Insane City Read online

  Also by Dave Barry

  FICTION

  Lunatics

  (with Alan Zweibel)

  The Bridge to Never Land

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Sword of Mercy

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Science Fair

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Secret of Rundoon

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Cave of the Dark Wind

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  The Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog

  Escape from the Carnivale

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Shadow Thieves

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Peter and the Starcatchers

  (with Ridley Pearson)

  Tricky Business

  Big Trouble

  NONFICTION

  I’ll Mature When I’m Dead

  Dave Barry’s History of the Millennium (So Far)

  Dave Barry’s Money Secrets

  Boogers Are My Beat

  Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway

  Dave Barry Is Not Taking This Sitting Down

  Dave Barry Turns 50

  Dave Barry Is from Mars and Venus

  Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs

  Dave Barry in Cyberspace

  Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys

  Dave Barry Is NOT Making This Up

  Dave Barry Does Japan

  Dave Barry’s Only Travel Guide You’ll Ever Need

  Dave Barry Talks Back

  Dave Barry Turns 40

  Dave Barry Slept Here

  Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits

  Dave Barry’s Homes and Other Black Holes

  Dave Barry’s Guide to Marriage and/or Sex

  Dave Barry’s Bad Habits

  Claw Your Way to the Top

  Stay Fit and Healthy Until You’re Dead

  Babies and Other Hazards of Sex

  The Taming of the Screw

  G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS

  Publishers Since 1838

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) • Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 707 Collins Street, Melbourne, Victoria 3008, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) • Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi–110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) • Penguin Books (South Africa), Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North 2193, South Africa • Penguin China, B7 Jiaming Center, 27 East Third Ring Road North, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100020, China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2013 by Dave Barry

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barry, Dave.

  Insane city / Dave Barry.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60919-4

  I. Title.

  PS3552.A74146I57 2013 2012028009

  813'.54—dc23

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For Michelle, who’s perfect

  Contents

  ALSO BY DAVE BARRY

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Epilogue

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  1

  Two days before his wedding, Seth was in a cab with his best man, Marty, who was advising him on the responsibilities of the groom.

  “Your job,” Marty said, “is to get hammered.”

  “I’ve seen the movies,” said Seth. “It never ends well.”

  “It’s a tradition,” said Marty. “The groom, about to give up his old lifestyle forever, spends one last night partying with his buddies, laughing with them, crying with them . . .”

  “Throwing up on them,” said Seth.

  “Not on the best man,” advised Marty. “That’s the function of the lower-ranking groomsmen.”

  The cab was approaching the American Airlines terminal at Reagan Airport.

  “One thing,” said Seth. “No stripper.”

  “Seriously?”

  “If a stripper shows up, I will run. I will run like the wind.”

  “Strippers are traditional,” said Marty.

  “Strippers are hookers. Remember the one we got for Kevin?”

  Marty made a face. “OK, I’ll admit hygiene was not her . . .”

  “She was disgusting, Marty. She personally controlled two-thirds of the world supply of stank. I’d rather get a lap dance from Charles Barkley.”

  “You want us to get Charles? Because I hear he’s pretty responsive to fan requests.”

  “No stripper, that’s what I want.”

  They were pulling up to the curb.

  “I got this,” said Marty, pay
ing the cabbie, which was unlike him. “You go inside.”

  “I gotta get my suitcase.”

  “I’ll get it. You’re the groom, man. Let people cater to you.”

  Seth frowned. It was also unlike Marty to cater. Marty was, by nature, a cateree. Feeling a twinge of suspicion, Seth put a hand on Marty’s shoulder, leaned in eye to eye. “Marty,” he said, “swear to me on your mother that there will be no stripper.”

  “Absolutely. I swear on my mother, may she rest in peace.”

  “Your mother’s still alive.”

  “Unfortunately, yes. Now go find the rest of the Groom Posse.”

  The rest of the Groom Posse consisted of Kevin (he of the stanky stripper) and Big Steve. The four of them—Seth, Marty, Kevin and Big Steve—had been close friends since they met as roommates at the University of Delaware, where they had distinguished themselves by amassing the largest vertical stack of used pizza delivery boxes in the school’s history, and quite possibly in the annals of higher education. After graduating they had pursued different career paths, but they remained close friends, connected by the bond of college, as well as the bond of being unsuccessful at everything they had tried since.

  Seth spotted the hulking mass that was Big Steve by a boarding pass machine, his finger hovering uncertainly over the touch screen, his face scrunched into a frown, looking like a man about to enter the code that would launch a nuclear strike against Pyongyang, as opposed to a man confirming his selection of an aisle seat. Big Steve was a man who always . . . wanted . . . to . . . make . . . absolutely . . . sure . . . of . . . everything. Standing behind him in a movie concession line was a nightmare. He could take five full minutes to choose a beverage, before moving on to the far more difficult issue of what size beverage. Not to mention the popcorn decision, which more than once had made him miss the beginning of a feature film.

  Pacing around Big Steve like a small, jittery asteroid orbiting a planet was Kevin, who, as always, was on his cell phone, lying to somebody about something. As Seth drew near, he gathered that in this case the person being lied to was Kevin’s wife.

  “. . . feeling a little sick, to be honest,” Kevin was saying, shaking his head at Seth to indicate that he was in fact feeling fine. “No, I’m still going. It means a lot to Seth. I’ll just take it easy, skip the partying.” Here Kevin grabbed his crotch to indicate that he did not intend to skip the partying. “I know, baby, I know . . . I am soooo sorry you can’t come . . . Right. You too. Bye.” Kevin pocketed his phone, then, with a swift and fluid motion, reached past Big Steve’s still-hovering finger and stabbed the boarding pass machine’s screen.

  “Hey!” said Big Steve. “What the hell!”

  Ignoring him, Kevin turned back to Seth. “You ready? Everything good in WeddingLand?”

  “I guess,” said Seth. “There was an issue with the centerpieces.”

  “What issue?”

  “I’m still not sure. Couple days ago, Tina calls me up, she’s crying like she found out she has cancer, I mean sobbing, and I go, what’s wrong, and she says something about the centerpieces, and I go, hey, the important thing is we love each other, and we’re getting married.”

  “You stupid shit,” said Kevin.

  “I know. She goes, ‘I can’t believe you sometimes,’ and hangs up.”

  Kevin nodded. “We had these wedding favors, little custom-scented soaps that said ‘Love and happiness always, Karen and Kevin,’ but two hours before the wedding Karen discovers they spelled happiness with a y.”

  “Oh man.”

  “Yeah. Talk about a wedding totally ruined.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Her mom and her aunt opened up all the soaps, we’re talking a hundred forty-five soaps, and used razors to change the y’s to i’s.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. You look at the soap from our wedding, you’ll notice that the i is leaning, and has no dot.”

  “No offense, but I never looked at the soap from your wedding.”

  “Of course not. Nobody did. Nobody gives a shit about wedding favors. But Karen and her mom and her aunt still talk about it, how they saved the day with their razors.”

  Marty appeared, towing his and Seth’s suitcases.

  “Ready, men?” he said.

  Big Steve was frowning at his boarding pass.

  “Row twenty-six,” he said. “That’s pretty far back, isn’t it?”

  “We’re all in twenty-six,” said Seth.

  “Maybe we should try to move closer to the front,” said Big Steve.

  “Good idea,” said Kevin. “Get to Miami a little sooner.”

  “Maybe we should go through security and find a bar,” said Seth.

  “You’re the groom,” said Marty.

  They took the escalator to the lower concourse and got into the TSA line. Kevin went first, followed by Big Steve and Marty. After they went through the screening they all turned to watch Seth. This was the first indication he had that something was up. The second was when the TSA agent, a large African-American woman whose name tag read R. WILLIAMS, pointed at his suitcase and said, “Is this your bag?”

  “Yes,” said Seth.

  “I need to search it,” she said, picking it up off the baggage carousel.

  “OK,” said Seth, following Agent Williams and his bag. He heard a snorking sound from the direction of the Groom Posse. Agent Williams hefted the bag onto a table, then put on a pair of blue latex gloves. She opened the bag and, after a few moments of rooting around, pulled out and held up a pinkish, soft rubber object about the size of a football with a dangling electrical cord.

  “What is that?” said Seth.

  “I was going to ask you that,” said Agent Williams.

  “That’s not mine,” said Seth.

  “This is your bag, right?”

  “Yes, but that thing is not mine.”

  “But it was in your bag.”

  “But it’s not mine.”

  “I understand that, sir, but it was in your bag.”

  “But it’s not mine.”

  Another agent came over, a thin, prematurely balding man whose tag said W. PITTOWSKI.

  “Is there a problem?” he said.

  Agent Williams showed him the pink thing. “This was in his bag, but he says it’s not his.”

  “It’s not!” said Seth.

  Agent Pittowski was peering at the object. “That’s a male sex aid,” he said.

  “A what?” said Agent Williams.

  “Artificial vagina,” said Agent Pittowski.

  Agent Williams dropped the thing. It bounced off the table and rolled, jiggling, across the floor, trailing its cord, like a badly deformed pig having a seizure. Some travelers stopped to look at it.

  “I’m sorry,” said Agent Williams. “But I ain’t touching that.”

  “That is not mine,” said Seth. The onlookers’ eyes went from the pink thing to Seth, then back to the thing.

  “Excuse me,” said Marty, stepping forward.

  “Who are you?” said Agent Pittowski.

  Marty pointed at Seth. “I’m this man’s attorney.”

  “No he’s not,” said Seth. “He’s not even an attorney.”

  “Well, not technically,” said Marty. “Not in the sense of practicing law or passing the bar exam. But I do have a hundred and seventeen thousand in tuition debt from a third-tier law school, and by God that should count for something.”

  “He doesn’t need a lawyer,” said Agent Pittowski. “He needs to pick up his vagina and move along.”

  “It’s not my vagina!” said Seth. The onlooker crowd was growing.

  “Do you have any proof that it’s his vagina?” said Marty.

  “Shut up, Marty,” said Seth.

  “Sir,” Agent Pittowski said to Seth, “if you don’t pick it up and move along right now, I’m going to have to detain you.”

  “He’s getting married this weekend,” said Marty.

  “That is not my
problem,” said Agent Pittowski.

  “It’s somebody’s problem,” said Agent Williams, looking at the thing on the floor.

  Seth, with a glare at Marty, grabbed his suitcase, picked up the vagina and stalked out of the security area. He went to an overflowing trash can and put the vagina on top of the pile, then turned to face the approaching Groom Posse, festooned with idiotic grins.

  “Not funny,” he said.

  “Yes! Funny!” said Kevin. He held up his phone. “And soon to be on YouTube.”

  “I’ll kill you,” said Seth. “Seriously, I will.”

  “Totally worth it,” said Kevin.

  A briefcase-carrying, suit-wearing man in his fifties approached the trash can. Looking neither left nor right, he opened his briefcase, put the vagina inside, closed the briefcase and walked briskly away.

  “I’m guessing Secretary of Commerce,” said Kevin.

  “Well, he’s got himself a nice little unit there,” said Marty. “The Fleshmatic Orgo-Tron, top of the line, with heat and pump action. Hardly used.”

  “Wait,” said Seth. “You used it?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Jesus,” said Seth, watching the suited man’s back as he disappeared down the concourse.

  Kevin said, “The bar is this way.”

  2

  The man was telling Laurette to get up, but she was too weak from vomiting; she could not stand, especially not on the wet and slippery deck of the boat, pitching in the turbulent waters of the Gulf Stream.

  “GET UP! GET UP!” shouted the man. The crew were Dominicans, and Laurette had trouble understanding their crude, heavily accented Creole. The man grabbed Laurette’s arm and yanked her to her feet so roughly that for a moment she thought she would drop the baby. The thought flashed through her mind: Maybe it would be best. Maybe we should all die right now in the angry water. For the hundredth time since she had boarded this wretched boat, she wished she had never listened to her sister in Miami, never trusted these men, never left Port-au-Prince with her babies.

  Stephane, her little man, had risen with her and was holding on to her dress. “What’s happening, Mama?” he said.

  “It’s all right,” she said. The man was pulling her to the back of the boat. She almost fell, struggling to hold on to the baby and keep Stephane close. “What are you doing?” she said to the man.

  “You are getting off here.”

  Laurette looked around, seeing only water in every direction.