Authors: Tim Dorsey
Pineapple Grenade (37 page)
Another hand went up.”
“Sorry about Allende and ’73,” said Serge. “It was the government, not us. We weren’t paying attention. You’re just too far away and half the people think you’re Argentina . . . Panama?”
Another hand.
Serge smiled. “You look like that guy in the Dos Equis ads, the Most Interesting Man in the World. I was pining for that title, but hey, how’s the Canal Zone coming? Colonial ways die hard, but we did eventually get that one right. And the invasion was just a phase . . . Venezuela?”
A hand. “Over here.”
Serge shook his head and wagged a finger. “Venezuela . . . Venezuela . . . You’ve been a bad boy, like at the United Nations, saying you could smell sulfur at the podium where George Bush stood the day before, like he was Satan. Personally it cracked me up, but wrong room, okay? Remember Khrushchev banging a shoe in ’61? ” He looked out across the rest of the guests. “The point is, we all have our differences, and the United States isn’t the only one with dirty hands. Human rights, death squads, street kids in Rio, the ‘disappeared,’ Madonna playing Eva Perón. Hey, we all make mistakes. That’s how nature made us: fight, eat, and diddle. But when it comes to fighting, real enemies aren’t always nearby, so instead we quarrel with our neighbors, the people most like us who should be our best buddies. It’s happening all over the world. Some Arabs hate the Jews. Not most, but I’m sure you’ve heard the stories. Except a Jew isn’t always handy, so they split into Sunni and Shiite and attack each other. And over what? I guess who hates Jews more. Christianity? One word: Ireland. And all across the U.S., red and blue states. Even Florida, at a church up in Gainesville: ‘What would Jesus do? Burn the Quran!’ It’s in our blood—evolution tells us we have to hate somebody. Most scientists agree on this except creationists, who hate evolutionists. But I’ve got the answer: We just shift our primal directives to eating and diddling, because a well-laid dude with a stomach full of lobster Newburg ain’t strapping on any suicide vests, if you know what I mean, and I think a few of you out there do . . . All right, I see I’m losing some of the wives out there tonight, so on with the big toast, which I hope will soon become the unofficial slogan of the summit.” Serge raised his coffee cup and voice. “Let’s give each other slack!”
The audience stared.
“Come on,” said Serge. “Get those glasses up!”
Guzman raised his. “Everyone! Glasses up!”
They complied.
“That’s more like it,” said Serge, raising his own goblet higher. “To slack!”
“To slack.”
“Louder!”
“To slack!”
In the back of the room, Malcolm Glide slapped himself in the forehead. “This is a disaster.”
Victor Evangelista collapsed against a wall. “I feel faint.”
Meanwhile . . .
Four blocks from the Diplomats’ Ball, a high-rise hotel overlooked Bayfront Park.
On the fifteenth floor, a man who had dyed his blond crew cut lay on the bed, watching a blank picture tube. The bed was made and the man was clothed. An empty room-service tray by a lamp.
A cell phone sat on the nightstand. It remained still.
One floor below, another man lay on his bed. Another TV remained off.
The cell phone on his nightstand began to vibrate.
The man flipped it open and read a text message.
“!”
He closed the phone and walked to the dresser. A black leather bag rested open.
The man checked the contents, zipped it shut, and headed out the door.
Back at the Diplomats’ Ball
Victor Evangelista grabbed Malcolm by the lapels. “We have to do something! Serge is making a scene!”
“Let go of me!” Glide shoved him. “We need to keep our heads until we can get an undercover detail in here.”
“For what?”
“To capture Serge,” said Malcolm.
“And then?”
“Get him to one of our black-box locations and find out what he knows.”
“What if he doesn’t talk?”
“Either way, he won’t see the sunrise.” Malcolm dialed a cell phone for reinforcement.
“But look at all the attention he’s getting,” said Evangelista. “It’s too high profile to make a move.”
Malcolm closed his phone. “Chill out! Serge finished his toast. Now he’ll just fade back into the obscurity of the crowd.”
“That makes sense. We’ll hang tight. Time is on our side . . .” Victor stopped and glanced around. “Is someone playing the piano?”
At the front of the room, Serge’s fingers tickled the ivories as he scooted the stool up to the baby grand. “. . . And now, to celebrate our new era of slack, I’d like you all to gather round while I play an inspirational song for global understanding.”
“But, Serge,” whispered Coleman. “You don’t know how to play the piano.”
“They don’t know that.” Serge finished warming up and cracked his knuckles. “This song has just a few simple notes at the beginning that I taught myself, and when they start singing along, no one will notice the rest . . .” He looked up. “Everybody ready? . . .” A few slow, repetitive notes on the keys. Serge cleared his throat:
“Hey . . . Jude!
. . .”
“Jesus!” said Evangelista. “He’s playing ‘Hey Jude.’ ”
“We have to hurry,” said Glide. The pair began working their way along the walls past steam trays.
“I can barely move in this mob,” said Evangelista. “Look how far the entrance is.”
“We’ll get there,” said Malcolm. “Just stick behind me . . .”
They continued pushing forward, brushing past a man with a black leather bag going the other way.
“. . . Naw . . . naw . . . naw . . . naw-naw-naw-naw . . . naw-naw-naw-naw . . . Heeeeeey Jude . . . .”
Glide and Evangelista finally broke through the crowd. They reached the sidewalk in front of the Olympia Theater and waited for a black van.
Back inside, everyone crowded round the piano, getting sloshed, joining in. The song reached its climax.
Serge jumped up and kicked out the stool, banging the keys like Jerry Lee Lewis.
“. . . Jude-ay! Jude-ay! Jude-ay! Jude-ay! . . . Yowwwwwwww! Owwwwwwww! . . .”
More drinks grabbed off trays and downed. Everyone singing along at the top of their lungs.
Serge hit the keys a final time, stood, and bowed to wild applause.
Guzman slapped him on the back. “I didn’t know you could play the piano.”
“Neither did I.”
The president laughed again. “You’re quite the people person. I could use someone like you.”
“I have to take a squirt.”
“And you always get to the point.”
A line of people shook Serge’s hand as he headed for the restroom. Felicia trailed behind.
“Just be a minute,” said Serge. He ducked in the door. Seconds later, he stood whistling at a urinal. He stared at the ceiling. Then the floor. “What the hell—”
His urinal was next to the handicapped stall. On the floor, barely visible below the partition, the edge of a dress shoe. Turned sideways.
“That’s pointed the wrong direction for anything good.” Serge finished his business and tried the stall door.
Latched.
He got down on hands and knees. Inside, a man slumped on the floor. And a black leather bag.
Serge wiggled underneath and felt veins on the man’s left wrist. Then checked the bag.
The bathroom door burst open.
“What’s up with you?” Felicia looked him over. “And your tux is filthy—”
“It’s the doctor!”
“Who is?”
“How they’re going to take out Guzman!”
“Slow down,” said Felicia. “What’s going on?”
“Does Guzman have a regular personal physician?”
“He always travels with one, but we use several different ones.”
“The real one’s dead in there. Handicapped stall,” said Serge. “The bodyguards won’t be alert to the doctor. We have to find Guzman—and a guy with a black leather bag.”
They rushed back into the ball.
“What about the dead guy?” asked Felicia.
“I left the stall locked and pulled his leg inside so nobody would find him,” said Serge. “If panic breaks out, it’ll make the killer’s job that much easier.”
Felicia reached in her clutch purse. “Take this.” She slipped a small .25-caliber automatic in his hand.
“There’s Guzman!” Serge waved urgently.
Guzman cheerfully waved back.
“He doesn’t understand,” said Felicia.
“We have to get to him!”
They began pushing their way through the crowd. “Sorry . . . Apologies . . . Sorry . . .”
Felicia grabbed Serge’s arm and pointed another direction. “There’s a guy with a black bag. He’s heading toward Guzman.”
“And he’s closer.” Serge dispensed with apologies. Shoving people, spilling drinks.
“He’s almost there,” said Felicia.
“So are we.”
“We’re not going to make it.”
“Failure isn’t an option,” said Serge. “Guzman!”
“He still can’t hear,” said Felicia. “The music’s too loud.”
More drinks spilled.
“The guy’s reaching in his bag,” said Felicia.
“What the fuck is that thing?”
“Pneumatic hypodermic gun.”
“Shit, Guzman’s back is to him.” Serge elbowed past a waiter. “He can’t see it coming.”
President Guzman shook hands with an attaché from Ecuador. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Congratulations on your election.”
“Thanks.” A smile. “But now the hard part . . .”
The man with the black bag inched closer. The last person between him and the president stepped out of the way. Clear shot. Nothing but the back of Guzman’s tux.
The Ecuadoran attaché took a sip of champagne. “So how are the generals treating you these days?”
“We’ve resolved some differences,” said Guzman. “But there’s always going to be that with the military.”
The glinting tip of a hypodermic gun neared his back. Two feet. One. Six inches. Finger on the trigger.
The fake doctor felt a small barrel in the middle of his back. And a voice over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that. Put it back in the bag.”
He did.
“Now start walking,” said Serge.
The man remained still.
Felicia poked his ribs lightly with the tip of a stiletto blade extending from a lipstick. “I’d listen to him.”
This time he began moving.
All three ended up back in the restroom. Serge gave Felicia the gun and crawled under the stall again. He unlatched the door. Felicia pushed the man inside.
“Interesting,” said Serge. “There’s a dead guy on the floor and no reaction from you. Most innocent people would comment.”
“You’re pointing a gun.”
Serge glanced casually at his hand. “Just a formality.”
Felicia shoved the man into a wall. “Who sent you to kill Guzman?”
“What are you talking about?” The man rubbed the back of his head. “I’m his physician.”
“Sure you are,” said Serge. “Then what’s the deal with the hypodermic gun?”
“Oh,
that,
” he said, nodding. “The president was complaining of fatigue. Lack of sleep from all his appointments here. I was going to give him a vitamin-B injection.”
“Serge,” said Felicia. “What are you doing?”
“Going through his bag.”
“I see that. What for?”
“We’re going to have fun,” said Serge. “What have we got here? Maybe I can use this. And I can definitely use this . . .”
“Serge!” Felicia looked around quickly. “We don’t have time. Someone could walk in here any minute!”
“This will be express fun.” He reached in his pocket and tossed something to her. “Bind his hands behind his back.”