“Where?” Jake looked around, laughing. “Are they invisible?”

  “Yes,” said Steve. “Those early bandits gave way to polished crews. You wouldn’t believe the extent of their preparations. Whose easel is this by my leg?…”

  “Mine. I’ll move it.”

  “… Start surveillance the day before, noting security cameras, highway exits, even visit the show to see who has the best stuff. Then hit us as we leave. One guy got jumped right in the valet line loading his trunk.”

  “Don’t forget Vic,” said Ted.

  “Vic.” Steve whistled. “Followed the poor guy a hundred miles back to his house and ambushed him in the driveway.”

  “That’s why we take evasive maneuvers,” said Henry.

  “You’re pulling my chain,” said Jake.

  “All of us drive away in formation,” said Ted. “Take turns rotating in and out of lanes looking for tails …”

  “… Get off the highway and immediately get back on at the same exit,” said Henry. “Before finally arriving at our safe-house hotel.”

  Steve leaned back and inflated his chest. “Yes sir, the rare coin circuit is now one of the most hazardous occupations in the state. It takes a rare breed with nerves of steel.”

  Jake broke out laughing. “You’re paranoid.”

  “That’s what Ralph thought.”

  “Speaking of which, I should call the hospital.” Henry opened his cell. “Uh-oh. Battery’s dead.”

  “Use mine,” said Steve.

  “No …” Henry pushed out his chair and threw a pair of tens on the table. “I’ll try my room phone. Behind on e-mail anyway. Better get back up there and check the ol’ laptop.”

  Steve looked down at his own phone. “Reminds me, I need to make a call…”

  He was interrupted by an elbow from Ted. “Whoa! Check that action at the bar!”

  Three people sat at the bar. Coleman was on one side of Serge, and Story was on the other, sitting an extra stool down to leave an empty seat between them for peaceful textbook study.

  Serge opened his laptop.

  “What are you doing?” asked Coleman.

  “Finding a wi-fi hot spot.” Serge began tapping. “Need to check our online payment account the travel company set up to compensate us.”

  “How does it work?”

  “Every time we file a report…” -Serge waved his arms and wiggled his fingers-“… they magically zap money through the air and into our lives.” He stopped and rubbed his palms together. “Let’s see how rich we are!” A finger dramatically pressed a button.

  Coleman leaned toward the screen. “Can we retire now?”

  “Something’s wrong.” Serge sat back and scratched his head. “There’s no money. In fact it’s got a negative balance.”

  “What’s going on?”

  Serge pulled a cell phone from his pocket and punched numbers. “I intend to find out. Probably just a clerical error. The astounding brilliance of my first report must have left them in such shock they couldn’t type straight. Can’t wait to find out how much extra they’re going to pay us …”

  “I’m buying the biggest bong-“

  “Shhhhh! They ‘re coming on the line now … Hello? …”

  On the other side of Serge, a man stepped to the bar. He grinned at Story. She turned, giving him an exquisite view of the back of her head.

  “… Bet you can’t find the words,” Serge said into the phone. “If my bonus is too large, we can work out an installment plan … What? … Could you repeat that? … There must be some kind of mistake …”

  Story felt a tap on her shoulder. “My name’s Sh-teve. What’s yours?”

  “Go away.”

  “Let me buy you a drink … Bartender!” He placed a twenty on the counter. Story grabbed the bill and stuck it in her pocket.

  Steve unconsciously felt his nose. “Have we met before?”

  “I severely hope not.”

  Steve climbed onto the empty stool between Serge and Story, invading her personal space with gin breath. “I have lots of rare coins in my room …”

  Serge held the phone oddly in front of his face like it was an undiscovered swamp species with ten sphincters. He returned it to his ear. “Back up … What do you mean you’re not going to pay me a red cent? … Of course I got your checklists for hotel quality ť . . No, I didn’t forget to fill them out… Because I thought it was some kind of performance test, like: ‘Anyone with so little ambition as to use the checklist is not someone we want working for us.’ … Oh, it wasn’t a test? Well it should be. ‘Window treatment appeal, scale of one to five.’ I got a sixth square: ‘Who gives a shit?’ … I see …”

  “Coin collecting is for wimps,” said Story.

  “That’s just my hobby,” said Steve. “I teach autistic children.”

  “How much extra are we getting?” asked Coleman.

  Serge waved for him to pipe down. “… But I worked hard on that report. It goes on for pages. There must be something you can use … You’re kidding … What about the Elvis room? … Not even the Skynyrd bar? … I disagree … No, it’s got everything to do with travel. Don’t you want to be a Freebird? …”

  The next stool: “… Bitch …”

  Story’s head slowly rose, eyes boring another hole in the wall.

  “Right,” said Serge. “I coined that phrase myself, Barracuda hookers …” His left arm shot out to the side, grabbed the hair on the back of Steve’s head and smashed his face down into the bar. “… Don’t take this the wrong way,” he continued into the phone, “but have you personally ever been to Florida?… Then that explains everything… Traveling down here demands an entirely different skill set … Yes, like backing into hotel parking slots … No, I don’t think you do know your customers aren’t fugitives … How’d you ever get your job? Sleep with someone?-“

  Serge held the phone in front of his face again and slowly closed it.

  “What happened?” asked Coleman.

  “He hung up.”

  “How much are we getting?”

  “Coleman, he hung up. In business, that’s Morse code for zero.”

  “But you worked hard on that report.”

  “He said we won’t get paid unless we use their checklist.” Serge looked down and raised his elbows. His eyes followed a tiny river of approaching red liquid back up the bar toward the empty stool between him and Story. “Where’d all this blood come from?” He turned to his left. Story was looking back at him, but this time with a brand-new expression.

  Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “So we’re going to start using their checklist?”

  “Absolutely not.” said Serge. “It’s a double test.”

  A man in maintenance overalls stood in a hotel hallway, playing a brief game of charades with the maid.

  “Oh, si, si.”

  She produced a card and opened the door.

  “Gracias.” He went inside and made the usual quick check in case someone was planted on the toilet with a loud exhaust fan. The walkie-talkie on his waist squawked: “Number two, we’re getting off the elevator. How’s dinner?”

  He keyed the mike. “Ready to serve.”

  Seconds later, a barely audible knock on the door. He checked the peephole and opened up. The rest of the team rushed inside. Three men in unmarked white jumpsuits slipped hands into thin gloves. One pulled the blinds shut; others turned on lamps and went to work with slot screwdrivers. Faceplates came off all the power switches.

  “Find anything?”

  “No, you?”

  “Nothing. Sure we got the info right?”

  ” ‘Light switch.’ Couldn’t be more clear.”

  “Maybe the guy varied his hiding routine like the one in Fort Walton …”

  A secondary, wholesale search began. Dresser drawers, under mattresses, behind nightstands. Then into professional thoroughness: cover off the ironing board, taking apart the toilet-tank assembly. Someone stood on a chair and checked in the drop ceiling with a metal baton flashlight, which yielded three binders of nineteenth-century half-dollars and a few modest gold pieces.

  The one with his head in the ceiling clicked off his flashlight and jumped down. “What do you think these are worth?”

  “We’re supposed to be looking for stones.”

  “But these look good …”-flipping plastic display pages- “… we could pawn them on the side.”

  “Forget it,” said a colleague, checking behind paintings. “First, the Jellyfish would kill you for even saying that. Second, he might do us anyway if we don’t come up with the gems … Where the hell are they?”

  A pillow unzipped. “What on earth were we thinking hooking up with that Jellyfish character anyway?”

  “To make money.”

  “I just signed up to boost gems; not roll with a sociopath.” The battery compartment came off the back of the TV remote. “We’re facing murder charges.”

  “Not if we don’t get caught,” said the one with the coin binders. He set them aside, clicked the flashlight again and slid under the bed on his back like an auto mechanic. “Just keep looking-“

  A cell phone rang. The lead maintenance man pulled it from his pocket. “Hello?… Oh no!” He clapped it shut.

  “What is it?”

  “The mark left the bar early. Everyone! Clear!” Before they could move: the sound of someone fumbling at the door.

  “Kill those lights!”

  The gang dashed around the near side of the bed and bunched together in a hiding spot created by the bathroom wall. The last one leaped from view just as the door opened.

  Nonchalant footsteps and whistling indicated that the pulled blinds had prevented the room’s occupant from noticing the ransacked interior.

  The whistling stopped. He just noticed. The two parties were still out of sight from each other, mere feet apart around respective sides of the bathroom’s corner. The burglar nearest the edge pressed himself as hard as he could against the wall and clutched the baton flashlight to his chest in a two-fisted baseball bat grip.

  The unseen room occupant: “Oh my God!” He took a slow step forward. Into view.

  The flashlight came down.

  Stars.

  The crew stood over him. Business clothes, tie askew, coin-show name tag: HENRY.

  “Why’s he back from the bar so soon? Our guy was supposed to keep him there for at least another hour.”

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “Call it in.”

  “Are you crazy?”

  “You want to explain to the Jellyfish why we waited around doing nothing and not calling? Better to take our lumps now.”

  “I’m not calling it in.”

  “We can’t just stand here until he wakes up.”

  “No, we can split…” And with that, one of the white jumpsuits ran out of the room, leaving an open door for all the world to see the gushing head wound of their prostrate victim.

  “Get that fucking door before someone passes by-“

  Someone passed by. A maid humming a merry tune. She stopped and looked with an initial smile at three rigid, surprised men staring back, one with a bloody flashlight by his side. The smile dissolved to terror as her eyes fell toward the unconscious man at their feet. She grabbed her head with both hands and became unhinged in Spanish, taking off down the hall.

  “Shit!”

  The one with the flashlight ran out the door.

  The maid was already three rooms down, waddling rapidly for the elevators. She heard footsteps. “No! Por favor!-” She didn’t hear the flashlight.

  The others rushed into the hall and helped drag the maid back to the room, where they dropped her across the coin dealer, forming an X. The door slammed shut.

  “Now we definitely have to call this in.” The top maintenance man grabbed his walkie-talkie again. “Number one?”

  “Copy. Dinner ready for takeout?”

  “Negative. We need extra table settings. Two more guests

  arrived.”

  “Did you say ‘two’?” “Affirmative.” “We copy.”

  The maintenance man quietly set his walkie-talkie on the bureau.

  “What are we supposed to do?” “Wait.”

  Six floors below, a white van remained backed into a parking slot behind the hotel. Two men in the front seat looked at each other. The one on the passenger side quietly set the walkie-talkie on the dash. “What do we do now?”

  “Call it in.”

  The passenger began to shake. “What are you waiting for?” “I can’t take this anymore.”

  “Phil, what’s gotten into you? Make the goddamn call!” “Hell with it.” He jumped out the door and took off across the parking lot.

  “Son of a bitch!” The driver ran around the van and closed the passenger door. Then he pulled a cell phone from his pocket.

  SHENANIGANS

  The bartender went through twenty napkins wiping Steve’s blood off the counter. He smiled at Story because she was hot. “Sorry, ma’am, some of our customers can’t hold their liquor …” He discarded the last napkin and looked up at the next suitor, standing patiently behind the empty stool. “I’m done. It’s all yours.”

  A discount loan consolidator climbed on the seat and grinned. “What can I get you?” “Solitude.”

  The man waved a fifty at the bartender, folded lengthwise between his index and middle fingers, indicating little-dick syndrome. “Tanqueray and tonic, and get the lady another of whatever she’s having.”

  The bartender set two drinks and thirty-five bucks on the bar. Story stuck the bills in her pocket.

  “Hey, what about my change?”

  “Okay, work on not being a putz.”

  The loan broker slunk back to the good-natured ribbing of a gang sitting around pushed-together tables in the middle of the bar.

  Serge finished his second coffee refill and nudged Coleman. “Grab your drink. I detect fertile research ground for my next report.”

  The pair approached the tables. Chewed stirrers, wet cardboard coasters, menu of frilly umbrella drinks in an upright Plexiglas holder. The gang’s lineup kept changing as guys rotated to the restrooms and computer center. One had a rolling suitcase next to his chair with an airline tag from Baltimore. Another wore a necktie around his forehead like a kamikaze.

  “Greetings, fellow warriors of business travel!” said Serge. “Mind if me and my associate join your camaraderie of the open road?”

  “More the merrier.”

  Serge cleared a formation of highball glasses and vigorously wiped down a swatch of personal work space. He bent over a notebook. “Just a few pointed questions. Nothing to worry about.”

  “You with the hotel or something?”

  “Or something,” said Serge. “They want me to use their checklist, but I say fuck that plastic cage. I’m in a Hendrix phase now. I march to my own checklist. How would you rate Jimi on a scale of one to mind-fuckin’-blowing?”

  They stared silently.

  “That concludes my Hendrix phase.” Serge waved for the waitress. “Coffee.”

  The kamikaze began laughing. “You must be appearing at the comedy club?”

  “That’s right,” said Serge. “Same one as you. It’s called earth. Please cooperate. Did you back your cars into parking slots when you arrived?”

  “Why?”

  Serge told them.

  Now the rest of the guys at the tables began laughing. Except two on the end, who got up and left quickly.

  Serge turned a page of his notebook. “My revolutionary new website bursts with local technicolor and value-conscious travel wisdom not to be found elsewhere, like never hire a hooker who suddenly appears outside your hotel.”

  “Why not?”

  “It’s usually just a foot in the door for accomplices to burst in and stick you up, because who’s less likely to report a robbery than some out-of-town businessman with a wedding ring?”

  The gang at the table laughed again and pointed. “Ned!”

  A man who taught corporate foreign-language classes emptied a beer pitcher into his mug. “‘Luckily, we don’t have that problem at this hotel.”

  “Yes you do,” said Serge.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Propositioned in the parking lot seconds after getting here,” said Serge. “Barracuda hooker. For more on that, please visit my site. I have to leave something off the table.”

  “In our own parking lot?” said an independent polygraph examiner for defense attorneys who passed everyone. “That’s hard to believe.”

  “Not just the parking lot,” said Serge. “She’s right here in the bar.”

  Heads spun. “Where?”

  “Over there,” said Serge. “The brunette number talking to that guy in the polo shirt. Pegged her immediately as the local honey trap.”

  “That’s not a hooker.”

  “To the untrained eye,” said Serge. “The business suit throws most people off, but that’s now the uniform for extended-stay properties. Click the special hyper-link on my site.”

  “No, I mean we know her. That’s our district manager …”

  “… She’s coming over here. She looks pissed.”

  “You didn’t happened to say anything to her in the parking lot that made her angry?”

  “Absolutely not. Well, maybe I mumbled the V-word.”

  “Oh, Jesus.”

  The woman arrived at the table and stared daggers at Serge.

  Serge smiled back. “By vagina, I meant how well you carry it.”

  The woman grabbed one of the drinks from the table and dumped it on Serge’s head, then stormed away.

  Serge wiped his face with a napkin. “Vagina has become such a tricky word.” He clicked open a wet pen. “Overall, how would you rate your stay?…”

  Three TVs were on above the bar; four more hung from wall brackets mounted in the corners.

  “… Police believe those responsible for the current string of Florida motel robberies are the same gang that worked the I-75 corridor from Cincinnati to Chattanooga last year … And now the Internet story that everyone’s talking about…”