by Tim Dorsey
Another twist, another kick. “Ow! Ow!”
The guard dragged the manager until he finally reached the ball of paper.
The bald assistant manager let go and reached in the trash can. He held up something that looked like roadkill. Tears began to roll.
The guard sat up on the ground and uncrumpled the page. “Martha Davenport . . . But where’s the address? Trigger-something. Shoot, it’s smeared too much from the sprinklers . . . Hold everything. Davenport, Davenport.Where have I heard that name before?” The guard suddenly snapped his fingers. “I got it. Those elves! This Davenport woman got me fired and beat up. Well, I better destroy this report so nobody can trace it back to me after I exact my revenge—”
An ax came through the door. Then two firefighters. They looked down at an assistant mall manager crying and wearing a melted toupee, sitting cross-legged next to a mall cop with a bleeding ankle and a mouth full of paper.
One of the firefighters looked at the other. “Not again.”
Chapter Seven
TRIGGERFISH LANE
Serge spied out the front window with binoculars.
Coleman wiggled a pop-top off a beer can. “What’s going on?”
Serge panned the house across the street. “Martha’s staring at me with binoculars and Jim is decorating the tree. That’s our cue.”
“For what?”
“Decorate our tree. We’ve got to copy exactly everything he does or the plan could fail.” Serge headed for the kitchen. “I’ll get the popcorn going and grab the sewing kit.”
“Get some sewing stuff for me, too.”
The scene became industrious. Perry Como on TV.
Serge came through the dining room and glanced at the table. “Coleman, you already built the gingerbread house—I mean mansion.”
“I was motivated to accomplish something.”
“I can’t process that sentence.”
“Dig!” said Coleman.
Serge squatted down with his chin on the edge of the table, admiring the handiwork. “How come all the windows are shuttered closed?”
“That’s a surprise.”
More holiday preparation bustle.
Coleman ended up seated at the kitchen table with needle and thread. Serge dumped a brown bag on the table and took a chair on the other side.
Coleman hit a joint and resumed a rare spasm of work. “What’s all that junk?”
Serge grabbed scissors and cut his own length of thread. “Any Christmas of mine must have a Florida theme. So I rounded up some ornamental fodder: matchbooks, bar coasters, ashtrays, pins, buttons, parking tickets, plastic cups from sporting events, swizzle sticks, cocktail umbrellas . . .” Serge squinted with one eye closed and threaded a needle through a piece of popcorn. “. . . rubber alligators and sharks from roadside attractions, souvenir butane lighters, keepsake bottle openers, Welcome-to-Florida matching penis and boobs salt-and-pepper shakers . . .”
Coleman squinted with his own thread. “What’s going to be the angel for the top of the tree?”
“That’s the best part!” Serge pulled something from another bag next to his chair. “Isn’t it great?”
Coleman scratched his head. “It’s just a little toy gorilla.”
“Bought it at Toy Town.”
“But what’s that got to do with Florida?”
“They didn’t have what I really wanted, so I had to settle for this and perform custom alterations.” Serge tapped the gorilla’s chest.
Coleman edged closer. “You just wrapped masking tape a bunch of times around its chest and used a Magic Marker to write ‘Everglades Skunk Ape.’ ”
Serge set the gorilla down and grabbed a piece of popcorn. “Bet I’ve got the only one.”
Twenty minutes later, they finished at the table. Serge jumped to his feet. “To the tree!”
More activity fastening things that weren’t meant to be fastened to the tree’s branches.
Coleman worked with a stapler. Click-click, click-click. “Serge? When are we going to put the tree where it’s finally going to go?”
Serge used a crimping tool for heavy-gauge industrial wire. Ker-chunk, ker-chunk. “It’s already in the final place.”
Coleman stapled theme-park tickets. “But it’s still stuck in the door.”
“It’s way too damn big to get inside. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Serge hung a snow globe of dolphins on a teeter-totter. “So I figured we’d just leave it here and share the joy with our new neighbors.”
“It’s sticking out horizontal. I’ve never seen a sideways Christmas tree before.”
“And neither has the neighborhood decorating committee. We might win a ribbon.” Serge grabbed a roll of duct tape. “Damn, my skunk ape keeps drooping over . . .”
“Nice popcorn garland,” said Coleman.
“Then stop eating it.”
“But I’m hungry.”
“I’m impressed by your garland, too,” said Serge. “Cool strands of beer-can pop-tops.”
“Thanks.”
Serge held one of the lengths. “What are these little clear plastic squares in between?”
“Crack-cocaine baggies I found in alleys.”
“Good Florida touch. And this ornament?”
“I made it with a nail file.”
“Candy-cane shiv? . . .”
A squeal of tires. Serge and Coleman looked up. A GTX with gold rims parked at the Davenports’ curb. Necking.
Serge stood. “Hold down the Christmas fort. I need to take care of something.” He trotted toward the street.
The door of the Davenport residence opened. Martha came down the steps.
Serge reached the driver’s side and knocked on the glass. The window rolled down halfway. “What the fuck do you want?”
“Excuse me, Mr. Snake, but if you’d like to hit it off with a girl’s parents, it’s usually better to go up and introduce yourself than to sit in the street molesting their fifteen-year-old in full view of the neighborhood. I’m just taking a wild stab at this.”
“Eat shit and die, old man.”
The GTX patched out. Serge was left standing in the middle of the road . . . staring at Martha, who’d just arrived on the other side before the car sped off.
Serge smiled awkwardly. “Do I look old?”
Martha gritted her teeth. “You!”
Serge placed a hand over his heart with innocent surprise. “Me?” Then pointed down the road with the other arm. “It’s Mr. Snake who was tongue-wrestling your daughter. Not to mention whatever was going on below window level that we couldn’t see. I remember when I was his age.” Serge chuckled to himself and shook his head. “They called it ‘necking.’ No kidding. I just couldn’t seem to keep my neck in my pants. Ah, fond memories . . .” He paused to study Martha’s red-faced expression. “Why don’t you like me?”
Her nostrils flared. “If you don’t—!”
Crash.
They both looked over at Serge’s rental house, where a rusted-out Pinto had just slammed into the garbage cans down at the curb. Two women got out. Any man on the street who had heard the crash was now glued to his window staring at the twin sites: statuesque, hot, fatal, looking like they’d gotten dressed in the Dukes of Hazzard wardrobe trailer. The blonde had a bottle of Jim Beam by the neck, and the brunette threw the stub of a small Clint Eastwood cigar in the street.
Serge grinned at Martha and jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Got to run. The chicks are here . . . Guess what? We’re starting a family!” He took off running. “We’re going to be just like you!”
Jim came down to the street and joined his wife at the curb. “I heard a crash. What’s going on?”
“I’m going to kill him!”
“Who are those women?”
Martha just stared in simmering fury.
Across the street, the women headed up the walkway toward the house. Serge ran to meet them halfway. Coleman came down from the porch.
“City! Country!
” said Serge. “Long time no see—”
The blonde spun and caught him in the jaw with a sledgehammer right cross, decking him soundly. The brunette twirled with a roundhouse kung fu kick that whipped Coleman in the back of the calves and knocked his legs out from under him.
Jim watched as two men moaned in pain, rolling on the lawn across the street. Two women passed a bottle of whiskey. “Martha, what’s going on?”
“He said they’re starting a family.”
MEANWHILE . . .
In a modest subdivision on Tampa’s east side, a bald man sat inside his three-bedroom cookie-cutter ranch house with screened-in swimming pool.
He was on the phone. On hold. Melted toupee in the trash can.
A woman finally answered. The man sat up straight. “Hello, this is Phil Westwood from the Tampa Bay Mall, and I’d like to speak to one of your consultants, Jensen Beach . . . I see, unavailable . . . Would you have a cell number or personal mailing address? . . . No, I understand completely that you can’t give out that kind of information. It’s just that he recently performed some terrific work for the mall, and I’d like to give him a present to show our appreciation . . . Send it to your company? I’d sort of like it to be more personal . . . You can deliver a personal message to him at his desk right now? But I thought you said he was out . . . Oh, you said unavailable . . . Yes, in his line of work you have to protect him from kooks. Never know when one of those would call. Thanks for your time.”
He hung up. “Damn.”
Then he swiveled back to his computer and stared at the screen, where he had just looked up the phone number for Sunshine Solutions—and had no luck at all with a Mr. Jensen Beach. “Think! Think! . . .” He tapped fingers on top of his shiny dome, then back to the keyboard. “If I can’t find that consultant, then I want to know who that woman is.” He glanced at the wastebasket. “Her stupid freaking complaint!”
His wife appeared in the den’s doorway. “Honey, your dinner’s getting cold.”
“I’m busy.”
“I feel so badly for you, but it might be good to get your mind off it.” She pursed her lips with genuine concern. “It’s been two days now.”
“Get my mind off it? I was fired and beat up within twenty-four hours.” He continued typing on the keyboard. “Neither has happened in fifteen years, and one not since grade school.”
She went to say something, then stopped and left the room to put something back in the oven.
More typing. “Here we go, Facebook. Martha Davenport . . . Bingo! That’s her all right. Wish I still had that stupid report. The address was right in my fingers . . . Wait, what’s this family photo? Her husband looks familiar. But where have I seen . . . Oh my God. Jensen Beach is her husband, Jim. The Davenports are responsible for both my beating and my firing!” He quickly surfed back to the local phone directory and scribbled something on a pad. “Okay, calm down and take this slow. See where this asshole lives and get the lay of the land. Then figure out a plan.”
He snatched keys off the desk.
His wife was back in the doorway. She turned as he went by. “Are you going to eat at all tonight?”
“I don’t know.” And out the front door.
The ex-assistant mall manager climbed in a brown Ford Focus station wagon and headed east, passing a convenience store with two Ram pickup trucks parked side by side. Both had parking stickers for a distribution warehouse in Lakeland. An arm came out one of the windows, passing a sheet of paper to someone in the other.
“Appreciate it, Jerry.”
“It’s so unfair you were fired.”
The second man read the page. “So his real name’s Jim Davenport, Triggerfish Lane.” He looked up. “How’d you get this?”
“You don’t want to know. But can you do me a favor? Nothing too extreme.”
“Don’t worry—”
“No, really. I can imagine how I’d react, and I don’t want you to make me an accessory.”
They were about to pull out, when the lead pickup was cut off by a black Delta 88 with an ex-mall cop behind the wheel. On the passenger seat, a formerly soggy anonymous complaint was now flattened out and crisp from meticulous work with a hair dryer. Beside it, a map of Tampa and a handwritten list of possible address matches to the partial ID on the complaint.
The Delta 88 took a ramp for the Crosstown Expressway, hitting the tollbooth a minute between a Ford Focus and a Ram pickup.
TRIGGERFISH LANE
Serge stood up in the middle of the lawn, rubbing his jaw. “Have to admit, you still got it.”
“You son of a bitch!” yelled the blonde. “You did it to us again.”
Coleman stood up more slowly, and the brunette kicked him in the crotch. “You left us stranded on the side of the road. That’s three times. And after all we put up with, living in all those douche-bag motels!”
Serge spread his arms. “This time will be different! I swear!”
“Bullshit!” said the blonde.
“No, really,” said Serge. “We now have an actual home in a nice neighborhood.”
“What’s the scam this time?” asked the brunette.
“Why do you always think there’s a scam with me?”
“Because there always is.”
“Except this time will be different from all the others. We’re going to form a solid family unit, live the American Dream and greet census takers and everything.”
The women exchanged dubious looks.
Other neighbors tentatively wandered out into their yards to snoop.
The blonde turned back to Serge. “First, a family isn’t made of two couples. Second, only one of us is a couple, and not even that. You and I just screw when we’re horny.”
“Many relationships have been built on that,” said Serge. “Actually, I’m thinking most.”
The brunette pointed demonstratively at Coleman. “I am not fucking that man!”
Neighbors nonchalantly edged closer to their sidewalks.
“But, Serge,” said the blonde. “What gave you such a crackpot idea in the first place?”
Serge turned with fully outstretched arms. “We’re going to be just like them!”
The women looked to see the Davenports staring back from the other side of the street, Martha giving them the stink eye.
The blonde took a step forward. “What are you looking at, bitch?”
“Bitch?” yelled Martha. “Why, you cunt!”
Jim shrieked and jumped in front of Martha. “Let’s go back in the house . . .”
Serge grabbed the blonde around the waist from behind. “Easy there, girl. You can’t give her a beat-down. The other neighbors won’t invite you to tea.”
Martha snarled as Jim led her away.
The blonde glared back as Serge steered her toward the house. “Let’s all go inside. I’ll bet you’re itching to see the new place!”
“I got some killer red bud,” said Coleman.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek around,” said the blonde.
“There’s a Christmas tree stuck sideways in the door,” said the brunette.
“We’re trying to win a ribbon,” said Serge.
The foursome got on their hands and knees and started crawling under the tree.
“Hold it,” said Coleman, standing back up. “There’s some cards in the mailbox . . . Do we know anybody from Christmas, Florida?”
Chapter Eight
ONE HOUR LATER
Dining room table.
Coleman and the two women sat around the gingerbread house.
The blonde had her mouth over the chimney.
Coleman flicked a Bic lighter and held it to a tiny flowerpot near the front door.
A watery, bubbling sound.
Serge stood in the background, scratching his head with a puzzled expression. “Coleman, what kind of weirdness am I looking at here?”
“It’s a bong.”
“That was your motivation?”
Col
eman flicked the lighter again. “No other point to put myself through that kind of work.”
“Silly me,” said Serge. “But it’s going to make the gingerbread taste awful. We’ll have to throw it out.”
“Like hell,” said Coleman. “I baked pot into the walls, and the frosting.”
“Nice work, Hansel.” Serge turned. “So, ladies, I’ve been meaning to ask. What names are you going by these days?”
The brunette exhaled a hit from the chimney. “She’s Crystal River and I’m Belle Glade.”
“Nice ring,” said Serge. “Almost as good as City and Country . . .”
City and Country, products of their environment. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to put a pin in the map. Town girls in a university town. Hardworking, no drugs or wild weekends, not the remotest legal scrape between them. Until the night they went in that student bar. Some coked-out sorority sister fell on the knife she’d been using to cut rails in a toilet stall. The girls found her. Pulled out the blade, tried mouth-to-mouth. It stacked up fast. Fingerprints, blood, victim’s father a huge donor to the law school. They didn’t stick around for the opinion polls; on the run ever since, which just hit the ten-year mark. Couldn’t stay in one place long, couldn’t give Social Security numbers. Their employers knew the score and took advantage. Waitress gigs, saloons, strip clubs. It was a hard decade, and they came out the back end as hard as they make ’em. Country had grown up on remote farmland a half hour toward Muscle Shoals. City was a transplant from the Bronx. To cast the movie, you might pick Daryl Hannah and Halle Berry.
“Coleman,” said Country. “What the hell’s Serge doing?”
Coleman glanced over his shoulder. “Looking out the window with binoculars to see how Jim does it.”
“Does what?”
Coleman shrugged.
“There seems to be a lot of traffic on the street,” said Serge, swinging the binoculars left to right. “A minute ago, a Ford Focus went by, then a Delta 88, and now a Ram pickup.”
“Why is that unusual?” asked Coleman.
“It’s the second or third time I’ve seen each, and they’re all slowing down in front of Jim’s house like they’re looking for an address or something . . . Now Martha’s coming out of the house. She’s screaming at Jim, who’s standing bewildered in the doorway. Looks like he’s in shit. Now he’s making desperate gestures to explain, which means he’s only making the shit deeper. That’s the key to love: Never explain yourself. If a woman attacks, and your response is explanations, then strap on a helmet. But that’s just my experience. I’m sure Jim knows what he’s doing. And this is the perfect chance!”