“You don’t mean . . .”
“That’s right.” Serge nodded again. “We’re taking sign-spinning big!”
Fifteen minutes later, Serge and Coleman stood in front of a narrow storefront with extra burglar bars and reinforced concrete pylons to prevent smash-and-grabs using stolen vehicles to ram the entrance. A cardboard sign lay at their feet: We Buy Gold.
“It finally stopped raining,” said Serge.
“The streets are flooded again.”
“Doesn’t affect your big debut.” Serge grabbed a plastic atomizer bottle. “Now hold out the left arm again.”
Coleman reluctantly complied. “I don’t know about this. What if something goes wrong?”
“I’m a professional. What can possibly go wrong? . . . Now stick out your right leg . . .”
“There’s got to be another way.”
“Trust me,” said Serge. “We’re about to turn the sign-spinning world on its head!”
“Then why don’t you wear the wet suit?”
“Stop whining! You’re about to become an Internet rock star!” Serge reached in his pocket. “If anything, I’m the one making the sacrifice . . . Stay still. The only thing you have to remember is not to panic . . .”
Thirty seconds later, Coleman ran shrieking in terrified circles in the parking lot.
“You’re panicking,” yelled Serge.
Motorists on U.S. 1 slammed their brakes and dialed emergency numbers, watching in disbelief as a person fully engulfed in flames ran around a parking lot with a burning cardboard sign.
“Look at all the attention you’re getting!” said Serge.
Coleman sprinted by. “I’m all on fire!”
“I told you I used low-burn-temperature cooking alcohol,” said Serge. “It’s just a little bit of fire.”
Coleman dashed back the other way. “Aaaaauuuuuhhhhhh!”
“Shit, he’s running into traffic.” Serge grabbed an extinguisher. “Coleman, stop moving so I can put you out.”
Cars jumped curbs and rear-ended each other as Serge chased his friend around the street with blasts of foam.
Coleman eventually stopped in the intersection, removed his mask and looked at the steam coming off his arms. “Am I out?”
“Except for that foot. Stick it in that puddle on the edge of the street.”
Sizzle.
Serge gave the smoldering black suit a final blast of foam. “There, good as new. Now don’t you feel silly?”
“Holy turds,” said Coleman. “Look at all the people pulling into our strip mall to sell their gold.”
A horrible squealing of tires. Crash.
A horn continuously blared from the wrecked car.
“Uh-oh,” said Serge. “That guy just had an accident, and of course he’s probably going to try and blame us.”
“Some people,” said Coleman.
“We better go help . . .” Serge ran up to the side of the convertible. “Sir, are you okay?”
The woozy driver raised his head off the steering wheel. “What happened?”
“You smashed up your car because you weren’t paying attention.”
Coleman pulled off charred rubber gloves. “Nothing we did.”
A mother with two small children ran over. Serge looked them up and down. “What happened to you?”
“That jerk drenched us! He deliberately swung over from the center lane to hit a deep puddle while we were waiting in the bus shelter. I just bought this phone!”
Serge turned back to the car. “Wait a second . . .” He took a step back to appraise the color and model-year of the Porsche. Then walked around back to check the license plate.
Scrw U.
“Sir.” Serge opened the driver’s door. “On second thought, you need to come with us.”
“Why?”
“As a safety precaution, you should be held for observation.”
Just Up the Street
The stitching above the pocket on the oily shirt said Jeremy. The auto mechanic looked down into the glass case. “I’ll take the Big Bucks scratch-off, Money Bags, Huge Loot, the Price Is Right, a Lotto quick-pick, a pack of Winstons and the beer.”
The convenience-store clerk rang him up while arguing with his girlfriend on the phone.
“Oh, and can you check if this one’s a winner?”
The clerk scanned an old ticket and handed the mechanic a crumpled five-dollar bill. The next customer stepped up. “Let me have a Ruby Riches, King’s Gold, Bejeweled Diamonds . . .”
Outside in the surveillance van, the supervising agent leaned over a shoulder at a computer screen. “So this one store is responsible for how many, now?”
The tech pressed buttons. “Twelve different straw buyers have each won at least fifty times in the last year, all over five hundred a throw. But that’s a tough prosecution with complicit customers, so we have to nab them ripping off the unsuspecting ones.”
The undercover agent in a mechanic’s shirt climbed into the van. “Only gave me five dollars.”
“We saw it on your pinhole camera.”
“What’s the status?”
“Still waiting— . . . Hold on.” The computer tech watched the numbers change in a live feed from the lottery’s main computers in Tallahassee. “That’s it! He just cashed it in for five hundred!”
The supervising agent grabbed the radio. “All units, go! Repeat, go!”
A half-dozen vans whipped around the corner. Side doors flew open. Agents in black vests hit the ground running.
“Everyone out of the store! . . . You! Away from the counter! . . .”
The clerk was arrested, and the lottery machines unplugged. But neither was moved yet because the officers were waiting for the TV stations they had called. When the satellite trucks arrived and all the cameras were in place, out came the handcuffed employee and the hand truck with the lottery machine. On top of the machine, strategically positioned for the benefit of the home audience: glistening rolls of scratch-off tickets from the glass case. The idea was to increase sales that night.
“This is Reevis Tome reporting live for Florida Cable News in Fort Lauderdale, where an independent convenience store has just been raided by state lottery officials after an undercover agent caught a clerk red-handed . . .”
“Dundee,” said Brisbane. “Zoom in on those shiny rolls.”
“. . . Meanwhile, simultaneous raids occurred today at sixteen other outlets across Broward and Miami-Dade counties in a coordinated sting operation dubbed ‘Millionaire Cash Frenzy’ after the latest instant game being heavily promoted . . .”
By the end of the evening, all the hubbub had died down, the clerk made bail, and the good people of the community were dozing off to the late news that concluded with a piece about a Miami revitalization committee seeking funds to clean up the city, and submitted a downtown map with icons documenting where people had pooped in unauthorized locations. Completely true.
The clerk who had just gotten out of jail returned to the convenience store for double duty on the late shift, because the owner was pissed. Business fell to a trickle since the store no longer had lottery tickets and people took their beer and cigarette money elsewhere. Just after midnight, a white Jaguar pulled up outside. A tall man with dreadlocks entered and looked down into the empty glass case. His right hand rested on the counter, fingers tapping in rhythm. The back of the hand had a tattoo of a flaming skull that said Mother. He didn’t speak, and the employee didn’t care because he was on the phone. Finally, the clerk covered up his cell.
“Can I help you with something?”
“Where are the scratch-off tickets?”
“We don’t sell them anymore.”