Atomic Lobster by Tim Dorsey

Author:Tim Dorsey
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

THAT AFTERNOON

A newspaper lay on the dashboard of a '73 Mercury Comet. It was folded to the article Serge had just discovered about McGraw's prison release. The Comet sat next to a phone booth outside a convenience store in downtown Tampa. Serge examined the frayed end of a metal cable where the phone book used to be. "Trotskyists." He went inside the convenience store. He ran out.

"Hey, you! Come back here with my phone book!"

Serge sped off in the Comet, flipping through yellow pages. Rachael lay in the backseat, taking self-portraits with Serge's digital camera. Coleman was up front rolling numbers. "What are you looking for?"

Serge clicked a pen and made a circle. "If McGraw makes a move on Jim, our apartment's too far away to respond in time. I picked up something about his street."

They stopped at a red light. People in other cars stared.

"How's the phone book fit in?" asked Coleman.

Two bare legs cocked up in the Comet's backseat, feet out the window. A camera flashed. The light turned green. Cars followed.

"You have to read social classes," said Serge. "The more expensive the homes, the more likely the owners have other homes."

Ten minutes later, the Comet was parked in the section of south Tampa called Palma Ceia. The car's occupants sat in a row of three chairs in front of a desk. The desk was in a small office of a faux-Mediterranean strip mall featuring four-dollar coffee and five-dollar ice cream cones.

Serge studied a six-page list of addresses. The person behind the desk studied the trio. Not a good vibe. He would have already shown them the door, but he wanted to leer at Rachael a little longer.

Serge turned another page. At the top: tampa bay house sitters.

"Do you have references?" asked the man behind the desk.

"No," said Serge. "Asking someone for references is demeaning. I give references."

"Then I'm sorry," the man said distractedly. "Afraid we won't be able—"

"What the fuck are you looking at?" yelled Rachael, rubbing her gums. Heads in the lobby turned.

The man made an urgent, pushing-down motion with his hands. "Please lower your voice."

"Hey, everybody!" Rachael shouted. "Perv-man here was checking out my tits." She faced the desk again. "You look, you pay!" She grabbed a pen and wrote something on the edge of the man's calendar. "That's my website. You look like a gag-ball fiend."

The trio left. The man copied the website onto a scrap of paper and slipped it into his wallet. Then: Where'd my address list go?

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