To Zargoza’s surprise and delight, Flag led off the news. There he was, filling out the screen in his safari jacket and pith helmet. Zargoza heard cheering and clapping in the background.
“All right, Flag!” Zargoza said. “Way to go!”
On TV, Flag stepped to the microphone again and held up his hands for everyone to be quiet. “…And another thing,” he barked, “I say cut off their benefits. And what are their kids doing taking up valuable space in our classrooms when they should be out in the fields picking tomatoes? And if they don’t like subminimum wage, they should have chosen another country to sneak into, and learn what real oppression is…like Canada!”
The applause was overwhelming.
“What? What the hell’s this?” said Zargoza.
The television camera pulled back to show C. C. Flag on a large stage.
This isn’t Vista Isles, thought Zargoza. This is the condominium next door. Standing onstage next to Flag, applauding his every word, was Malcolm Kefauver, the incredible shrinking mayor of Beverly Shores. Behind them hung an American flag and a giant banner: “Proposition 213.”
“Holy shit,” Zargoza yelled. “This is that stupid anti-immigration thing. This can’t be happening!”
The TV panned over the large crowd in front of the stage. Several people waved signs: “They don’t look right!” “Different is evil!” and “If you can’t understand something, kill it!”
Zargoza leaped to his feet in front of the TV. “You bastard! You stupid, stupid bastard! What are you doing to me! Somebody give me a gun so I can kill myself.”
One of the goons handed him a gun.
“No, you fool!” He slapped the gun away. “Go get Flag, now!”
Three goons ran out the door.
Zargoza squatted like Yogi Berra in front of the TV set, punching a fist into an open hand. On TV, there was a commotion up onstage. Flag struggled with three men, then disappeared off the back of the scaffolding.
Moments later the door to Zargoza’s boiler room slammed open, and the goons hustled C. C. Flag inside and pushed him to the ground.
“You wanted to see me?” Flag asked, standing up and brushing off his pants.
“Have you lost your mind! What do you think you’re doing!”
“I met the mayor. Real nice guy. His main speaker for the rally didn’t show, so he asked me to fill in.”
“Shut up! I know what you were doing. But why? We’ve got state and federal investigators all over us, the Diaz Boys are running around like the James Gang, there’s probably a hit man after me, and I send you to fix a little problem and you turn up on TV coming off like Son of Sam!”
“That might be a little strong.”
“I want you to stop it! Now!”
“I can’t.”
“What did I just hear?!”
“I can’t stop it. It’s grown too big. My charisma has become a force to be reckoned with.”
Zargoza knocked Flag to the carpet and began kicking him in the rear. “Reckon with this foot in your ass, you ultra-nationalist prick! Now get over to the nursing home!”
27
C. C. Flag slammed two more shots of Irish whiskey from the decanter in the office at Vista Isles. The press was gone; and so was the Vista Isles staff. Zargoza had ordered Flag over to the home after the Proposition 213 fiasco. He’d done his best to explain away all the missing Medicare patients by changing the subject and bashing immigrants. Now he deserved a reward. He hit the intercom and called the night nurse.
She arrived in his doorway with her medication cart. “You buzzed me?”
She was young and curvy with long sandy hair. Not too hard on the eyes, Flag thought.
“Come over here and have a drink with me,” he said.
“I’d love to, but I have to make my rounds.”
“Don’t worry about your rounds. I have a lot of pull around here.”
“But these are prescription medications. These residents are on a very rigid schedule. Some of their lives depend on it.”
Flag picked up a medicine container. “Oooooooh! Dilaudid!” He dumped the pills in the breast pocket of his safari jacket.
“Hey! Those are for a patient who’s gonna die from cancer!”
“My point exactly.”
“Wait!” she said. “I’ve seen you on TV. You’re the Proposition 213 guy. You’re my hero. You really tell it like it is. I’m so tired of how migrant workers keep exploiting us.”
She strolled over to the desk. “Well, I guess one drink won’t hurt anything.”
“Now you’re talkin’!” Flag poured her a double over rocks.
By the time the first drink hit her bloodstream, she was on her third. Then Flag forced more liquor into her. Then she was bent over Flag’s desk without panties. Then she was bent over the toilet, hair hanging in the water. Funny, thought Flag, I could have sworn she was more attractive earlier.
“Hey, baby. I gotta use the restroom,” said Flag, banging on the door. “Get a move on.”
She only moaned and her head lolled over the bowl.
“Damn,” said Flag. Already smashed, he poured another. When she was still in there fifteen minutes later, he could wait no longer. He decided to use the restroom down the hall. He was down to his underwear and socks, so he grabbed a Vista Isles bathrobe from the closet and headed out the door.
A little after midnight a brown panel truck pulled up outside the veranda of Vista Isles and two of the Diaz Boys climbed out.
They flashed corporate ID at the front desk and made their way to the third floor and poked around.
Weaving up the hallway toward them was an old man in a Vista Isles robe. They watched him smack into a doorjamb and bounce off a fire extinguisher.
The man walked up in his bathrobe and socks, and he put out his hand to shake. “How ya doin’, young fellas. I’m C. C. Flag. Hope ya’ll will vote for Proposition 213. Take the state back from the fuckin’ Latins.”
The two Diaz Boys looked at each other and smiled.
“I’m the Daddy-O of Rock ’n’ Roll. I’m a famous radio personality, loved and admired by millions,” said Flag, swaying off balance.
One of the Diaz Boys whispered to the other: “Classic dementia.”
The second one turned to Flag. “Sir, are you a Medicare patient?”
“Medicare?” said Flag. “Absolutely! I’m an American. I deserve my Social Security and my Medicare, goddammit!”
The two looked at each other again and grinned. This was too easy.
They slapped electrical tape over Flag’s mouth and carried him down the fire escape to the waiting truck.
A n hour later, Flag’s Vista Isless robe was gone and he was dressed in homeless rags in anticipation of his drop at the Tampa bus station. The Diaz Boys took the Twenty-second Street exit on Interstate 4 so they could catch a little of the Latin Heritage parade on their way downtown. They pulled onto a side street next to Seventh Avenue and found a parking space with a good view.
The parade hadn’t started yet, but the two Diaz Boys were already talking excitedly about the Gloria Estefan Revue. “It’s supposed to sound exactly like her,” said Juan.
They turned around and looked behind them. The back doors of the van were open and Flag was gone. The two looked at each other and shrugged. Bus station, Ybor City, what’s the difference? They looked back out the windshield and waited for the parade.
Three Latin Heritage Festival officials were at the parade staging area on the east end of Seventh Avenue, going over their clipboards. Everything was ready except the grand marshal hadn’t arrived and two road-tour members of Miami Sound Machine were still in the can. The officials saw an old bum in tattered rags wobbling toward them.
One pointed with his clipboard. “What’s this comin’ at us?”
Another official was about to run the bum off when he felt a twinge of recognition. “Hey, you’re someone famous… I got it! You’re that guy on the sweepstakes envelopes!…C. C. Flag.”