Tim Dorsey - Gator A-GO-GO

DAYTONA BEACH

Serge and the gang pulled out of town as a custom motor coach rolled in.

Male motorists honked at the bus, as they always did wherever it went, because of the topless women painted on the side with strategically positioned CENSORED labels.

Someone near the front of the bus hung up a phone and walked to the back. He knocked on the RV’s rear suite with circular bed.

Other side of the door: “Not now.”

“Sir, it’s important.”

The door opened a crack. Camera lights. Seventeen-year-olds. Rood stuck his head out. “Can’t it wait?”

“Sir, we’ve been sued again by parents. Ten million dollars. This time they said she was six teen.”

“So handle it like you always do.”

“Sir, that was Charley. He quit. Remember?”

“Bastard!” Rood fumed at the thought of his former chief assistant walking out in Panama City. “After all I did for him.”

“What do you want me to do?”

Rood looked back. “Guys, get the dildos.” He stepped outside and closed the door. “Offer five hundred thousand, the cost of doing business.”

“I don’t think they’ll take it. Pretty mad.”

“Their lawyer will get them to take it.”

“Their lawyer’s booked them on TV.”

“Everyone has a price,” said Rood. “You make an appointment to see him and negotiate.”

“But I’m not an attorney.”

“Not as a lawyer. A potential client.”

“I don’t understand.”

“He’s only going to get a third of the five hundred K we’re offering to settle for, which is why he won’t take it.” Rood lit a fat cigar. “So you say your company’s staff attorney is a fuck-up and you want to hire him on retainer. Million a year.”

“What does my company do?”

“I don’t give a shit. Widgets, copper mines.”

“But he won’t have any work to do.”

“He’ll know that.” Smoke rings drifted toward the ceiling. “It’s a legal bribe.”

The assistant coughed. “Isn’t that unethical?”

“That’s why it’ll work.”

“Won’t he wonder that I walked in out of the blue?”

“Tell him you admire his lawsuit-that you hate my guts and am glad to see I’m getting what’s due.” Another big puff. “Say you hope he can wrap up a settlement in my case fast, a week tops, because your company needs him available right away or you’ll have to go somewhere else. Then he’ll be ready to accept my lowball five hundred K offer.”

“He’ll buy that?”

“No, he’ll see right through it. But it’ll give him plausible deniability… Put out your hand.” The assistant did.

Rood tapped an ash into it. “Can’t fail.”

“But you don’t even know this guy.”

“He’s a lawyer.”

“What about the girl?”

“Fuck her.”

Squealing behind the suite’s door.

Rood grabbed the knob. “Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Filming continued as the bus pulled into the parking lot of a luxury resort.

“Here.” Rood handed the girls a presentation case. “Use the ben wa balls.”

Suddenly, a screeching of cars all around the bus. Loud voices.

“Cut!” yelled Rood. He left the suite and headed toward the front of the coach. “What the hell’s all that racket?”

“Sir,” said his assistant. “They’re here again.”

“Who is?”

They leaned toward side windows. Middle-aged women in the parking lot, waving picket signs and yelling.

“How’d they find us so fast?”

“Don’t know, sir.”

“Son of a bitch.” He turned to the driver. “Keep going.”

The bus pulled away from the hotel and headed south.

NEW SMYRNA BEACH

Twenty minutes south of Daytona, the Challenger turned west on State Road 44. Serge parked beneath a neon outline of Florida.

“Another biker bar,” said Coleman. “Cool!”

“Why are we stopping?” asked Andy.

“Because it’s Gilly’s Pub 44,” said Serge. “I love Gilly’s! ‘Where everyone is treated like a local.’”

“But I mean, aren’t we running for our lives?”

“Exactly.” Serge opened the driver’s-side door. “They’ll never expect this.”

Everyone grabbed stools. Coleman ordered four drinks.

“All right!” said Serge, looking at a TV on the wall. “A congressional hearing! Congressional hearings crack me up! Children argue better: I know you are, but what am I? …”

“What’s this one about?”

“Eeewwww.” Serge got a queasy feeling. “This one ain’t so funny. They’re questioning oil executives again, who continue bleeding my Florida travel budget. And if you know anything at all about Serge, you don’t want to go there.”

“Oh, gasoline, ” said Coleman. “So that’s what everyone’s been talking about?”

Serge turned slowly. “Did you just arrive on Earth?”

Coleman tossed back a shot. “No, I’ve been here almost my whole life.”

“The part that kills me is their latest wave of commercials.” Serge tipped back his bottled water. “The message now is that they’re against oil. How stupid do they think we are? BP’s new slogan: ‘Beyond Petroleum.’ The name of the damn company is British fucking Petroleum. They’re not beyond petroleum; they’re waist-deep in North Sea crude with the gas pump up our ass…”

“Serge, your head’s turning that color again.”

“… Or the ones showing cute Alaskan wildlife, wheat fields and wind farms, with the voice-over from a woman who sounds like she’s ready to fuck: ‘Imagine an oil company that cares.’ Holy Orwell, why not ‘Marlboro: We’re in the business of helping you quit smoking, so buy a carton today! ’…”

Farther down the bar.

Four white-haired ladies in leather jackets watched TV. “I hate those oil company pricks.”

“Why doesn’t the government do something?” asked Edna.

“Are you listening to yourself?” said Edith. “The government?”

Back up the bar, Serge’s ears perked. “Those voices…”

“The ones in your head?” asked Coleman.

“No, those are just the backup singers.” He looked around. “Why does it sound so familiar?”

“Where are they coming from?”

Serge strained his neck. “Coleman! Over there! It’s our old friends!”

He jumped off his stool, ran over and spread his arms. “The G-Unit!”

“Shit.” Edith picked up her gin. “Another fan.”

Edna slipped on chic sunglasses. “No autographs.”

“I don’t want an autograph.” He hopped on the balls of his feet. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Not really.”

“It’s me! Serge! From that crazy cruise to Cancun. And a decade back on Triggerfish Lane.”

“Dear God.”

“Glad to see me? What are you drinking? I got it.”

“Tanqueray.”

Serge raised a finger for the bartender and opened his wallet. “What’s with the leather getups?”

“We’re bad to the bone,” said Edith.

“So what have you been doing with yourselves these days?” asked Serge.

“Just ridin’ the big slab,” said Eunice.

“And hating this jackass,” said Edith, nodding up toward the TV.

“That oil guy?” said Serge. “Don’t get me started. Saying he’s just a regular Joe with money concerns like the rest of us.”

“Listen to that heartless fiction coming out of his mouth,” said Edna. “When gas went back down under two dollars a gallon, I thought we’d seen the last of it, but these snakes were just lying in wait.”

The TV switched to a correspondent standing outside the committee meeting room: “ … Meanwhile, investors in the oil giant are elated with record profits, and CEO Riles ‘Scooter’ Highpockets III, who gave himself an eighty-million-dollar securities option this year, should receive a much more welcome reception when he appears at the company’s annual stockholders’ meeting at an Orlando resort tomorrow… Back to you, Blaine… ”