Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (37 page)

In August and September, George Veale III improved teeth in two hundred mouths, crashed three cars, made eleven phone sex calls from his home, made one phone sex call from a crashed car, and went to the Red Snapper twenty-two times.

Veale was always exceedingly loud at the club and never sober. But he tipped in proportion to his obnoxiousness and was considered harmless, except to himself.

One time he stood on a chair, demonstrating to one dancer how he skied in Aspen, but the chair went out and he came down like a sack of cement, clipping his chin on the edge of a table and biting his tongue. Bouncers with rubber gloves paper-toweled the blood. Veale tipped twenties all around.

It was now October, World Series month, and on this night Veale was up to a hundred dollars with Sharon, who thrust to “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails.
Red and yellow lights strobed and swirled over the room, catching a dozen naked lap dancers in freeze-frame. The music was deafening and sexually narcotic and the dancers’ humping fell in synch with the metronomic beat.

Serge and Coleman walked into the room unescorted. “Hey, you guys aren’t allowed back here!” Sharon said. “Take Charlie Brown here and get the fuck out!”

Coleman’s head was too big for his body, and he hated it when Sharon called him Charlie Brown or blockhead or “that funny round-headed kid.”

Serge pulled up a chair. He straddled it backward and stared at Veale. He had a videocassette in his hand. “It’s okay,” he said, “you can finish your dance.”

When the song ended, Serge told Sharon to get lost—he had business to discuss with Veale—and she left in a huff. Veale slurred his words all over the road and bragged to Serge what a successful and important orthodontist he was. Serge revised upward the amount of blackmail he’d demand.

“I have the biggest freakin’ dental clinic in the richest part of town, goddammit!”

“Is that so?” said Serge, his mental tote board flipping over more numbers. Serge couldn’t stop picturing Veale with a fishbowl on his head.

Veale held his hands up in front of him like a surgeon who had just scrubbed. “These hands are insured for five million dollars.”

Serge’s tote board cleared back to zero, and he slid
the video back into his leather jacket, thinking in a new direction.

“Is that so?”

Mortimer and Stella Hoffsner were lifelong Cleveland Browns ticket-holders, end-zone seats. They had been at Vista Isles less than a year but already the joy had evaporated from life. Mortimer suggested they treat themselves with a day away from the park.

On a Tuesday, the Hoffsners drove down to Sarasota and crossed the north bridge to Siesta Key, as they had done every year since they had begun vacationing in Florida in 1963. They turned onto Garden Lane, parked across from a harbor of distressed fishing boats, and ate smoked salmon and crab cakes outdoors at the Siesta Fish Market. Cats begged. The menu said Eleanor Roosevelt and Ted Williams had eaten there.

After lunch they followed Ocean Drive south, past the Stickney point drawbridge, and stopped at the Crescent Club. It was named after the island’s sugar-sand Crescent Beach.

The Hoffsners had first come to the club in their early thirties. Now in their mid-sixties, they didn’t sit down, but walked around the room, looking for memories on the walls. There was a 1967 calendar from a Mishawaka, Indiana, machine supply store.

It was early on a summer afternoon. The front door of the Crescent was propped open to the street. A blinding rectangle of light and heat. Inside was dim with excess air-conditioning tonnage.

The Hoffsners picked a table near the door and talked about the park. “I can’t take this,” said Stella. “I didn’t work this hard all my life to be miserable every day. Let’s just move back to Dayton.”

A voice from the bar said, “Dayton? You guys from Ohio?”

Six months ago, the Hoffsners would have recoiled at what they saw, but after dealing with Minimum’s army of grunge, they didn’t blink.

“Yep, Dayton,” Stella answered.

“I’m from Dayton too!” said Stinky. Ringworm and Cheese-Dick turned on their stools to face the Hoffsners.

“Home of the Ohio Players,” Stella said.

“I
love
the Ohio Players,” said Ringworm. “Remember that rumor about “Love Roller Coaster’?”

“Yeah,” said Stella. “You’re supposed to be able to hear the scream of a girl getting stabbed to death.”

For three hours, the five got along famously and kept the pitchers coming.

Stella Hoffsner answered the early-morning knock at her door wearing Day-Glo hair curlers and a
Charlie’s Angels
nightshirt.

“AC inspection,” a punk said in an annoyed tone of voice, not looking her in the eyes, staring down the street.

“The air-conditioning is working fine,” she said.

“Sorry, it’s mandatory. Park rules,” said the punk, still not looking at her. His black T-shirt listed Marilyn Manson’s concert schedule.

“But you’re just going to break it!” said Stella. “We don’t have the money!”

The punk took a step into the trailer without being invited. He stood against Mrs. Hoffsner so that he stared down two feet into her eyes. He was amphetamine-skinny, at least six feet tall with shoulder-length unshampooed hair and halitosis. “Look, we can do this one of two ways,” he said firmly.

“Your mother must be awfully proud!” Stella said and turned in retreat. The punk followed her through the trailer until they got to the kitchen. In the center of the table was a pile of steaming flapjacks being lowered by three men the size of barrels.

“Sons,” said Stella, “I’d like you to meet this fine young gentleman from the park who is here to inspect our air-conditioning.”

In the emergency room, doctors tied restraints on the young patient in the Marilyn Manson shirt to keep him from tearing at his skin. The hedge clipper guy had seen him first, but didn’t know what he was looking at. Four crippled ducks perched on a silver tube floating in the middle of Vista Isles’s main lake.

The man was in shock, and Minimum identified him to police as one of the landscaping crew last seen making inspections. Paramedics had waded into the lake and retrieved him, covered in duck droppings and wrapped tightly up to his nose in thick fiberglass insulation commonly used in air-conditioning work.

News spread and soon the residents and staff
knew what had happened. The only people who didn’t were the police. Both sides decided to keep it that way.

Minimum went on the offensive. He stepped up appliance inspections, sent out free resident lists to rabid phone solicitors, and closed the pool for “health reasons.” He secretly installed a microwave oven in the auditorium for the amusement of pacemaker users.

Members of the lawn crew began turning up across the park looking like the victims of vicious fraternity hazing. Minimum called off the offensive when the leaf blower guy walked into the office with his thumb Super Glued up his butt.

The coming months were halcyon days for the residents of Vista Isles. The park came alive with festivity. The bingo nights were rowdy, and the pool parties looked like MTV beach specials. Stinky, Cheese-Dick and Ringworm kicked back by the pool on chaise longues. The residents never let the bikers’ beer mugs or nacho plates get empty.

In the clubhouse, Minimum and the lawn crew sat around a folding Samsonite table and plotted. Through the tinted, hurricane-tempered window they saw Mrs. Hoffsner and Mrs. Fishbine in the shallow end of the pool, carried around on Stinky’s and Ringworm’s shoulders, laughing and clobbering each other with colorful foam bats.

Stinky, Cheese-Dick and Ringworm went on the dinner circuit. The residents signed up on a rotating schedule to treat the bikers to lovingly prepared
home cooking. They also got the biker “colors” they’d always wanted. One resident had made three large patches for their jackets with flaming skulls. But the patches were done in macramé. The resident also was color-blind. The patches came out looking like Don King.

One day in August, a hundred and twenty residents of Vista Isles gathered and led the three men blindfolded into the clubhouse parking lot. When the blindfolds were removed, the men saw three shimmering new Harleys.

McJagger sat behind his desk watching the Florida Marlins on television in the first round of the play-offs. Minimum knocked and opened the door.

“You paged me?” asked Minimum.

“Sit down!” barked McJagger.

McJagger got up, walked to the window and opened the curtains. The lawns were overgrown and the trees unpruned.

A pack of sixty motorized scooters passed the window and circled the road around McJagger’s office. Stinky, Cheese-Dick and Ringworm were in front on Harleys, leading the residents two abreast down the center line. Most of them wore leather jackets with macramé patches.

“What are they doing?” Minimum asked as they passed the window again.

“I think they’re on a run!” said McJagger. “Jesus, this is ridiculous! I’ve got fifteen buses coming in from Ohio tomorrow for the opening of Phase V.”

Minimum joined McJagger at the window as the group made another pass.

“And look at the weeds!” said McJagger.

“The yard crew is afraid to go outdoors,” Minimum said.

“Goddammit! Isn’t that part of the whole concept of
yard
work? That you have to go
out in the yard?
?!”

“There have been accidents.”

“You’re getting your butt whipped!” said McJagger. “Enough of this foolishness. I’m putting an end to it.” He sat back down at his desk and pulled out a file. “When those buses arrive, the last thing I need is some geriatric rumble.”

The pack made another pass. “Go call those bikers in here,” he told Minimum. Something out the window caught his attention and he studied the riders more closely. “Is that Don King?”

Veale awoke in the afternoon, shielding his eyes from the blaze of sunlight. He was fully clothed on top of a still-made bed in a guest room of his house. His hangover was so bad he lay down in the shower and closed his eyes. While he was toweling off, the phone in the bathroom rang.

“Who? I don’t know any Serge!” said Veale.

“The Red Snapper? What deal?” Veale continued, “I don’t know about any deal. I was drunk. Fuck yourself!” And he hung up.

He wrapped the towel around his waist and walked downstairs. The doorbell rang. “Now what!”

As he got to the foyer, the door was kicked open and Serge entered with a grin. He held up a stolen cell phone. “Surprise! I was calling from your front porch.”

Coleman walked in behind him and pull-started a sixteen-inch chain saw.

Veale had always secretly wondered how he
would react under major stress and now he knew. He screamed and ran naked like a bastard through the house.

Serge tackled him in the living room and they both splayed out across the Mexican tile. Without discussion, Serge put both knees on Veale’s chest. He gripped Veale’s left wrist and held it down against the tile. Coleman was right behind and brought the chain saw down like an ax. Two fingers and a vertical spray of blood hit the wall. A third finger was half off, and Coleman killed the chain saw.

“Let me give you a hand with that,” Serge said. He grabbed the third finger, gave it a twist and yanked it off.

Serge picked up the towel Veale had dropped and came back to find Veale sitting up and staring blankly.

“Hey, let’s see a smile,” Serge said and wrapped the mangled hand in the towel. He pulled a tourniquet from his pocket. Veale threw up on himself.

“Ooops, had a little accident there,” said Serge. He took Veale by the good arm and lifted. “Come on, big boy, let’s get you to a hospital.”

Veale was limp.

“He’s freaking out,” said Coleman.

“You freaking out, George?” Serge said. Veale turned and looked at him and started crying.

“Come over here and let me show you something,” Serge said. He walked Veale over to the full-length mirror in the foyer, Veale’s chest and legs streaked with blood and vomit. Serge and Veale stood facing
the mirror, and Serge put his arm around Veale’s shoulder and smiled like they were army buddies.

“You should be excited!” Serge said. “This is your big day. Serge and Coleman are on the case now!”

Coleman went into the courtyard and started the chain saw again. He cut down the Canary Island date palm and it crashed through the living-room roof.

“Okay, we gotta get moving,” said Serge, still in the mirror. He gave Veale’s shoulder a big squeeze and smiled large again. “Welcome to your new life!”

He hustled Veale out of the house and drove for the emergency room at Tampa General.

“You hired us to cut down that tree…” said Serge, speeding south on Bayshore.

“Canary Island date palm,” Veale said, sheet-white, holding the bad hand against his bare stomach.

“Yeah, that’s right.
Phoenix canariensis
,” said Serge. “We were cutting it down and you came running out of the shower because we were doing it wrong….”

“Nobody cuts down a Canary Island date palm,” Veale said like a robot. “They add to the property value.”

“Right, we were cutting down the wrong tree. That’s it. See, you’re thinking now, George, improving the story. Good to see you on board….”

Veale stared ahead and started to hiccup.

“So you ran out and tried to stop us, but we didn’t hear you because of the noise of the chain saw. You grabbed my arm, and I spun around with the saw. It was swinging right for your head, and you put up
your hand to block it, and fingers went flying and blood everywhere. Oh, it’s too horrible to talk about anymore.”

Coleman from the backseat to Serge: “He’s a doctor, right? Can he get me some drugs?”

“Shut up with the drugs,” said Serge. He turned right onto the Platt Street Bridge.

“I got his fingers back here,” Coleman said. “I mean two of ’em. Couldn’t find the last one. Want a look?” He reached over the front seat and displayed a ring and middle finger in his palm, then pulled it back.

Veale hiccupped.

“Now remember, George, stick with the story or we all go to jail,” said Serge. “At least you will. I mean, we’ll try not to roll over on you if we get caught, but you’re the big fish here. After all, this was your idea.”

Veale turned his head slowly to Serge.

“Don’t you remember? You were in the strip club talking about how your hands were insured for five million and how you were sick of all the snooty moms and their bratty little shits, and I said maybe we could stage a little accident for, say, fifty thousand dollars. And you said, ‘Fuckin’-A, fuck the insurance company!’ And I asked if you were sure, and you said, ‘Fuck the insurance company.’ So I asked if today was good, but you just kept saying, ‘Fuck the insurance company!’ I know you’d had a little to drink, George, but your word has to stand for something. This is a question of character.”

Coleman pointed. “The emergency room!”

Serge jumped the curb and ran around to the passenger side. He helped Veale out of the car and gave him an encouraging slap on the butt: “Go get ’em, tiger!”

“Don’t forget the drugs,” said Coleman.

“You assholes are costing me a lot of money!” said McJagger. Emphasis added by the large gun he was waving from behind his desk at Stinky, Cheese-Dick and Ringworm.

It was an old flintlock pirate gun, but the bikers just knew it was big, so they shut up and paid attention. They sat in a row of three chairs on the other side of McJagger’s desk, each holding a Dixie cup of water from the cooler out in the lobby.

“But I’m a fair man. I’ll make you a deal,” said McJagger. “You like boats?”

“We were shrimpers once,” said Cheese-Dick, and Ringworm elbowed him.

“Good, good,” said McJagger, lighting a cigar with the replica pistol and replacing it in its holder. The three let out a deep breath.

“I’ve got a beautiful sailboat, a sixty-foot sloop. I’d like you to take a trip on it. Boca Grande, Marco Island, the Keys, wherever. Enjoy yourselves.”

“What’s the catch?” asked Ringworm.

McJagger pulled a real military .45 from a spring-release frame under his desk. “Don’t come back for a week or I’ll shoot you.”

“You’re a fair man,” said Stinky.

Nothing anymore could surprise the insurance adjuster from New England Life and Casualty. Not on Monday, when the scorned wife drove her husband’s airboat to the grocery store down US 301 and wedged it in the bread aisle. Not on Tuesday, when the stoned college student in the convertible MG drove around Dunedin in old roadster goggles and a fifteen-foot scarf, like the Red Baron. The scarf fell in the road at the first red light. When the light turned green, the scarf caught under the rear wheel, broke his neck.

So when the adjuster read Veale’s claim, he simply clicked his pen and asked, “You haven’t seen a lawyer, have you?”

Serge had been with Veale each step of the way, filling out forms and signing George’s signature because Veale was in and out of catatonia.

George, sitting next to Serge, made a squeak. He looked up at New England Life’s logo on the wall, a horseback Paul Revere, winking.

“This signature,” said the adjuster, “it doesn’t match the one in our records.”

“For heaven’s sake, look at the man’s hand!” said Serge. “I signed it. I have power of attorney.” And he produced a power of attorney document from a folder and handed it to the adjuster. “Of course, I had to sign that too.”

The adjuster gathered up the papers and shook them into alignment.

“Obviously an unusual case, but everything seems
to be in order,” he said, actually thinking that nothing about any of this seemed to be in order. The client was making chattering noises like a woodchuck, and his high-strung interpreter sat there with a Cheshire grin and took his picture.

On the other hand, sitting across the desk from the adjuster was some of the most irrefutable evidence of grotesque mutilation he had ever seen. Sometimes people would try to defraud the insurance company by snipping off the end of a digit at the knuckle closest to the tip; nobody did
this
.

I don’t get paid enough, thought the adjuster. He stamped “approved,” shooed the two out of his office and left for a two-hour lunch.

Over the next few weeks, the paperwork wound its way through the corporate rat maze of New England Life and Casualty, and five million dollars was deposited into the account of George Veale III.

Serge and Coleman had been calling every day to see if the money was in, and Veale kept them at bay by prescribing synthetic heroin for Coleman’s impacted wisdom teeth. Then one afternoon in late October—opening day of the 1997 World Series—Veale called Serge and said he had good news, and they set up a meeting in the revolving bar atop the Palm-Aire Hotel on St. Pete Beach.

Veale rode the glass elevator on the outside of the hotel, breathing in a paper bag, telling himself to get it together. The sun had set a few minutes earlier. As the elevator ascended, Veale first saw over the fences of the waterfront homes and into living rooms glow
ing blue with televisions. A couple of floors higher he could see Boca Ciega Bay and the running lights on sailboats, and higher still, across the peninsula, a cruise ship lit up on Tampa Bay like a birthday cake.

He got out of the elevator and took forced steps, carrying a black leather toiletry bag jammed with packs of hundred-dollar bills. Serge and Coleman’s cocktail table had rotated clockwise so it faced south toward the pink Don Cesar Hotel. To the left, spotlights illuminated the yellow triangular supports of the Sunshine Skyway bridge. Down on Gulf Boulevard they could make out blue, red and green light from an Eckerd’s, a Burger King and a Publix.

Veale arrived at the table the same time as the waitress and ordered a triple Jack Daniel’s before sitting.

“Another Perrier,” said Serge. The waitress gave a dirty look at Coleman, facedown on the table. “Nothing for him,” Serge said.

Veale sat and didn’t move for several minutes as their table rotated until it was facing west toward the Gulf of Mexico. Veale discreetly lowered the toiletry bag to the floor and slid it slowly over to Serge with his foot.

Serge stared at Veale and raised his hand, talking into a make-believe wrist radio: “Agent Iguana to Captain Cavity. The Eagle has landed.”

He grabbed the bag off the floor, turned it over and dumped the money on the table. Veale looked like he would stroke. The waitress arrived with their
drinks, saw the money and said “Shit” under her breath.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Serge said and pushed the money aside to make room for the drinks. He peeled off a hundred, gave it to her and looked back down in the bag. The waitress opened her mouth to say something but left quickly instead.

“Where’s the rest of it?” he said to Veale.

“What?”

“The rest of the money. I mean, this is a real sweet gesture, George, but when do we get the main money?”

“What do you mean?” said Veale, gulping for oxygen. “It’s all there, fifty thousand.”

“You’re right. This is fifty thousand. But our share is three point three five million. Where is it?”

“Wha—?”

“Five million three ways. Coleman and my shares come to three point three five. This”—nodding at the pile on the table—” this rounds the outstanding balance to three point three.”

“But you said fifty thousand!”

“When?”

“On the way to the hospital.”

“You must have been delirious,” said Serge. “Why would I settle for one percent? Is this going to get contentious, George?”

Veale felt hot surges of panic in his chest and neck. Serge packed the money back in the bag. As their table rotated to the north, the waitress pointed them
out to her coworkers lined up at the end of the bar gawking.

George saw them looking. He ducked down and whispered, “We’ve been spotted!”

Serge looked up and waved to them. He pointed at Veale and yelled, “George Veale the Third, everyone, let’s give him a big hand.” He clapped robustly.

George fainted.

Serge splashed Perrier on the two men facedown at his table. Coleman looked around, disoriented, then Veale.

“George. Twenty-four hours!” Serge said, and he and Coleman left with the toiletry bag.