The clerk turned up the volume on his little black-and-white set as a stretch limo rolled by on Madison Avenue. Sam sat in the backseat, turning up the volume on the little color TV flush-mounted in the wet bar.
“…
Sam listlessly resumed watching TV with her chin in her hands. Her friends were acting like such fools. Look at them, standing up through the moon roof, whooping, hollering and dancing with that Serge guy, their hair blowing in the cool night wind below the skyscrapers.
“Hey, Sam,” Paige shouted down through the opening in the roof. “Why don’t you join us?”
“I’ll take a rain check.”
“…
“Come on, Sam!” “Yeah, come on, Sam!” “Don’t be a party pooper, Sam!”
“Oh, all right!”
Sam stood up and stuck her head through the moon roof as the image on the TV set switched to a thin, fortyish man sitting on a stool in front of a sky-blue portrait-studio backdrop. There was a banner over his head: SOUTH BEACH DATING SOLUTIONS.
An off-camera voice: “Ready anytime you are.”
The man cleared his throat. “Hi. My name is Serge. Serge… uh… Yamamoto. And I’m looking for that special gal out there who enjoys quiet evenings, walks on the beach, fine wine, good conversation, fact-finding missions and exhaustive library research…. You must be fun-loving, have a sense of humor, an open mind, incredible stamina and experience at rapidly loading cameras and firearms under hectic conditions…. Smokers okay, no hard drugs….
“I’m thirty-five, keep myself in reasonable shape. A spiritual army of one. No hangups that I’m comfortable talking about. Hobbies: genealogy, first editions, conch-blowing, my prize poinsettias, celestial navigation for the car, warning the populace about the impending social collapse. Scotch: Dewar’s.
“Turn-ons: women who use big words, women who wear glasses, women who work in libraries and state forests, women who perform in theme park marine mammal shows, bedroom role-playing involving the first territorial congress.
“Turn-offs: women who react to big words like somebody cut the cheese, women who change the color of their hair, women who change the size of their breasts, women who want to change
“Turn-ons: growth-management plans, no-wake zones, the annual return of the white pelican, the tangy scent of the orange blossom, Spanish doubloons, Saltillo tiles, Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
“Turn-offs: the unexamined life, deep-well injection, people who call radio shows and say ‘Mega dittos,’ politicians who pretend to like NASCAR for votes, stupid Floridian jokes, stupid Floridians…”
Off-camera voice: “Okay, that’s enough.”
“I’m not finished.”
“That was great. You’ll do fine.”
“But I have more to say. I have to present the whole picture.”
“Please get up. We have to start filming the next guy.”
“No!”
Two men appeared from behind the camera and approached. “Okay, buddy, on your feet.”
Serge pulled a pistol from his waist and coldcocked one over the head, dropping him to the ground in front of the stool. He pointed the pistol at the other one, who raised his hands.
“Get back there and keep filming until I say to stop.”
“You got it.”
Serge tucked the gun away and sat back down, an unconscious man at his feet. “…So if you’re searching for that special someone, if you’re tired of the bar scene, generously misleading personal ads and blind dates that turn into restraining orders, look no further….”
The limo beat a red light at Thirty-eighth Street, a tight cluster of people sprouting through the moon roof. “And there’s the Chrysler Building,” said Serge. “The spire contains the penthouse where Walter Chrysler once lived, lucky bastard, except he’s dead….”
Maria chugged a plastic glass of champagne and swayed. “Isn’t he the best tour guide ever?”
Teresa blew a paper noisemaker, which unrolled and hit Sam in the side of the head.
After a quick series of stops on Serge’s A-Tour of New York, the limo pulled up outside the GE Building. Serge jumped from the backseat. “To the Rainbow Room!”
