by Tim Dorsey
The audience exchanged odd looks.
Serge finished warming up with a series of somersaults toward the center of the stage, jumped to his feet, and grabbed the mike:
Serge is back, Jack, with all new facts
The South Beach Diet and bikini wax
Burmese pythons, the pit bull attacks
Cunanan, Shaq, German tourists in T-backs
I roll like Ricky Martin in “La Vida Loco”
Caught the Mariel down to Calle Ocho
Dissed the TEC-9s, and the dealers with the blow
And the motherfuckin’ drivers who have never seen snow.
Serge: Miami’s trivia pimp is just the way that I rap.
Coleman: Look at all the black people. I think I’ll crap.
Brazilians, the Euros, and all the Latin foxes
Winning their hearts with all my souvenir boxes
The beautiful ladies are what propel my rants
From The Golden Girls to the chicks with implants.
Survived the hurricanes and the oil spills
Syringes on the beach and OxyContin pills
The hookers, crackheads, meth freaks with bad gums
Saw the Orange Bowl come down with the Sterno bums.
Serge: I’m stormin’ ashore with all the rhymes you’ll ever need.
Coleman: Is anybody out there holdin’ any weed?
Smacking down the predators with just one hand
While rockin’ out to KC and the Sunshine Band
The Dolphins, the Marlins, the Panthers, the Heat
Geriatric brawls at the shuffleboard meets.
Janet Reno, Don Johnson, cigarette boats
City-hall bribes, stolen election votes
Anglo flight, dos cervezas, por favor
Got my OCD buzz on like an epileptic whore.
Serge: Packin’ cameras, my pistols, Florida DVDs.
Coleman: The other night I spit up in my BVDs.
You’re welcome for a visit, but you better not laugh
Carjackings, race riots, drug informants sawed in half
Cavity searches and the AWACs aircrafts
Bales in the surf and the refugee rafts.
The Gables, the Grove, cruisin’ Biscayne Bay
I float like a flamingo, and sting like a ray
Givin’ preservationists all of my hugs
And only anal love for the litterbugs . . .
Serge and Coleman bowed. The crowd came to its feet in wild, unending applause.
Ten minutes later. A low-riding Cadillac DeVille cruised out of Liberty City with the top down. Serge, Felicia, Coleman, and Ted all crammed in the backseat of the whip. Giant chrome hubs. Amped stereo system with magnum subwoofer in the trunk, pumping out the tunes:
“Sweet home Alabama . . .”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Next morning
Felicia had the wheel.
Ten more blocks, then a red light at Eighth Street, more commonly known as “Calle Ocho,” the main drag and social artery through Little Havana.
“Where’d you get this tip?” asked Serge.
Felicia sped up to make a yellow light. “Someone deep in our military.”
“That you slept with?”
“Don’t be disgusting. It was a hand job.”
Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “I miss Ted. Why’d we leave him at the motel?”
“Because you gave him all those pills. He’ll regain consciousness.” Serge turned back to Felicia. “So where’s this fool’s errand taking us?”
“Fifteenth Avenue.”
“Fifteenth?” said Serge. “You don’t mean Máximo Gómez?”
The next thing Serge knew, Felicia was pumping quarters into a parking meter. “We need to keep an ultralow profile. I can’t stress that enough. There are way too many people around. Absolutely no unnecessary attention.”
Serge stood on a street corner, staring at a gold bust on a marble pedestal. A man in a military jacket with a wildly bushy mustache. A brass plaque: GENERALISSIMO MÁXIMO GÓMEZ, 1836–1905, LIBERTADOR DE CUBA.
His trance shifted to the public park behind the statue and a living tradition of the old days. Under the shade of awnings, dozens of old, espresso-fueled Cuban men in straw hats sitting around special tables, playing furious games of dominoes.
“Serge!” said Felicia. “Were you listening?”
“Right, no extra attention.”
Minutes later: Everyone’s attention on one particular table. An excited crowd clustered tight behind the chair of the man holding court.
“Now, this is how you play dominoes!” said Serge, lining up the little white rectangles. A chorus of urgent Spanish whispers.
In the background, a wall with a mural of Latin leaders from some past hemispheric summit. In front of the wall, a bench. Felicia sitting, shaking her head.
Serge extended an arm without looking. “I need more!”
Someone slapped a leather case in his hand.
“Espresso me!”
Someone else held a tiny thimble of jet-fuel coffee to Serge’s mouth.
Felicia sagged.
It took another ten minutes, but Serge finally reached the last domino, gingerly setting it on end. “Now observe and regale.”
His index finger dramatically reached for the last rectangle, slowly tipping it over. And they were off! The initial row of dominoes fell like, well, dominoes, then forked and broke into multiple lines, snaking, curving, making jumps, reaching another table that had been pushed over, until they were all down, and the underlying pattern took shape: the island nation of Cuba in red, white, and blue, below a motto. CASTRO SUCKS COMMIE COCK.
A mighty cheer went up.
Everyone pressed forward to shake Serge’s hand and slap him on the back.
“I’m his best friend!” said Coleman, who immediately had a giant cigar stuck in his mouth while another person lit it.
Felicia remained alert. The crowd began to disperse, revealing someone she hadn’t detected before. A bulbous man in a Tommy Bahama shirt wiped his brow, departing toward Calle. She stood up on her bench, drawing on years of surveillance training, taking in the audience as a whole and filtering its movement for the one who stood out.
She found him.
Another bench near the gold statue. A man rose with a folded newspaper, pulled the brim of a Panama hat down low over his eyes, and headed in the same direction as Evangelista. Carrying a briefcase.
Then she saw Coleman weaving erratically across the patio. “Uh-oh.”
He crashed into Serge, knocking him against the table and scattering the dominoes that spelled cock. Cuban expatriates scrambled to realign them.
“Coleman!” said Serge. “Watch it, man.”
Coleman wavered on his heels, pupils like pinholes. He held out the cigar. “What’s in these things?”
“Where’d you get that?”
Felicia ran over. “We gotta split. They’re on the move.”
“Who is?”
“Evangelista and his contact.”
“You saw the contact?”
“Not his face. They’re heading west on Ocho.”
Serge jumped up. “Coleman, we have to—” He looked around. “Coleman?”
Coleman stared upward with a smile of total peace. “My nuts like this.” His eyes rolled back in his head and he toppled over.
“Coleman!”
Felicia dashed for the street. “I’m going ahead. Call you on your cell . . .”
Calle Ocho
Coleman grabbed a lamppost and panted. “Why did Felicia have to take the car?”
“Coleman, you never smoke a cigar in Little Havana. They’re stronger than the coffee.” Serge shielded his eyes against the sun and looked up the street. “Enough rest. We need to shake a leg!”
Coleman pushed off from the pole and began staggering again. “How much further?”
“Farther. Three blocks.”
“I don’t think I can make it.”
“You’r
e acting like vultures are circling.”
Coleman pointed at the sky. “What are those?”
“Vultures. Don’t look up anymore.”
“I think I’m going to faint.”
“See the restaurant sign up there?” Serge dragged him toward it. “Cuban cuisine.”
“Versailles?” asked Coleman. “Is that Spanish?”
“No, ironic,” said Serge. “Like back at the Official Little Havana gift shop—in arguably the most virulent anti-Communist enclave in the world—selling souvenir domino sets ‘Made in China.’ My own people no less . . . Just keep walking.”
“Serge? . . .”
“Whoa!” Serge dashed over and yanked him back onto the sidewalk. “Try to stay out of traffic.”
Coleman tripped over the curb. “How come you always know where you are in Florida?”
“Lots of hours with maps, photos, and an aggressively encouraged obsessive-compulsive order.”
Coleman stumbled forward. “Don’t you mean disorder?”
“Only when it’s a bad thing,” said Serge. “But those people have problems. Like the ones who hoard newspapers and magazines until their homes are stacked to the ceiling with little place to walk until the piles eventually collapse, and the bulldozers find them crushed to death by their own shit. That’s why I only collect small souvenirs like pins and matchbooks.”
“Has it ever collapsed on you?”
“Yes, but I only twisted an ankle,” said Serge. “Speaking of geography awareness, did you notice all the double street signs around here?”
“Double?”
“Saturating idiosyncrasy throughout Little Havana.” Serge steadied Coleman by the arm and continued west. “There are the regular designations on the signs like Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street, and then second memorial names, mainly Cuban patriots, prominent politicians, a Brothers to the Rescue pilot shot down by a MiG, and José Canseco. The sign for Miami Sound Machine Boulevard kept getting stolen until Gloria Estefan’s solo career took off. Her father actually participated in the Bay of Pigs.” Serge pointed various directions. “They’ve used up so many signs that they’re running out of space and starting to triple up, like Southwest Seventh Street/Claude Pepper Way/Calle Simón Bolívar . . . Don’t think too hard about it and just let the magic wash over you . . .”
Coleman stopped at another lamppost. “How come Little Havana looks so different from all the other places we go in Florida?”
“All the signs are in Spanish?”
“No, I get that,” said Coleman. “Just something . . . off.”
“I know what it is,” said Serge. “Look around and it’ll hit you.”
Coleman slowly rotated in place on the sidewalk. Transmission shop, pawnshop, bakery, nail salon, farmacia, meat market. He stopped turning when he was facing Serge again. “Still can’t place it.”
“No chain stores!” said Serge. “All independent mom-and-pop’s. Not a single Rooms-to-Fucking-Go in sight. Isn’t it heaven?”
“I think I’m dying.”
Coleman didn’t die. But he wasn’t attractive when they finally reached air-conditioning and the maître d’s stand inside Versailles.
A spiffy-dressed man cradled menus. A professional smile. “Two for lunch?”
“Three.” Serge angled his head toward a table. “The rest of our party’s already here.”
“Right this way . . .”
The maître d’ led them on a winding course through the dining room, toward a seated woman staring daggers at them.
“Great,” Serge said sideways to Coleman. “Another chick pissed at me. The pattern of my life.”
“Maybe she has gas,” said Coleman.
“No, it’s chicks. I’m always in trouble without a clue. Married men are geniuses.”
“Could be her time of the month.”
“You might have something there.” Serge nodded to himself. “That would explain it. When it’s the wrong day—grab a helmet! I just give ’em all my money, point at the door, and say, ‘Call me when The Exorcist is over.’ Now I feel guilty for misjudging her . . . On the other hand, if she isn’t on the rag, I’m unfairly being taken advantage of for my sensitivity.”
“Why don’t you just come right out and ask her?”
“Used to do that, but funny thing: Even if the answer’s no, it only seems to make things worse. You and I freely exchange information without getting huffy.”
“I always warn you not to come in the bathroom when I’m spanking my monkey.”
“Exactly,” said Serge. “But women clearly don’t want that kind of data. And then they barge in without knocking and have a problem with that.”
“They don’t understand because they use appliances.”
“Better pipe down now—we’re almost there.”
They arrived at the table.
Serge manufactured his most engaging smile and pulled out his chair. “Sorry, we’re late.”
Coleman pulled out his own chair. “Are you on your period?”
“What!”
Serge chuckled awkwardly and punched Coleman in the shoulder.
“Ow.”
Serge scooted his chair in and opened a menu. “What looks good?”
Felicia stared down at her own menu. “Notice the corner booth by the front window?”
“Yeah,” said Serge. “Evangelista, eating alone.”
“The contact went to the restroom before you arrived.”
Coleman nudged Serge and giggled. “Spanking it.”
“Serge!” said Felicia. “What’s wrong with your friend?”
He shrugged. “I keep trying to explain the off-limit topics around women, like how a lot of guys walking down the street are mentally undressing you gals and fantasizing tittie-fucks.”
“Serge!”
“Just giving an example of an off-limit. How else will you know what a gentleman I am?”
“This is serious.” She glanced again at Evangelista’s table. “That’s the contact’s briefcase next to his chair.”
“Recognize this contact?”
“Yes, but I don’t remember where.” Felicia turned a page in her menu. “American. I think he’s famous or something. Was hoping you could peg him when he comes back.”
“Do my best.” Serge squeezed lemon into his water. “Whoever it was did me a favor by picking this place as the meet point. I could eat anything in here, especially the palomilla steaks.”
Coleman knocked over a glass. “Didn’t break. No foul . . . What’s so special about the joint?”
“Versailles is the cultural dining epicenter of Little Havana. It’s an off hour right now, but at peak times, this place is a humming hive of exile political debate.”
“Looks like a regular restaurant.”
“You know how CNN sends reporters to barbershops in Iowa and interviews customers for the common man’s opinion of current events?”
“You mean the customers who wear fishing hats that say ‘Kiss my bass’?”
“Those are the ones,” said Serge. “And whenever something happens in Cuba, they send the camera crews here.”
“Don’t look,” said Felicia. “But his contact just came back.”
Serge intentionally knocked his fork on the floor, copping a glimpse as he bent down.
Felicia pretended to read her menu. “Know him?”
“Uh, yeah.” He looked down at his own menu. “I think you might want to consider dropping this business.”
“What business?”
“The whole thing. Your arms pipeline and whatever mystery’s behind it.” Serge reached across the table and placed a hand on hers. “Might be a good time to walk away. Make that run.”
She pulled her hand back. “This isn’t like you. What’s the problem?”
“Evangelista’s contact. I know him.” Serge shifted his eyes toward the other table. “And you don’t want to.”
“I’m not backing off. It’s my country.”
“And this is my
country,” said Serge. “I know how the game is played. And the players.”
“So bail out if you’re scared. I’ll go it on my own.”
“I’m not scared. But I wish you’d be just a little bit.”
Felicia dismissed him with an offhand wave. “The generals disappear people all the time in Latin America.”
“Trust me on this. The guy has so much money and influence, he could make an entire city block in Miami disappear, no questions asked.”
Felicia picked up her menu again. “So who is this prince of darkness?”
Serge picked up his own. “Good way to put it . . .”
While they were talking, Evangelista picked up the briefcase and left. He strolled west up the sidewalk past the restaurant’s windows. A few minutes later, the contact finished a glass of water and departed eastbound.
Felicia threw a twenty on the table and got up. “We need to get moving.”
They reached the front door. A call from behind.
“Excuse me,” said the maître d’. “You have a message.”
“I do?” said Serge.
He handed him an envelope.
Serge tore open the flap. “Who’s it from?”
“The gentleman at that table.” He tilted his head toward the empty one that had yet to be bussed.
“Which gentleman?” asked Serge. “The big one in the tropical shirt?”
“No, the other.”
Serge unfolded the note and read. He didn’t speak.