A bulbous head popped up from the backseat of a 1972 Chevelle. Bloodshot eyes. Hair staging a riot.
“What time is it?”
“Right before Thanksgiving,” said the driver.
“I mean time of day.”
“When you usually get up. Sunset.”
“Oooo, don’t feel good.” A hair-of-the-dog flask went to the passenger’s lips. The Chevelle raced east across the Gandy Bridge.
A hand went up in the backseat. “Serge?”
Serge looked in his rearview. “Yes, you in the rear. Coleman has a question?”
“Where are we?”
The Chevelle came off the bridge with a bounce, and Serge pointed a digital camera out the driver’s window. Click, click click… “See that welcome sign?”
“Yeah?”
“Any clues?”
Coleman shook his head.
“ ‘Welcome to Tampa’ generally means we’re not somewhere else.”
“We’re back in Tampa?”
“I’d like to see a flashier sign, though. Something with lightning bolts, titty bars, and sandwiches.”
“Are you off your meds again?”
“Yes.” Serge chugged a thermos of coffee. “This place has some of the best Cuban sandwiches in the country. We need a slogan, too. And not the old slogan. Know what the old slogan was? I’ll tell you!” Serge tossed the thermos over his shoulder.
“Ow.” Coleman rubbed his forehead.
“The old slogan was this: ‘Tampa: America’s Next Great City.’ I’ve heard of playing the politics of low expectations, but what the hell?”
“It’s not a good slogan?”
Serge made a skidding right on Westshore Boulevard. “Coleman, the slogan is so bad that the human brain wasn’t designed to process it. Or at least its journey: A college president actually presented someone with a marketing diploma, and then later someone else handed that same person a bunch of money for those words. Was everyone drunk at that slogan meeting? I mean, what the fuck were they rejecting? ‘Tampa: Still waiting for the Milwaukee-Racine hub to blow the bond rating,’ or ‘Visit again soon: Almost got our shit together.’ ”
“I like the last one.” Coleman began climbing over into the front seat.
“At least it’s truth in advertising-” Serge quickly raised his right arm. “Watch the foot!”
“Whoa! Need a little help here.”
“I’m driving.”
A brief flurry of flailing.
“It’s okay now. I’m good.”
Serge looked over to the passenger side. “Coleman, your head’s down at the floorboards again and your legs are on the seat.”
“I know. It’s weird.” He twisted the end of a joint in his mouth and flicked a Bic. “At least the cops can’t see me burning a number this way.”
“It’s baffling that more people don’t ride like that.”
Coleman exhaled a pot cloud up toward his feet. “Tell me about it.”
Another skidding turn. Serge raised his hand again to block Coleman’s legs.
“Serge?”
“We have another question from the marijuana section. Proceed.”
“Why do you have that gun?”
“What gun?” Serge looked toward his left hand, where he was steering with a 9mm Glock pistol for all traffic to see. “Oh, this thing?” He waved the weapon around the Chevelle’s interior. “Completely forgot I was holding this.” Serge aimed the gun out the window and squinted with one eye closed. Then made a shooting sound with his mouth.
“But why are you holding it?” asked Coleman.
“Getting ready for the holidays.” Serge racked the slide, chambering a fresh round. “You know how I love this time of year.”
“Anyone particular in mind for that thing?”
“Actually yes. Thanks for reminding me.” He flipped open a cell phone and hit speed dial. “Manny? Serge here…”
Coleman exhaled another Cheech hit. “You mean from Manny’s Towing and Salvage?”
“Pipe down, chowderhead! Can’t you see I’m busy with a steering wheel, cell phone, and gun? Don’t be irresponsible and distract me-
… No, not you Manny. Drugs are involved. Long story, explain later. Listen, anything further on That Thing?… I see, I understand… You’re keeping your ears open, and I’ll be the first person you call… Peace, out.” Serge clapped the phone shut and aimed the gun from the window again.
Bang.
“Shit! How’d that go off?” Serge hit the gas. “We have to get the hell out of here.” Rubber squealed. “And stop smoking that dope. You’ll draw attention…”
D id you hear a gunshot?” asked Martha Davenport.
Jim Davenport looked around from the driver’s seat of a white Hyundai. “Where?”
“Watch out!”
Jim cut the wheel at the last second, rubbing tires on a curb.
A ’72 Chevelle whipped past them within inches and accelerated.
Jim let his car come to a stop, waiting for his heart to calm down.
“Why are you stopping?” asked Martha.
Rapid breaths. “Just collecting myself. That was close.”
“But they’re getting away!” Martha pointed out the windshield. “I want their license number!”
Jim sighed and sat. “Martha, you can’t keep reporting everybody.”
“Jim, what’s wrong with you?” asked his wife. “That Charger almost hit us!”
“I think it was a Chevelle.”
“Do you always have to disagree with me?”
“No-”
“That’s disagreeing.”
“Yes?”
“Then stop it.”
“Okay.”
He put the car back in gear and proceeded under the speed limit. “I know why you’re upset.”
Martha stared out her window. “I hate this time of year.”
“But it’s the holidays.”
“It’s a nightmare,” said Martha. “Like I don’t have enough to do: cook the turkey dinner, get the artificial tree down from the attic, shop at those madhouse malls, put the lights up outside, address Christmas cards to people we never see anymore because they still send us cards and we might see them again… It’s too much pressure.”
“That’s not the real reason,” said Jim.
“What is the reason?”
“My mom.”
“Why do we have to let her visit anyway?”
“Because she’s my mom.”
Martha folded her arms tight. “Whenever it’s this time of year, and the days grow closer to holiday dinners with her, I’m not even thinking about it, but the stress just subconsciously builds.”
“Because you let it.” Jim changed lanes and pulled into a grocery-store parking lot. “Relax and let me handle her.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” Martha grabbed her purse off the seat. “You’re not the one under the microscope. You’re her son. You can do no wrong. But she watches me like a hawk, every move I make, everything I say, every dish I cook…”
“You’re imagining things.”
“Whenever I offer her iced tea or something, she rewashes the glass. And it’s right out of the cabinet, like I don’t keep a clean house.”
“She’s probably not even aware she’s doing it.”
“Oh, she knows all right. You’re just blind to the whole mother-in-law-versus-daughter thing. It’s all-out war. I think she’s actually making lists and studying her battle plan for hours, because it’s always the same pattern. First she fluffs the couch cushions, then wipes down the bathroom sinks, then asks if I have bleach. Bleach! Men don’t care, but between women, bleach is a laser-guided bomb. Everything she does means something. Like when she asks you to say grace before dinner.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s an attack on me. She knows you converted when we got married, but that’s her way of pretending we never told her. She’s passive-aggressive like that. Not to mention her supposedly idle comments.”
“Maybe they really are idle.”
“Jim! Every visit without fail, right in the middle of when I finally think everything’s going nice for once, she stops and turns: ‘I’ll be dead soon.’ ”
“But your mom says the same thing.”
Martha shook her head. “Another holiday war.”
“But she’s your mom.”
“She thinks your perfect, too,” said Martha. “Concerned I’m not feeding you properly. And it’s been too long since I visited my cousin.”
“The one who got out of prison?”
“Plus she keeps hinting about moving in with us.” She stared out the window again. “I’d have to kill myself.”
Jim drove down a row of cars near the front of the store. “There’s a spot.”
Martha pulled a purse strap over her shoulder. “Let’s just go get the turkey.”
“I’ll get the bleach.”
“Not funny.”
“Only trying to lighten the mood.”
“Watch out!”
Jim cut the wheel, almost clipping four parked cars. A Delta 88 whipped by on the left and screeched around the corner.
“Jim! Go after him!” She pulled out a notepad and pen. “I only got the first three numbers.”
Jim parked instead and turned with understanding eyes.
“Oh, so take his side.”
“Martha, maybe it’s a dangerous person. Just like the Chevelle. He’s already demonstrated a reckless lifestyle. That’s a red flag.”
“And that’s why the authorities need to know. Start the car! He’s getting away!”
“You can’t stop every jerk in the city.”
“But if everyone else did their part.”
“Look, you’re right, he’s a menace. But now he’s driven out of our lives. The last thing we need to do is reel him back in. And we know nothing about him. He could be capable of anything for revenge.”
“You’re paranoid.”
“Martha, my job involves threat assessment. The odds are slim, but if we report enough people…”
“You and your red flags.”
“I love you.”
She opened her door. “I hate this time of year.”
A black Delta 88 came flying around the corner on MacDill Avenue. The driver wanted to make the traffic light, but it was a short yellow, and the sedan screeched to a stop just after it turned red.
A convertible Mustang pulled up alongside. Four frat boys with baseball caps on backward. The horn honked. One of the frat boys made a cranking motion with his hand for the driver of the Delta 88 to roll down his window.
The glass slowly lowered.
“Hey, asshole!” yelled the Mustang’s driver. “You almost hit us back there. Are you retarded or something?”
The door of the Delta 88 opened. A man in a uniform got out and approached the sports car. “I’m really sorry. My mother’s in the hospital and my mind’s been elsewhere-”
Suddenly the man nailed the Mustang’s driver in the jaw with a wicked sucker punch. Then he reached in and playfully pinched the driver’s cheek. “Advice for the day: Don’t fuck with people you know nothing about. I see you again, I’ll kill you.”
The man got back in the Delta 88 and sped off.
The Mustang remained stopped at the green light. Four shocked faces. One was crying.
W atch out!” yelled Coleman, grabbing the dashboard.
Serge cut the wheel. A Delta 88 screamed by. “Typical Tampa driver.”
Coleman relit his dropped joint. “Someone should report him.”
The Chevelle continued south on Dale Mabry Highway.
“I love this time of year,” said Serge, ejecting a bullet from his Glock and stowing it under the seat for safety. “Every time the weather turns cool in Florida, it subconsciously triggers deja vu memories of past holiday seasons.”
Coleman cracked a beer. “Like what?”
“Getting cool toys for Christmas. Even better, getting shit I didn’t like and blowing it up with firecrackers. My folks were always puzzled by the debris.”
“I blew up something I made of LEGOs.”
“That’s the primary use of LEGOs, even though they keep quiet about it.” Serge put his fingers together, assembling something invisible. “The interlocking blocks allowed flexibility of design so you can engineer a directional charge. Excellent demolition training, which was otherwise unavailable at that age.”
Coleman killed the beer and crunched the can flat against his forehead. “Ow, I think I cut myself… Any other memories?”
“There’s also the newer ones.” Serge handed him some napkins. “Like every year, newspapers run the exact same menu of holiday stories: family hospitalized for smoke inhalation trying to keep warm by barbecuing indoors, seven crushed in Black Friday shopping spree, needy family evicted from apartment just days before Christmas, moms arrested fighting over last Xbox, employees laid off just days before Christmas, car stolen from shopping center with all of family’s gifts in trunk, man dies watering Christmas tree with lights on, depression soars during holidays, evicted needy family gets holiday wish, hospitals warn about eating Christmas decorations that aren’t food, needy family’s hoax results in charges. It’s a special time of year.”
“Are we there yet?” asked Coleman.
“Just up ahead. I checked us into our new room before dawn while you were still unconscious at the old one.”
Coleman glanced at their surroundings, detecting a trend. Sports bars, Tex-Mex, bowling alleys. Strip malls offering tattoos, guns, and haircuts. Off-brand convenience stores with large ads for lottery tickets, Newport cigarettes, and Asian groceries. An unnatural concentration of personal-injury-attorney signs at bus stops. Gas stations selling fried poultry and hash pipes. The pimp-your-ride industry: auto-detailing, auto upholstery, window tinting, auto alarm. Grime-streaked apartment balconies full of dead potted plants, barbecues, and people banging on doors. Old mom-and-pop motel signs with patriotic motifs involving eagles, flags, military airplanes, and primitive rocket ships. And finally the sub-budget motels with no signs at all.
Coleman took another hit. “Where are we?”
“South Tampa.” Serge hit his blinker. “More specifically south of Gandy Boulevard, toward the air-force base. The closer you get to the base, the sketchier the highway. Here we are, a sub-budget motel with no sign, which is perfect.” He turned the wheel.
“Perfect?”
“The behavior of the guests at these motels is so erratic that our mission will go unnoticed.”
“What’s our mission?”
Serge pulled into a parking lot. “The story on the news a few days ago about the VFW hall. Not one of the holiday stories I mentioned, but since it’s during the season, it’s that much more despicable.”
Coleman opened his passenger door and tumbled onto the pavement. He popped back up. “Something tripped me again… What happened at the VFW?”
“The economy. There’s been a huge increase in desperate, low-end burglars ripping off heavy metal stuff right in the open and selling it for scrap.” Serge got out a key and headed for their room. “Chain-link fence, sheds, aluminum siding. One guy up in Pasco even used a cutting torch and took a span of guardrail from the expressway.”
“But we’ve done that. Remember our U-Haul full of metal garbage cans and spools of barbed wire?”
“I’m not saying it’s wrong. In fact it creates jobs far more aggressively than any stimulus package. I’d love to see a Discovery Channel special tracking the illegal hauls to the scrap yard, where it’s crushed, loaded on tractor trailers, driven to Pittsburgh, infusing capital into local diners, bars, and truck-stop hookers, finally reaching the foundry, where it’s smelted, shipped again to assembly lines in Terra Haute and Fond du Lac, which use the raw materials to manufacture new stuff to replace the shit we stole, then sending it back to Florida, creating more employment for contractors who have to reinstall everything before we take it again. A perfect, self-sustaining closed-loop domestic industrial model, minimizing dependence on foreign entities who mean us ill fortune.”
Serge opened the motel room door.
“Holy shit,” said Coleman. “Look at all the copper pipes and wires. You must have stolen all of this in the middle of the night.”
“The War on Terror never sleeps.”
Coleman high-stepped through the cluttered room. “But with all this copper, why are you upset about the TV news story the other night?”
“Because even the War on Terror has rules. Like, you don’t use crowbars to ply the brass plaques off VFW posts that list the names of all the local patriots who have made the supreme sacrifice since the First World War.”
“That’s not right.” Coleman tried the TV. “Can’t they just make a new one.”
Serge shook his head. “It’s a small post. They didn’t keep a list of the names. Sounds like an obvious thing to do, but nobody even considered this a distant possibility. The tribute will be gone forever unless we can trace the culprit. I’ve got eyes on the street.”
“That phone call to Manny’s Towing and Salvage?”
“If the bastard tries to fence the plaques within twenty miles, we got him.”
Coleman changed channels. “What about all this copper?”
“Sell it to Manny. And give him some for his trouble if he comes through.”
“No, I mean where’d you get it?”
“Another thing that burns my ass. Florida is one of the few places with a law that says your primary residence can never be seized to pay debts, even if they’re the results of criminal fraud or worse. That’s why O.J. moved here when he was being sued by the Goldmans. Wall Street fuck-heads regularly liquidate all their assets and buy the biggest home possible before going to jail. Then they get out a few years later and live in a palace, while their swindled retirees eat Kibbles ’n Bits-”
Knock knock knock.
Serge spun and flicked open a switchblade. “What the hell’s that?”
Coleman turned up the volume on the news. “The door.”
Knock knock knock.
Coleman began going through the room’s bureau for loose change. In the second drawer he discovered three prescription bottles and instantly glowed with the kind of dark horse optimism that is only available in the drug culture. His spirits sagged when he realized the bottles were empty, had Serge’s name on the labels, and were all for no-fun serotonin-management chemicals. The refill dates bordered on historical. “Serge? When was the last time you took-”
Knock knock knock!
Coleman returned to the TV dial. “Aren’t you going to get that?”
“Yes, but not right away. Because it’s not just any door.” Serge started to tiptoe. “It’s the magic door at a fleabag motel. Which means until I open it, the possibilities are infinitely greater than that of other doors we’ve come to know and love…”
Knock knock knock!
Serge continued silently creeping. “No fuckin’ boundaries, man! This dump could attract anyone with a limber global outlook. Cadaver dog trainers, pearl divers, snake handlers, snowboarders, celebrity bulimics, Filipino mystics who hang themselves with hooks through their flesh, Blue Oyster Cult, cannibals, and people curious about cannibals.”
Coleman fired up a joint. “What if it’s a midget?”
“That would work,” said Serge. “You open a door and find a midget, and there’s no way you can be in a bad mood. It’s just not possible.”
Knock knock knock. “Dammit, Serge, open up! I’m growing a beard out here!”
Serge’s chin fell to his chest. “Crap.” He undid the chain and turned the knob. “Manny, great to see you.” Serge stuck his head out the door, glanced suspiciously both ways, then grabbed his guest by the shirt and yanked him off his feet into the room. “Please come in.”
Manny looked around the room at all the copper. “You’ve been a busy boy.”
“Terrorism.”
“Where’d you get all this?”
Coleman changed the channel again and turned up the volume on another local news program.
“Good evening. This is Pam Swanson outside the waterfront mansion of disgraced hedge fund manager Tobias Greenleaf, where police are releasing few details about a brazen overnight break-in…”
Manny pointed at the TV. “Greenleaf?”
Serge just smiled.
Manny slapped him on the shoulder. “Should have known.” He walked over to a stack of copper coils. “Looks like you hit the a/c units pretty hard.” Then he swept an arm back at the rest of the room. “But those straight pipes and wires must have been inside the walls.”
“Not anymore,” said Serge.
Manny whistled. “Must have taken hours of work hacking through the drywall with axes.”
“And a demolition saw.”
“… However, unnamed sources describe extensive interior damage at the mansion and estimate repair costs at almost a quarter-million dollars. Off the record, officials speculate the wholesale vandalism could be payback for the hundreds of retirement accounts that were left worthless…”
“You used a demolition saw?” said Manny. “You’re not in contracting. How’d you figure out which walls weren’t load-bearing?”
“That’s easy,” said Serge. “Just follow the stress lines of the architecture. It’s obvious to anyone with a knack for calculus.”
“So you left the copper in those walls behind?”
“No, I figured out a way to get that, too.”
Manny scratched his head. “But how would you be able-”
“… Wait, something’s happening…” A deep rumbling sound from the TV set. “… There’s frantic activity at the west wing of the mansion…” Background shouting. “Get out! Get out now!” People running willy-nilly across the lawn. “… Police and fire officials are evacuating the mansion. The roof… the whole wing… it’s collapsing as we speak… Now it’s pulling down the center of the building… Words cannot begin to describe this scene of devastation, but I’ll keep talking anyway…”
Manny turned to Serge and slowly grinned. “I thought this was about copper.”
“It was.” Serge stopped and smacked himself in the forehead. “I forgot. I never took calculus.”
“… Now the east wing has just come down, the whole estate completely flattened. And since all of Greenleaf’s assets had been sheltered in the house under Florida’s no-seizure law, he’s completely wiped out.”
“Pam, this is Jim on the anchor desk. Surely someone as smart as Greenleaf would have insurance…”
“That’s correct, Jim. But as soon as the claims check is issued, it’s a financial instrument and not a house, which is no longer shielded under the no-seizure law, and will immediately be turned over to the victims whose retirement accounts he wiped out…”
Manny glanced at Serge again. “You planned this all along?”
“Who? Me?”
A hearty laugh. “I got the guys outside. Let’s start getting this copper loaded.”
The TV screen switched to a local VFW hall. “… In other news, there are no new leads in the heartless theft of memorial plaques to the area’s fallen, which has brought out dozens of supporters holding a candlelight vigil…”
A cell phone rang. “Manny here… What?… When did this happen?… That’s great news… I mean it’s bad… I mean, you know what I mean.” He clapped the phone shut. “Serge, that was Nicky the Mooch. Just got word on those plaques of yours. Someone’s trying to unload them in Lutz.”
“So Nicky’s got them?”
Manny shook his head. “Guy’s been laying low because of all the heat. But he finally risked going to Nicky’s scrap yard because Nicky is, well, like you and me.”
“You mean casual with the letter of the law?”
“Nicky said that when he dialed my number a minute ago, the guy must have thought he was calling the cops. He spooked and split.”
“Damn,” said Serge. “Now we may never get them back.”
“Not so fast,” said Manny. “He recognized the guy. From time to time, brings in stuff from construction sites. But a month ago, he was actually selling something legitimate. The bumper fell off his car. So he let Nicky copy his driver’s license like they’re supposed to do the rest of the time. Helps make his logbook look at least half kosher.”
Serge pumped his eyebrows. “Nicky’s got his address?”
“Just pulled it. He’s waiting for your call.”
“Can’t thank you enough.” Serge pointed beside the bed. “That pile of pipes? On me.”
“Nice to be back doing business with you.” Manny pulled work gloves from his pocket and slipped them on. “So what’s going to happen now?”
“Tomorrow’s Thanksgiving.” Serge retrieved his pistol from a suitcase and checked the magazine. “Only polite thing is to invite him to dinner.”