Tim Dorsey - Hammerhead Ranch Motel

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.

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.”

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.”