“That’s because I’m a people person.”
18
Wild green parrots squawked and flew in circles against the bank of clouds that glowed orange and violet at dusk. They swooped in front of the condominium and settled atop one of the tall Washingtonia palms that lined the road, evenly spaced like streetlights.
Edna Ploomfield watched the parrots at sunset each evening from her back porch at Calusa Pointe. Or she watched the herons. Or the oystercatchers, kingfishers, skimmers, stilts and plovers that strutted at low tide.
But tonight she ignored them because she was being interviewed on Florida Cable News with Toto about her shooting of one of the infamous Diaz Boys.
“Tell us again how Toto handled all this,” said correspondent Blaine Crease.
“He was fine,” Ploomfield said in her little ol’ lady voice. “So then I went for the gun on the wall-”
“And where was Toto?”
“On the floor somewhere. So I grabbed the gun and spun-”
“What was Toto wearing?”
After the camera lights were turned off, Mrs. Ploomfield said good night and went into her kitchen and freshened up her scotch. She shuffled to her bedroom and set the glass on the nightstand. She climbed into bed, propped herself up with three pillows and watched a M*A*S*H rerun. She turned off the TV with the remote. Then she looked over at the lamp on the nightstand and clapped twice, and the light went out.
But unknown to Mrs. Ploomfield or anyone else at Calusa Pointe, there was a second clapper in the room. It was under her bed, wired to blasting caps and fourteen pounds of dynamite, and a millisecond after the lamp went out, Mrs. Ploomfield was blown straight up through the ceiling and into the condominium of the incredible shrinking mayor of Beverly Shores.
Z argoza was sitting in the bar behind Hammerhead Ranch when a tremendous explosion at the condominium next door rocked the place. Liquor bottles rattled and two wineglasses at the edge of the sink fell and broke. Zargoza remembered that two hours earlier he’d seen someone who looked vaguely like Rafael Diaz run out the back of Calusa Pointe and up the beach.
“Fuckin’ Diaz Boys,” Zargoza grumbled to himself. “I want those beepers out of here!”
Zargoza got up from the bar and went back to room twelve, where his boiler room operation was winding down from its dinner-hour fever pitch. He gathered his goons away from the telephones, and he half-sat against the side of his oversize desk. He read from a leather organizer, giving the day’s rundown of business and who wasn’t up to quota.
As Zargoza spoke, a bright red laser dot slowly traced along the wall behind him and settled on his forehead. The goon standing closest to Zargoza tackled him to the ground. Another ran to the window and peeked out. “It’s coming from one of the motel rooms.”
W hen the door crashed open in room one of Hammerhead Ranch and four men with automatic pistols burst in, Serge was on the far bed, packing the moon rock into his toiletry bag. Lenny was lying on the other bed, having just stuck the keychain laser in his hip pocket. His head was toward the foot of the bed, and he bent his neck backward and looked upside down at the four men sticking gun barrels in his face.
“What I do?”
S erge and Lenny sat handcuffed to chairs in room twelve as Zargoza paced and talked to himself and his men played cards. He slugged down sour mash and marched around the room and cursed.
“You back-stabbin’ chickenshit!” Zargoza yelled at Serge. “We had all that fun with those Jet Skiers-pretending to be my friend and everything-and the whole time you were planning to kill me! Someone sent you after the five million, didn’t they? Well, I don’t have it!”
Zargoza paced some more, and he grabbed a bag of potato chips away from one of his goons and began chomping.
“Look how jumpy I am-I’m gaining weight!” He threw the bag of chips back at the goon. “What am I gonna do with these guys? If I can’t handle this, how will I ever keep the Diaz Boys in line?”
He was interrupted by a loud voice from the back of the room.
“Fuck the fucking Diaz Brothers!” Serge shouted, veins bulging. “Fuck ’em all! I bury those cockroaches! What did they ever do for us?!”
Two goons turned their guns on Serge. “We should waste him! Teach him to shut his mouth!” one said. Then, talking to Serge, “For your information, it’s the Diaz Boys, not Brothers.”
“No,” said Zargoza, “that’s not it. He’s doing Pacino from Scarface. I love that movie!”
“Say hello to my little friend!” said Serge.
“Did you see Miami Blues?” asked Zargoza.
“Ever been in a lineup?” asked Serge, making a tense Fred Ward face. “You own a suede sports coat?”
One of the goons was patting down Lenny, and he found the personal laser in his hip pocket. “Z, look at this.”
Zargoza shook his head and started laughing. “Uncuff ’em. They ain’t hit men. I haven’t figured out what they actually are, but it ain’t assassins.”
“I’m supposed to be Don Johnson,” said Lenny.
19
It was two A.M. when Zargoza, Serge and Lenny walked out of Zargoza’s office at Hammerhead Ranch. Serge retrieved his camera bag from room one, and they all got in Zargoza’s roomy BMW M3, Serge riding shotgun and Lenny in the middle of the backseat.
Serge immediately began fiddling with the fur-lined handcuffs dangling from Zargoza’s rearview mirror.
“I can’t believe I met you guys,” said Zargoza. “It’s like we’re all tuned in to the same Florida wavelength.”
They drove east, back onto the mainland and across the St. Petersburg peninsula until they came to the Gandy Bridge leading to Tampa. As the Beemer headed over the water, Zargoza called up a CD on the stereo, “Abacab” by Genesis.
“This is one of my favorite things, one of those little pleasures you have to make for yourself,” he said.
Zargoza looked over and noticed Serge and Lenny leaning forward in anticipation, waiting for him to continue.
“Oh-I love driving across the Tampa Bay bridges after midnight, playing my music. Sometimes I’ll make loops and go over the different bridges and sometimes I’ll go all the way down to the Skyway if I’m really jazzed. Say, you hear someone dressed like Santa jumped the other night?”
Lenny said yes and Serge said no.
“I remember crossing this bridge years back in my Jag. Piled it into a cement truck. Seems like a lifetime ago.”
Zargoza looked at Serge, and then back at Lenny sitting in the backseat with an unlit Lucky Strike in his mouth.
“You need a light,” Zargoza said, reaching for the dash.
“Don’t smoke,” said Lenny.
Zargoza gave Lenny a double take, then went on. “These bridges are wonderful at night. They’re practically empty, and the views over the bay are mesmerizing.”
Zargoza opened a console between the seats and thumbed through a dozen CDs. “The hardest part is picking the right tune. For the bridges, I prefer haunting music.”
“Haunting?” asked Lenny.
“Yeah,” said Zargoza, “music that touches something preternatural inside. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but it awakens a nonverbal sense of horror in your unborn soul.”
“Like the Spice Girls?” asked Serge.
“I’m trying to be serious!” snapped Zargoza. “I’m talkin’ about Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Jeff Beck…”
Lightning forked in the distance toward Plant City, and it inspired Zargoza to pick Bad Company’s “Burnin’ Sky” for the next tune. He increased the volume and everyone stopped talking and grooved, letting the moment happen.
Zargoza saw the flashing red and blue lights in the rearview mirror. “Damn!” he said. “That’ll kill a buzz!”
Zargoza stood next to his car in the breakdown lane as the officer studied his driver’s license. He looked up at Zargoza. “We clocked you at ninety.”