“I would have,” said Paige.
“I’d have slept with Meyer,” said Rebecca.
“Ewwwwww!” said the other four.
The briefcase kept going, more legs, litterbugs, bookworms, social butterflies, midlife counselors, postmodern sculptors, premature ejaculators.
Serge looked up. “Oh no.”
Two large-chested men in black suits, black shirts and pointy shoes. They walked quickly toward Serge’s table, coats over their arms concealing something.
Serge’s eyes locked on the men. His right hand slowly reached for the pistol in his waistband, his left felt blindly under the table and grabbed the handle of the briefcase as it came rotating by. “I knew this would happen,” he whispered to himself. “I knew they were bound to send someone sooner or later.”
The men were twenty feet away, then ten. Serge cocked the pistol under the table. The men turned and climbed onto the musicians’ bandstand. They pulled a flute and a mandolin from under their coats and began playing Kenny G.
Serge fell back in his chair with a breath of relief. He set the briefcase back down, not on the ledge this time.
“…We meet back here in an hour, okay?” asked Lenny.
“How will I know who you are?” asked the drummer.
“I’ll be wearing this shirt.”
Serge smacked his forehead again.
“What’s the matter with your friend?” asked the drummer.
“I need some air,” said Serge. He picked up the briefcase and headed around the curved side of the bar and pressed the elevator button. He overheard conversation fragments behind him. “…Nyet!” “Vladimir!”
Hmmm, Serge thought, Russian mob….
He walked back to his table and handed Lenny the briefcase. “I need you to hide in one of the stalls with this and wait for me.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Ivan.
“What is it?” asked Dmitri.
“I think it’s him. Dummy up!”
Serge approached the table. “Hi guys. You the Russian mob?”
The Russians reached under the table for ankle holsters. Ivan discreetly waved them off. He turned to Serge. “No, we’re with Amway.”
“Right,” said Serge, winking. He pointed. “What happened to your feet?”
“Amway accident.”
“Mind if I join you?” Serge pulled up a chair before they could object. “I have a proposition for Amway.”
A half hour later, everyone was laughing, shaking hands and slapping backs. Serge stood. “Then it’s all set?”
“All set.”
“Sunday at midnight,” said Serge. “You remember the place?”
“We remember.”
26
Serge sat with Lenny at the bar in the B&H Deli near Cape Canaveral. Lenny dialed a number on his cell phone. No answer. He hung up and dialed again. It began ringing again. He turned to Serge.
“I still don’t understand why we had to pay for a taxi from Pier 66 when we had the van.”
“I told you already. Because they were going to ambush us in the parking lot. That’s standard. Didn’t you see the two guys waiting for us?”
“But I thought you made a deal with them.”
“I did. We’re still on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You’d never make it in the business world.”
Lenny hung up and dialed his cell phone again. He put the phone to his ear.
“Will you stop that?” said Serge. “You’ve been doing it all night. It’s getting on my nerves.”
“I have to reach the drummer for ——. He’s supposed to get me some weed.”
“I hate to tell you this, but it’s not going to happen.”
“But he’s got my forty-three dollars.”
“Write it off as the stupidity tax.”
“No way,” said Lenny. “The drummer for —— would never rip me off.”
“Lenny, he’s not trying to screw you by not coming through. It’s because he’s hapless, just like you.”
“He’s not coming back?”
Serge put his arm around Lenny’s shoulder. “It’s a cruel world.”
“I don’t believe you.” Lenny hit a series of numbers again on his cell phone. No answer.
Serge swung around to face the barstool on his other side and began hitting on an off-duty stripper…. Well, not really hitting on.
“Did you know that after every successful liftoff, the launch team eats the exact same thing — biscuits and beans?”
“Don’t talk to me,” said the dancer, lighting a Camel.
“It’s tradition!” said Serge. “You look like a bright girl. Ever think of going out for the space program?”
“You’re drunk.”
“Drunk with enthusiasm for life!” said Serge, hoisting a briefcase onto the bar.
Lenny punched numbers on his phone. “Why doesn’t he answer?” He dialed again. “Hold on! Someone’s picking up!”
A woman’s sleepy voice answered. “Mmmm, uh, hullo…?”
“May I speak to the drummer for ——?”
Serge and the stripper heard the yelling from Lenny’s phone. “What are you, a fucking comedian?…(Click.)”
Lenny closed the phone with a stunned look. “The drummer for —— gave me the wrong number.”
“Lenny, this is how bad you’ve gotten. Almost everyone else goes out partying and they wake up the next morning and look in their wallet and say: ‘Where the hell did all my money go?’ But you’re such a mess you invert the paradigm. People get wrecked and run into you and the next morning they go, ‘Where’d all this money come from?’ Do you understand what I’m getting at here?”
Lenny nodded.
“Good.”
“So how do I get my forty-three dollars back?”
Serge turned to the stripper and slapped the top of his briefcase. “Guess what’s in here.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Five million dollars! You know what I’m going to use the money for? Want me to tell you?”
“No.” She blew out a big stream of smoke.
“It’s been my lifelong dream. I’m going into space!”
“Goodie for you.”
“Haven’t you read the Dennis Tito articles? Everything’s for sale now in the former republic. Tanks, bombs, Fabergé eggs. I met some mobsters in Lauderdale. Turns out they also do some work for the Russian space agency. The deal’s all set up. We make the swap at the rendezvous tonight. I give them the money and they give me my space suit, to show good faith. Then I fly out to the Baikonur Kosmodrome, go through six months of intense training, blast off on a Soyuz, and next thing you know I’m in the International Space Station helping mice copulate in zero gravity.”
She stubbed out her cigarette. “Buy me a drink.”
“Don’t have any money.”
“Thought you said you had five million.”
“They might count it.”
“Your whole story’s horseshit,” she said. “I’ve fucked people in the space program, and they won’t even give me a damn launch viewing pass. There’s no chance you could bribe your way onto the Space Station.”
“Not through NASA, but it’s a totally different culture over in Russia,” said Serge. “They’re Communists, which means it’s all about money.”
Serge stood with Lenny in the dark at the rendezvous point, checking his illuminated wristwatch: 12:01 A.M. “Where can they be?”
“How can I get my forty-three dollars back?”
“Sometimes you just have to let go.”
A slight breeze came off the ocean. A twig snapped.
“Ivan?” Serge whispered. “Is that you?”
Out of the distant shadows came a silhouette, then a second, a third, a fourth, and finally five dark forms stood abreast thirty yards away.
“You got the money?”
“Right here,” said Serge, tapping the briefcase.
“Put it on the ground.”
“Where’s my space suit?”
“It’s in the car.”
“Forget it,” said Serge. “First I get my space suit, with my name over the pocket. Spelled right. That was the arrangement.”
“You really are crazy.”