His wife was back in the doorway. She turned as he went by. “Are you going to eat at all tonight?”
“I don’t know.” And out the front door.
The ex-assistant mall manager climbed in a brown Ford Focus station wagon and headed east, passing a convenience store with two Ram pickup trucks parked side by side. Both had parking stickers for a distribution warehouse in Lakeland. An arm came out one of the windows, passing a sheet of paper to someone in the other.
“Appreciate it, Jerry.”
“It’s so unfair you were fired.”
The second man read the page. “So his real name’s Jim Davenport, Triggerfish Lane.” He looked up. “How’d you get this?”
“You don’t want to know. But can you do me a favor? Nothing too extreme.”
“Don’t worry-”
“No, really. I can imagine how I’d react, and I don’t want you to make me an accessory.”
They were about to pull out, when the lead pickup was cut off by a black Delta 88 with an ex-mall cop behind the wheel. On the passenger seat, a formerly soggy anonymous complaint was now flattened out and crisp from meticulous work with a hair dryer. Beside it, a map of Tampa and a handwritten list of possible address matches to the partial ID on the complaint.
The Delta 88 took a ramp for the Crosstown Expressway, hitting the tollbooth a minute between a Ford Focus and a Ram pickup.
Serge stood up in the middle of the lawn, rubbing his jaw. “Have to admit, you still got it.”
“You son of a bitch!” yelled the blonde. “You did it to us again.”
Coleman stood up more slowly, and the brunette kicked him in the crotch. “You left us stranded on the side of the road. That’s three times. And after all we put up with, living in all those douche-bag motels!”
Serge spread his arms. “This time will be different! I swear!”
“Bullshit!” said the blonde.
“No, really,” said Serge. “We now have an actual home in a nice neighborhood.”
“What’s the scam this time?” asked the brunette.
“Why do you always think there’s a scam with me?”
“Because there always is.”
“Except this time will be different from all the others. We’re going to form a solid family unit, live the American Dream and greet census takers and everything.”
The women exchanged dubious looks.
Other neighbors tentatively wandered out into their yards to snoop.
The blonde turned back to Serge. “First, a family isn’t made of two couples. Second, only one of us is a couple, and not even that. You and I just screw when we’re horny.”
“Many relationships have been built on that,” said Serge. “Actually, I’m thinking most.”
The brunette pointed demonstratively at Coleman. “I am not fucking that man!”
Neighbors nonchalantly edged closer to their sidewalks.
“But, Serge,” said the blonde. “What gave you such a crackpot idea in the first place?”
Serge turned with fully outstretched arms. “We’re going to be just like them!”
The women looked to see the Davenports staring back from the other side of the street, Martha giving them the stink eye.
The blonde took a step forward. “What are you looking at, bitch?”
“Bitch?” yelled Martha. “Why, you cunt!”
Jim shrieked and jumped in front of Martha. “Let’s go back in the house…”
Serge grabbed the blonde around the waist from behind. “Easy there, girl. You can’t give her a beat-down. The other neighbors won’t invite you to tea.”
Martha snarled as Jim led her away.
The blonde glared back as Serge steered her toward the house. “Let’s all go inside. I’ll bet you’re itching to see the new place!”
“I got some killer red bud,” said Coleman.
“I guess it wouldn’t hurt to take a peek around,” said the blonde.
“There’s a Christmas tree stuck sideways in the door,” said the brunette.
“We’re trying to win a ribbon,” said Serge.
The foursome got on their hands and knees and started crawling under the tree.
“Hold it,” said Coleman, standing back up. “There’s some cards in the mailbox… Do we know anybody from Christmas, Florida?”
Chapter Eight
Dining room table.
Coleman and the two women sat around the gingerbread house.
The blonde had her mouth over the chimney.
Coleman flicked a Bic lighter and held it to a tiny flowerpot near the front door.
A watery, bubbling sound.
Serge stood in the background, scratching his head with a puzzled expression. “Coleman, what kind of weirdness am I looking at here?”
“It’s a bong.”
“That was your motivation?”
Coleman flicked the lighter again. “No other point to put myself through that kind of work.”
“Silly me,” said Serge. “But it’s going to make the gingerbread taste awful. We’ll have to throw it out.”
“Like hell,” said Coleman. “I baked pot into the walls, and the frosting.”
“Nice work, Hansel.” Serge turned. “So, ladies, I’ve been meaning to ask. What names are you going by these days?”
The brunette exhaled a hit from the chimney. “She’s Crystal River and I’m Belle Glade.”
“Nice ring,” said Serge. “Almost as good as City and Country …”
City and Country, products of their environment. Tuscaloosa, Alabama, to put a pin in the map. Town girls in a university town. Hardworking, no drugs or wild weekends, not the remotest legal scrape between them. Until the night they went in that student bar. Some coked-out sorority sister fell on the knife she’d been using to cut rails in a toilet stall. The girls found her. Pulled out the blade, tried mouth-to-mouth. It stacked up fast. Fingerprints, blood, victim’s father a huge donor to the law school. They didn’t stick around for the opinion polls; on the run ever since, which just hit the ten-year mark. Couldn’t stay in one place long, couldn’t give Social Security numbers. Their employers knew the score and took advantage. Waitress gigs, saloons, strip clubs. It was a hard decade, and they came out the back end as hard as they make ’em. Country had grown up on remote farmland a half hour toward Muscle Shoals. City was a transplant from the Bronx. To cast the movie, you might pick Daryl Hannah and Halle Berry.
“Coleman,” said Country. “What the hell’s Serge doing?”
Coleman glanced over his shoulder. “Looking out the window with binoculars to see how Jim does it.”
“Does what?”
Coleman shrugged.
“There seems to be a lot of traffic on the street,” said Serge, swinging the binoculars left to right. “A minute ago, a Ford Focus went by, then a Delta 88, and now a Ram pickup.”
