Clownfish Blues

by Tim Dorsey

  The agent in charge shook his head. “Strictly surveillance for now. Believe it or not, that store is part of a chain of seventeen in the area. We want to see where all this is going . . .”

  Back inside, a migrant worker stepped up to the counter. He glanced around before clandestinely showing the clerk a Lotto ticket that he refused to let go of, so the clerk had to pull the man’s arm toward the scanner. Not a complete winner, but close. Five of six numbers.

  The clerk abruptly ended his personal phone call and dialed another number. “. . . Yes, I’m sure. I scanned it myself . . . all right I’ll tell him . . .” He hung up. “Wait outside at the corner.”

  A white Audi eventually pulled up, and the back door opened. The farmhand climbed into a lifestyle he had never seen before. The car drove off. A laconic man in a tight bicycle shirt inspected the $7,931 ticket. He stuck it in his briefcase and handed the worker an envelope with five grand.

  They dropped him off at a strip club.

  Chapter 13

  Thoreau Club

  Traffic crawled north on U.S. 1, and the cross streets began bearing presidents’ names. When you reached Roosevelt, you knew which one it was because it lay between McKinley and Taft. The last was Coolidge, a hint at the age of the planned community that opened in 1925.

  Hollywood, Florida.

  The 1920s were a high-water mark of optimism in the Sunshine State. People imagined everything from floating hotels to golf courses in the Everglades. The city of Hollywood, for instance, had a wishful-thinking main street called Hollywood Boulevard, and there was even a Hollywood Bowl on the shore. It was all designed to give the California movie industry a stiff run.

  Didn’t quite work out that way. But when the hucksters and hoopla dissipated, a tastefully quaint community accidentally emerged from the fog of failed avarice. Reevis’s car reached the middle of town and entered a massive roundabout circling a green space for children called Anniversary Park. He turned east toward the sea. Along both sides of the road, stucco houses and bright splashes of color: flowers, trees, canvas awnings, Bahama shutters. Reevis approached a blue street sign for Clownfish Lane. He made a left and pulled up to a modest beach apartment building constructed during the Gulf of Tonkin incident. A single story of eight units in a row, white with orange-and-green citrus trim. The screen doors still had those sixties-era wire sculptures of herons and palm trees and swordfish. A lizard made ripples in the concrete birdbath supported by a concrete seahorse. What used to be a lush lawn had since been replaced by a yard of big, smooth white rocks, because the owner had taken up apathy. The same reason was behind a landscaping theme of sea grapes and banana trees. Try to make them not grow. It was one of perhaps a hundred such apartments in Florida with names like the Surfcomber, the Sands, the Tides, the Tradewinds. Except this one wasn’t called anything.

  Reevis got out and approached unit number three with keys in hand. He originally wanted a place in the Gables, because of his fondness for coquina and banyans, but that was not in a journalist’s budget. Still, this place had personality.

  “All right,” said Brook Campanella, walking up behind him. “Let’s see this great new pad you’ve been bragging about.”

  Reevis opened up. Cozy was generous. Just a bedroom and a living room, with a kitchen nook clinging in the corner.

  Brook stood amid the terrazzo floor. “I like it. When does the rest of your stuff arrive?”

  “This is it.”

  “Two wicker patio chairs? Not even a TV?”

  “I’ve decided to minimalize,” said Reevis. “Every move, so many possessions to haul around, until it was almost like they were possessing me.”

  “You’ve been reading Thoreau again.”

  “Actually Fight Club, but there’s a parallel.”

  “I’ve got to see the bedroom.” She strolled and stopped in the doorway. “A mattress on the floor and an alarm clock?”

  “Lifestyle aesthetics,” said Reevis. “I was concerned about losing my enthusiasm for all the little things.”

  “In other words, you got rid of distractions so you could be distracted?”

  “Something like that.”

  She put her arms around his neck and gave him a quick kiss. “Don’t change.”

  “Then you’ll dig this.” He quickly led her into the kitchen nook, reached up and opened doors. The cupboards were as unburdened as the rooms. He pulled down the only thing on the bottom shelf, a shiny device with a handle and no moving parts. “I bought a classic old-style stove-top espresso machine. I was just going through the motions flipping the switch on my Mr. Coffee. But this baby . . .” He held it at eye level and began twisting. “. . . You unscrew the bottom half and fill it with water. Then replace the perforated little metal chamber where you tamp down the coffee grounds. Turn the burner on and wait for the water to boil up and trickle out a post in the upper chamber. It takes a lot more time, but you can’t compare the taste.”

  “Waiting makes it taste better?”

  “I’m introducing a new set of simple ablutions into my daily routine.” He opened another cupboard and placed a pair of miniature cups and saucers on the counter. “Then I carefully pour it into authentic Cuban demitasse. Check out the tiny gold rims and blue-and-red diamond patterns like tile work from Ybor City.”

  “Demitasse ablutions?”

  “It’s all about the little stuff.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re starting to remind me of someone.”

  “I take it as a compliment.”

  She looked toward a brown paper grocery bag with the end of a loaf poking out the top. “Is that the dinner you promised me?”

  “I went shopping at this funky market in Little Havana next to the dominoes park. The palm sprig they stuck in the bag is some Catholic tradition.”

  “There are only about five hundred closer supermarkets.”

  He grabbed the sack and pulled out the loaf. “Real Cuban bread . . .” Then the bulk of the contents. “. . . Rice, black beans, tomato sauce, plantain chips—don’t know how to cook regulars yet—green peppers, one large onion, one clove garlic, and the beef is in the fridge.”

  “You’re making me traditional ropa vieja? That’s so romantic.”

  “Means ‘old clothes’ or ‘rags,’ probably because of how the beef is shredded.”

  “I know.” She opened a drawer for a knife and went to work on the onion. “I’m starting to get what you see in all this.”

  “Peace.” There was a small boom box on top of the refrigerator, and Reevis punched up his date-night theme track. “How’s the law clinic going?”

  “Seriously pissed off at a landlord.” Brook’s eyes started to water. “Looks like a pattern of fraud—something you’d like to cover?”

  “. . . Take a sad song . . .”

  “Right in my wheelhouse,” said Reevis. “Just have to ditch these new TV producers and sneak out with my old cameraman.”

  “That bad?”

  “They want me to use the middle name ‘Danger.’”

  “. . . Hey Jude . . .”

  Brook stopped to listen to the music. “This is the Beatles, but it’s not the Beatles.”

  “Wilson Pickett’s recording from 1968 in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.”

  “You’re into Pickett?”

  “As much as the next guy.” Reevis oiled a frying pan and tossed the meat in with some garlic. “But the real reason I love this version is the big crescendo at the end when an unknown session guitarist from Florida nicknamed Skydog blew everyone away with an insane riff. Nothing like it had ever been heard on an R-and-B record. And today, that precise moment three minutes into the song is called the birth of Southern rock. Eric Clapton called it the best guitar solo he’d ever heard, so he tracked down Skydog, learned his real name was Duane Allman, and invited him to play guitar on Eric’s next album that they recorded in Miami.”

  “Now you’re definitely reminding me of our mutual friend.”

&
nbsp; “With good reason. Follow me.”

  They set all the stove dials to simmer, and Reevis headed back to the bedroom.

  “I’ve already seen this,” said Brook. “Mattress and clock.”

  “Not everything.” Reevis opened the slat accordion doors to a closet.

  “Good God,” said Brook. “Look at the size of that bookcase. There’s certainly no downsizing here.”

  “I’m blocking it from distraction with the closet doors,” said Reevis. “But a few things I just can’t get rid of.”

  “Few things? This is the biggest reference library on Florida I’ve ever seen, including music and movies.”

  Reevis pulled a plastic CD case off the shelf and handed it to Brook.

  “The Duane Allman Anthology? Him again?”

  “No, open it. That’s how I learned the trivia I just told you in the kitchen.”

  “There’s a letter tucked in here.” Her lips moved silently as her eyes flowed down the page, then she read aloud as she reached the bottom. “. . . ‘Shortly after the ‘Hey Jude’ session, Duane returned to Jacksonville and formed the Allman Brothers Band.’” Her eyes suddenly shot up to Reevis. “It’s signed ‘Serge’!”

  “He sends a package every week,” said the reporter. “Sometimes the return address is in the middle of Lake Okeechobee; sometimes the governor’s mansion.”

  “You’ve been in contact with him?” Ultra-urgent now. “How is he? What’s going on? Why didn’t you tell me? When did—”

  “Stop.” Reevis shook his head. “I don’t know a thing. The parcels just arrive. Sometimes there’s a note but nothing specific.”

  “What kind of stuff is he sending you?”

  Reevis looked sideways. “Pretty much that whole bookcase.”

  “That’s it? But why?”

  “I think he fancies me as some kind of protégé he’s mentoring.” The reporter idly pulled down a pictorial book on the Sarasota architecture of Paul Rudolph, then a spiral-bound sailing guide to the Keys with aerial photos of Adams Cut and Tavernier Creek. “It almost has a fatalistic aura, like he needs to pass this knowledge down to an heir. Do you think he’s okay?”

  “Serge isn’t close to okay,” Brook said with a smile. “I sometimes worry.”

  “You two used to have a thing, didn’t you?”

  “More like I had a crush, but nothing developed. Then I met you.” She held one of his hands. “Don’t give that history another thought.”

  “I don’t. I considered him a good friend, too.” Reevis closed the closet. “I’ve thought about trying to find him, but all I have is an old cell-phone number.”

  “Why don’t you call it?”

  “Come on.” A knowing look. “From what we’ve learned about him since our ordeal in Key West, he would have been caught five times if he used anything except a series of disposables. And this number is a year old.”

  “It’s odd, but until this very second I didn’t realize the impact he had on both our lives.”

  “He’s the reason we met, after all,” said Reevis.

  “The reason we’re together,” said Brook. “Like a couple that first bonds at a showing of their favorite classic movie.”

  “Or teaching me his favorite Latin recipes.”

  Their eyes suddenly locked.

  “Dinner!”

  Reevis ran into the kitchen and fanned the smoke. Brook opened the windows. “What’s it look like?”

  “Just a tiny bit burnt.” He began scooping rice and beans and Cuban meat stew onto plates.

  “You don’t have a table,” said Brook. “We eat standing up?”

  “No.” Reevis opened the door under the sink.

  “Wicker trays?”

  “Matches the patio chairs.”

  Moments later, they sat side by side, sopping up tomato sauce with the thick bread. Brook chewed and looked toward where a TV normally would have been. “I didn’t notice the poster before. Isn’t that some kind of famous work of art?”

  “Serge again. Came rolled up in a mailing tube.” Reevis munched a plantain chip. “Watercolor called A Norther, painted in Key West in 1886 by Winslow Homer. Now it’s my favorite painting of all time. I picked a spot in the apartment where I’d see it a lot.”

  “So instead of watching TV, you sit there each night and watch the painting?”

  “Simplify.” Munch. “My nerves need it these days.”

  “You need to figure out what to do with those crazy producers of yours,” said Brook. “Never seen you so stressed.”

  “Figured I’d get out in front of this thing by advancing my own stories before they can come up with more inane ideas of their own.”

  “By the way,” said Brook. “Thanks for your coverage of the police forfeiture case I’m handling. Public opinion isn’t supposed to count, but judges are still elected around here. And you drummed up a lot of new business for the firm.”

  “That whole fiasco was constitutionally reprehensible,” said Reevis.

  “Still waiting for our day in court,” said Brook.

  “Working on anything else that I might be interested in?”

  “You’ll be the first to know.”

  Sunlight prematurely departed outside the apartment’s jalousie windows. Floridians know the drill. Most rain will play itself out in minutes. But when the sky turns purple, and palm fronds are already flying in the wind before the first drop has fallen, hang on to your hat.

  “I hope the car windows are up,” said Brook.

  “I love these storms,” said Reevis.

  The downpour crashed into the sea grapes and banana trees with a crackling roar, and the living room grew dark.

  “Maybe turn on a light?” asked Brook.

  “Have a better idea.” Reevis grabbed something else from the cupboard and struck a wooden match. A dim glow flickered high up the walls.

  “A Santería candle?” asked Brook.

  “Went shopping at this colorful market in Little Haiti,” said Reevis. “I was this close to buying a live chicken and making arroz con pollo for you tonight.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “At first I thought it would be the ultimate gesture in simplifying my life,” said Reevis. “But as I mulled the implications of the bird process, it only seemed more complex.”

  “You . . . entertain me. That’s important.” Brook looked fondly into his eyes.

  “Listen to what’s happening out there,” said Reevis. “It’s really beautiful.”

  They returned to their final bites of Cuban cuisine. Then it was that kind of quiet and stillness of air like when the electricity goes out. The pair oddly found themselves coupled together as they silently watched the show going on in the Winslow Homer painting.

  Outside the apartment windows, palm trees yielded in a dark and overbearing sky. In the painting, same thing.

  The stillness in the apartment continued as a series of brilliant blue-white flashes filled the room. A delay followed the lightning, then the marching drum line of thunder.

  Reevis noticed the clock was out on the stove. One of the flashes outside had actually been a transformer blowing. The power was out for real. Even more still now without the moving air of the central A/C. A smile. Reevis thought: If you’ve never sat in candlelight and heard rain hit a banana leaf . . .

  They both quietly looked at the painting.

  “It was storming that night, too,” said Brook. “The trees were bending in Key West.”

  “Almost exactly a year ago,” said Reevis. “The last time we saw Serge.”

  “I wonder where he could possibly be.”

  Episode 3

  Chapter 14

  A New Day

  There are parts of greater Miami where even crime doesn’t pay. These are the desolate, bombed-out sections of the metro area with few forms of life above the virus level. Deserted industrial lots and underpasses and rock pits all but abandoned to the lizards and Sterno bums and roaming dogs with visible ribs.


  One such stretch sat in the small city of Hialeah near the Palmetto Expressway.

  Only two businesses with the loose definition of commerce: a U-Grab-It auto-parts salvage yard and, next door, a squat concrete pillbox of an office that had been repeatedly painted over as it went from bail bonds to title loans to just painted over.

  Only two sounds echoed across the steaming badlands: someone with a socket wrench cursing under the hood of a Plymouth, and Jimi Hendrix from the Electric Ladyland album.

  The psychedelic guitar licks led back to the pillbox. All the windows had burglar bars, and steel plates covered the dead bolts. The single room inside was divided in two by a curtain of purple beads. A large clay ashtray from Tijuana brimmed with burned-down roaches.

  Another roach singed the fingertips of a stubby, potbellied man in a Pink Floyd tour T-shirt featuring a prism and spectrum of light. Bald on top, with wild gray curls of hair on the side, going every which way over his ears like Allen Ginsberg. The T-shirt was too tight.

  He cranked up the stereo.

  “. . . ’Cause I’m a voodoo chile! . . .”

  Time for the low-demand lawyer to rehearse opening arguments. There was a final, rapid toking on the roach as smoke rose toward an unbalanced ceiling fan. “Okay, focus yourself. I need to remember that, and then that, and the other thing. All right, I think I’ve got it . . .” A last big hit and he stamped out the end of the joint. “Ladies and gentleman of the jury, let’s get something out in the open right away because it’s what we’re all thinking about. Not by a long shot is this the crime of the century, and yet when you say ‘sex with a goat,’ you can’t help but vividly picture it, and then you can’t get the horrible image out of your head, and you unfairly imagine my poor client standing behind livestock . . . Shit, that’s way too visual. They’ll just picture it even more. Okay, how about this. Ahem . . . Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, society as a whole treats the goat rather badly. Can we at least agree on that point? . . . No, stop. That’s stupid. Maybe this: . . . Ladies and gentlemen, blah-blah-blah. Did you know that in certain regions of Nepal, the goat is used in . . . Fuck it.” He punched numbers on his cell phone. “Yeah, it’s me. Listen, dude, you really gotta plead this one out . . . No, I’m sure . . .”