by Tim Dorsey
“Putting a stop to this.” Serge entered the living room. “Mrs. Lippowicz, I couldn’t help but notice you’re plagued by solicitors. Would you mind if I handled the next call?”
“Why, thank you, Serge.”
They all sat on the couch and watched Full House.
Lenny leaned over. “The little girl’s really twins, you know.”
“That’s how they get around child-labor laws,” said Serge.
“You know everything.”
The phone rang. Serge answered. “Hello?…No, let me save you some oxygen before you read your whole script…. Stop talking…. Let me say something…. You’re still reading the script…. Shut up!…Thank you. I want to inform you that this is now a business number, so get on your little telemarketing computer and make a notation not to call this number anymore because…You’re reading the script again…. I’m not remotely interested…. Because carpet cleaning with sound waves is an idiotic idea…. You’re still reading…. No, you’ve just changed scripts…. You’ve changed to the script you read after the person says they’re not interested…. I’m hanging up…. I have to hang up…. Now you’re reading the ‘I have to hang up’ script…. I really have to hang up.”
Serge hung up.
The phone rang.
“Hello?”
Serge got a look on his face as he set the phone back in its cradle.
“What is it?” asked Lenny.
“He called back just to hang up on me.”
“Wow. That’s really got to piss you off.”
“And because I don’t know his phone number, there’s nowhere for my anger to go.”
“Hold on,” said Lenny. “I know a new feature that gives you the last number that called in.” Lenny hit star and a couple of buttons. He listened and looked at Serge. “The number’s blocked! And we just spent seventy-five cents!”
“Son of a bitch!”
Serge grabbed the phone and dialed again.
“Who are you calling?”
“The phone company…Hello, yes, I’d like to file a complaint against a telemarketer…. No, I don’t know that…. I tried, but they had the number blocked. I figured since you’re the phone company you could look up—…What do you mean there’s no way to do that?…I’m sorry, but I’m finding that very hard to believe…. You’ve got a bunch of satellites in orbit, and yet you can’t circumvent your own blocking feature?…Okay, so they’re probably out of state, so how does that make it more difficult?…Look, if they’re out of state, they have to pay long-distance. My number has to be recorded to someone’s account so you know where to mail your bills, or do you just send them anywhere, launch them out into space on the wings of hope?…”
Serge listened a moment. He put the phone down.
“What happened?”
“Said I had a bad attitude. Then she hung up.”
They went back to Lenny’s room. Serge got on the Internet again. A website popped up. Serge surfed to another, then another, then a few more, then online directory assistance. Serge stopped and folded his hands in front of him in thought.
“What is it?”
“I’ve found the heads of several telemarketing companies, but they’re all unlisted.”
“Maybe they don’t want to be bothered by phone calls.”
Serge began tapping again. A new site popped up. Florida Secretary of State. He clicked the “Corporations” button.
“How does that help?” asked Lenny.
“Companies are required to file personal addresses and phone numbers of their officers.” Serge pointed at the bottom bunk. “Hand me one of those cell phones.”
“But how will you know they’re the same company that called us?”
“I won’t. But they set the rules. They pick us at random, so do we….” Serge punched a number into the phone. “Hello, how are you doing this evening?…No, this isn’t a solicitation call…. This is an antisolicitation call…. If you think telemarketers are dick-brains, please press one now—”
Click.
“Probably has Caller ID. Hand me a different phone.”
Lenny fetched a compact blue model. Serge dialed. “Hello, we’re conducting a survey. When do you like telemarketers to call? A: When you’re taking a shit. B: When—”
Click.
“Hand me another.” Serge dialed. “Tired of your wife fucking your friends—”
Click.
Serge dialed again. “Hello—”
“I’ll kill you, you bastard! I’ll find out who you are and smash your brains out with a brick! You’re fucking with the wrong person!…”
“Mr. Jamison, this is Detective Swayback with the police department,” said Serge.
“Oh.”
“We’ve received word that a dangerous mental patient may be heading to your house. He’s suspected of killing several people with a really big ax after phoning them numerous times pretending to be a telemarketer.”
“He’s been calling all night!”
“Lock all your doors and windows. We’re on our way.”
Serge hung up and smiled at Lenny.
“But how does that stop solicitors from calling our house?”
“It doesn’t, but it makes me feel better. That’s the number-one rule in life: Always do what makes you feel better at all times.”
“That’s three number-one rules now.”
“Rule Number One is that Rule Number One is whatever you want it to be at any time based on self-interest, blinding rationalization and petulance. At least that’s the code everyone in this country seems to be operating under.”
Serge returned to website construction.
Lenny opened his bedroom window and lit a joint.
“How’d you learn how to build web pages?”
“Nothing to it. I just cut and pasted from other e-business sites.”
“Like what?”
Serge held up his clipboard. “Mortgages Made Easy, Bankruptcy in a Box, Sell Your Products in Togo, International Brides from Developing Countries, International Brides from Nondeveloping Countries (medical waiver), Runaway International Bride Tracking Service, Bleeding Gums? No Problem!, Clip Art for Inmates, Credit Repair for Cokeheads, Offshore Casinos That Never Pay, Make a Six-Figure Income by Mistreating Others, Tiny Home Video Cameras for Security and Peeping—”
“Is this going to take much longer?”
“If you keep bothering me.”
“I think I’ll take a nap,” said Lenny, climbing onto the top bunk. “I’m sleepy from the weed. Wake me when we’re ready.”
Serge tapped on the keyboard with his right hand and picked up a cell phone with his left. “Hello? Mr. Jamison?…No, this isn’t Detective Swayback. This is Lieutenant Muldoon at the police department…. That’s what I need to talk to you about…. Whatever you do, I want you to remain calm…. Are you sitting down?…Good. The serial killer is going by the name Detective Swayback. And we’ve been able to do a phone trace…. Mr. Jamison, the calls are coming from inside your house!”
MIDNIGHT, LENNY’S EYES fluttered open. Serge’s face was two inches away. Lenny jumped. “Ahhhhhh!”
“Good, you’re finally awake.”
“How long were you staring at me like that?”
“An hour, more or less. Finished the website.”
Lenny hopped down from the bunk and pulled up a chair.
Serge handed him the mouse.
“What do I do?”
“See the ‘Okay’ button?”
“Yeah?”
“That means ‘okay.’ Click it.”
Lenny clicked the mouse. The screen went black.
They began hearing faint musical horns, growing louder, becoming the opening score from 2001: A Space Odyssey. The Miami skyline took form out of the predawn darkness, then a burst of light, the music switching to allegro tympanic synthesizer as time-lapse photography shot the sun out of the Atlantic into a quick twelve-hour arc across the Florida sky, clouds zipping back and forth, intersper
sed with flashing still images: cocaine seizures, machine-gun seizures, exotic-animal seizures, people jumping into the sea from overloaded immigrant smuggling boats, police in riot gear, chalk outlines, pools of blood, sheet-covered bodies, prostitutes in hot pants, shirtless men in handcuffs, syringes in storm drains, hurricane-leveled trailer parks with sad-faced pets walking through debris…then sunset and blackness over the city.
“Pretty cool,” said Lenny. “Where’d you get the idea?”
“The Action Five News intro.”
A final bright explosion filled the computer screen, dissolving into a set of turquoise-and-pink neon letters: Serge & Lenny’s Florida Experience.
“You put your name first,” said Lenny. “We didn’t discuss that.”
“You slept. I made the page.”
“I still don’t know what business it is.”
“You’ve seen all those new specialty travel tours? Ghost tours, notorious-crime-scene tours, celebrity-home tours, literary tours, cemetery tours, architectural tours, seedy-underbelly tours, drug-sampling tours along the Vietnamese-Laotian border…”
“Which are we?”
“All of them.”
“Even the drug tour?”
“Normally I’d say no, but it’s part of the underbelly, so morally I must include it.”
“This is what you’ve been planning the whole time? A travel service?”
“Yes and no. The tour business is just a subsidiary of our tentacled conglomerate designed to achieve all the objectives on my clipboard through the implementation of a plan so complex, dominating and unfathomable that I weep in awe of its scope. The tour is just the tip.”
“What’s the rest of the plan?”
“Can’t tell you. Each facet is compartmentalized on a need-to-know basis, in case they torture you.”
“Somebody’s going to torture me?”
“Possibly, but the good news is you can’t tell them anything,” said Serge. “Not even I know the whole plan.”
“How is that possible?”
“I planned it that way. It will all become apparent as it starts unfolding with the flood of customer e-mail hitting our website in the next few seconds.”
Serge clicked the mouse over to their Internet mailbox. The two stared at the screen. And stared.
“Where are all our customers?” asked Lenny.
“Something’s wrong,” said Serge.
They kept staring.
“The site’s not working,” said Lenny.
“The customers must be having trouble deciding from our incredible selection of option packages. They’re probably going into choice shock.” Serge stood and stretched. “That has to be it. I’ll get some sleep and check the mailbox in the morning before our first tour.”
Lenny took a seat at the computer and began tapping. “I’m pretty rested from my nap. I think I’ll do some surfing before I turn in.”
“SERGE! WAKE UP!”
“Wha—What is it?” He sat up in bed, a crease from the sheets on his cheek. He looked at the bright bedroom window. Morning.
“I think we got a bunch of e-mail!”
Serge swung his legs over the side of the bunk bed and trudged to the computer, hair standing up. He clicked open the website’s mailbox.
“It’s completely full,” said Serge. “I knew it!”
They high-fived, and Serge began scrolling with the mouse.
“How much money do you think we’ll make?” asked Lenny.
“Uh-oh, keep your pants on,” said Serge. “It’s all spam.”
“Spam?”
“Junk e-mail. That’s another thing about the Internet. It’s an incredible technological revolution, but at a price. Every time decent folks log on, they’re forced to realize there are division-strength armies of really twisted motherfuckers out there, doing all kinds of sick shit they couldn’t have remotely imagined if it weren’t for spam. Just look at these subject headers: ‘Wild women, wild horses,’ ‘Barely legal teen facial cum shots,’ ‘Ever been fisted?,’ ‘Got Porn?,’ ‘Double-Dong Lesbo Action,’ ‘Ass Ventura: Crack Detective’…”
“Look,” said Lenny. “‘All-natural penis extender.’ There’s a picture of a bowling pin.”
“…Except even this seems a little extreme, considering we just opened an account…. Lenny, what kind of websites did you visit last night?”
Lenny turned red.
“Well?”
“I sorta stuck my head in a lesbian chat room. Just for a minute.”
“What name did you use?”
“Pamela.”
“Just great. We’ll be wading in cyber-sewage for weeks.”
“I met a nice girl,” said Lenny.
“What was his name?”
“His?”
“Lesbian chat rooms are just a bunch of fat guys in undershorts eating bratwurst and logging on as Candy and Fawn.”
“But that would be lying.”
“You had virtual sex, didn’t you?”
Lenny covered his ears. “I’m not listening anymore. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah…”
Serge stared back at the screen and ran a hand through his hair. “Why isn’t the site working? Have we skipped a critical step?”
Lenny uncovered his ears and lit a joint. “What do we do now?”
“Of course,” said Serge. “We forgot to send out press releases.”
“But you’re a fugitive. Remember how all those reporters were looking for you?”
“You ever see how a newsroom operates?”
“No.”
“If you’re ever in hiding and want to be aggressively ignored by the media, send out press releases.”
Serge spent the next hour dispatching electronic notices to all major South Florida news organizations. Then he prepared to close out the computer program.
A modulated voice from the laptop: “You’ve got mail.”
“Hold on. What’s this? A new e-mail. And it looks legit.”
“Open it!”
Serge read the message and smacked Lenny on the back. “Our first customer.” He picked up a cell phone and dialed the number on the screen. “Hello? This is Serge and Lenny’s. We just got your e-mail…. Tomorrow morning? Let me see if we have an opening…. Yes, we can work you in…. How’s ten o’clock sound?…Good, you know the rendezvous point from the website?…See you then.”
Serge hung up. “We’re in business.”
“This calls for a celebration,” said Lenny. “Let’s party.”
“No time. I have to rush-order some magnetic signs and make an exhaustive supply run.” Serge pulled cash and credit cards from their haul of wallets. “And tell your mom we’ll need to borrow her van. We won’t be able to fit all the customers in the Cougar.”
“This is getting exciting.”
“They’ll never look at Miami the same again.”
14
T ONY MARSICANO AND Two-Tone Bob had a late celebratory dinner at Del Frisco’s. A bottle of burgundy. This was the best time, right after a job. They always had the veal.
“A toast,” said Bob, holding up a glass of merlot. “To whatever the hell it was we stole.”
Glasses clinked.
“You understand I have my reasons for not telling you,” said Tony.
“I know, I know,” said Bob, sawing meat with fork and knife, sticking a piece in his mouth without changing the hand the fork was in. “It doesn’t bother me.”
“Do we need more wine?”
Bob nodded, chewing. Tony snapped his fingers for the waiter.
Bob got up and tossed his napkin on the table. “I gotta take a leak.”
“I have to make a phone call,” said Tony.
They headed the same way out of the dining room and parted in the hall. Tony went to a pay phone and set his cell phone on top. For the important stuff, Tony only used pay phones.
Bob emerged from the men’s room a little drunk. He heard Tony’s voice. It was around the corner. Bob was about to walk rig
ht out, but he stopped and listened.
Tony finally hung up. Bob appeared.
“There you are!” said Tony, putting an arm around Bob’s shoulders as they went back to the table.
The new bottle of wine arrived. Bob waited until the waiter left. “How come you wouldn’t let me deal with the guard back there?”
“Not this time. The job had to be totally undetected. Otherwise what I took becomes worthless.”
“Now I’m really curious. You sure you can’t tell me?”
“Let’s just say you can transport it totally undetected and it launders money completely.”
“Because you’re taking it with you when you leave on Friday?”
Tony’s expression changed.
“I heard the phone call,” said Bob.
“I have to go away for a while,” said Tony. “I only kept it from you because it could get you in trouble.”
Bob lowered his gaze. “I can’t believe you’re going to testify.”
Tony reached across the table and grabbed Bob by the wrist. “I would never turn against the Family. You know that. But they have some bad stuff on me—I got no choice. So I offered them some of our competitors. Hell, the Palermos should give me a medal. I’m going to do what the Family hasn’t been able to for five decades.”
“If you’ve already struck a deal, weren’t you risking it with tonight’s job?”
“Just the opposite—it was no risk at all, a free shot. If I get away with it, I’m rich. If they catch me, they ignore it. It just falls on the immunity side of the balance sheet that they erase with my testimony. There’s absolutely no way I’m going into the witness program on their pitiful allowance.”
“Then I guess that answers the question about the stones. You obviously don’t have them.”
“What stones?”
“The missing ones from 1964.”
“Who’s saying that?”
“Everyone. Shit, are you completely out of the loop up here? That’s the big talk back in Miami. You were the only one Rico allowed in his hospital room before he died. Everybody just assumed.”
“That was loyalty.”
“So you’re actually going to walk away from it all on Friday?”
“No. Right now.”
Tony set his napkin on the table and stood. “Let me get a good look at you.” Bob got up, and Tony grabbed him by the shoulders; they hugged. Tony tossed a couple hundreds next to his plate. “Take care of yourself.”
