Electric Barracuda

by Tim Dorsey

  Coleman made a face. “But everyone here’s so . . . wrinkled.”

  “Coleman, respect your elders!” said Serge. “I know I do. I see some ninety-year-old dude driving ten miles an hour, clutching the steering wheel to his face. Everyone else impatiently honks, but I say, ‘Rock on!’ and shoot him a gray-power fist salute. You have to give a guy like that credit, if only for excellent attendance.” Serge turned to the group of seniors nearest him and waved. “You’re my heroes! I love absolutely everything you’re doing with this whole ‘not dying’ thing!”

  They quickly waded away.

  “Where was I?” asked Serge.

  “Warm Mineral Springs.”

  “That’s right.” Serge interlaced his fingers on the pond’s surface and made water squirt. “Brochures tout it as the Original Fountain of Youth.”

  “But Serge,” said Coleman. “How can they make such a fantastic claim?”

  “That’s probably what the people who sell tickets in St. Augustine want to know. I’ve been expecting a rumble for years, drive-bys in Buicks and Oldsmobiles, raking each other’s signs with automatic fire. I even offered my services to this place to put the arm on the competition, walking down the customer line in Saint Aug to correct the historical record. I actually did that, purely on spec.”

  “How’d it go?”

  “I was only trying to explain that the fountain obviously isn’t where Ponce de Leon explored, except the older tourists today are jumpy and overreact when I whisper, ‘You want to live, don’t you?’ ”

  “So you think this place might be for real?”

  “The science is behind it. They’ve got the highest mineral content in the United States. Feel any younger?”

  Coleman lay on his back. “I just feel like I’m floating higher.”

  “Minerals give you more buoyancy.”

  “Buoyancy is good?”

  “In a sinkhole, better than the alternative.”

  Coleman paddled his arms. “Where do these people get their connection to the Fountain of Youth?”

  “That’s the funny part.” Serge floated on his own back. “They say that after Ponce de Leon got disgusted with Saint Augustine, he brought his search for the fountain to Florida’s west coast, making landfall in 1521 at Port Charlotte, just a few miles from here, arguably to find this spring.”

  “Did he find it?”

  “No, Indians killed him with arrows.”

  “Isn’t that like the reverse of the Fountain of Youth?” asked Coleman.

  “Doesn’t seem to have hurt business.”

  Skid Marks floated over and blew a small fountain of water in the air. “Serge, imagine my surprise that we would team up again. How long now?”

  “Been meaning to keep in touch, but one thing after another.”

  “Sorry about your granddad.”

  “Appreciate it.”

  Coleman wiped a pool booger. “You knew Serge’s granddad?”

  “Met a few times,” said Skid Marks. “My grandfather and his, back in the old days . . .”

  “The gang was legendary,” said Serge.

  Skid Marks smiled. “And talk about trouble.”

  “Wait,” Coleman said to Serge. “You mean the gang, like Chi-Chi and Coltrane and Roy the Pawn King that you keep telling me about, running the bookie and fence rackets?”

  “That’s them,” said Serge. “Miami Beach fixtures.”

  Skid Marks reclined on his back again. “Nobody remembers anymore. No respect.”

  “Which one was your granddad?” asked Coleman.

  “Greek Tommy.”

  Serge adjusted the inflatable swim fins on his arms. “Tommy expanded the business. One of the best drivers for hire.”

  “Driver?” said Coleman. “Like getaway?”

  “No, moonshine running,” said Serge. “In the off-season, when the tourists went home and gambling dried up, they made deliveries from the many stills hidden throughout the Everglades. But it took a lot of talent behind the wheel because cops were usually waiting.”

  “They all knew about the gang,” said Skid Marks. “But they were never able to pin anything.”

  “Tommy was incredible,” said Serge. “Forget what you see in the movies. He knew every back road, every puddle and mud hole and maneuver to get pursuing police stuck. Or take a blind turn and send them sailing into the swamp. Like I said, the best.”

  “And your granddad was the craziest,” said Skid Marks. “Lost as many loads as he delivered.”

  “But never got caught,” said Serge.

  Skid Marks laughed. “Because the cops were too smart to chase a lunatic like that.”

  “Those were the glory days.”

  “And of course the Gator Hook.”

  “What’s a gator hook?” asked Coleman.

  “Generally, a hooked pole poachers use to prod alligators out of their holes,” said Serge. “But in this case, a landmark lodge in the middle of the Everglades on the Loop Road.”

  “Remember that night our granddads took us out there?” said Skid Marks.

  “Like it was five minutes ago . . .”

  Everglades 1964

  Two Cadillacs bounced down the Loop Road.

  An airboat hopped out of the swamp and came the other way. They parked next to each other in bright gravel outside a plain building with an open door. The floor was bare and so were a lot of the feet.

  Wailing bluegrass.

  Greek Tommy knew the place well. It was on his regular route, except he didn’t make any deliveries there. His “safe spot.” The cops all knew his car and he was constantly picking up tails. If Tommy wasn’t holding, he’d just drop in at the Gator Hook Lodge. And when they came to roust him: “I’m just here for the music.”

  On this particular night in late October, the Miami Beach gang hopped from DeVilles and started toward the door. “Anyone carrying a knife or gun?” asked Tommy.

  “No,” said Coltrane. “That sign says they’re not allowed.”

  “Why do you think they need that sign?” asked Tommy. “Stay here. I’ll go back to the cars and get some.”

  That kind of place.

  They went inside and pulled tables together. Half the customers already stewed. Beer arrived. Someone fell across their tables. He laughed and rolled in sawdust until friends dragged him outside.

  Chi-Chi turned the tables back up. “I’ll get more drinks.”

  Coltrane looked around. “What’s going on?”

  “What do you mean?” said Tommy.

  “It just got a lot quieter.”

  “Because they’re waiting for him,” said Tommy.

  “Him?”

  “Ervin Rouse.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Ever heard of ‘The Orange Blossom Special’?”

  “Who hasn’t? Considered the best fiddle song ever written.”

  “Rouse wrote it back in the 1930s. Got the idea late one night hanging out at the Jacksonville train platform to see the arrival of this fantastic new train everyone was talking about.”

  “What’s that got to do with this place?”

  “Ervin lives like a hermit a spit away from here on the Loop Road.”

  “You had me going.” Coltrane laughed. “A world-famous musician living in one of the most remote spots of the Everglades.”

  “He’s not kidding,” said Sergio. “I know about this.”

  “Don’t you start, too.”

  “Here’s the coolest part,” said Greek Tommy. “On Saturday nights—like tonight—Ervin just strolls up the road with his fiddle, walks into this funky little outback joint and starts playing ‘The Orange Blossom Special.’ ”

  “I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Coltrane.

  Greek Tommy picked up his grandson Skid Marks and set the boy on his lap. Except back then he was just called Bobby. The grandfather looked toward a small stage in the corner and whispered something in the child’s ear.

  Sergio did the same with Little Se
rge. “See that microphone over there?”

  Little Serge nodded enthusiastically.

  “Keep watching it,” said Sergio. “You’ll see something historic you can tell your children about.”

  Bang.

  Coltrane jumped. “That sounded like gunfire.”

  “It was,” said Tommy, eyes remaining on the corner stage. “A tradition. They’re shooting off the back porch.”

  Coltrane looked through the open rear door. “At what?”

  “Dynamite.”

  “Dynamite?”

  “Up in the fork of a tree. Winner gets free beer.”

  Bang.

  Tommy pointed. “Here he is.”

  A grizzled old man walked across the room, wearing a shirt that looked like it was woven by Seminoles. He reached the microphone and raised his fiddle in the air to acknowledge the applause.

  Everyone piped down. The old man rested a bow atop the strings—and he was off, playing furiously to an even louder eruption of appreciation.

  “. . . Comin’ down that railroad track . . .”

  “I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Coltrane.

  Bang.

  “. . . It’s The Orange Blossom Special . . .”

  Bang, bang.

  “They’re still shooting at dynamite?”

  Tommy looked around. “Where’s Little Serge?”

  “Over there on the back porch with Sergio,” said Coltrane. “What’s he doing letting him have that gun?”

  Bang. BOOM.

  “Little Serge just won beer.”

  “. . . Goin’ down to Florida! . . .”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Present

  They all had a good laugh in the tepid waters of Warm Mineral Springs.

  “Man, that takes me back,” said Skid Marks. “The Gator Hook, ‘Orange Blossom,’ Granddad . . .”

  “Memories,” said Serge. “But that isn’t even close to the best stories . . .”

  A few hundred yards away, outside the ticket booth, a redhead in a T-Bird sat under a coconut palm, keeping her eye on the only two motorcycles in the parking lot.

  “Your great-granddad,” said Serge. “Now, that was the high-water mark.”

  “Crazy Murphy?” Skid Marks did the backstroke. “Yeah, my granddad told me all about him.”

  “Not to take anything away from the gang,” said Serge. “Moonshine running in the sixties was no piece of cake. But Prohibition—now, that was the real action. What I wouldn’t give! . . . I can see it all . . .” Serge stared up at the sky. “. . . Me and Coleman racing through the swamp with a full load of hooch, Eliot Ness on our tail, tommy guns shooting out my tires, but no surrender! Escaping into the glades on foot like chain-gang refugees, just ahead of the bloodhounds, dragging Coleman behind me . . .”

  “Serge! Stop dragging me around the water!”

  “. . . Then we hook up with my trusty Indian guide, Breaking Wind, who makes us invisible to the White Man and we flee by dugout canoe to Chokoloskee Bay . . .”

  “Serge,” said Skid Marks. “I think you should calm down. Everyone’s staring again.”

  “But I’m invisible to the White Man.”

  “Serge, please . . .”

  “I’m always born too late.” He smiled and looked up. “Is it true Crazy Murphy worked for Capone?”

  “More like only the occasional delivery,” said Skid Marks. “Capone had this wild place just over the Monroe line.”

  “Damn, I wish I could have seen that,” said Serge.

  “It was long gone by the time of the Gator Hook, but people still talked about it.”

  “And now even the Gator Hook’s a pile of rubble.”

  “Greek Tommy would tell me all these insane stories passed down from his dad.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like sometimes he’d be making a drop for Capone and see things he shouldn’t. That old spot in the Everglades wasn’t just the perfect speakeasy location. If Capone needed to get rid of anyone, well, body disposal almost takes care of itself out there with all the gator holes.”

  “Except Crazy Murphy actually saw what I heard, right?”

  “They didn’t call him crazy for nothing. Who knows what he witnessed, the way stories change from generation. But in the versions my granddad tells, at least a couple times he saw guys led off into the swamp at night while Capone stood on the back porch, swatting the air . . .”

  “Swatting?”

  “He’d catch imaginary flying things and stick them in his pockets. Everyone pretended not to notice. They didn’t know it at the time, but his mind was slipping from untreated VD.”

  “What about the guys who were taken into the swamp?”

  “Never seen again, or at least that’s what my granddad said. Murphy thought he heard gunfire, but ignored it and kept unloading moonshine.”

  “Sure sounds true,” said Serge. “But you don’t believe it?”

  Skid Marks shrugged. “There are so many stories, some have to be true, but which ones? Like when Geraldo opened that empty safe at the Lexington on live TV.”

  “That guy’s a toad.”

  “My granddad said it was empty because Al knew the cops would go ape after that Valentine’s Day business. So ahead of time, he had it all crated up and part of the stash made its way to Florida. Supposedly hidden down the Loop Road, somewhere in the swamp behind the old place.”

  “That’s awesome.”

  “Granddad also told me Jimmy Hoffa’s back there.”

  “He is?”

  “No, he’s not,” said Skid. “That’s the point. The more years go by, the thicker the bullshit.”

  “I hadn’t heard about Hoffa.”

  “One of the three big stories going around,” said the biker. “Giants Stadium, a New Jersey incinerator, the Loop Road. Except it’s not true.”

  “But it is true that it’s a rumor,” said Serge. “Excellent!”

  “Why?”

  “People are talking about Florida,” said Serge. “Makes me proud.”

  A half hour later.

  A turquoise T-Bird drove a short distance back to the Tamiami Trail, slowly circling past two parked motorcycles and up an alley behind the Warm Mineral Springs Motel.

  Room 21.

  Coleman returned from the cooler and tossed frosty cans of beer to the bikers.

  “Thanks,” said Skid Marks, reclining on a motel sofa under the air conditioner. “That pool was a little too warm for me.”

  “I wanted to stay longer,” said Serge, turning with a glare, “but someone had to do cannonballs.”

  “Sorry,” said Coleman.

  Bacon Strips popped his Coors. “So, Serge, where to next?”

  “Points south. Got a few options, but the selection has to be absolutely perfect for the Fugitive Tour.”

  “It’s a sacred ride,” said Skid Marks. “All my two-wheel brothers have been following it on the Web and raving.”

  “It’s not really a fugitive tour,” said Serge. “It’s a back-roads tour. I’m trying to get people off the interstates and out of the theme parks to places less traveled.”

  “Then why are you calling it the Fugitive Tour?” asked Bacon Strips.

  “Marketing,” said Serge. “You need to make people feel good about themselves.”

  “What are you doing?” asked Skid Marks.

  Serge had the curtains and sliding-glass door open in the back of the room. Click, click, click. “Photo documentation of this time capsule.”

  “The motel?”

  “See those angled concrete overhangs? One of the finest surviving examples of 1950s parasol architecture.” Click, click, click. “And that original neon sign, Warm Mineral Springs Motel? Notice how none of the lights are burned out. You rarely see that.” Click, click. “It’s because of those old people from the pool. They still pump enough money into this place to keep her maintained. And we’re far enough between population centers on the Tamiami so there are no eyesores like Old Navy an
d Linens ’n’ Fuck.” Click, click, click.

  “Serge,” said Skid Marks, getting off the couch. “Could I have a word?”

  They stepped out on the porch and closed the sliding-glass door.

  “I saw Brad’s Beemer on the way to Snook Haven,” said the biker. “I think the plan’s working.”

  “Of course it’s working,” said Serge. “Just keep phoning him tips where I’m heading, like Kissimmee and Cedar Key. When I first got your message, I was ready to strangle someone. Every time I lower the bar of human expectations, some asshole like Brad comes along and exploits people on their deathbeds.”

  “Here are copies of the two letters,” said Skid. “What have you got in mind?”

  “Better you not know.”

  “But the money’s offshore.”

  “The Secret Master Plan is prepared for all contingencies.”

  Skid Marks looked back in the room. “What about Coleman?”

  “Keeping him in the dark,” said Serge, opening the sliding glass. “His lifestyle is the one variable that Master Plans have yet to conquer.”

  They went back inside.

  A loud knock on the door across the room.

  Serge jumped and grabbed his gun. “Who can that be?”

  Skid Marks looked at his watch. “Relax, it’s one of ours. Supposed to meet at two.” He answered the door.

  “Wingnut!”

  “Skid Marks!”

  The new biker walked into the room. “Serge! Catch!”

  A set of keys flew through the air.

  “That’s the car you ordered,” said Wingnut. “Papers in the glove compartment. Clean title, new plate, registration up-to-date.”

  Serge opened his wallet. “How much I owe you?”

  “I owe you,” said the biker. “Just get it back to me when you’re done, and try to go easy on the paint job.”

  “Thanks, Wingnut.”

  Coleman opened the cooler again. “You can just order a car? How many people in this state owe you favors?”

  “Favors are a new hybrid energy source of the Fugitive Tour,” said Serge.

  “Ready?” Wingnut said to the other bikers.

  “Thanks for the brews.” Bacon Strips stood.

  “Take care of yourself,” said Skid Marks. Both bikers gave Serge and Coleman another round of bear hugs.