Tim Dorsey Collection #1 (89 page)

When Sam got back to the hotel room, the others were mixing something in the blender, all wearing T-shirts from Captain Tony’s. Paige’s face had been painted by a street artist.

“Where the hell’d you go?” asked Maria.

“We thought you were taking a big dump or something,” said Rebecca. “But we couldn’t find you in the rest room.”

“I went for a walk.”

Teresa threw some more ice in the blender. “You missed all the fun.”

T
he pink Cadillac raced east out of Orlando on the Bee Line Highway.

Unfortunately it was in the westbound lanes.

Serge and Lenny screamed their lungs out as honking, swerving dump trucks and tractor-trailers passed by on both sides. All four of their hands tightly gripped the steering wheel, Serge pulling one way, Lenny the other.

Serge: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

Lenny: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The stretch of highway was currently undergoing roadwork, and cement retaining walls on both sides of the highway prevented the Cadillac from escaping down the grassy shoulders. Pickup trucks and Harleys split and passed around them.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The Cadillac began weaving back and forth across all three lanes of highway, dodging head-on collisions. A minivan came straight at them; the Caddy veered left. Then a PT Cruiser; they swung right.

The construction zone ended and Serge pulled hard on
the steering wheel, taking the Eldorado down into the median strip, bounding back up the far side and into the correct lanes. He gave the wheel back to Lenny, who put on his right blinker, slowed and pulled over in the breakdown lane. He and Serge stared at each other, both sheet-white, feeling their hearts pound through their chests like the coyote after the roadrunner almost runs him off a cliff.

“What happened?” said Lenny, taking shallow breaths.

“How much of it do you remember?”

Lenny shook his head.

“You don’t remember anything?”

He shook his head again.

“It all happened pretty fast…”

Ten minutes earlier.

Lenny stubbed out a joint in the Cadillac’s ashtray. “Are we there yet…
hic
…?”

“A half hour to the Atlantic Ocean, then we swoop down on the money,” said Serge, holding the global tracker in both hands like he was flying a model airplane. “We have a solid transponder lock now, which means we should be able to pinpoint the briefcase’s signal within a half meter. We’re ‘go’ all the way!”

“What do you plan to do with the money?…
hic
…Crap. These hiccups won’t go away…
hic
…Maybe if I smoke another joint and calm down…
hic
…” Lenny stuck a twistie in his mouth and fired up.

“You know, I actually thought of taking up drugs once,” said Serge.

“I thought you were against getting high…
hic
…”

“I wouldn’t do it to get high,” said Serge. “I just like the sneaking-around part. You have to gain the confidence of your connection, set up the meeting, make the buy, hide your shit, make preparations whom you’re going to do it
with, where, how, all without detection. Sort of like being a secret agent.”

Lenny beamed proudly. “You mean like me?…
hic
…”

“Afraid not, Condor. It’s just a matter of time before you gift-wrap yourself for the police. You’re the guy who gets caught after triggering a twenty-car pileup on the freeway by simultaneously trying to shotgun a beer and fire up a six-foot Cambodian bamboo peace pipe.”

Serge opened a book.

“What are you reading?…
hic
…”

Serge showed him the cover of the book.
Hypnosis Made Easy
. “I got the idea from reading
The Stingray Shuffle
.”

“The what?”

“This novel by my favorite author. I first picked it up because it had a lot of stuff about Florida. And trains. Lots of trains. But it also had a bunch of hypnosis stuff, so I decided to research further.”

“What kind of a name is
Stingray Shuffle
, anyway?”

“You’ve never done the stingray shuffle?” asked Serge.

Lenny shook his head.

“When it’s stingray season in Florida during the summer, stingrays lie on the bottom of the water near the shore, under a thin blanket of sand, and you can’t see them. The stingrays would much rather flee than fight, but if you walk normally in the water and step on one, you pretty much pin it to the bottom and leave it no choice but to hit you in the leg with its poisonous tail barb.”

“That’ll wreck a buzz.”

“So instead of walking normally when you’re in shallow water, you shuffle your feet along. That way, if you accidentally come across a ray, you just bump it on the edge, and it spooks and swims away. It’s also a perfect metaphor
for the on-your-toes, aware-of-your-surroundings, ready-to-jump-any-second dance you have to do every day in Florida to stay alive and ahead of the dangerous
humans
.”

Serge opened his hypnosis book again. Lenny leaned across the front seat and looked over his shoulder, trying to read along.

“Why are you reading about hypnosis?”

“Because I’m into it now. I’ve decided to completely dedicate my life to the study of hypnosis.”

“I thought you’d dedicated your life to trains.”

“Trains and hypnosis.”

“That’s an odd combination.”

“I’ve learned not to question my muse…” Serge pointed forward at the road. “Will you please?”

“What’s the book about?…
hic
…”

“I told you. Hypnosis.”

“…
Hic
…I know that from the cover.”

“That’s what it’s about. I can’t change it.”

“I mean, what specifically about it?…
hic
…”

“Well, there’s a story here about a hypnotist in Europe who killed a woman onstage in 1894 by commanding her soul to leave her body. She had a heart attack.”

“Oh…
hic
…right!”

“I wasn’t there, but that’s what it says…. Lenny, you can’t read over my shoulder and drive at the same time. Pick one.”

Lenny reluctantly returned to his side of the car and the approved ten-o’clock, two-o’clock steering-wheel grip.

“Okay, Mr. Skeptic,” said Serge. “Want to get rid of those hiccups?”

Lenny nodded.
“Hic.”

Serge turned sideways in his seat and spoke in a monotone. “Concentrate on my voice.”

“What are you going to do?…
hic
…”

“Make your hiccups leave your body.”

“Not with my soul!…
hic
…”

“Good point. I’ll try to make sure I get the pronouns right in the incantation.”

“Don’t you need to swing a pocket watch…
hic
…or have me look at a pinwheel or something?”

“That’s bullshit. Besides, you’re challenged enough with just the road.”

“Hurry up,” said Lenny. “I hate hiccups…
hic
…”

“Focus on my voice. Relax. Take deeper and slower breaths. Hiccups cannot survive at low rates of respiration….”

“…
Hic
…I still have the hiccups.”

“Shhhh! Don’t listen to the hiccups…. Only my voice…. You will continue to relax, the interval between hiccups growing longer each time…. Each hiccup is one less until they’re gone for good…. Okay, I’m not talking to Lenny anymore. Hiccups, do you hear me? I’m talking to you now. I command you—in the name of Christ, leave Lenny’s body!”

Serge heard a rattling sound. He turned forward and saw they were off course, running over the raised reflectors as they crossed the inside breakdown lane, then down into the narrow median. Serge looked over at the driver’s seat and saw Lenny’s head slumped to his chest. He reached over and grabbed the wheel, but it was too late. They had already entered the construction zone, and the temporary cement retaining walls funneled them into oncoming traffic.

“Lenny! Wake up!”

“Huh? What? What is it?…Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“So that’s what
happened,” said Lenny. “I hate it when I wake up driving.”

“How are your hiccups?”

Lenny thought a second. “They’re gone.”

“What do you think about hypnosis now?”

“Gimme a break,” said Lenny. “That didn’t do it.”

“What do you mean? It did it and then some. You were fuckin’
out
.”

“That was the weed,” said Lenny. “It was already making me feel like nappy time.”

“Atheist.”

Lenny lit another joint, started up the car and pulled back on the road. Serge put down the hypnosis book and picked up the morning paper as they passed a thousand-acre brush fire.

“Anything good?” asked Lenny.

“Second-grader brings gun to school. Jesus, what ever happened to just sticking out your tongue?”

“I still do it.”

“Here’s an item on a drunk bridge tender who sent a car airborne,” said Serge, oblivious to the wall of flame down the side of the highway. “And someone stole the Picasso cat again from the Hemingway House. A funeral home is being sued for putting voodoo dolls in a chest cavity. Eleven more Floridians die from smoke inhalation trying to stay warm by barbecuing indoors. Man convicted of killing his dog because it was homosexual….”

“How did he know?”

“It says the Yorkshire made advances on another terrier named Bandit. That’s when the owner decided to put a stop to the godlessness.”

“What is it about this state?” asked Lenny. “All my friends up north keep asking me: Does the freak show ever take a break down there?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Serge looked back down at his newspaper.

Up ahead, Lenny saw a small stampede of flaming rab
bits running from the brush fire and into the road, where they were snatched up by turkey buzzards circling overhead, whose claws were singed by the burning fur, and the rabbits began dropping by the dozen on passing vehicles, one splattering on the Cadillac’s windshield and bouncing over Lenny’s head.

Serge looked up from his newspaper at the sound of the thud. “What the hell was that?”

Lenny’s jaw fell open, the joint sticking to the spit on his lower lip.

Serge pointed at the bloody stain on the windshield. “What kind of bug did you hit?”

“It was a bunny.”

“How’d you hit a bunny with your windshield?”

Lenny pointed up at the sky.

Serge shook his head. “You’re higher than a motherfucker.” He went back to his newspaper.

Lenny took the joint out of his mouth, looked at it a second, then threw it out of the car.

“Serge.”

“What?”

“Do you think I’m dysfunctional?”

“No, Lenny. You know those nagging sensations you’re always having? Total alienation, utter lack of self-worth, chronic-masturbation guilt and perpetual dread of impending death?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s all normal. Feel better now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Your problem is you lack focus. The key to life is hobbies, otherwise you’re asking for trouble. You know what they always say—if Hitler only had a train set…”

“Who says that?”

“Nobody ever says that. I have no idea where I get some
of these thoughts, and you know what? I don’t care! Because I’m alive and the sun is shining!” Serge reached in his back pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper.

“What’s that?”

“It’s my Life List.”

“What’s a Life List?”

“The list of things you want to accomplish before you die. The idea is to keep you planning for the future or else you end up seventy years old on your porch with a rusting chain-link fence around a front yard full of barking Dobermans and a dismantled Skylark, and you never know why.”

“Where’d you come up with this list idea?”

“First heard about it from Lou Holtz. ‘Become coach of Notre Dame’ was on his list, and you know what?”

“He became coach of Notre Dame?”

Serge nodded. “I said to myself, ‘I gotta get me one of them lists.’”

“So what’s on yours?” asked Lenny.

“Item number one: space flight.”

“You’re too old to join NASA.”

“That’s why I’ll have to deal with the Russians. After the Soviet collapse, everything’s for sale over there.”

“What else?” asked Lenny.

Serge held up his piece of paper: “Swim the Florida Straits, communicate with the monkeys on Key Lois, steal the DeLong Ruby, break a bull at the Okeechobee Rodeo, get into a Disney ride in less than an hour, locate the Fountain of Youth, win the Daytona 500, bring the panthers back to healthy numbers, travel in time…”

“But time travel’s impossible.”

“I know,” said Serge. “I wanted to keep the list realistic, so that’s why I only want to travel one week. And that way, if something goes wrong with the time ship and I can’t get
back, I’m not stuck in some strange future land where the government makes everyone wear tunics and report unwelcome behavior.”

“I hate that,” said Lenny.

“Tell me about it.”

Serge stuck the list back in his pocket and got out the global tracker.

“How’s the signal?” asked Lenny.

“Real strong. Solid all the way.” Serge pointed at a traffic sign. “Take the causeway. It’s our best bet.”

They crossed US 1 and the Indian River, then went down the bridge onto Merritt Island.

“Are those real alligators in that canal?” asked Lenny.

“That’s what those are.”

The pair began seeing the tips of shiny metal tubes over the trees.

“Look,” said Lenny. “Kennedy Space Center.”

“And there’s the new shuttle mock-up they put on display at the visitor center.” Serge grabbed his camera from under the seat and snapped half a roll of film as they went by. He faced forward again. “Oh my God!”

“What is it?”

“The signal!” said Serge, holding up the tracker. “It changed direction. It’s pointing back at the visitor center. Turn around!”

Lenny swung across a break in the median and headed back. The Cadillac turned in the entrance of the space complex and parked next to a row of idling Gray Line buses. Serge jumped out and tucked a pistol in his waistband. He reached back in the car and grabbed the global tracker off the passenger seat. The signal pointed toward the admission gate.

“This is it! Payday!”

They took off running.