Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (4 page)

“It won’t light!”

“It’s not crack!”

“It’s the lighter. I need a better one!”

“Stop it! You’re flipping me out! I thought I was coming down, but I’m not! I think I OD’d or something.”

Sharon ran in the bedroom and came out with a little propane torch she had bought at a head shop. “Let’s free-base it!”

She tried to get the torch going but her hands were sweaty and shaking. “Give me a hand with this thing! I think it’s defective!”

“Then will you leave me alone?”

“C’mon!”

Coleman swiped the torch away from her. “We need better light.” They went to the window to operate in the glow of the yellow crime lamps outside.

“I don’t think you punctured the top of the propane canister. That’s why nothing’s coming out,” said Coleman. He screwed the valve down hard on the disposable pressurized tank, and the entire odorless contents silently seeped out.

“There. That should do it.” He flicked the lighter.

The fireball knocked Coleman and Sharon to the ground, and the curtains went up like gasoline-soaked toilet paper. The flames lapped at the parched ceiling boards.

“Far-fucking-out,” said Sharon.

“This night just doesn’t quit,” said Coleman.

A minute later, fire-engine sirens.

“Cops!” Sharon yelled. They ran out the back door.

The all-wood house was gone in minutes. Then the fire started jumping roof to roof down the tight row of nineteenth-century cottages. All the firefighters could do
was try to contain it. But there was a stiff wind, and embers blew to the next street, and the next. In less than an hour, three blocks were fully involved, sending flames fifty feet into the night, which drew reporters and rubberneckers on Interstate 4. The fire made it to a construction site, where a fuel tank blew on a forklift-crane, which would later get blamed for the blaze.

Coleman and Sharon regrouped behind the fire trucks. She looked at her watch and tugged on Coleman’s shirt. “We can still get some more.”

A
TALL
,
DASHING MAN
in a tuxedo sat at a poker table, discreetly peeling up corners of cards as they were dealt. He placed the cards facedown, sat back in his chair and stared across the table at his rival. In his jacket pocket was a long-empty prescription bottle.

A crowd had gathered around the table at the Seminole Bingo Palace just east of Tampa, marked by a water tower with a red arrow through it. The man in the tux calmly pushed a pile of chips to the center of the table. The crowd gasped at the boldness of the wager. They swung their gaze to his nemesis, a four-hundred-pound woman with a gray beehive smoking long brown cigarettes and petting a dachshund on her lap. All the other players had been vanquished or suffered loss of nerve as the stakes climbed. The woman straightened her rainbow pile of winnings, protected by a carefully placed perimeter of lucky stuffed animals. She made an opening between the felt monkey and octopus and pushed through a stack of chips to see his bet.

The crowd gasped again and looked back at the man in the tux. He didn’t flinch. He snapped his fingers and a waiter came over with a tray. The bingo palace didn’t have a liquor license, so the man in the tux lifted a carton of chocolate milk off the tray. He knew poker wasn’t a game of bluffing;
it was a game of intimidation. He dramatically sipped chocolate milk and squinted at the woman. He heard a voice inside his head: “I am become Death, Destroyer of Worlds.” He took another sip of chocolate milk.

The woman turned her cards over. “Full house.”

The man shook his head with disappointment. “All I have is two pairs…”

She smiled smugly and reached for the chips.

He turned his cards over. “Two pairs of aces!”

“Bastard!” She pulled her hands back and scowled and stroked the dachshund.

The man gathered up his chips, filled his tuxedo pockets and headed for the winner’s window.

“Hey, stranger,” the woman called out. “Who are you, anyway?”

The man in the tux turned. “Storms. Serge Storms.”

Serge left the bingo hall and climbed in his Barracuda. Halfway home he heard a siren; a fire engine sped past. Then he saw the glow on the horizon.

“What the heck’s burning? Must be big if I can see it this far away.”

By the time Serge parked the Barracuda behind the fire trucks, he was numb. He stared at the flames with an open mouth and slowly walked up to Coleman and Sharon in the back of the crowd, then collapsed to the ground in anguish. “My house! My archives! The historic district!”

“Some careless idiot, no doubt,” said Coleman.

“Where are we going to live?” said Serge. “We’re homeless!”

Coleman walked over to the Impala, braced his right foot against the front bumper and yanked the
FOR RENT
sign from the grille. He walked back and handed the sign to
Serge. “I think this place is available. Nice neighborhood. Very quiet. I just drove through it tonight.”

MARTHA DAVENPORT SAT
up in bed and shook Jim. He rolled over. “What is it?”

“Listen to all those sirens.”

Martha got out of bed and parted the curtains. “There’s some kind of big fire on the other side of town.”

“You can see flames?”

“No, but there’s a glow on the horizon.”

“You sure it’s not a sporting event?”

“At this hour?”

“What time is it anyway?” asked Jim. He grabbed his glasses off the nightstand and checked his watch. “It’s almost four o’clock.”

“Four o’clock?” said Martha. “I can’t miss this!”

Jim sat up as Martha padded across the wood floor to the window on the other side of the room and peeked through the curtains.

“What’s going on?”

“Remember what Gladys said? Jack Terrier comes out at four
A
.
M
. to water his lawn in a commando outfit.”

“Honey, please get away from the window. You’re acting like a nut.”

“We never get out…There he is! There he is!”

Jim joined Martha at the window. Across the street, a tall figure stood in a camouflaged jumpsuit and black ski mask, holding a garden hose. But the hose wasn’t running. Jack Terrier wasn’t moving.

“What’s he doing?” asked Martha.

“Holy cow!” said Jim. “Look at the lawn! Look at
all
the lawns!”

“What happened?”

“Someone must have wiped out in a car. See? Over at 907? There’s where he jumped the curb. And over there—pieces of the kiddie pool. That’s where he really lost control. The doughnuts start and loop all the way across Terrier’s yard and into the flower bed next door. Then it looks like he T-boned into a hedge before driving away.”

There was a horrific scream. Terrier fell to his knees crying, then went over facedown in the fresh topsoil.

“What a boob,” said Martha.

“You can’t help but feel for him.”

“How can you say that after the way he treated you today?”

“I know, but still…”

“What’s he doing now?”

“He’s turning the water on and running around spraying everything.”

“That’s not going to do any good,” said Martha. “The yard’s shot. He should know that.”

“I think he’s going into shock,” said Jim.

The street suddenly lit up. High beams pierced the darkness from both ends of Triggerfish as eight police cars and vans converged on the middle of the block. A helicopter swooped in with a search beam. The spotlight hit Terrier, who dropped the hose and ran in the house.

“All this over illegal lawn watering?” said Martha.

The helicopter spotlight then swung to the house next door. Car doors slammed. Officers drew guns and shielded themselves behind patrol cars. People yelled into megaphones.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be so close to the window,” said Jim.

More spotlights came on from the squad cars, triangulating
their target, Old Man Ortega’s place. A half-track arrived with federal and military agents. Then everybody sat and waited in suspense. A half hour passed. More headlights appeared at the end of the street. The agents turned with their guns. “Hold your fire!” Delivery trucks from Backgammon Pizza and Pizza Shack raced up the street, weaving between the officers and the Ortega house and pulling up in front of 837 Triggerfish, where college students were watching the drama unfold from lawn chairs.

The standoff resumed. A small bomb-squad robot on a remote-controlled dolly rolled up to the front door. It had cost the city three hundred thousand dollars and had a two-inch forged outer casing that could handle armor-piercing projectiles, extreme heat and radiation bombardment. The house’s front door opened, and a small Spanish man in his underwear cursed and kicked the robot over and slammed the door shut. The robot’s wheels spun in the air. They went to Plan B. Tear gas and battering rams. Old Man Ortega was dragged screaming from the house.

A
LIGHT SPRINKLE FELL
on south Tampa the next afternoon, which meant all the streets flooded. The storm-sewer system wouldn’t work, but the city budget was strained and the money was needed to expand the mayor’s office and build another football stadium.

The water was knee deep on the west end of the pre-owned yard at Tampa Bay Motors. Salesmen used canoes until the parking lot fell below flood stage. Then they switched to golf carts and rode out to inspect the damage. Most of the cars wouldn’t start, carpets squished.

The top salesman at Tampa Bay Motors, Rocco Silvertone, opened the driver’s door of a white Suburban. Twenty gallons of water and three fish spilled out.

JIM DAVENPORT LOVED
his Martha dearly, and he always wanted to do something big for her, show her how special she was. Martha had been talking about getting a Suburban for over a year—it was her dream vehicle. But there had never been the money.

All that had changed with the promotion to Florida. Jim decided it was time. It would be a surprise.

Jim drove out to Tampa Bay Motors, the largest used-car
dealership on Florida’s west coast, a sprawling eighty acres on drained wetlands near the airport. Tampa Bay Motors sold everything from Yugos to BMWs and even the occasional Rolls. Everybody knew about Tampa Bay Motors. They were all over TV, ran big newspaper spreads and held a grand reopening the second Saturday of every month.

Jim saw the dealership ten blocks away. It seemed to go on forever, a sea of car roofs all the way to the bay. He figured white must have been a big color in recent model years.

Jim pulled into the lot, and a salesman zipped up in a golf cart. He greeted Jim with the warmth of twins separated at birth, shaking Jim’s hand with both of his.

“Rocco Silvertone,” said the salesman.

“Jim Davenport,” said Jim.

“What can I do you for today?”

Jim told him.

Rocco slapped Jim on the back. “Let’s take a ride.” They got in the golf cart. Rocco wanted Jim to know he was his best friend. He tried to feel out whether Jim went to church regularly or liked to talk pussy. He drove with one hand and showed Jim pictures in his wallet of someone else’s children.

They pulled up to a row of low-mileage Suburbans, and Jim picked out a white four-by-four with gold trim.

Rocco got the keys from the lock box and dangled them in front of Jim. “Shall we?”

They headed up Dale Mabry Highway, Rocco riding shotgun. Jim knew Rocco was riding shotgun because Rocco yelled
“Shotgun!”
as he got in the car. Jim liked the way the Suburban handled. He made a right at the first light and the windshield wipers went on.

“Did I do that?” said Jim.

“Must have hit it by accident.” Rocco reached over for
the wiper control, but it wouldn’t turn off. He jiggled it a few times, and the wipers stopped.

“Is that a problem?” asked Jim.

“Absolutely not,” said Rocco.

“It looked like it was a problem. An electrical short or something.”

“That because it’s so advanced. It’s all controlled by computers”—Rocco pointed up—“and satellites. It’s very, very modern.” Rocco nodded and smiled.

Jim drove some more. He liked the Suburban. In fact, he liked it a lot. They stopped at another light and Jim turned to Rocco. “Say…”

Rocco had the glove compartment open and was working on something that was sparking and smoking. He popped the cover off the fuse panel and burned himself.

“Ouch!”

“What’s the matter?” asked Jim.

“Nothing.”

“I saw sparks. And smoke.”

“That’s the warning system,” said Rocco. “Added safety.”

“It looked like we were about to have a fire.”

“That’s how it’s supposed to look.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“Remember the Pinto?”

“Yeah?”

“They never looked like they were about to have a fire.”

“So?”

“So then they’d suddenly burst into flames,” said Rocco. “If you have a family, believe me you want this feature.”

The wipers started again.

Rocco reached and jiggled the lever, and they stopped.

“I had a friend who owned a car like this,” said Jim. “It was in a flood.”

“Flood?” said Rocco, laughing heartily. “This is Florida. It’s flat. And we’re right on the bay; it all drains off. It’s impossible to have a flood here.”

“I don’t know…”

“Don’t worry. Rocco’s got you covered. Everything’s guaranteed. Bumper-to-bumper, five years or fifty thousand miles…”

Jim rode back to the showroom in the golf cart. He still wasn’t sure. But he knew how much Martha wanted it. He turned to Rocco.

“Okay, how much?”

“How much do you want to pay a month?”

“I don’t go by that,” said Jim. “I want to know the total price.”

“Oh, we can get you the total price.”

“Good.”

They smiled at each other. A pause.

“So?” said Jim.

“So how much do you want to pay a month?”

MARTHA WAS ON
the porch swing with Nicole when a Suburban pulled into the driveway.

At first she thought it was someone lost, just turning around. Then Jim got out.

Martha couldn’t stop bouncing as she test-drove around the block eight times. She returned to the driveway and gave Jim another big hug.

“It’s great…” said Martha.

“But?”

“Well, I don’t want to sound ungrateful, but I kept getting false warning lights.”

“I noticed that,” said Jim. “The windshield wipers activated
twice on the test drive and again on the way home. But

that’s okay, we’ve got a guarantee.”

“I just want to be safe driving the kids.”

“You’re absolutely right,” said Jim. “I’ll take it back and have them look at it.”

Then Martha went back to gushing. She was still at it when Gladys came over with a bottle of cabernet and a covered basket of panini.

“You got a new car!”

“A new used car,” said Jim.

“Same difference,” said Gladys. She ran over to it. Other neighbors arrived, and they slowly circled the vehicle like a crashed UFO. Then they got bored and left. Gladys went up on the porch with Jim and Martha.

“You made a great choice,” she said. “I saw a head-on between a Suburban and a Fiesta. The Suburban drove away. They hosed the people out of the Fiesta.”