by Tim Dorsey
“Ahhhhhhh!”
JFK took off running.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang . . .
The brown-haired man high-stepped it through the flying chunks of pavement and dove back into his convertible Lincoln.
More ricochets, more screams, more bodies fell.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang . . .
“Stop shooting! Stop shooting!” screamed Pelota.
But he was only talking to himself. The crowd in the middle looked around. Rogan’s crew had been entirely wiped out, and Pelota’s gang was down to, well, Pelota.
A woman ran out of the nail salon and hugged Serge. “Don’t shoot him! Don’t shoot him!”
“Are you out of your mind?” yelled Pelota. “Get back in the store.”
She ran off and took shelter.
Ocho Pelota rolled his eyes at the sky. “The fucking ticket? Please?”
“I can’t take this anymore,” said Ziggy. “I’m way too high . . . I have the ticket.”
“That’s more like it,” said Pelota. “Just pass it over and we’ll be out of your hair.”
Now that Pelota’s eyes had turned to Ziggy, Serge worked a hand behind his back, manipulating what the nail salon lady had been able to slip him.
Ziggy’s trembling fingers fished the ticket from his wallet, and he shook even more as he extended his arm toward the gunman. The stress was too much. The ticket fell from his grasp.
It seemed like it was happening in slow motion as the tiny piece of paper fluttered down. Everyone watched in shock as it slipped through the grating of a storm drain, where a raging subterranean river of runoff began taking it on its journey to the sea.
“Ahhhhh!” screamed Pelota, losing control with ungoverned anger. He quickly raised his weapon to kill every last one of them.
Just as he did, Serge hit him in the eyes with a laser from the nail salon. “Ahhhhhh!”
The natural reflex is for the hands to go to the face, kind of like a blink response.
When Pelota did, he shot himself in the head five times.
Everyone jumped back as Pelota momentarily stood lifeless before toppling over.
A parking lot full of silent, open mouths and big white eyes. Did that just happen?
Then the street came alive again with sirens and tires. All the police cars converged on the strip mall. Officers rushed toward the carnage.
“Serge,” said Brook. “What are you going to do? They’ve got the place surrounded!”
“Just like I planned it.”
“Planned?”
Cops kicked guns away from the hands of fallen bad guys. Others ran toward the survivors. Serge popped the Corvette’s trunk, grabbed something for himself and handed another to Coleman.
Just as the officers arrived, the pair finished slipping into their Windbreakers.
“You’re the hostage negotiators?” asked a sergeant.
“I’ll be doing the paperwork on this for a month,” said Serge.
“What’s with the cheetah and panda outfits.”
“Undercover. Sign-spinners.” Serge pointed vaguely up the road. “I’ve got to coordinate with headquarters and seal the airport. Others on the watch list might be trying to get away.”
“Homeland Security? FBI?”
“It’s a task force.” Serge put a hand on the sergeant’s shoulder. “But I respect your jurisdiction, so the person you need to talk to is that attorney over there. She’ll give you the whole story. And make sure you spell your name for the press release.”
“You got it.” The sergeant waved for a couple of officers guarding the edge of the parking lot to pull back and make space so the silver Corvette could get through.
Serge headed south on Biscayne Boulevard, wearing a cheetah costume and hostage-negotiator Windbreaker, sitting next to a panda as they passed a bicyclist with dangling iguanas, looking in the rearview mirror as officers interviewed Korean salon workers, an Australian film crew, Marilyn Monroe and JFK, while a man in a camo hat ran through a dozen bodies chasing a small alligator. Serge shook his head to himself. “Life goes by way too fast when it’s the same thing every day.”
Epilogue
The Florida Keys
A silver Corvette glinted in the sun as it crossed the Seven Mile Bridge.
“Where are we going for our next Route 66 episode?” asked Coleman.
“That was the series finale. When you hit a high note, leave the stage.”
They were speaking to each other on walkie-talkies. Because Coleman was in the trunk.
“You sure you’re comfortable back there?”
“I like it. Got my beer, munchies, smoke. Cool.”
It helped make room in the front seat for the nail-salon woman snuggling up next to Serge.
A walkie-talkie squawked again. “So what are the new plans for now?”
Serge glanced down at his lap and an official summons that he had poached from a mailbox. “I’ve always wanted to serve on a jury.”
Miami
A bleached-out lottery ticket with no visible numbers emerged from a spillway and floated off into the Atlantic Ocean.
In the history of the Florida Lottery, there have been a number of unclaimed tickets. The largest jackpot that wasn’t cashed by the 180-day deadline came in 2003 at $53.7 million.
The soggy white rectangle of paper continued drifting toward the Bahamas in an offshore seaweed bloom, before a loggerhead turtle nibbled on it until it was gone.
Back ashore, lottery officials were holding another press conference to announce that Saturday night’s drawing had actually produced two winners.
In a modest retirement condo along a more affordable stretch of old North Miami Beach, a heated argument broke out among four ninety-something-year-old roommates.
“Give me the ticket!” shouted Eunice.
“I bought it!” yelled Edith. “It’s mine!”
“We always go in on it together!” screamed Ethel.
“That was last week!” shrieked Edith.
“The rule automatically carries over,” yelled Edna.
“No, it doesn’t!” cried Edith. “Ow! Let go of my hair! I just had a permanent!”
“I got the ticket!” said Ethel. “Let’s go buy a speedboat!”
About the Author
Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999, and is the author of nineteen previous novels: Coconut Cowboy, Shark Skin Suite, Tiger Shrimp Tango, The Riptide Ultra-Glide, Pineapple Grenade, When Elves Attack, Electric Barracuda, Gator A-Go-Go, Nuclear Jellyfish, Atomic Lobster, Hurricane Punch, The Big Bamboo, Torpedo Juice, Cadillac Beach, The Stingray Shuffle, Triggerfish Twist, Orange Crush, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, and Florida Roadkill. He lives in Tampa, Florida.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Tim Dorsey
Florida Roadkill
Hammerhead Ranch Motel
Orange Crush
Triggerfish Twist
The Stingray Shuffle
Cadillac Beach
Torpedo Juice
The Big Bamboo
Hurricane Punch
Atomic Lobster
Nuclear Jellyfish
Gator A-Go-Go
Electric Barracuda
When Elves Attack
Pineapple Grenade
The Riptide Ultra-Glide
Tiger Shrimp Tango
Shark Skin Suite
Coconut Cowboy
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
clownfish blues. Copyright © 2017 by Tim Dorsey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access
and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.
first edition
Digital Edition January 2017 ISBN: 9780062429247
Print ISBN: 9780062429223
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada
www.harpercollins.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com