Cadillac Beach

by Tim Dorsey

  Bixby grabbed the dashboard. “Fuel truck!”

  “Shit!”

  From the rooftop the sniper team saw it all coming apart—agents scattering from the crashed Crown Vic, the pilot jumping from the plane, the fuel truck blowing with a fireball higher than where they were. They squeezed off a few last shots as the limo crashed through a gate and disappeared toward the city.

  20

  Miami—February 10, 1918

  S ERGIO GONZALES SURPRISED the world tonight.

  He entered it quite prematurely in the back bedroom of a Coconut Grove bungalow. María and José proudly watched their six-pound son asleep in his crib, bathed in crisp moonlight filtering through palms and entering the open window on a bare breeze.

  In the first weeks, the curious-eyed child slept so much it worried his parents. He would make up for that in time.

  At the outset of the 1900s, the Grove was not the artist-hive, out-of-sight-real-estate market of today. It was frontier. Mosquitoes, no AC. The Gonzaleses’ parents arrived from Cuba on an illegal steamer in the confusion of the Spanish-American War. Much soon changed. The Flaglers, Fishers, Tuttles and Brickells were living people, not causeways and bridges. In every direction: dredging, new streets, railroad spikes.

  It was a hectic contrast to Sergio’s family and their quiet village. They were fishermen, working the shallows of Biscayne Bay. When it was time, Sergio would take to the business, quickly developing hard calluses handling net and rope. But not catching fish.

  In 1920, just after the Eighteenth Amendment passed, the villagers noticed a lot of new boats crowding their waterways, all these skiffs and powered dinghies. The Cubans braced for competition, but the other boats bypassed the fishing grounds, instead zipping into hidden mangrove tributaries and coves. They seemed to prefer running at night.

  Soon the whole village became rumrunners. Sergio started riding along at age six; they taught him how much booze could draft which channel on what tide. In 1928 a man from Chicago bought a house on Biscayne Bay. Actually, he bought two houses—he lived in the one set back on the property, and the rum boats snuck into a secret dock underneath the one built right up against the water.

  Sergio saw Al Capone only once, at a distance. They were delivering another load of Cuban rum. Sergio’s father pointed out the gangster to the young boy. “You see that man on the seawall? He is an important man. Very smart and powerful. Watch him carefully—he has what it takes to make it in America.”

  Sergio watched. Capone was in the final stages of venereal disease, and the boy saw a bald man in a urine-soaked bathrobe giggling to himself and swatting imaginary insects. But Sergio accepted his father’s wisdom on face and decided he still had much to learn about this new land called America.

  Sergio was a respectful son, a diligent student and a ferocious trumpet player. Near high school graduation, things began to slide. It wasn’t an all-out collapse, just pimples of odd behavior initially dismissed as youthful enthusiasm. It wasn’t called “streaking” at the time, and people weren’t nearly as amused. Then trouble with the trumpet. The first song Sergio learned was “Taps.” He wouldn’t let it go. Played it all over town, all hours. Sergio got a ride home in the back of a police car after performing sixteen straight renditions next to a wedding on the beach.

  Sergio’s solid grades got him a scholarship at the new school opening up in nearby Coral Gables. Everyone called it “Cardboard College” because of mellow construction standards. Officially it was the University of Miami. The school promptly set about establishing a reputation for football.

  In 1936 Miami proudly held its coming-out party, the first annual Orange Bowl game. The Magic City was ready to take its place as America’s next great metropolis. The eyes of the nation were on a South Florida football field as the University of Miami hosted Bucknell.

  Late in the first half, Bucknell held a narrow lead and kicked off to Miami. Sergio fielded the ball on the ten-yard line and made an unbelievable run up the right sideline to midfield. It was more unbelievable because Sergio wasn’t on the team. Three cops tackled him.

  No denying it now; Sergio was different. There were other quirks, some quaint, others very much not. Sergio would take a seat in a crowded restaurant and start clinking the side of his water glass with a spoon, like he had an announcement to make, or a toast. When the other diners became quiet and gave Sergio their attention, he’d look down and read the menu. Conversation resumed, minutes passed, Sergio began clinking his glass again, and so on until police gave him another ride home.

  The judicial system didn’t have mental-health treatment back then. They made you dig ditches. Sergio was hip deep in a gulley along the Tamiami Trail when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and blasted him out of that ditch and into a sailor’s uniform.

  Almost overnight the military transformed Miami Beach into a subtropical Parris Island. A row of PT boats docked along Bayfront Park, a hundred luxury hotels became barracks, platoons marched on golf courses, Sergio did hundreds of jumping jacks on the beach. But then, he’d been doing that for years.

  One day a photographer for Stars and Stripes asked Captain Sergio to pose next to his PT boat. Then MPs arrested Sergio for impersonating an officer and threw him in the brig.

  This time he got the help he so clearly needed. A military doctor prescribed a regimen of mild antipsychotics that cooled him out, and the VA continued refilling prescriptions after the war. Sergio became, as they say, a model citizen. Society didn’t hear anything more from him for another twenty years.

  West Palm Beach—1961

  “The Fastest Game on Earth.”

  Sergio read the words on the cover of the thin program in his lap.

  There was a loud crack like a rifle shot. Sergio looked up. A small, rock-hard ball ricocheted off the wall at a hundred miles an hour. Sergio’s eyes followed it as a player in a yellow number-seven jersey dove and caught the ball with the curved basket on his hand. The player rolled once on the floor and came up with a mighty underhand swing.

  “Watch out!”

  The player in front of Number Seven hit the deck as the ball sailed through the space where his head had just been. The ball kept going, higher and higher, ending up in the padding above the wall with an impotent thud. Point lost. Number Seven lowered his eyes and trudged back to the bench as the next set of players took the court.

  The crowd booed and ripped up betting stubs. “Who said you could play?” “Get outta town, ya bum!”

  Sergio loved jai alai. He also loved his daughter. She was his only child. And just like Sergio himself, Gloria had made a surprise entrance into the world, but in a different way. Shortly after the war, a Collins Avenue burlesque dancer named Vavette tracked Sergio down to a tiny apartment in Surfside. She was a sucker for officers’ uniforms, and there had been a brief but scorching tryst with a PT-boat captain. Then she learned Sergio wasn’t an officer and summarily dumped him. Four years later she dumped Gloria. Dropped her off on Sergio’s doorstep before hopping back in the passenger seat of a ragtop Valiant and speeding away with a lounge singer who looked like Sal Mineo.

  Sergio watched the convertible disappear, then looked down at the big brown eyes staring back up at him. It was the best day of his life.

  They became inseparable. He took her everywhere. The zoo, the beach. And jai alai. Fifteen years quickly passed. Through everything, she was always Daddy’s girl.

  The next game started at the West Palm Beach Fronton. Sergio leaned over to Gloria in the seat beside him. “Watch the one in the yellow jersey. The crowd doesn’t like him, but he’s the only one with any intensity.” Sergio checked his official 1961 season program, running his finger down the entries until he came to Number Seven. “Testaronda.”

  Sergio and Gloria reflexively jerked their heads back as Testaronda dove for a shot and crashed headfirst into the screen in front of them.

  “Boooo!” “Get off the court!”

  Next round. Number Seven charged the
service line and caught the pelota on the fly for what should have been an easy, dribbling drop shot. Instead he gave it all he had, like he did every time. He was so close to the wall that the ball was back to him in a split second, right in the stomach. Players and trainers rushed to the curled-up player on the floor.

  “You stink!” “What a loser!”

  Sergio stood and faced the jeering crowd. “What do you know? He’s got heart!”

  “Sit down, you old fart!”

  “Daddy, sit down.”

  Sergio plopped into his seat and folded his arms. Gloria was leaning forward with concern. “He’s hurt.”

  “He’ll shake it off. He’s tough.”

  “I hope he’s all right.”

  Sergio watched her a moment. He hadn’t seen this look before. He’d always taken it for granted that she was Daddy’s girl, but now he realized for the first time that eighteen really wasn’t a girl.

  Sergio stood up. “Let’s get something to eat.”

  “I want to watch jai alai.”

  “I don’t like jai alai anymore.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I’m hungry.”

  Sergio was quiet as he drove his Nash Rambler a few blocks to the Cesta Inn, a popular postgame pizza joint with beer posters in Spanish and action photos of jai alai players on the wall. They went inside and found a table. Sergio grabbed a newspaper left behind on one of the chairs.

  A steaming pizza soon arrived. Gloria began picking things off a slice.

  “But anchovies are the best part.”

  “They’re too salty.”

  The front door opened.

  “What are you looking at?” asked Sergio, turning around. The players had arrived.

  Sergio popped one of Gloria’s cast-aside anchovies in his mouth. “Playboys.”

  “I think Number Seven’s cute.”

  “He can’t play worth a darn.”

  “That’s not what you said—”

  “I say a lot of things.”

  The players came by the table, twenty, twenty-one years old, athletic builds, stylish slacks, smoldering Latin features.

  Gloria had always been a shy youth, but it was out of her mouth just like that. “You played great today.”

  “Oh, thank you,” said Number Seven.

  “Is your stomach okay?”

  “Just a big red spot.”

  “Do you get hurt a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of name is Testaronda?”

  “Fake one. I’m really Pablo. Pablo Storms. Pleased to meet you.” They shook hands.

  The other players had taken a large table in back, and they called for Pablo.

  “Just a minute.” He turned to Gloria. “Would you like to join us?” Then, to Sergio, “I mean, with your permission, sir.”

  “Can I, Daddy?”

  “Sure, go ahead. I wanted to read the sports anyway.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  Sergio held the sports section up to his face, glaring over the top at the table of jai alai players and his daughter.

  It was a quick courtship, lots of hand-holding sunset walks along the beach, Gloria occasionally turning around and waving at her father, walking ten yards back.

  They were married on the fronton court before the daily double. The best man handed Pablo the ring in the bottom of his cesta. Sergio had since resigned himself. Deep down, he really liked Pablo, especially the intensity part, and he gave his daughter away with brimming pride.

  Gloria came off the court and threw her bouquet into the cheap seats. Then she gathered up the train of her wedding gown and settled into a front-row seat as Pablo dedicated the next game to his bride.

  The wedding night was unforgettable. Gloria applied ice to her husband’s swollen right eye.

  “Didn’t you see the wall?”

  “I thought I had another five feet.”

  Gloria instantly became pregnant. Soon, another curious-eyed infant boy entered the world. Gloria never had a second thought what to name him.

  Sergio sat in a chair in the corner of his daughter’s hospital room, cradling the newborn in his arms. “Hello, Little Serge. I’m your granddaddy.”

  Little Serge grew like crazy. He ate everything in sight, which he immediately burned off in a constant series of heart-stopping moments. His exhausted parents stood over Serge’s bed each night as he slept hard from another full day of perpetual motion. He had inherited the combined intensities of Sergio and Pablo, and the results were exponential. He was obviously destined for something special. But what would that be? His parents thought of the future. They tried to imagine how Little Serge would apply his energies as an adult.

  21

  Present

  E VERYONE JUST CALM the fuck down!” Serge yelled at the terrified tour customers screaming and crying in the back of the blood-splattered limo. “I’ve been here before. It’ll all turn out fine if we keep our heads. Except for Keith, who’s already dead, thanks to the sniper. Can’t fix that. But the rest of you, take my word: If you do everything like I say, someday you’ll all look back on this and laugh.”

  Doug continued weeping on the floor with his cell phone, telling his wife he wanted her to come get him. He began describing the limo.

  “Lenny, take the wheel,” said Serge. Lenny began driving from the passenger side as Serge climbed over the seat and snatched the phone from Doug’s trembling hand. He slapped him back and forth across the face. “Snap out of it! Be a man!”

  Serge put the phone to his ear. “Hello? Is this Doug’s wife?…Never mind who I am! I’ve been listening to your calls all morning, and I want you to get the fuck off this man’s back! Do you have any idea the kind of pressure he’s under? People are dead! His life is in extreme danger, and the last thing he needs is your gutless yammering! If he survives, he’ll call you when he’s good and ready. Good-bye!” Serge hung up and began beating the phone on the wet bar until it started coming apart. He handed the biggest piece back to Doug. “My advice is to get rid of her ASAP, or you’ll be in adult diapers before you’re fifty.”

  “Want me to keep driving?” asked Lenny.

  “No, Lenny. Let’s just crash.” Serge surveyed everyone still alive in the backseat. “Okay, first rule of crisis management: Don’t panic. Second: Damage assessment. We’re doing a hundred on the Julia Tuttle Causeway over Biscayne Bay in a shot-up limo with a couple of smashed windows, blood streaks on the others, a trunk lid flapping up and down and two bodies in the backseat”—Serge stopped and looked out the windows at the rest of the traffic—“which means we’re pretty well camouflaged. What else? Oh, yeah. One of the dead guys is a top mobster, so the contracts on us are going out as we speak. And we killed him in the commission of a kidnapping—well intentioned as it was—which brings the death penalty in the Sunshine State. Am I forgetting anything?”

  There was a moan.

  “And Brad’s been shot.” Serge put his hand on Brad’s back. “Brad, try to move your arm.”

  Brad looked away, moved his arm and screamed.

  “Brad, don’t move your arm…. Lenny, get me another cell phone.”

  The limo swerved into oncoming lanes as Lenny grabbed a Motorola off the floor and tossed it over his shoulder. Serge caught it and punched in a number. “Hello? Doc? It’s Serge…. Yeah, I have a little situation…. A shoulder situation…. No, the situation did not go all the way through. I think the situation is still in there…. Good, I’ll call back in two time units when I know the address of the banana…. Bye.”

  Rusty gave Serge a weird look. “What kind of doctor were you calling?”

  “A pretty good one from what I hear.”

  “It didn’t sound like a real doctor,” said Rusty. “That’s not how the conversations go when I talk to mine.”

  “There are all kinds of definitions for ‘real,’” said Serge. “Right now we’re real desperate. We can’t go to a traditional hospital because they’re required by
law to report gunshot wounds. Does that sound fair? I mean, I can understand if you walk into an emergency room waving a gun and saying you just shot someone yourself. Then they pretty much have to call the authorities. But we’re talking about the person who’s been shot. You’re already a victim, and now you have to explain things to the police. Maybe you don’t feel like talking to them. I don’t think you should have to explain a preference like that. Unfortunately, the way the law reads, if you want any privacy, you’re compelled to go outside normal channels. And thanks to elitists at the AMA, it’s gotten a bad name.”

  “What’s gotten a bad name?” asked Rusty.

  “Surgery on the secondary market.”

  “Stop the car!” Rusty shouted. “This is nuts! Drop us off right now!”

  “No can do. Between the cops and the mob, you’re dead out there, which means it’ll lead back to me, and then I’m dead. I’m afraid I can’t let that happen.” Serge reached behind his back and produced a giant chrome .45 automatic.

  Everyone screamed.

  “Calm down! I’m just getting this ready. I’m not going to shoot you.” Serge gestured at Rusty with the gun. “Look, I know how you feel, but a regular doctor is out. Besides, if you’re going to get shot, you couldn’t have picked a better place. We’ve got a whole network of great doctors in South Florida who’ve had just one or two itty-bitty little problems in the operating room. It’s amazing how politicized hospital boards are now. So they’re forced to set up more modest practices and pass the savings on to us.” Serge pulled a booklet from a pocket behind one of the seats and tossed it to Rusty.

  “What’s this?”

  “Our provider network. Go ahead, keep it. You might need it someday.” Serge inspected the limo’s interior again. “And those two bodies need to go. They’ll only invite questions.”

  “My arm’s getting tired,” said Lenny.

  “I’m coming back up.”

  Serge climbed forward into the driver’s seat and took over the wheel. He aimed down Collins and made a right on Fourteenth Street, then a quick left, moving slowly up an alley, glass bottles popping under the tires. He stopped at a Dumpster.