by Tim Dorsey
Next: immigrant smuggling. The feds were watching the Florida shoreline for Cubans and Haitians sailing north in boats, and I-75 for Mexicans driving south to the inland migrant camps around Okeechobee and Immokalee. Nobody was thinking Eastern Europe. And they definitely weren’t watching the Disney corridor.
It started on a Friday. Tony was reading his newspaper in a busy coffee shop on Highway 192, the outer economic ring of theme-park galaxy, where those who couldn’t afford to stay in Disney proper commuted from a constellation of budget motels, franchised food, and off-brand roadside attractions providing supplemental bargain fun. Tony gazed out the window at a deep-discount souvenir hut shaped like a giant orange. Darkness fell on the strip, rows of flashing-lightbulb marquees stretched to the vanishing point: room-rate specials, all-you-can-eat buffets, medieval jousting shows, three-for-ten-dollars T-shirts that are never in stock, help wanted. Tony soon noticed he was having trouble getting his order taken. A lone waitress scurried around the room, setting plates in front of diners, then switching the plates, people losing patience, the waitress picking up all the plates again and running back to the kitchen, past another “help wanted” sign at the cash register. Tony went back to his paper, an article on the boom in new motel construction. Tony always read stories about anything that required concrete. Suddenly a crash. Tony jumped. An armful of broken plates lay at the feet of a sobbing waitress. Tony looked down at sharp pieces of porcelain mixed with hash browns and ruptured omelettes. And Tony saw the future. The south-Orlando service industry was expanding exponentially; the local labor pool was not. Hotel beds weren’t getting made, rows of shellacked alligator heads gathered dust on gift-store shelves, unserved diners got up and left. Tony decided to fix that, for a price. He got false documents and began flying them in from Romania and Czechoslovakia, landing with the tourists at Orlando International. This time not even the local establishment kicked. They were blown away back in Miami, and Tony promptly became Mr. Palermo’s personal protégé. Was this kid smart or what?
But Tony’s real talent lay in the heist. The big score. Because that’s where his heart was. Underneath all the poise and polish, Tony was a traditionalist. He grew up at the knees of the old guys, the tales from the glory days when a job was a work of art, not the messy smash-and-grabs these punks pull today. Then, afterward, they’d all get dressed up and go out on the town, where the restaurants and nightclubs treated them like movie stars. Even the singers onstage stopped and acknowledged them. Tony couldn’t get enough of the stories. Years later, as an adult, he’d visit the retired crews in Miami Beach, bring over some groceries and cook up one of the old family dinners, fresh sausage, garlic. Then he’d shut up and let them talk. The Wells Fargo job, the Bank of the Americas job, the Panama gold transfer, the Star of India. It was about more than technique; it was about history. That’s how Tony had come to be at Rico Spagliosi’s bedside when he passed. For a few days, that hospital room had become the most popular place in Miami. Everyone was trying to get in, maybe work Rico for a tip on the missing gems, maybe trick it out of him under the sedatives. Tony couldn’t have cared less about that. What mattered to Tony were all the hours Rico had spent with him when he was just a little squirt, teaching him magic tricks and lock picking. That’s why Rico told the nurses to let Tony in, but not the others.
Tony learned that preparation was everything, and Tony became the best. It also became a dilemma for the Palermos. Tony was so indispensable running things on the organizational level that they didn’t dare risk getting him popped on a job. You don’t send generals into battle. But every now and then, a score came along that was so incredibly lucrative and complex, with so much to gain and so much more to go wrong, that they couldn’t afford to send anyone except Tony.
Tony could do it because Tony could blend. He talked like an English teacher and thought like an insurance adjuster. He read books and magazines, which meant he could mingle. He read people, which meant he could charm.
Tony was reading Forbes early one Monday. He was reading it in the oak-paneled, overly air-conditioned reception area on the tenth floor of one of Orlando’s newest office towers near Church Street Station. Home of Strauss & Levy Accounting. A woman sat behind the reception desk. Tony smiled at her. She smiled back, then looked down, a blush. Tony got up and strolled around the waiting room killing time, idly inspecting door frames and telephone outlets.
The receptionist’s phone rang. She answered it, “I see,” then hung up. She cleared her throat. “Excuse me, Mr. Davis…?”
“Yes?” said Tony Marsicano.
“I’m sorry, but there must be some mistake. Mr. Culpepper is out of town today. I don’t know how you were given an appointment for this morning.”
“I’m sure somebody got it wrong at my office,” said Tony. “No big deal.”
“Maybe someone else is available.” She picked up the phone.
“That won’t be necessary.” Tony checked his wristwatch. “I have to be somewhere. Do you think I could use the men’s room?”
“Absolutely, Mr. Davis.” She buzzed him in.
Tony walked down the hall, casually glancing through open office doors, men in starched shirts and suspenders on phones. Tony tried the knob of any door that looked too small to lead to an office. He opened one, a closet with a bunch of wires and fuses. He leaned to read something on a junction box: SENTINEL.
“Can I help you?”—a man’s voice with a clear but deniable edge of accusation.
Tony pulled his head out of the closet and turned. “Looking for the men’s room.”
“Last door on the right.” The man glared, but Tony gave an easy, offhand smile and strolled away.
Two hours later a real-estate agent met Tony outside the commercial scrum of a decaying strip mall in Winter Park. Tony rented seven hundred square feet next to a yogurt parlor that would soon be something else.
Three hours after that, a representative from Sentinel Security and Alarm arrived. They shook hands.
“You handle Strauss and Levy, don’t you?”
“We’re not supposed to discuss clients.”
“They’re the ones who recommended you. I have some friends in tax law. Said they’ve never had any regrets about Sentinel.”
“Thank you.”
“I want the same system they have.”
The rep looked at the empty storefront. “I think you might want something a little more modest.”
“We’re going to have rare coins and precious metals. I’d rather err that way. Maybe a few less sensors because of floor space, but I want all the same features.”
The next evening Tony read Newsweek. He was reading it on the toilet outside the second-floor cafeteria in the building that housed Strauss & Levy. He sat cross-legged, a paper sack in his lap. When his Rolex said eight o’clock, Tony lowered his legs.
The main elevator opened on the ground floor of the office tower. A night watchman sat in the circular black-marble guard station in the middle of the reflecting black-marble lobby floor. He saw a man he didn’t recognize who wasn’t supposed to be there. And where was his badge?
The guard started getting up to intercept, but Tony walked straight toward him instead. And smiled. “How’s it going”—Tony glanced at his name tag: CHARLES PAVLIC—“Charley?”
“Fine. Where’s your—”
“Charley, you like barbecue?” Tony held up the paper sack he had been carrying in his right hand. “Great sandwich. Never touched. Never even opened. Got too busy up there.” He handed the bag across the guard desk. “And there’s some beans and potato salad in there, too.”
“Thanks, Mr….”
“Davis.” Tony reached over the desk to shake. “Tony Davis.”
“Mr. Davis. You need to be wearing a—”
Tony saluted and headed out. “Have a good one.”
It went like that three nights a week for three months. Pizza, fish and chips, steak sandwiches, shrimp salad. Sometimes Tony would pull up a chair
, tuck a paper napkin in his collar and chow down at the guard desk with Charley. By December they were old friends.
“Got him a train set,” said Charley. “Already practiced setting it up so I won’t run into anything Christmas Eve.”
“He’s gonna love it.”
“I hope so, but all he’s been talking about is the new Xbox, whatever the hell that is.”
“Some kind of game system, I think.”
“It’s the big thing at his school. He’s obsessed with it. I went to the store, but you know how much they’re getting for those things? I can’t believe the other parents are actually buying them.”
“Train sets were good enough when I was growing up.”
“Me, too,” said Charley. “I sure hope he isn’t disappointed.”
“Kids don’t know how good they have it today.”
“You said it.”
Another week went by, Charley filling up on Tony’s late-night deliveries from the putative seasonal office overflow: eggnog, fruitcake, Hickory Farms cheese wedges.
Charley Pavlic drew the short straw and had to work Christmas Eve. Tony got off the elevator with a coat over his shoulder and a shopping bag in his hand. He smiled and set the bag on the guard desk and headed for the door. Charley stood and reached into the sack.
He pulled out an Xbox.
“Mr. Davis!” he yelled across the lobby. “I can’t. This is too—”
But Tony was already pushing open the exit. “Merry Christmas, Charley.”
“Merry Christmas, Mr. Davis.”
6
T HE YARD WAS overgrown in front of the modest blue ranch house, sitting in an entire neighborhood of overgrown yards in the shadow of the I-95 interchange near Pompano Beach. A rusty ’67 Cougar screeched up the driveway. Serge and Lenny jumped out in their scuffed and torn funeral clothes.
Lenny was first through the front door. “Mom, we’re home!”
“Wipe your feet!”
“We did!”
They sprinted down the hall. Back to the friendly confines. Lenny’s room. Lenny was forty-eight and still lived at home with his mom. The current reactionary administration would have you believe it was because he still smoked dope, and they would be right. Serge also lived with them, because he wouldn’t take his drugs. They shared Lenny’s childhood bedroom. Tiny furniture, baby blue walls with clouds, posters: MOD SQUAD, ROOM 222, Bob Griese dropping back in the pocket. Lenny had the top bunk.
Serge tossed his clipboard onto the dresser and headed for a small hamster cage on top of his four-drawer research filing cabinet.
“How is he?” asked Lenny.
“Back to full strength,” said Serge, feeding a furry little critter with an eyedropper through metal bars.
“Little fella sure seems hungry.”
“That’s a good sign,” said Serge, refilling the dropper. “I never thought we’d see this day. He was in pretty bad shape when we found him.”
“Kind of lucky I suggested we go in the woods to smoke that joint, huh?”
“That was my suggestion. I keep telling you, you can’t just fire up at the rest stops. They have security now. And all those children were watching you.”
Serge bent down and looked the creature in the eyes. “Feeling better today, Mr. Vonnegut?”
“He should feel better,” said Lenny. “You’ve taken good enough care of him the last five months. Feeding him by hand, reading to him at night, walking around with him in your shirt pocket all the time…”
“For body warmth. Very important.” Serge opened the cage and placed his hand inside. The animal ran up Serge’s arm to his shoulder and climbed down into his pocket. “You can’t leave anything to chance when rescuing a threatened species.”
“What kind of rat is that anyway?”
“It’s not a rat. How many times?” Serge picked up his clipboard and held it out to Lenny, tapping the spot next to Master List Item Number Five: “Endangered Loxahatchee Marsh Mouse, close cousin of the blue-tongue vole.” Serge looked down in his pocket and took a deep breath to steady himself. “I guess it’s time. No use postponing the inevitable.” He uncapped a pen and crossed Item Five off the clipboard.
“You’re really going to release him after all the work you’ve put in?” said Lenny, pointing at tiny eyes peeking out of Serge’s pocket, whiskers twitching. “Look how you two get along. He sure is going to miss you.”
“You have to be cruel to be kind.”
A plump, older woman with a gray beehive appeared in the doorway. “What happened to you? Look at your clothes!”
“It’s nothing, Mom.”
“It doesn’t look like nothing. Were you in some kind of fight? Did somebody hurt my Lenny?”
“No, Mom,” said Lenny. “We went to a funeral.”
“I’ve been to a lot of funerals in my life and never come back looking like that! Who did this to you? I’m going to call them right now!”
“It’s not like that. You can’t call.”
“I most certainly can!”
“You don’t understand—”
“Lenny, this has got to stop!” she said, arms crossed tightly. “You take off all the time. I don’t know what you’re doing, where you’re going. If I didn’t know Serge was there to watch out for you, I swear I’d have three heart attacks. Now, what’s this boy’s name?”
“Mom, I’m trying to tell you, you don’t want to—”
“Tony Marsicano,” said Serge.
“Serge!” said Lenny.
“Is he in the phone book?” asked Mrs. Lippowicz.
“Unlisted,” said Serge, walking across the room to his history filing cabinet. He flipped through files and pulled out a piece of paper. “Here’s his phone number.”
“Thank you.”
“Where’d you get that?” asked Lenny. “Nobody knows those numbers.”
“Court file from his last arrest,” said Serge. “A single determined person with a knack for research can find out anything.”
“Is this Tony some kind of bully?” asked Mrs. Lippowicz.
“The biggest,” said Serge.
“Mom!”
“Maybe I should talk to his parents,” said Mrs. Lippowicz. “What’s his family like?”
“The Palermo Family?” said Serge. “All thugs.”
“I thought you said his name was Marsicano.”
“It is,” said Serge. “But it’s the Palermo Family. Marsicano is the name of Tony’s crew. That’s how it works.”
“Crew?” said Mrs. Lippowicz. “Does he have a sailboat or something?”
“More like a yacht. And a private jet, some nice cars…”
“So he’s a spoiled bully?” said Mrs. Lippowicz.
“You could put it that way.”
“Well, someone needs to stand up to him.”
“Mom! Don’t—”
“Your mom is a lot smarter than you give her credit for,” said Serge, turning to Mrs. Lippowicz. “I’m behind you all the way. Lenny needs to be more careful. And more thankful he has a mother like you.”
Mrs. Lippowicz put her hands on her hips and looked sternly at her son. “Why can’t you be more like your nice friend Serge?”
Serge turned to Lenny and grinned.
“I have an important phone call to make,” said Mrs. Lippowicz, marching toward the kitchen.
Serge pulled a folder from the file cabinet and trotted down the hall. Lenny caught up with him at the front door and grabbed his arm. “Why did you just do that?”
“Because this whole codependency thing with your mother creeps me out. Thought I’d shake the cage a little.” Serge checked his shirt pocket. “You ready, Mr. Vonnegut?”
They hopped in the Cougar and headed south on the interstate. Five full, fast lanes. Dense traffic weaving and darting without contact like a school of bait fish, palm trees going by, basketball courts, warehouses, graffiti, Canadian-whiskey billboards targeting minorities, digital time/temperature sign: 99°. Lenny checked his
wallet. “I’m broke again. I still have some weed, but it won’t last forever. We need to come up with another money idea.”
“I’m still working on the concept for our new business.” Serge opened his file folder on the steering wheel, going through papers. Cars honked.
“Business?” said Lenny. “That sounds like a job. Let’s just get money.”
“The number-one rule in life: Anything where you’re your own boss isn’t really a job.”
“Bosses are mean to me,” said Lenny, rolling a joint in his lap. “They always want me to go faster.”
“I’m with you,” said Serge. “Did you see where they had to hospitalize all those conventioneers in Miami? All because of what their bosses told them to do?”
Lenny shook his head.
“A Fortune Five-Hundred company had a big unity retreat or some stupidness down at one of the high-priced resorts. They hired this motivational firm to come up with activities to pull everyone together. So they threw a big open-bar party on the beach, built this barbecue pit and made the entire management team walk on hot coals.”
“Nobody’s that dumb.”
“Made all the papers. The consultants got the idea from one of those reality shows. Supposed to build teamwork and esprit de corps. Then they go back to the office on Monday and, next to walking on hot coals, running a company is a snap.”
“What happened?” said Lenny.
“Top of the organizational chart is laid up in Miami General with blistered feet. Stock’s off twenty points.”
