by Tim Dorsey
Serge got out a polishing rag and went to work on his chrome.45. “Yes, sir. I don’t think most people can grasp the level of your brilliance. They don’t know how to read anymore, completely missing the allegorical references and subtle symbolism, like that hilarious time you called Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig a syphilitic pimp for allowing the world-champion Marlins to be cannibalized for spare parts.”
“Thank you.”
“So Whitmanesque!” Serge noticed Rusty and Doug, catatonic. He slapped each of them on the knees. “Hey! Don’t you know who this is? It’s Mick Dafoe, the famous sports scribe! Isn’t that exciting? This makes my whole day!…Lenny! Tunes!”
“Roger.” Lenny grabbed a Soup Dragons CD, the first of several excellent selections.
“…I’m free to do what I want, any old time…”
Country passed Dafoe the joint again, down to a nub. “I’ll roll you another.” She pulled out a pack of Job 1.5s. Dafoe had never seen this side of Miami. He had another drag as the stereo changed songs.
“…Don’t you love her madly?…”
“Relax,” said Serge, passing him another beer. “You’re among friends.”
Dafoe accepted the can and reassessed his situation. A few minutes ago he’d just touched down in Florida, standing in the doorway of his airplane looking out at that chin-tucked crowd, utterly dreading the relentless chitchat and glad-handing on the cocktail circuit of local shakers with spinach dip in their teeth. Then suddenly he’s plucked off the runway and thrown in the back of a stretch limo, where he was now sitting with a beer in one hand, a joint in the other, listening to the Doors, ogling two hot babes personally rolling him more doobies while some guy tells him he’s practically the best writer who ever lived. Dafoe looked out the window at the palm trees and rippling blue water and windsurfers in T-backs going by at ninety. He took another hit and nodded: I’m starting to come around on this city.
Country finished rolling and expertly twisted the end in her mouth. She handed it to Dafoe.
“Say, can I sit over there between you two?”
“No.”
“Darn.”
The limo suddenly lurched. “What was that?” said Serge. It lurched again.
“Lenny, what are you doing?”
“It’s not me. Something’s hitting us.”
Serge looked out the back window. A van rear-ended the limo again, then swung out and pulled along the driver’s side.
Serge lowered his electric window.
The passenger in the van lowered his. “Give us back our customer!”
“No way!”
The van sideswiped the limo.
“Give us back our customer!”
Serge pulled his head in the window and speed-loaded the magazine of his .45.
Lenny glanced in the rearview. “Who are those guys?”
“Sunshine Tours,” said Serge. “They think they’re so offbeat.”
Serge finished loading and stuck his head out the window.
“Last chance!” yelled the van’s passenger. “Give us back our customer!”
Serge answered by shooting out the right front tire, which quickly came apart, strips of belted rubber sailing into windshields of other cars. The van swished back and forth on the rim before veering off the road.
Serge leaned farther out the window and fired a parting shot into the radiator. “Who’s offbeat now, motherfucker?”
The phone rang.
“Serge and Lenny’s…Yes, I remember our last conversation….” Serge covered the phone and smiled at Rusty and Doug. “I told you they’d call back.” He uncovered the phone. “…Look, remember last time when I told you we didn’t know where Tony was? Well, actually we killed him…. Because we didn’t like his looks! What difference does it make?…We shot him. He went quickly, didn’t suffer…. I thought I told you about raising your voice…. Hey, Spanky, you may have time to gab, but I’m trying to run a small business here…. If you don’t like it, then stop calling me! Fuck yourself!” Serge hung up. “There, done. We can cross that item off the to-do list.”
Rusty and Doug didn’t look so good. Serge clapped his hands sharply. “Wake up!”
The phone rang.
“Serge and Lenny’s…You again?…What do you mean, you don’t care about Tony? I thought that’s what this was all about…. Oh, it’s the gems you really care about?…You’ll let us live if we give them to you?…Yep, we got the gems…. Sure, you can have them…. Just let me take care of a couple loose ends, and we’ll meet…. Thank you…. No, thank you…. Well, I shouldn’t have gotten upset either…. Talk to you soon…. Hug the kids. Bye.” Click.
“W-w-why’d you tell him we have the gems?” asked Doug.
“Because it’s what he wanted to hear,” said Serge. “That’s the number-one rule in life: Always tell people exactly what they want to hear at all times. It’s the lubrication of society; otherwise the world would grind to a cracked-cylinder halt. ‘Betty, love your hair.’ ‘Great report on the merger, Dick.’ ‘Yeah, I got the gems.’”
“But we don’t have any gems,” said Doug.
“Then we better find some, don’t you think?”
“And we trade them for our lives?”
“Hell, no! I’m keeping ’em!”
“But they’re going to kill us!”
“Reality check: They’re going to kill us anyway. You can’t trust the mob. And you definitely don’t want to start doing business with them. They won’t ever let you go. Blood vendettas, omerta, magazine subscriptions…”
Doug and Rusty became faint. Serge slapped his hands together again. “Come on! We have some gems to find! Who wants to be a millionaire?”
27
1964
T HE GANG WAS holding court in the lobby bar of the Deauville Hotel. Guayaberas, straw hats, bandages and slings. Chi-Chi read the newspaper, February 17.
“Where’s Sergio?” asked Moondog.
“Late,” said Chi-Chi, turning the page.
“Anything good in there?” asked Tommy.
“Buy your own paper.”
“Come on.”
“Jack Ruby goes on trial today.”
A car honked outside. And honked.
Chi-Chi looked up from his paper. “Who’s making all that racket?”
More honking. They went to investigate.
Sergio was parked at the curb in a sporty new convertible they didn’t recognize. Little Serge bounced up and down in his lap hitting the horn.
“What are you doing?” asked Chi-Chi.
“Teaching him to drive.”
“Don’t you think you’re rushing him?”
“He already steers great,” said Sergio. “Made it over the causeway all by himself. I just worked the pedals.”
“What kind of car is that?” asked Moondog.
“Called a Mustang. Not even supposed to go on sale for two months, but I know a guy at the dock. Isn’t she sharp?” He opened the door and got out. “I don’t know why they haven’t been making them like this all along.”
“How much?” asked Chi-Chi.
“Twenty-three hundred.”
Mort raised his eyebrows at the amount. “That’s a lot of money for something that size. I’d want one of those new Cadillacs. I like to stretch out.”
A car door slammed across the street. A woman’s voice: “You!”
“Uh-oh,” said Sergio.
The woman waited for traffic to clear, then strutted across Collins. The men could almost hear brassy burlesque music as they watched those legs and hips, a triple-scoop of Rocky Road packed in tight, glittery turquoise pants. Stiletto heels, jade Bakelite bracelets clacking together. Chewing gum.
“Where have you been!” she yelled.
“I, uh, with my grandson.”
“You were supposed to pick me up an hour ago!”
Sergio looked at his watch. “That late?”
“Button it!”
The guys glanced at each other. What a loud,
pain-in-the-ass piece of trash! They were in love.
“Aren’t you going to introduce us?” asked Chi-Chi.
“Yeah, who’s your friend?” said Greek Tommy.
Sergio lifted Little Serge out of the car and set him on the sidewalk, and he immediately ran out into traffic. “Guys, this is Louisiana Rhodes. You can call her Lou.”
“Don’t call me shit!” She stuck two fingers in her mouth and made a loud, shrill whistle that stopped everything. “Serge! Get out of the fuckin’ street!”
Little Serge’s ears perked. He ran over to Lou and reached for her hand. She walked him into the bar.
Sergio turned to the others. “And she’s great with kids.”
They went back in the lounge.
Lou tossed her zebra purse on the bar and lit a filterless Lucky. “Somebody buy me a drink.”
The guys crashed into each other getting money to the bartender.
Little Serge began a long series of somersaults across the floor.
“Did anyone see the Beatles last night on Sullivan?” asked Sergio.
“I thought they were on last week,” said Tommy.
“They were, but that was from Sullivan’s New York studio. Last night they broadcast from this hotel.”
“I didn’t hear about that,” said Tommy.
“From the Napoleon Room,” said Sergio. “They’re staying up on the eleventh floor right now.”
“They need haircuts,” said Chi-Chi. “They look like girls.”
Lou did a shot of whiskey and slammed the empty on the bar. “I think they’re cute.”
“They’re pretty cool guys,” said Chi-Chi.
“Nice, too,” said Sergio. “I was telling them—”
“You do not know the Beatles!” said Chi-Chi.
“We were partying pretty late,” said Sergio. “Met them at the Peppermint Club on the causeway, but they started getting mobbed, so I suggested we head to the Castaway. More private.”
“Look, there’s something in the paper about it,” said Tommy, pointing over Chi-Chi’s shoulder at an article in the Herald with a photo of a chimpanzee wearing a wig.
Mort got the bartender’s attention. “Turn up the TV.”
News on the black-and-white set. A segment about a brouhaha at the weigh-in for the big championship boxing match. The wide-mouthed face of Cassius Clay filled the screen.
“I hope he loses,” said Mort. “He’s too obnoxious.”
“That’s just an act,” said Sergio.
Chi-Chi scooted up next to Lou and tried to form a rare smile, but it came off dyspeptic. “Do you know anything about boxing? It’s pretty exciting once you learn some of the basics. I can tell you all about it.”
Lou yanked a notebook and pen from her purse. She clenched the cigarette in the corner of her mouth. “Okay, what kind of odds you giving?”
“On the fight?” said Chi-Chi.
“No, dipshit, the weather. Of course, the fight…Come on, speak up. What’s the vig?”
“Why?” asked Chi-Chi. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not here for my health,” said Lou. “I’m going to straighten out your sports book. You guys are a fucking joke on the street. From now on I give the orders.”
“You’re muscling in?”
“If there was any muscle to muscle in on,” said Lou. “Who’s off by the most?”
“That would be Joey Asparagus,” said Tommy. “Owes us six large.”
“That money could really help us,” said Mort.
“Guys!” said Chi-Chi. “I started this book!”
“Shut up!” said Lou. “You’re a silent partner now.” She wrote something, then stood. “I know where to find him.”
They headed for the lobby. There was a loud commotion. A large female mob shrieked and jumped up and down in front of the elevators. The doors opened. Four mop-top heads bobbed through the crowd to some cars waiting at the curb. The crowd ran outside and chased the cars down the street. Sergio and the gang piled in Chi-Chi’s pink Cadillac.
An hour later the Cadillac cruised over Biscayne Bay on the Rickenbacker, the Platters on the AM, Lou behind the wheel. Banging from the trunk: “Let me out!” They came over the crest of the bridge, and Sergio pointed. “There it is, Little Serge! There’s the gold dome! The one I was telling you about!”
Lou eased off the causeway on Virginia Key and pulled into the parking lot of the Miami Seaquarium. They unlocked the trunk and got Joey Asparagus out. Lou had a crowbar in one hand, pistol in the other. She poked the gun in his back. “Move!”
They headed for the elevated monorail at the entrance.
28
Present
L ENNY AND MICK Dafoe wheeled a stuffed shopping cart across the parking lot to the waiting limo. They popped the trunk. Serge stood lookout as the two transferred purchases into boat coolers.
“Remember,” Mick told Lenny, “one cooler for alcohol, one for grub.”
Lenny jammed a bottle of vodka down in the ice. “Mick’s going to show me how sportswriters set up shop on the road.”
“Are you two bonding or something?” asked Serge.
They nodded. The coolers were soon full, and Mick added a top layer of ice, carefully sculpting the cubes around the provisions with his hands. They all stepped back in admiration.
Serge whistled. “Look at all that shit.”
“This is just the mandatory stuff,” said Mick, pointing at respective contents. “Jack Daniel’s, Finlandia, Grolsch, Budweiser, limes, salt, cheese cubes, jerky, olives, three kinds of chips, three kinds of dip, eight-piece supermarket fried chicken, foot-long subs, mixed nuts, Ritz Crackers, pepperoni, pearl onions, hot sauce, shot glasses, multipurpose bar tool, playing cards, Playboy, Sominex, NoDoz, Alka-Seltzer and”—patting his shirt pocket—“cigars.”
Lenny reached in a drugstore bag and pulled out a pair of twenty-nine-dollar portable black-and-white TVs from China. “I thought I knew how to party. But it’s like there’s this whole other level.”
They climbed back in the limo and headed over the Kennedy Causeway. Serge grabbed his camera and pointed it out the window. Click.
“A picture of the Crab Shack?” asked Lenny.
“Used to be the Peppermint Club. That’s where the Beatles hung out when they came down for the Sullivan show in ’64.”
“How do you know that?”
“Good scavenger hunt last month. Went to the main Miami-Dade library in the Cuban section of downtown. Found a write-up in the Herald’s microfilm about what the Beatles did when they were here. But of course the Peppermint is gone, so I went to Special Collections and pulled the library’s old 1964 cross-street index for the address.”
“Impressive.”
“That’s what I thought, so I drove out to the restaurant and went inside. You’d think everyone would want to know about my discovery.”
“They didn’t?”
“Not only that. They said I would have to leave. That I was bothering the customers.”
“They doesn’t sound very polite.”
“Crab shacks are a different culture.”
A cell phone rang.
“Serge and Lenny’s…. Agent Miller?…With the FBI?…I was wondering when you were going to call…. No, we’re not with the Palermo Family. We’re a travel service…. No, I didn’t kill Tony Marsicano. One of my customers did. But it was self-defense. I saw the whole thing, so you can close the case…. Sure, he’s right here.”
Serge held out the phone. “It’s for you.”
Rusty was busy with a breakdown, so Serge had to hold the phone to his head again. Rusty began crying.
Serge took the phone back.
“You upset him. I hope you’re happy…. Look, the tour is getting behind schedule, so unless you have something else…What do you mean, I won’t get away with it? Get away with what?…Why does everyone think they have to shout on the phone?…Lower your voice…. I’m not going to listen to talk like that…. Fine, fuck you, too.”
Serge closed the phone. “Everybody yells.”
Lenny reached Sixty-ninth Street and angled up the drive of the Deauville Hotel.
“Here we are! Everybody out!” said Serge.
They quickly settled into their new room. City and Country staked out a patch of floor and packed a dragon’s-head bong. Mick and Lenny opened boat coolers and set up the mobile bar/snack command post on a dresser. Serge anchored the third corner of the triangle, the TV turned around, pliers and wires, assembling the multimedia studio. Rusty and Doug sat at the edge of a bed in the center of it all, feeling the room starting to spin.
“We’ve entered the Beatles phase of your tour,” said Serge. “I can’t tell you how hard it was finding the specific rooms the Fab Four stayed in when they came to Miami Beach in ’64. This one was Paul and Ringo’s.” He swept his arm around the interior of the suite. “Do you feel it? They actually breathed the air in this room! Of course, it’s different air now, but we can use our imaginations.”
Serge turned the TV back around and held up a video. “This is out of print, very hard to find. A behind-the-scenes documentary of the Beatles’ first U.S. visit.” He stuck the tape in the VCR. Old black-and-white footage came on, a pack of racehorses coming down the homestretch at Hialeah, a man springing off a high dive into a pool. The announcer’s voice: “And now from the stage of the Deauville Hotel, here he is—Ed Sullivan!”
Two portable TVs were going on the other side of the room. The Florida State game and the Notre Dame game. Lenny broke out the fried chicken. Mick filled shot glasses and flipped open his cell phone. “I’m going to teach you how to win some money…. Hello? Zippy? It’s Mick. Gimme a dime on USC, take the points….” He covered the phone and pointed at one of the sets. “Lenny, the Irish just scored. You have to do a shot.”
“And a hit,” said Country, passing him a joint.
“Sports are cool!” said Lenny.
Serge snapped his fingers in front of Rusty and Doug. “Pay attention.” He nodded toward the big TV. “When you mention the Beatles on Sullivan, most people think of the New York show. But for the second broadcast a week later, they performed live from this hotel, when they actually pulled a bigger home audience.” The footage cut to the young Brits clowning in their hotel room. “Notice how it exactly matches the interior of this room?” Serge swept his arm around the suite: City and Country toking, Lenny coughing his brains out.
