by Tim Dorsey
“No,” said Zargoza, “that’s not it. He’s doing Pacino from Scarface. I love that movie!”
“Say hello to my little friend!” said Serge.
“Did you see Miami Blues?” asked Zargoza.
“Ever been in a lineup?” asked Serge, making a tense Fred Ward face. “You own a suede sports coat?”
One of the goons was patting down Lenny, and he found the personal laser in his hip pocket. “Z, look at this.”
Zargoza shook his head and started laughing. “Uncuff ’em. They ain’t hit men. I haven’t figured out what they actually are, but it ain’t assassins.”
“I’m supposed to be Don Johnson,” said Lenny.
19
It was two A.M. when Zargoza, Serge and Lenny walked out of Zargoza’s office at Hammerhead Ranch. Serge retrieved his camera bag from room one, and they all got in Zargoza’s roomy BMW M3, Serge riding shotgun and Lenny in the middle of the backseat.
Serge immediately began fiddling with the fur-lined handcuffs dangling from Zargoza’s rearview mirror.
“I can’t believe I met you guys,” said Zargoza. “It’s like we’re all tuned in to the same Florida wavelength.”
They drove east, back onto the mainland and across the St. Petersburg peninsula until they came to the Gandy Bridge leading to Tampa. As the Beemer headed over the water, Zargoza called up a CD on the stereo, “Abacab” by Genesis.
“This is one of my favorite things, one of those little pleasures you have to make for yourself,” he said.
Zargoza looked over and noticed Serge and Lenny leaning forward in anticipation, waiting for him to continue.
“Oh-I love driving across the Tampa Bay bridges after midnight, playing my music. Sometimes I’ll make loops and go over the different bridges and sometimes I’ll go all the way down to the Skyway if I’m really jazzed. Say, you hear someone dressed like Santa jumped the other night?”
Lenny said yes and Serge said no.
“I remember crossing this bridge years back in my Jag. Piled it into a cement truck. Seems like a lifetime ago.”
Zargoza looked at Serge, and then back at Lenny sitting in the backseat with an unlit Lucky Strike in his mouth.
“You need a light,” Zargoza said, reaching for the dash.
“Don’t smoke,” said Lenny.
Zargoza gave Lenny a double take, then went on. “These bridges are wonderful at night. They’re practically empty, and the views over the bay are mesmerizing.”
Zargoza opened a console between the seats and thumbed through a dozen CDs. “The hardest part is picking the right tune. For the bridges, I prefer haunting music.”
“Haunting?” asked Lenny.
“Yeah,” said Zargoza, “music that touches something preternatural inside. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it awakens a nonverbal sense of horror in your unborn soul.”
“Like the Spice Girls?” asked Serge.
“I’m trying to be serious!” snapped Zargoza. “I’m talkin’ about Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck…”
Lightning forked in the distance toward Plant City, and it inspired Zargoza to pick Bad Company’s “Burnin’ Sky” for the next tune. He increased the volume and everyone stopped talking and grooved, letting the moment happen.
Zargoza saw the flashing red and blue lights in the rearview mirror. “Damn!” he said. “That’ll kill a buzz!”
Zargoza stood next to his car in the breakdown lane as the officer studied his driver’s license. He looked up at Zargoza. “We clocked you at ninety.”
Inside the car, Serge got the homing signal receiver out of his camera bag. It began flashing as soon as he turned it on. He panned it around and the flashing light went solid when he pointed it at the Beemer’s trunk.
Zargoza stood silent outside the car as his ticket was written, but he finally lost it. He made two fists and pounded them on the roof of his car and yelled. His radar detector was stuck onto the left side of the windshield with suction cups, and he reached into the car and tore it loose. The officer went for his gun, but when he saw Zargoza come up with only the detector, he left the Glock holstered.
“Damn piece of no-good cheap crap,” he said, rapidly winding the coiled wire around the detector. “Frickin’ four hundred dollars of unreliable shit!” He wound way back like Carl Yastrzemski and let the detector fly out into the bay, and it made an unseen splash somewhere in the dark water.
The police officer pointed toward the sky. “We got you with the airplane.”
After the officer pulled away, Zargoza tossed the ticket out the window and sped toward south Tampa. He hit the mainland and cued “Biko” and fired up a brown onyx pipe of Aztec design. “Opium, anyone?”
“Trying to cut down,” said Serge.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Lenny.
They drove through the back streets under the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, named after the Tampa Bay Hall of Fame football star.
“What’s going on over there?” asked Serge.
“They’re tearing down the aquarium,” said Zargoza. “Making way for the new one.”
“But it’s brand new,” said Serge.
“They must know what they’re doing.”
The BMW cruised by the hockey arena, closed and dark, but the marquee was still lit. “Dec. 17: Southeast Figure Skating Finals/Dec. 18: Lightning vs. Rangers/Dec. 19: Nuremberg Trials on Ice.” Zargoza turned west on Kennedy Boulevard, in front of the old Tampa Bay Hotel.
“Stop!” yelled Serge.
Zargoza hit the brakes. “What? What?”
But Serge had jumped out of the car with his camera and taken off running into the trees in Plant Park. Zargoza and Lenny peered into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. Suddenly there was a quick series of bright flashes.
“Someone’s shooting!” said Lenny.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Zargoza. “Must be the camera flash.”
Serge reappeared out of the trees and jogged back to the car.
“What was that about?” asked Zargoza.
“I’ve been meaning to get that one for a while,” said Serge. “There’s a big oak tree down there where Hernando de Soto held talks with the Indians in 1539.”
Zargoza stared at him. “Where do you get this stuff?”
Serge stared back. “Doesn’t everybody know that?”
A half hour later they were in Ybor City. Serge was quickly out of the car again without warning.
“I wish he’d stop doing that,” said Zargoza.
“Best not fight it,” said Lenny, watching xenon strobe flashes light up the street around the corner at Café Creole. “When he’s in his zone, you get out of his way or you get trampled.”
Serge jumped back in the car, all smiles.
“What this time?” asked Zargoza. “Indian shell mound?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Serge. “The geology’s all wrong. That used to be the old El Pasaje restaurant, where José Martí stayed last century while planning to kick some butt in Cuba. He’s my role model… This is also where the Buffalo Soldiers went on their rampage. Remember them? The highly decorated military units? They were staying in Tampa, getting ready to ship out to Cuba for the Spanish-American War. Elsewhere they were received like heroes, but here the innkeepers and bar owners discriminated against them ’cause they were black. Here they are, ready to go fight for America, and these locals are acting like bozos, so the Buffalos tore the place apart. Good for them.”
“Are you set? Can we go now?” Zargoza said rhetorically.
“Ooops,” said Serge. He was out of the car again, running across Ninth Avenue and up Fifteenth Street, and Zargoza was forced to follow slowly in the car.
“I give up,” said Zargoza.
“Be glad you weren’t his parents,” said Lenny.
“Good point.”
Serge leaped back in the car and Zargoza looked at him without speaking.
“Cigar factory established by city namesake V. Martí
nez Ybor circa 1885,” said Serge. “Recognized it from an old Burgert Brothers print.”
“I’m putting a shit-stop to this,” said Zargoza. He reached down by his left side, throwing a switch that activated the BMW’s child-safety locks.
They drove off and Serge played with the radio. A jazz station, an all-night Lightning hockey postgame show, and Blitz-99.
“Hey, boys and girls, this is Boris the Hateful Piece of Sh-AHH-OOOO-GAH! reminding you that the big vote on Proposition 213 is only days away…”
“That’s that stupid anti-immigration amendment again,” said Zargoza. “Everyone’s pissed ’cause we’re going bilingual.”
“Doesn’t anybody study history anymore?” said Serge. “ Florida was colonized by Spain. English is the foreign language here.”
“I’m counting on you! Vote yes on Proposition 213!…Because they smell funny!”
“What kind of trip is this guy on?” asked Lenny.
“Not sure,” replied Serge. “We may have just slipped through some kind of white-trash worm-hole in the time-space continuum.”
Zargoza glanced again at the backseat. “I been meanin’ to ask: What’s with the Miami Vice getup?”
“I’m the Don Johnson experience.”
Zargoza laughed again. “You look more like James Woods.”
“It’s not look. It’s heart.”
“Okay,” said Zargoza, humoring him. “Show us some heart.”
Lenny cleared his throat in the backseat. “Listen, pal! I don’t do this for kicks! It’s a job, and when it’s over, I walk as far away from it as I can!”
Serge and Zargoza snapped their heads toward the backseat. “My God,” said Serge. “It’s him.”
They drove randomly around Tampa Bay, admiring the views.
“Face it, Rico, we’re just small-time players in a high-stakes game, where the rules are made by people we can’t touch!”
Serge directed Zargoza up Fifty-sixth Street until they came to an uneventful honky-tonk.
“What’s so great about this place?” asked Zargoza.
“Keep it in your pants,” said Serge.
They went inside and the place was dead. Idle dart boards and pool tables. One drunk chick swayed slowly by herself on the dance floor to a country song about lost love and lice.
Serge ordered drafts for Lenny and Zargoza and a mineral water with a twist for himself. Serge drained the water in one pull and slammed the glass down. “Kill those,” he said. “We’re on the move,” and he ran out the door.
Back in the car, Serge told Zargoza to go north and hang a Louie on Busch Boulevard.
They pulled into a lounge that was an afterthought to the package store. A dive on a resigned stretch of the boulevard. Only two other people and an unidentified smell. The side door was open to the humid night. Yellowish crime light in parking lot and a fresh wreck up the street that was closing two lanes, the ejected body still in the street. A cop squatted next to it and felt for a pulse.
Serge ordered drinks again, but this time Zargoza declared he would not be rushed.
“No problem,” said Serge. “We’ve arrived.”
“Arrived where?” said Zargoza.
“You’ve just completed the Goodfellas tour of Tampa,” said Serge. “Remember the Martin Scorcese movie? The part where Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta got arrested in Tampa? In the movie they threatened a guy with a gambling debt by dangling him over the lion fence at the Tampa Zoo, which was actually the Lowry Park Zoo. That was Hollywood. In reality, they kidnapped him from that last bar we were at, pistol-whipped him in the car on the route we just took, dragged him into this place and stuffed him in that storage room”-Serge pointed across the bar. “It was October eighth, 1970.”
Lenny leaned over and whispered to Zargoza: “He has incredible recall.”
“How do you know all this?” asked Zargoza.
“The zoo scene didn’t feel right, so I pored through the microfilm morgue at the library. I found the clips from the original case. There they were, defendants Henry Hill and James Burk.” Serge snapped his fingers for effect. “DeNiro’s and Liotta’s characters in Goodfellas. All the facts were identical except instead of the zoo there were these two bars. The names of the lounges had changed but I was able to track them down through old city cross-indexes.”
Serge jumped off his stool in excitement and made a sweeping gesture with his right arm. “Scorcese put Tampa on the map!” Then his expression shifted. “Come to think of it, really wasn’t a very positive light.”
He rubbed his chin. “You know what would make a better movie? All the people getting killed over the five million dollars that’s floating around in a briefcase.”
Zargoza spit up his drink, and Serge handed him a napkin.
“I gotta hit the can,” said Serge.
He was gone awhile. Zargoza went looking for him.
“What are you doing?” shouted Zargoza, walking out in the parking lot, finding Serge messing around by the Beemer’s trunk.
“You had a little wax buildup.” Serge buffed a spot with his elbow. He smiled; Zargoza squinted back. Lenny came out and the three got in the car.
“Where to?” Zargoza asked.
Serge knew Tampa after midnight. Not the nightclubs. The rest. When he was having one of his spells, he would go until he dropped, so places with quirky hours were essential. The print shops, the study halls at UT and USF, all-night fishing spots, the Dale Mabry coffee shops, the cafeterias in the Tampa General and St. Joseph ’s maternity wards, the twenty-four-hour post office at the airport. He listed the options out loud.
“Anything else?” asked Zargoza.
“There’s the three-day nonstop revival,” said Serge.
“We do need grace,” said Zargoza.
“I have sinned,” said Serge.
They pulled off the causeway into a sea of cars parked outside an auditorium bathed in floodlights. Inside, the show was in full swing, the man on the stage talking fast, stiff-arming people in the forehead, knocking them over. His burly assistants/bouncers worked the crowd with collection baskets. Zargoza hung back at the rear of the hall, but Serge grabbed Lenny by the arm and made for the stage, to be healed.
The preacher had already selected a group of twelve, but Serge and Lenny jumped right up and took their place at the end of the line. The preacher saw them, but didn’t want to mess up a good thing. He worked his way down the row, interviewing each person with a microphone over the PA system.
“And what is your name, my brother?”
“Serge.”
“And what is your affliction?”
“I’m crazy.”
The preacher started to ask another question but thought better of it and skipped to Lenny.
“And what is your name, my brother?”
“Lenny.”
“And what is your affliction.”
“I have a problem with weed.”
The preacher raised an arm to the crowd and bellowed into the microphone, “He has a problem with the evil weed, tobacco!”
“No, preach, I mean pot,” said Lenny.
“He has a problem with the demon weed mareeee-juana!”
“Well, I wouldn’t really say demon.”
“He is caught in the fangs of dope! He wants to rid himself forever of its scourge!”
“Actually, I just want to cut down,” Lenny said, patting his stomach. “I’m starting to get a bit of a gut from the munchies.”
The preacher furrowed his brow at Lenny and then backed up on the stage to address the group as a whole.
“Do you believe in the power of the one true living God?”
“Yes!” the group said together.
“Do you reject Satan and all his works?”
“Yes!” the group said again.
“Yes!” said Serge. “Except for Led Zeppelin’s fourth album.”
The preacher glared at Serge.
Serge shrugged his shoulders. “It’s a classic.”
Zargoza made a break from the back of the auditorium for the parking lot, and he already had the car in the circular drive when the doors burst open and Serge and Lenny hit the pavement.
O n the other side of town, at the studios of the Florida Cable News network, Blaine Crease was summoned by the news director for an emergency three-A.M. meeting.
Correspondent Blaine Crease was the undisputed journalistic star of the upstart news network. He was brilliant with delivery, big on flash, short of facts, reckless with accuracy and destined to go places. As the newest network on the block, FCN needed to grab attention, and Crease was their guy. A former stunt man, he reported every story as if danger were all around. He was the master of the “newsman as fearless participant” feature story. He went on SWAT team raids, got in the tank with killer whales, threatened to fistfight murderers during jailhouse interviews, rappelled from small buildings, and ate with a large fork from the latest lot of recalled food.
Crease often appeared on camera scuffed up, bruised and bleeding, usually because he had rolled himself on the ground just before going on the air. If the story lacked drama, he’d set up a wind machine just off camera. It could be a piece about geranium season, but Crease would be leaning into the wind, fighting for balance to hold the pose that made his hair look dashing in a gale. He wore combat fatigues, flak jackets and helmets whenever it was unnecessary. But most of all, Crease liked to ride loud, fast things. Ambulances, fire engines, boats, planes.
Consequently, Crease was beside himself when the news director of FCN called him into the office in the middle of the night and gave Crease the assignment he’d been waiting for all his life.
“Good, glad to hear it,” said the news director. He left the room and returned shortly with a small metal cage.
“What’s that?” said Crease.
“You’re taking Toto along.”
“Like hell I am! It’s demeaning! I’m the star of this network!”
“Now you listen to me!” said the director. “You may be the highest-rated human on the network, but this dog butters our bread… Catch!” The director threw a box of liver snaps hard into Blaine ’s chest.