by Tim Dorsey
The five women all stopped for a long moment and looked at each other with knowing smiles, all sitting there in thousand-dollar sundresses.
“Has it sunk in yet?” asked Teresa.
“Not remotely,” said Maria. “I’m still walking on air.”
“It’s like I’m permanently trapped in the moment I opened my suitcase,” said Paige. “A million dollars takes up a lot less room than I would have thought.”
“I remember every second, every detail,” said Maria. “We’re all standing there looking in Paige’s suitcase, thinking, what the heck is going on? That can’t be real money.”
“Then Sam opened her suitcase…”
“No, Teresa opened hers next,” corrected Maria. “I told you, I remember every single detail. The National Guard rescued us, Amtrak put us up in suites at the Hilton, and there we were in the room, Paige’s open suitcase full of money, nobody breathing, so Teresa opened hers. When we saw the second million dollars, the rest of us literally dove for our own suitcases…”
“…every one full of money,” said Rebecca. “And then we all looked at each other and said it at the same time: ‘Serge!’ ”
“I still can’t believe we’re being allowed to keep it,” said Paige.
“Believe it,” said Sam. “We paid that lawyer enough. We paid everyone enough.”
“What a country,” said Rebecca. “You can buy anything.”
“You sure we don’t have anything to worry about?” said Maria. “I’m still expecting a knock at my door.”
“I told you, it’s all a matter of knowing which lawyers are wired in with the current administration,” Sam explained. “Our attorney knows the Washington attorney who had lunch with the IRS attorney…”
“What on earth did he tell him?”
“The truth,” said Sam. “That he was representing a Florida attorney who was representing an offshore corporation—remember? The company they set up for us?—and the attorney says the corporation tripped over five million dollars of drug money but had nothing to do with any of the crimes connected to it.”
“And they gave us immunity just like that?”
“No, they turned it down,” said Sam. “That’s when the IRS started getting calls from the staff of congressmen sitting on their budget committee. The ones we contributed to.”
“But what about those drug guys? Won’t they come looking for it?”
“They think it floated away. Everyone on that train thinks it floated away.”
“But if we have the money, what blew into the river?”
“We can thank Ralph Krunkleton for that.”
“What do you mean?”
“You remember how everyone in The Stingray Shuffle was chasing five million bucks?”
“Yeah?”
“And you remember how Ralph’s agent brought a briefcase on the train full of scripts and props to act out the book, toy guns and knives…and play money…”
“Play money blew into the river?”
“It’s the only answer.”
The drinks arrived, and Sam proposed a toast. “To Serge, wherever he is.”
The women clinked glasses.
“To Serge…”
A twenty-eight-foot trimaran tacked across the Gulf Stream below the Bahia Honda Bridge in the Florida Keys.
“Hey, Johnny,” said Sasha, an alternate Tampa Bay Buccaneers cheerleader and first-string dope date. “Let’s go to Key Lois.”
Johnny Vegas was a member of the all-virility team, wearing an America’s Cup rip-stop nylon yachting jacket, his black Vidal Sassoon mane snapping in the wind. He stood at the helm, turning the large chrome wheel with panache.
“But baby, Key Lois is off limits,” he said. “It’s federal law.”
“I know,” she purred. “It’ll be deserted.” She came up from behind, sliding her left hand up between his legs. Johnny reacted nonchalantly by losing sensation in both arms and letting go of the wheel. The main boom whipped over their heads and the sailboat momentarily pitched up on its port hull before Johnny grabbed the spinning helm and straightened her out.
“It’s right over there,” said Sasha, pointing at the low profile of a mangrove island on the horizon.
Johnny set his course for Key Lois, a mile south of Cudjoe Key and twenty miles east of Key West. He approached from the leeward side to make harbor and showcased his seamanship by gently rupturing the center hull on the rocky beach.
“Where’s your coke?”
“Right here.”
“Dump it out.”
He did. She vacuumed.
“Weeeeeeee!” squealed Sasha, hopping over the side and running down the beach ripping off her bikini. “Let’s go see the monkeys!”
Johnny was close behind but losing ground, trying to run with his trunks around his knees.
The monkeys Sasha had mentioned were the reason Key Lois was off limits. Charles River Laboratories of Massachusetts, a subsidiary of Bausch & Lomb, uses the island to breed rhesus monkeys for scientific experiments. And breed they do.
But Johnny didn’t see a single monkey as he wiggled his swim trunks down to his ankles and flicked them aside with his left foot. He caught up with Sasha near the breakers.
“Where’s your cocaine?”
Yes! She wants a little nitro to get her engine primed, then it’s off to the races! Johnny ran back and got the swim trunks he had kicked off. He returned and pulled a watertight capsule from a Velcro pocket.
“Gimme that!” She snatched it out of his hands and stuck it up her nose until it was empty.
Her eyes glassed over, and her lower lip jutted and tremored with predatory sensuality. Show time, thought Johnny. But instead of making her amorous, it only made her want to look for monkeys.
“Here, monkey, monkey…”
Johnny followed her all the way around the island, four miles total, but no monkeys. They splashed out into a few inches of water to skirt the last outcropping of mangroves before returning to the sailboat. Johnny felt a hand on his thigh. The silly dust had kicked in. Sasha put her mouth to his ear and whispered in a husky voice: “I love seafaring men. Let’s fuck in the boat…I feel a big blow’s acomin’.”
Johnny developed a certain carefree spring in his step as they held hands and skipped merrily through the shallow water. They rounded the mangrove bend, and there was the boat.
Sasha screamed. Johnny gasped.
The trimaran—what was left of it—was covered with monkeys. Hundreds of chattering, swinging, shitting monkeys, ripping up the sails, tearing the stuffing out of life preservers, ransacking the galley. The monkeys cavorted across the stern and hung by their tails from the cabin railing. A dozen monkeys armed with marlinespikes and galley utensils jumped onto the beach and charged. Sasha screamed and took off in the opposite direction. The monkeys ran past Johnny and chased Sasha back around the bend. Johnny fell to his knees in the water. “Why me?…”
When he finally looked up again, he saw something he would never forget as long as he lived. It was a fleeting but searing image, like a Loch Ness sighting.
What he saw was a wiry man in a royal blue astronaut jumpsuit. The man stood atop the sailboat’s cabin, arms akimbo, a monkey on each shoulder and more monkeys clustered around his feet in loyalty and affection. Then the man jumped down off the boat and disappeared into the mangrove thicket, and the hundreds of monkeys followed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Gratitude is due once again to my agent, Nat Sobel, and my editor, Henry Ferris, for throwing friendship in with the bargain.
About the Author
Tim Dorsey was a reporter and editor for the Tampa Tribune from 1987 to 1999 and is the author of the novels Florida Roadkill, Hammerhead Ranch Motel, Orange Crush, Triggerfish Twist, The Stingray Shuffle, and the upcoming Cadillac Beach. He lives in Tampa, Florida. Visit his website at www.timdorsey.com
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Praise for the irrepressible
TIM DORSEY
and
THE STINGRAY SHUFFLE
“Consistently entertaining…an exhilarating ride…comic-edged crime adventure…[Dorsey] in no time flat has turned into a contender in a genre shared with the likes of wacko Florida chroniclers Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry. Their younger colleague, in fact, may have the edge when it comes to the rapid pace of the action and the over-the-top escapades of the characters…If loving Serge is wrong, we don’t wanna be right.”
Sarasota Herald Tribune
“Dorsey has created an irresistible lead character in the serial killer and Florida history buff Serge A. Storms…He only terminates folks who really deserve it, and then in quite imaginative ways. We’re delighted to spend time in his pan-fried, revved-up company.”
San Diego Union-Tribune
“Bizarre…wicked…outrageously and absurdly funny…always a trip…Dorsey is blessed with a very strange imagination indeed.”
Birmingham News
“Imagine the violence of Edna Buchanan married to the skewed worldview of Dave Barry. Now you’re ready to meet Tim Dorsey.”
Booklist
“A wild ride…terrific, laugh-out-loud fun. And enough to make you choose even a lousy New England winter over the sunshine-fried lunacy that seems to take over south of Disney World…Dorsey, in typical fashion, takes on the citrus growers, book clubs, Las Vegas lounge acts, medflies, and hypnosis en route to a riotous finale aboard a mystery train bound from New York to the Sunshine State…Few [authors] pack a bite as sharp and scathing as Tim Dorsey.”
Providence Journal-Bulletin
“Dorsey knows how to get your attention…and quite often a belly laugh…Tim Dorsey has become quite adept at leading readers on a madcap romp through Florida’s finest and foibles, mostly its foibles…He lures the reader in with absurd humor, ludicrous situations, and even some affection for the state he calls home.”
Chicago Tribune
“What a trip!…Memorable…entertaining…[a] comic romp…fueled by satire and outright farce.”
New Orleans Times-Picayune
“A madcap adventure.”
Stuart News
“Serge is Dorsey’s finest creation: He may be crazy, but he knows his stuff…It’s a sweet relief to discover that Dorsey can keep up with himself. Heaven knows nobody else can.”
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
“We’re in Dorsey’s world…and we wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Miami Herald
“It’s safe to say that there is no other state in the nation quite like Florida. It has alligator wrestling, pregnant and swinging ‘chads,’ manatees, and the largest collection of authors writing edgy, offbeat thrillers anywhere. The quirkiest of them all might be Tim Dorsey.”
Denver Rocky Mountain News
“Mad magazine, the Three Stooges, and ‘It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World’ blended together…Dorsey revs up his arsenal of screwball characters and situations…We want to know what happens to this oddball collection…The mystery in any Dorsey novel is not whodunit…but how over the top Dorsey can go yet still stay close to the truth about Florida.”
Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
“Insanely creative…[Dorsey’s] novels feature an astounding variety of lowlifes…It’s always a blast to spend time in Serge’s company (providing you don’t make him mad).”
Albany Times-Union
“Dorsey is compulsively irreverent and shockingly funny…For readers with a high threshold for prurience and violence, Dorsey’s books are definitely funny ha-ha.”
Boston Globe
Also by Tim Dorsey
FLORIDA ROADKILL
HAMMERHEAD RANCH MOTEL
ORANGE CRUSH
TRIGGERFISH TWIST
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.
THE STINGRAY SHUFFLE. Copyright © 2003 by Tim Dorsey. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, 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 hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of PerfectBound™.
PerfectBound™ and the PerfectBound™ logo are trademarks of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
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