by Tim Dorsey
“He was giving you a test, like Abraham.” Serge held out his hands for another box, but it didn’t come. He looked up. “Coleman, the trailer’s almost empty.” He walked to the bumper; a Guardsman was climbing down. Serge pointed. “What are those last cases?”
“Lasagna,” said the Guardsman. “Everyone hates it. Even in disasters.”
“Lasagna’s my favorite!”
“You want ’em, they’re yours.”
“Don’t move.” Serge ran to the H2 and backed it up. They loaded the cases.
Serge had just begun pulling away when he noticed a row of news boxes. He threw it into park. “Coleman, wait here.”
TAMPA
The historic neighborhood juke joint sat on the back side of Palma Ceia Liquors. It was called the Crow’s Nest because it used to be upstairs. But now it wasn’t. McSwirley stopped crying. He grabbed a bar napkin from the Cutty Sark promotional dispenser and blew his nose.
“That’s the way! Get it all out!” Mahoney slapped him hard on the back.
“Ow!”
“I’m here for you,” said Mahoney. “We’re going to be inseparable. This is how it starts. Natural adversaries. The tough-as-nails cop and bleeding-heart reporter who come to respect each other and share problems from home. My daughter’s a tramp.”
Jeff picked up his ginger ale and sagged on the high-mileage bar. He gazed out the propped-open back door at a quiet residential street. There was a sudden spike in noise from the opposite direction: someone entering the bar from the package store. Jeff turned and squinted at bright fluorescent light and a brief glimpse of heavy traffic on Dale Mabry Highway. The door closed. Coziness resumed.
“Barkeep!” yelled Mahoney, pointing at a Crock-Pot next to the cash register. “Boiled peanuts for my compadre, another Bombay Sapphire here.”
McSwirley broke into light sobs again. A bowl and cocktail arrived.
“Thanks, Al.” Mahoney pointed up at the TV. “Anything besides Celebrity Justice?”
The bartender aimed a remote control. Channels changed. Courtney Love was replaced by a card game.
“…Gladstone Media presents another breathtaking round of Xtreme Poker!” Four people sat motionless around a green felt table. “It’s high-stakes card action like you’ve never seen before! Taken to the edge and beyond!…” The people sat still. “…It’s…Xtreme!”
Mahoney raised his drink and nodded down toward the bowl. “Jeff, get some of those up in you. Boiled peanuts always stopped me from crying. Of course, I was five.”
McSwirley tore open a soft shell. “I don’t think I can do this anymore. Never thought I’d say it, but I’m seriously thinking of quitting.”
“You can’t do that,” said Mahoney. “We need each other. You help me catch Serge, and I’ll make your career.”
The TV: “Coming up next, a wild shoot-out from the bad boys of Scrabble!” A bearded man in a black cowboy hat placed a small wooden tile on the table. FUNGIBLE.
“I’m having nightmares,” said Jeff. “It’s so sad.”
“I can’t believe you actually feel sorry for those dead guys.”
“Not them,” said McSwirley. “The survivors. Even jerks have moms.”
“Those people yesterday really got to you?”
“No, three years of people got to me. Ever talked to the parents of a murdered child?”
“A couple times.”
“Forty-six,” said McSwirley.
“You keep count?”
“Want to hear their names?”
On it went, an afternoon of peanuts, gin and despair. The TV showed grainy footage of a pickup truck crashing through the front windows of a convenience store.
Mahoney rattled ice cubes around the glass in front of his face. “…Then my daughter moved in with a Portuguese punk band and got the clap….”
TV: The pickup’s occupants leaped from the truck to steal beer, but the vehicle was still in gear and pinned them against the cooler until police arrived.
“Hey, look.” Mahoney pointed at the television. “It’s Florida’s Funniest Surveillance Videos.”
CHAPTER TEN
TAMPA
There was a war on.
Not in the Middle East. In Tampa Bay.
It was a newspaper war, and the fighting was fierce, house to house.
The Tampa Tribune and St. Petersburg Times had been going at it for years, with no sign of letting up.
Newspaper wars in America are an endangered species. Most have long since been settled by exterior economics. With the advent of cable, dual-income 24/7 lifestyles and the Internet, readership in most communities dwindled to natural-monopoly levels where only one paper could remain viable. No capitulation; the clock simply ran out.
In Tampa Bay, however, geography created natural bulwarks on both sides of the bridges. The papers occasionally made incursions into enemy territory with satellite news bureaus and sports-arena naming rights. But the bloodiest battles were in the past. It was now a cold war.
Then, shortly into the millennium, a new player. It came in the form of journalism’s latest innovation. Bias.
Ground was broken near the Trump condos in downtown Tampa for another screaming office tower. One year later a third major paper hit the newsstands. British media tycoon Neville Gladstone (the Younger) had diversified an electronic empire into print, launching his U.S. flagship, Tampa Bay Today.
Papers began flying off the presses with a proud new slogan: “Fair, unbalanced journalism.”
Copy editors quickly pointed out that this probably wasn’t the sentiment they were reaching for, but the stationery had already been ordered, and management said, “Our audience will get it.”
They were more than right. The upstart instantly stole massive circulation chunks from both traditional papers due to a variety of farsighted promotional gimmicks that left the other two giants with their dignity. Coupons, contests, giveaways, publicity stunts, Klieg lights, and the dancing Tampa Bay Today Front-Page Bombshells in newsprint bikinis with black-and-white pom-poms.
Oh, and guided tours. Very big with the community. Retirees, elementary classes, dignitaries. The schedule was jammed, with a new group leaving every fifteen minutes throughout the day, and they still had a three-month waiting list. Because this wasn’t some arm’s-length experience—it wound right through the heart of the newsroom, every department, all hours, circling desks for close up snapshots and eavesdropping. A rare opportunity to view the inner gears of a daily metro at work. But mainly it was the complimentary hot dogs, sodas, coffee mugs and umbrellas.
This particular morning, a combined group of seniors and second-graders assembled in the rotunda. “Please keep together.” The spunky tour guide distributed visitors’ passes and binoculars.
They headed down the main hallway. A long line of frames on both walls. “Please note the famous front pages of Tampa Bay Today from key dates throughout history.”
The group was impressed. Pearl Harbor, the JFK assassination, man on the moon.
A child’s hand went up. “Did the paper exist back then?”
“No. And now we come to the magazines….”
They stopped to admire blown-up cover photos of Neville Gladstone. Newsweek, Forbes, Editor & Publisher, Military Diorama Monthly.
You had to be under a rock not to know who Gladstone was. If the billion dollars and bestsellers weren’t enough, there was the new wife, the reality show, and another new wife. In addition to his recently inaugurated newspaper, Neville held controlling interest in three hundred radio stations, a cable network and a growing list of hit syndicated TV shows.
A tiny, white-haired retiree from Sun City craned her neck in curiosity. “Is Gladstone here right now?”
“Not right now.”
Another hand went up. “When will he get here?”
“Actually, he’s never been to Florida.”
“Where is he?”
“On location with the film crew for his honeymoon…. Please fol
low me.”
The tour took the elevator to the next floor, and the guide assembled them in the hallway beneath an On Air sign.
“And this is one of Florida Cable News’s finest state-of-the-art sets. Let’s take a peek inside….” She opened the door to a cavernous room with flickering monitors.
Stage lights bathed two people sitting behind an anchor desk. Idle staff in headphones waited beside large studio cameras. The desk had bold, lighted lettering across the front: HARD FIRE.
A retiree in a mobility scooter raised his hand. “What program is this?”
“Our new political-argument show. We’re just in time for rehearsal.”
“They rehearse arguing?”
“Let’s listen….”
“No! No! No!” shouted the show’s director, stepping out from behind the cameras.
“What’s wrong?” asked the host.
“I understood your guest.”
“But—”
“You didn’t talk over him! I could make out every word!”
“I was letting him—”
“Interrupt!”
“But I was—”
“Don’t interrupt me!” The director stepped back into the shadows. “From the top…”
The host and guest faced each other.
“God—!”
“Values—!”
“Liberal—!”
“Nazi—!”
“F—!”
“M—!”
“…!”
“…!”
“Again!” yelled the director. “Tighter!”
Back to the elevator. Next floor. They entered the newsroom. It was overwhelming at first. All the desks, the dramatic digital master clock, the giant washable state map with the path of the season’s second hurricane on a collision course with St. Augustine.
“It’s so big.”
The guide smiled. “Biggest in the bay.”
She led them down an aisle. The white-haired woman tapped the tour guide and pointed at someone working on an upcoming computer terminal. “Oh, my! Is that the famous humor columnist?”
The guide smiled again. “Yes it is.”
“But I thought he was with the Trib.”
The guide smiled wider. “Was.”
In a preemptive air strike to soften up the competition’s beachhead, Tampa Bay Today had recruited several of the Times’s and Tribune’s most respected scribes. They had all balked at first, because of Gladstone’s reputation, but the money was absurd. Now the birth of regret.
The retiree was beside herself. “Heavens! He’s my favorite columnist. Is he actually writing?”
“Sure is.”
“I just love his stuff. He’s so funny!”
“Would you like to pet him?”
The tour continued up the aisle. The columnist was lost in concentration, numerous ideas spinning like dinner plates on tall poles. As happened so many times a day, he sensed the group’s approach with his neck hair. One of the plates began to wobble.
The spunky tour guide arrived. “Hi, Dan!”
“Hi.” Eyes still on the screen.
“My group has some questions they’d like to ask you.” A plate fell.
“What are you doing?”
“Trying to write.”
“Is it hard?”
“Currently.”
“How’d you learn to be funny?”
The rest of the plates crashed. The columnist angled back in his chair. “Talking to idiots.”
“What do you mean by that?”
The guide jumped in cheerfully. “Look! There’s our cartoonist!”
The group filed by. The columnist felt an old woman’s hand on his shoulder. Then something on his arm. He looked down. A drop of mustard. He looked up. A camera flashed.
He bit his lip until they were past. “…like trying to write in a fuckin’ theme park…”
A child raised her hand and pointed behind them. “He said a bad word.”
The guide chuckled. “I’m sure you heard wrong.”
The little hand stayed up. “It began with an f.”
“That couldn’t have been—”
The little hand waved. “Is he going to hell?”
“No!” shouted the columnist, standing quickly and stomping away. “I’m already in it!”
The guide clapped her hands a single time and grinned hard. “Well! Wasn’t that special? A genuine taste of gritty journalism in action!…Now, if you’ll come with me…” She reached the end of the aisle and outstretched her arm. “Please direct your attention toward that big conference table on the other side of the newsroom.”
The table was surrounded by cushy chairs and ill-fitting suits. Against the wall stood a long, five-hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium to reduce stress and pad year-end figures. The aquarium was installed and maintained by a ser vice-contract company that tended office plants in downtown high-rises and had recently branched from flora to fauna. But the firm was still new to coral-reef species compatibility, and the tank had become a daily source of small-scale drama.
“That’s the budget meeting,” said the guide.
“They’re talking about money?”
The guide laughed politely. “No, it’s a newspaper term: the meeting where all the top editors decide what stories will go in the paper…. What do you say we pay them a visit?”
VERO BEACH
“Woooooo-hoooooo!” Serge ran back across the parking lot, waving the local/state section of a newspaper. “It’s in here! I made it!”
“What’s it say?” asked Coleman.
“My big comeback! The wire ser vice picked it up from Tampa. I’m all over the state, probably the country. They’re calling me an ‘insane genius’! They—Wait, what the heck’s this?”
“What?”
“I didn’t croak that dude at the Skyway. This isn’t adding up….” His eyes raced down the article. “Okay, here we go. The Chinese restaurant and…no!…Son of a bitch!”
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re calling me a copycat killer! They’re giving all the credit to some other guy at the bridge!”
“I choose never to read anything.” Coleman lit a joint. “That’s how I stay happy.”
“At worst it’s a tie!” yelled Serge. “For a copycat there has to be some kind of time lag so the idea-stealer can first hear about it in the news. Doesn’t this writer know anything?”
“Pretty sloppy reporting.”
“And it’s spooky to think there might be other people wandering around Florida on my wavelength.”
“Almost makes you too scared to live here.”
“No shit…. Hold on. What’s this? A videotape?” Serge continued reading. “So that’s what happened! Someone was following us at the university. That’s how they ripped off my idea!”
“I didn’t see anyone,” said Coleman.
“This was supposed to be my big comeback! Someone’s going to pay! Who’s saying these awful things?” He checked the byline at the top of the article. “‘Staff writer Jeff McSwirley.’”
Coleman exhaled a pot cloud. “What kind of name is McSwirley?”
“A dead man’s!” Serge began screaming at the paper. “You hear that, McSwirley? You’re dead!…” Serge’s peripheral vision inadvertently caught something down in the body of the type. “Of course. Now it all makes sense.”
“What does?”
Serge punched the paper. “Confidential police source. And I have a pretty good idea who it is. That explains the copycat business. He’s manipulating some naïve young reporter to plant lies.” Then back to yelling at the paper. “You’re a dead man, Mahoney! You hear me? Dead!…No, stop. Get a grip. Don’t take the bait.”
“Bait?”
“He’s trying to flush me into the open.” Serge nodded with a grudging smile. “So that’s the way it’s going to be, eh? Just like old times? All right, I’m up to a little spirited competition. You zig, I zag.” Serge glanced up from the paper and sc
anned the horizon.
“What are you looking for?”
“An asshole.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
TAMPA
Fourteen, corner pocket.” Mahoney bent over the lone pool table in the Crow’s Nest. Balls clacked. “Damn. Jeff, your shot…. Jeff?…”
Jeff stood with a cue stick, shoulders bobbing, his face covered with blue chalk from wiping tears.
“There, there.” Mahoney placed a reassuring hand on his back. “Maybe this will cheer you up. Did I tell you about my ex setting all my clothes on fire in the front yard?”
Jeff wiped more chalk on his face. “I’ve never lied in print before!”
“You didn’t lie. I lied. You quoted me accurately.”
“But I knew what you were doing.”
“That’s right. I’m catching Serge. That copycat stuff we planted must be driving him nuts about now.” Mahoney circled the table, considering balls and trigonometry. “Someday you’ll look back and tell your children all about this. Unless they won’t accept collect calls from bars after midnight, the ungrateful brats.”
“So you really don’t think there’s a second killer?”
“Not a chance.”
“But how can you be so sure?”
“Because I know Serge. Classic textbook case, reaching the end of serial-killer life expectancy. He’s about to disintegrate, if he hasn’t already. Can I take your shot?”
Jeff nodded. “What happens then?”
“Any number of things.” Mahoney walked around the end of the table and lined up the thirteen. “Blaze of glory, suicide, but in this case I’m taking the short money on identity fragmentation.”
“Fragmentation?”
“Strong split-personality vibe in the air.” The lamp over the pool table had a Tampa Bay Bucs helmet. Mahoney ducked under it with his stick. Clack. “Probably talking to himself in different voices, committing murders he doesn’t even remember.”
“You got to be kidding,” said Jeff. “That’s what you’re basing all this on? A vibe?”
“Sixth sense. From getting inside Serge’s noggin. I can’t explain it, and the department isn’t buying.” Mahoney picked out a yellow-striped ball. “Fifteen, side…. It started just before they locked me in the rubber room.” Clack.
