“We love you, Donald!”
“We’re behind you all the way!”
“You da man!”
The traveling publicist had paid them each twenty dollars and told them to wait till the cameras were rolling. Picking crowd-shouters was always an imprecise science, especially at events with alcohol.
“Don’t take no fuckin’ shit from those assholes, Donald!”
Another wave from Greely. “Just trying to be a good neighbor.”
Greely’s expensive smile filled the field of vision in Serge’s binoculars. He and Coleman were down by the shore, where a large contingent of Greely’s personal security team and local police had sealed off one of the docks and was giving a parasailing boat the thorough going-over. Serge continued surveillance with the binoculars and raised his walkie-talkie. “Tango Zulu, whenever you’re ready.”
“Roger.”
Greely had picked the southern shore of Key West for his festival because it was so magnificent. The perfect place to ruin. A cartel of financial backers had already been meeting for a year. If everything went according to plan, this stretch of real estate, from the Southernmost Marker to the salt ponds to Cow Key Channel, would sprout a solid wall of condos.
That’s why Greely needed their love. He was planning to parlay goodwill into city council fiat. A couple more of these parties and he could pack any council chamber with an audience of enthusiastic, poster-waving local supporters who would swear until the end of the universe to vote against any politician who didn’t give Greely his rezoning. The financiers had asked Greely to be their front man because of his rare talent. He could make people smile while he fucked them.
Of course it wasn’t all greed. He was going to give back to the community. The blueprints included a provision to donate a portion of the land to descendants of the first Native Americans in the Keys, because the backers also wanted a casino.
The publicist snapped her leather organizer shut. “Eleven-fifty-one. Limbo.”
An assistant removed Greely’s chef’s hat. A van with a Yes mural inched past the hot dog stand.
Sop Choppy monitored the second hand on his wristwatch. “Readyyyy… readyyyy… Now!”
The side door of the van flew open. Mr. Blinky slapped each person on the back as they jumped from the vehicle. “Go!… Go!… Go!…”
The team hit the ground, angling off in the different directions for their respective stations. When the back of the van was empty, two clowns grabbed the oxygen tank and advanced on the beachhead.
THE BANK WAS a fortress. Built like a German pillbox on the Atlantic Wall.
It wasn’t for robbers. It was for hurricanes.
The bottom of the building was the truncated base of a pyramid. It rose above the storm-surge plane before a tiny slit opened where people and money went in and out. On top of that, another huge concrete slab that displayed an iron sculpture of the island chain as seen from orbit. A metallic green Trans Am sat under a tarp in the parking lot. A black sedan pulled up six slots away.
Anna couldn’t stop fidgeting in the glass office of the bank vice president. A woman smiled at her from the other side of the desk. Anna smiled back, wearing dark sunglasses, picking her fingernails, hyperventilating with alcohol on her breath, just like everyone else in the Keys who comes to check safety deposit boxes. The vice president examined Anna’s driver’s license and looked something up in the computer. She pushed her chair back and stood. “Follow me.”
A guard opened the vault. The women went inside and simultaneously stuck keys in a drawer like a missile launch.
“Call if you need anything,” said the vice president. She left Anna alone.
Anna looked up at the wall of brushed metal boxes, various sizes. She felt her heart beating in the still room. The wall seemed to tower. What was going on in the other boxes? Were they all like her brother’s — debris from life wreckage? This being the Keys, the answer was yes. If Anna had X-ray vision, she would have seen pornographic detective photos, bloodstained packs of hundred-dollar bills, serial number–filed pistols, ledger books entirely in code and recently drawn maps of backyards with Xs over flower beds. Anna pulled her box from its slot and lifted the long metal lid. One item inside. Polaroid photograph. Anna immediately recognized it.
THE CLOWNS HAD been busy. They finished filling a hundred elongated balloons with oxygen and twisted them into parrots and monkeys and dachshunds. The balloon-animals were tied together, forming gigantic bouquets that the clowns carried off in opposite directions.
A small child walked up to Uncle Inappropriate. “Mr. Clown, how much for one of the balloons?”
“Fuck off.”
The traveling publicist checked her schedule. “Twelve-thirteen. Schoolchildren bury you in sand.”
A personal assistant lifted the limbo bar. Serge’s binoculars followed Greely over to a group of first-graders vetted with background checks. Greely lay down on the beach. Children began digging with plastic shovels. The binoculars panned across the shore. Everyone was in position. Serge raised his walkie-talkie. “Get it going, Dave.”
An emcee climbed the steps of the concert stage and grabbed the microphone. “Let’s kick this off with a real treat! We have with us today the legendary ‘Daytona Dave’ DeFuniak, singing his mega-hit ‘Island Fever,’ which appears on the new album ‘One-Hit Wonders of the ’70s: The Rehab Collection.’”
Dave walked out and waved to a smattering of applause. He turned to the band and snapped his fingers. “A one, and a two… I burnin’ up with that island…”
Mr. Blinky and Uncle Inappropriate glanced at each other from opposite sides of the beach and simultaneously lit cigarettes.
In another direction: demonstrators in Serge T-shirts ran toward Greely, shouting and waving picket signs. STOP DONALD’S DEVELOPMENT! FIGHT THE RESORT-IFICATION! WHERE’S MY LIFE SAVINGS!
The traveling publicist turned toward the noise. “Where the hell did they come from?… Security!”
The head of Greely’s security team barked into his own walkie-talkie. “Get him out of the sand! Now!”
The TV cameras swung from Greely to the demonstrators. A shoving match broke out between the protesters and the bodyguards. The security detail at the parasailing boat was called in as reinforcement.
From the concert stage: “It’s always good to have that Island Fever… Uh-oh—” Dave fell writhing onto the stage.
“Daytona Dave’s having a seizure!”
Cops and paramedics rushed over.
Two clowns taped their cigarettes to long sticks and raised them toward the balloon bouquets.
Bodyguards pulled Greely from the sand and hustled him from the melee. At opposite ends of the beach, balloon-animal fireballs exploded into the sky. People ran screaming, crashing into each other — “Look! The Skunk Ape!” — a full-scale, multidirectional stampede. Sop Choppy’s biker associates arrived and joined the fray with the bodyguards, now spilling into the street. The remaining cops at the parasailing boat abandoned their posts and ran to help.
Serge and Coleman climbed aboard the vessel. “Hey!” yelled one of the parasail’s two operators. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
Serge produced a gun. “Down in the cabin. Both of you.”
The traveling publicist shuddered at the PR carnage. TV cameras pointing everywhere except at Greely. Ten reporters interviewed a naked woman. The publicist ran over to the head of Greely’s security team. “We have to save this.” She opened her organizer. “Twelve-forty-nine. Parasailing.”