Tim Dorsey - Hammerhead Ranch Motel

When the police arrived, Kefauver was sitting up holding his forehead and screaming about the psychotic old lady who attacked him. He reeked from the booze splashed on his face and shirt.

Edna Ploomfield hobbled to the door and a young policeman helped her by the arm. “Oh, my, my. Thank heavens you’re here, you nice officers,” she said in a delicate, creaking voice. “That terrible man threatened us. Ohhhh, I’m just a sweet little ol’ lady, and he was mean to me. He fell and hit his own head because he was so crazy and drunk…”

“You’re putting on an act, you old bag!”

“…just like that,” Ploomfield said, and pointed.

“We’ve heard enough,” said the sergeant in charge, and they handcuffed the mayor and took him away in a patrol car, but not before the TV crews arrived and pointed cameras in the back window and yelled in unison, “Why’d ya do it?”

T he Diaz Boys held an emergency meeting right after watching the mayor of Beverly Shores being driven off in a squad car on the nightly news. Tommy Diaz told Rafael and Pedro to take the shotguns, and he gave them a map to Calusa Pointe, unit 1193.

“How do you want it handled?” asked Rafael.

“Just knock on the door.”

“Then what?”

“Shoot whoever answers.”

Three weeks into December, the meteorologic tragicomedy known as El Niño produced two markedly abnormal conditions in the Lesser Antilles. The trade winds exceeded the annual average by five miles per hour, and the water temperature rose two degrees. The changes were imperceptible to the islanders living in the region. But they made the critical difference when the remnants of a barely organized and forgotten storm system limped into the area. Overnight, Rolando-berto roared back to life and came ashore on one of the Leeward Islands, where the residents did not possess a prescient dog, but instead relied upon a goat wearing an Ohio State sweater bestowed as a peace offering in 1977 by a shipwrecked alumnus who mistook the natives for cannibals.

Before the goat could ring the bell on its neck, Rolando-berto promptly dispatched the animal through the side of a quaint and gaily painted barn, and entire villages were leveled without warning.

News of the death toll in the Leewards whipped Florida into action and cranked up the state’s Hurricane Industrial Complex. Commemorative “I survived Rolando-berto” T-shirts were printed in advance, and shelves were stocked with packing tape, weather radios and splatterproof party ponchos. Water was bottled, plywood nailed, and candles and batteries shipped in by tram. TV advertising time was purchased to demonstrate two-hundred-dollar panes of miracle glass that could withstand coconuts fired from special cannons. Florida Cable News bought a new wardrobe for Toto.

N ews of the hurricane was playing in hi-fi in the Lexus, and Sammy Pedantic changed the station to techno-dance.

“Those were great guys,” Joe said as they drove through Orlando on I-4. “What a deal-just drive their car across the state to Tampa Bay and give it to their cousin and we get five hundred bucks.”

“I’ve heard about this before-rich people actually pay someone to drive their cars city to city. It’s like house-sitting. Except there’s no house.”

“Plus a free weekend on the beach!”

“And chicks, too!” Sammy turned around and saw City and Country driving eight lengths back in their maroon Mercury Cougar. He popped two beers and handed one to Joe. “Now, this is living.”

They concentrated on drinking for a moment, then threw the empties onto the leather backseat. Joe burped first, then Sammy, then it became a contest.

“You know anything about the Gulf Coast?” asked Joe.

“Are you kidding? It’s ten times better than the East Coast. And Miami has nothing on Tampa. We’re lucky we fell into this deal.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Those guys told us, remember?”

“That’s right.”

“There is a God,” said Sammy.

“And he has plans for us,” said Joe.

On the way through Orlando, Joe and Sammy began hearing a peculiar sound inside the dashboard, but it didn’t seem to be affecting the car’s performance. They continued southwest on Interstate 4, past a collision of money and architecture. Castles and resort hotels and imperial pagodas. Wild West sets and Polynesian discos. Artificial beaches and heliports. Down both sides of the highway, like the master growth plan of a small, oil-producing state. Pirate ships and towers of terror. Giant Las Vegas signs: “Buffet $4.99.” Reptile petting farms, go-cart tracks. Fun World, Fun Mania, Fun ’n’ Sun. And it wasn’t even Disney yet. The Great White Shark was still ahead; these were just the remoras and trash fish that clean its teeth and suck the scales for sidestream commerce.

They hit heavy traffic, then construction, and the boys lost City and Country just past the American Gladiators Dinner Theater.

“Where’d the girls go?” asked Sammy.

“Shhhh!” said Joe, trying to listen to the engine.

They noticed the engine sound growing louder as they drove through Lakeland. It was a rhythmic noise, a whap-whap-whap like a baseball card in the spokes of a bike. Joe leaned toward the dash.

“I’ve heard engines about to go, and this doesn’t sound the same,” said Joe. “We’re pretty close to Tampa. We’ll make it.”

He was right. It wasn’t the engine. The problem was the air-conditioning. One of the fan blades was rubbing. Only a little at first. The blade had shifted slightly and began clipping some plastic in the cowling. As the clipping wore on, the plastic became frayed and gave the fan blade more to dig into, which tore up more of the plastic.

By the time they took the exit ramp into downtown Tampa, the puttering sound filled the car. Sammy read the map and said where to turn. Joe made a right on Polk, and Sammy pointed at the bus station a block ahead. “That’s where we’re supposed to meet the guy’s cousin.”

Something they didn’t know: The plastic that the fan blade was clipping wasn’t supposed to be there. It was the tight outer binding of a kilo of cocaine. As Joe and Sammy rounded the corner, the slightest aperture opened through the last bit of plastic wrap and a thin, invisible current of coke blew out the vents.

Sammy sniffed the air. “Smells musty in here.”

The fan now had something to work with. Once that first hole had broken the seal, the blade ripped open the rest in short order like a Christmas present.

Suddenly, the air conditioner blew a swift, solid cloud of white dust that filled the passenger compartment, blinding and choking them. Joe began hitting parking meters and garbage cans all down the right side of the street until he crashed into the back of a van outside the bus terminal.

A police officer ran from a sandwich shop. The electric windows rolled down and a thick cloud of cocaine billowed out. Joe and Sammy opened their doors and fell to the ground, gagging. The officer pulled his gun.

I n all, the cocaine in the air conditioner and other parts of the Lexus tipped police scales at just over four hundred and ten pounds, a weight which, under new federal law, required a roomful of politicians to appear at the press conference announcing the arrests. Seven hours into the interrogation of Joe and Sammy, a team of detectives, prosecutors and city officials met secretly in a conference room at police headquarters. Something had happened for the first time in their collective crime-fighting experience. Suspects found in a car full of drugs-actually covered in drugs-appeared to be innocent. But since they had already held the press conference, the two young men would have to be convicted and imprisoned.