by Tim Dorsey
Serge waved. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t.”
“From what I hear, that’s a short list.”
The guard arm raised, and the Falcon sped through.
“. . . Whoopi Goldberg to block . . .”
Serge and Coleman bounded up a screened porch and were met at the door. “This really isn’t necessary.”
“What can I say?” said Lawrence. “You’re in high demand.”
Serge saw an unready kitchen and a dormant dining room. “What’s going on?”
Nancy reached into the fridge for a covered casserole dish. “A surprise.”
“Follow me,” said Lawrence.
“Someone else’s place again?”
“Not exactly.”
Serge gave Coleman a clueless glance. “Mysteries abound in this place.”
They walked across the lawn by the pool, and Scott silently vectored over the grass in his fancy new golf cart.
“Look at you and those wheels!” said Nancy. “The women will flock!”
“This is so much better than that wheelchair,” said Scott. “It’s changed my life!”
“Can I get a lift?” said Coleman. “My legs are doing that spaghetti thing again.”
“Sure!” They took off.
Lawrence put a hand on Serge’s shoulder.
“What?”
“Look ahead.”
Lights blazed around the Boca Shores clubhouse. Flames from tiki torches licked into the night. After a brief hike across a manicured lawn, they met Scott and Coleman at the double doors and entered the main hall.
“Surprise!”
Serge and Coleman stopped in shock.
A hundred people cheered and clapped and blew noisemakers. They quickly surrounded the pair, patting their backs and showering compliments. On the front wall was the electronic bingo scoreboard, and above it, a large banner:
Thank You, Serge and Coleman!
The crowd dispersed with motivation, uncovering all the potluck dishes arranged on long tables around the edges of the hall. Others opened steam trays and grabbed paper plates. Big-band music filled the room from the PA system’s ceiling speakers.
“Look at all that food!” Coleman took off. “Chicken wings!”
Serge slowly turned to Lawrence. “Did you have anything to do with this?”
“Actually, no. It was rather spontaneous.”
Coleman came back with a plate of wings and a large, circular stain in the middle of his shirt that looked like he’d somehow fallen on top of an entire pizza, which would be accurate.
“I see you’re wasting no time getting your Coleman on,” said Serge.
Coleman nodded and ate with hearty imprecision like a bear cub in a Taco Bell dumpster. “This party rocks! There’s only one thing missing, but I’m not complaining. They’re old and have to be mellow.”
A retired union rep named Dudley entered the hall on a motorized scooter. He was bald with a full gray mustache, bent over the handlebars in a tropical shirt that featured ukuleles and volcanoes. The scooter did a blistering three miles an hour until it arrived at the only empty table in the room, sitting under the bingo board.
Dudley dismounted, and friends helped him unload the bulky cardboard boxes from the scooter’s oversize basket. The table soon held a row of those gigantic liquor bottles with the handles. Vodka, gin, scotch, tequila, bourbon. Tongs went in the ice bucket, and the plastic cups were stacked. Dudley turned to the crowd: “Soup’s on!”
If the bingo hall had been a ship, it would have capsized.
Coleman gasped. “The missing stuff isn’t missing anymore!” He took off.
Another resident, Coyote Jim, arrived, pulling an industrial dolly with square metal travel cases. He began setting up in the corner.
The prodigal Coleman returned again with a red plastic cup of Captain Morgan. A rubber band under his chin secured the conical party hat on his head. He blew the noisemaker in his mouth. It unfurled, then fell from his lips to the ground. “Serge, someone brought a whole bag of these little popper things, where you pull a string and it goes bang, and shoots out confetti!”
Bang.
Serge and Lawrence stood silent with facefuls of paper specks.
“Got to run!” Coleman took off again.
The big-band music from the ceiling speakers stopped. Much larger concert speakers began blaring in the corner with the pounding beats of DJ Coyote Jim.
“. . . Life in the fast lane! . . .”
Dozens began dancing.
“Are all your parties like this?” asked Serge.
“It’s still early,” said Lawrence.
“. . . Everything, all the time . . .”
Serge looked at another wall. “You’ve got a flat-screen TV in here.”
“Yes, we do.”
“But it’s only showing static.”
“In your honor.”
Coleman glanced around suspiciously before slipping outside the hall to a darkened corner of the patio surrounding the swimming pool. He leaned against the railing overlooking the lake and fired up a fatty.
“Excuse me?”
Coleman jumped and spun, hiding the joint behind his back. “What!”
He hadn’t noticed the two older women out getting fresh air on the other side of the pool. “Is that marijuana?”
“No, no, no!”
“Yes, it is. You’re hiding it behind your back.”
“No, I’m not!”
“Can we try some?”
“Sure.” He passed it. “The most important thing is to hold in the toke as long as you can.”
The first woman held her breath, then coughed and passed it to her friend. “Am I going to trip?”
“You never know.”
They finished the doobie, thanked Coleman and ran back inside for the steam trays.
“. . . Straight outta Compton! . . .”
The two women filled paper plates with popcorn shrimp. “This is the best music ever!”
“I know.”
Coleman staggered to the front of the room, worked his way behind a long table, and deputized himself as the dancing bartender. The conical party hat was now over his left ear. The crowd roared as Coleman boogied and poured triple-strength drinks. Mixers spilled, and ice cubes bounced on the floor.
Fifteen minutes later—“Dudley, take over for me”—and Coleman snuck back out to the patio again. Two women followed, along with four of their friends. Coleman fired up again. “Here you go. Pass it around . . .”
“. . . Disco inferno! . . .”
The steam trays ran low, but the liquor was holding strong. Coleman hammered a rum and Coke, poured a refill for the road, and made another clandestine trip outside to the patio. He turned around. Thirty people were staring back.
“Okay, to make this work, we need to form a circle.”
They did as instructed. Coleman drained his big red cup and lit two joints at once. He held them out, one in each hand. “Pass these both ways . . .”
The joints burned down and Coleman had a chemical inspiration.
“What’s Coleman doing?”
Splash.
“He jumped in the pool!”
“Everyone! In the pool!”
Splash, splash, splash, splash . . .
Fully clothed residents laughed and bobbed. A black sock floated to the surface. Some joined Coleman doing cannonballs.
Serge came outside. “Coleman! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh, hey Serge! This party is off the hook!”
Suddenly high beams lit up the patio. A Mercedes parked and one of Boca Shores’ managers got out. “What the hell is going on? Everyone out of the pool! Now!”
The laughter and splashing stopped. Some got paranoid and hid behind Coleman.
Serge sauntered over to the gate. “What seems to be the problem?”
“What’s the problem? Just look!” The manager trembled with rage. “It’s against the rules to be in the pool at this hour! And look at the mess
with all the cups and paper plates.”
“We have official permission,” said Serge.
“From who?”
“The owner.”
“No, you don’t!”
Serge got out his wallet and retrieved a scrap of paper. “Here’s his number. You might want to make a phone call before you’re wondering how you ever ended up working in a food court. The code word is ‘humidor.’”
The manager exhaled angrily out his nostrils. He reluctantly dialed his cell phone just in case. “Hello? Mr. Dryden? . . . Yes, I know what time it is, and I’m sorry to bother you at this hour, but the pool is full of residents who are trashing the place, and there’s a guy here who claims you gave them permission. I know it sounds silly, but he mentioned something about a humidor . . . I see . . . I see . . . I understand . . .”
The manager stared at Serge a moment before sprinting back to his car and screeching off into the night.
From the pool: “Hooray!”
Chapter 24
Meanwhile . . .
Pool balls clacked in a smoky bar in St. Petersburg. Two old friends sat across from each other.
“Of course I remember the day we met,” said Tofer. “What are you trying to tell me?”
“There’s something you don’t know,” said Ted. “It started right after you left my place . . .”
1970
. . . Ted watched the VW microbus drive out of sight. Then he ran back in the house: “Mom, can I borrow the car?”
“Where are you going?”
“To meet some friends,” said Ted. “There’s a game at the school.”
“Keys are in the kitchen. Have fun!”
Twenty minutes later, Ted was feeding dimes into a parking meter in downtown West Palm Beach. He looked up at a stark concrete building and went inside.
Twenty minutes after that: A man in a black coat and tie knocked on an open office door.
Another man in a black tie looked up from a classified report. “Yes?”
“Sir, you might want to come see this.”
“What is it?”
The pair entered a conference room full of other serious men. And a single, skinny kid slouched in a chair.
“Who’s that?”
“A walk-in. Says a Soviet agent is trying to recruit him. We checked him out”—the man held up a driver’s license—“Theodore Pruitt, goes to the local high school.”
“Is he unstable or something?”
“Doesn’t seem to be, except for his crazy story.” The man turned toward the boy. “Ted, this is FBI bureau chief Brennan. Could you repeat what you just told us?”
And Ted did, from shortwave to guitar lessons. He unfolded a scrap of paper. “. . . Here’s the plate number on his van . . .”
The rest of the agents sat quietly as Brennan stared down in thought. Then: “Son, could you wait outside . . . Jackson, get him a soda and keep him company.”
They had the room to themselves.
“What do you think?” asked the agent who first knocked on Brennan’s door.
“The only spies we have in Florida are Cuban,” said the chief. “A few Soviets have come through briefly on specific details like the missile crisis, but nothing remotely resembling a permanent operation like this.”
“What are we going to do about it?”
“It has to be the wild imagination of a strange kid,” said Brennan. “On the other hand, I can’t take the chance that I’m wrong . . . Call him back in.”
The door opened, and Brennan stood and smiled warmly. He shook Ted’s hand. “We really appreciate you coming to us with this. More importantly, your country appreciates it.”
“Great,” said Ted. “What do you want me to do?”
“You told us nobody knows you came here?”
Ted nodded.
“Let’s keep it that way. Don’t even tell your mother, because she’ll worry. Okay?”
“I can do that.”
“Wonderful. We’ll be in touch.”
“When?” asked Ted. “Where?”
“We’ll find you . . . Jackson, could you show this young man out? The back way?”
The door closed again and Brennan faced the room. “Someone check out this license plate . . .”
The next afternoon.
The last bell of the day rang, and the high school emptied as they all do, like a jailbreak.
A skinny student strolled down the sidewalk with a sack of books slung over his shoulder.
From behind: “Ted! Ted Pruitt? Is that you?”
Ted turned around to find a taller, more athletic boy in a varsity jacket. “Do I know you?”
“We went to grade school together.” He put out his hand. “Mark Christianson. My family moved away to Texas, but now we’re back. It’s my first day.” He looked around. “Man, has this town changed. Almost all the other kids must have gotten re-zoned to the new high school. You’re the only person I know.”
“I don’t know you,” said Ted.
“We weren’t close. So where are you going?”
“Home.”
“Walking?”
“It’s not far.”
“Let me give you a ride. I just got a Corvette! My dad’s an injury lawyer.”
“A Corvette?”
“Come on!”
The pair ran around the corner to the student parking lot, and Ted stood mesmerized at the sight of the flaming-red Stingray convertible. “It’s beautiful!”
“Hop in.”
They began driving south as Ted tapped the books in his lap. “You know, I’ve been thinking about it, and I really don’t remember you at all.”
“It was third grade. Who does?” Mark cut the wheel with a skidding of tires as high school kids are required to do.
“This isn’t the way to my house.”
“I remembered I left something at home I need to get.” Mark checked his rearview before another skidding turn. And another.
“Mark, you’re driving in circles.”
“I’ve been away so long, the streets are a little fuzzy.” A last check in the rearview. “Here we are.”
They parked behind a two-story stucco house with a separate outdoor staircase in back leading to the upper floor.
“Ted, why don’t you come on in. I just got The White Album.”
“My mom will be worried—”
But Mark was already out of the car, and Ted ran up the steps after him. They went inside, and once the door was closed . . .
“Hello, Ted.”
He turned around. Four men appeared from a bedroom. Black coats and ties, the same ones from the conference room the day before.
“What’s going on?” asked Ted.
“This is a safe house,” said Agent Jackson. “Please have a seat.”
Ted began shaking as he eased himself down.
“Relax, there’s nothing to worry about,” said the agent. “First we want to thank you for what you told us. Last night, your new pal Tofer met with a foreign agent we didn’t know about. So you’ve already yielded results.”
“Cool! So what’s my next move?”
“You don’t make any moves,” said the agent. “If our hunch is correct, Tofer is going to start coming around to see you. A lot. Just play along and be a normal high school kid. Make him feel comfortable so he keeps doing whatever it is he’s up to. And no more writing down license plates or anything else to arouse suspicion. We’ll take it from here.”
“When will I see you again?”
“You won’t. And you can never come to our office again. That’s why we met here. If Tofer reports to his superiors that you’re a promising asset, the other side will have you under surveillance soon. That’s why you’ll only be talking to Mark from now on.”
“Another kid at my high school?”
“I don’t go to your high school,” said Mark. “I’m twenty-three.”
“So we weren’t in third grade together?”
“Not really,” said the varsi
ty jacket. “If we ever need to get in touch with you, I’ll be outside the school like today. And if you absolutely need to contact us, leave a football in your front yard.”
“I don’t have a football.”
An agent tossed him one.
Ted rubbed the leather Spalding. “You guys think of everything.”
“That about wraps it up,” said Agent Jackson.
“Follow me,” said Mark.
“Is your name Mark?”
“Not really. I can’t drive you home for reasons that are now obvious, and you can’t walk out the front, so I’ll show you a way to cut between the yards and leave from the next street.”
The following day, Tofer came over and Ted behaved surprisingly natural considering the quite unnatural hairpin turn in his life. They messed with the shortwave, Ted learned new songs on the guitar, and Glenda was in the kitchen having a cow over the whole thing. It fell into a routine. The cool hippie and the nerd hanging out two or three times a week. Their meetings began shifting more and more to Tofer’s apartment. He started talking politics and giving Ted books to read. They went to an anti-war rally at a nearby college.
The high school student had never seen such anger and yelling and so many police in helmets.
“This is really exciting,” said Ted. “What are those guys burning?”
“Their draft cards. You’ll be getting one soon.”
“I don’t think I should burn it.”
“We better get moving,” said Tofer.
“Why?”
“Don’t want to get hit by batons.”
Weeks passed. Ted learned to play “Blowin’ in the Wind.” He attended a meeting to end injustice. He launched rockets.
A varsity jacket caught up with Ted on the sidewalk outside his school. “What’s up?”
“Oh, it’s you,” said Ted. “He’s giving me more stuff to read about communism and the heroes of the revolution in Cuba and South America.”
“Grooming you,” said Mark. “You still steady? This is a lot for a high school kid. Just give the word if it starts getting to be too much.”
“Piece of cake,” said Ted. “I really think I’m doing something that would make my father proud.”
“Glad to hear it. Keep walking straight.” And Mark turned alone into the parking lot.
More weeks passed. More guitar strumming and political rants.