by Tim Dorsey
“So we’ll be paying for three countertops?”
“Think resale.”
“We haven’t bought it yet.”
“It’s never too soon,” said Steph. “You want to sell this place?”
“This isn’t our house.”
“I see you need to discuss it with Martha. But don’t take too long: It’s a red-hot seller’s market!”
“I thought you said it was a buyer’s market.”
“It is.”
“I don’t understand.”
Steph winked. “I’ll play with the numbers.”
“Speaking of numbers…”
Steph walked over to the jumbo, brushed-steel refrigerator and changed channels.
“The fridge has a TV?”
“Liquid crystal,” said Steph. “It can also be programmed to run a slide show of children’s drawings.”
“I used to just tape ’em to the front,” said Jim.
Steph shook her head.
“That’s not good?”
“And this stove comes Internet-ready.”
“Why?”
“To control it from your cell phone.”
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Jim told the agent. “But we might be wasting your time. We really need to know the price.”
Since the kitchen had already put the hooks in Martha, it was okay. She told them.
Jim’s turn to gasp. “That’s everything we have! More!”
“Honey,” said Martha. “I think we can do it.”
“But we’ll be stretched,” said Jim. “What if the market goes south? All the financial shows say existing homes are getting bubbly.”
“You know what kind of shows those are?” said Steph. “Stock market shows. They want the money to come back.” She led them into the master bedroom. “The market’s a shell game. Real estate, on the other hand, never goes down.”
“When did they develop this island?” asked Jim.
“Just before the 1925 Florida land bust. Here’s your bathroom….”
“Jim!” said Martha. “His and hers sinks!”
“Saved many a marriage,” said Steph. She pointed at a wall-mounted TV aimed at the toilet. “Jim, you like sports?”
Martha gazed into the romantic, two-person Jacuzzi. “It’s everything we’ve ever wanted.”
“Know who else lives on this side of the island?” said Steph, leading them to the rear of the house. “One of the Bucs, a hockey player, and a local TV anchor.” She invaded personal space and lowered her voice. “Plus two city councilmen, which is why we get extra police patrols, but you didn’t hear it from me.”
“Jim…”
“Martha…”
“Your backyard…” Steph opened the curtains and slid a glass door.
Sailboats, sun, seagulls.
Martha’s heart skipped. The patio featured the ceramic mosaic of a loggerhead turtle made from colorful broken pottery. The swimming pool was the kind that perpetually spilled over the top and into a recirculation trough, creating the illusion that it extended into the bay.
“I’ve always wanted a pool like that,” said Martha. “Ever since I saw it in an architecture magazine.”
“This is the house,” said Steph.
“What house?”
“In the magazine. The photographer was standing right where you are.” Steph dipped a hand into the cool, azure water and ran it along her neck. “Makes you want to dive right in!”
A splash off the seawall.
“What was that?”
“Pod of dolphins lives along this side of the island,” said Steph. “You could sit out here at sunset and watch them for hours.”
“Jim, I’ve never felt so sure of anything in my life.”
“Martha, we discussed our maximum price on the way over.”
“But we didn’t know it would be like this.”
“I shouldn’t be telling you,” said Steph. “It’s a divorce sale. That’s why we have to move quickly before others swoop.”
“Jim!” said Martha. “We have to swoop!”
“No offense,” Jim told Steph. “But I don’t like to be rushed into big decisions.”
“You have no choice,” said the agent. “It’s going to hit the papers Monday.”
“What is?”
“Indictments. That’s why the divorce.”
“It’s going to hit the papers!” said Martha.
“What are we dealing with?” said Jim. “A drug kingpin?”
“No,” said Steph. “Big cheese at the zoning department. Got lots of the work on this place comped for favorable rulings. Like that incredible barrel-tile roof!”
“Jim, the roof!”
“Let’s start the paperwork!”
They walked through the house and out the front door. Jim pointed back over his shoulder. “I thought we were going to do paperwork.”
Steph closed the front door and secured the lock box. “In the car.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“No.”
“Why not sign at the dining room table?”
“It’s better in the car.”
They headed for the curb. A ’73 Mercury Comet sped by.
Serge looked out his driver’s window at mailbox numbers. “Coleman, you sure those apartments are over here?”
“That’s what this map says.”
“You idiot! You’re holding it upside down. The apartments are on the other side of the island.”
The Davenports turned quickly at the sound of screeching tires. The Comet made a left and disappeared at the end of the block.
“What the heck was that?” asked Jim.
“Probably someone’s kids,” said Steph. “They tend to be a little spoiled around here. Nothing to worry about.”
The ’73 Comet reached the east side of the island, made a left on Danube and pulled into the parking lot of a dingy apartment building. Serge got out and stood perfectly still.
Coleman walked around the car and popped a Pabst. “What is it?”
“Shhhh!” Serge stared up the street. “I’m having a moment. It hasn’t changed a bit after all these years. An oasis of old Florida revivalist architecture and generous public green spaces. Most of the streets are named for bodies of water. Fuckers tore down the coliseum.”
“Didn’t you used to have an apartment here?”
“How could I not? It’s venerable Davis Islands, created by the visionary D. P. Davis, who seawalled and dredged this eight-hundred-acre paradise atop Big and Little Grassy Keys at the mouth of the Hillsborough River. Of course I’d murder anyone who raped an ecosystem like that today. But this was eighty years ago, so it was a historic rape.”
“Is this Davis dude still around?”
“Fell overboard during a cruise in 1926.”
“I thought they only started doing that lately.”
“He was a visionary.” Serge turned slowly. “I remember this place from the movie.”
“Movie?”
“The FBI Murders: In the Line of Duty.” He stepped to the side of the road. “Climactic scene was filmed right under my feet.” He took a plastic tube from his pocket and bent down for a soil sample.
“Must have missed it,” said Coleman
“Made-for-TV docudrama on the biggest shootout in the history of the Bureau. Happened during Florida’s Wild West cocaine-cowboy eighties.”
“Now I remember,” said Coleman. “But wasn’t that Miami?”
Serge nodded. “Cheaper to film in Tampa. Here’s the cool part: If you were watching closely, which was me, the real-life firefight followed a stakeout on South Dixie Highway. But in the movie, they’re actually driving on Armenia Avenue in West Tampa, then they make a right turn and suddenly they’re ten miles away on this island. The cars crashed into that Dumpster, where David Soul and Michael Gross got shot to pieces. This is a happy place.”
From the Comet: “Give me my fucking money!”
They turned around. Rachael. Her head dropped
below window level, then reappeared with frosted upper lip. “You stole it while I was sleeping!”
“I didn’t steal anything. It’s a short-term loan.”
“Gimme my money!” Head back down.
“We need it for first month’s rent,” said Serge. “And the new computer for my big plan.”
Head came up. “I worked hard on those Internet photos! You didn’t sell a single vegetable, and now you’re just playing with stupid dirt.”
Serge looked sideways at Coleman. “I knew that was coming. There’s often tension in a relationship when the woman’s career is going better.”
They walked toward the apartment building. Coleman climbed over a broken box spring in the breezeway. “What a dump.”
“But it’s quiet. The landlord said four old ladies live next door, and they’re almost never home.”
An hour later, Serge and Coleman were locked in the bathroom.
Banging on the door. “My money!”
“You’re just making it take longer,” Serge yelled back, hands in thin latex gloves.
The regular lightbulb over the sink had been replaced by a red one. A small table stood in the bathtub. It held four photographic developing pans. A clothesline stretched from the towel bar to the showerhead, where Coleman had mounted his beer bong. Twenty small, white rectangular pieces of paper hung from clothespins. More white rectangles sat in the developing pans. Serge fed a handful of one-dollar bills into the empty fourth tray.
Coleman took a plastic tube out of his mouth. “You’re using photo fluid?”
“No, bleach.” Serge checked some of the blank rectangles on the clothesline. Dry. He took them down.
“I thought the red lightbulb was for photo fluid,” said Coleman. “Why do you need it with bleach?”
“I don’t. For some reason I want to be in Amsterdam.” Serge removed the gloves and turned to his new laser printer atop the toilet tank. He began feeding rectangles.
“Where’d you get this idea?”
“Three weeks ago when I was paying for gas, the clerk hit my fifty-dollar bill with one of those yellow markers.” Serge inserted more plain rectangles. “The nerve of her thinking I’d try to pass counterfeit money.”
The printer began spitting out hundred-dollar bills. Serge examined one of the notes with a magnifying loop. “In addition to solving our cash flow, I’m also fighting crime.”
“Looks like you’re committing crime.”
“It’s the new reverse values. Ask any Republican.” He examined another bill. “You’re now allowed to do whatever you want in the name of homeland security.”
Coleman poured another cold one into his funnel. Serge pulled more paper down from the clothesline. “Safety ultimately depends on the economy, which our Treasury protects with high-tech security features on currency. I’m troubleshooting their performance.”
“How are they doing?”
“Not so good.” Another batch went into the printer. “They over-thought. The extra safeguards are excellent, but it all still comes down to the reliability of the clerk behind the register with that yellow marker.”
“But Serge, I always see them use the marker. You’ll get caught the first time you try.”
Serge pulled a yellow marker from his own pocket and held it to Coleman’s face, then hit one of the new hundreds.
Coleman ran a hand through his hair. “Looks like when I pass a real bill.”
“The best way to defeat high-tech is by going low-tech.” Serge began stuffing his wallet with cash. “The markers don’t check denomination, just government paper, which I used.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! “My money.”
Serge opened the door and gave Rachael two grand.
“Oh…thanks.”
The door closed.
“But Serge, I still don’t get the part about how this helps the government.”
“Counterfeit dough is like a game of hot potato. Whoever’s holding the money last gets burned. Like stores that use yellow markers.”
“So?”
“Some companies have started using ultraviolet scanners that are needed to detect the new security features. Cost around a hundred dollars. But others are still trying to get by on the cheap with markers, which are about a buck.” Serge fed more blanks into the printer, removing fresh C-notes and flapping them in the air. “I’ve just raised the price of those markers to a hundred dollars.”
SEVENTEEN
DAVIS ISLANDS
Get your signing hands limber!” Steph led the Davenports down the walkway of their future house.
They climbed into a black Expedition with magnetic realty signs on the doors. Jim and Martha were in the backseat. They began driving across the island. Steph was a verbal machine gun on the cell phone, handing forms over her shoulder. The Davenports autographed next to little “Sign Here” stickers and passed pages back up to Steph, who fed them into a wireless fax machine on the front passenger seat. She hung up the phone, speed-dialed another number, handed Jim a page, took one back from Martha, slid it into the fax, rolled down her window and snapped a photo of a new home that had just been listed with her agency.
Jim scribbled his name again. “Who’s driving?”
“Shhhh,” said Martha.
Steph hung up and fed another page. “That’s the last. Now we wait.”
A ring tone. The Pet Shop Boys. Let’s make lots of money. “Steph here. I’ll tell them right now.” She hung up. “They accepted your offer.”
“So soon?” said Jim.
“Congratulations.” She pulled up in front of a French café in the strolling district. A young couple in boating attire waited at the curb. Steph moved the fax for the man to sit up front, and the Davenports scooted over to make room for the woman in back.
“Tom, Jane, have I got some great homes to show you….” She looked in the rearview. “Want me to show them yours?”
“What?”
“Perfect opportunity. Don’t wait too long.”
The Expedition sped back across the island and stopped in front of the new Davenport place. They got out. Jim turned to wave, but Steph was already pulling away. “No, you can’t put a price…”
Martha threw her arms around her husband’s neck. “I love you!”
Jim stared over her shoulder in a trance.
From behind: “Jim! Martha!”
They turned.
A pyramid-shaped woman jogged toward them, checking the cardio-monitor on her wrist. She had plastic, trash bag–like running pants to trap perspiration and a pink T-shirt with sequins: DIVA IN TRAINING. She waved cheerfully as she reached the driveway and continued jogging in place.
Martha blinked. “Gladys? Gladys Plant? Is that you?…Jim, look, it’s our old neighbor.”
Gladys checked her wrist again. “Hope you don’t mind if I keep running while we talk. Heart rate…”
“But what are you doing over here?” asked Martha. “I thought you moved to a serpentine neighborhood. Grid streets were too dangerous.”
“That’s right.” Gladys bobbed. “But the dirtballs finally figured out serpentine streets.”
“Streets that curve aren’t good anymore?”
“They’re out,” said Gladys. “Now you have to move completely offshore. Luckily there’s this great little island right here in the bay. Criminals don’t know about it yet.”
“That just sounds like we’re retreating.”
“We are.”
“Hear that, Jim?” said Martha. “We made the right move.”
“You’re in paradise,” said Gladys.
A delivery van pulled up. A man in shorts hopped out and checked the house number against his packing slip. Eight-eighty-eight. He handed Jim a cellophane-wrapped welcome basket of cheese and wine. The van left.
“Must be Steph,” said Gladys. “Treats her clients right…”
“How thoughtful,” said Martha.
“…Treated Mr. Simmons a little too right, if you know what I mean. Wi
fe found an earring under the bed. She never learned who, but still a messy divorce. Steph picked up the sale.” Gladys pointed up the street. “Now it’s my house. Steph said that earring knocked ten grand off the purchase price. Excellent agent.”
Jim opened the gift card.
“Steph?” asked Martha.
“Wants to know if we’re ready to sell.”
“Don’t,” said Gladys. “You can’t find another place like this in the whole state. It’s a quirk of geography, like a tiny village in New Hampshire. Families safely walk these quiet streets at any hour, and yet…”—she gestured up at the top of the Tampa skyline towering over date palms—“…we’re in the shadow of downtown. The professionals who work those top floors love it over here. We’re only five minutes away, but it’s like a million miles.”
“Why?” asked Jim.
“Remember the pair of tiny bridges at the tip of the island? They’re the only way on and off. This whole place is one big dead end. That’s kryptonite to scumbags.”
“You don’t have any crime over here?” asked Jim.
“We got a few old apartments, and the renters tend to get a little rambunctious from time to time, but that’s all on the east side of the island; they never get over this way.” Gladys pressed a button on her wrist and stopped bobbing. “Nope, it’s like the fifties over here. If anything happens, the police just roadblock those bridges. So nothing happens. Even stupid criminals aren’t that stupid.”
A ’73 Mercury Comet sped by.
“Coleman! You’ve got the map upside down again!”
The Davenports turned at the sound of screeching tires. The Comet made a skidding left and disappeared around the end of the block.
“Probably someone’s kids,” said Gladys. “Speaking of your new neighbors, bet you’re dying to know…”
“Actually,” said Jim, “we’ve had a pretty busy—”
She began pointing at expensive houses. “That’s Tyler Ratznick’s place. State senator. He should own a taxi company the way they’re always bringing him home after midnight when he’s blotto. Next is Skip Hismith, local TV anchor. Don’t know how they’re still married. Fight constantly. Loud, too. She’s always locking him out of the house, and he keeps whispering through the door to let him back in. Finally, he buried a key outside, then he had to bury a whole bunch of keys because while he was on the air she started going around the yard with a metal detector. Next, Vinny Carbello. He’s in the witness-protection program.”