by Tim Dorsey
Sergio walked in the bar holding a small boy by the hand.
“Who’s this shaver?” asked Tommy, pinching the boy’s cheek.
“I’d like you to meet Little Serge, my grandson. He’s from West Palm Beach.”
The gang: “Hi, Little Serge.”
“Pull my finger,” said Coltrane.
Sergio let go of Little Serge’s hand, and the boy began running laps around the bar as fast as his tiny legs could churn.
“Look at him go,” said Tommy.
“Sure has a lot of energy,” said Mort.
“They named him after me,” said Sergio. “That makes me eponymous.”
Little Serge ran by.
“What’s he doing with you?” asked Moondog.
“My daughter’s working Burdines this weekend, so I said I’d take him.”
“What about his dad?”
“Has to play jai alai. It’s the height of the season. So it’s just me and Little Serge all weekend!…Hey, Serge, ready to have some fun?”
Little Serge ran by.
“What sort of stuff are you doing with him?” asked Tommy.
“I’m teaching him about Miami.”
“What about it?”
“Like Overtown,” said Sergio, snagging Little Serge by the arm on his next pass. “Remember me telling you about the curfew where black people have to go back to the mainland? Isn’t that fucked up?”
Little Serge nodded. Sergio let go. The boy took off.
“Jesus, what are you talking to him like that for?” said Chi-Chi. “He’s only three.”
“Actually two, but tall for his age,” said Sergio. “I want to prepare him. It’s a Darwinian furnace of injustice out there. The sooner he accepts that, the happier he’ll be.”
Little Serge stopped running and tugged on Sergio’s shirt.
“What is it?”
“Can I have a fucking soda?”
“Sure you can.”
“Listen to how he’s talking already!” said Mort.
“I know. Isn’t it amazing?”
Moondog leaned down and gave Little Serge a light poke in the tummy. “I’m crazy about kids.”
“Me, too,” said Tommy.
“Sure is a cute little fella,” said Moondog, crouching down in a playful boxing pose. “Despite the dubious lineage.”
Chi-Chi checked his watch. “It’s time. We have to go to the place.”
A pink Cadillac convertible cruised down Collins. Buddy Holly on the AM. The car was crammed, six men in straw hats and guayaberas, not talking, arms resting on the tops of the doors, staring ahead in dark sunglasses as the warm Miami air flapped through their shirts. Little Serge bounded from lap to lap in the backseat.
“What’s black and white and red all over?” asked Coltrane.
Little Serge shook his head.
“A wounded nun!”
Chi-Chi nodded toward the curb. “There’s the asshole now.”
The others looked over at the sidewalk. A gangly man in an untucked lime shirt and tortoise sunglasses walked past a telegram window. The Cadillac pulled alongside. The man saw the car and took off.
Chi-Chi hit the gas and stayed with him. “Manny! Stop! You’re only making it worse!”
Manny didn’t stop. He crashed into an old Cuban woman, groceries flying, bread stepped on. People shouted and cursed. The Cadillac screeched up and jumped the curb, cutting off Manny, who darted down the alley. The gang vaulted out of the car without opening the doors. Sergio carried Little Serge.
Manny tried to escape over a chain-link fence, but Greek Tommy caught him from behind, grabbing him by the belt. Manny’s fingers tightened their grip through the holes in the fence. “No! Please don’t! I promise I’ll pay!”
“He won’t let go!” yelled Greek Tommy.
The others grabbed the man’s legs and pulled. They had him out horizontal, crying, still clutching the fence. “No! Oh, sweet Jesus! I have a family! I’m begging!”
Sergio stood off to the side, covering Little Serge’s face with his hand. Little Serge grabbed the hand and parted the fingers.
Chi-Chi took off a shoe and bashed Manny’s fingers with the heel. There was a loud scream when he let go, and they all went tumbling. Then the stomping began.
Another set of tires screeched at the end of the alley. A black Cadillac skidded up next to the pink one. Doors opened, thick men in seersucker got out and headed down the alley.
The biggest one stopped in front of Chi-Chi. “You have our money?”
“That’s what we’re doing now.”
“Mr. Palermo wants his money. You run a sports book in this town, you pay tribute.”
“I know. Just give me a minute.” Chi-Chi kicked the man on the ground. “Gimme the money!”
“No more time. You’re already late.” The big man stepped forward and pulled a blackjack from his pocket. “Where do you want it?”
“Now, hold on!” said Chi-Chi. “If you’re going to hit anyone, hit Manny”—pointing down—“He’s the one with your money.”
“I have to hit you.”
“But we’re just the middlemen. You’ll get your money quicker if you hit him.”
The goon shook his head. “Tried that once. Messed up our accounting.” He looked at the guy on the ground. “Scram.”
The man ran away. One of the goons took Little Serge by the hand and walked him to the side of the alley. The others formed a circle around the gang and closed in, the goons’ shadows slowly falling over their faces.
Present
The young lifestyle reporter flipped another page, writing furiously. “Did you get any of this story from actual events?”
“Story?” said Serge. “What do you mean? It’s all true.”
The reporter looked up and stared.
“No, really, that’s how all the trouble started. It got even worse after they teamed up with Lou. Man, Lou! Don’t even get me started there. Lou’s how the gang found themselves mixed up in the famous Star of India heist from ’64.”
“Never heard of it.”
“You’re joking, right? The Murph the Surf case?”
She shook her head. “What was it?”
“Just the biggest jewel heist in U.S. history! Dominated the papers for weeks. The story had all the elements: daring crime, surfing playboys, chic locale, wild sex parties with priceless jewels thrown in swimming pools, frolicking babes diving in after them. Then the net closes. Jealous boyfriend tips the cops. Surfers busted. But police are more concerned with finding the gems. They cut a deal and bring one of the suspects back to Miami to retrieve the rocks from his fences.”
“I think I have enough for now,” said the reporter, closing her notebook.
“That weekend the surfer and the cops zigzag all over Miami—we follow the exact route on Tour Option Twelve. The surfer makes a bunch of calls from pay phones to his underworld associates: ‘Give the stones back, or I’ll turn you in, too.’ They arrange the handoff, but it only results in a frantic series of near misses, everyone too jumpy. On a false lead, the cops even put on scuba gear and dive in Biscayne Bay to check dock pilings….”
The reporter pulled the strap of a purse up over her shoulder. “That about wraps it up.”
“…Meanwhile, the press stakes out the surfers’ apartments, where beach bunnies are holed up, peeking through the blinds. The detectives stumble into the bunny nest with their suspect. The press pounces. The cops bolt, the reporters follow, the chase is on! The gumball rally winds all over the county, all night. Everyone even stopped and met up in a couple of bars before running back out to their cars trying to get away from each other again. The cops finally ditch their wheels, run across a parking lot and jump in a cab to get away. In the wee hours they recover the Star of India and a bunch of the other stones from an outdoor bus-station locker on Biscayne Boulevard. But a dozen of the diamonds remain missing to this day, and I’m going to find them!”
“Good luck.” Car keys jingling.
“Here—write this down in your notebook. I’m announcing a special offer today that you’ll only get from Serge and Lenny’s Florida Experience. Whoever is with us on the tour when we recover the stones gets a cut.” Serge leaned back in the red vinyl booth and beamed with self-satisfaction. “How’s that?”
“I don’t think anyone else is making that offer.”
“I didn’t think so.”
18
T HE FABULOUS FONTAINEBLEAU.
Flamboyant, extreme.
The era’s most famous architect, Morris Lapidus, unveiled her in 1954. The critics were horrified. The public came in waves.
So did the celebs. It was Frankie’s place, and Dean’s, and Jerry’s. Elvis chose it for his welcome-home-from-the-army TV special.
It was the King Kong of Miami Beach. Twelve hundred rooms in fourteen stories forming a quarter circle around twenty acres of pools, gardens and cabanas. Attention to every detail, to make sure it was excessive enough. They painted a mural on the side of the hotel—of the hotel. No place was bigger in the fifties.
At the dawn of the new millennium, no place was bigger than South Beach. But that was thirty blocks below the Fontainebleau. The stars stopped coming. It wasn’t Gwyneth’s place, or Rosie’s, or J.Lo’s.
But not everyone forgot. The hotel still held a warm spot for the old diehards, the keepers of the flame.
A Thursday afternoon. A panting man in Sansabelts banged on the door of one of the hotels’ massive penthouses. A weight lifter with a shoulder holster answered. The man stepped into a luxury suite the size of a blimp hangar, full of sun and sea from the spacious glass. In the middle of the room was a green felt table, four men in wheelchairs, four bodyguards. Drinks, cigars, a pile of playing cards. Gin.
The man caught his breath and approached the table with a newspaper under his arm. “Mr. Palermo, I think you want to see this.”
He unfolded the paper and held it in front of the old man, open to the feature article about a peculiar new tour service. Mr. Palermo slipped on reading glasses and leaned his head back to make out the type. He took the glasses off and looked away. “Tell me what it says.”
“It’s about a travel company these guys are starting in Miami. It’s got a picture of them.”
“I didn’t know we were against tourism?” said Mr. Palermo. The other card players laughed.
“Mr. Palermo, look at this.” The man held out another newspaper. “This was the story on Rico Spagliosi’s funeral, the one with all the photos we were so sore about.”
Mr. Palermo nodded.
“Remember how one of the pictures was of that guy nobody knew who got in the scuffle with Tony?”
Mr. Palermo nodded again.
“Here’s that picture. And now here’s the new picture from the article on the travel service. It’s the same guy.”
“So an unstable citizen is driving a tour bus? So I should kill him for shoving Tony a couple times?”
“There’s more. In the travel article, it says the guy’s investigating the missing diamonds from the ’64 job. Says his grandfather might have even gotten whacked over it.”
Mr. Palermo folded his hands in his lap and stared out the window at the sea. “You don’t think it was a coincidence that this man who is talking to the papers about the gems also just happened to show up at Rico’s funeral?”
“No, do you?”
The old man smiled. “There are no coincidences.”
“Mr. Palermo. We still haven’t found Tony, and he’s supposed to meet the feds tomorrow. Now this. Things are getting—”
Mr. Palermo raised a hand. The man stopped. The room was silent except for ice cubes as Mr. Palermo picked up a glass and took a slow sip of Cutty Sark. He set the drink back on the card table.
“Call our friends in California.”
“Yes, Mr. Palermo.”
The old man held out his right hand, making a dubious shaking gesture. “And find out more about this offbeat travel thing.”
19
T HE FOUR MEN had been drinking for some time. Serge could see that as he swung the limo up the driveway of a strip club in a west Miami Quonset hut. He had gotten their e-mail through his website that afternoon. Serge rented the limo when the customers said they were high rollers and didn’t do vans. They would pay extra.
The disheveled clients swayed on the sidewalk in the midnight wind. A line of cabbies from seventeen different nations had already picked up the scent. The limo raced up to the curb, and Serge jumped out. “Back off, boys. Let the big dog eat.”
He held the limo’s rear door open as the men stumbled inside. “Thank you for choosing Serge and Lenny’s for all your offbeat travel needs. Welcome aboard…”—he read convention name tags as they got in—“Keith…Doug…Rusty…and Brad. This is one trip you’ll never forget.”
Serge got back into the driver’s seat and looked over his shoulder. “What kind of place you want to start with? I know them all. Just name it!”
They said a bar.
“We can go to bars anytime. Miami is your oyster. A million better opportunities. Besides, we have our own bar.” Lenny smiled on cue at the men. He sat opposite them in the back of the limo, wearing shorts and a tuxedo T-shirt, shaking a jigger of martinis. He leaned forward. “Psst, wanna buy some weed?”
“Weed?” said Doug.
“Lenny! Behave!” Serge laughed nervously. “He’s just kidding. It’s part of the underbelly. You’re paying for that…. So what’ll it be? Historic crime scene? Heroin shooting gallery? Celebrity grave?”
A bar.
“Suit yourself. A bar it is. But it’ll be a great, historic bar.”
Serge faced forward and put on a baseball cap with thirty-three enamel pins from South Florida tourist attractions and a blinking I MIAMI light on the visor. He turned the ignition. “We ride tonight!”
The limo worked its way through a desolate industrial stretch of town near the river. Half-submerged shopping carts, crime lights, people sleeping in boxes. He turned west on Seventh Street. “Please direct your attention to the crumbling art deco building on the right next to the half-completed highway ramp. It was used for exterior shots of police headquarters in Miami Vice. If you look closely, you can see the scowling ghost of Edward James Olmos in the upstairs window….” He drove another block and turned right on South Miami Avenue, pulling up to an old concrete building shy of the river. They looked out at the vintage neon sign.
TOBACCO ROAD
LIQUOR BAR
’TIL 5 A.M.
“Here she is,” said Serge. “Oldest bar in Miami-Dade County. Established 1912.”
“I don’t know…” said Doug.
“It’s an institution!” said Serge. “Used to be a speakeasy where Capone hung out when he was down here working on his tan. Now an intimate blues joint.”
“It’s not topless,” said Brad.
“The last place we were at, the girls had little stickers on their nipples,” said Keith.
“Do you know a place that doesn’t have stickers?”
Serge jumped out and opened the back door and began grabbing guys by the arms. “Get in there! Live the history!”—pushing them toward the door.
They climbed a tight staircase in clandestine red light and found two cocktail tables near the front. The singer belted an uncanny Muddy Waters. The men waved down a waiter. “Is there a titty bar nearby?”
A TWO-MAN FBI sniper team sipped coffee on the roof of Miami Executive Airport. Black jumpsuits, black baseball caps. The pair watched a twin-turbofan Gulfstream land. Bankers got out. The plane taxied to a hangar.
The snipers went back to debating the Dolphins secondary. Two more corporate jets touched down. One of the agents was opening the coffee thermos when a walkie-talkie squawked. The other answered it. He looked up at the horizon. “We’re on.”
A tiny spot appeared in the western sky. The snipers used binoculars and rifle scopes to comb the runways and nearby buildings, then
a perimeter sweep of the underbrush on the opposite side of the mesh fence around the tarmac. The Lear grew larger and dropped landing gear, lining up its approach from the Everglades.
Four FBI agents in suits and dark sunglasses came out the glass terminal doors directly beneath the snipers. They stood between potted palms and folded their arms. The jet’s rear tires touched simultaneously, the nose came down, then a whoosh of braking thrust-reversers. The Lear slowed to a stop, rotated at the end of the pavement and rolled back to the terminal. Someone kicked chocks under the tires. A small staircase flopped down from the hatch.
The waiting was always the worst, and now it was over. The agents began to untense with the plane safely down and engines off. The happiest was the agent in charge.
“Look sharp,” said Miller. “Nothing can go wrong now. Just drive the witness back to headquarters, and it’s promotions for everyone.” He turned to Bixby. “This is going to be the crowning moment of my career. Remember this day. You’re going to see history.”
The jet door opened. Tony Marsicano stepped onto the top of the staircase, feeling like a million, not a care in the world, sipping soda through a straw. He started down the stairs.
The spotter on the sniper team scanned his binoculars slowly across the runway. Something caught his eye. “What’s the…?”
A black limo rolled up behind the plane. A magnetic sign on the door: SERGE & LENNY’S FLORIDA EXPERIENCE.
Before anyone knew what was happening, some guys had a gunnysack over Tony’s head and were hustling him back to the limo. The sniper peered through the scope. “I can’t get a clear shot. I’ll hit the witness.”
The agents down on the runway pulled their pistols. Miller jumped in front of them and spread his arms. “Don’t shoot! You’ll hit Tony!”
The limo’s back door slammed shut.
“I have a shot now,” said the sniper.
“Take it!”
The limo’s back window shattered.
“To the car!” yelled Miller.
Four agents jumped in a Crown Vic, and tires squealed. The sedan swung around the back of the plane, gaining on the limo.
