by Tim Dorsey
Levy climbed in the back of the truck and tucked the cup among the countless stacks. He got back out, the guard closed her up, and ten armored cars departed in different directions, police motorcycles escorting them onto entrance ramps of various highways heading out of Orlando and across the U.S. of A.
FOUR MICHIGAN STATE men finished watching the news and left the bar.
“C’mon, give me a dollar,” said the bum, bringing up the rear.
A limo with magnetic signs drove by. It picked up speed and made a right turn for the causeway.
“Where are we going now?” asked Lenny.
“To meet Moondog,” said Serge. “I called the number Coltrane gave me.”
“You reached him?”
“He was in the middle of eating farina and watching the new Family Feud with Louie Anderson. Remind me never to retire.”
Serge gunned the limo across the Miami River on Northwest Second Avenue. They passed under a sign: OVERTOWN.
“Why are you slowing down?” asked Lenny.
Serge was baffled. “This can’t be the eight-hundred block. Where did everything go?”
Lenny looked out the window. Vacant lots, weeds, broken furniture. A single building still standing.
“I was wondering why Moondog wanted to meet in the Lyric Theater instead of the Famous Chef or any of the other places I suggested.”
“Looks like a bomb hit.”
“That empty spot there used to be the Alexander Apartments, one of the places Muhammad Ali lived in the early sixties. And on that other block was the Sir John Hotel, where the famous underwater Life magazine photos of Ali were taken in the pool. Man, the future is just one heartache after another. Little Broadway wiped out like it never existed.”
“Little Broadway?”
“You say Overtown today and people go, ‘Oh, yeah, blighted black area.’ But forty years ago this was one of the most culturally vibrant places in the country. All the white vacationers in Miami Beach staying in their fancy hotels—oh, they loved to go see the great African-American headliners in the nightclubs, but then the entertainers had to race back to Overtown to beat the Jim Crow curfew.”
“Pretty fucked up,” said Lenny.
“That’s what my grandfather used to say. But, man, did this place jump in the wee hours. After performing on the beach, all these world-class acts would come and play late-night sets along this little strip here. Can you imagine going door-to-door among these intimate cocktail lounges and seeing Count Basie, Nat ‘King’ Cole, Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Sammy Davis Jr.?”
“The Candyman can.”
Serge parked the car at the curb in front of the vintage-1914 theater. “Then they decimated the neighborhood with the interstate, and now we have this….” He looked over his shoulder at Rusty and Doug. “Can I trust you two not to run away?”
Rusty and Doug stared petrified out the window at the neighborhood around them.
“Good.” Serge and Lenny got out and walked to the entrance.
Serge grabbed the knob, then stopped. “I almost hate to look.”
“Won’t it be locked?” asked Lenny.
“Nope. It’s on the local preservation tour, but nobody comes, as usual.” He turned the knob. The front door creaked open.
Serge gasped like Christmas morning. “Restored! Thank God! Aged wood grain in the armrests, accurate upholstery…”
The place was empty except for an old man sitting alone in the front row. Serge trotted down the aisle.
“Moondog?”
Moondog had put on a little weight, looked like B.B. King now.
“Little Serge?”
They hugged.
“Last time I saw you, you were this high. Hyper little sucker…Sorry about your granddad.”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Coltrane says you know something about a diary.”
“What diary? Coltrane’s drunk.”
They sat in adjoining theater seats and faced each other.
“I was hoping I could find out something about what happened. The police version doesn’t make sense. I’m thinking his death had to do with the gems.”
Moondog looked around quickly, then leaned. “You don’t want to be bringing that up. Trust me on this one.”
“Know where any of the other guys are?”
“Last I heard, Chi-Chi got a little feeble, ranting about CIA safe houses and Castro. They put him in a home. Don’t know where. Greek Tommy was living over one of those nightclubs on South Beach. Used to be the old bookie parlor.”
“Address?”
“Up on Fifteenth. That new place, ‘Plus Twenty-Four’…. Wait—did you say diary?”
“He always kept it. Coltrane said—”
“You mean that little black book?”
“You know about it?”
“Oh, that thing? Sure,” said Moondog. “Wrote in it all the time.”
“That’s what I’ve been talking about!”
“I didn’t know it was a diary. Thought it was a shopping list or poetry or some shit. Always kept it in his shirt pocket. Unless he had his special box with him. Then it went in there.”
“Box?”
“This old wooden box where he kept all these souvenir matchbooks and stuff. He was pretty weird about it.”
“Now I remember,” said Serge. “He used to show it to me. All kinds of junk in there, sterling alligator spoons, orange gumballs…”
“And a citrus sipper,” Moondog said with a smile.
“That’s right, the citrus sipper. Classic Florida roadside keepsake. You jammed it in an orange so you could get juice all over your shirt. My folks only let me use it if I was wearing a bathing suit and standing in the ocean.”
“Last time I saw it, the book was sitting in the box right under that sipper.”
“Any idea where it might be?”
“I know exactly where it is. It’s—”
A gunshot rang out.
Moondog tumbled off his seat with a hole in his back. Serge grabbed him. “Moondog!” Still breathing but in no condition to talk. Serge looked up at the balcony. A puff of smoke.
“Lenny, take care of Moondog!” Serge pulled a pistol and ran out of the theater. He spun around in the middle of the street.
Nothing but the limo.
33
T WO MIAMI CULTURES are battling it out for the heart and soul of South Beach.
The ruthlessly chic nightclubs start at Sixth Street on Washington Avenue and continue north a dozen blocks. The themes change as often as the owners: Madonna, Ron Woods, Sean Penn, people facing grand juries.
It is an unforgiving culture of youth, the fashions and fitness intimidating, the beat exciting, the mood now. Some clubs don’t even open until after midnight, and the action goes on until brunch, a withering brand of fun requiring constant, quick refueling from tiny storefronts wedged between the nightspots, all specializing in pizza by the slice, bottled water, and instant-personality energy drinks like Red Bull, 180, KMX, SoBe and LoIQ.
These shops alternate with a second type of modest business selling groceries and pressed sandwiches to the much older and wiser Cuban population. The kids come from far and wide and represent the pulse of the moment. The Cubans live on the next block and have staying power.
The clash was being fought out on the micro level in a two-story deco building just shy of the pedestrian mall. Four decades ago, the ground floor was the bookmaking parlor; Chi-Chi and Greek Tommy roomed together in the upstairs apartment. The years took their toll. Chi-Chi’s relatives moved him to a retirement home in Little Havana. Tommy stayed upstairs, signing a long-term lease on the ground floor with a group of nightclub investors. The new club was an instant hit. And loud. It wanted to expand upstairs. Tommy said no. Tommy wanted out of the lease. The club said no. That’s where it stood. The place was called “Plus 24.”
“Plus 24” was the hottest of the hot new clubs. It was the hottest because of a single feature: It opened later than any other nig
htclub on South Beach. In the brutal battle for hipness, clubs began opening later and later into the night, not unlocking their doors until three o’clock, four o’clock, five, then dawn. Finally, in a master trendsetting stroke that stunned all involved, “Plus 24” announced it wouldn’t open its doors until midnight the following night.
Oh, sure, if you were a square, you could just get up and go to the club that particular evening. But of course you’d look like an idiot.
The apartment had no rear entrance. In the old days, Chi-Chi and Tommy walked through the betting rooms to get to the staircase in back. It added a measure of security, and they liked that. Now it was nothing but a headache.
On a recent balmy evening, Greek Tommy drove home from the store. He was driving an electric scooter up the sidewalk, ringing a bell on the handlebars for the snaking lines of partygoers to clear the way. He had a fresh cigar in his breast pocket and another in his mouth. The basket behind his seat held a Styrofoam to-go of roast pork and moro rice.
Tommy’s circadian rhythms had flip-flopped due to the bass vibrations coming up through the joists of his bedroom floor. It was just after two A.M. when the scooter rolled up Washington with Tommy and his dinner. He drove past Agents Miller and Bixby, canvassing the crowd with mug shots of Serge and Lenny. The doorman behind the velvet rope at “Plus 24” was new. He blocked Tommy’s path.
“I live here. Get the hell out of my way, ya chowderhead.”
The senior security man nodded; the velvet cord was unhooked.
The scooter rolled through the ear-pounding darkness, strobe lights flashing, Tommy chest deep in dry-ice fog. “Was I insane when I signed that contract?”
Tommy made it to the back of the club and chain-locked his scooter to a hot-water pipe. He trudged up the stairs with his food and opened the apartment.
Surprise!
The room was full of people.
“Who—”
Serge grabbed Tommy by the arm, yanked him inside and slammed the door. Tommy screamed bloody murder.
“Tommy, it’s me. Serge. Sergio’s grandson.”
Tommy stopped yelling and adjusted his eyes. “Little Serge?”
“That’s me.”
“You’ve grown.”
“Sorry about breaking in, but we’re trying to avoid some people—”
“My pork dinner.”
Serge reached down and picked up the Styrofoam box, a large black footprint on the lid. He handed it to Lenny. “Heat this. And see what you can do with the presentation.”
Tommy bent over and picked up a flat cigar. “You stepped on everything.”
“You got another in your pocket.”
“I still liked this one.”
Serge helped Tommy by the arm over to a worn beige sofa.
“Tommy, I have to ask you about my grandfather. It’s real important. There’s a box my granddad kept. Moondog started to tell me about it just before he was shot—”
“What!”
“He’s okay. He’s in the hospital. But he won’t be talking anytime soon.”
“I don’t know any box.”
“Then what do you remember about his death? Lives are now at stake.”
Tommy put a weathered hand on Serge’s shoulder. “I know you loved your grandfather. He thought the world of you. Everyone could see that. But please let this go. You don’t want to be dredging this up.”
“What about Chi-Chi? Moondog didn’t know where he went.”
Tommy took the second cigar out of his pocket and lit it. “Moved into one of those militant-Cuban-exile nursing homes in Little Havana. Libertad Meadows.”
“You think he might know about the box? My granddad kept all his knickknacks in it.”
“Oh, the knickknack box! Sure, I remember that.”
“You said you didn’t know about a box.”
“I thought you meant an important box. That one just had crap in it.”
“I meant any box. You’re supposed to disclose everything because you don’t know what might be useful.”
“I didn’t know. I haven’t done this before.”
“Are you holding anything else back?”
“Like where the box is?”
“You know?”
“Of course I know. I saw it the other week when I was—” Tommy looked around the room. “Is it me, or is it getting crowded in here? Who are all these people?”
“My people. Now, quick, tell me!”
“Your people have silencers?”
“No.”
Tommy pointed toward the stairs. “That guy does.”
Serge turned.
“Hey, you!”
The stranger fired. Serge ducked.
A gasp.
“Tommy!”
Serge cradled the old man in his arms, a gut wound.
Heavy footsteps ran down wooden stairs.
“Lenny! Take care of Tommy!” Serge dashed out of the apartment.
It was dark and deafening in “Plus 24.” Red and purple lasers slashed through the blackness over the dance floor. Fluorescent glow-sticks were twirled overhead by the ecstasy troops. Others blew referee whistles and eye-droppered unknown substances into bottled water and energy drinks. Serge ducked as the mosh pit let one get away and crash headfirst into a cigarette machine.
It glinted in the strobe light: a pistol over a man’s head in the ready position as he muscled toward the door. Serge pulled his own piece and aimed, but kids’ heads kept bopping into the picture. The man looked back and saw Serge. He squeezed off a hurried shot. The bullet went through a woofer, improving the music. They pressed on through the crowd. Finally, the gunman was almost to the door, no way for Serge to reach him in time. Then he’d be gone. The man reached for the knob. He turned to see how far back Serge was.
There was a deep shout, growing louder and closing rapidly like an incoming mortar round.
“Fuuuuuuuuuuck liiiiiiiiiiiiiiife!”
The gunman looked up. The mosh diver landed on him.
THE GUNMAN DIDN’T know how much time had elapsed when he regained consciousness in the back of the parked limo. He noticed electrical tape over his mouth. He tried to move, but his hands were tied behind his back. The limo was full of people, smoking dope, drinking beer, eating ribs. City and Country waved glow-sticks. Nobody seemed to be paying any attention to the gunman until—
“You’re awake!” said Serge. “Good!”
Rip.
The tape came off the stranger’s mouth, and he yelled.
“It’s better if you remove the tape quickly,” said Serge. “At least that’s the feedback I’ve been getting.”
He stuck a gun in the man’s face. “Who are you?”
The man glared and pursed his lips.
“Who sent you?”
He remained steadfast.
Serge put the gun away. “Okay, you can go.”
The man braced for a skull-crack from the pistol butt, but it never came.
“I said you can go. Don’t you want to go?”
The man nodded enthusiastically.
“I almost forgot,” said Serge. He reached for the beverage holder on the door and grabbed a plastic bottle. “Tell me how this tastes. It’s my new energy drink. I’m test-marketing it.”
The man looked at the antifreeze-green fluid in the clear plastic bottle: no way!
“Lenny, he’s indecisive. Help me hold him.”
The man fought furiously as Serge and Lenny piled on top. Serge pressed the end of the plastic bottle to his clenched teeth, bashing the side of his jaw with a fist. “Open up…. Bromo-Seltzer, Bromo-Seltzer…”
The man’s lips involuntarily parted, and Serge jammed the bottle in his mouth like a quart of motor oil. The hostage shut his eyes tightly as the fluid started going down, then realized it wasn’t half-bad. He opened his eyes.
“Tastes pretty good, eh?” said Serge.
The man stopped resisting and nodded. He drained the rest of the bottle. Serge released his grip an
d untied the man’s hands. “Here’s a product-survey card. Postage is already paid. Just drop in any mailbox.”
The man was still stunned as the limo door opened and he was let out in the middle of Club Row. The door closed.
Lenny watched through the windshield as the man backed slowly away from the car, still expecting a bullet.
“What now?” asked Lenny.
“We head over to the address Tommy gave us for Chi-Chi’s retirement home.” Serge checked his wristwatch. “Still a couple hours to kill till dawn. Can’t just go banging on retirement-home doors in the middle of the night, which I’ve learned.”
Lenny picked up the empty plastic bottle. “By the way, what did you do with all those drugs you had me buy for your energy drink?”
“What do you think I did? Put ’em in the drink.”
Lenny examined the bottle’s label, an alligator in an astronaut helmet driving a ’56 Cadillac convertible on Ocean Drive. SERGE’S SOUTH BEACH ROCKET FUEL.
He turned the bottle over. “There’s a list of ingredients…but the amounts are blank.”
The gunman crossed the street to the opposite sidewalk and took shallow breaths.
“That’s because I’m still tinkering with the formula,” said Serge. “I decided to begin with the maximum amounts and tweak back as the response cards come in.” Lenny read the list. Carbonated water, high-fructose corn syrup, phosphoric acid, D&C Yellow No. 10, FC&C Green No. 3, total polyunsaturated fat: zero grams.
The gunman stood in front of a liquor store and loosened his collar. He began fanning himself. He glanced around nervously, started scratching.
Lenny fired up a joint with the car lighter. “Sounds pretty scientific. Where’d you get the idea?”
“Started with Sprite as the base,” said Serge. “The hook is the lemon-lime taste. I love lemon-lime. I also added some caffeine, but not too much. Don’t want to drive away customers with the shakes.”
The gunman stripped to his boxers and darted into traffic. He pirouetted in the street, then hit the ground, flopping like a fish. People on the sidewalks laughed. Some took pictures.
“I’ve never heard of these ingredients here,” said Lenny, holding a toke. “Guaraná and taurine?”
“Those are the twin generators. Herbal magic from the Amazon. All the big-name energy drinks use one or the other. I use both. Again, setting the pace for the field.”