by Tim Dorsey
Coleman nodded emphatically. “I can wear a costume.”
They went inside the dim club. Anthropomorphic animals paired off everywhere. Livestock, house pets, zoo attractions, beasts of burden, Disney characters. Everyone making small talk and trying to hook up. Most had learned how to drink with straws through the costume heads. Two people in a pony suit made their way to the dance floor. Serge wandered the room in a surreal daze. “I had no idea this was going on . . . Coleman . . . Coleman? . . . Dammit, another manhunt.”
Serge searched the entire club and ended up in the empty men’s room. “Where can that idiot be?” Then a notion. He stepped into the hall and stared at the door to the women’s room. “What the heck, I’m a cheetah.”
An orange-and-white paw pushed the door open. Much nicer accommodations. Sparkling clean with automatic air-freshening dispensers. Oil paintings on the walls. Serge stared at attractive potted flowers along the sink. “I had no idea this was going on.”
A unicorn departed and Serge was left alone, or so he thought. One of the stalls began to rattle. He got down on paws and knees and looked under the door. Two pairs of feet. Panda, gorilla. He momentarily closed his eyes in frustration, then went and leaned against the sink to wait.
A few minutes later, the rattling stopped and the door opened. Coleman saw his pal standing with impatiently folded arms. “Serge, what are you doing in the ladies’ room? Can you believe these flowers?”
“You knucklehead!”
Coleman whispered close to Serge’s ear. “Twice in one day. That’s like a record! And with a really hot one.”
“I’m sure she shits rainbows,” said Serge. “But you did just give me a great idea.”
“Really?”
“Remember when I said you needed a gimmick for our new gig tomorrow? Excuse me a moment.” He walked over to Liv, who’d removed her costume head to freshen up at the sink. “I’ve got a proposition for you.”
She winked. “I knew you’d come around.”
“This is a business proposition.”
Chapter 28
The Next Day
Fluorescent yellow crime tape was back up at the Florida Motel in Miami. This time, stretched around the general vicinity of room number four. The parking lot filled with marked and unmarked police cars.
Someone dusted the Do Not Disturb sign for fingerprints. A detective scribbled in a notepad as he questioned the whiskered manager in a bowling shirt for the Biscayne Guttersnipes.
“You say you didn’t have much contact with them?”
“Not really.” He swatted a love bug off his arm. “Kept to themselves, some of the best tenants I’ve had. Paid cash up front for the last three days.”
“Did you notice anything unusual about forty-eight hours ago?”
“Not really, except for some music by K.C. and the Sunshine Band, if that helps. Plus, hundreds of twirling spots of light on the curtains.”
The detective looked up from his notebook. “What?”
“Probably a disco ball.”
“And that’s normal to you?”
“Do you know how many meth labs and portable sex dungeons we’ve had to clean up at this place? I see a disco ball, I say, ‘Go with God.’”
“Okay.” The detective flipped his pad closed. “Just one more thing. We’ll need to check your guest registry against the stack of Xeroxed driver’s licenses you provided us by law.”
The manager stared at his shoes, which were Keds, then at the detective’s shoes, which weren’t.
“You did make copies of their licenses, didn’t you?” said the officer.
“Oh, of course, of course,” said the manager.
“Because if you didn’t, that’s a serious offense,” said the detective. “We’ve already arrested several managers along this strip for taking bribes not to make copies.”
“I remember very clearly now. I definitely asked for their licenses.”
“That’s better.”
The manager headed toward his office. “Just give me a few minutes to find them.”
Another patrol car arrived. An officer opened the back door, and a pizza deliveryman got out.
“What’s going on?”
“We’ll ask the questions here.” A detective flipped to a fresh page. “I understand you made a delivery to room four a couple nights ago.”
“So?”
“Did you notice anything unusual?”
“Not really.”
“Do you recall what they were wearing?”
“The thin one had a beauty contest sash, the chubby guy was in a panda head, and the dude tied up in the chair wore an orange safety cone on his head.”
“And all this seemed normal to you?”
“You must be new in town,” said the driver. “Have you ever delivered a triple-cheese meat special to an orangutan-smuggling ring?”
Inside room number four, more detectives milled with Styrofoam cups of coffee. One of them eyed a box of cupcakes, but knew it would be wrong. Camera flashes strobed out of the bathroom. A forensic technician emerged with a phone in a sealed evidence bag.
“Is that the cell he used to call 911?”
“We’ll know as soon as we get it to the lab. But it’s a safe bet . . . It’s kind of a shame.”
“How’s that?”
“More and more people are making emergency calls from cell phones,” said the technician. “If they came from landlines, we could pinpoint the exact locations. But if the person is incapacitated and can’t communicate—like our victim in there—we can only get a general location by triangulating pings off cell towers. He might have made it.”
“Why couldn’t he communicate?”
A stretcher rolled past them with a zippered body bag. The forensic tech glanced back at the bathroom. “See for yourself. It’s clear to go in now.”
A pair of detectives arrived in the doorway as the last photographer left. The medical examiner made notes on a clipboard. He noticed them staring at the plywood and cement blocks that had been moved to the side. “Those were used to keep him from getting out of the tub.”
“You mean someone drowned him?”
“Just the opposite.” The examiner sadly shook his head. “This was so tediously planned in sadistic detail that it could be nothing other than the result of extreme, prolonged rage. Whoever did this had a serious grudge with this guy.”
“But if he didn’t drown in the tub,” asked the first detective, “then how did they kill him?”
The examiner bent down and retrieved a few tiny granules near the drain.
“What’s that?” asked the second detective.
“Rice,” said the examiner. “My staff just carted away several huge bags of the stuff. The tub was filled to the brim, completely covering the naked victim. We’re going to do a chromatograph to see where it was bought, but in this quantity, my guess is Sam’s Club. We’re still trying to figure out why the killers left him with a cell phone taped to his hand.”
The first detective crunched his eyebrows. “Rice killed him? But how?”
“Dehydration,” said the examiner. “Rice pulled a bunch of water out of him in a major rush. First leg cramps and delirium, migraine-level headaches, speech loss and, at the end, a falling domino line of organ failure.”
“Rice does that?”
“You know how you’ll sometimes buy a moisture-sensitive piece of electronics, and you open the box and there’s a little porous bag that tells idiots not to eat it? That’s a chemical substance similar to rice to keep your product dry. Or you might have heard that if your cell phone gets wet, you can stick it in a bag of rice to save it?” He glanced back at the tub. “Doesn’t work so well on people.”
“Thanks, Jerry.”
“I’ll send over my final report by the end of the week, but you already have the main talking points.”
The two detectives left the room and strolled across the parking lot. “Rice. Just when you think you’ve seen everything.”
“What was he yapping about with the cell phones?”
“That’s true. I accidentally splashed some water on my phone near the sink, and rice fixed it,” said the first detective. “One of my kids told me about the tip. Apparently they’re constantly getting their phones wet and have to deal with it before their parents find out.”
They entered the motel office. The manager stood behind the counter and handed over a Xerox. “That’s him. That’s the guy who paid for the room.”
“Are you positive?”
“I’ll never forget the face.”
“Thank you for your time.”
The detectives drove away from the motel, hot on the trail of a retired couple from Peoria.
Hialeah
A stereo blared.
A bong bubbled.
Ziggy stared in disbelief at all the lottery tickets on his desk. Like Brook had told him at the beginning, word was definitely getting out on the street. All relatively small amounts, but it added up.
Knock, knock, knock.
Ziggy took another enormous hit and ruminated about instant scratch-offs, the Cuban bolita, the Harlem rackets, and other numbers games throughout history.
Knock, knock, knock.
Ziggy leaned his head back with his Visine—“Damn, I am way too high. I hope I don’t have any appointments”—and turned Joplin up on the stereo.
“. . . Another little piece of my heart . . .”
The knocking at the front door became banging.
Ziggy jumped and dove under his desk. “What the hell was that? Have they finally come for me? . . . Okay, you know the drill. It’s just the pot. Get yourself back on the rails! How do they keep making this shit stronger? Maybe I just imagined I heard something . . .”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“No, I definitely heard it that time. Someone’s at the door. I’m in no condition to deal with the public. They always know. If I make myself as small as possible, they will go away . . .” He tightened himself into a ball.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Teeth gnashed under the desk. “They’re not going away. This is a crisis . . . Try to think: It’s probably just a courier with more lottery tickets. You’ve gotten through this kind of thing before. The key is rehearsal. What is acceptable behavior? Take the package and say thank you. That’s only two things to remember. You can handle it. Two things, two things, two things. Take package, thank you, take package, thank you . . .”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“. . . Take package, thank you. Take package . . . What was the third thing? I think it was a variation on the other two numbers. Numbers, numbers, numbers . . . Roman numerals? Why do they always come up at the end of a movie? MCMLXXII . . . What the fuck is that about? . . .”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Ziggy took a deep breath and began crawling out from under the desk. “. . . Here goes nothing: Say thank you and give him the package . . .” He stopped crawling. “Give him the package? Where’s the package? Did I lose something again?”
Bang! Bang! Bang!
“I’m coming!” yelled Ziggy. “Be there in just a minute!”
From behind the desk, a head slowly rose until bloodshot eyes were even with the edge. Ziggy forced frozen legs to march to the door. He began undoing a sequence of locks. “Thank you for the package, coming or going. You’re welcome. Peace, out.”
He opened the door.
Bright lights blinded him. Dundee stuck the TV camera in his face, and Brisbane thrust a microphone: “What kind of lottery scam are you trying to hide?”
They chased Ziggy as he ran squealing like a ferret and dove back under his desk.
Miami Women’s Legal Aid Clinic
Brook sat behind her desk, staring in new thought.
On the other side was her latest client, wearing a moose costume and holding the head demurely in his lap.
“Mr. Rabinowitz, these are very serious charges,” said Brook. “Lewdness in front of minors, attempted sexual battery, creating a public nuisance resulting in injuries.”
“It’s all a big misunderstanding,” said the accountant. “I was at the mall and saw this other moose. I could have sworn she was one of us.”
“So what you’re saying is you didn’t realize she was actually entertainment for a children’s birthday party when you mounted her from behind?”
Mr. Rabinowitz stuck two fingers through openings in the costume head in his lap. “My eyeholes were too small. Like I said, an honest mistake.”
Brook finished writing on a legal pad. “If you don’t mind me asking, why did you wear a moose costume to the mall in the first place?”
“To hook up.”
“Okay, no promises, but I’m fairly confident we can work out a plea.” Brook smiled as naturally as she could under the circumstances and shuffled papers in the client’s file, indicating the meeting was winding down. “Uh, you don’t happen to have a change of clothes, do you?”
The client looked down at antlers. “Only the moose. Why?”
“A condition of being released on bail was not to wear any costumes in public. Inside your own house, have at it.”
A sad voice: “Okay.”
“Then wait in the lobby until I can have my assistant get something appropriate. Don’t want you pulled over on the drive home.” She picked up the phone. “Danny, I’ve got an odd request . . .”
The moose excused himself. Brook was filling out a motion to preclude when Danny burst in. “Brook! You have to see this!”
“I’m in the middle of something.”
“It’s important! Hurry!”
Brook got up and followed Danny into the break area with a microwave and fridge. And a TV. The broadcast showed a jiggling camera approaching a squat concrete office in Hialeah.
“I delivered some lottery tickets there,” said Danny. “Isn’t that the office of the other attorney—”
“Shhhh!”
Fists banged on the door until a frumpy lawyer finally answered and bright lights hit his stoned face like high beams. “Ahhhhhhhhh!” He scampered away as the camera chased Ziggy through a curtain of purple beads.
“What kind of lottery scam are you trying to hide?”
Ziggy shrieked and ran right over the top of his desk, scattering winning tickets and marijuana roaches. Then he slithered underneath and hid.
The cameraman quickly rounded the furniture and got down on the floor. TV sets across South Florida were filled with the image of Ziggy balled up under his desk, clutching his knees to his chest and rocking back and forth with eyes closed. “If I make myself really small, they will go away.”
Brook covered her face. “Can this get any worse?”
A cell phone rang. “Brook Campanella. How may I help you?”
“I can explain,” said Ziggy. “They violated my rights, but it’s fixable.”
“Don’t do anything!” yelled Brook. “Stay inside and keep your mouth shut!”
“No, I messed up and need to make this right.”
“Ziggy, stop!”
“TV is the global campfire,” said Ziggy. “So I’m going to fight fire with fire.”
“I don’t even know what that means,” said Brook. “Just stay put!”
“Sorry, got to split.” Click.
“Ziggy! . . .”
Brook slowly hung up in defeat.
“What’s going on?” asked Danny.
“It just got worse.”
The two women walked together toward the front of the law office. As they did, a faint noise grew louder from the street.
“Do you hear that?” asked Brook.
“Yeah, but I can’t make out what it is,” said Danny.
The more they walked, the louder the noise, until it was an outright clamor.
“Darn it!” said Brook. “What do those salon people not understand about being on probation? The last thing I need right now is another rumble in the parking lot.”
Danny ran ahead and peeked out the blinds
of the waiting room. “Relax, it’s nothing to worry about.”
Brook picked up her pace. “Then what’s all that noise?”
“The audience.”
“What?”
“The salons apparently have hired rival sign-spinners,” said Danny. “You have to see it to believe it.”
Brook joined her at the window. “What in the name of creation?”
Down below in the parking lot, a cheetah with a bandaged tail repeatedly dove through a ring of fire while a gorilla humped a panda.
A moose walked out of the legal clinic: “Can I cut in?”
“No!” said the gorilla.
“This is the best job ever!” said the panda.
Chapter 29
The Next Day
The official press conference announced another lottery rollover, resulting in the biggest jackpot yet of the already record-breaking year, but nobody knew how high it would go before Saturday night’s drawing.
At that very moment in a South Florida penthouse, a Jamaican man with dreadlocks hit the pause button on the remote control. He leaned and stared at the tall numbers on the official lottery tote board. “If only I could get hold of one of those tickets . . .” Then Rogan resumed channel surfing. Click, click, click. Rerun, rerun, rerun. Three’s Company, One Day at a Time, Different Strokes, credit-card travel perks, flooring installed, online education for less. Something caught his attention. He stopped clicking. On the screen:
A potbellied man in a tie-dyed T-shirt swayed Zen-like to sitar music. He had a scraggly beatnik beard and John Lennon glasses.
“You think most lawyers are scum? I agree! So score the karmic representation you deserve at the cosmic court where the age of Aquarius is still alive . . .” He began singing off-key: “‘. . . Please allow meeee . . . to introduce myselffff . . .” Singing stopped. “Ziggy Blade here. DUI? Bankruptcy? Divorce? Hash pipe found during routine traffic stop? Who says it was yours? Come on down and let yourself move to the smooth legal groove with the Blade-man . . .” He thrust his fingertips to within inches of the camera in a trippy, 3-D effect, except the camera wasn’t 3-D, so there was no effect. “. . . And as always, we legally cash in all lottery tickets. No appointment necessary in downtown Hialeah. Call the number below now!” Ziggy pointed down at red flashing digits superimposed across his legs.