The Pope of Palm Beach

by Tim Dorsey

  Coleman wheeled out a TV and began replaying a newscast of the chase along the waterfront. A Latin hunk named Johnny Vegas ran past one of the news cameras. “Baby, come back. It’s just a few zombies . . .”

  Coleman turned the set off as Serge wiped tears. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be laughing. A few quick points: I just found out that the skinny-dipping chick who gets eaten at the beginning of Jaws was a Weeki Wachee mermaid. Children laugh an average of seventy-five times a day, but adults only twelve. A common critical error is an uneven distribution of salad dressing. Next item of business: the book tour. Everyone thinks it’s all sex, drugs and rock and roll. But you know what authors really do back in their motel rooms? We hack the air-conditioning. Get out your pens and write down this procedure because it could come in handy with a certain maintenance fringe element . . .”

  The evening wore on more or less as usual.

  “Coleman, the karaoke machine! . . . I’ll get us started.” Serge jumped and flapped with the microphone. “. . . Superfreak! Superfreak! She’s super freaky! . . .”

  . . . Coleman rolled the machine away.

  “The drone! . . .” Bzzzzz.

  “Silly String! . . .” Pssssst.

  “Everyone up!” said Serge. “Jumping jacks . . . One, two, three, four . . .”

  They all joined in with perplexed amusement. Except one hulking figure who remained grim in the back row. He caught Serge’s eye.

  The evening eventually wound down as Serge scrawled Kenny’s name and handed novels back. “Thanks for reading my books!”

  Coleman stuffed his pockets. “Thanks for the joints!”

  The audience dissipated as Serge snuck a glance toward the back of the room. “Uh, Chris, Coleman, why don’t you two head on back without me and we’ll meet up at the bungalow.”

  “Groupies again?” asked Chris.

  “Yes,” said Serge. “That’s exactly what it is.”

  The last customer waved good-bye, and Serge thanked the library director. “Listen, do you think I could slip out the back? I noticed a door to the alley next to the bathroom.”

  “Enthusiastic fan?”

  “Occupational hazard.”

  “Be my guest. Go through the staff room and out to the alley by the loading dock.”

  Serge departed, and Lars followed.

  “Hey,” yelled the director. “What are you doing? You can’t go back there!”

  Serge pushed the steel door open into the darkness of Dumpsters and skinny cats. He waited leaning against a tree, hands casually behind him.

  Lars stepped out into the alley and looked both ways.

  “Over here,” said Serge.

  “What?”

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “No, I was just out for some fresh air.” Lars feigned nonchalance as he lit a cigarette. “Pleasant evening.”

  “Until now,” said Serge. “What do you want with Kenneth Reese?”

  “What do you mean? You’re Kenneth Reese.”

  “We both know the truth about that,” said Serge. “Or you would have come in bigger force. You want to find out what my connection is, or maybe hope to follow me and I’ll lead you to Kenny.”

  “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.” Lars took a drag, hoping to draw Serge’s attention away from his other hand reaching for the bulge under his coat. “But I guess writers have great imaginations.”

  Serge began to nod wistfully. “I guess you’re right. My mind’s running away with me. You wouldn’t believe some of the people I get at these things.”

  “I can guess.”

  “Could you spare a light?” asked Serge.

  “Sure.” He stopped reaching for his pistol and began fishing through a pocket inside his jacket. “There you go . . .”

  “Thanks.” Serge flicked it.

  “Where’s your cigarette?”

  “Oh, I don’t smoke.”

  “Then why do you need a lighter?”

  “For this . . .”

  Serge pulled out a can of Silly String and began spraying the bulky man up and down his shirt.

  Lars was more confused than anything else, holding his arms out and staring down at the insult on his chest. “What the hell—”

  Serge moved the lighter’s flame in front of the can, and the stream ignited. A Silly String rope of fire raced to Lars’s torso, and all the previously sprayed string that had stuck to the shirt now went ablaze like ribbons of napalm.

  “Aaaahhhh! Aaaahhhh!” Swatting himself. “Aaaahhhh! . . .” Eyes crazed in shock: “Mmmm!”

  “Oops, you moved and opened your mouth,” said Serge. “Sorry, I got some in there.”

  In alarm, Lars inhaled the flame. Ask any doctor: It’s never good. The yelling stopped. The outcome had been determined. All over but the shouting. Lars thrashed against the building and Dumpsters like a pinball, self-inflicted contusions and scrapes. He hit his neck on the sharp metal corner of the trash bin, cutting his jugular. He fell to his knees, spurting, then flat on the ground for the death rattle.

  Serge stood over the smoldering body. “Damn, that was faster than I thought.” He glanced around. “I need to get him out of sight and buy some time. But where?”

  A waiter in a white uniform held a small faux-leather binder to his chest. It contained the bill. This was always awkward because his tip was at stake.

  “I’m sorry, but we closed twenty minutes ago.”

  Salenca checked his watch. “Lars is even worse than Tito.”

  The waiter would not worry long about the gratuity as several hundred-dollar bills were dealt onto the table.

  “Let’s find out what happened to that stooge.”

  Several hours later, they regrouped in front of the darkened, closed library. “We looked all over the place.” “He’s not answering his phone.” “It’s like he just vanished.”

  “He has to be somewhere!” said Salenca. “Let’s think!”

  They made painful faces in case Salenca didn’t think they were thinking.

  A thud as someone crashed to the ground.

  “Tito!” yelled Salenca. “Are you drunk?”

  “I just had a couple glasses of wine. Something made me slip.”

  “You’re bleeding.”

  “I am?” He got up, checking himself for wounds. “I don’t see any cuts.”

  Salenca looked at the sidewalk. “There’s way too much blood for that to have come from your fall . . . What on earth happened here?” He surveyed the black-red slick, eyes moving toward the source and a steady drip, drip, drip. His gaze rose up to a square metal case bolted to the sidewalk.

  “Get a crowbar!”

  The crew quickly popped open the book-deposit box and looked inside.

  “That settles the mystery.”

  Chapter 40

  The Last Book Signing

  Just after dark, Serge slipped into one of his trademark tropical shirts.

  “Hey, guys, why don’t you all sit this one out tonight.”

  “What for?” said Chris.

  “I want joints,” said Coleman.

  Serge shrugged. “If you’ve seen one book signing, you’ve seen them all. You must be getting bored by now.”

  “Are you kidding?” said Chris. “Every single one’s an absolute hoot.”

  “How about this?” said Serge. “Just as a favor to me, can you stay home tonight? I promise I’ll be right back afterward, and we’ll all go out to a fancy dinner.”

  “Did something happen last night?” asked Chris.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You took a lot more time ditching the groupies. And you seemed different when you got back, preoccupied.”

  “It’s all good,” said Serge. “Just do me this one favor and stay put.”

  Reluctantly: “If you insist.”

  “I do, and thanks.”

  They watched out the front door as Serge climbed into the Nova and sped away.

  Chris spun around. “Where
are my keys?”

  “Why?” asked Coleman.

  She snatched them off the kitchen table. “This is way too interesting. Now I have to go. Coming with me?”

  “Joints!”

  The pair ran outside and drove off.

  The Miami warehouse was closed. A solemn line of men in the office. Salenca sat at his desk checking his pistol’s magazine. “No more fucking around! No incremental half measures!”

  “So we’re going to another book signing?” asked Tito.

  “Yes, except there isn’t going to be a book signing.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Salenca stood. “To hell with the civilians. We’re taking him at the beginning. The audience will be too shitless to come forward as witnesses. Pack!”

  The crew filled duffel bags with ammo, clips, exotic pistols and sawed-offs. Zip, zip, zip. They hit the road . . .

  . . . A half hour before the event, Serge made small talk with the library staff. He looked up at the door. “Oh my God!”

  “Thought we’d surprise you,” said Chris.

  “Yo!” said Coleman.

  “What are you doing here?” Serge grabbed Chris by the arms and glanced around. “I told you to stay put!”

  “Wow! You’re really weirding me out,” said Chris. “So you’re going to tell me right now exactly what’s going on.”

  Serge’s frustrated head rolled around on his neck. “Okay, okay. Kenny wasn’t being paranoid. He really is in danger. All of us are.” And he proceeded to give her the Twitter version of the Port of Palm Beach. “We have to get you out of here immediately.”

  “Now you’re being as paranoid as Kenny,” said Chris. “There’s no way . . .”

  Serge’s eyes popped as he saw the door again. “Don’t turn around. They’re here.”

  “Who’s here?” She turned around. “Who are all those guys?”

  “I asked you not to do that. Run!”

  They took off through a door at the back of the conference room, and Serge jammed a chair under the knob. Which bought them all of ten seconds as Salenca’s men crashed through. But it was enough to reach their Nova parked behind the building, and the pursuing gang had to run around the front of the library to pile in the Mercedes.

  Chris faced out the rear window. “Did I really hear gunshots when we were pulling away?”

  “Afraid so.”

  “Here they come,” said Coleman.

  Serge checked the rearview as a Mercedes wove in and out of traffic.

  “I don’t get it,” said Chris. “If you knew they were going to be at the library, then why did you go?”

  “To draw them into the open.” Serge hit the gas. “I didn’t know who they were or where they hang. I had to find out to protect Kenny.”

  “You were just going to take out all those guys by yourself?”

  Serge checked his mirrors again. “When this is all over, there are a few things I’ll need to tell you about myself.”

  “I don’t recognize this route,” said Chris. “Where are you going?”

  “Home-field advantage.” The Nova whipped around a city bus. “You’ll understand when we get there . . .”

  . . . In the Mercedes, Salenca was up in the front passenger seat, staring at the back of a novel. “It’s still bugging me but I can’t— . . . Wait!” Fingers snapped. “From that motel! He was the guy fixing the air-conditioning when we went to that room. He killed Diego in the Everglades . . . But if the facial recognition didn’t match, then who is the real author— . . . Quick, give me your phone!”

  Someone in the backseat passed one forward, and Salenca rapidly surfed the Internet until the screen stopped on an old author photo from one of Kenny’s first books. Salenca slapped himself in the head. “We had him all along!”

  “Who?” asked the driver.

  “The guy in the bungalow! I was comparing his face to the photo on the newest book,” said the boss. “I didn’t yet know they were two different guys . . . Turn here . . .”

  . . . Chris trembled as she faced backward in her seat. “They’re veering off. They’re letting us go. Why would they do that?”

  “Which way did they turn?”

  “South on Prosperity Farms.”

  “Shit, they figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “They’re going for Kenny.” Serge made a skidding right through a yellow light. “I know a shortcut. Hold on!”

  The Nova zigged and zagged south through the county, passing city-limit signs of towns that were quite wide, but not very tall on the map. Palm Beach Gardens, North Palm Beach, Lake Park, Riviera Beach.

  Serge skidded left onto Blue Heron. “This is gonna be a close one. No time to explain to Kenny in his state. Just snatch him . . . Coleman, stay here or you’ll slow us down.”

  “Right-o.”

  The Nova hopped the curb and tore up the lawn before parking diagonally in the middle of the front yard. Serge and Chris were a crack team. Kenny’s feet barely touched the ground as they whisked him out the front door, leaving it open behind them. The Nova peeled away.

  “So far, so good,” said Serge.

  Chris turned around. “Not so fast.”

  The Mercedes hopped the curb and landed roughly in the same spot as the Nova had. Someone in the car pointed at the house. “The door’s open!” Another pointed up the street. “They’re getting away!”

  More sod flew as the Benz spun out backward and resumed pursuit.

  “Where can they be going?” asked Tito.

  “Just stay close!” said Salenca.

  The chase was long and slow on the narrow, heavily trafficked coastal route of Alternate A1A, a veritable tour of the upper Gold Coast. Northlake Boulevard, RCA Boulevard, PGA Boulevard, Donald Ross Road, Indiantown Road, Frenchman’s Creek, Admiral’s Cove, Turtle Creek, Juno Beach, Jupiter, Tequesta.

  “We’re heading toward Hobe Sound. That’s the dunes,” said Chris. “I know where you’re going now. But the gate’s locked at this hour.”

  “I know another way,” said Serge. “It’ll be easy. We just need a navy.”

  “Oh, easy-peasy,” said Chris.

  “There’s the lighthouse.” Serge executed another hard turn and bounded down a road near the inlet, then left the road, crashing through landscape to park as close as possible to the private pier. He grabbed a gym bag. “Everyone out!”

  They seized the catatonic Kenny again, this time his heels skipping across the boards of the dock. The dock’s owner had two boats to steal, but it was a simple choice. Kenny was tossed into a center-console fishing skiff that was overpowered with a Mercury 350.

  The homeowner blasted out the back door of his estate with a drink in his hand. “You ripped up my property! And what are you doing in my boat?”

  Serge undid the mooring line and raised his shirt to show the butt of a gun. “It’s an emergency.”

  “Bon voyage.” The homeowner sipped his Bombay gin.

  Serge tossed his gym bag in the boat and took off. The skiff raced inland, under the tall bridge at Old Dixie, then the exceedingly low railroad bridge alongside, disappearing around a bend and speeding past a line of private docks at a planned golf community.

  Back at the inlet, the property owner didn’t even speak as openly armed men poured out of the Mercedes, taking his bigger boat, the twenty-nine-foot Chris-Craft Catalina. One of the gang was left behind to watch the Benz and keep the owner on ice, away from the cops.

  Twin Yamahas roared to life. The bow rider left a massive wake as it plowed west up the famous river.

  Chapter 41

  The Loxahatchee

  An osprey with a majestic wingspan circled high overhead under the full moon. Snook and redfish fed along the reeds. A raccoon rummaged through snarls of brush. The waterway got its name from the Seminole tongue, “River of Turtles.”

  A flat-bottom fishing skiff raced by in a graceful banking turn, steered by someone who knew these waters by heart. Minut
es later, a V-hull crashed through the shallows, steered by someone who didn’t.

  The wind whipped Chris’s hair in her face as she looked back. Salenca’s more powerful boat made its appearance at the last bend. “They’re following us. They stole a boat, too.”

  “I expected that,” said Serge, steering gently to port.

  A couple more bends and they left civilization behind, crossing the county line and entering the brackish water in Jonathan Dickinson State Park.

  “They’re gaining,” said Chris. “Why didn’t we take the faster boat?”

  “Everything’s fine.” The skiff tilted the other way. “It’s all part of the plan.”

  “There’s a plan?” She glanced back again. “They’re even closer!” Bang, bang, bang. “And they’re shooting!”

  “Everyone get down,” said Serge, remaining upright. He locked in on the river like a downhill skier. Hard to port, hard to starboard. He glanced at the watermarks on the spidery mangrove roots to gauge the falling tide. More gunfire. Another hard turn.

  The moon may have been full, but it was less than needed to navigate this river at speed. For the ordinary boater, that is. As the snaking tributary wound inland, its bends came faster, sharper and narrower. Either boat could easily run aground or worse, end up jammed nose-high in the mangroves. A bullet grazed the side of the steering console. Chris, Coleman and Kenny huddled together near the bilge. The chase boat was so close now they could hear the shouts.

  As adrenaline spiked, Serge’s dim night view of the river began to strobe with bright flashbacks. Daytime memories as a child in a little yellow baseball cap, paddling around the same turns. Another bullet pinged off the engine and punctured a bait well. The next shot hit the stern at waterline.

  Serge spotted a jutting outcrop of slash pines, then a bright flash in his brain stem from the eyes of a small boy, jamming a paddle into the water to push off from an unexpected shoal. Serge cut the wheel for the most jarring port turn yet, needing to stay on the far left of the river and avoid the wide, unseen shallows extending from the right bank.

  Salenca’s boat stayed center, and the men were thrown against each other. The boat shuddered and chugged through the sand. Salenca threw the throttle all the way forward, the propeller tearing up the bottom, until he finally pulled free like a slingshot. But they’d lost sight of Serge.