The Stingray Shuffle

The title has three meanings:

• The Stingray Shuffle is the title of a little-known novel by little-known novelist Ralph Krunkleton, which creates a frame story for the novel's plot;
• According to Serge, "the stingray shuffle" is a movement routine to be used when encountering a stingray in shallow water: shuffling one's feet carefully, to avoid stepping on or kicking the stingray;
• The last part of the novel takes place aboard the Silver Stingray, a fictional version of Amtrak's Silver Star, traveling between New York City and Miami, Florida.

Novelist Ralph Krunkleton has never been more than marginally successful, but his publishers are surprised to see sales of his novel The Stingray Shuffle soaring in a small bookstore in Tampa, Florida. The book's publishers mount a publicity blitz culminating in a train journey with the author from New York to Miami. What they do not realize is that no one is reading the book; the owners of the bookstore are selling packets of cocaine in hollowed-out paperback copies of Shuffle, trusting that no legitimate customer will ask for such an obscure title. Unfortunately, the publicity campaign sparks a reading at the store with Krunkleton as the guest speaker, where the cocaine in the books is discovered and the owners are forced to close and flee the county.

The owners - five former KGB agents dismissed from intelligence work for gross stupidity - are then recruited by "Mr. Grande", the head of the Mierda Cartel (the smallest in the world) to track down a briefcase containing $5 million in cash that was accidentally paid out by the insurance company that was laundering the Cartel's earnings. The briefcase was last seen at the conclusion of Hammerhead Ranch Motel, in the possession of private investigator Paul and Ernest Hemingway-impersonator Jethro Maddox. Also on the trail of the briefcase are Serge and his traveling companion, Don Johnson-impersonator Lenny Lipowicz.

The briefcase changes hands several times, and Paul, Jethro, and several of the Russians are killed, before their leader, Ivan, finally gets the briefcase from Serge (who was hoping to use the money to buy a trip into space and a monogrammed spacesuit from the Russians) and takes it to New York planning to buy a former Soviet submarine that Mr. Grande has promised to a larger, Colombian cartel for drug trafficking. Serge leaves Lenny at his mother's home and follows Ivan's trail to New York.

While searching for the briefcase, Serge encounters five single mothers from Miami, who have been best friends since college and now formed a book club. They have traveled to Manhattan to attend the New Year's Eve celebration in Times Square and then join the Krunkleton book tour on its way back to Florida. The women are instantly taken with Serge, and he seduces one of them, Samantha, who invites him to join them aboard the Silver Stingray.

Ivan inadvertently switches the briefcase with an identical one carried by a bathroom attendant; when the attendant peeks inside and sees the money, he flees New York on the first available train, the Silver Stingray. Searching the attendant's apartment, Ivan and a Jamaican gang leader, "Zig-Zag", hear a message on his answering machine confirming the train booking.

Hijinks ensue aboard the train, which has been set up as a mystery tour loosely based on one of Krunkelton's books. These include Ivan and Zigzag jumping their car onto the roof of the train from an overhanging bridge, and Serge feverishly searching the train's staterooms for the briefcase. In the finale, the train derails, and Serge, "in character" as the mystery tour's detective, dramatically announces that one of the other actors, a washed-up hypnotist named Preston, was actually murdered rather than killed in the crash. Serge then deduces that Preston was the man who impregnated each member of the book club in college years ago, and they signed up for the tour not just to meet Krunkelton, but to confront Preston. At first, they believe he is accusing one of them of the murder, but he confesses that he killed Preston himself, as just punishment for his treatment of them. Then the unstable train lurches again, and Serge hits his head, becoming amnesiac. He wanders off the train in a daze, and Samantha discovers the briefcase hidden with her luggage.

A few months later, the five women are living large, having shared the $5 million between themselves. When they meet again to discuss Ralph Krunkelton's latest novel (a lurid potboiler inspired by his sudden notoriety after the train crash), they raise a toast to Serge, wherever he may be.

In fact, Serge is camping on an off-limits island off the Florida coast, giving history lessons to its population of test monkeys.