Tim Dorsey - Hammerhead Ranch Motel

Art Tweed peered out a small, screened vent in the side of the portable toilet. He ripped the screen out of the way. He unzipped his leather bag, took out the Colt Python and rested the barrel in the vent hole. An easy shot at that distance. Art began squeezing the trigger.

A high-pitched Latin twang came from the direction of Hammerhead Ranch. Boris and his retinue turned around to see where it was coming from. Art let off the trigger and withdrew the gun. He pressed his eyeball to the vent hole to get a wider view of what was going on.

“Lotion boy! Lotion boy!” said Serge as he hopped light-footed down the beach wearing a small, incredibly fake mustache. He stopped next to Boris’s lounger and set down a canvas beach bag. He pulled out towels and tubes of lotion.

“I didn’t know this place had a lotion boy,” said Boris, glancing back at Hammerhead Ranch.

“Sí! Sí! Lotion boy!” said Serge, rubbing lotion vigorously over his palms and smacking them together.

Boris laid his head back on the lounger and closed his eyes. “In that case, it’s about fucking time!” he said. “Give me the full treatment and make sure you get the pecs. But no faggot stuff or I’ll snap your neck.”

For the next five minutes, Serge lathered up Boris good, not missing a spot.

“Say, that doesn’t smell too bad,” said Boris. “Like bananas and coconut.”

“Sí! Sí!”

When Serge was done, he just stood there, and Boris finally opened his eyes.

“Oh, you must be waiting for a tip,” said Boris.

Serge nodded fast and smiled. “Sí! Sí!”

“Okay, here’s your tip: Speak the fuckin’ language!” Boris laughed at his own joke and looked around, and everyone else started laughing, too.

Serge smiled and nodded some more. “Sí! Sí!”

“What are you smiling about?” said Boris. “I just insulted you!”

“Sí! Sí!”

“Stop that!” yelled Boris. He leaned and shoved Serge in the chest. “Get the hell away from me! You give me the creeps.”

“Sí! Sí!” Serge said and hopped away.

With Serge gone, Art had a clean shot, and he lined up the Colt’s barrel again in the vent hole. One of the girls moved farther out of the way, giving Art an even better shot. He couldn’t miss. He closed one eye, carefully aligning the sight.

Boris pulled the last cigar from his shirt pocket and stuck it in his mouth. He looked around with a smirk at his fan club and nodded in the direction Serge had departed. “Man, those spics are stupid.”

The kids laughed again. Art began squeezing the trigger. Boris raised a gold Zippo to his cigar. The Colt’s hammer was all the way back. Boris flicked the Zippo.

Everyone was momentarily blinded as if a giant flash bulb had gone off. When they could see again, Boris was on fire from head to toe as if he was covered in napalm. Serge’s new bananas and coconut island-scent napalm to be exact.

“Farts!” said Tweed, and he put his unfired gun away in disappointment.

Boris ran screaming for the nearest body of water-the pool only yards away behind Calusa Pointe. The incredible shrinking mayor of Beverly Shores saw Boris coming, and just as Boris reached the pool fence, the mayor slammed the gate shut. “Residents only!”

“Auuuuugh!” screamed the flaming Boris, and turned for the Gulf of Mexico. He reeled frantically toward the water, but he was beginning to succumb, stumbling on fire through the sand.

The president of the chamber of commerce was at the beach podium reading a proclamation welcoming the Olympic delegation when Boris staggered up and belly-flopped into the Olympic torch/hibachi, igniting a magnificent blue-orange flame. There were several oooooh’s and ahhhhh’s and then a polite round of clapping.

The delegates lined up and grabbed paper plates. The Viennese delegate spooned out potato salad and whispered to the representative from the Maldives: “Saw better special effects at Universal Studios.”

S hhhhhhh! Everybody shut up!” yelled Zargoza, pulling a chair up in front of the television in the boiler room. He clicked the set over to Florida Cable News. The goons gathered around.

Zargoza had sent C. C. Flag out to Vista Isles that afternoon to calm things down. The place was getting a lot of bad attention from all the missing Alzheimer’s patients. State officials everywhere, going through files, interviewing people. The investigative TV crew showed up unexpectedly. That was because Zargoza had tipped them off personally-told them the famous Daddy-O of Rock ’n’ Roll, C. C. Flag, would show up to answer questions.

It was Zargoza’s attempt to staunch the bleeding. There had been a damning, week-long series of TV reports about the nursing home. Zargoza was sick and tired of seeing some stupid factotum at Vista Isles acting defensive on television, stuttering, vacillating, giving wrong answers or, worst of all, running and hiding in a closet. This was the real problem, thought Zargoza. It couldn’t possibly be that he was kidnapping patients. He was convinced that investigators had descended on the home for one reason and one reason only-the staff wasn’t telegenic.

He was right.

Zargoza wondered how deep into the newscast Flag would be. Maybe fourth or fifth item. Third if they were lucky. He couldn’t wait to see Flag confidently lying on the air. That ought to call off the state agencies. What’s fair is fair.

To Zargoza’s surprise and delight, Flag led off the news. There he was, filling out the screen in his safari jacket and pith helmet. Zargoza heard cheering and clapping in the background.

“All right, Flag!” Zargoza said. “Way to go!”

On TV, Flag stepped to the microphone again and held up his hands for everyone to be quiet. “…And another thing,” he barked, “I say cut off their benefits. And what are their kids doing taking up valuable space in our classrooms when they should be out in the fields picking tomatoes? And if they don’t like subminimum wage, they should have chosen another country to sneak into, and learn what real oppression is…like Canada!”

The applause was overwhelming.

“What? What the hell’s this?” said Zargoza.

The television camera pulled back to show C. C. Flag on a large stage.

This isn’t Vista Isles, thought Zargoza. This is the condominium next door. Standing onstage next to Flag, applauding his every word, was Malcolm Kefauver, the incredible shrinking mayor of Beverly Shores. Behind them hung an American flag and a giant banner: “Proposition 213.”

“Holy shit,” Zargoza yelled. “This is that stupid anti-immigration thing. This can’t be happening!”

The TV panned over the large crowd in front of the stage. Several people waved signs: “They don’t look right!” “Different is evil!” and “If you can’t understand something, kill it!”

Zargoza leaped to his feet in front of the TV. “You bastard! You stupid, stupid bastard! What are you doing to me! Somebody give me a gun so I can kill myself.”

One of the goons handed him a gun.

“No, you fool!” He slapped the gun away. “Go get Flag, now!”

Three goons ran out the door.

Zargoza squatted like Yogi Berra in front of the TV set, punching a fist into an open hand. On TV, there was a commotion up onstage. Flag struggled with three men, then disappeared off the back of the scaffolding.

Moments later the door to Zargoza’s boiler room slammed open, and the goons hustled C. C. Flag inside and pushed him to the ground.

“You wanted to see me?” Flag asked, standing up and brushing off his pants.

“Have you lost your mind! What do you think you’re doing!”

“I met the mayor. Real nice guy. His main speaker for the rally didn’t show, so he asked me to fill in.”