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  I fired up the hot rent-a-car, a spiffy little green Toyota something or other, and hot because the sun had been beating on its phony leather passenger seat for hours with the windows up.

  When I got to the right corner in South Beach, Ramon was waiting. He never looked nervous even though at any given moment he might be carrying a hundred-grand in nose-candy and other negotiable shit.

  I rolled down the window. “Get in.”

  “Put your money where your mouth is. Better yet, Joe Oaks, put your money in your mouth, zigzag man.”

  “Get in, Ramon, before I drive off and find another fuckin’ dealer.”

  “You said the magic words.” Ramon pulled on the door handle and slipped his skinny ass onto the hot leather seat. “Hot! Dammit man, don’t you have air conditioning?”

  “Sun’s been beating on that side all morning.” I slipped it in gear and headed down Collins. “You got the shit on you?”

  “Always, dude.” Ramon leaped up from his seat and frowned at it like his eyes could cool it off. “Florida snow, aka foo-foo dust, and loooove weed. How much you need?”

  “I don’t need any. I will buy a grand’s worth, the usual mix, and don’t short me. I need as many lines as I can get. Okay?”

  “For you, it’s bonus day, Joe baby.”

  “Thanks, and thanks also to your crooked asshole suppliers.”

  “The babies in Colombia need new shoes!”

  “I know who the babies in Colombia are. They’re thousand dollar a night hookers who hang around your coked-up kingpins.”

  “How’d you get so worldly, Joe Oaks?”

  “Knowin’ dudes like you.” I checked the rear-view for the all clear and pulled the car next to an unloading curb. “You better take this little envelope, there’s ten crispies in it, and get out before some narc figures out what we’re doing.”

  “I’m a no-narc risk. They’re bought and paid for. When’s the last time you heard of a South Beach bust?”

  “I haven’t.”

  “See?” Ramon gave me the okay sign. “Check your bag, jag. There’s a little something extra to make your day go smoothly.”

  I looked inside. There was more hoot and toot than the usual order, and his something extra. I pulled out a small white envelope. “What’s in this?”

  “A handful of magic pills. Take ‘em all at once and you’ll write a dozen hit songs.”

  “I don’t write music, I just promote the shit.”

  “Like me, I don’t grow the dope, I just promote the shit.”

  “And that makes us two of a kind.”

  “I was thinking the same thing.” Ramon popped open the door and leaped out on Collins Avenue and started walking backwards giving me the V for victory sign and winking as I shook my head and drove away.

  Half my airplay depended on his crap, and if he were ever put out of business I’d be out of business, too, until I found another source. Crapoholic, that was something I didn’t want to think about.

  I tooled on across MacArthur Causeway, south on Biscayne and east into downtown Miami where the radio station sat on top of a seedy yellow brick building that badly needed sand blasting. It needed sand blasting on the inside, too, with the jocks and office staff still in it.

  I deposited the dope and jewel-cases with Emeril Green, the director of programming, and Harold “Fat Baby” Wiggles, the music director, and they were all smiles. Good hash wasn’t hard to come by in Miami, but reliable low-cut snow was another matter.

  And for once I had enough left over to throw a minor party for two, if I wanted company in the endeavor.

  Maybe tonight.

  6 – If It’s In the Groove…

  On the way back across the causeway I let Norah Jones cut through my head and the warm Florida breeze waft through the car while I sucked in that clean Atlantic Ocean air. I felt good, more alive than I had in a long time. Even the palm trees that lined the little land-masses on the left and right looked healthy, not like the brown, emaciated over-tall transplanted sons-of-bitches in Beverly Hills––and that reminded me.

  I steered with my knees while I punched in Kodi Graws’ number on my cell. His answering machine picked up. Good. I didn’t want to talk to the son-of-a-bitch anyway.

  I listened to his outgoing message waste my time while I mentally rehearsed. Finally, a beep.

  “Hello, Kodi. I left your Chickie-Dix CD with the station, and the music director said he’d give it eight plays a day for two weeks. That’s more than you thought you’d get, right? Joe here, signing off. I’ll give you another holler on Monday or Tuesday from Palm Beach.” I cut off the ringer, snapped the cell shut and shoved it back in my pants, and took another deep pull of that fresh Atlantic sea air.

  Kodi, my oldest client, when live on the phone, wanted to know too many facts and I ended up making up half the shit. I’m glad he wasn’t in his fancy Rodeo Drive office.

  Now his latest CD, that’s a good one. The Chickie-Dix are a country girl trio, a crossover act in more ways than one, three butches, transsexuals who decided to become guys. Chickie-Dix, really—a California staple.

  Most of my music promo moola came from record companies and producers out of Southern California, and I wondered if I could still get it if I based myself in the Sunshine State. Yeah. Living in Miami would be a different animal. Time to test.

  I picked the cell phone out of my pants pocket again and checked the juice. Plenty. I pushed a button and said, “Manny.”

  I’m still amazed at how a little piece of plastic and metal crap can hear my voice and get somebody on the line three thousand miles away, and he’d know it was me calling.

  “Hey, Joe. Whatchu want.”

  “A piece of ass, a pound of grass and a billion bucks. What do you want?”

  “Did you get me some freakin’ airplay?”

  “I did, man, I did. So relax, if it’s in the groove, it’ll make its move.”

  “Records don’t have grooves anymore.”

  “Who cares, shithead.” I love this guy. “Hey, am I doing a good job for you or what?”

  “Or what.”

  “Seriously,” I emphasized.

  “Yeah, you’re doing a good job. Why?”

  “Would you keep me on retainer if I moved my base to Florida?”

  “I dunno, I guess. Hey, what about those freakin’ Hurricanes?”

  “What about those freakin’ earthquakes? What about those freakin’ fires, gangs, freeways, mudslides?” I was getting all red in the face.

  “I was talking about the football team, asshole.”

  “––Oh.”

  “Who put a bug up your ass?” Kodi nailed it.

  “I need a change.”

  “Obviously,” he said in a smartass way; so I let his pause stretch out in kind of a smartass way too. “Yeah, I’ll keep you on. But you’ll be back.”

  “I know. Once a Californian, always a Californian,” I said.

  “If you’re not working the LA stations I can’t pay you as much as I do now.” Shit. I dodged a palm frond in the middle of the road.

  “Manny, come on. I’ll work LA; I’ll just do it from here. Same difference, airplanes go both ways.”

  Another long pause. “Okay dude, you’re on. Just get me results. I need a hit bad.”

  “Done, daddy.” I clicked off.

  Before the end of the week I intended to firm up my current guys and have enough new clients to get out of Dodge and into the Florida beach life.

  I brain-scanned through my New York and Nashville contacts, and made a mental hit list.

  LA, my formerly favorite adopted hometown, had turned to shit. The traffic alone was enough to drive anyone completely crazy, and all the bad air rising up from the freeways into my nose yelled get out every time I was in town. On a drive into Burbank I couldn’t pull in a deep breath and not cough my brains out. Psychological? I don’t think so.

  Besides, if I gave up my LA apartment and moved to Miami, the law favors the fol
ks. It’s a good place to escape if you got financial problems. I’ve heard there are more deadbeats per square inch in Florida than anywhere else.

  Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not a deadbeat. I’m just a guy with a few loose ends—and I don’t like to be hassled.

  7 – I Love Your Rocks

  The tables in the Carousel were nearly full but the stools were all mine. My buddy behind the bar curled a finger at me and leaned in close.

  “She’s here, she just went to the ladies room, and she’s wearing a full length mink and covered with diamonds.”

  “Hoo hoo hoo. My time is coming, Tylerfrank. Where’s she sitting?”

  “Down there, end of bar, where you see the chocolate martini.”

  “Chocolate martini––that chick-pie does some serious drinking. Set me up with my usual adult beverage, right next to her.”

  “That’s gonna look pretty obvious.”

  “Okay, make it one stool away.”

  “Better.”

  “Then I’ll move over when I recognize her, with a huge surprise and a ‘great to see you again’ on my face.”

  “That works.”

  “Chu-yeah, I’ve done it a thousand times. Just different places and different faces.”

  I sat myself down and Tylerfrank slipped my double shot right up to my hand and the chaser real close behind.

  “Here she comes,” he said under his breath.

  “That’ll be the first time tonight, but not the last, booze buddy.”

  Tylerfrank shook his head and turned to the back-bar and replaced my bottle on the quality shelf. “Joe Oaks, you will never be cured.”

  “Who’d want to be?”

  +++

  “So you come to Miami Beach every season?” I couldn’t keep my eyes off her rack. I swear I could balance a tray of longnecks on those puppies… and that Eastern European accent, double wow.

  “January through April. I haff a penthouse next door at 7777. Well, my husbahn and I do. I like it here. I personally liff here almost year around.” And I guessed without her husband nine months out of the year. She studied me like she wanted to lick my face.

  “Is he coming in later?”

  “He’s in Europe.”

  “Bingo.”

  “What?”

  “Uh, I said, you like bingo?” I almost blew it.

  She curled her lip and cocked her head and looked at me funny like I was weird. “No, why?”

  I had to think fast. “I know where there’s a game and I thought you might want to win some money.”

  “My husbahn writes me checks.” She pulled a long brown cigarette out of a red box and I scrambled for the matches and fired it up for her. “I don’t even gamble when I go to Las Vegas. I cahn’t keep track.”

  “Whaddya mean?”

  “I cahn’t keep track.”

  I think I got that. “What’s he do?”

  “Who?”

  “Your husband.”

  “Oh. He’s into lots of things. Mostly inports.”

  “You mean imports, importing?”

  “Yeah, lots of things, but he rarely brings his business home.”

  “Too bad.” God help me, I almost fell off the stool, I had so many comebacks to that setup, but she wouldn’t have understood. Does it detach at the crotch? Does he leave it in a jar in the office? I almost busted a gut trying to hold in my laughing.

  “Why are you vibrating? Why are you shaking? Why are you smiling like that? Tell me.”

  “I can’t. It’s something that happened today.”

  “Well, you could share.”

  “I will.” Boy, will I share. “When I know you better.”

  “Well, I hope that’s soon.”

  The opening. And there she was, all draped in mink and dripping with diamonds. I leveled one of my heavy ones on her.

  “I love your rocks.” Always compliment a woman.

  “They’re not real. I could get killed if I wore real ones.”

  “You could get killed for wearing those, they look like real ones.”

  “Yeah, but the joke would be on him.”

  Her puzzle was missing a piece, but what a beautiful woman. All that long blond hair with a slight curl all the way down to her ass.

  I didn’t know what else to say, so I just looked and listened to that accent for a while, and salivated––until it was time to move to the penthouse. When the cat’s away…

  “What brings you to the Carousel?” I reached an ashtray and slid it to her.

  “We don’t have a bahr in my building.”

  “I’ll bet you have a bar in your penthouse, Mrs. Cahoone.”

  “Two.”

  I shifted my weight on the stool and waited for afterthoughts.

  “By the way, please call me Katya.” She looked me up and down. “Yeah, we’ve got two bahrs, but I don’t like to drink alone.”

  “Neither do I, Katya. Neither do I.”

  8 – A Pat of Butter on a Hot Corndog

  By one in the morning, the lady who doesn’t like to drink alone and her new buddy from LA felt no pain. People came and went, and so did the Martinis and shots. I mean, I could have fallen off the barstool and broken my front teeth and both legs and I would not have known it. I’d have gathered up my stuff and shuffled out the Carousel on my nubs, dragging my legs behind me with Katya in her full-length mink on my arm while the rest of the shit-faced looked down and laughed. I mean we were that much out of it and I was that much into her.

  “Take me home, Joe. I’m so drunk I can barely breathe.”

  “You said your husband’s out of town?”

  “Yeah, in Europe. He’s gone for another week.”

  “What about the doorman?”

  “He won’t say anything. All you’re doing is walking me to my door.”

  “He’ll see me go up.”

  “Yeah, but he won’t see you go down.”

  I didn’t know what to say after that one.

  +++

  Katya is a raving beauty, for I’d say her thirty-five years. Maybe no mental giant, but what a winnerette. She even told me she likes the shape of my buns. Can you believe it?

  Anyway, we slid off the stools, got our balance, scraped cigarettes and change into pockets and purse and I flipped a couple more twenties at Tylerfrank along with a friendly bird. He just winked.

  +++

  The 7777 doorman was nowhere in sight. Tonight the gods of sex, charm, and secrets were guiding me. I mean how lucky can you frickin’ get?

  Her building was new and filled with half-empty condos owned by New Yorkers. That kept the real estate at the high end of unaffordable and it looked like it, too. Especially when she slid the key in the lock and I pushed the door open. Talk about the French Renaissance, and Cahoone was Irish. There was more silver and gold and flocked wallpaper than in the A-room of the best whorehouse in France.

  Everything came on all at once, the lights, the music, and Katya. She grabbed my buns with both hands and pulled me chest-first into her. Then she let go of my backside, brought her arms up and pushed my head down into her ample rack, breathing hard the whole time. Oh, mama!

  “Are you gonna stay? Are you gonna stay? You have to stay!”

  “You got a maid? Any help here?”

  “They’re off tonight.”

  And so was I, like a racehorse. I pulled her toward the nearest sofa. Clothes flew everywhere like backstage at a Rockettes tour. She pulled me down and before I could find my clubhouse pass, she started squirming to the side.

  “Don’t mash me, you’ll bust ‘em.” That’s all I need. Her old man gets home and she’s got a frickin’ flat front tire.

  “No kissing, that means commitment,” she said between heavy breaths and squeals. I was afraid the neighbors were coming, and they probably would if they could have seen the action in Katya Cahoone’s living room. High school all over again.

  “I’m so hungry. I’m so hungry.”

  “You shoulda eaten somet
hing.”

  “I will, I will.”

  She slid down me like a pat of butter on a hot corndog. That’s not exactly what I had in mind, but it was better than okay.

  +++

  We laid there smoking–her pulling on her long brown cigarette and me on my normal Camel. She didn’t say anything, but if she were ready for more, she’d have to go trolling at the Carousel again because I was drained—wiped frickin’ out.

  “You got to leave before seven. The maid is due at nine and sometimes she’s early.”

  “Well, let’s not take chances. I should leave tonight.”

  “Oh-h-h. I was hoping you’d hold me.”

  Julius H. Caesar, I’d found myself a beautiful rich wild woman who didn’t want a commitment, and whose husband was in Europe. How lucky could I get?

  9 – Joe Oaks, the Promo King

  Workaday, workaday.

  I started up the Toyota and planned my morning. Well, doo-wah-diddy; it was already eleven o’clock, so I planned my afternoon instead.

  Get a burger and eat on the way to the radio station in Lauderdale. Tomorrow, Palm Beach. Make that West Palm, the low rent district. The closer you get to the beach, the higher the show ticket. Radio stations were not known for palatial palazzos.

  First, I’d call Kodi Graws and give him a great report. And hit him for a raise.

  +++

  “Hell no, you sumbitch. If you haven’t gotten Miami on it, I’m gonna can your ass.”

  “Johnson the Love Bulge turned it down flat.” I thought it best to tell Kodi the truth, for a change. “But, Johnson said if I convinced his program director to add it to the general play-list on Friday, he’d play it for us like a deck of marked cards.”

  “Fair enough. You can stay on if they list it, and I do mean if, because the rest of Miami won’t add it unless we got somethin’ to show, and you better have somethin’ to show by Friday.”

  “Kodi, I will, I will. I’ll call you tomorrow afternoon with a good report.” I hung up and blew out the breath I’d been holding.

  Kodi paid well and I had to come up with an ace to make my fun-in-the-sun move; and I couldn’t do without that big LA to Miami, Miami to LA expense account. No, sirree.