Electric Barracuda

by Tim Dorsey

  But Al was Al. Just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He opened his wallet wide, and construction began on an unusual project in a most unusual Florida location . . .

  Next week: foreclosed homes. One person’s misfortune is your hiding place!

  Serge finished typing his blog entry. He looked up from his laptop at an arm stretched in front of him. The arm was attached to Coleman. Its hand gripped a wheel.

  Coleman smiled from the passenger seat. “How’s my driving?”

  “Excellent,” said Serge, stowing the portable computer. “Your faithful service allowed me to make my Web deadline for my tidbit-famished followers. I’ll take it from here . . .”

  “What are you doing now?”

  “Making a note on my clipboard for the next blog,” said Serge. “Natural enemy of the fugitive: accidental discovery on the highway. So make sure those tags are up-to-date, blinkers working and definitely no speeding.”

  “What made you think of that now?”

  “See the nose of the black-and-beige sedan sticking out from behind those trees?”

  “Not really.”

  “Way up there, just outside radar range.” Serge steered with his knees and jotted on the clipboard. “I pride myself on being able to spot highway patrol before they can ping me.”

  “Now that you mention it, that’s the third cop I’ve seen along here.”

  “They’re running a wolf pack.”

  “. . . (Recalculating. Make a U-turn) . . .”

  Coleman pointed with a joint at the center of the dashboard. “It’s that Garmin chick again.”

  “. . . (Recalculating. Make a left) . . .”

  Serge glanced at Coleman. “I don’t understand a word she’s saying. Did you mess with the language setting?”

  “Oh, no, no, no. I would never . . . Yes, I did.”

  “. . . (Recalculating. Make a U-turn) . . .”

  “Coleman, show me what you hit.”

  “I think this . . . or this.”

  Serge leaned toward the Garmin. “Why’d you pick that language?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “. . . (Recalculating. Turn right) . . .”

  “So change it back.”

  “I’m trying to. It won’t let me.”

  “You locked the screen.”

  “How do I unlock it?”

  “I don’t know. I just bought the thing.”

  Coleman kept trying buttons. “What about the manual?”

  “I always throw manuals out. Life’s too short.”

  “. . . (Recalculating. Drive point-seven) . . .”

  “I can’t fix it,” said Coleman.

  “Son of a bitch.” Serge smacked the steering wheel. “All the women in my life, and now I’m taking shit from some chick in Mandarin.”

  “. . . (Recalculating) . . .”

  “Shut up! Shut up!”

  “. . . (Recalculating) . . .”

  Serge snatched the GPS out of its cradle and began smashing it to bits on the dashboard.

  “Serge, are you okay?”

  He threw the last quiet piece on the floor. “Couldn’t be better. I finally won an argument with a woman.”

  “Serge?”

  “What?”

  “How fast are you going?”

  “Only seventy—” He glimpsed the speedometer. “Eighty-five!”

  Coleman pointed with his joint again. “There’s another cop.”

  “Fuck! And we’re in pinging range. I always knew a woman would bring me down.”

  “What’ll we do?” asked Coleman.

  “I wanted to save this for later, but I’m forced to burn one of my ‘Outs.’ ”

  “What kind of ‘Out’ can help us now?”

  “Observe the master.”

  Serge went into the zone of absolute focus. Eyes swept mirrors. Other traffic, lanes, distance vectors.

  Coleman trembled in terror. “The trooper’s pulling forward! He’s going to chase us!”

  Serge remained on task. At the precise moment, he reached beside the steering column and threw a lever.

  Vehicles behind saw a turn signal come on.

  The Corvette in the next lane suddenly accelerated to cut off Serge’s lane change and whipped by on the left.

  Flashing blue lights. The trooper took off after the sports car.

  Orlando

  The waiting line wound up and down the aisles and backed into the coffee shop.

  Agent Lowe stood at the end, peeking around other heads.

  At the front was a book-signing table. Stacks of a ghost-written autobiography of a fake life story.

  “I’m your biggest fan! Make it out to Ralph.”

  The Doberman smiled and scribbled, then accepted a book from the next customer.

  “I’m your biggest fan! We met six years ago at another signing in Atlanta. Remember me?”

  Another book. Another autograph.

  “I’m your biggest fan! I’m a writer, too, and I wanted to ask you a question. I’m working on a book right now. I haven’t actually started. It’s a western. I don’t know anything about the West, so I might need to do research. But I hate research, so I was thinking of setting it in the future because who knows what the West will be like, right? And I’ve never written anything, but everyone always says I should write a book, so I should probably take some kind of class except I don’t have the time.”

  The Doberman smiled and handed the book back. “What’s your question?”

  “How do I get a publisher?”

  The line inched along.

  The autobiography’s release had been pushed up a month at the insistence of his cable-syndicated TV show.

  “We’re tanking,” said his producer.

  “I thought we just added six new markets.”

  “And lost nine. Nielsen’s dropped every week since March.”

  “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “What you’re best at. Headlines. Has to be something absolutely huge.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like that time you went to Mexico to abduct that rapist who fled from Texas, and you got intestinal parasites and had explosive diarrhea in the airport.”

  “I’d rather do something else.”

  “But people love that human element, especially the part where you didn’t make it to the restroom in time.”

  “Any other ideas?”

  “What would your wife think about having a shitload of kids, which you raise on camera in touching yet nerve-racking everyday circumstance, and then you start banging the nanny?”

  “She’d probably shoot me.”

  “I’ll run that by the affiliates . . .” He walked away.

  So here the bounty hunter sat in a suburban mall, painfully smiling through compliments. Not because he was ungrateful. Because of his neck brace. He popped a Vicodin.

  The afternoon wore on, the line dwindling until only one person was left.

  “I’m your biggest fan!” said Agent Lowe, dressed in the SWAT uniform he yearned to officially wear someday. “I’ve seen every episode. You give us . . . hope.”

  The bounty hunter cordially signed the book. Wheels grinding in his head. Cop fans were the best, the more starry-eyed the better, because they tended to talk out of school. Some of highest-rated episodes came from information he’d mined about classified ongoing investigations, just between you and me.

  The Doberman handed the book back to Lowe and smiled warmly. “You in a tactical unit?”

  “Almost,” said the agent. “But I did just get named to this really important task force.”

  The bounty hunter offered a plastic bottle. “Vicodin?”

  “I’m good.”

  The Doberman shrugged and popped another. “So what’s this task force do?”

  “It’s incredible,” said Lowe. “We’re after this one-man crime wave who’s left bodies all over the state for nearly two decades. His name’s Serge A. Storms.”

  “Never h
eard of him.”

  “You kidding?” said Lowe. “Almost every cop in the state has. Nobody can believe he’s eluded capture all these years, especially considering how brazenly he disposes of victims. Rewards up to something like two hundred thousand . . . And whoever does capture him will become an instant legend.”

  The Doberman leaned forward on his elbows. “Please, continue.”

  “He’s totally insane,” said Lowe. “Yet crazy like a fox.”

  “How many people did you say he’s killed?”

  “We’re still finding out,” said Lowe. “Like this one time he sucked all the water out of these two guys and laid them out to cure like human jerky.”

  “Sounds gross,” said the Doberman. “I like it. What else?”

  Lowe stopped. “I think I may have already said too much.”

  “Just between you and me.”

  “Okay,” Lowe said enthusiastically. “This other time he set up a motion trigger near Cape Canaveral . . .”

  “Why don’t we go back to my tour bus for some drinks.” The Doberman stood and put an arm around Lowe’s shoulders.

  “You’d really let me hang out with you?”

  “Be my honor,” said the hunter, walking him out of the store. “I’m just a TV superstar, but the real heroes are law enforcement like you who hang it all on the line every day.”

  “We do kind of take risks.” He rolled up his right sleeve. “That’s where a pencil went in—”

  “And I’d love to hear more about this dangerous hombre you’re risking your life to catch . . . Have you met the Litter?”

  Babes snuggled tight on both sides of the agent.

  “Well,” said Lowe. “Serge has this website.”

  The Doberman led him up the trailer’s steps. “Let’s log on and take a look . . .”

  Chapter Six

  Cyberspace

  Serge’s Blog. Star Date: Wow!

  Yo out there. It’s actually me, Coleman. Serge just crashed after staying awake for three days. I’m usually the one that’s passed out, but I took some bad acid, so I’ll be wide open for a bit, just carrying on with my job, all the little chores that go un-thanked. Serge complains I don’t do chores, but I’ve just spent who knows how long lying flat on the ground, keeping the carpet in place, because it was starting to dome up in the middle, and it goes without saying you can’t let it get to the ceiling . . . By bad acid, I don’t mean the regular bad, where you’re on a mega-freak-out trip like you’re both suffocating and having a massive heart attack at the same time and swear to God you’re going to die any second. The dying part doesn’t make it bad, because if you’re a party warrior, you go: Yes! It’s kicking in! . . . What makes it bad is you do really stupid stuff, like if you go to the mall, and everything’s normal—just weeping and banging your head on a post because they don’t have a Hickory Farms, and a second later you’re covered in cold cream and dragging an inflatable woman, and everyone yells “pervert,” but I only bought the thing so I could drive in car-pool lanes . . . Good acid’s totally different. Took some killer windowpane last year, and first got pissed because it wasn’t working and I thought I’d been ripped off, and I’m playing with my zipper, up and down and up and down, hearing sounds of individual prongs locking and unlocking in musical scales like a xylophone, and the mechanism starts blowing my mind and I think: Hey, a lot of planning went into this motherfucker. So I took off my pants to get a closer look, zipping up and down in front of my face. Even more impressive! LSD’s like that, always giving you a new perspective, especially when the pants are over your head, and you’re looking out through the zipper: up, down, up, down, each time giving me a peek through the crotch to the tune of “Jungle Boogie.” And you know how sometimes you just get this paranoid feeling on excellent drugs that someone’s watching you? It was like that this time, except multiplied by a hundred, probably because I was in a restaurant. Suddenly all these people began screaming, and I thought maybe some customer had gone berserk, and I crawled under the table. Then suddenly the table went straight up in the air! I’m thinking, holy fuck, what kind crazy McDonald’s is this? Turns out some employees had lifted the table and grabbed me and then I was on the sidewalk in my underwear and some pants hit me in the face, and I went back to the motel and kept working the zipper, wondering about the person who invented it, and I finally nod to myself: Yeah, now this guy really had his shit wired tight—he could see the big picture. And I hid under the bed and played with the zipper for the next six hours until the trip wore off. Now, that’s good acid . . . But this stuff I just took is stale or diluted, so you only get a little high and stay up all night. Which makes it bad acid, but great speed. The last time I got some I went back for more at five A.M., but the guy refused to hook me up because his wife was yelling crazy in the background: “Does that goddamn idiot know what time it is?” and Serge is shouting from the driveway for me to hurry, and I get back in the car, and Serge says I shouldn’t have come at this ungodly hour because the wife sounded like she was on ten periods and I wouldn’t be welcome anymore, but I said, no, they’re drug dealers—they understand the chemical equation. He said, what equation? I said, they sold me speed; I woke them up . . . Oh, when I said Serge was zonked from exhaustion, I wasn’t kidding. He had a mondo-huge day! We’re driving who-knows-where, and he’s totally obsessed with his new Fugitive Tour crap, and we pass this field and see all these old tents and people in gray and blue uniforms loading muskets, and Serge makes a wild U-turn and races across a dirt parking lot. I ask what’s going on? He says, “A military re-enactment! I’ve always wanted to be in a military re-enactment!” I said, “What about the Fugitive Tour?” He said, “What?,” and jumps out and sprints to the command tent, offering to enlist: “Are you doing the battle of Santa Rosa or St. John’s Bluff? Maybe Fort Brooke. Please tell me it’s Fort Brooke! You’re probably wondering which side I’m on—the side of history!” He sees a campfire that’s gone out and an old charred pot on a log. “Is that coffee? I don’t care if it’s cold. Wait here!” And he chugs half the pot, brown stuff streaming down his neck, and runs back with the thing still in his hand and salutes. “Reporting for duty! Coffee wins wars! Fourscore and seven! Rockets’ red glare! Bombs bursting! Bang a gong, get it on!” Before they can say anything, there’s a bunch of loud explosions and puffs of smoke from cannons. Serge clapped his hands like patty-cake: “The battle’s begun! I’ll help you win! Watch this!” Then he dashes onto the field and grabs a rifle from the side of a dead soldier (I think the guy was just faking), and charges from the rear to join the advancing front line of the blue army—“What’s wrong with you guys? Show some patriotism! Start yelling!” And he breaks right through the line, still sprinting, waving back at them and shouting, “Follow me! On to fucking victory!” And he ends up all alone in the middle of the field between the two armies, still charging. I guess they were filming some kind of authentic documentary, and Serge is wearing a tropical shirt and sneakers and a wristwatch. So then everyone does start yelling, and Serge reaches the line of gray soldiers and clubs one over the head with the stock of his rifle. Man, did that guy go down fast. And this other soldier is like, “What the fuck are you doing?” Serge says, “Preserving the Union!” And then he clubs him. Other dudes tried to take the rifle away, but Serge is swinging it like a baseball bat. Now the blue army is really running, and Serge looks over his shoulder: “See how it’s done?” But two of the blue guys grab him, and Serge says, “What are you doing? I’m on your side! You’re going to blow the battle!” But they’re just yelling “Asshole!” and “Dick-wad!” So Serge head-butts one and punches the other in the Adam’s apple and takes off. I think they canceled the battle because all the blue and gray guys are now running together after Serge. Except Serge is pretty fast, and these dudes are wearing all this heavy, hot clothing. Serge zigzags back and forth across the field, doing loops all over the place. Some of the guys start to faint, and I decide to wait in the car with the beer, and finall
y I see Serge racing over the top of a hill with a rifle and about a hundred guys behind him. He picked up an American flag from somewhere and jumps in the driver’s seat. They’re just about to the car, when Serge guns the engine and takes off right at them. Never seen people scatter so fast. I suggest we get out of there, but Serge says that would be desertion and speeds back onto the battlefield, more guys diving out of the way, Serge waving the flag out the window at the documentary crew: “The tide has turned in favor of the Republic!” And he finally reaches the enemy camp and runs over all their tents and backpacks and lawn chairs and shit and says, “Now this is a military re-enactment!” And we take a gravel road back to the highway and he tells me the only thing to do after the Civil War is to drive to the airport so he can experience “time shock.” We’re riding the escalators over and over at Orlando International, and Serge is telling everyone about metal stress and the failure rate of different planes and that he thinks pilots secretly have parachutes, and he sees this one guy and almost craps with glee, and I ask, “What is it?” He says that he’s been searching airports his whole life, but never actually thought he’d find one, and I say, “One what?” He says, “A Hare Krishna.” I say, “I’ve seen millions in airports.” He points and says, “But this one has luggage. He’s actually traveling. It could be my finest irony masterpiece!” He runs over to this tourist brochure rack, and then up to the bald dude in a robe, and Serge hands him the pamphlets and asks him for money. The guy gives a dirty look and walks away, but Serge keeps pestering for donations and forcing brochures on him. They’re both walking faster and faster until the old guy’s in an all-out sprint, and Serge snatches at his robe just before he ducks through security. I tell Serge that I think the guy’s upset, and Serge says, “Of all people he should understand: It’s karma.” Then Serge bought a guitar at Best Buy. Not his original plan, but he was playing Guitar Hero and the song was by the Who, and these kids start laughing, and Serge says, “What’s your problem? My high score will fry the program,” and one kid says, “You won’t even make the top fifty.” And Serge says: “The top fifty never saw Townshend in person,” and then he smashes the guitar to bits and the store people ask him to get out his wallet. Then we’re driving back to this motel, and I think coffee gives you a letdown, because Serge is frowning, and I ask him what’s the matter, and he’s sitting there with a Civil War rifle, toy-guitar pieces, and shreds of a Hare Krishna robe and says, “Every day it’s the same shit.”