Dedication
For Clark and Deedra Mullennix
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Episode 1
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Episode 2
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Episode 3
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Episode 4
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Epilogue
About the Author
Also by Tim Dorsey
Copyright
About the Publisher
Prologue
Another Typical Day in Paradise
A large, clear plastic ball rolled across the Atlantic Ocean off Miami Beach.
It approached a yacht. A hatch on the side of the ball opened. A head popped out. “Which way to Bermuda?” Three deep-sea sports fishermen pointed. “Thank you.” The hatch closed. The ball resumed rolling.
Back ashore, a whiskered man dove onto the sidewalk next to U.S. Highway 1, capturing another iguana under his T-shirt. The reptile was hog-tied with rubber bands and hung from the handlebars of a Schwinn bicycle, joining five other similarly dangling reptiles all wondering how life had come to this.
High above the road, workers on a scaffold updated the jackpot on a billboard for the Florida lottery. Motorists stopped texting to slam their brakes as a Marilyn Monroe drag queen ran into the street, chased through traffic by a JFK impersonator. There were fistfights, fender benders, free clinics, firecrackers that people thought were gunfire, and gunfire that people thought was firecrackers.
A man with no known address was thrown out of a Chinese restaurant after trying to sell iguanas to the kitchen staff during the lunch buffet special. He was soon arrested in the parking lot but escaped during an increasingly bitter jurisdictional feud between Animal Control and the health department. A bullet-riddled body lay unnoticed behind a Dumpster as a nearby SWAT team surrounded a group of small boys lighting fireworks.
The sun climbed toward noon. Heat waves rose from the pavement. People slowed down. A bicycle rolled quietly past Caribbean trawlers docked along the banks of the Miami River. Six swaying iguanas looked up from the handlebars at a dilapidated office building and an unimpressed man in a fedora staring back at them from a second-story window.
The man in the window removed the hat and wiped his brow as the cyclist pedaled out of sight. Then he returned to his chair and the conversation with himself: “The name’s Mahoney, and if I had a dime for every shanghaied lizard on this river, I could buy the B&O Railroad and not have to pass Go. But they don’t pay for that kind of information in these parts, and until they do, I use up oxygen with my feet propped on a desk that has coffee stains older than all the cops in this town, and most of the hookers. The chipped gold letters on the window of my office door say I’m a ‘private investigator,’ but from this side of the glass, I’m a ‘rotagitsevni etavirp.’ Been called worse. As long as the money’s green, except that’s not a popular shade in this economy. Is business slow? My bartender stopped letting me hock cuff links for Cutty Sark, the bookies treat me like an IRS agent at a dice game, and the client chair on the other side of my desk has been empty so long it’s starting to have that new-car smell. Guess it’s just that time of year again in Miami. Summer, that is, when the road tar outside is hotter than a stolen pinkie ring at a mob wedding. Most people can’t take this heat . . .”
Rapid footsteps came pounding up the hallway. The door flew open. A Marilyn Monroe drag queen burst in and locked the door behind her. “I can’t live like this anymore! You have to help me!”
Mahoney replaced the fedora on his head. “Then again, some like it hot.”
It remained quiet and still outside a private detective’s office on the Miami River. Suddenly, from high in the sky, the thunderous whapping of a Coast Guard helicopter that had just rescued someone drifting out to sea in a human-sized hamster ball. It continued north toward its air station in Opa-locka, flying over the horse track and a desolate, industrial stretch of Hialeah.
Down below sat a small, squat concrete pillbox of a building. Used to be the office of a high-mileage used-car lot. Now a lawyer’s shingle hung over the door. Inside, two people sat on opposite sides of a desk. One wore a tailored French suit. The other, shorts, flip-flops, T-shirt. They stared at the ceiling, waited for the helicopter racket to fade. Then:
“Okay, I got you off on a technicality this time, but you need to be more careful.”
The client didn’t speak.
“I can’t legally tell you to break the law,” continued the attorney, kicking off his flip-flops. “But hypothetically, if someone absolutely had to transport weed for personal use, they should get a rental car and pull the most tightly packed buds from their stash. Now this is the most important part: no baggie. That’s where they get fingerprints. And since you can’t get prints off individual buds, just stick them here and there in various spots in the trunk. Even if the cops find your stuff, what can they do? Arrest you because the rental company didn’t thoroughly vacuum after the previous customer?”
The man in the French suit slowly began to nod with understanding. “Cool.” He stood up, revealing the extent of an athletic frame that made him one of the most popular players for the Miami . He pulled a platinum money clip from his pocket and peeled off C-notes.
“But you already paid me.”
“This is a tip.” He formed a wad just north of two G’s and passed the currency across the desk, then gave the lawyer an interlocking-thumb, freak-power handshake.
The player left. His lawyer remained behind the desk, counting the cash and sticking it in a bottom drawer before lighting an incense stick. Ziggy. Ziggy Blade, attorney to the . . . well, it was different every day, about to become even more so. The entire office was one room, divided in half by a curtain of hanging beads. The walls were covered with taped-up posters: the Constitution, Vietnam napalm plumes, Frank Zappa in concert.
Ziggy had just fired up a joint when the front door opened. He quickly stubbed it out, swatting the incriminating smoke away from his face as the beads parted and someone walked in. Then someone else. And another. And another. So on, until there was no breathing room. Serious mouths, briefcases, guns, dreadlocks.
Ziggy sat with wide, stoned eyes. His T-shirt said: Everyone Remain Calm. Let the P.E. Teacher Handle It. The leader of the group gave a slight nod, which was all the communication needed for the others to set their briefcases on the desk and open them in succession.