Inside the car, Serge got the homing signal receiver out of his camera bag. It began flashing as soon as he turned it on. He panned it around and the flashing light went solid when he pointed it at the Beemer’s trunk.
Zargoza stood silent outside the car as his ticket was written, but he finally lost it. He made two fists and pounded them on the roof of his car and yelled. His radar detector was stuck onto the left side of the windshield with suction cups, and he reached into the car and tore it loose. The officer went for his gun, but when he saw Zargoza come up with only the detector, he left the Glock holstered.
“Damn piece of no-good cheap crap,” he said, rapidly winding the coiled wire around the detector. “Frickin’ four hundred dollars of unreliable shit!” He wound way back like Carl Yastrzemski and let the detector fly out into the bay, and it made an unseen splash somewhere in the dark water.
The police officer pointed toward the sky. “We got you with the airplane.”
After the officer pulled away, Zargoza tossed the ticket out the window and sped toward south Tampa. He hit the mainland and cued “Biko” and fired up a brown onyx pipe of Aztec design. “Opium, anyone?”
“Trying to cut down,” said Serge.
“Don’t mind if I do,” said Lenny.
They drove through the back streets under the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway, named after the Tampa Bay Hall of Fame football star.
“What’s going on over there?” asked Serge.
“They’re tearing down the aquarium,” said Zargoza. “Making way for the new one.”
“But it’s brand new,” said Serge.
“They must know what they’re doing.”
The BMW cruised by the hockey arena, closed and dark, but the marquee was still lit. “Dec. 17: Southeast Figure Skating Finals/Dec. 18: Lightning vs. Rangers/Dec. 19: Nuremberg Trials on Ice.” Zargoza turned west on Kennedy Boulevard, in front of the old Tampa Bay Hotel.
“Stop!” yelled Serge.
Zargoza hit the brakes. “What? What?”
But Serge had jumped out of the car with his camera and taken off running into the trees in Plant Park. Zargoza and Lenny peered into the darkness but couldn’t see anything. Suddenly there was a quick series of bright flashes.
“Someone’s shooting!” said Lenny.
“I didn’t hear anything,” said Zargoza. “Must be the camera flash.”
Serge reappeared out of the trees and jogged back to the car.
“What was that about?” asked Zargoza.
“I’ve been meaning to get that one for a while,” said Serge. “There’s a big oak tree down there where Hernando de Soto held talks with the Indians in 1539.”
Zargoza stared at him. “Where do you get this stuff?”
Serge stared back. “Doesn’t everybody know that?”
A half hour later they were in Ybor City. Serge was quickly out of the car again without warning.
“I wish he’d stop doing that,” said Zargoza.
“Best not fight it,” said Lenny, watching xenon strobe flashes light up the street around the corner at Café Creole. “When he’s in his zone, you get out of his way or you get trampled.”
Serge jumped back in the car, all smiles.
“What this time?” asked Zargoza. “Indian shell mound?”
“Don’t be silly,” said Serge. “The geology’s all wrong. That used to be the old El Pasaje restaurant, where José Martí stayed last century while planning to kick some butt in Cuba. He’s my role model… This is also where the Buffalo Soldiers went on their rampage. Remember them? The highly decorated military units? They were staying in Tampa, getting ready to ship out to Cuba for the Spanish-American War. Elsewhere they were received like heroes, but here the innkeepers and bar owners discriminated against them ’cause they were black. Here they are, ready to go fight for America, and these locals are acting like bozos, so the Buffalos tore the place apart. Good for them.”
“Are you set? Can we go now?” Zargoza said rhetorically.
“Ooops,” said Serge. He was out of the car again, running across Ninth Avenue and up Fifteenth Street, and Zargoza was forced to follow slowly in the car.
“I give up,” said Zargoza.
“Be glad you weren’t his parents,” said Lenny.
“Good point.”
Serge leaped back in the car and Zargoza looked at him without speaking.
“Cigar factory established by city namesake V. Martínez Ybor circa 1885,” said Serge. “Recognized it from an old Burgert Brothers print.”
“I’m putting a shit-stop to this,” said Zargoza. He reached down by his left side, throwing a switch that activated the BMW’s child-safety locks.
They drove off and Serge played with the radio. A jazz station, an all-night Lightning hockey postgame show, and Blitz-99.
“Hey, boys and girls, this is Boris the Hateful Piece of Sh-AHH-OOOO-GAH! reminding you that the big vote on Proposition 213 is only days away…”
“That’s that stupid anti-immigration amendment again,” said Zargoza. “Everyone’s pissed ’cause we’re going bilingual.”
“Doesn’t anybody study history anymore?” said Serge. “ Florida was colonized by Spain. English is the foreign language here.”
“I’m counting on you! Vote yes on Proposition 213!…Because they smell funny!”
“What kind of trip is this guy on?” asked Lenny.
“Not sure,” replied Serge. “We may have just slipped through some kind of white-trash worm-hole in the time-space continuum.”
Zargoza glanced again at the backseat. “I been meanin’ to ask: What’s with the Miami Vice getup?”
“I’m the Don Johnson experience.”
Zargoza laughed again. “You look more like James Woods.”
“It’s not look. It’s heart.”
“Okay,” said Zargoza, humoring him. “Show us some heart.”
Lenny cleared his throat in the backseat. “Listen, pal! I don’t do this for kicks! It’s a job, and when it’s over, I walk as far away from it as I can!”
Serge and Zargoza snapped their heads toward the backseat. “My God,” said Serge. “It’s him.”
They drove randomly around Tampa Bay, admiring the views.
“Face it, Rico, we’re just small-time players in a high-stakes game, where the rules are made by people we can’t touch!”
Serge directed Zargoza up Fifty-sixth Street until they came to an uneventful honky-tonk.
“What’s so great about this place?” asked Zargoza.
“Keep it in your pants,” said Serge.
They went inside and the place was dead. Idle dart boards and pool tables. One drunk chick swayed slowly by herself on the dance floor to a country song about lost love and lice.
Serge ordered drafts for Lenny and Zargoza and a mineral water with a twist for himself. Serge drained the water in one pull and slammed the glass down. “Kill those,” he said. “We’re on the move,” and he ran out the door.
Back in the car, Serge told Zargoza to go north and hang a Louie on Busch Boulevard.
They pulled into a lounge that was an afterthought to the package store. A dive on a resigned stretch of the boulevard. Only two other people and an unidentified smell. The side door was open to the humid night. Yellowish crime light in parking lot and a fresh wreck up the street that was closing two lanes, the ejected body still in the street. A cop squatted next to it and felt for a pulse.
Serge ordered drinks again, but this time Zargoza declared he would not be rushed.
“No problem,” said Serge. “We’ve arrived.”
“Arrived where?” said Zargoza.
“You’ve just completed the Goodfellas tour of Tampa,” said Serge. “Remember the Martin Scorcese movie? The part where Robert DeNiro and Ray Liotta got arrested in Tampa? In the movie they threatened a guy with a gambling debt by dangling him over the lion fence at the Tampa Zoo, which was actually the Lowry Park Zoo. That was Hollywood. In reality, they kidnapped him from that last bar we were at, pistol-whipped him in the car on the route we just took, dragged him into this place and stuffed him in that storage room”-Serge pointed across the bar. “It was October eighth, 1970.”