Cadillac Beach

by Tim Dorsey

  “They actually paid for that?”

  “A lot,” said Serge. “I’m no professional consultant, but near the top of my recommendations would be: Do not make your employees walk on hot coals.”

  “So you want to start a consulting company?”

  Serge shook his head. “I need something that parallels my interests. You know the saying: ‘Do what you love and you’ll always be happy.’”

  “Who said that?”

  “Charles Manson. No, wait. He said, ‘Kill all the people in the house.’ Who am I thinking of?” The marsh mouse grabbed the top of Serge’s pocket with tiny hands, watching the road ahead.

  Serge tapped the clipboard with his NASA antigravity pen. “But what business can possibly tie all these things together?”

  Lenny leaned across the seat for a look at the clipboard. “I don’t think it can be done. Those items are all over the place. See? You’ve got energy drinks, the CIA, Castro, the Today show, the Mafia, not to mention your grandfather’s death and some missing diamonds. If you ask me, it’s impossible.”

  “‘Impossible’ isn’t in my vocabulary,” said Serge.

  “It’s my middle name,” said Lenny, lighting a pin joint. “I’m trying to live a disappointment-free life.”

  “First you break a giant task into components,” said Serge. “The most challenging items are solving my grandfather’s death and finding the lost gems, but look here…”—he drew a line—“either one breaks the other loose…”—more interconnecting lines, some dotted, some solid—“after that, Item Two falls into place, which makes Number Seven a natural, and by then Three and Six couldn’t be easier…”—two loops, three arrows—“the others practically take care of themselves and there we have it.”

  “Our car seems to be slowing down,” said Lenny. “Or someone put PCP in my dope.”

  “Fort Lauderdale International’s coming up. I’m decelerating to time my pass.”

  “That jet sure is low,” said Lenny, watching an inbound Northwest DC9 drop its landing gear and clear ten lanes of interstate traffic, then the highway fence, touching down on the main runway with twin puffs of black tire smoke. “Looked like the wheels were only a few feet above the cars.”

  “I like the jets to fly right over the car to make me feel alive,” said Serge. “The whole vehicle vibrates like it’s going to blow the rivets and send you sliding down the highway in nothing but a bucket seat. It’s great!”

  “But why slow down?”

  “Increases our chances. One lands every other minute. If you’re short, you can always speed up. But if you’re too far ahead, you can’t back up in the middle of an interstate. Actually, you can, but it’s really, really dangerous.”

  Lenny pointed. “Here comes one now.”

  They looked west at the toy-size plane in the distance. The Cougar continued slowing, fifty miles an hour, forty-five, forty, more cars honking, whipping around both sides.

  “Why the sudden interest in your grandfather?” asked Lenny.

  “The funeral. I was determined before, but now it’s all-consuming. Ever since I saw Rico’s obit in the paper, it’s the only thing I can think about. Nobody really knows what happened back in ’64. I’ve had an epiphany and decided to completely dedicate my existence to a full-court press for the truth. All else is now irrelevant. Everything in my life up to this point has been bullshit, and everything afterward will just be epilogue.”

  “What’s ‘epilogue’?”

  “Bullshit that comes later.”

  “So how are you going to start looking into his suicide?”

  “He did not commit suicide! Don’t you ever say that word!”

  “Okay, okay. Jeez…So where do we start? Police reports?”

  “That’s for amateurs. True archival research requires firsthand interviews with any living eyewitnesses. I’ve done it dozens of times, tracked down people involved with some long-forgotten Florida event, then dropped by their homes for tape-recorded interrogations.”

  “You don’t call first? You just go up and knock on their doors?”

  “It’s better that way—catches them unrehearsed for historical accuracy. But sometimes they mistake me for one of all the nuts running around Florida and try to close the door. You just have to be firm and push it open. They’re usually old, so it’s not too hard.”

  “Don’t they call the police?”

  “That’s why you have to yank the phone out of the wall. But the guys we’ll be looking for this time were all friends of my granddad, so that shouldn’t be necessary.”

  “Friends?”

  “Great bunch of guys, a regular social club.” Serge leaned forward and held his camera over the dashboard, pointing up through the windshield. The marsh mouse burrowed deep into Serge’s pocket as a deafening jet roar rattled the car. Serge clicked the shutter.

  On the opposite side of the interstate, a black Cadillac Seville headed north on 95. Tony Marsicano was in back on the phone, covering one ear with his hand, straining to hear above the Continental 737 passing overhead.

  “…I see…. I see…. No, ma’am…. Yes, ma’am…. Isee…. No, ma’am, it won’t happen again…. You, too…. Good-bye.” Tony hung up.

  One of his lieutenants saw the bewildered look on Tony’s face.

  “What is it, boss?”

  “I just got the strangest phone call.”

  Back in the southbound lanes, Serge accelerated and returned to normal speed. Lenny tossed the end of his joint out the window into some dry weeds. “Who was in this gang anyway?”

  “Let’s see. Besides my grandfather, there was Chi-Chi and Moondog and Greek Tommy and Coltrane and Mort the Undertaker. All pieces of work. Chi-Chi got mixed up with the CIA and the Bay of Pigs and became terminally bitter. Moondog was the great-great-grandson of a slave from Macon who lived in Overtown’s famous Sir John Hotel. Greek Tommy was Italian. I thought Coltrane was the funniest, but now I realize he was just drunk all the time. On average, Mort the Undertaker had the best disposition, all the more remarkable considering he worked in retail. He did the books for the gang’s betting parlor, which was a front for the unlicensed barbershop in the back room…. Every one of them a great guy. Always a million laughs….”

  Miami Beach—1963

  “Kick him again!” yelled Chi-Chi.

  Greek Tommy kicked him. “Where’s our fucking money?!”

  The man curled into a ball on the floor and moaned.

  “Hit him with something!”

  Moondog swung a shovel. “Where’s our fucking money?!”

  The moaning stopped. They formed a circle and leaned for a closer look.

  “Is he dead?”

  “Just unconscious,” said Chi-Chi.

  “Stuff’s coming from his mouth.”

  “It happens.”

  “I don’t know about this new violence stuff,” said Mort.

  “We all agreed,” said Chi-Chi. “We’re losing too much money.”

  “Nobody takes us seriously,” said Coltrane.

  They stared down again. Nothing moved.

  “So what do we do now?” asked Mort.

  “I’ll get the car,” said Chi-Chi.

  A screaming pink ’58 convertible Cadillac Eldorado turned off Collins Avenue and rolled up the alley. Jumbo tail fins, white leather interior, Chi-Chi behind the wheel in his straw hat. The back door of the bookie joint opened. The others glanced around, then hoisted a limp form into the trunk.

  Chi-Chi slammed the lid and dusted his hands together. “I need a drink.”

  One hour later. A whistling man in a yellow guayabera strolled down the sidewalk on the east side of Collins. Hotel after hotel, towering, new, expensive. Then the breaks between the buildings, bright blue sky over the Atlantic, white gulls suspended stationary in the breeze. He turned and bopped up the steps of a building with deco numbers over the entrance: 9701. A valet held the door. The man circled a glass-enclosed atrium of palm trees, kept going along the lobby’s c
urved walls with a mosaic of bold hieroglyphics under a row of art moderne hanging lamps. A Friday. An envelope in his hand.

  The man was trim, tall, clear brown eyes, short dark hair beginning to gray on the sides. He had the unassuming good looks of an unassuming tennis pro and walked with a spring in his step that suggested a cheerful outlook and bundled energy just under the hood. He came to the entrance of a dim room, the Carioca Lounge. Wiggling black and white stripes on the floor, garish mirrors, whorehouse curtains, a grand piano. From the ceiling hung a fluffy, kidney-shaped object that served no purpose but to make you look up. Five men in straw hats and guayaberas sat perched on five tall stools at the bar.

  “Hi, guys!”

  They turned around.

  “Sergio. You’re late,” said Chi-Chi. His shirt had a pattern of outrigger canoes. A collection of moist, chewed toothpicks sat on a napkin next to his newspaper. “We were all supposed to meet you-know-where.”

  “Got hung up waiting for these,” said Sergio, holding up the envelope.

  “What’s in there?” asked Greek Tommy.

  Sergio grabbed a stool. “Photographs. Can’t believe it only takes three days now to get your film developed.”

  The others crowded for a closer look as Sergio spread the pictures on the bar in sequential order: a long line of black cars on Collins, then a snazzy convertible with a handsome young man in the backseat. Other men in dark sunglasses stood on the running boards.

  “You got pretty close,” said Moondog.

  “I could practically reach out and touch the motorcade.”

  “Doesn’t seem like much security.”

  “They must know what they’re doing.”

  Mort picked up one of the snapshots. “He sure seems young to be president.”

  Sergio pulled a final photo from the envelope, waited an appropriate duration for drama, and laid the trump card on the bar.

  “Wow,” said Tommy. “He’s looking right at you and waving.”

  “Probably remembers me,” said Sergio.

  Chi-Chi took the toothpick from his mouth and examined it for remaining life. “What are you talking about?”

  “Back when we knew each other.”

  “You did not know Kennedy!”

  Sergio nodded. “Double-dated.”

  “Horseshit,” said Chi-Chi. “Why do you always lie like this?”

  “He stayed right up there on Monday,” said Sergio, pointing toward the ceiling. “The helicopter landed in the park just over the bridge to Bal Harbour, and the motorcade rolled south on A1A to this hotel, where the Secret Service had already swept the penthouse and inspected elevator cables. This hotel is also where I hung out with Dave Garroway when the Today show did remote broadcasts in the lobby by the atrium, which architect Morris Lapidus wanted to fill with monkeys until I raised some maintenance issues.”

  Chi-Chi turned a page in his newspaper. “You know, for a moment I almost cared.”

  Mort pointed at the paper. “Anything good in there?”

  “The Wabash Cannonball crashed in St. Louis. And the Birdman of Alcatraz died.”

  “How old?”

  “Seventy-three.”

  “Not too shabby.”

  Chi-Chi stood up and adjusted his hat. “I think we better go check on our friend.”

  They headed down the sidewalk.

  “I still don’t know about the rough stuff,” said Mort.

  “What’s not to know?” said Chi-Chi. “Who ever heard of a sports book that doesn’t make you pay?”

  They turned the corner and stopped cold. “My car!” yelled Chi-Chi. The trunk lid was popped open, a big pointy crease poking up in the middle of the hood like a circus tent.

  They ran to the Cadillac and checked the trunk.

  Empty except for the fully extended tire jack.

  Chi-Chi tried to close the lid, but it wouldn’t latch. “It’s fucked up.”

  They sulked back into the lounge and climbed on stools.

  “Bartender,” said Sergio.

  The bartender came over.

  “Have any matches?”

  The bartender reached in a bowl under the counter.

  “Do the matches have the name of the hotel on them or just advertising for a correspondence school to learn TV repair in your spare time for fun and profit but that really just takes your money?”

  The bartender held up the pack: AMERICANA HOTEL.

  “Good.”

  The bartender tore out a match to give Sergio a light.

  “Don’t smoke,” said Sergio. “Just want the pack.”

  The bartender set it on the bar.

  “Can I have a different pack? You tore out a match. It has to be intact, for the collection.”

  The barkeep stared at Sergio a moment, then fished another pack out of the bowl before going back to his TV at the other end of the bar.

  Sergio stuck the matches in his shirt pocket.

  “I got a joke,” said Coltrane. “There was a man from Nantucket who sucked it. Wait, I already fucked it up. Okay, knock-knock…. Bartender! Refill!”

  The bartender didn’t answer.

  “Bartender!”

  Still no answer.

  “Has he gone deaf?”

  “He’s watching something on TV.”

  Coltrane got off his stool and walked to the end. “Bartender.”

  “Shhhh!” said the bartender.

  “What is it?”

  Soon they were all gathered around the set, watching the live news report out of Dallas.

  7

  Present

  M R. VONNEGUT PEEKED out Serge’s pocket. An hour into the Everglades, the yellow ’67 Cougar took Exit 14 off Alligator Alley and pulled into a truck stop at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. Semi rigs and airboats. Serge got some rubber wading boots out of the trunk and handed a pair to Lenny.

  A tribal police car sat in front of the restrooms. A Micosukee law-enforcement officer was in the driver’s seat finishing a sausage biscuit when he noticed the two men coming toward him in rubber boots. He rolled down the window.

  “Good afternoon,” said Serge. “I would like permission to go deep into the swamp over there to release an endangered species.” He pointed at the bulge in his shirt pocket. “Now that he’s back to health, I’m forced to return Mr. Vonnegut to his native habitat, because anything else would be wrong. I could have just disappeared into the mist with Lenny, my research assistant here, who promises not to smoke dope, but I decided to ask first because I’ve read all about Wounded Knee and wanted you to know I’m completely behind your ‘nation’ out here, even if it is kind of pretend. I didn’t want you to think something weird was going on.”

  The officer stared a moment. “No campfires, hunting, or alcohol?”

  Serge shook his head. “This is a church.”

  “Knock yourself out.” The officer rolled up the window and got back to his air-conditioning.

  Serge and Lenny walked to the edge of the parking lot and started climbing through reeds and sawgrass.

  “Anything around here I should be concerned about?” asked Lenny, pulling his left foot out of the muck with a sucking pop.

  “Nope. My granddad used to come here all the time. Never a scratch.”

  “So what do you think happened to him anyway?”

  “Many possibilities. I overheard a lot of stuff as a kid that I probably shouldn’t have. Mental-health problems, run-ins with the mob.” Serge snapped off the top of a reed and slowly inched around behind Lenny. “There was even talk he was killed by a jealous ex-boyfriend in a love triangle.” Serge held the reed in one hand and bent the top back with his other. “But the big theory revolved around the stolen gems. Right after the museum job, Granddad quickly became a suspect….” Serge let go of the top of the bent reed, flicking a wolf spider off Lenny’s collar.

  “What was that?” said Lenny, feeling the back of his neck with both hands.

  “Nothing.”

  They started
walking again.

  “So why’d they suspect he had the gems?”

  “Granddad was running with the wrong crowd, and police started pointing fingers at the usuals. Others say he was framed by the real thieves who wanted to throw everyone off the trail. But the main reason he was suspected was the same thing that started all the nasty suicide speculation. You see, Granddad was a little…how should I put it? Crazy.” Serge slowly moved his right hand toward the water. “He was always claiming he knew famous people, participated in historic events. They said he was a pathological liar, but I think he was just a great storyteller. After the ’64 heist, he started running his mouth about that. Maybe it was one story too many.” Serge’s hand splashed into the water behind Lenny, then came out flinging something by the tail. The water moccasin twirled end over end through the air and into a distant bough. Lenny turned around quickly. Serge grinned. They started walking again.

  “So you think he was making it all up?” asked Lenny.

  “Who knows? Sounds far-fetched, but you had to understand the times. Miami Beach back then was F. Scott Fitzgerald country. Bars hopping all night, cabarets. Bookmaking and prostitution winked at. The mob running amok. And, thanks to Castro, we had the largest CIA field office in the world. Next to all that, anything’s possible.”

  The bog sucked one of Lenny’s boots off his foot; he reached back to retrieve it. “I never knew….”

  “That’s because today it’s all South Beach! South Beach! South Beach! Nobody goes up past Arthur Godfrey Road, which is Forty-first Street if you’re keeping score at home.” Serge reached into the water and felt along the bottom for a rock. “They all stay down on Ocean Drive, a bunch of skinny European guys walking around with little tennis-ball covers over their nut sacs. Sinatra would not approve.” Serge reached back with a stone and skipped it across the water’s surface and into the log in front of them. The log blinked and submerged in retreat. “The air crackled with electricity, Ann-Margret and Judy Garland headlining in the Rat Pack Deco hotels. And just when it seemed it couldn’t get any more exciting, the Museum of Natural History in New York was hit, a host of world-class gems plucked from their smashed cases. The investigation focused—where else?—Miami Beach!”