Torpedo Juice Read online

  “Can’t argue with that.”

  The old pals continued catching up in the back of the room, oblivious to the meeting. A guy at the front in a cervical collar explained how he crashed into the DUI checkpoint. Serge and Coleman finally realized that the gavel had been banging for a while. They looked up. Everyone was staring at them. The moderator pointed at Coleman. “Excuse me, but what is that in your hand?”

  Coleman looked at the flask. “What? This?”

  “Yes, that! Are you drinking in here?”

  “Of course,” said Coleman.

  “But your recovery?…”

  “Recovery?” said Coleman. “I’m here for the stories. This is the funniest shit in town!”

  That did it.

  The pair stood and headed out of the room. Serge slapped Coleman on the shoulder. “I’m not sure, but I think this is some kind of record. Eighty-sixed from AA.”

  Serge opened the door.

  A bunch of faces in the hall stared back at him. People from the cult meeting, patiently awaiting orders from their new leader.

  7

  T HE SUN ROSE on a viciously humid morning at the Marathon Airport. Birds walked along the fence. A lone runway worker in shorts and ear protectors was stained through his shirt. He waved the Lear in with batons.

  Stairs flipped down from the side of the plane, and a short, bald man stood in the doorway with an umbrella drink. His bright orange shirt had vintage Corvettes.

  “Let the games begin! Gaskin Fussels is here!”

  The worker unlatched the luggage compartment on the side of the plane.

  Fussels grabbed the wire handrail and marched down the stairs with thunderous steps. “Please! Please! Everyone! Hold down your applause!”

  The worker glanced around the empty runway.

  A limo raced up. The chauffeur ran to grab luggage. “Sorry, Mr. Fussels. Got held up in traffic.”

  “No harm, no foul.”

  Fussels climbed in the limo, and they soon made the routine pit stop at Overseas Liquors. The attorney poured a stiff double as they passed the 7-Mile Grill. The chauffeur looked over his shoulder. “Where to?”

  “You know where.”

  They started across the big bridge. Out the right windows, a little tram dressed up like a train took tourists down the old span to Pigeon Key. The chauffeur looked up in the mirror. “You sure are spending a lot of time at the No Name, Mr. Fussels.”

  “Sal, can’t thank you enough for showing me that place. Best bar on earth.”

  “It’s Sid.”

  “What?”

  “You said Sal.”

  “Sal, Sid. You say tomato, I say bottom’s up!”

  The limo drove through Bahia Honda State Park, past the ruins of an ancient train trestle.

  “Sal, got a joke for you. Salesman’s in a small town, asks the bartender where he can get a hooker. The bartender says it’s a small town, the only action is Willie over there, the wino at the end of the bar. The salesman says, ‘Are you crazy?’ Hours pass and he gets drunker and asks the bartender again, and the bartender says just old Willie over there. Finally, it’s closing time. The salesman is wrecked and horny. He says, okay, okay, I’ll take Willie. How much? The bartender says fifty dollars. The salesman says, ‘That filthy bum gets fifty dollars! This must be a small town!’ And the bartender says, ‘Oh, no, the fifty is for me to hold him down.’ Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!…What’s the matter, Sal? You’re not laughing….”

  “So the wino wasn’t really in on it?”

  “No, you’re missing the beauty of it. You see…forget it.”

  The limo arrived outside the No Name Pub. The chauffeur got the luggage; Fussels grabbed his wallet. “Sure you won’t join us?”

  “Got another fare.”

  Fussels paid in twenties. “Great gang of regulars. They absolutely love me in there!”

  The screen door flew open. “Gaskin Fussels is back!”

  “Not that jackass again.”

  The attorney hopped on an empty bar stool and rubbed his hands together. “Let’s get this day started! Drinks for everyone! Of course you’ll all have to pay, ha! ha! ha!…I got a million!…”

  Regulars began getting off stools and heading for the pool table.

  The afternoon wore on. More and more empty stools. By sundown, Fussels had the entire west side of the bar to himself. The only person who would talk to him was Jerry the bartender, because Jerry would talk to anyone. Fussels drained another beer and handed Jerry the empty glass for a refill. “…Of course people like you!”

  Sop Choppy stood with a pool stick at his side. “We’ve got to get rid of that guy.”

  The others looked back at the bar. Fussels was showing Jerry his platinum pass to the Bunny Ranch.

  Bob the accountant leaned over the table to line up a shot. “He’s fucking up the whole chemistry in here. It just takes one…. Seven ball, corner pocket.” Clack.

  Bud Naranja circled the table, examining the shit the accountant had left him. “He’s not that bad. Just give him time…. Three ball…”

  A loud voice. The guys looked back at the bar again. Fussels slapped the countertop. “…‘No, the fifty is for me to hold him down!’ Ha! Ha! Ha!…”

  “He’s never going to leave!” said Sop Choppy. “Been coming a whole month now, and we always end up over here playing pool. Then after he clears the bar, he walks up and asks what we’re playing. It’s hopeless…. Five in the side…” Clack.

  Their eyes followed the ball into the pocket.

  “You’re right,” said Bob, chalking his cue. “We have to take action. But how can we get rid of him?”

  Fussels walked up with his drink, napkin stuck to the bottom. “So, what are you guys playing?”

  A ’71 BUICK RIVIERA cruised over the bridge at Ramrod Channel. Serge was the pilot, Coleman the waist gunner manning the radio. They bobbed their heads to the pounding rhythms of Pigeonhead from the Sopranos soundtrack.

  “Hey Mr. Po-liceman, is it time for gettin’ away?…”

  “How do you like my car?” asked Coleman.

  “Impressed,” said Serge. “Didn’t know you had this kind of taste. Early Rivieras are classics, jutting nose like a mako shark, tapering boat-tail rear windshield and, of course, the elegant comfort of a sophisticated ride.”

  “It was the only thing under five hundred dollars.”

  “Still counts,” said Serge. “What’s that gold chain around your neck? Didn’t think you were the type.”

  “This?” Coleman pulled the chain out of his shirt, revealing a small brass tube. “It’s my dog whistle.”

  “You have a dog?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll hate myself for asking…”

  “This one makes a pitch they don’t like.” Coleman dropped it back inside his shirt. “Drives them away.”

  “And you need that because?…”

  “Dogs don’t like me.”

  “What do you mean, dogs don’t like you?”

  “They just don’t. Always trying to bite me. Never know why.”

  “Like the time you were drunk and standing on that poodle?”

  “This is different. I’m not doing anything and they give me trouble.”

  “When do I get to see this maximum bachelor pad of yours?”

  “Right now. Turn here.”

  The Buick pulled up in front of a rusty trailer on Ramrod Key. Coleman walked to the mailbox and grabbed envelopes. They went inside.

  Stuff was strewn everywhere. Pulled-out drawers on the floor. Furniture knocked over. Serge stooped and picked up a lamp. “Did somebody ransack your place?”

  “Yeah, me,” said Coleman, checking in the fridge. “Forgot where I hid my stash.”

  Serge set the lamp on a table. “Looks like some kind of fierce struggle.”

  “It was.” Coleman came back in the room and plopped on the sofa with beer, Cheetos and mail. He began tossing envelopes in a reject pile on the coffee table. “All junk.”<
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  Serge looked at the pile. “You actually got a credit card offer?”

  “No, it’s addressed to someone else.”

  Serge grabbed the envelope. “‘Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence Grodnick.’ It’s got the address of your trailer. Did they used to live here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Serge tore it open and unfolded the application. “Well, they live here now.” He pulled a pen from his pocket. “Let’s see, how much do the Grodnicks make a year?…” He looked up at the armadillo on top of the TV, then back down. “A hundred thousand dollars…”

  “Don’t you need their social security number?”

  “No, the pitch letter says it’s preapproved, lucky for them.”

  Coleman popped a beer. “How long you been back in the Keys?”

  “Just got into town. Can’t imagine my surprise when I heard your voice in that room…. What do the Grodnicks like to do in their spare time?…” He began checking boxes. “…Astronomy, aviation, coin collecting, horticulture, international travel, literature, mountain climbing, oil painting—Coleman, these people are well-rounded—photography, rap music, religious studies, water skiing and ‘other.’ We’ll fill that one in ‘alpaca stud farm’….”

  “I’ve been going to the meetings a few months now,” said Coleman. “Those people are fucked up, but I can’t stop listening to the stories. It’s like talk shows where chicks pull each other’s hair. You know you shouldn’t be watching, but what are you gonna do? There’s this one guy at the meetings who keeps waking up in other people’s houses. He’s always getting loaded and going home with strangers. It’s not a sex thing. It’s just…I don’t know what it is. He’s woken up facedown in a pet-food bowl, another time his leg was in the oven, but it wasn’t on. Once he woke up in Mexico. There’s this other guy who comes each week with his face all scraped. You know the classic way drunks fall, landing gear up? Forgetting to put their arms out? That’s this guy….” Coleman clicked the TV remote. Local news.

  “I’m going to need your help with something,” said Serge.

  “Name it.” Coleman turned up the volume.

  “…This is Eyewitness Five correspondent Blaine Crease with another segment of ‘Consumer Bloodhound.’ We’re here at the home of Troy Bradenton, owner of Troy’s Roofing Plus, accused of ripping off hundreds of South Florida homeowners with fraudulent repairs…” The reporter knocked on the door. “What are you hiding from?…”

  Serge began pacing in front of the couch. “The reason I came back to the Keys was to reinvent myself. At first I was going to be the next Jimmy Buffett.”

  “Good choice.” Coleman fished a flat joint out of his wallet and lit it.

  “Yeah, but you have to know music and all.” Serge stopped and faced Coleman. “I have a big announcement to make.”

  “What is it?”

  Serge smiled broadly. “I’m getting married.”

  “Serge! Congratulations! That’s great!”

  “I want you to be my best man.”

  The TV switched to a downtown street scene. “This is Eyewitness Five correspondent Maria Rojas outside the Miami Courthouse, where the jury has just gone into deliberations in the infamous airbag-murder case. As you recall, four used-car dealers are on trial in the death of a Margate woman whose reconditioned airbag had been filled with sand to save money…. Here they come now!” Three men in suits ran down the courthouse steps and jumped in a waiting sedan. “Is it true you’re guilty?…”

  Coleman reached under the couch and pulled out a clear plastic bag attached to a tube. He clenched the tube in the corner of his mouth and sucked.

  “Morphine drip bag?” said Serge.

  Coleman took the tube out of his mouth. “Security guard at the hospital owed me for some weed.”

  “What’s right is right.”

  “Who are you going to marry?”

  “Don’t know yet.”

  “Is this going to be one of those Dennis Rodman things where you wear a gown and marry yourself?”

  “No, that’s weird. I’m going to find women in public places and study them from a distance with binoculars. That’s the only way to really get to know someone.”

  “Why do you want to get married, anyway?”

  “I’ve come to the conclusion men don’t do well as bachelors,” said Serge. “It’s like a state of arrested development.”

  Coleman poured Cheetos in his lap and took the tube out of his mouth. “What do you mean?”

  “All my married friends are so much more mature.”

  “I don’t have any married friends,” said Coleman. “Whenever a guy gets married, his wife won’t let him see me anymore.”

  8

  A PAIR OF Monroe County sheriff’s deputies stood in the backyard of a modest ranch house on Big Pine Key. The landscaping was spare but neat. Crape myrtle, trumpet honeysuckle, jasmine. Chicken wire surrounded the flowers.

  The deputies listened sympathetically as an eighty-year-old woman talked nonstop, pointing at knocked-over trash cans and garbage strewn across the lawn to where a clothesline had been snapped. She was wearing a nightgown and slippers in the afternoon. One of the deputies jotted down the high points in a notebook.

  “He was big and hairy.” The woman got on her tiptoes and raised a hand high in the air. “At least seven feet tall.”

  Gus wrote six feet, allowing for excitement.

  The woman tapped the notebook. “I said seven.”

  Gus smiled and made a correction.

  “I could smell him clear across the yard. The worst odor.” She crinkled her nose, then held up a disposable camera. “Going to send these to the Enquirer. They pay.”

  Gus closed his notebook and smiled again. “We’ll get right on it, ma’am.”

  The woman shuffled back toward her house. “Patronizing prick.”

  The deputies headed up U.S. 1 in their white-and-green sheriff’s cruiser. Gus was driving. He kept shifting his weight. The seat had one of those wooden-bead seat covers.

  “Is that thing helping your back?” asked Walter.

  “Actually hurts more.”

  “Why do you still use it?”

  “I paid for it.”

  Walter looked out the windshield at a tiny, white balloon flying high on a tether. It had tail fins. “Fat Albert’s up today.”

  “So it is.” The anti-smuggling radar blimp was flying in a stout offshore wind above the federal installation on the north side of Cudjoe Key. Whenever it was up, there was much less boat traffic in the back country.

  “Hey, Serpico. I want to ask—”

  “Walter. You mind?”

  “Sorry. Forgot,” said Walter. “Force of habit from listening to the other guys. Is the story true?”

  “What story?”

  “How you got the nickname.”

  “Depends on how it was told.”

  “It made fun of you.”

  “Then I guess it’s true.”

  “It’s a funny story.”

  “Is that what you wanted to talk about?”

  “No, I got sidetracked. Gus…”

  “Thank you.”

  “I heard your ex-wife is dating the lieutenant.”

  “She is.”

  Walter looked across the front seat at his partner. “It doesn’t bother you?”

  “No.”

  Walter faced forward. “That’s what Sergeant Englewood said.”

  “Said what?”

  “It didn’t bother you.”

  They drove over a bridge.

  “It would bother me,” said Walter. “The lieutenant knowing all those embarrassing sex stories.”

  Gus did a slow side-take at his partner.

  “What?” said Walter. “You do know the stories she’s telling, don’t you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, my God, they’re hilarious! Apparently she’s blabbing about everything. All your weird sexual quirks…” Walter started laughing. “There was this one time she was s
eriously pissed off at you, so that night she asked you to wear her bra to bed, said it would ‘get her motor running.’ Those were the exact words Deputy Valrico used. Except she was really just trying to humiliate you!”

  Walter noticed his partner’s knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.

  “You did know she was just messing with you?”

  Gus stared ahead.

  “Gee, I’m really sorry.” Walter looked down at his lap. “This is kind of awkward now.”

  “What other stories?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. I feel bad.”

  “Don’t,” said Gus. “It’s not your fault. It was a long, long time ago.”

  “It really doesn’t bother you?”

  “Not a bit.”

  “Okay, there’s this other really great one. Remember the time she said there was something she’d always wanted to try in bed, but was too embarrassed and didn’t want you to laugh at her? And you told her you’d do anything for her? So she made you lie on your back while she peed on your face. Remember that? I guess you would—you were there. Anyway, it wasn’t to turn her on. She was just mad at you again.”

  Gus took a deep breath. “How many people know? You said Englewood and Valrico. Is that how you heard?”

  “No, they told Brevard and La Belle, and somehow it got around to the second shift before winding through the other substations until it reached the sheriff. I was at a barbecue at his house, and his wife had a little too much sangria, and she sees you out the window in the yard, standing alone eating a hot dog. And she just cracks up and blurts it all out.”

  “Was anyone else there?”

  “No. Yes, just a few guys.”

  “A few?”

  “A lot. It started with about ten, but the crowd really swelled when word got around what she was talking about. By the end of the story I think everyone at the barbecue was jammed in that room except you.”

  “So that’s who knows? The whole department?”

  “No. I also heard them talking about it in the ice cream parlor and at the marina and the video store. I think the guy who came to work on my cable mentioned something….”