Electric Barracuda

by Tim Dorsey

  “Wait for my phone call.”

  “You got it.” The cab drove away.

  “What was that about?” asked Coleman.

  “Part of the Secret Master Plan.”

  “I know,” Coleman said forlornly. “It’s a secret.”

  Serge stood on the sidewalk next to the office door and reverently touched a vintage globe lamp with the establishment’s name: Dockside Motel. He went inside and rang a bell on the desk. Coleman rang it five more times.

  Serge slapped his hand. “Behave!”

  Someone appeared from the back.

  “Room four if you got it,” said Serge.

  “Four’s available.”

  “Excellent. When you find dependable air-conditioning, stick with it, I always say. They haven’t changed the air conditioner, have they?”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Then I might have to do some rewiring.”

  “What?”

  “The lights may dim briefly but it’s nothing to worry about.” Serge boldly signed the registration card. Horatio Farnsworth. “If I can’t fix the a/c, that’s the way it goes. People expect guarantees in life, then wonder why the newspaper’s wet and the children never call.” He received a metal key on a number four plastic fob. “Excellent. No magnetic card. Glad to meet a soldier in the fight.”

  “What?”

  “Hold all calls.” Serge ran up the stairwell to the second floor.

  Coleman eventually arrived in the room. He fired a joint and rapidly toked to catch up on the day. Serge stood at a wide expanse of windows, surveying the wharf. “Most people hate economic collapse.”

  “You don’t?” Coleman sucked the joint hard and cupped it in his hand.

  “Back then, they called them ‘panics,’ like the Great Panic of 1893 . . . Why are you giggling?”

  Coleman chortled as he held his breath, then coughed out smoke. “Panic. All these people in suspenders screaming and running into each other, falling through store windows, knocking over turnip carts, hair catching fire, livestock stampeding, monkeys marching up main street playing cymbals and smoking cigars. I’m really stoned now.”

  “Doesn’t give you an excuse to laugh at others’ problems.”

  “You’re the one who said you liked it.”

  “An exemption for history,” said Serge. “Too much collapse and you get a ghost town. But in just the right dose, a local depression can preserve heritage, like Cedar Key. In the 1850s, they built the cross-Florida railroad from Fernandina near Jacksonsville to this very wharf on the west coast. Soon, a bustling shipping port, freighters lining up: turpentine, cedar—naturally—and fresh seafood. They erected a giant sawmill for pencils.”

  “Pencils were the rage?”

  “It was the golden age of lead. Then, in 1886, Henry Plant completed another railroad a hundred miles down the coast to the more convenient port in Tampa, and the ships stopped coming here. Commerce evaporated. That, coupled with the remote geography, froze this island in time, much like you see it today.”

  “How did they survive?”

  “A lot of fishing . . .” Serge aimed his camera up the street at the former Captain’s Table restaurant. “. . . Until Florida’s fishing net ban. So the state retrained the bitter fishermen to farm clams, which they now cultivate with the latest marine science and profanity.”

  “I’m bored.”

  “The fugitive life is boring.” Click, click, click. “That’s what makes it so exciting.”

  “So we’re just going to stay cooped up in this room?”

  “No.” Serge stowed his camera and began rummaging through the backpack. “We’re going to do what all fugitives do between close calls.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Shoot pool.”

  “Pool?”

  “Wherever pool’s being played, there’s guaranteed to be at least one fugitive.” Serge pulled his hand out of the backpack.

  “Those look like Hot Wheels tracks,” said Coleman.

  “Because they are.”

  U.S. Highway 98

  A Crown Vic raced up Florida’s west coast. One of those lonely, bygone roads since the interstate went in. Trees and junkyards and more trees. A sign for some restaurant called the Gator Hole, where only the foundation remained. The highway became a straight shot through pine strands, until the first stoplight for miles appeared as a tiny red dot on the horizon.

  “Hang a louie up there at Otter Creek,” said Mahoney.

  They finally reached the light, skidding around the corner at a converted gas station that now advertised live shrimp, worms, cold beer and crickets.

  “This is a long drive,” said White. “You better be on target with this hunch of yours.”

  “Like found money.” He turned around and looked out the back window as the trailing convoy made the same turn past a traffic sign: Cedar Key.

  Cedar Key

  Coleman staggered to the north end of the dock and pushed open a door with a brass porthole. “Serge?”

  A wave of an arm. “Over here!” Serge leaned aggressively over the bar. “Excuse me, ma’am? I see the old Captain’s Table has been renamed Coconuts.”

  “I don’t know, I just started here.”

  “You do realize we’re way too far above the frost line for coconut palms to survive. Who do I need to speak with?”

  “What?”

  Serge gathered Hot Wheels tracks off the bar. “I’ll be at the pool tables.”

  Five minutes later, out on the sidewalk. “That was unfair,” said Serge.

  “They might have had a point,” said Coleman.

  “Why?” said Serge. “Just because I prefer to use several tables at once? Whole new game, like three-dimensional chess, sending balls between tables with Hot Wheels ramps. And yet all the signs in billiard halls just say NO GAMBLING, and nothing about Hot Wheels.”

  Back to the room.

  “What now?” asked Coleman.

  “Work our way down the Holing Up To-Do List . . . I’ll get the spreadsheet.”

  Serge wound his own mechanical alarm clock and unplugged the room’s digital one.

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “Serge’s Fugitive Tip Number Ninety-seven: Immediately unplug all motel clocks. They’re susceptible to power failures and assholes.”

  “Assholes?”

  “New trend. You know how in restaurants you always play a practical joke and loosen the tops of salt shakers? And then you forget and fuck up your own food?”

  “Why are people like that?”

  “Before checking out of motels, a growing movement of pricks are setting alarms for the middle of the night as a wacky joke to wake up the next guest. And some of these newer electronic jobs are pretty complex, and you think you’re turning off the alarm when you’ve just switched from an annoying pulse tone to Heavy Metal Morning Thunder 105.3 FM, the Music Monster! My motto: Life’s too important to learn new clocks, so I unplug them all and get on with the plot.” He sat motionless on the foot of the bed, holing up.

  The gears in Serge’s alarm clock ticked.

  1:00 P.M.:

  Coleman drank beer.

  Serge opened his laptop.

  1:30:

  Coleman did shots. “What are you typing?”

  Unplug All Clocks. “Coleman, come here. Guess the longest word in the English language that you can spell with just the top row of a keyboard.”

  “Okay, I’m good at this.” He rubbed his palms together and studied the keys. “Uh . . . pot. Am I right?”

  “Close: typewriter.”

  “Typewriter?” Coleman whistled. “That’s trippy.”

  “No shit,” said Serge. “Don’t tell me there isn’t something bigger going on out there in the universe.”

  2:00:

  “Serge, get in here! I need a witness!”

  Serge ran into the bathroom. “What is it?”

  “I just took the biggest dump in my life.”

  “Coleman, th
at’s unbelievably disgusting even for you— . . . Holy God! That one’s got a couple time zones!”

  “It’s like a crime scene.”

  Serge looked closer. “Is that a cuff link?”

  2:30:

  Coleman changed channels. “Hey Serge.” He pointed with the remote. “Geraldo’s on.”

  “The two worst words in the English language.” Laptop typing.

  “He’s about to open some big-ass safe.”

  3:00:

  Coleman was passed out with a leg in a lower dresser drawer.

  Serge read Internet headlines. Pluto Purged As A Planet. “Great, now nobody’s safe.”

  3:30:

  Coleman toweled down after a shower.

  “How do you feel?” asked Serge.

  “Best of both worlds: clean, not sober.”

  4:00:

  Serge watched No Country for Old Men on TV. “I need a device like that.”

  4:30:

  Coleman stumbled over to Serge’s laptop. “Facebook?”

  “I still don’t get the concept. Everyone keeps poking me and throwing snowballs.”

  5:00:

  Serge leaped to his feet. “I can’t take holing up!” He ran out the door and down the stairs.

  Chapter Nine

  Route 24

  Agent White looked in a rearview mirror full of vehicles. “I really wish they wouldn’t do that.”

  Lowe turned around to face a rumpled fedora in the backseat. “This profiling business is fascinating. You can really predict his movements through psychological probabilities?”

  “Muzzle, greenhorn.”

  “Have you ever been on a SWAT team? . . . Ow! White, he just hit me in the eye with a toothpick!”

  “Both of you! Knock it off!” The supervisor glanced in the mirror. “Like I don’t have enough to worry about without babysitting you two . . . And Mahoney, we better not be wasting time out here in the sticks.”

  “I’m geezed to his shake.”

  “But of the million places in the state, how can you be so sure he went to Cedar Key?”

  “He also posted it on his website.”

  “Damn it!” said White. “Why didn’t you tell me in the first place? I could have sent an advance team.” He pushed the gas pedal all the way down.

  Someone back at the former gas station stepped outside with a bucket of worms and walked to his Harley. He watched the convoy disappear into the marsh country of Route 24. Then opened a cell phone.

  No reception.

  He dialed again . . .

  Cedar Key

  “Wait up!” Coleman grabbed a lamppost and panted.

  “The Walking Tour doesn’t wait,” said Serge.

  “I don’t think I can keep going.”

  “We’re almost to the bar.”

  “What are we waiting for?”

  Serge turned the corner of Second Street and stood in the middle of the road.

  “Why are you stopping?”

  Serge placed a respectful hand over his heart. “Visitors come out to Cedar Key, and it’s all about the seafood restaurants and boutiques on the wharf at Dock Street.”

  “It did seem crowded out there.”

  Serge raised his camera. “For me, the island’s essence is this view down Second Street, like Key West at the end of the nineteenth century.” Click, click. “Weathered wooden buildings with peeling paint and rust-streaked metal roofs. Notice how all the canted facades down both sides of the road have post-supported balconies over the sidewalks, creating that narrow, always-welcome feel of a Wild West main street where gunslingers square off while saloon girls and smudged-faced children peek out windows. Not a stoplight on the whole island to puncture this spiritual moment . . .”

  Coleman farted.

  “Although ‘puncture’ isn’t limited to technology.”

  They walked again, past the library and post office and a convenience store where the clerk had to carry a cash bag if someone wanted to buy a bottle from the adjoining package place.

  Serge stopped in front of the most run-down building on the street and gasped. He sadly ran a palm over gothic letters. “I can’t believe it. They closed the L and M. Another sign of the apocalypse.”

  “What’s the L and M?”

  “Just one of the most venerable bars in all the state. Pre-dating roadhouses, one of those dubious old fishermen joints that was like drinking on a fog-draped pier in Shanghai.” Serge dabbed a tear and pounded the wall. “Why! Why! Why! . . .”

  It was Coleman’s turn to place a hand over his heart. “Please don’t tell me this was the bar we were going to.”

  “Yes.”

  Coleman pounded the wall. “Why! Why! Why! . . .”

  A police car rolled to a stop at the sight of two men beating the front of the closed tavern.

  “. . . Why! Why! Why! . . .”

  The officer leaned across his passenger seat. “What are you guys doing?”

  Serge turned around. “Pounding a building, asking questions.”

  “Please don’t pound buildings.”

  “You’re right, we’re visitors.” He grabbed Coleman’s arm. “Stop.”

  The officer watched them warily as he drove off.

  “That was close,” said Serge. “The natural enemy of the fugitive: a totally random encounter with law enforcement, even when you’re behaving completely normal.”

  “The bar’s closed.”

  “Fear not. I know this island.” Serge led Coleman to the end of the block and turned left. They strolled up a walkway.

  “What is this place?” asked Coleman. “Looks like someone’s home.”

  “It was, built in 1910, until the Eagles took it over.”

  “Eagles?”

  Serge pointed at a sign as they approached the door.

  “The Eagle Club?” said Coleman.

  “Good people.”

  “But the sign says MEMBERS ONLY.”

  “Just a formality.” Serge opened the door.

  All heads swiveled around the U-shaped bar. A roar went up.

  “The prodigal son returns!”

  “Serge is in the house!”

  He shook a row of hands until reaching a pair of empty stools.

  “Excellent Fugitive Tour,” said the bartender. “Been following it on the Net.” She placed a bottle of water in front of him. “On us.”

  “Coleman,” said Serge. “Meet Jill. And the other guy back there is Tom.”

  A man with a full, distinguished head of gray hair waved back.

  Coleman signaled for a drink. “He looks like that guy from the Sopranos.”

  Jill poured a couple extra fingers of Jack for Coleman, then leaned against the bar toward Serge. “I know Cedar Key is a natural for fugitives. God knows how many people out here aren’t using real names. Just one teeny problem putting us on your tour.”

  “You mean because there’s only a single, twenty-mile-long road in and out of here?”

  She smiled. “Getting cornered sounds like a glitch.”

  “That’s the whole point.” Serge smiled back. “What’s a vacation without near disaster?”

  The Crown Vic’s suspension slammed hard against the chassis as the agents sailed over the crest of a small hump bridge to Cedar Key.

  “Seal off Route 24!” White yelled into the radio. “I want ten men at that last creek.”

  The unmarked sedan screeched to a stop at the intersection of Second Street. White’s head swung toward the back seat. “Mahoney! Which way? . . .”

  Raucous laughter and good times in the Eagle Club. Coleman won a bar bet for how many swizzle sticks he could cram in his mouth.

  A cell phone rang. Serge covered his ear and answered. “. . . Uh-huh, uh-huh . . . Good work, Road Rash. I owe ya.” He hung up.

  Coleman rubbed his face. “For some reason my jaw hurts.”

  Serge opened his cell again and dialed a local taxi service. “Catfish, you’re on.”

  He hung up and yan
ked Coleman off his stool. “Time to go to work.”

  Chapter Ten

  Cedar Key

  Night fell.

  Then all hell.

  Nobody had seen so much action in Cedar Key since they could remember. Vehicles raced every which way, red and blue flashing lights, radios squawking, black-helmeted commandos knocking down motel doors with truncheons—made all the more dramatic by the tight confines of the town’s tiny grid of streets.

  And the weather.

  Nothing usual. A typical evening of forty-mile-an-hour gusts from the wharf’s open gulf exposure, crashing waves high over seawalls and bathing Dock Street in a misty spray. An evening fog rolled off the water, shrouding the island in a ghostly haze.

  The street platting was also open exposure, providing full view of the entertainment for Serge and Coleman, casually sitting on a bench in the public park at the east end.

  “You sure the island’s usually this windy?” asked Coleman.

  “It’s impossible to keep your hair combed in this town.”

  Serge’s name first popped up at the Island Hotel, and in went the tactical unit. Then out they came.

  Heads turned on the park bench as Serge and Coleman watched the brigade charge over to Cedar Cove, then back to the Cedar Inn. The Crown Vic and SWAT van raced past cars going the opposite direction. A yellow Cadillac, black Beemer and turquoise T-Bird nearly traded paint in a mass U-turn, speeding back after the cops.

  Another motel.

  The SWAT team jogged down the stairs and shook their heads.

  “Another decoy.” Agent White turned quickly. “What’s that noise?”

  The Doberman’s motorcycle crashed through the end of the wharf and into the Gulf of Mexico.

  Lowe ran over with a walkie-talkie. “Think we got something. Manager at the Dockside recognized his mug shot. Registered to one Horatio Farnsworth.”

  “Move!” yelled White.

  The pair on the park bench watched the tide of law enforcement reverse course again across the island.

  “Look,” said Coleman. “They’re hitting our actual motel.”

  “Perfect.”

  “How is cops closing in on us perfect?”

  “They’re not closing in on us. It’s just another coincidence like Kissimmee,” said Serge. “Told you this island is one of the state’s ultimate fugitive havens. I’d be more surprised if cops weren’t busting in places—and disappointed. Was starting to worry that I’d have to pretend police were swarming to test my new Cedar Key ‘Out,’ but this adds to authenticity.” Serge checked his wristwatch and looked at his cell phone. “What’s taking Catfish so long?”