by Tim Dorsey
“They won’t let you try them on first. You have to buy them,” said Lenny. “The tennis-ball things.”
“It’s a common misconception that all the gems were recovered,” said Serge. “True, they got back the big ones: the Star of India, the DeLong Ruby and whatnot. But they never found about a dozen of the diamonds. Given the total take, everyone counted their blessings. The missing stuff was only a fraction. But that was four decades ago. Today they’re worth a ransom.”
“Can we stop now?” asked Lenny, looking around the swamp, no sign of human anything.
“Okay, we’ll rest at that palm cluster over there. That should be far enough so Mr. Vonnegut can’t follow us back and get run over by a tour bus.”
They arrived on dry land a minute later. Lenny waited off to the side as Serge said his tearful good-byes. He cupped Mr. Vonnegut in his hands and gently placed him on a large fungus bulb growing out the side of a fallen tree. Serge stepped back. The mouse hopped down and ran to him.
“Remember,” said Lenny. “Cruel to be kind.”
Serge wagged a finger in the mouse’s face. “Bad Mr. Vonnegut!” He set the mouse on the fungus again and stepped back.
The mouse prepared to jump down again. Just then something large leaped from the sabal palms and landed on the log. Then it jumped back into the brush.
“Where did that fucking panther come from!”
“MOM, WE’RE HOME.”
Serge was still red-eyed and sniffling as they came through the front door, blowing his nose in a hanky.
Mrs. Lippowicz was knitting. “Lenny, there’s some mail for you and Serge on the table.”
Lenny began walking to the table. Serge ran past him bushy-tailed, forgetting all about the marsh mouse. “I love mail! Mail is the best! Mail is hope! Mail is a mystery! Look! A box! That’s a good sign. Always good to get a box! Envelopes can go either way. But bad news rarely comes in a box. Only goodies!” Serge seized it off the table, tumbling it in his hands, putting it to his ear and shaking. “No noise.” He sniffed it. “No odor.” He checked the return address and postmark. “Don’t recognize them.” He set the box back down and rubbed his palms. “God, I love mail! Especially mail I don’t recognize! It could be anything! Opportunity, a big adventure, a whole new chapter in life about to unfold! I love this moment! I hope it’s not a product sample. Ooooh, that would be bad! I get all excited and it’s a fucking mini Tide detergent. Do you think that’s what it is? I’m sure that’s what it is! Now I’m depressed. It’s got to be Tide or some female-hygiene product. God, I hate it when they do that! I’m furious just thinking about it. Damn those people to hell!…Wait, why am I getting upset?” He smiled jubilantly and raised the box high over his head. “It’s mail!”
Serge began biting through packing tape—“Please, please, please…”—tearing wildly at cardboard flaps.
“What are you expecting?” asked Lenny.
“I don’t know. I send away for so much stuff.” A side of the box finally gave way. Serge pulled out a videocassette. He read the title, then signaled touchdown with two arms in the air. “Yessssss!”
“What is it?”
Serge ran down the hall.
When Lenny got to the bedroom doorway, Serge was reaching up in the closet’s top shelf, pulling down old board games. Mousetrap, Shenanigans, Clue, Battleship, Mystery Date…
“My sister’s,” Lenny said quickly.
“That’s why I love your room,” said Serge. “It’s like it’s frozen in time. My guess would be the exact moment you started smoking pot.”
“How’d you know?”
Serge found a plastic box in the back of the shelf behind the Major Matt Mason accessories. He carried it to the dresser and removed the lid. He stepped back with a breath of pride, staring at a long row of videotapes and DVDs. The last slot was empty.
Lenny came up alongside. “Another tape for your archives?”
“The most important one of all,” said Serge. “This finally completes the Miami Collection.”
“How long have you been working on it?”
“Forever.” Serge ran his hands over the titles like touchstones. “This last one was the toughest of all. I’ve been searching the far corners of the Internet for months. Paid an arm. The hardest one previously was a copy of the cable documentary on the Star of India job with lots of great black-and-white newsreel footage.”
“From the History Channel?”
“No, A&E. I can’t watch the History Channel.”
“I thought you’d love that.”
“Had to finally admit I just don’t have the control. I call it the Heroin Channel. If they’re running one of those technology shows on the brief but exciting life of the ballpoint pen, I can occasionally break away for a snack. But when they get deep into the Chinese dynasties, Dr. Livingston, Magellan’s circumnavigation and Hitler’s Henchmen, that’s the ball game. Next thing I know, I’ve been squatting in the same spot in front of the TV for days without food or sleep.”
Lenny looked in the box. “I didn’t know there were so many with local connection.”
“Absolutely,” said Serge. “Here’s the A&E tape, Hitchcock’s Notorious, the pilot for Flipper, Goldfinger, the Clay-Liston fight, Surfside 6, the Beatles’ first visit, Some Like It Hot, A Hole in the Head with Sinatra, Robert Conrad and Don Stroud in Murph the Surf, the Jets and the Colts, The FBI Murders: In the Line of Duty, etcetera, etcetera.” Serge affectionately inserted his newest video into the final slot.
“Wait a second.” He stopped and yanked the tape back out. “This is a very special occasion. We have to celebrate. Go get some of that rainy-day cash from the wallets we beat out of those people.”
“Field trip?” said Lenny.
8
T ONY MARSICANO BROUGHT his own underboss when he came up from Miami, a loyal lifelong friend, the one they called Two-Tone Bob. Bob was like a younger brother to Tony; he trusted Bob with his life.
Bob got off his cell phone. “Mr. Palermo just sent the new guys up.”
“Good, we can use the help.”
Bob went to the airport to pick up the fresh crew, the one Mr. Palermo had sent to keep an eye on Tony. That’s how Mr. Palermo had gotten to be Mr. Palermo. Distrust the people you trust the most. Two-Tone Bob drove the new guys out to the address Tony had given him. They pulled onto an empty street just after midnight and parked behind Tony’s Cadillac. Tony was already waiting outside the car.
They met, shook hands. Tony pointed. “I want you to break in that place.”
The new guys looked across the street at a vacant storefront in a strip mall. The crew’s captain, Sammy Scarpotto, scratched his head. “I don’t get it. It’s empty. Who’s it belong to?”
“Shut up!” snapped Two-Tone. “Don’t ask questions! Tony told you to do something—just do it!”
“It belongs to me,” said Tony.
Now Sammy was really baffled.
“I want to test the security system,” said Tony. He gave Sammy the override code in case it went off.
Sammy didn’t see the point but told the other guys to get to work anyway.
Tony and Two-Tone got back in the Caddy. Tony pulled out a stopwatch. His hunch about security at Strauss & Levy had been on the money. It wasn’t much of a system, because it was just an accounting place. Not a very big target. Basic wiring to protect the computers. Still, it took the crew only three minutes to trip one of the motion detectors, and Sammy couldn’t get the override entered in time.
Tony’s cell phone rang. The alarm company. “I accidentally set it off myself.” He gave the password.
Sammy led the others back to Tony’s car. “Sorry.”
Tony reset his stopwatch. “Try again.”
Two more alarms, but Sammy was able to punch in the code each time. On the next try, the crew made it without a hitch.
Tony clicked his stopwatch.
The crew came back out to the cars. Sammy smiled proudly. “How was that?”<
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“Do it again,” said Tony.
Five more times without an alarm. Sammy was getting annoyed, but Two-Tone kept him in line.
“That’s enough,” Tony finally said. He picked up a rock and threw it through the front window of his own store. The new guys were beginning to think Tony was a little loopy.
“Get in the cars and follow me.”
They drove to the dark end of the street, turned around and killed the lights. The alarm company called Tony’s cell phone again. He didn’t answer, just stared at the stopwatch.
Four minutes and eighteen seconds later, a police cruiser rolled into the strip mall. Then a Cadillac.
“I’m the owner,” said Tony, shaking hands with the officer.
“Probably juveniles,” said the cop. “We’ve been getting a few like this.”
“I’ve got some plywood inside. I’ll cover it up until I can get the glass company out here in the morning.” They shook again, and the cop left.
The other cars turned on their headlights and drove back to Tony.
Sammy got out. “What are we practicing for? I haven’t heard anything from Miami about a score.”
“I told you to watch your mouth!” said Two-Tone.
“It’s my own idea,” said Tony. “I haven’t told anyone yet.”
“Kind of like the counterfeit tickets?”
“Kind of.”
9
S TEVE AND MARLENE Kensington of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, stood at the railing on their ninth-floor balcony. Arms around each other in white silk bathrobes—embroidered hotel crests over the pockets—gazing contentedly out to sea. Shafts of sunshine occasionally broke through a light cloud cover and danced in the Atlantic. Their tenth anniversary. Marlene snuggled into Steve and closed her eyes. “Remember when we first came to Miami Beach?”
“How could I forget?”
Steve had been a wrestler at Penn State, now a probate attorney, but the physique was still there. Marlene was a foot shorter, thin and delicate, and Steve was careful when he squeezed her.
She opened her eyes to take in the intoxicating azure view. “I love the Eden Roc.”
“Couldn’t stay at another hotel.”
Marlene’s gaze slid from the ocean back to their balcony and the glass-top table with a bouquet of red roses, folded-over Miami Herald and two empty room-service brunch trays with trace evidence of eggs Florentine.
She snuggled into him again. “Let’s never go home.”
“Okay.”
A knock at the door.
“Who can that be?”
Steve padded across the suite in slippers, checked the peephole and opened the door. A pair of grinning men in tropical shirts and khaki shorts entered with two bottles of Dom Perignon, a giant welcome basket of citrus and marmalade, a sterling bucket of caviar. And a videotape.
Marlene came in from the balcony. The men began uncapping champagne.
“Honey, what’s all this?” she said, then turned her head with a coy smile. “Is it another one of your surprises?”
“No,” Steve said with his own puzzlement. “I have no idea what’s going on.”
“You’re in Room Nine-nineteen,” said the tall one, twisting the wire off a champagne cap and placing the bottle between his knees. “You know what that means?”
“What?” said Steve.
“This is the Lucille Ball Room! Surprise!” Pop! The plastic stopper flew past Marlene and off the balcony. “You win! All this stuff’s for you! Anyone for some bubbly?”
“Wow, the Lucille Ball Room,” said Marlene, taking a glass from Serge. “This is really special.”
Steve broke into his own big grin and shook his head. “Isn’t this just like the Eden Roc?”
“Oh, it’s a great hotel!” said Serge, filling Steve’s glass.
“So, like, what? Did Lucy used to stay in this room?” asked Marlene, unwrapping orange cellophane from the gift basket. “Is that what this contest is about?”
“Oh, no, even better,” said Serge, opening the mahogany doors of the suite’s entertainment complex and inserting his video in the VCR. “This room was immortalized in one of her show’s episodes. We’re going to watch it.”
“You’re kidding!”
“Would I kid?” Serge grabbed the remote. “Just have a seat on the couch.”
“This is so neat,” said Marlene, sitting down with Steve, taking him by the arm again.
The vintage black-and-white show opened with an aerial shot of the Eden Roc, then went inside one of the rooms, where the two couples were on a Florida vacation, ordering room service. “That’s right,” said Lucy. “Room Nine-nineteen…”
“Did you hear that?” chimed Marlene. “She said our room!”
“It gets better,” said Serge. “Lucy and Ethel challenge Ricky and Fred to a fishing contest so they can win a shopping spree. Both sides decide to cheat and buy giant tuna that they hide in their bathtubs, and of course the fish get switched, setting the stage for big laughs. Whew! They just don’t make ’em like that anymore!”
Sure enough, the TV episode began unfolding just as Serge had described.
They were all laughing on the couch, and Marlene said it reminded her of a classic fishing episode on The Honeymooners and—
“Shhhhh!” said Serge. “Damn. Now, look what you did. You missed the key part where Fred asks Ricky where the fish is. That’s crucial to the linear tension. I’ll have to rewind.” Serge angrily hit the remote.
The Pennsylvania couple was knocked off balance. Their heads backed up an inch. They turned and looked at each other. Steve noticed Lenny out on the balcony, surreptitiously toking a joint cupped in his hand.
He turned to Serge. “Uh, what exactly is your colleague doing out there?”
Serge looked toward the balcony, then restarted the tape and settled back on the couch. “I know, I know. It’s kind of sad. At least it’s not the hard stuff.”
Steve glanced at his wife, then Serge again. “Forgive me for asking…but are you with the hotel?”
“The hotel?” said Serge, eyes glued to the TV. “Oh, no. We’re not with the hotel. Why?” Suddenly, he jackknifed over with laughter and slapped Steve hard on the knee. “Look! Look! I love this! They’re both walking backward with their big fish, about to bump into each other on the landing!”
“Honeyyyyyyyy…” said Marlene, scooting back to the farthest corner of the couch. “What’s going on?”
Steve looked at Serge again. “What is going on? Who are you guys?”
“We live around here. I’m really into this stuff. Just got this tape today. It completed my Miami Collection, so of course I had to watch it in this room.”
Steve jumped to his feet and went for the phone. “I’m calling security.”
“You don’t want to do that,” said Serge.
Lenny wandered in from the balcony. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing that can’t be resolved with dialogue and respect,” said Serge.
“Out!” Steve grabbed Lenny by the arm. “Get moving!”
“Let go of him!” said Serge.
Steve shoved Lenny, who stumbled toward the door.
“Hey, asshole!” Serge shoved Steve.
Steve shoved Serge back, slamming him into a wall. The former wrestler took a quick step forward, cocking his right fist for the knockout punch. A chrome pistol flew out from behind Serge’s back. The barrel landed in the middle of Steve’s face.
Steve froze. Marlene began shrieking like a stepped-on weasel.
“Tell her to shut the fuck up!” yelled Serge.
Steve stared cross-eyed at the gun barrel pressed to the bridge of his nose. “Honey, could you please lower your voice?”
The shrieks became whimpers.
“That’s better,” said Serge.
“Take anything you want,” said Steve. “This watch is fourteen karat. There’s money in the room safe.”
“I don’t want your stuff.”
“The
n what’s this about?”
“I want to watch TV.”
He marched Steve back to the couch at gunpoint. “Have a seat.”
Serge sat next to them and restarted the tape. The couple didn’t take their eyes off him.
“Not me!” said Serge, waving toward the TV with the gun. “You’re missing Lucy!”
10
T ONY MARSICANO SAT cross-legged on a toilet in the second-floor restroom of an Orlando office tower, staring at his wristwatch. He lowered his legs.
Elevator doors opened on the ground floor. Tony got out and waved toward the guard desk. Charley Pavlic waved back. “You sure work a lot of late hours, Mr. Davis.”
“That’s what happens when you’re the computer guy.”
“Wish I knew more about computers.”
“Wish I didn’t. They dump everything on you. I have to fix this big server problem by Monday. Could be here all night…. There they are.”
Charley looked over. Four men in blue technician uniforms arrived at the building’s entrance with toolboxes. Tony walked over and pushed the horizontal bar that opened the glass doors. They headed for the elevators. “Charley, we’re going to be ordering out in a couple hours. Want anything? Chinese place.”
“That’s all right. I brought something.”
They all got in the elevator. “I’ll surprise you anyway,” said Tony. The door closed.
Tony’s plan was perfect; his help was not. Despite arduous rehearsal, someone tripped the alarm two minutes after they picked the lock on the inner office. A painful siren whooped.
“Who did that?” shouted Tony.
They all shook their heads.
The telephone rang. The alarm company. Tony didn’t have the password. He unplugged the phone and clicked his stopwatch. The sweep hand began ticking. The siren wailed. The others stood around.
“What the hell are you doing?” Tony yelled. “Look like you’re working on computers!”
“How do we do that?” asked Sammy.
“Just go over and fuck with them! Jesus!”
Tony opened the outer office door as Charley got off the elevator, unsnapping his holster.
