Tim Dorsey Collection #1 Read Online Free Page B

porch.
    “Right,” said Terrier. He pointed back at the street. “Listen, is that your vehicle?”
    Jim retracted his unshaken hand. “The Aerostar? Yeah, that’s ours.”
    “Can you park it in your driveway?”
    Jim looked at the driveway. The moving truck was still there.
    “The driveway’s full,” said Jim.
    “I know,” said Jack. He stared at Jim. Jim began to squirm; he looked up and down Triggerfish Lane. It was one of those old streets platted extra wide, and most of the neighbors had cars in the road.
    “You having a party or something?” Jim asked. “Need extra parking?”
    “No.”
    “Am I breaking a rule?”
    “No.”
    Jim paused. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. Mind if I ask why you want me to move it?”
    “I don’t like it there.”
    “Oh.” Jim looked across the street at Terrier’s Audi parked at the curb. “Your car’s in the street.”
    “I need it there.”
    “I see.”
    They stood for another awkward moment.
    “So you don’t want me to park in the street?” asked Jim.
    “Right.”
    “All the time?”
    “Right.”
    “Except when we have company. That would be okay, wouldn’t it?”
    “Not really.”
    “What about an emergency?”
    Jack patted Jim on the back. “Try to keep it in the driveway, sport.”
    “Okay,” said Jim.
    Jack began walking away. “It really bothers me.”
    “Nice to meet you,” Jim called out.
    “Right.” Jack looked both ways and crossed the street.
    Jim went back to the porch swing.
    “What did he want?” asked Martha.
    “He wants us to park in the driveway.”
    “When?”
    “All the time.”
    Yelling erupted across the street. Rasputin had finally gotten Jack Terrier’s attention.
    “Whoaaaa, doggie!” Jack held out both arms in a halt signal as Rasputin went into the squatting position. The dog froze. Jack grabbed him by the collar and dragged him across the property line into his neighbor’s yard at 877.
    “What about the people who live there?” Martha asked Gladys. “Doesn’t Jack worry they’ll see him?”
    “That’s Old Man Ortega’s place,” said Gladys. “He’d never say anything even if it did bother him. Lives there alone. Comes out to get the paper and that’s about it. Pound for pound, the best neighbor on the block.”
    Jim and Martha nodded.
    “On the other hand…” said Gladys, pointing three houses away at 857 Triggerfish, where cars and Jeeps and pickups sat all over the dirt yard, and a plastic flamingodrank out of a toilet on the porch. Trash spilled over the curb.
    “That’s the Rental House,” said Gladys. “A bunch of college kids from the University of South Florida. They’re majoring in dragging down our property values.”
    “There’s a rental on the street?” Martha asked with concern.
    “That’s actually the Original Rental,” said Gladys. “We now have a total of six on Triggerfish.”
    “Six?” said Martha.
    “The same guy owns them all. It’s like he has a thing for this street. And he has a knack for picking the worst tenants.”
    “Which ones are rentals?” asked Martha.
    “That one over there, where they think chain-link fence is landscaping. And the one next to it is rented by a Latin family who built that religious Madonna grotto with rocks and bathroom caulk. And that one over there, where a couple from Knoxville liked the grotto idea so much they made their own for Tammy Wynette.”
    Jim stared at the students’ trash pile. “I’ve never seen so many pizza boxes.”
    “It’s like clockwork,” said Gladys. “Every night, right after Jack comes out to water the lawn in his Delta Force outfit, the students order pizza. My guess is marijuana. That’s how it works, you know. The pizza companies are in brutal competition. Backgammon Pizza guarantees delivery in thirty minutes, and Pizza Shack sends its drivers out to follow the Backgammon drivers and lure away their customers by giving out free pies, which they claim taste better. Needless to say,