The two women bellied up to the bar exuding sexual energy. The bartender immediately attached to his glass wiping the importance of a decathlete rosining up his vaulting pole. The women pointed at the daiquiri mixer. “We want two of those,” City said in her British accent. The bartender poured strawberry slush with aplomb.
The pair took seats next to Lenny and smiled.
Lenny smiled back.
“What’s that about?” asked Serge.
“I’m in love.”
Serge asked the bartender to turn on the TV. Business began to pick up.
A Japanese man walked in with a surfboard. Serge raised his water in toast: “Tora! Tora! Tora!”
The man gave Serge a thumbs-up and smiled. “Yankee go home, shit-eater!” He took the stool next to Serge, and Serge patted him on the back and bought him a beer.
“I see you’ve been teaching him,” said Lenny.
“Someone has to build the bridge,” said Serge.
A Haitian man ran up to the bartender and talked fast in French, gesturing desperately. Captain Bradley Xeno came in seconds later. “There you are!” He threw the bartender a ten, grabbed the Haitian by the collar and dragged him off.
At a nearby table, a short, squat man was trying to sell letters of transit to a vacationing couple. “Signed by de Gaulle. Cannot be rescinded.”
Serge wiped perspiration and gazed out the window and saw an armored van backed up to room five. Two men in dark suits and dark sunglasses jumped out the front of the vehicle with riot guns. Two more jumped out the back. The door of room five flew open and four more armed men in suits rushed a Mafia underboss with a beach towel over his head into the back of the vehicle, and it sped off for the next stop in the witness protection program.
As the van pulled out, a white limo pulled in. On the door were the five multicolored interlocking rings of the modern Olympics. Tampa Bay had placed a bid for the 2012 Summer Olympic games, and, although the Olympic Committee had no intention of awarding the games to Tampa Bay, they had an obligation out of fairness to show up and examine for themselves the level of local graft. Seven men of assorted ancestry got out of the limo and walked toward The Florida Room, followed by Sherpas carrying steamer trunks plastered with travel stickers. “I love Euro-Disney,” “I climbed the Matterhorn,” “ Hiroshima is for Lovers!”
The International Olympic Committee wandered around the bar with confident smiles and expectant eyes, looking everyone in the face, wondering which stranger was the preordained one who would whisk them off to unimaginable wealth and human titillations.
“Hey, pencil-dicks! Down in front!”
The Olympic Committee noticed they were blocking the wide-screen TV, which was on Florida Cable News. Mug shots of City and Country were on the screen, but by the time the Olympic Committee got out of the way, FCN was into the Celebrity Rehab Spotlight portion of the broadcast.
W hen Jethro Maddox and Art Tweed first arrived in Tampa Bay, they got gas and Sweet Tarts at a Rapid Response convenience store. Art went inside to ask around the Proposition 213 rally. The clerk gestured to the end of the counter-a stack of bumper stickers and pamphlets with Boris’s smiling face and an old car horn. On the back of the pamphlet was a map with directions to Beverly Shores. Art folded one and stuck it in his back pocket.
“You have been a noble and proud travel companion,” Jethro said back at the gas pumps, “but we shall sadly depart, for I must once again rejoin my own kind.”
“What?”
“I need to drop you ’cause I gotta meet the Look-Alikes for our gig… Anyplace you want me to take you?”
Art looked up and saw a billboard and pointed. “Take me there.”
Three miles down the road, they shook hands again and Jethro dropped Art at Crazy Charlie’s Gun Store. (“Our assault rifle prices are so low because we’re absolutely insane!”) Art went inside and quickly picked out a Colt Python.357, nickel, six-inch barrel.
“That’s a beaut!” said the clerk, running Art’s credit card. “You can pick it up Thursday.”
Art looked bewildered.
“It’s the law. Three-day cooling-off period.”
Art leaned forward. “No, no, no! I don’t want to cool off! Cooling off is bad! It’ll ruin everything!”
“You’re preachin’ to the choir,” said the clerk. “Tell it to our commie government.”
“Isn’t there anything you can do?”
“Well, if I was a private collector selling one of my own guns-instead of a licensed dealer-there’d be no waiting period.”
The clerk then looked around the store suspiciously. He took off his baseball cap embroidered with “Crazy Charlie’s” and replaced it with one embroidered “Private Collector.” He picked up the gun Art had selected and stuck it inside his jacket. He looked around again and then cocked his head toward the back door. “Let’s take a walk.”
They ended up behind the clerk’s car parked in the alley. He handed Art the gun, and Art felt the weight, liked the balance. But he shook his head and handed it back. “I only have credit cards.”
The clerk opened his trunk and took out a magnetic credit-card swiper and plugged it into a cell phone.
“That’ll be six hundred.”
“But it was only five hundred in the store!”
“I’m a private collector! I can’t compete with those prices!”
Art sighed and he forked over his Visa. Then he caught a cab for Beverly Shores. They were just about done building the stage. Art cased the place. He asked someone what time Boris the Hateful Piece of Shit was supposed to arrive. The nearest accommodation was the Hammerhead Ranch Motel next door. Not exactly the luxury digs he had intended, but this was business.
He checked in with a Diners Club, tuned a radio to Boris the Hateful Piece of Shit and began cleaning the Colt.
25
The next morning Serge cut across the grass to the sidewalk in front of room one and turned the knob. Before he had the door open, he smelled strawberry incense; Buffalo Springfield was on the radio. Inside, the beds were pushed against the walls to create a large expanse of carpet. Everyone was sitting cross-legged on the floor. City held her breath and passed the alligator bong to Lenny, who did a double-clutch toke and passed it to Country, who then passed it around a circle of eight guys that Serge didn’t recognize. They represented all races and creeds. There were coats on the beds: kabuki robe, Nehru jacket, dashiki. On top was a turban.
“What the hell’s this?” said Serge. “Get High for UNICEF?”
“It’s the International Olympic Committee,” said Lenny. “They’re here scouting for 2012. I wanted to do my part to bring the games here.”
The men looked up and smiled at Serge and ate potato chips and salted almonds and passed the Lucite alligator.
Serge shook off the scene, then held up a videocassette with satisfaction. “I found The Cocoanuts, the first Marx Brothers movie. It’s about the Florida land boom back in the twenties. Groucho plays a Miami innkeeper who tries to rip everyone off.” He nodded toward the delegates. “We-Are-the-World can stay, but only if they obey the theater rules.”
By now Serge and Lenny had the routine down, and they began moving like a precision drill team. Serge sealed the windows with tape, and Lenny zipped around the room moving chairs and rationing out snacks. The circle of guests fanned into two rows, for optimum viewing. Serge hit the cooler, grabbing a grapefruit and mineral water. Lenny was by the TV, and Serge turned to throw him the videocassette.
“Lenny! Catch!”
“What?”
Lenny turned with the bong as the cassette zinged past his ear.
There was a scream. The videotape hit the Burkina Faso delegate in the left eye, and he grabbed his face and jackknifed in pain, right into a globe lamp. Now there was broken glass, blood and panic. A stoned Lenny picked up the videotape, stuck it in the VCR and started watching the Marx Brothers. People ran around the room in an international commotion. Groucho flicked his cigar: “Why, when I came to Florida three years ago, I didn’t have a nickel in my pocket. Now, I have a nickel in my pocket…”