Tim Dorsey Collection #1

by Dorsey, Tim

  Serge walked out the end of a grid street from a dark neighborhood and into the greenish fluorescent light outside a twenty-four-hour grocery store. A black Mercedes sat on the edge of the parking lot next to the pay phone. There was nobody in the car or near the phone. It began to ring. Serge answered it.

  “You got The Package?”

  “Yeah, I got The Package,” said Serge. “Meet you at the Crosstown Inn.”

  “Hey, that’s not where we were supposed to meet.”

  “Plans have changed, Condor.”

  “Condor? What the fuck are you talking about? Hey, you’re not Vince!”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Who the hell are you?!”

  “Segretti.”

  “Segretti? Who the fuck’s Segretti?”

  “Segretti’s calling the shots now. You want The Package, you come to the Crosstown!”

  “Fuck you! I’ll kill you! I’ll—”

  “Don’t you threaten me!” said Serge, ripping the receiver out of the phone.

  A large-framed man in a sharkskin suit came out of the grocery store unwrapping a pack of cigarettes and heading for the Mercedes. He saw Serge at the pay phone.

  “That phone didn’t ring, did it?” he asked Serge.

  “Are you Vince?”

  “Yeah. How’d you know?”

  “I answered the phone a minute ago. Someone said they wanted to see Vince right away at the Crosstown Inn.”

  “That’s not where we’re supposed to meet.”

  “That’s all I know,” said Serge. “I’m just walking by and the phone rang, so I picked it up because that’s the kind of guy I am.”

  “Something’s not right here.” Vince took a menacing step toward Serge.

  Serge didn’t flinch. “Damn straight something’s not right. You’d think the V.A. hospital would know how to treat leprosy after all these years. You know why they can’t? Because they’re all androids. I looked.”

  It was Serge’s turn to take a step forward, and Vince backed up. “Get away from me, you crazy motherfucker!” Vince jumped in the Mercedes and took off.

  “Is it my breath?” Serge cupped his hands over his mouth to check.

  He began walking again, past the grocery store with the oversized tricycle parked out front. He came to the edge of the road, crossed it, and disappeared into the darkness of the grid streets.

  Back inside the store, the crime watch stood in an ammonia haze near the registers. Number Six was open, the cashier going extra slow so she wouldn’t break two-inch chartreuse nails. She had worked the graveyard shift for three years, but hadn’t made the connection with her facial tattoos. The cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show was in line at the register, buying beer, wine and over-the-counter remedies addressing all stages of digestion.

  Jim walked up to the cashier. “I have to use the phone.”

  “There’s a pay phone out front.”

  “It’s in use. Can I make a call on the office phone?”

  “Customers have to use the pay phone. Policy.”

  “But it’s kind of an emergency—”

  There was a rising grumble in the line at the register. Jim looked up; they were all staring daggers.

  Jim walked back to the others.

  “Will they let us use the phone?” asked Orville.

  “It’s best we find another…” Jim saw someone over by the milk. “I think I recognize that guy. He lives on my street.”

  Coleman stood at the dairy case and grabbed an aerosol can of whipped cream. He stuck the end in his mouth and sprayed. For some reason, regular aerosol doesn’t work with whipped cream, and they have to use nitrous oxide instead. And, sitting on a grocery shelf, the laughing gas separates and rises to the top of the cream.

  “You again!” yelled the night manager. “I told you to stay out of my whipped cream!”

  Coleman dropped the can and stumbled. Sounds whooped and echoed in his head. He tried to take off running, but his equilibrium gyroscope was spinning on the wrong axis and he went sideways instead, plowing through an eight-foot promotional pyramid of Velveeta Lite.

  “This time you’re paying for it all!” said the manager, pointing at two dozen spent cans of whipped cream scattered in the bottom of the dairy case. The manager grabbed Coleman by the arm. “I want to see some green! Now!”

  Coleman reached down the neck of his shirt and pulled out two fifties. He gave it to the manager, who slapped a cardboard box into Coleman’s stomach and told him to pack up the empties, get the hell out of his store and never come back.

  Jim waited until the manager had walked away. “Excuse me? Aren’t you one of my neighbors?”

  “I yam what I yam. Yug-gug-gug-gug-gug.”

  The crime watch stared.

  “That’s Popeye,” said Coleman, filling his box with whipped cream cans.

  “Do you think you can take us home?” asked Jim.

  “Sure,” said Coleman. “C’mon.”

  Jim stared at Coleman’s chest. Something was wrong. But he was too discreet to say anything.

  Not Satchel. “Hey! What’s wrong with the man’s tits?”

  Coleman looked down at his chest. “Oh, that. It’s much too dangerous to carry money around this town at night. You got to have a money belt. Except they were all out of money belts and I was drunk, so I got the money bra.”

  He pulled three hundred dollars out of his shirt as some kind of proof, then tucked it back.

  “Why do you have so much cash on you?” asked Jim.

  “You mean you don’t carry bail money?”

  “Not usually.”

  Coleman led them out the front door and stowed the box of whipped cream under his tricycle seat.

  “I thought you had a car,” said Jim.

  “I did,” said Coleman. “But I got in a wreck, and the insurance company refused to pay because I didn’t have insurance.”

  “Look, the pay phone’s free,” said Wilma.

  “Where’d the receiver go?” said Jim.

  Coleman began pedaling down the street and the crime watch followed single file like baby ducks. He made a left, a right.

  A pawnbroker in the back of a pickup waved. “Hey Coleman, what’s the word?”

  Coleman waved back. He went two more blocks. A man sat at the base of a stop sign drinking from a paper sack. “Coleman! The Mac Daddy! Why you lettin’ those people follow you around? That’s bullshit stickin’ to your ass! Ha ha ha ha!”

  Coleman waved and pedaled on. He got to the expressway interchange and stopped. He yelled up at the kids on the overpass.

  “It’s me, Coleman. Don’t drop no blocks. I’m comin’ under.”

  “Okay, Coleman.”

  They went under the overpass.

  SERGE CROSSED GANDY Boulevard on foot and reached the 7-Eleven just as the coffee wore off. He climbed back in the Barracuda and drove to the edge of the parking lot. He leaned out the window and took a last picture of the Crosstown Inn, where three sedans were parked at odd angles, people yelling, then gunshots. Serge pulled into traffic.

  He sped north. Up ahead, something was going on at the side of the road. He hugged the center line and slowed as he passed a parade of pedestrians led by an adult tricycle. Serge pulled over in front of the trike and threw the keys to Coleman, who opened the trunk. Coleman put the tricycle inside, tied the lid down and climbed in the front seat next to Serge without speaking, as if this were a regularly scheduled bus stop.

  Serge looked over his shoulder at the others. “You guys getting in?”

  The crime watch got in, and the Barracuda drove off.

  “Excellent Night Tour,” said Coleman.

  “Haven’t had a bad one yet,” said Serge.

  30

  THE BARRACUDA TURNED onto Triggerfish Lane and pulled up in front of Serge and Coleman’s rental house. The crime watch crawled out of the car and thanked them for the lift.

  Orville stopped on the sidewalk and pointed across the street.
“Hey Jim, what’s that in front of your house?”

  “It looks like your stolen car,” said Satchel.

  “It is my stolen car.”

  “They must have dumped it in front of your place.”

  “What are the odds?” said Wilma. “This must be your lucky day!”

  They walked up the driveway and went inside, and Jim immediately called the police for insurance documentation.

  “I want to report a stolen car…Yes, my wife called earlier in the week…No, that was a different stolen car…This one’s my car…It’s at my house right now…No, it was stolen somewhere else and brought here…I know it usually works the other way…”

  Martha made coffee and opened a bag of Keeblers. Wilma, Orville and Satchel told and retold the evening’s adventure as if it were the best thing that had ever happened to them. Then they called cabs.

  Orville was watching for his taxi when he noticed something going on out the front window.

  “Hey Jim, what’s that guy doing out there?”

  “Where?” said Jim.

  Orville pointed out the window, and Jim came over and watched a police tow truck drive off with the Suburban.

  JIM LAY IN bed on his stomach. Martha gave him a back massage.

  “Don’t get too down on yourself,” she said. “You’ve had a pretty rough day.”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I saw tonight. I may never be able to sleep again knowing what’s going on out there after we go to bed.”

  “You need some TV. Always helps me sleep.” Martha grabbed the remote from the nightstand and clicked on the set atop the dresser.

  A studio audience applauded as a knockoff Regis and Kathy Lee hawked kitchen gadgets. A toll-free number crawled across the bottom of the screen.

  “Unbelievable,” said Jim. “People actually buy this stuff?”

  “See? It’s already taking your mind off it.”

  “I can’t believe people are actually sitting in that audience.”

  “It’s an infomercial,” said Martha, kneading Jim’s shoulders.

  “I didn’t even know this was going on.”

  “That’s because you’re never up at this hour.”

  “What normal person is?”

  ACROSS THE STREET, Serge and Sharon were in their bedroom breaking lamps, throwing ashtrays, pulling knives and otherwise making love. Serge wrestled Sharon onto her back, her head pointed toward the foot of the bed. She struggled, but he restrained her without mercy, then penetrated. Again and again. Then he grabbed the remote and clicked on the TV set atop the dresser to watch a little tube during the dull parts.

  “Harder! Harder! Harder!” Sharon yelled. “Faster! Faster! Faster!”

  Her long, exquisite legs shot straight up in the air, and Serge grabbed her ankles and pushed all the way back, pinning them next to her ears.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes! Fuck me! Fuck me! Fuck me harder! I’m an animal! Fuck the dirty animal!”

  Serge thrust harder and changed channels until he found an infomercial. “Hey, that’s that couple selling all those stupid kitchen gadgets. I bet half that stuff doesn’t even work.”

  “Hurt me! Hurt me, you bad man!”

  “What an incredible part of our culture,” said Serge, maintaining rhythm. “Look at that studio audience. You want to know why the government is so awful? It’s because these jelly-heads can vote.”

  “Oh God! Where’s your flashlight? Put your flashlight in my butt!”

  “I can’t. Coleman dropped the fucking thing at a burglary. I told him it had sentimental value.”

  “Don’t stop! Don’t stop! Oh God, don’t stop!”

  “But where do they find the people to fill the studio audience? That’s the part that baffles me. What kind of horrible sadness and broken lives do they come from that this travesty is an improvement?”

  “I’m coming! I’m coming! Oh God, I’m coming!”

  “They’re just looking for approval. That’s what it is. They need love, even it’s fake and they have to buy a Cuisinart to get it. That’s how badly damaged the family unit is in this country.”

  “I’m coming! Here it is!…Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi! Yi!…”

  “Still, someone has to be calling in and buying this stuff, or they wouldn’t keep purchasing these time slots. But who is their audience? Who is up at this ungodly hour buying this ridiculous shit?”

  On the other side of the wall, Coleman was watching television with a beer in one hand and a phone in the other.

  “Yes, I’d like to order the electric pepper mill.”

  31

  YELLOW CRIME TAPE fluttered in a stairwell off Busch Boulevard. A sergeant from the Tampa Police Department was stationed in one of the upstairs units, guarding the crime scene. On the carpet was the chalk outline where a man in a silk Japanese robe had landed. The sergeant sat on the couch watching TV, squinting with his head cocked sideways, trying to make out a nipple on a scrambled channel. He lit the stub of a cigar and stuck the lighter in his pocket. There was a knock at the open door.

  The sergeant looked up and saw a middle-aged man in rumpled slacks, pink shirt and tweed sports coat. He wore a fedora at a bygone angle. His black tie had hula dancers.

  The man stepped inside and flashed a gold badge. “Agent Mahoney. Florida Department of Law Enforcement.”

  The sergeant stood up and turned off the TV. “No, I’m Sergeant Drysdale. I don’t know any Agent Mahoney.”

  “No, I’m Mahoney.”

  “You should have said so.”

  Mahoney glared at the sergeant. “Obtuse bastard.”

  “Ambiguous son of a bitch.”

  “Let’s start over,” said Mahoney.

  “Fine with me.”

  “What have we got here?”

  “Neighbors got suspicious because of the naked woman bleeding and crying in the parking lot. Uniformed officers canvassed the place, found a man in a Kabuki robe shot to death in a crack den across the street from a theme park.”

  Mahoney shook his head ruefully. “If I had a nickel every time I heard that…”

  “…You’d have a lot of nickels.”

  “World’s changing,” said Mahoney. “I can remember when you could leave your front door unlocked.”

  “I can remember when the juvenile delinquents were the kids who toilet-papered the principal’s house,” said the sergeant.

  “I can remember when convenience stores closed at eleven,” said Mahoney. “Everyone was in bed at a decent hour.”

  “I can remember when you could walk the streets safe at night and not have to worry about being approached by an undercover cop posing as a hooker, and you feel sorry for her and give her cab money and then have to spend the next six months explaining it to internal affairs.”

  “It was a simpler time.”

  “Cab money was cab money. Nobody questioned it.”

  “You can’t live in the past.”

  “You can’t look back.”

  “You can’t go home again.”

  “You can’t tell me that girl looked fifteen in that dark theater.”

  Mahoney gestured toward the chalk outline. “What do your years on the street tell you?”

  “The work of a joker. Some wise guy. A regular comedian. Thought he was real cute. Must have talked his way in because there were no signs of forced entry.”

  “Sounds like a smooth operator.”

  “Ice in his veins.”

  “A cool customer.”

  The sergeant pointed at the blood on the ceiling. “Then something went wrong. He got buggy and spooked.”

  “Then he went squirrelly.”

  “And wigged out,” said the sergeant. “So he pulled his piece.”

  “You mean his rod?”

  “No, his heater.”

  Mahoney looked down at the coffee table. There was an empty evidence baggie, lighter written in black grease pencil. Mahoney pointed at it. “Is that the lighter I got the fax about? That’s th
e reason I’m here.”

  “What?” said the sergeant, then noticed the bag was empty. “Oh, sorry. Must have used it to light my cigar.” The sergeant stretched out his leg to reach in a pocket and retrieve the lighter. “Here you go.”

  Mahoney put on a latex glove and accepted the lighter gingerly. “They didn’t get up to the part about fingerprints at the academy before you graduated, right?”

  “I already said I was sorry.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I know whose this is.”

  “Really? How?”

  “Orange Bowl. 1969. Super Bowl Three. I’ve seen this lighter before. I’ll never forget it.”

  Mahoney picked up the evidence bag from the coffee table, dangled the lighter over it like a spider and dropped it in. He sealed the Ziploc and handed it to the sergeant.

  “I’d like to get this processed for prints anyway, just in case you missed a spot.”

  “Sure thing,” said the sergeant. “The lab boys are really backed up, but one of them owes me a favor. I’ll call in some chits.”

  “One hand washes the other.”

  “Then we scratch each other’s backs.”

  Mahoney headed for the door.

  “Just one more question,” said the sergeant.

  Mahoney turned around. “What’s that?”

  “You stop someone for speeding and they just start unbuttoning their blouse. Now how is that my fault?”

  32

  JIM AND MARTHA ate instant waffles on the front porch of their bungalow.

  “Morning!” Gladys walked up the steps with a straw basket of blackberry turnovers. “Tell me if these are any good.”

  The Davenports each took one.

  Gladys looked around. “Where’s your new car?”

  “Stolen on the crime watch,” said Jim.

  Gladys took a seat on the swing. “I was on the crime watch once. Gave me a completely new perspective on the neighborhood.”

  “That’s what I was telling Martha. It’s like a human coral reef—at night an entirely different set of critters comes out.”

  “It can’t be that bad,” said Martha.

  “You kidding?” said Gladys. “Do yourself a favor. Some weekend at three A.M., go to one of the twenty-four-hour supermarkets. It’s like a zombie movie.”