Hammerhead Ranch Motel

“Have you considered my advice?” asked Jethro. “Have you thought about something that moves you? Something to focus your energies?”

Art had. He became obsessed with the number of bullies he saw.

He decided to kill one of them.

9

Zargoza waited ten minutes at the glass front door with the “Sorry, we’re closed” sign. He daydreamed and gazed at the drawbridge over the viridian sailboat cha

“What are you doing here so early?” the driver asked Zargoza as he got out of the car.

“I need a repair job, B. F.” He pointed to the stuffed hammerhead shark sticking out the back of his pickup truck. The end of one of the shark’s eye pods was snapped and dangling.

“Damn college kids,” said Zargoza. “One shimmied up the thing last night and lost his balance and grabbed for something on the way down. Fucked up my shark. Kid landed on his neck, went to the emergency room. Guess who he’s go

“It just ain’t right,” said Ski

“Damn fine work,” said Zargoza, looking at a sailfish, king tarpon and hammerhead shark hanging in the middle of the room, almost completely dry. He admired the sail-the iridescent rainbowing in the ultramarine ridges-and the silver scaling of the tarpon. Zargoza walked up and touched the shark tentatively, but it was still tacky.

“That’s a great hammerhead,” said Zargoza. “I’ll double whatever you’re getting for it.”

Ski

“Jeff sure has improved since you took him on,” said Zargoza. “This is some of the best work I’ve ever seen… And these eyes-they’re so lifelike. It’s almost like the fish knew he was doomed.”

Zargoza walked around the tarpon. “I like what he did with bodies, too, full musculature. Lumpy, but in a menacing way, like a boa constrictor after it’s swallowed something.”

Zargoza squatted down and stuck his face under the hammerhead to admire further.

Ski

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Sidney Spittle was enjoying a morning beer at The Wharf Rat when word swept through the bar about the three regulars found taxidermied alive over at B. F. Ski

“Baby, I’m at The Wharf Rat. Something bad’s happened. No, not now, not here. In an hour…” Sid stopped and looked around. He turned his back to the pool room and whispered.

“…I love you. Be careful,” and he hung up. He sca

A customer sitting at a table next to the screen door had his nose in a 1952 Life magazine. When Spittle went by, the customer stuck the magazine under his arm and followed Sid out the door.

As the screen slammed shut, Zargoza and his traveling goon squad skidded to a stop in the parking lot out front.

The bartender got his cocaine six steps below Zargoza and the Diaz Boys, and he wanted to score points. He also wanted to avoid the unspoken penalty of later being found to have withheld information. Upon hearing about the dead car thieves ten minutes earlier, he immediately phoned in a tip to Zargoza that the three had been bragging about five million dollars the night before and tipping everyone in sight like John Gotti. They had been hanging out with another regular, and the guy was back this morning, acting peculiar-he only knew his first name, Sid.

“Where is he?” Zargoza shouted as he crashed through the front door of The Wharf Rat.

The bartender pointed at the back door. “Just left.”

They ran out the back and saw Sidney Spittle and another driver pulling onto Gulf Boulevard. They sprinted around front to Zargoza’s German sedan.

It was a slow-motion O. J. chase down the barrier islands of the Gulf Coast. Serge had retrieved the scorched Chrysler in Ybor City after dealing with the car thieves, and he drove under the speed limit in the right lane. Two cars back in the left lane was Team Zargoza. Neither was aware of the other and neither wanted to make a move on Spittle until they saw him with the briefcase.

They took a bridge to the mainland and drove across the Pinellas Peninsula. They caught the Gandy Bridge over the bay to Tampa and followed the Lee Roy Selmon Expressway downtown. Took nearly an hour, everyone stressed going so slow hanging back from Spittle.

Sid parked in front of the bus station, looked around and went inside. Zargoza parked a block away, Serge at the corner.

Spittle took a chair with his back to the wall and pretended to read a travel brochure. He peeked over the top and scoped the place. So far so good. He got up and walked around for a more thorough recon, checking out the facilities. An old scale, your weight and lucky lottery number, twenty-five cents. A vending machine dispensing artificial stimulants, artificial depressants and temporary tattoos. A schedule board, arrivals, departures. Western Union, for the broke and the shameless, to renew old friendships with the endearing three-A.M. phone prostration for five hundred dollars. Out on the loading platform, thick with diesel fumes, a bus from Richmond idled and someone in uniform was flinging sawdust on a Night Train regurgitation. Sid took a seat again in the station and decided to wait and watch. The terminal reminded him of visiting day at the state prison. The chronic inability to master life hung in the air like a toxic mist. Something about the ma

Two Tampa cops came in the front door and walked slowly down the rows of molded plastic chairs, comparing waiting passengers with mug shots of Serge A. Storms. Various fugitives began to fidget and perspire in their seats. The stress got the best of a young work-farm escapee with bushy hair and an acoustic guitar. He jumped up and was grabbed immediately. He tried to put up a fight with the instrument, but the cops easily took it away and smashed it like balsa wood to a smattering of applause. They led him off in cuffs. The clock on the wall continued ticking.

A half hour later, Sid was confident the coast was clear. He got up and walked to the lockers. He sca