The Riptide Ultra-Glide Read Online Free PDF Page A

Kmart.”
    â€œBut there’s another big place near Winn-Dixie that’s sure to have everything we need.”
    They parked, and Serge fleetly went inside to canvass the media section, filling his arms with a harvest of Beach Boys and Annette Funicello.
    â€œThere’s a Gidget movie,” said Coleman. “Gidget, Gidget, Gidget  . . .” Uncontrolled giggling. “That’s messed up. Gidget, Gidget, Gidget . . .”
    â€œColeman, you’re acting really weird.” Serge grabbed a Baywatch boxed set. “What the hell’s wrong with you?”
    â€œNothing.” He turned and bent over. Snort.
    â€œJesus!” Serge’s eyes shot around for any onlookers. “We’re in a big store. You can’t be doing coke!”
    Another giggle. “Coke, blow, flake, fluff, snow, marching dust, weasel powder, white death, white lady, wings, yeho, nose-candy, donut glaze, gutter glitter, Charlie, Chippy, Belushi, Foo-foo, Merck, mojo, movie star, Mayan mist, Bolivian blizzard, Inca telegram, California cornflakes, lay lines, cut rails, hitch the reindeer, chase the dragon . . .”
    Serge slapped himself on the forehead.
    Then a lightbulb went on. Serge reached in his shoulder pouch for the camcorder. “From the top!”
    â€œCoke, blow, flake . . .”
    A few minutes later, Serge finished checking out at the registers and paid with fresh twenties.
    â€œ . . . Roxanne, pimp, sugar, thing, cotton, girlfriend, Big C . . .”
    Serge gathered up his bag. “Come on, Coleman, follow me.”
    â€œWhere are we going?”
    Serge led him over to the back of a long line stacked up at the customer-service desk.
    â€œI don’t understand,” said Coleman. “You just bought those and now you’re going to return them?”
    â€œNo,” said Serge. “I just need some customer service. Except for some reason, I always have trouble at customer service. Even though it says ‘Customer Service’ on the sign, it usually feels like I’m getting the opposite. I’ll give it one more try, because I’m into hope . . .”
    On the Other Side of the State
    A rnold Lip was an ordinary doctor in Tampa who ran a modest private practice that had fallen on hard times because he wasn’t a very good doctor. He was forced to move his office several times, down descending strata of square footage and facility maintenance. Until he ended up in a professional building that was a two-story converted crack motel. He specialized in diseases that medical journals described as the most likely to go away on their own.
    One day just before lunch, he walked through his empty waiting room. The only receptionist had been let go. He stepped outside and looked over the balcony railing, wondering what he was going to do. He looked around the office complex. No cars in the parking lot. None of the other professionals doing any business either, not the forensic accountant, maritime insurance agent, empty office-space broker, Ventures Limited, or something called the Lone Wolf Group. The outsourcing firm next door had been replaced by an office in a converted motel in India.
    He strolled toward the end of the balcony with the stairwell, thinking of the sandwich shop across the street. He stopped. What were all those cars doing on the other side of the parking lot? He watched throngs of people flowing toward one particular office on the first floor. He jogged halfway down the stairs and read the sign by the door. What was a personal injury attorney doing in such a run-down business complex? Those guys can afford full-page ads on the backs of phone books.
    At the end of the day, Arnold made a point of taking the same stairs. And waiting. All the cars were gone except a Porsche 955. A young man with German features and a Lance Armstrong haircut was the last to leave the building. He folded his jacket neatly in the