by Tim Dorsey
The car sped away from Jasmine’s toll lane, the only one left open at this hour.
“Johnny, you can’t keep stopping every time people come through. That misses the whole point.”
“Sorry.”
A late-model Cadillac Escalade headed north on Interstate 275. It reached the causeway near the mouth of Tampa Bay.
“You should have left earlier,” said Martha.
“We’ll be home soon,” said Jim.
The Davenports. Good people. Jim and Martha. Martha was the consummate soccer mom whose emotional fuse matched her fiery red hair. Jim complemented her with an unflappable temperament, which made her madder. Everything about Jim screamed Mr. Average, except for one characteristic that distinguished him from almost everyone else. He was the most nonconfrontational resident of Tampa Bay, maybe the entire state.
“Isn’t this route longer?” asked Martha.
“A little, but there’s less traffic.” Jim responsibly checked the speedometer. “And it’s more scenic. We get to drive over the Skyway.”
“Jim! We don’t have time to sightsee!” said Martha. “It’s after midnight!”
“Won’t be much longer.”
“Why didn’t you leave earlier?”
“Honey, they’re your parents.”
“That’s why I need you to say something. You know how I get with my mother.”
“I know.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Baby, I’m agreeing.”
Martha folded her arms. “This happens every time we go to Sarasota.”
“Your mom’s not that bad,” said Jim.
“Are you trying to make me mad?”
“Okay, she is.”
“I knew it. You’ve never liked her.”
“What’s the right answer?”
“So you’re just telling me what I want to hear?”
Jim reached over and put a hand on his wife’s. “I love you.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just every visit with my mom. Sticking her nose into how we raise our kids…”
“That’s natural.”
“…All those supposedly idle comments. She rehearses them, you know.”
“I know.”
“Then her stall tactics when we’re trying to leave. Why didn’t you do something?”
“I did,” said Jim. “I unlocked the car. You’re the one who stood in the driveway talking to her for an hour.”
“That’s her Driveway Strategy. She compiles lists of important topics that are conveniently forgotten until we’re out of the house. And now, here we are again, heading home at some ungodly hour with all the drunks.”
“Maybe we should just stay over at her place if you don’t like heading back so late.”
“No! That’s a worse nightmare! We can’t just leave in the morning. She cooks a giant breakfast even though we tell her not to. Then we have to sit and talk a polite period afterward because she made breakfast. And then when it’s time to leave, she springs the surprise guests.”
“Surprise guests?”
“Jim, she does it every time: ‘You can’t leave now. The Jensens are on their way over.’ ‘Mom, you didn’t tell us that.’ ‘They’re on their way. You don’t want to insult them.’ ‘We don’t even know the Jensens.’ ‘You met once. They’re dying to see you after all these years.’ ‘Mom, we really have to be going.’ ‘What am I supposed to tell the Jensens?’ ‘Who the hell are the Jensens?’…”
Jim drank in the calm view over the night water. “Look, there’s a cruise ship. Maybe we should take a vacation.”
“You’re changing the subject.”
“No, really. I’d love to go on another cruise. Remember the fun we had last time?”
“Jim!”
“It’ll be better when we get home.”
“It’ll be the same when we get home. This whole state’s driving me crazy.”
“I thought you said you loved it here.”
“I do. It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever lived.”
“What’s the problem?”
“It’s the worst place I’ve ever lived. Just running around during the day doing chores, I see all these psychotics out on the street. We’ve had three burglaries this month in our neighborhood, they robbed the convenience store where I buy milk, that stockbroker got shot at the car wash I jog by every day, and some lawn-care guy was charged with those unsolved rapes. We’re nuts not to leave.”
“Honey, society’s changed. It’s like this everywhere.”
“It’s not like this everywhere. I always think I’m watching the local news when it’s CNN or Fox. Half the stories are from down here. I saw one where this guy was dumped by his girlfriend, so he made copies of a sex tape they’d filmed of themselves, went to the department store where she worked, stuck them in all the VCRs in the electronics department and cranked up the volume on twenty TVs. The whole store ground to a halt. Except the ex-girlfriend, who ran screaming into the parking lot and got run over by the security cart.”
“That’s not dangerous, just weird.”
“Jim, someone like that’s capable of anything.”
“But we live in one of the safest neighborhoods in town.”
“Have you forgotten what happened ten years ago?”
“Right, it was ten years ago.”
“It was a home invasion!”
“Honey, I know it was rough. That’s why we saw those doctors. But it was just a freak thing.”
“It can happen again.”
“Anything can happen. We live in a big American city. And you’re right: lots of crazies out there. That’s why it’s important to avoid conflict with people we know nothing about. Then we’ll be fine.”
Martha took a deep breath and stared out the window. “Sometimes I think they won’t give us that chance. I always have this creepy feeling, like, how many times a day am I brushing up against some time bomb and don’t even know it? Could it be this guy in front of me in the checkout line, the people in that car passing us?…”
A ’73 Mercury Comet flew by on the left.
Coleman was behind the wheel. Serge and Rachael were slap-fighting in the backseat. They had just finished fucking, which meant creative differences: After sex Rachael like to get wasted, and Serge like to drive over big bridges. They struck an unstable truce.
“Pilot change!” yelled Serge.
“Roger!” Coleman hit the brakes. Doors flew open. They raced around the car on the shoulder of the highway. The Comet slung gravel and took off again.
Coleman ended up in back with Rachael, instantly smoking joints, chugging a pint of sour mash and snorting stuff off their wrists. A large bridge appeared in the distance. Serge smacked the dashboard. “This is excellent! Isn’t this excellent? Bridges are the best! This one has gobs of history! I know all about it! Want me to tell you? I’ll tell you! It was twenty years ago today, Sergeant Pepper—”
“Shut the fuck up!” yelled Rachael.
“But he taught the band to play.”
Rachael’s head bent back down. “You’re an asshole.”
“I know you are, but what am I?” Serge rocked with childlike enthusiasm in the driver’s seat, keeping rhythm with red beacons flashing atop suspension cables. “And look! There’s a cruise ship! She’s just about to pass under the bridge! Isn’t that great? We should take a cruise! You want to take a cruise? Let’s take a cruise!…”
“Shut up!”
“I absolutely must have photos!” Serge pulled over.
“You idiot!” yelled Rachael. “Keep driving.” Her head went back down.
Serge unloaded gear from the trunk and set up a tripod on the west side of the causeway for time-lapse night photography. He held a shutter-release cable in his right hand and pressed the plunger with his thumb. Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick…Click. He advanced the frame.
Coleman walked over with his hands in his pockets. “What’cha doin’?”
“Just gettin’ my Serge on.
” He pressed the plunger again. Tick, tick…“Look at all the beautiful twinkling deck lights on that ship.” Click. “Wonder what those people are up to?”
A harbor pilot guided the SS Serendipity into the mouth of Tampa Bay. A handful of passengers still awake at this hour huddled on the chilly bow, admiring the majestic sight as they passed under the Skyway.
At the opposite end of the ship, three isolated people weren’t paying attention to the massive overhead span sweeping the moon’s dim shadow over the deck.
“Chop, chop!” said Tommy Diaz. “We’re almost into the bay.”
The other Diaz Brothers continued tossing weighted garbage bags of body parts over the fantail. The ship passed to the other side of the bridge as the last evidence hit the dark, foaming water of the propeller wake. Tommy Diaz finally allowed himself to relax. He looked up at the Skyway and an eight-ball-black ’91 Buick Electra slowly cresting the peak of the bridge.
The Buick crawled down the backside of the Skyway and finally eased into a toll lane, where a woman with eyes closed was banging the outside of her booth’s metal door. “Yes!…Yes!…Oh God yes!…Someone’s coming!…Now! Put it in now!…” Jasmine opened her eyes at the sound of the approaching vehicle.
She let out a heart-stopping scream.
Minutes later, no less than a dozen highway patrol cars surrounded a ’91 Buick Electra parked on the side of the road just beyond the toll booth.
A hysterical Jasmine sat on a curb, consoled by a female officer.
Johnny Vegas leaned against a boulder on the other side of the causeway, staring out to sea.
A bulky state trooper in a Smokey the Bear hat stood in the toll plaza’s office, questioning four short, white-haired women. He flipped a page in his notebook and pointed out the window at an ambulance crew gathered around two legs sprouting from the Buick’s windshield. “And you have no recollection whatsoever of hitting him?”
“One minute he wasn’t there,” said Edith, “then he was.”
“What did you think happened?”
“Maybe he fell from the sky.”
Edna tugged the trooper’s sleeve. “She always talked about plowing into people.”
Another trooper entered the office. “Sir, we have witness reports of someone falling or jumping from an overpass near Bradenton.”
The first trooper turned to Edith. “Did you come up through Bradenton tonight?”
She nodded.
“But that’s over twenty miles. You just kept driving?”
“I’m confused.”
The trooper looked back out the window as a Key-lime ’73 Mercury Comet came off the bridge and pulled up to one of the booths.
Coleman gestured with a beer toward the side of the road. “There’s a dude sticking through a windshield.”
Serge threw change in the toll basket. “Florida happens.”
ONE
THE DAY BEFORE THE INCIDENT AT THE SUNSHINE SKYWAY BRIDGE
Ten A.M. Soon, the regular afternoon sun showers would roll in from the east to cool things down. But for now, another sticky, cloudless morning in Tampa. Palm trees. Broken taillight glass. No wind. Minimum-wage people perspired under a covered bus stop at the southern end of the transit line. A ’73 Mercury Comet entered the parking lot of a decaying shopping center and headed up a row of tightly packed cars.
Coleman twisted a fat one in his lips. “I’m bored.”
“Just keep an eye out for cops.” The Mercury reached the end of the row, made a U-turn and started up another. Serge assessed each empty vehicle, but nothing felt right.
“What about your first plan?” asked Coleman, flicking a Bic. “You said it would definitely work.”
“It did.” Serge glanced down at the Macy’s sack atop the drive-train hump on the floor between their feet. “Line the inside of a shopping bag by gluing ten layers of aluminum foil, then more strips along the seams. Guaranteed to defeat most stores’ security detectors.”
“What did you steal?”
“More foil. I ran out making my bag.”
“Being broke sucks.”
“Just watch for cops.”
The Comet turned up another row.
“See anything?” asked Coleman.
“No.”
“Then why are you smiling?”
“Because I love this shopping center. Britton Plaza.” Serge pointed his camera out the windshield. “Note the giant, fifties-era arch over the sign. Not many left.” Click. “And that movie theater. Sidewalks got jack-hammered in front of all the other stores for new ones, but they preserved the original marbleized pavement in front of the cinema with its metal inlays of happy-sad thespian masks, which I can never get enough of and—Hold everything!”
“What is it? Why are you slowing?”
“That old woman with the walker. Range, fifty yards.” He reached under his seat for a crowbar.
“Serge! It’s an old lady!”
“I’m not going to hit her.” He rolled down his window and rested the steel shaft on the door frame. “Timing’s absolutely crucial.”
“What’s happening?”
“Watch carefully. It’ll all be over in a blink.”
“I don’t see anything. What am I supposed to be looking for?…Holy shit! That punk just nailed her in the face and snatched her purse!”
Serge didn’t answer, his foot twitching on the gas pedal.
“He’s running toward us!” yelled Coleman.
“Steady…steady…Now!” Serge hit the accelerator. Tires squealed. He swung the crowbar, clothes-lining the thief in the Adam’s apple. Legs flew out. A body slammed to the pavement. The Comet stopped.
Serge opened the door and herded stray contents back into the purse. He returned to the car, driving a few seconds to a group of Good Samaritans who’d run to the woman’s aid.
“Hey!” yelled Serge, hanging out the driver’s window and twirling the handbag by its strap like a lasso. “Here’s her purse. Catch…”
Serge slammed the gearshift in reverse. The Comet squiggled backward and screeched to a halt next to an unsteady man trying to get his footing.
Serge jumped out again. “Let me help you up.” A knee to the crotch. “Coleman, the trunk.”
“I’m on it.”
A half minute later, the Comet skidded out of the parking lot and turned north on Dale Mabry Highway. “That really pissed me off.”
“Me too,” said Coleman. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.”
“It’s the decline of the Florida shopping experience.” Serge sped up to make a yellow light. “Old ladies getting mugged, no more S&H Green Stamps.”
The Gulf of Mexico was typically serene, rippling with a leisurely wake behind the SS Serendipity on its return voyage from Cozumel. Three hundred miles to the mouth of Tampa Bay. A row of luxury suites on the port side faced the shimmering water. The second cabin from the end, number 6453, was registered to three Latin men in white linen suits. They were accompanied by a fourth occupant, decidedly against his will. Heels dragged across the carpet as the others muscled him into the bathroom.
“But I delivered the shipment just like you said! Didn’t you get it?”
“We got it,” said Tommy Diaz. He hung a trifold canvas case from the shower head and unsnapped it. The bag fell open to reveal a nineteen-piece kitchen cutlery set.
“W-w-what are those for?” asked the guest, now pinned to the bottom of the tub.
“Rafael, tape his mouth.”
“Wait! Stop! Just hold on a second!…I don’t understand. I did everything I was supposed to. You said you got the shipment.”
Tommy pulled the largest carving knife from its sheath, touching the tip with his finger. “And don’t think it’s not appreciated.”
“Then why are you doing this?”
“Because you know about the shipment.”
Tape went over the mouth. The hostage’s terrified eyes looked up at a trio of faces looking back down: the Diaz Brothers. Tommy, Rafae
l and Benito. Used to be the Diaz Boys, ten years ago when cousin Juan was involved. Juan was allowed in the gang because they swore to his mom that they’d treat him like a brother. Then Juan died in a tragic hurricane accident when they wouldn’t let him into a cramped storm shelter because he was the cousin. That left them short with only two, so they let baby brother Benito into the gang like Andy Gibb.
“Rafael,” said Tommy. “Turn up the stereo. This could get noisy.”
“…Send lawyers, guns and money…”
“Hey, Tommy. It’s the Z-man.”
“Will you get back in here? He’s a wiggler.”
“Listen to all that racket he’s making,” said Rafael, “even with the mouth tape.”
“This will quiet him down,” said Tommy. “Hold those shoulders still.”
“…get me out of this!…”
Tommy thrust with a firm crossing motion.
“Goddammit!” said Rafael. “Look at my new shirt!”
“Told you to hold him still,” said Tommy. “It’s like you’ve never worked with arterial spray before.”
“I’ll teach him to fuck up my threads!” Rafael reached for the cutlery set. “Bleed on me, motherfucker?…Take this!…And this!…And this!…And this!…”
“Rafael,” Tommy said calmly. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” said Rafael, wiping red specks off his face with a cruise line bathrobe.
“What do you mean, ‘What?’”
Rafael pointed at the tub with the knife. “The same thing you were doing.”
“No,” said Tommy. “What I did was business.” He gestured with an upturned palm. “This is sick.”
Benito tapped Tommy’s shoulder from behind. “Is it my turn?”
“Turn?” said Tommy. “Are you blind? Look at this bloody mess. There’s no ‘turn’ left to take.” He twisted a faucet and washed his hands in the sink. “I can’t believe we have the same parents.”
“Why are you so sore?” asked Benito.
Tommy tapped his left temple with an index finger. “I try to teach you, but fuck it. You can chop him up yourselves this time.”