16 Tiger Shrimp Tango Read Online Free Page A

Rule—”
    Banging from the trunk.
    “Son of a bitch!” Serge jumped from the car and popped the rear hood— “Shut the fuck up!” —viciously striking the gagged-and-hog-tied Roscoe Nash in the skull with a tire iron, returning him to unconsciousness.
    Serge slid back into the driver’s seat. “People who interrupt! Jesus! . . . Where was I?”
    “Empathy.”
    “Right. In order to treat people with the utmost sensitivity, you must become acutely in tune with their every emotion: happy, sad, anxious, melancholy, introspective, that awkward sensation in the grocery store when you see someone you know really well but you’re in a rush and don’t have time for the kind of chitchat that nobody knows how to end gracefully, but they haven’t seen you yet, so you quickly duck down an aisle.”
    “Especially if you owe them weed money.”
    “Which leads us to my Empathy Continuum,” said Serge. “At one end are the totally chill cats: Mother Teresa, Gandhi, the Salvation Army, and at the opposite, Stalin, Pol Pot, Son of Sam, Ike Turner.”
    “But how does this unite everyone?”
    “Noted psychotherapists claim empathy can’t be taught, but they’ve never tried with the level of zeal I apply when I put my mind to something.” He glanced over his seat as thumping resumed from the trunk. “And I’m going to launch my clinical trials with someone who could stand to learn empathy the most.”
    The hamster twitched its whiskers and strained to reach the eyedropper in Coleman’s hand. “How did you find out about Roscoe in the first place?”
    “It was in all the papers. Remember that rookie police officer in Manatee County who was brutally gunned down in the line of duty? Pulled over a carload of crack smugglers with UZIs on the Tamiami?”
    “Sort of.”
    “Roscoe must read the papers, too.” Serge got out of the car and walked toward the back bumper. “Because after the first of the year, Nash falsely filed the officer’s tax return and had the refund check diverted to a PO box.”
    “How do you even figure out how to do that?” asked Coleman.
    “I don’t know, but Roscoe must have because it actually happened.” Serge popped the trunk. “Just when you think you’ve seen all depravity, someone raises the bar again.”
    “He’s another wiggler,” said Coleman.
    Serge rolled Roscoe over and ripped the duct tape off his mouth.
    “Ow! Shit!” The captive looked up. “Who the hell are you?”
    “Your new empathy coach, and if you pass, it could go a long way to getting you out of this jam. Believe me, you won’t like my detention hall.” Serge pulled a square from his back pocket and unfolded it. “For our first day of class, you’re going to write a lot of apology letters. I took the liberty of composing a sample to get you started.” He held the letter down to Roscoe’s eyes. “I have you referring to yourself as ‘the biggest prick in the world,’ but if you’d like something stronger, feel free to substitute.”
    Roscoe spit in Serge’s face.
    Serge nonchalantly found a rag in the trunk and wiped it off. Then he cracked Roscoe in the head again with the iron rod and made his way back to the driver’s seat. He picked up the binoculars and stared across the street.
    Coleman stuck the eyedropper in a can of Bud. “What now?”
    “I love Busch Gardens! Especially after it’s empty at night when the staff doesn’t force you to limit the park’s possibilities with their rule-crazy narrowness.”
    “No, I mean, that guy back there.”
    “Roscoe?” The binoculars panned from the Montu to the Kumba roller coaster. “In his case, the psychologists were right: Empathy can’t be taught.”
    “But you said your zeal . . . I mean, you gave up pretty quickly.”
    The binoculars reached the gondola over the Serengeti Plain. “I thought maybe we had environmental differences, but hocking a giant loogie in someone’s face is a language that crosses cultural lines.”

 

    Chapter