“But I have a job!”
“I do, too.” Click, click. “Recovering the credit that Florida so richly deserves. And Duane not only grew up here but laid down the most historic guitar licks ever recorded in the state, teaming with Eric Clapton on ‘Layla’ at Miami’s Criteria Studios, 1970.”
Coleman lowered a flask. “Isn’t that the place we went during that hurricane?”
“The same.”
“Damn you!” said Story.
“Please.” Serge pointed at the house. “Respect the Sky Dog.”
“I just better be there by eight o’clock.”
“Nooooooo problem.” Click, click, click.
Thirty seconds before eight, Serge skidded into a parking lot at the corner of A1A and International Speedway. “Told you we’d make it.”
Story jumped out and slammed the door. “Asshole.”
The guys exited the vehicle at a more leisurely pace and approached a small building with exotic dancers in glaring neon. Over the front doors sat a large fish and another sign: shark lounge.
The place wasn’t yet open to the public. For now, it remained empty except for Story, another woman on the far side of the lounge, and Serge and Coleman, seated at the unstaffed bar. A half hour passed. Coleman swigged from a bottle of sour mash that he’d commandeered from the adjoining liquor store. “This is easily the most bizarre strip club I’ve ever been in.”
“That’s why I love the Shark Lounge!”
“You’ve been here before?”
“Many, many times.”
“But I thought you didn’t like strip clubs, except when we’re lining up marks.”
“The Shark is different.” Serge gestured across the room. “See that tall rectangle of steel bars?”
“Looks like one of those things scuba divers use on TV.”
“Girls actually dance in a shark cage.” Serge’s arm swung another direction. “And the main catwalk with the poles is on top of a giant aquarium.”
“They strip on a real aquarium?”
“Something for everyone,” said Serge. “The only negative is I go through a ton of cash tipping the dancers not to stick their muffs in my face while I’m trying to look at fish.”
“Speaking of which …” Coleman’s head turned the other way. “Can’t believe Story’s still hanging with us. Thought she’d just use us for a ride and dash at the first chance.”
“I’m starting to wish she would dash.”
“How can you say that?” asked Coleman. “She lets you fuck her.” “Coleman, have you still not learned there’s more to a relationship than that?”
“Is this some kind of trick question?”
“Let you in on the big secret about chicks. It starts with intercourse …”
“I like that start. Go on.”
“But they universally possess the same prehistoric genetic memory. Doesn’t matter where you find them-Miami, Budapest, the mountains of Peru, those remote islands off New Zealand where they just discovered a tribe that’s never seen a wheel-the women are all hardwired with the identical life drive.”
“Which is?”
“To change you.”
“How?”
Serge made a fisherman’s spin-casting motion with his hands. “First, they set the hook with mind-bending kinky shit. Then a year later you’re living in a Talking Heads song, dressed like Teddy Ruxpin, living with a strange woman in a big house full of frilly throw pillows, experiencing a frequency of sex that can only be charted by Halley’s comet. And you’re wondering: How did I get here?”
“These ways that they want to change us,” said Coleman. “Are they for the better?”
“Of course,” said Serge. “But that’s not the point.”
The Eel’s head was about to explode. The walkie-talkie crackled again in the hotel room.
“Blue? You there?”
“I’m here. What kind of trouble are you talking about?”
“The mark is heading back up early.” “Roger, we’ll clear the zone.”
“No, I don’t think you’ll have enough time. He left a few minutes ago. I thought he was just going to the bathroom, but then I noticed he’d paid his tab and his coat was gone. He could be opening the door any second.”
They scrambled to turn off lights. The Eel motioned with his knife for everyone to clear toward the blind side of the room from the door. Then they waited.
And waited.
The Eel telegraphed a look to the crew member with the radio, who keyed the mike. “Red, do you copy?”
“This is red, over.”
“He’s not here. Did he return to the bar?”
“Negative. I’m out on the beach again.” “What are you doing on the-?”
“Hold it. Something’s happening. The light just came back on in the suite. You see him?”
The crew exchanged confused glances in the dark room. The one with the radio: “Uh … no.”
“Now I see his shadow. He’s walking by the curtains.”
The crew heard footsteps. They looked up at the ceiling.
The Eel punched another wall. “Jesus Christ! Give me that radio!” He ran to the window and looked down at a tiny man on the beach with a metal detector. “Red, how do you know he was staying on the fifteenth floor?”
“I counted.”
“You counted?”
“Three times. From right here on the beach.”
“You do know that some hotels don’t have thirteenth floors.”
“What?”
A two-way radio smashed against the wall. A lamp flew. An ashtray shattered the TV tube with a flicker of dying sparks. The Eel stormed out of the room, and the others followed.
SHARK LOUNGE
Coleman stared across the club’s dim interior. “I thought when Story said she needed to get here to make money, it was by stripping.”
“Me, too,” said Serge. “Live long enough and you see everything.”
On the other side of the room, Story sat on a stool next to the shark cage. Inside was a naked woman with a trigonometry textbook. “So after the hypotenuse, then what?”
“Add the squares of the adjacent sides and solve for X.”
“Who thought of this?”
“Subject to argument, but it at least dates to the reign of Hammurabi.”
Serge faced the bar again. “Tutoring colleagues stripping their way through school. Very admirable.”
“Still don’t understand why she’s hanging with us.” “Because she’s damaged.” “Looks fine to me.”
“I’m not judging,” said Serge. “We’re all damaged. It’s a universal component of the human condition, like the stages of grief, déja vu and expired coupons.”
“Am I damaged?”
Serge placed a hand on his pal’s shoulder. “Coleman, there are three-and only three-kinds of people in this world: Those who don’t know they’re damaged and blame others; those who realize they’re damaged and blame others; and then people like you and me, who wear damage like comfortable pajamas.”
Coleman swigged from his pint bottle. “Mine are the ones with the little feet.”
“The problem is the word damage. Sounds negative. But it’s just another facet of higher spiritual consciousness that separates us from lower orders of life. You think some animal that doesn’t even possess object permanence is whimpering about dysfunction from materially focused parents?”
“Object what?”
“Permanence. One of the things that separates humans … Forget it. In your case, it’s easier to just demonstrate.” He grabbed Coleman’s pint bottle.
“Be careful with that!”
“Don’t worry. Only using it to make a point.” Serge held the bottle in front of Coleman’s face. “Got a good look?”
“Yeah.”
Serge whipped it behind his back.
“Hey! What happened to my bottle?”
“Coleman-“
“It’s gone forever!”
“Okay, bad example.” Serge returned the pint to Coleman.
“My bottle’s here forever!”
Serge swiveled around on his stool and leaned against the bar. “This is one of my favorite Florida landmarks. And there’s something I’ve always wanted to do here to complete the experience, but the time’s never been right.” He furtively glanced around. “Until now … Coleman, cover me …”