Ding! Ding! Ding!… Serge stopped and stilled the bell with his hand. He removed a clipboard from a canvas shoulder bag, clicked a pen and began writing. “Response time, twenty dings.”
“What’s the clipboard for?”
“Pay no attention to the clipboard or it’ll skew the experiment. I need to observe you in your natural habitat. Personal appearance: The Hills Have Eyes.”
“Are you from the home office ?”
“You wish.” Serge pulled a rolled-up coupon book from his back pocket. “I’d like a room.”
“Checkin isn’t ‘til two p.m.”
“I know. Wanted to get my reservation request in early enough so there’d be no misunderstanding.”
“What kind of misunderstanding?”
“That I arrived too late, and you didn’t have any more of the rooms I wanted.”
The manager opened a reservation book. “What kind of room Would you like?”
“The kind you won’t allow me to have with my coupon. Any of those left not to give me?”
“I… What’s the question?”
Serge ripped the coupon from the book and slapped it on the counter. “One of these rooms. How many do you not have left?”
The manager picked up the torn square of recycled paper. “Oh, the coupon. Yeah, we don’t have any of those rooms left.”
“Bingo,” said Serge. “I want one of the rooms you don’t have.”
“They’re all full.”
“Your parking lot’s nearly empty.”
“We have other rooms just like it that you can have for the regular price.” The manager turned a wary eye to Coleman, swaying and drinking his breakfast from a paper bag. “Want one of those?”
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! “Look at me,” said Serge. “Try to stay on message. How many of the discount rooms do you usually not have ?”
“Varies.”
“Is it ever a negative integer?” “What?”
“I’ll just put down zero.” Serge stuck the clipboard back in his shoulder bag. He pulled out a can of spray paint and rattled the metal ball. “Well, that just about does it.”
Coleman reached for the counter. Ding! Ding! Ding!
The manager turned. “Can I help you?”
Ding! Ding! Ding!…
Serge grabbed Coleman’s arm and grinned at the manager. “I’m his caregiver. He just likes to ring bells and play with cat toys.”
The pair left the office. The manager returned to the backroom and picked up a magazine.
COCOA BEACH
Tables lined the walls of hotel conference room number one. Most were vacant.
Steve completed his setup procedure, straightening a locked glass display case of Liberty dimes. He felt a presence and turned, expecting his first customer of the day. “Uh-oh.”
A hulking, sunburned man with long stringy hair. “Jesus! What are you doing?” Steve’s head whipped side to side. “Nobody can see us together at the shows!” “We need to talk.” “Not here. In the hall.”
Steve rushed out and darted into a nook by the restrooms. “What’s so important to risk everything?”
“Nice job last night. Excellent stones.” “That’s what you came to tell me?” “The Eel wants more couriers.”
“Like I told you on the phone, I don’t know any more.”
“So recruit some new ones like you always do.”
“We need to cool it.” Steve glanced around again. “Every coin guy I’ve brought in has been hit. It’s just a matter of time until the cops figure out it’s me.”
“You’ve been very useful. Do you want to become useless?”
“What are you implying?”
The bodyguard smiled with missing teeth.
“Okay, listen, see what I can do. But I’ll need some time.”
The goon smiled again and slapped his shoulder. “That’s all I wanted to hear.”
Steve went back inside conference room number one as four people came out of conference room number two. Three of them had Serge by the arms. “But I buried the part about the tourist murder rate …”
They threw him to the ground. Coleman got off a bench in the hall and came over. “Did you get the job?”
“Economic philosophy differences.” Serge checked his tropical shirt for rips. “I’m a supply-side Keynesian, and they’re pricks. Come on.”
“Where are we going?”
“I passed another door when we first arrived. Took all my powers to resist going in, but the job search came first.”
They entered conference room number one.
Coleman pulled a flask from his back pocket. “What is this place?”
“Coin and stamp show,” said Serge. “I love coin and stamp shows!”
They approached the first table. Two dealers in deep conversation:
“… Great opportunity,” said Steve. “Few hundred dollars for practically no work. You’re already driving down the coast-just make an extra stop for the delivery.”
“I don’t know,” said the other. “Sounds dangerous.”
“Howdy!” said Serge.
They turned. “Can we help you?”
An hour later, Serge was still bent over a table, scanning pages of a tenth album with a magnifying glass. He closed the three-ring binder. “Just remembered I hate Mercury dimes. Too many hard dates to fill my Whitman binder when I was a kid. Let me see the pennies again.”
“Sir,” said Steve. “Do you plan to buy anything?”
“Tons of stuff! I’ve got such a giant shopping list in my head from the other binders that I now need to look at them all again and reallocate my budget.”
Steve displayed obvious annoyance as he retrieved the first album Serge had looked at.
