Just as Serge predicted, they strolled right in unquestioned.
Riles Highpockets was already up on the elevated dais. The hall remained extra dark except for the podium spotlight and a Jumbo-Tron on each side of the stage, filled with his sweaty jowls.
Each time the tycoon bellowed another glowing financial number into the microphone, rolling ovations swept across a thousand padded folding chairs.
“What do we do now?” asked Edith.
Serge gestured toward the right of the stage. “That’s the cable news people for the post-speech interview. We need to start working our way over. No chance he’ll snub my charming grandmother’s request in front of a national audience.”
Another wave of wild applause. Riles reached his climactic conclusion. “… And with the help of our government friends, next year will be even better!”
A thundering standing O erupted as Riles made his way down stage steps toward the cable networks. Camera lights came out. A boom microphone dipped over the baron’s head.
The interview had just begun when Serge stepped up. “Excuse me, Mr. Highpockets, but my grandmother has wanted to meet you for years.”
“Sir,” said a TV correspondent. “We’re in the middle of a segment.”
Highpockets held up a hand. “It’s okay. There’s always time to respect our elders.”
“You’re a great man,” said Edith. “America needs more like you. Could I possibly get your autograph on this dollar?”
Riles glanced toward the camera with a grin, thinking, my PR people couldn’t have planned this any better. “Why it would be my pleasure.”
He took the bill and a pen, scribbling a large signature. Then another practiced smile. “There you go.”
Edith held open a plastic bag. “Just drop it in there. Wouldn’t want it to smudge or anything before I get it framed.”
The interview resumed.
Serge and the G-Unit watched from behind the news people. “What happens now?” asked Edna. Serge rubbed his palms. “Wait for the fun to begin.” Three minutes later, a handler interrupted and whispered in Riles’s ear.
“Sorry,” said Highpockets, “but they have me on a tight schedule.” He gave a big wave to the crowd before being ushered out the side door to a waiting stretch.
The correspondent turned toward her camera. “Another busy day for one of the country’s richest oilmen, who will now be flown by private jet helicopter to a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, where he will personally thank his corporation’s hardworking blue-collar employees…”
“What the hell?” said Serge.
“I didn’t see any embarrassment,” said Edna.
“Not enough time to take effect. Crap.”
“All this for nothing?” said Edith.
“We might get lucky and see something later on TV.” Serge took her by the arm and strolled out of the hall. “My guess is there’ll be a camera crew on that helicopter for carefully choreographed photo ops of him mixing with the common man at the drilling platform. No way he’s just doing it for the good and welfare.”
ROD AND REEL PIER
Mahoney accidentally caught a fish.
He cranked it in, removed the hook and threw it back. “Be free. Have a long and productive life…”
A pelican waiting below caught it on the fly and gulped it down. “Isn’t that always the case…”
The agent stared off at a distant tanker making its way up the ship channel. A gut feeling had been nagging him ever since Serge’s name came up. That business in Panama City just wasn’t his guy. He threw a toothpick in the water.
“Something’s not jake.”
Mahoney cast his line again, set it in a rod holder and dialed his cell.
“Agent Ramirez here.”
“It’s Mahoney. What’s the name of the kid?”
“That’s confidential.”
“One hand washes the other.”
“What’s this about?”
“If Serge is your man, there may be a connection. And nobody knows Serge like me.”
“It violates about ten rules.”
“Who got you those files? I scratch your back, you scratch mine.”
“I guess you’re right. Andrew McKenna.”
“Consider us even.”
Mahoney knew people, and he knew Ramirez was too by-the-book for his tastes. But Mahoney held markers from people all over the state. He dialed again. An old friend at the bureau.
“… Should be under Andrew McKenna,” said Mahoney.
“But the protection program files are confidential.”
“Just bring me up to speed on background.”
“I don’t know.”
“Who got you out of that scrape in Lantana?”
“I was innocent. You try to be nice and give a stripper a ride home, and she pays you back by smoking ten joints in the car when you’re not there and leaving all the roaches in the ashtray.”
“I’m waiting.”
“Call you back…”
He did, giving Mahoney chapter and verse, right up until “his mother shot herself and we had to move them again out of Michigan.”
“Shot herself?”
“That’s what it says.”
“One more thing: I need a trace on his credit card.”
“I’ve already stuck my neck out.”
“My neck was out for you at the other business in Boca.”
“That’s the thing about strippers: No good deed goes unpunished.”
“So you’ll do it?”
“I got your number.”
“Thanks, Bugsy.”
“It’s Harold.”
GILLY’S PUB 44
Edith sipped gin. Back in leather.
“Great to get out of those stuffy rags.”
“Anything on TV yet about Highpockets?”
Edna shook her head.
“Serge,” said Eunice. “Where’d you come up with that idea anyway?”
“Coleman gets the credit for this one. He’s to drug knowledge what I am to Florida.” Serge tipped back a bottle of water. “Plus it’s from the sixties, which means I couldn’t resist.”
“What’s the sixties got to do with it?” asked Ethel.
“Rumors circulated about radicals like Ken Kesey, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead planning to mix LSD with DMSO, then spread it on doorknobs and stair railings at political conventions so the establishment would have a psycho-meltdown on network TV.”
“What’s DMSO?” asked Eunice.
“Dimethyl sulfoxide, from wood pulping,” said Serge. “Powerful skin penetrant. Mix it with any other chemical, and it goes right to the bloodstream. If you put some on your arm and rub, say, a lime, you’ll taste Key lime pie. Coleman scored the acid; I got the DMSO.”
“And that’s what you soaked the dollar bill in?”
“How was I supposed to know they’d whisk him away so fast?”
“That doesn’t sound like a harmless prank,” said Eunice. “Not only is it harmless,” said Serge, “it’s totally fair.”
“How’s that fair?”
“Everything hinges on Riles’s character.” Serge took another calm pull of water. “If his inner soul’s pure, he could actually come off looking more sympathetic than ever. If not…”
At the other end of the bar, Andy was tapped out. He searched his empty wallet. The bartender had seen it many times before and hovered with growing suspicion. As a last ditch, Andy tried the compartment behind his family photos, where he sometimes kept an emergency twenty for cab fare. “So there’s my credit card… Here…”
The bartender relaxed with a smile and ran it through a magnetic slide.
“Look,” said Edith. “Something’s happening on TV!”
“Turn it up,” Edna told the bartender.
He handed Andy his receipt and aimed a remote at the set.
“… Breaking news at this hour concerning the shocking death of oil magnate Riles ‘Scooter’ Highpockets III in a bizarre drilling platform mishap…”
“You promised just embarrassment,” said Edna.
“Shhhhhhh!” said Edith.
“… Our correspondent on Highpockets’s personal helicopter noticed extremely unusual behavior on the flight out to the gulf, captured in this exclusive footage…”
The image switched to a wild-eyed Riles grabbing the lens of the camera and pulling it to his nose. “I’m rich! I’m so fucking rich. We can do anything we want and nobody can stop us! Everyone out there: Keep drivin, suckers!…”