”

  Serge felt down in the zippered leg compartment of his royal blue jumpsuit. He wrapped his fingers around the antique grenade, his ace in the hole. He looked up at the rockets. They were bound to take shrapnel. Too risky. He removed his hand from the pocket.

  “Okay! Okay!” said Serge. “Just don’t shoot!”

  He took the briefcase by the handle and twirled himself in a circle three times like a discus thrower and let the briefcase sail. The moonlight caught the metal finish as it tumbled through the air. It landed a few feet in front of the Russians. Vladimir ran up, flipped the latches and raised the lid. He looked over his shoulder at Ivan. “It’s all here.”

  “Good,” said Ivan, looking up at Serge and breaking into a smile. “Now you die!”

  The foot pursuit was slower than a three-legged race, Serge helping Lenny limp along, the Russians hobbling after them on bandaged feet. Serge and Lenny took off across the visitor concourse. The Russians fanned out to form a net and flush them into the courtyard. They encircled the pavilion and cased the IMAX theaters, Gift Gantry and Nebula Café. But they were no match for Serge, who knew the grounds of the space center like a womb. Soon it was quiet again; the Russians stood bunched together on the lawn, in front of a giant viewing window at the welcome center, scratching their heads with their guns.

  There was a tremendous crash. A shower of broken glass sprayed the Russians, who ducked and shielded their faces as a moon buggy flew through the shattered window, sailed over their heads, and began bounding away. The Russians started shooting, but the vehicle had already made it to the edge of the Merritt Island Wildlife Sanctuary and disappeared into the swamp grass. The Russians ran for their Mercedes.

  The moon buggy may have been a tourist attraction replica, but it was fully functional, with the same big moon tires and moon suspension—about the only vehicle around that could handle the spongy bog terrain of the sanctuary. The Mercedes’s back wheels spun into the muck before it had gone twenty feet.

  Two EMTs loaded an empty stretcher and closed the back doors of an ambulance parked in front of an emergency room in Titusville.

  A moon buggy pulled up.

  “Can you give Major Nelson here a hand?” said Serge, getting Lenny out of the rover. “He usually sees Dr. Bellows.”

  The EMTs helped Lenny through the automatic glass doors. One of them came back out as Serge started up the moon buggy. “Hey! Wait a minute!”

  “Big problem at the Cape,” said Serge, waving and pulling away. “They need me.”

  The Moon Hut restaurant, “Where the Moon People Dine,” is a Cape Canaveral institution.

  Built in the Sputnik era, the small-town diner sits near the ocean at the bend in A1A where the road swings west from Cocoa Beach toward the Kennedy Space Center. It opens before dawn every morning, when NASA workers and civilian contractors jam the place. The neon sign out front depicts a thatched hut sitting on the Sea of Tranquillity. The diner has two themes. Space flight and country arts and crafts. The traditional American menu has an unexplained number of Greek dishes. Everyone eats at the Moon Hut. Astronauts, politicians, movie stars.

  A waitress led five big men and a briefcase over to a table.

  Ivan took a seat next to a blastoff photo. Dmitri sat down under a spinning loom.

  “Be right back with your water.” The waitress left.

  Ivan peeked over the top of a laminated menu, then ducked back down. “That’s Annette Bening.”

  “Where?” asked Dmitri, turning around.

  Ivan smacked him with his menu. “Don’t look!”

  “Why not?”

  “Everyone looks!”

  “What’s she doing here?”

  “Getting coffee to go.”

  “If that’s Annette, where’s Warren?”

  “Must be in the car with the kids. They’ve settled down, you know.”

  The five men were peeking over the tops of their menus when the waitress returned.

  “Is it too early for the flaming Greek cheese?” asked Ivan.

  She shook her head no.

  “Flaming Greek cheese. Five,” said Ivan. “And five coffees.”

  She collected the menus.

  “Excuse me,” Ivan whispered. “Is that Annette Bening?” He tilted his head slyly toward the register.

  “I don’t know,” said the waitress. She turned to the front counter. “Hey, Annette!”

  The woman at the register looked around.

  “That’s her,” said the waitress.

  Coffee arrived, then cheese. A phone rang. Ivan flipped it open.

  “Good morning, Mr. Grande…. Yes, I have good news…. That’s right, we’ve got the you-know-what.…We’re at the Moon Hut…. No, the Moon Hut…. No, you get breakfast here…. Because it’s America…. Excuse me a minute, they’re setting the cheese on fire…. No, I haven’t been drinking….”

  The waitress came to refill coffee. Ivan put a hand over his cup.

  “…No, that won’t be a problem, Mr. Grande…. A submarine?…Yes, I’ve seen them…. No problem, ask for Yuri. I’m writing the name down now…. That’s in New York, right?…I understand completely…. We won’t let you down….”

  Ivan closed his phone and stood up. “Waitress? We’ll need this to go.”

  In the very back of the Moon Hut, in the history room, a waitress prepared to refill a glass of ice water. “That won’t be necessary,” said Serge, standing up and taking out his wallet.

  27

  It may have been December 30, but nobody told Palm Beach.

  The mercury hit eighty by noon. The BBB was using a Krunkleton paperback again as a bar-hopping guide. They nursed ten-dollar drinks in the back of the Breakers.

  Paige stared down at an angelfish swimming under her napkin. An orange-and-purple damsel swam the other way through coral. “I’ve heard of bars that had aquariums, but I’ve never been in one where the bar actually is an aquarium.”

  “The Kennedys used to jog over there,” said Teresa, looking out the huge windows behind the bar as sea foam rolled in from the Atlantic.

  “What a beautiful day,” said Maria.

  “Just one more day left until the new year,” said Rebecca, raising her drink. “Here’s to a new year with old friends.”

  Glasses clinked.

  “What are your resolutions?” asked Maria.

  “You know what? I’ve had it with resolutions!” said Rebecca. “No more resolutions!”

  “That sounds like a resolution.”

  “I have an idea,” said Teresa. “Let’s make antiresolutions.”

  “I want to eat something fat at midnight,” said Paige.

  “C’mon, let’s think big,” said Teresa.

  “Let’s do something crazy,” said Rebecca.

>   “Yeah,” said Maria. “Really irresponsible.”

  Teresa stood and grabbed her purse. “Come on.”

  “Where?” said Maria.

  “I don’t know yet.”

  They headed back through the hotel lobby, stopped by the front desk and began going through the rack of tourist brochures. Teresa picked up and put down pamphlets. “Dreher Park Zoo, nope; Norton Gallery, nope; Clematis Concert Series, nope; Polo Club, definitely nope…”

  “Wait a minute,” said Maria, slowly opening a brochure with a silver Amtrak train on the cover. “Look at this.”

  “What is it?”

  “A mystery train. New York to Miami. Departs New Year’s Day.”

  “What’s a mystery train?”

  “You know, they act out whodunits, passengers participate.”

  “Oh my God!” said Maria, folding over the pamphlet and holding it out to the others. “Look at the book they’re going to perform.”

  “The Stingray Shuffle!” said Teresa. “That’s too much of a coincidence.”

  “We’re meant to get on that train,” said Rebecca. “We’ll kick ourselves if we don’t go.”

  “It’s only two days away,” said Sam. “We don’t have tickets, we don’t have plans…”

  “Exactly,” said Teresa. “It’s so impulsive. We’ll get oneway plane tickets, see the ball drop in Times Square like we always wanted, then take the train back the next day.”

  “Hold everything,” said Maria, pointing out something else in the brochure. “Look at this list of celebrities onboard.”

  “No way!” said Rebecca.

  “That seals it,” said Teresa. “Now we really have to go.”

  Teresa fished in her purse for the valet ticket. “So we’re finally going to catch up with him.”

  “I still can’t believe we’re actually on this plane,” said Maria.

  “Look at that sunset,” said Rebecca.

  They all leaned and stared out the left windows as the sun left a scarlet stripe across the bed of clouds. They could see another jet, miles away and tiny, moving across the horizon in the same direction.

  Seat 24B in that other plane was ticketed to passenger Serge A. Storms, who leaned across the businessman traveler in the window seat next to him to take twenty pictures of the setting sun. Click, click, click…