The Stingray Shuffle Page 11

  “First heard about it from Lou Holtz. ‘Become coach of Notre Dame’ was on his list, and you know what?”

  “He became coach of Notre Dame?”

  Serge nodded. “I said to myself, ‘I gotta get me one of them lists.’”

  “So what’s on yours?” asked Lenny.

  “Item number one: space flight.”

  “You’re too old to join NASA.”

  “That’s why I’ll have to deal with the Russians. After the Soviet collapse, everything’s for sale over there.”

  “What else?” asked Lenny.

  Serge held up his piece of paper: “Swim the Florida Straits, communicate with the monkeys on Key Lois, steal the DeLong Ruby, break a bull at the Okeechobee Rodeo, get into a Disney ride in less than an hour, locate the Fountain of Youth, win the Daytona 500, bring the panthers back to healthy numbers, travel in time…”

  “But time travel’s impossible.”

  “I know,” said Serge. “I wanted to keep the list realistic, so that’s why I only want to travel one week. And that way, if something goes wrong with the time ship and I can’t get back, I’m not stuck in some strange future land where the government makes everyone wear tunics and report unwelcome behavior.”

  “I hate that,” said Lenny.

  “Tell me about it.”

  Serge stuck the list back in his pocket and got out the global tracker.

  “How’s the signal?” asked Lenny.

  “Real strong. Solid all the way.” Serge pointed at a traffic sign. “Take the causeway. It’s our best bet.”

  They crossed US 1 and the Indian River, then went down the bridge onto Merritt Island.

  “Are those real alligators in that canal?” asked Lenny.

  “That’s what those are.”

  The pair began seeing the tips of shiny metal tubes over the trees.

  “Look,” said Lenny. “Kennedy Space Center.”

  “And there’s the new shuttle mock-up they put on display at the visitor center.” Serge grabbed his camera from under the seat and snapped half a roll of film as they went by. He faced forward again. “Oh my God!”

  “What is it?”

  “The signal!” said Serge, holding up the tracker. “It changed direction. It’s pointing back at the visitor center. Turn around!”

  Lenny swung across a break in the median and headed back. The Cadillac turned in the entrance of the space complex and parked next to a row of idling Gray Line buses. Serge jumped out and tucked a pistol in his waistband. He reached back in the car and grabbed the global tracker off the passenger seat. The signal pointed toward the admission gate.

  “This is it! Payday!”

  They took off running.

  14

  Another month, another book club meeting. Miami Beach this time. Books, Booze and Broads cruised down A1A in a rented Grand Marquis.

  “We’re finally going to meet Ralph Krunkleton,” said Maria.

  “Not at this rate,” said Sam, checking her wristwatch. “Just look at this traffic jam.”

  “We’ve still got plenty of time,” said Teresa.

  “How much farther?”

  “Twenty miles.”

  Twenty miles ahead, a strip mall:

  “Get a move on!” the owner shouted in the back room of The Palm Reader. He leaned over and did a line. “We have to close up and clear out before that stupid author shows up for his stupid signing!”

  The buzzer at the rear service door rang. The boss jumped. “What was that?”

  “The door.”

  He opened it a crack. Four people stood behind hand trucks stacked with brown cartons. In the background, a white commercial van from a book distributor in Hialeah.

  “Hi, I’m your wholesaler,” said a smiling woman holding a dachshund.

  No response. The door stayed open only a slit.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, trying to see inside.

  “Fine. Go away.”

  “But we brought some more books.”

  “We didn’t order any.”

  “I know,” said the woman, smiling again. “We got so much more press than we expected that I was afraid you’d run out. I took it upon myself to bring extras. You’ve been such good customers…”

  A pause.

  “Go away.”

  “If you don’t need them, then we do. We’d like to get them signed for our other stores. This is our hottest title.”

  One of the tropical shirts tapped the boss from behind. He jumped again. “What?”

  “Someone’s out front asking for you.”

  “Get rid of them.”

  “I think it’s the author.”

  “Shit!”

  “What should I tell him?”

  “Tell him we’re out of books.”

  “You’re out of books?” said the woman at the back door. “Then I’m glad we came.”

  The employee tapped the boss again. “I don’t think I can get rid of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are others.”

  Blinding lights came on in the front of the store, the strings of beads breaking them into hundreds of bright shafts that showered the back room. The boss shielded his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”

  “TV cameras. I was trying to tell you….”

  “Who called the TV station?”

  “I did,” said the woman. She had pushed the back door open and was directing hand-truck traffic. “Just set those cases over there.”

  The tropical shirts scrambled to hide cocaine. A man stuck a microphone through the beads. “Sir, can I get a quick interview?”

  “No! Go away!”

  More TV people arrived, then writers from the Herald, the Sun-Sentinel and the Post.

  The boss burst through the beads. “Everybody out!”

  A long line of regular patrons waited at the cash register, and they weren’t leaving until they got what they came for. Neither were the reporters. A TV camera panned down the customers, who for some reason were all covering their faces. The camera swung to a newswoman: “As you can see, the rising popularity of Ralph Krunkleton seems to cross all economic, ethnic and social lines…”

  “Turn that camera off!”

  The boss grabbed the newswoman’s arm, but she jerked free and stomped on his instep with a high heel.

  “Ouch!”

  “You, sir, what does Ralph Krunkleton say to you?” The woman held her microphone toward a businessman, who froze in the lights, then broke from the line and sprinted out of the store.

  “Obviously camera shy…. What about you, sir?”

  “Uh, good plot?” said a schoolteacher, grinning nervously.

  “Good plot. That seems to be everyone’s verdict tonight at The Palm Reader, where author Ralph Krunkleton will be signing copies of his latest bestseller in just a few moments. Back to you, Jerry…”

  The camera lights died, and the newswoman spun on the store’s owner. “Don’t you ever fuck with me while I’m on the air!” She jammed her microphone in his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, and walked away.

  The owner doubled over. “Can this get any worse?”

  “Hi, I’m Ralph Krunkleton.” A big man in a fishing cap extended a hand.

  “The signing’s off. We don’t have any more books.”

  “What are those?” asked Ralph, pointing at three tall stacks of his books behind the counter, selling quickly at a hundred dollars each.

  “Those are special. They’re on reserve. People have already bought them.”

  Ralph took out a pen and stepped toward the piles. “I’d be happy to sign—”

  “No!” The owner grabbed him by the arm. He stopped and lowered his voice. “I mean, no, that won’t be necessary.”

  A college student had just purchased a book. Ralph reached for it. “How about you, son? Would you like an autograph?”

  “Touch it and I’ll kill you!” The student jerked the book away and left the store.

 
The owner turned and gasped. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  People were unfolding Samsonite chairs. “Setting up for the reading,” said the woman with the wiener dog.

  “No!” shouted the owner, grabbing a chair out of someone’s hand. “No reading! Go away!”

  A TV cameraman looked through his viewfinder, talking to his news director. “There’s something strange about these people. I can’t quite put my finger on it….”

  “I know what you mean,” said the director. “I’ve never seen an author appearance where nobody gets an autograph or stays for the reading. Smells fishy, like this is some kind of front….”

  The owner overheard them and began clapping his hands sharply. “Okay, we’re about to start the reading. Everybody take a seat.”

  A debutante paid for a book and started for the door. The owner blocked her path.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “My boyfriend’s.”

  “You’re staying for the reading.”

  “I’ve been waiting all day to get off.”

  The owner lifted the edge of his tropical shirt to reveal a pistol tucked in his Dockers. “Have a seat.”

  The owner kept lifting his shirt at departing customers, and the chairs began filling with fidgeting, sniffling people.

  Unsuspecting readers who had seen the TV spot started arriving, a few at first, then dozens. The parking lot overflowed. Police officers came into the store.

  “Are you the owner?”

  He fell into a chair and grabbed his heart.

  “We’ll take care of traffic. The chamber of commerce already called and is paying for the overtime, so there’s no charge. Just wanted you to know.” They went back out into the street, waving lighted orange batons.

  The legitimate customers began mixing with coke fiends in the book line. The books kept selling, although the cost dropped sharply to the regular cover price when the new customers expressed outrage and the cashier panicked. Everyone was happy again, especially the dopers, who discovered the price of cocaine in Miami Beach had just fallen to $6.99 a gram.

  The normal people took their new books and joined the others in the audience until it was standing room only.

  “I guess we were wrong,” the TV director told his cameraman. “They’re staying for the reading. Some of them still seem a little weird, but on average it’s about what you’d see in any mall around here.”

  The owner slid up to the cashier and whispered out of the side of his mouth, “How are you keeping the books with the cocaine separated from the others?”

  “How am I doing what?”

  Ralph stepped to the front of the chairs. “Good evening and thanks for coming. I’d like to start by reading one of my favorite passages—”

  “What the heck’s this?” interrupted a woman in back, holding up a little white baggie.

  “There’s one in my book, too,” said a man on the other side of the room.

  “Me, too!”

  “It looks like cocaine.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  The owner stood on a chair in the corner, holding a match up to an emergency sprinkler head.

  “Come on! Come onnnnnnnnn!”

  Teresa leaned over the steering wheel of the rented Grand Marquis. “I think I can see the bookstore on the next block. I told you we’d make it.”

  “Why are all those police jumping out of those vans?”

  15

  Collins Avenue.

  The BBB lounged behind dark sunglasses and recovered with morning coffee on the front patio of the Hotel Nash.

  Sam stared into her decaf.

  “Sam, were you listening?” asked Rebecca.

  “What?”

  “I was saying you missed all the fun.”

  “Where’d you run off to?”

  “After missing the book signing, I decided to head back to the room and call it a night.”

  “It was because you didn’t want to skinny-dip with us in that hotel pool, wasn’t it?”

  “I can’t put anything over on you.”

  “We only did it for ten seconds,” said Maria.

  “Just long enough to check it off the list,” said Rebecca.

  “We were careful,” said Teresa. “Slipped our clothes off, held them in our hands, slipped ’em back on again. No big deal.”

  “It was the alcohol,” said Sam.

  “Of course it was the alcohol,” said Teresa. “That’s the whole point of alcohol.”

  Sam pointed at their rented Grand Marquis, parked at the corner. “What’s wrong with our car?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The back end’s riding low. And dripping.”

  Maria stood up and smiled. “I was going to surprise you. Come on.”

  They walked over to the car and Maria popped the trunk. A mountain of ice cubes covered dozens of beer cans and mini wine bottles.

  “I discovered something new about rental cars,” Maria said proudly. “The trunk is a self-draining cooler.”

  They went back to their spot on the patio and looked up as the shadow of an inbound 747 crossed Collins Avenue and their table. Men sat at other tables, behind Porsche sunglasses, leering at the book club. The café society was in full swing, everyone aloof, clandestinely checking each other out, posing, trying to get laid by acting like people who got laid way too much. The bouillabaisse of sexual tension caused those least likely to have sex to play their stereos at top volume, and the street was quite noisy. But the designers at Mercedes-Benz had anticipated this, and the interior of a white Z310 was virtually soundproof as it rolled north up the avenue, the air conditioner set at a nippy sixty-six. A red light stopped it outside the Nash. Five dark-haired men in tropical shirts filled the Benz, two in front, three in back, eating ice-cream cones, nodding heads slowly to easy-listening hits. Its trunk was also dripping, holding five soggy cartons of paperbacks.

  “Boss, what are we going to do about all those books?”

  “Shut up!” said the driver. “I don’t want to hear about books right now.”

  The light turned green; the driver prepared to go. Before he could, a horn blared and a purple Jeep Wrangler whipped around the Mercedes and passed in the oncoming lanes. The Benz’s driver hit the brakes. He felt something cold and stared down at the ice-cream cone squashed on the front of his tropical shirt.

  The Jeep accelerated toward the intersection at Hispañola, but it got boxed in behind a slow-moving Oldsmobile. The light ahead turned yellow, plenty of time to make it, but the Olds slowed to a crawl and stopped.

  “Motherfucker!” screamed the Jeep’s driver, punching the roll bar. He and his three passengers were muscle-bound from constant weight lifting and creamy protein shakes, and they experienced considerable difficulty turning their torsos to exit the Jeep. They walked toward the Olds, arms swinging well out from their bodies because trapezius muscles were in the way. All four were in their early twenties, wearing baseball caps and T-shirts from a “world-famous” little-known sports bar.

  They reached the front door of the Oldsmobile and began kicking it, causing the tiny old man behind the wheel to turn up his hearing aid and look around. He got the Beltone adjusted in time to hear, “Come out of there, you fuck!” The Oldsmobile’s door was jerked open and the old man dragged into the street. They threw him to the pavement and began stomping him in the stomach. People froze in horror. An elderly woman dropped groceries on the sidewalk and screamed.

  “Where’d you learn to fucking drive!” Kick.

  Tires screeched. The Jeep guys looked up. Four doors opened on a Mercedes; ice-cream cones flew out. Easy-listening music piped into the street.

  “…On the day that you were born, the angels got together…”

  The Jeep’s driver stopped kicking and began laughing. He turned to his pals. “Look at the funny guys with ice cream on their shirts!”

  The Mercedes’s driver walked up to the Jeep and saw a baseball
bat sticking out of the back. He grabbed it.

  The young driver loved his Jeep, with the Fold-and-Tumble rear seat and legendary off-road prowess. His smile dropped. He pointed at the vehicle, then at the man with the baseball bat. “Don’t even think of messing with it!”

  He didn’t. He walked past the Jeep and swung with a sharp uppercut, catching the driver under the chin. Teeth scattered across the intersection like a broken pearl necklace on a wooden dance floor.

  The other punks fled, but the slowest was caught from behind and swarmed. The tropical shirts knocked him to the ground and formed a tight circle for synchronized groin-kicking.

  Mr. Grande sat alone in the mountain hideaway of the Mierda Cartel, tapping his fingers on a wicker desk, gazing out the window at fruit trees. A cockatoo strutted across the porch. It was quiet except for the ceiling fans and a gibbering monkey somewhere in the hills that Mr. Grande had come to believe was personally mocking him.

  The phone rang. It was the cartel in Colombia, and they wanted to know where their submarine was.

  “There’s been a setback,” said Mr. Grande.

  “Setback? It sank with your whole fucking cartel! You’re an embarrassment to the industry!”

  “I just need a little more time.”

  “You’ve got a week. Then you know what happens.” Click.

  It had been a rough year for the Mierda Cartel. It hadn’t started out that way. They had been riding high with five million in the black, all laundered through a Tampa insurance company called Buccaneer Life & Casualty. To make the insurance company appear legit, they employed legit, unsuspecting adjusters, who accidentally paid out all of the cartel’s money in a fraudulent disability claim.

  Mr. Grande had dispatched every cartel member to Florida to get the money back, but they were all dead now, the money last seen in a briefcase in Key West. Mr. Grande had replaced the deceased cartel members by recruiting a handful of trusted smugglers, and he had intended to send them back to Florida for the money, but they were now all at the bottom of St. George’s Bay in a modified septic tank. Turnover was getting to be a problem for Mr. Grande, who could no longer get anyone to underwrite group health except Buccaneer Life & Casualty in Tampa.