23

C. C. Flag pulled up to Hammerhead Ranch in a snow-white Hummer. He had full, pleated pants, a loose Australian bush shirt and a “ USA ” America ’s Cup baseball cap.

An hour later there was a curt rap on the door of Flag’s motel room.

“Coming,” said Flag.

But Zargoza didn’t wait and opened the door with his own key.

Flag now wore a bloused white-cotton Banana Republic shirt, beige slacks and amber shooter’s glasses. He had a crystal bourbon decanter in his hand and a svelte Asian-American call girl on his lap. Flag pushed the hooker up off his knees and gave her a light spank. “Got some business, baby. Why don’t you wait at the bar? I’ll be done soon and then me love you long time.”

“Whatever,” she said in an accent more American than Flag’s. She lit a Tiparillo and strolled sensually out of the room, leaving Zargoza and Flag in her exhaust cloud of arrogance and contempt that made both of them hate her guts and want to marry her.

“Bourbon straight with ice-water chase?” Flag asked as he poured.

“We’ve got problems,” said Zargoza. “You gotta get back out to the nursing home.”

“But I went yesterday.”

“You have to go again,” said Zargoza. “I just heard a TV crew is starting an investigative series.”

“I thought they only did sex scandals,” said Flag. “Since when are they reporters?”

“I know, I know. You can’t count on anything these days,” said Zargoza. “I got enough on my plate with the stolen beepers and cocaine…”

Flag stuck his fingers in his ears. “I didn’t hear anything. I’m a respectable businessman.”

“Shut the fuck up!” said Zargoza. “You’re worse than any of us. You’re a slimy salamander with gonorrhea, a pustulating sea slug, a mucous-tracking gastropod in a construction site Porta-Johnny! You’re a-”

“I get the picture,” said Flag. “What do you want from me?”

“Glue a smile on your face and go meet the TV crew. Put a sympathetic face on this thing. America trusts you, God help ’em.”

“I speak to their wants and dreams…”

“Bullshit!” said Zargoza. “They’re zoned out! A little old lady is blown to bits and all anyone can think about is this TV dog that wears funny clothes.”

“Aren’t you connected to the people who killed the old lady?” asked Flag.

“That’s not the point,” said Zargoza. “I’m talking about the big picture here. This is a terrible comment on our society.”

A n old but reliable Ford Fairlane chugged across the bridge to the barrier islands of Tampa Bay, hot on the trail.

Paul, the Passive-Aggressive Private Eye, wished it was the forties. He carried everything he needed in a fifty-year-old dark-checkered suitcase. When he checked into a motel, he pretended he was Philip Marlowe getting a room above a greasy spoon where the night manager was a junkie who looked like William Burroughs, and there was a harsh red neon sign flashing through his window all night. He’d shave with a porcelain cup and brush, pack his piece and go down to the greasy spoon for a short-order slice of meat loaf and a cup of joe and imagine he was in an Edward Hopper painting.

It didn’t dispel the illusion a bit that Paul was staying at the Toot-Toot Tugboat Inn on St. Pete Beach and dining at The Happy Clam. Paul took a mug shot of Art Tweed with him everywhere and showed it to everyone.

While good with inanimate objects, Paul was inept and annoying when questioning people about Art. His relentless passive-aggressive inquisition merely bugged some, while others called the police and alerted the media.

On his third day in Tampa Bay, Paul was showing the mug shot to a woman who rented cabanas on the beach. She shook her head no. Two squad cars arrived and the cops asked Paul what he was doing.

Paul told them the whole story until the cops said he was getting on their nerves and they left. As the cruisers pulled away, a silver van that had been waiting on the side of the parking lot pulled up. It had sprigs of antennas and a rotating dish. On the side, in giant letters: “Florida Cable News.” Underneath was a smiling portrait and a script banner: “Featuring Blaine Crease.”

The side panel of the van slid open and Crease climbed out wearing Desert Storm camouflage. He walked purposefully to Paul.

“I’ve been doing some checking up on you,” said Crease. “You’re a private investigator. Your name’s Paul. My sources tell me you’ve been showing a photograph all over the beach-you’re tracking some kind of desperado.”

Crease grabbed Paul’s hand and shook it hard, then looked away. “The cops ain’t giving me shit. But I figured it out. It’s because they don’t have shit.”

“There’s nothing for them to have,” said Paul.

Crease held up a hand for Paul to stop. He leaned closer and whispered, “Between you and me, you’re the man! I can tell by the way you hold yourself. You’re running circles around the cops. You probably have the whole thing figured out already-just tying up loose ends now. I heard a rumor it’s a hit man. That true?”

“That’s the stupidest thing-”

“Don’t try to be modest,” interrupted Crease. “You’ve got a style. Reminds me of…” Crease tapped his head like he was on the edge of recollection. Then he opened his eyes wide. “Philip Marlowe! That’s it! You’ve got this whole Robert Mitchum quality goin’ on.”

Paul blushed and looked at the ground.

“So, tell me, who are you tracking? Who’s the bad guy?” Crease said, rubbing his palms together. “Come on. I’m dying to know.”

“You’ve got it wrong. I’m not after a bad guy,” said Paul.

“Great! Love it! An equivocal story-the amoral universe!” said Crease. He made two Ls with the thumb and forefinger of each hand and put them together in a square to frame an imaginary picture in the air. “The mass murderer with a heart of gold! Finally, a villain we can root for in the new millennium!”

“No, that’s not what I mean-”

“Paul, it’s me! Blaine!” Crease thumped his palm over his heart.

“Really,” said Paul. “I don’t know where you’re getting this stuff.”

Paul told him all about Art Tweed and the mixup at the hospital and being hired to track Art down and give him the good news. “Art Tweed is no hit man.”

“Right. I gotcha,” said Crease, and he gave Paul a knowing wink.

A black Jeep Eagle raced through the unsettled countryside east of Tampa. The Jeep was plastered with Boris and Blitz-99 bumper stickers, and it sailed through a red light at the Four Corner intersection of State Road 674 in the phosphate mining depot of Fort Lonesome. The radio was on full blast.

“So remember: Vote yes on Proposition 213!…because they have weird accents!”

“Now that guy is focused!” said the Jeep’s driver. “He’s the only one with the guts to stand up for people like us!”

“Amen!” the two passengers said in unison.

The driver had shoulder-length blond hair in dreadlocks, the front passenger’s head was shaved, and the guy in back hanging on the rollbar wore an F Troop cavalry hat with a plastic arrow through it. The three high school students dressed in punk rags from the Salvation Army and talked about being oppressed by minorities, but in fact they all lived in two-hundred-thousand-dollar houses in the sleepy bedroom suburb of Brandon.

After Boris’s show ended, the driver tuned to a salsa dance station, which was advertising the Latin Heritage Festival that weekend in Ybor City.

“I can’t believe it!” the driver exclaimed. “They’re holding a party for these people when they should be tossing ’em back over the border!”

“And it’s the same night as our Proposition 213 rally!” said the one on the rollbar. “What an insult!”

“Tell you what we should do,” said the driver. “Go listen to Boris at the rally, get pumped, and then drive over to Ybor and crack some heads.”