Hurricane Punch Read online

  “This is getting too weird for me,” said Jeff. “I should have my head examined for ever agreeing to your plan.”

  “And don’t think I won’t appreciate it. No, sir. Not Mahoney. As soon as I catch Serge, you get the big exclusive. Now, here’s what we’re going to do next…. Ten, corner…” Clack.

  TAMPA BAY TODAY

  “It’s settled,” said the balding man with a British accent, seated at the head of the conference table. “Front page, top position, Hurricane Cristobal. Second slot, McSwirley’s serial-killer follow.” He turned to the metro editor. “When can we expect it?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “I can’t get a hold of Jeff,” said the metro editor. “He’s supposed to be interviewing a confidential source, but his phone’s turned off.”

  “Find him! We have a deadline to make! We’re murdering the competition!” He flipped a page on his computer printout.

  A tour group wound its way around the table, forming a tight peanut gallery. A small child looked into the five-hundred-gallon saltwater aquarium. A clown fish looked back. The child smiled and waved. “Nemo!” The spunky tour guide narrated from behind. “And this is the budget meeting I was telling you about….” Cameras flashed.

  Actually, it wasn’t the meeting. There were several throughout the news cycle as stories’ respective stock rose and fell. The paper had started with three meetings a day but was now up to six. Two cultures were present: hard-core news people who had no use for meetings. And higher-up corporate types, which meant they only attended meetings. The second group prolonged the meetings with discussions to add more meetings.

  The balding man at the end of the table jotted something quickly and raised his head again. “Let’s take it around the horn.”

  The title of the person in charge of the meetings traditionally would have been “managing editor.” Managing editors were the boots on the ground that actually put out a paper, while publishers accepted plaques at United Way luncheons. Except at this conference table the top cheese was now called “maximum editor.” The complete title was Maximum Editor for Life and Vice President, Gladstone Florida Media Group. The broader label was required to command a more tentacled operation. After Gladstone finished hammering together his diverse media holdings, the “enhanced” budget meetings coordinated hydra-headed coverage from print, TV, radio and the Internet. The goal was to share scoops and cut costs.

  Gladstone had personally chosen the perfect man for the job, Maxwell Begley, the hugely popular British television personality whom the tycoon enticed across the pond to launch his stateside juggernaut. Begley had risen to fame a decade earlier as host of numerous daytime confrontation shows. London’s own Jerry Springer. The success would have continued, too, but after a third guest was murdered in the green room, it was time for a change. And that’s how he came to be sitting at the head of a table in Tampa, Florida. Maxwell Begley. Max Ed Max.

  “International desk?” said Max.

  A man with a green eyeshade read from notes. “Foreigners hate us. People blow themselves up far away. Two Americans die in plane crash in Indian Ocean, and three hundred other people—”

  “National desk?”

  “Borders aren’t secure. Congress hates one another. President solves botched hurricane response with national day of prayer—”

  An abrupt splash in the aquarium. “Nemo?” A large fish had replaced a smaller fish. A child began crying.

  “State desk?”

  “Drugs, shark attack, riptide. Bodies stacking up in funeral homes because they can’t bury in hurricane-soaked ground. Update on the new feeding-tube case—”

  “Metro?”

  “Vaseline-covered guy with sixty empty jars arrested for ten-thousand-dollar damage to Vaseline-covered motel room—”

  “Special sections?”

  “Sixteen-page blowout. ‘One Year Later: Family Begs Media to Be Left Alone’—”

  “Features?”

  “Human-interest on owner of flattened mobile home who didn’t have insurance—”

  “I got an idea,” said the photo editor. “How about finding the mobile-home owner with insurance?”

  The photo editor wilted under the glare of the maximum editor.

  “Photo?”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “Anything besides more aerials of flattened mobile homes?”

  “We have…” He thumbed a photo log. He sat back in his chair. “No.”

  “Graphics?”

  “Topographical tracking charts of the hurricane and Brad and Angelina’s vacation.”

  “Lifestyle?”

  “Power-outage cooking with pizzazz.”

  “Money sense?”

  “The business of suffering.”

  “Corporate guy?”

  “What about adding another meeting at six-thirty?” He looked at his watch and stood. “I’m late for a meeting.”

  “Which brings us to convergence…”

  This part was something new. “Convergence” was free-lunch-seminar jargon that stood for the previously mentioned media fusion. As the electronics age unfolded, many newspapers were forced into partnerships with local broadcasters, through either outright ownership or arranged marriage. Neville Gladstone again set the pace by teaming his newspaper with both TV and radio. He already owned a pair of heavy players in the market—Florida Cable News and WPPT-FM—which were promptly relocated into the newly christened Gladstone Tower. They gave the broadcast people laptops to write stories, and they gave print reporters camcorders in case they stumbled across telegenic misery…. The budget meeting continued….

  “Florida Cable News?” asked Max Ed Max.

  “Sir, I have a complaint,” said the FCN programming director.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s WPPT radio. Every time we try to do a live broadcast, they sabotage it.”

  “How do they do that?”

  “The damn Party Parrot! He keeps running out on camera!”

  “We are the Party Parrot!” said the WPPT station manager, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and blinking sunglasses. “Our partying will not be denied!”

  “You’re screwing up all our remotes!” yelled the cable director.

  “Hey-hey-hey! Party! Party! Party!”

  “Gentlemen!” said Max. “I expect you both to behave like adults. This is about professional ethics. Each division must remain completely in de pen dent for journalistic integrity. We all have our roles to play”—he turned toward the TV director—“and yours is to produce the finest cable-news coverage in Florida!”

  “What’s the Party Parrot’s role?”

  “To disrupt that coverage.”

  “This is insane!”

  “Comes from the very top. New ratings just arrived. Everyone’s tuning in to see what the parrot will do next.”

  “Why can’t he disrupt the competition’s broadcast?”

  The editor shook his head. “Then they’ll get the ratings. You’ll just have to work something out.”

  “The Party Parrot rules all!” said the radio chief. “Bow to the awesome partying power of the Parrot!…Party! Party! Party!”

  “You son of a bitch!” The TV director dove across the table. A sports editor grabbed him from behind; Features pried fingers from the radio manager’s neck. They ended up rolling down the mahogany table in a snarl of limbs, scattering water carafes.

  “I’ll fucking kill you!”

  A child’s hand went up in the tour group. The guide clapped sharply again. “What do you know? We’re behind schedule. If you’ll come with me and direct your attention toward those double doors on the other side of the newsroom…”

  The doors flew open. In came the Front-Page Bombshells, singing and high-kicking in a chorus line: “What’s black!…And white!…And read!…All over!…”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  VERO BEACH

  A black H2 sped north on U.S. 1 toward
the Sebastian Inlet.

  Coleman was in the passenger seat mixing a drink. Bourbon and Coke. Except he was out of Coke, so he used more bourbon. “I’ve never been to St. Augustine before.”

  “You’re pulling my chain,” said Serge. “Florida’s Cradle of Civilization?”

  Coleman shook his head.

  Serge slapped the dash. “This calls for the A-tour! You’re going to remember this the rest of your life!”

  The H2 passed a commotion on the side of the highway. A noisy crowd surrounded a man standing in the bed of a late-model Ram pickup. Serge’s head swiveled as they went by. He hit his turn signal.

  The scene had grown even louder by the time Serge and Coleman walked up behind the mob in the parking lot of a defunct Sunoco station. Serge stood on tiptoes and saw the over size cooler in the pickup’s bed. He tapped the shoulder of someone in front of him. “How much is he asking?”

  “Ten bucks,” the man grumbled. “We’re trying to talk sense, but he’s being a dickhead.”

  Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “What’s going on?”

  “Price gouging. Bags of ice. Third-degree felony.”

  Serge circumnavigated the crowd and came up on the side of the Dodge. He looked over the lip. The cooler was even bigger than he’d originally estimated. One of those two-hundred-gallon, deep-sea-fishing jobs. For now the lid stayed closed. The man standing next to it featured sunburned shoulders, a Hard Rock tank top and That ’70s Porn Mustache. He openly relished presiding over the crowd. “Ten bucks.”

  “It’s an outrage!”

  “You want ice?”

  “You’re taking advantage of misfortune!”

  “Ten bucks.”

  A woman cradling an infant pushed her way to the front of the crowd. “But I have baby formula!”

  “And I have ice. Ten bucks.” He sipped an ice-cold lemonade.

  “Excuse me,” said Serge. “I’d like to buy some ice.”

  “How much you want?”

  Serge pulled a thick roll of bills from his pants. “All of it.”

  The crowd jeered.

  The sunburned man stepped back and narrowed his eyes. “You a cop?”

  “What’s it look like?”

  “Like you’re a cop.”

  “I’m not a cop.”

  “Then what are you going to do with all that ice?”

  “Drive up the road and sell it for twelve bucks.”

  The sunburned man laughed. “You’re my kind!”

  Serge handed over the money. The mob became a lynch mob. Shouts, elbows. Someone shoved Serge into the side of the pickup. He caught his balance and spun on the crowd. “Hey! Free enterprise!”

  They weren’t having it. Serge slammed into the truck again. He turned again, this time with a gun in the air. Much different reaction.

  “That’s better.” Serge tucked the pistol into his belt and looked at the man in the pickup. “Locals are getting a tad cranky. Might be best if we conduct business elsewhere. My car’s around the corner.”

  The man vaulted the side of the pickup. “Meet you there.”

  Five minutes later the pickup reappeared from around the corner and rolled back into the parking lot. Serge was driving.

  Someone in the crowd pointed. “It’s him!” They wanted to charge but remembered that gun.

  Serge opened the driver’s door and jumped down. “I don’t know how it slipped my mind. You know what today is?”

  No answer.

  “Why, it’s Free Ice Day!”

  Confused expressions.

  Serge walked to the bumper and dropped the tailgate. “Go ahead, grab as much as you like.”

  Something was wrong. Some kind of trick.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Serge. “The iceman cometh!” He climbed up into the bed and opened the cooler, hoisting a sack with each arm. “Who’s first?”

  Nobody moved. Serge read their minds. “Okay, I’ll unload my gun.” Click. “There’s the magazine.” Click. “And there’s the one in the chamber. Happy?”

  He’d barely gotten the words out when they swarmed.

  “Take it easy,” said Serge. “Plenty to go around…. And a bag for you, and one for you, and you…. Please pass this one to the new mom in back…. And one for you….”

  “Gee, thanks, mister!”

  “Really appreciate it!”

  “Mighty neighborly!”

  “Where’d the other guy go?”

  THAT NIGHT

  A table sat under the dim blue glow of a television with the sound off. The screen showed radar sweeps of a major hurricane two hundred miles east-southeast of St. Augustine and closing. A single sheet of stationery sat on the desktop. Childlike ballpoint handwriting slanted to the left.

  Two hands in surgical gloves folded the page in thirds and slipped it into an envelope, along with a Polaroid of the crime scene taken before police had arrived. One of the gloved fingers dipped into a glass of water and ran along the envelope’s gummed seal.

  The right hand instinctively picked up the pen again. It switched to the left and began printing an address.

  JEFF MCSWIRLEY

  STAFF WRITER

  TAMPA BAY TODAY…

  HURRICANE #2

  CRISTOBAL

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ST. AUGUSTINE

  A black H2 passed the base of a bridge. Coleman had his head out the window like a Labrador. “Serge, I see two big animals.”

  “The Bridge of Lions. Very historic.”

  Coleman pulled his head inside and quickly rolled up the window. “They’re growling at me.”

  Serge glanced dubiously at Coleman, now clawing the roof of the silent vehicle. “Where’s that music coming from? It’s like a sitar, except rockabilly.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  Coleman raised a clear, candy-red-filled sports bottle. “Hurricane Punch.”

  “Another of your signature concoctions?”

  “Figured since you were getting into the storms with your science and history, I should contribute with my expertise…. Where is that music coming from?”

  “Pray tell,” asked Serge. “What is in this cocktail of champions?”

  Coleman stretched his neck in several directions for the source of the sound. “Remember Torpedo Juice?”

  “Red Bull and Everclear, if memory serves.”

  “Thought that was a little bland, so I added cranberry juice, grapefruit juice, pineapple juice, light rum, dark rum, amaretto, blue curaçao, orange passion fruit, a wedge of lime, a leaf of mint, a squirt of triple sec, a splash of Grand Marnier, a dash of grenadine, a pinch of coconut, a sprinkle of sugar, shaved ice. Oh, and a whole bunch of mescaline. You really can’t hear this song?”

  “No, but I think I remember the words: You’re going to fuck up our trip.”

  Coleman set the sports bottle down and popped a Schlitz. Then another.

  “Two beers,” said Serge.

  Coleman looked at the can in each hand. “Wow. I had a feeling I just opened one. Or was it an hour ago?” He began chugging.

  “Now you’re going to get wasted,” said Serge. “You’ll miss all the history like every other time.”

  Coleman finished one beer and raised the other. “I’m just taking the edge off. I think I OD’d again. We’re driving down the back of a big black snake.”

  “In these parts, it’s called a road.”

  “It has snake qualities.” The passenger window rolled down again; a bulbous head went back out. “St. Augustine is cool! Look at all this rusty shit. Every sign says it’s the oldest everything. Oldest house. Oldest store. Listen to my voice. It’s like the thunder of the gods!…I am the Great Coleman, king of the funky people!”

  The H2 continued north on U.S. 1, Coleman waving and hollering out the window. He suddenly retreated back inside and curled up in his seat. He timidly peeked over the dash. He ducked back down. “Serge, there’s a big conquistador fuck out there swinging a sword at us!”


  “It’s just a billboard.”

  They turned in to a parking lot and passed the entrance sign: FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH.

  Serge led the way to a ticket window and opened his wallet. “Two adults. I say that loosely.”

  The man in the booth made change. “Don’t know how long we’re going to be open. And the train’s not running. Because of the storm.”

  “That’s okay,” said Serge. “I naturally absorb history at an advanced rate.”

  They went inside. Serge was true to his word. He already had the attraction’s map and attack plan preloaded in memory sectors from past study. His 35mm wide-angle Pentax continuously fired on motor drive as they whipped through exhibits in quick succession: Indian burial ground, saltcellar, spring house, Timucuan artifacts, cross of twenty-seven stone slabs Ponce de León laid to mark the spot. Serge bellied up to a concession stand and changed film. “Coke, please.”

  “Souvenir cup?” asked the girl inside.

  “The souvenir cup is required.”

  The girl smiled and began filling a plastic tumbler under the CO2 spigot. “Hate to say it, but you might have to cut your visit short because of the storm.”

  “Actually enhances my visit, because St. Augustine is all about hurricanes. One completely changed the course of this city. All of Florida, for that matter. I speak no lies. France established a foothold at Fort Caroline just north of here.”

  The girl topped off the cup. “Never heard of it.”

  Serge slapped the counter and made her jump. “Because of the hurricane! France wanted control of the peninsula, so they set sail to attack that Spanish fort just up the road from the Circle K. But the Spaniards could read Florida’s weather. The great hurricane of 1565 wiped out the French fleet, while a Spanish division circled inland and sacked Fort Caroline, securing dominance over the entire state.” Serge pointed at the sky. “I was going to take advantage of this storm to employ the same military tactic, but I decided the U.S. was too entrenched.”

  She smiled politely again.

  Serge appraised her for the first time. Zappa T-shirt (WEASELS RIPPEDMYFLESH), far-off emerald eyes, sandy blond hair decorated with a single innocent wildflower over her right ear. Serge recognized the bloom as a rare state species illegal to pick. He decided not to report her.