by Tim Dorsey
“That’s pointed the wrong direction for anything good.” Serge finished his business and tried the stall door.
Latched.
He got down on hands and knees. Inside, a man slumped on the floor. And a black leather bag.
Serge wiggled underneath and felt veins on the man’s left wrist. Then checked the bag.
The bathroom door burst open.
“What’s up with you?” Felicia looked him over. “And your tux is filthy-”
“It’s the doctor!”
“Who is?”
“How they’re going to take out Guzman!”
“Slow down,” said Felicia. “What’s going on?”
“Does Guzman have a regular personal physician?”
“He always travels with one, but we use several different ones.”
“The real one’s dead in there. Handicapped stall,” said Serge. “The bodyguards won’t be alert to the doctor. We have to find Guzman-and a guy with a black leather bag.”
They rushed back into the ball.
“What about the dead guy?” asked Felicia.
“I left the stall locked and pulled his leg inside so nobody would find him,” said Serge. “If panic breaks out, it’ll make the killer’s job that much easier.”
Felicia reached in her clutch purse. “Take this.” She slipped a small. 25-caliber automatic in his hand.
“There’s Guzman!” Serge waved urgently.
Guzman cheerfully waved back.
“He doesn’t understand,” said Felicia.
“We have to get to him!”
They began pushing their way through the crowd. “Sorry… Apologies… Sorry…”
Felicia grabbed Serge’s arm and pointed another direction. “There’s a guy with a black bag. He’s heading toward Guzman.”
“And he’s closer.” Serge dispensed with apologies. Shoving people, spilling drinks.
“He’s almost there,” said Felicia.
“So are we.”
“We’re not going to make it.”
“Failure isn’t an option,” said Serge. “Guzman!”
“He still can’t hear,” said Felicia. “The music’s too loud.”
More drinks spilled.
“The guy’s reaching in his bag,” said Felicia.
“What the fuck is that thing?”
“Pneumatic hypodermic gun.”
“Shit, Guzman’s back is to him.” Serge elbowed past a waiter. “He can’t see it coming.”
President Guzman shook hands with an attache from Ecuador. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”
“Congratulations on your election.”
“Thanks.” A smile. “But now the hard part…”
The man with the black bag inched closer. The last person between him and the president stepped out of the way. Clear shot. Nothing but the back of Guzman’s tux.
The Ecuadoran attache took a sip of champagne. “So how are the generals treating you these days?”
“We’ve resolved some differences,” said Guzman. “But there’s always going to be that with the military.”
The glinting tip of a hypodermic gun neared his back. Two feet. One. Six inches. Finger on the trigger.
The fake doctor felt a small barrel in the middle of his back. And a voice over his shoulder. “I wouldn’t do that. Put it back in the bag.”
He did.
“Now start walking,” said Serge.
The man remained still.
Felicia poked his ribs lightly with the tip of a stiletto blade extending from a lipstick. “I’d listen to him.”
This time he began moving.
All three ended up back in the restroom. Serge gave Felicia the gun and crawled under the stall again. He unlatched the door. Felicia pushed the man inside.
“Interesting,” said Serge. “There’s a dead guy on the floor and no reaction from you. Most innocent people would comment.”
“You’re pointing a gun.”
Serge glanced casually at his hand. “Just a formality.”
Felicia shoved the man into a wall. “Who sent you to kill Guzman?”
“What are you talking about?” The man rubbed the back of his head. “I’m his physician.”
“Sure you are,” said Serge. “Then what’s the deal with the hypodermic gun?”
“Oh, that, ” he said, nodding. “The president was complaining of fatigue. Lack of sleep from all his appointments here. I was going to give him a vitamin-B injection.”
“Serge,” said Felicia. “What are you doing?”
“Going through his bag.”
“I see that. What for?”
“We’re going to have fun,” said Serge. “What have we got here? Maybe I can use this. And I can definitely use this…”
“Serge!” Felicia looked around quickly. “We don’t have time. Someone could walk in here any minute!”
“This will be express fun.” He reached in his pocket and tossed something to her. “Bind his hands behind his back.”
“Plastic wrist restraints?”
“Always carry some to parties,” said Serge. “You never know what the theme’s going to be.”
Felicia pulled the strap tight as Serge laid out medical supplies atop the toilet tank. “So you’re really a doctor?”
“Absolutely.”
“But maybe your certification has lapsed in this country.” Serge picked up a blood-pressure tester. “So I’m going to give you a field exam to see if you’re still up to snuff.”
Serge wrapped the tester around the man’s neck and fastened the Velcro. “They always put these on people’s arms. But the neck is much more accurate.” Serge began squeezing the black rubber bulb. “Wow! You’re off the charts!”
“… I… can’t… breathe…”
Serge eased off the pressure until the slightly deflated ring hung loose around the man’s neck.
The man trembled uncontrollably. “Dear God! Please don’t strangle me!”
“Strangle you?” said Serge. “Never. What gave you that idea?”
“So you’re going to take this thing off me?”
“Didn’t say that.” Serge grabbed an empty syringe and a small surgical vial. He slipped them under the blood-pressure wrap, one on each side of the man’s trachea. Then he squeezed the bulb a couple times to hold them in place.
Felicia stared in confusion. “What are you doing?”
“Placing braces beside his windpipe because we wouldn’t want him to stop breathing.” Serge smiled big in the man’s eyes. “How’s your breathing?”
“Okay.”
“Felicia, your purse.”
She tossed it. “What are you looking for.”
“Here’s a lipstick. And a nice fat pen.” He held them up to the man’s face. “This is your medical recertification test. If you really are a doctor and not an assassin, this should be a breeze and I’ll let you go. I always like to give my students an escape clause.” He stopped to grin again. “Don’t you just love the suspense?”
Felicia nervously peeked over the top of the stall at the restroom’s outer door. “Will you hurry?”
“Don’t sweat. It’s just a one-question test.” Serge turned to the captive. “And here’s the question. Answer right, and I’ll take that thing off your neck and you’re free to leave. Now, I’m going to reinflate that tester to the max. But first I’m going to place these two items next to a blood vessel to relieve the pressure. And that’s the name of my new game show: You Pick the Blood Vessel! ”
“So if I pick right, nothing will happen to me?”
“No, you’ll pass out. That’s definite.” Serge began squeezing the bulb again. “But I’m a trained professional. I’ll catch it in time and cut you loose. You’ll come back around pretty quick.”
“And if I guess wrong?”
“You won’t pass out.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you’re a doctor.” Serge squinted at him. “You wouldn’t be lying
to me about that, would you?”
“Serge!” said Felicia.
“Almost done.” He turned to the captive. “What? No idea?” A frustrated sign. “Okay, I shouldn’t be doing this because it’s against contest regulations, but here’s a hint.” Serge tapped two different spots on the man’s neck. “Jugular vein or carotid artery.”
Silence.
Serge squeezed the bulb. “If you don’t pick, I’ll do it for you.”
“Okay, carotid.”
“Interesting choice.” He slipped the lipstick and pen under the inflation ring. Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze…
“He’s not passing out,” said Felicia.
Squeeze, squeeze, squeeze. “No, we’re well past that point.”
“Look at his face! It’s completely red.”
“Purple’s up next,” said Serge. Squeeze, squeeze…
Eyes bulged. Then his whole head began vibrating like a paint-can shaker in a hardware store. Spastic tremors through all limbs, feet slapping the tiles.
The outer restroom door opened.
“Serge,” Felicia whispered. “Someone’s here.”
An undersecretary from Montevideo stepped up to the urinal. The thrashing in the adjoining stall couldn’t go unnoticed. “Is everything okay in there?”
Felicia intentionally fell back against the stall’s wall with a loud moan. “Mmmmm, yes, oh yes, baby…”
The undersecretary chuckled to himself. He’d been to a lot of these balls. He zipped up and left.
Felicia stared down at a foot still twitching from residual death rattles. She seized Serge’s hand. “We’re out of here! Now!”
They sprinted back to the ballroom, then composed themselves in the doorway and resumed walking at a casual pace.
“What on earth did you do to that guy back there?”
“Long explanation,” said Serge. “But a great dinner story. Involves the history of Florida Championship Wrestling and the infamous sleeper hold. We’ll grab a bite later.”
On the other side of the room near the main entrance, Victor Evangelista hung on to a brass railing. “If this goes sideways…”
“Shut up,” said Malcolm. “These guys know their job.” He turned and gave a nod.
Five new men slowly fanned out across the ballroom around the central axis of President Guzman.
Guzman smiled. “Serge, where have you been?”
“I’m like a cat. Whenever I’m in a new building, I have to explore.”
Guzman smiled. “Then you haven’t seen the whole building.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because if you had, I’d be able to tell.” Guzman looked toward Felicia. “Why don’t you take her and check out the other big room through that ornate door. It’s the mini-expo where countries tout local goods and attractions.”
Serge glanced through the door. “Burlap sacks of coffee beans must be Colombia. The colorful, twirling carnival dancers, Brazil.”
“Machu Piccu diorama, Peru, obviously,” said Guzman.
“Wait…” Serge took a couple steps left to see farther into the room. “I don’t believe it. A horse! A real horse!”
“Argentina,” Guzman said with a grin. “Was waiting for you to notice.”
“What a coincidence! Come on, Felicia, this is a gas.”
Guzman watched with amusement as the couple departed. The president’s mouth slowly turned down as Serge approached the archway. A certain simultaneous confluence of movement had begun. Funneling behind Serge. A guy here, another there and over there, deliberately scattered in the vast crowd so nobody would give a second thought unless they were Secret Service. Or a politician who gave a lot of speeches in public. Guzman continued observing the men, whose converging vectors defied random cocktail-party mingling. “This is not good.”
Guzman quickly gathered his own security detail from the loose pocket surrounding him. He pointed through the arch and snapped orders.
“But, Mr. President, you’ll be unguarded.”
“Rodriguez and Acevedo, stay with me,” said Guzman. “The rest of you, move!”
On the far side of the expo room, next to the Juan Valdez impersonator, Serge stroked a horse’s mane. “Hey there, fella. You like canapes? Try these…”
The horse lapped Serge’s hand.
Glances shot back and forth across the room, slight nods exchanged in a five-point spread formation. The tallest agent in the capture unit uncapped a tranquilizer needle concealed in a fountain pen.
The pattern tightened toward Serge.
Behind them, a second pattern flowed in the same direction at a faster pace. It filtered between the men in the first formation like a basketball team getting back in transition for defense. It was man-to-man coverage. The one with the needle was first to hit the ground from a stun gun in his ribs.
And so went the element of surprise. Malcolm Glide’s intercept team knew they had company, and they weren’t hard to identify. Guzman’s security chief hit the floor from a wicked right cross. A wholesale brawl broke out; the startled crowd began shrieking and running. Another of Guzman’s agents took a hard blow to the temple. Just before going down: “Serge! Catch!”
Serge looked over from the horse. A small stun gun flew through the air. Serge snatched it, about to make a break.
But two of Glide’s boys had gotten through. Serge dropped the first with a loud zap. Then he made his move. He grabbed Felicia’s hand. “Up we go.” The second capture agent raced forward with his own stun gun. He lunged and zapped, but Serge saw it and dodged.
The sizzling electrical arc missed him. And hit something else…
Back in the main room, President Guzman watched a screaming, panicked crowd stampede through the doorway. Followed by Serge, atop a wildly galloping horse with a fresh stun-gun burn on its hind quarter.
Felicia held on tight from behind. “Chandelier!”
“Got it,” yelled Serge. They ducked.
The trusty steed took the corner, continued galloping down the lobby carpet and out the front doors of the Olympia Theater.
Two tourists stood on a street corner.
“There’s a guy in a white tuxedo racing up Flagler on horseback.”
“It’s Miami.”
Chapter Thirty
The Next Day
South of Miami.
Felicia checked her watch.
Serge checked his camera. “This is going to be so cool! I haven’t taken pictures here since they filmed the TV show.”
“We’re not doing this for your entertainment.” Felicia watched traffic signs. “Take a left.”
“I know the way.” Serge slipped the camera in his pocket. “You sure have a hard-on for this Evangelista character.”
“He’s the biggest arms dealer in Miami, and he’s threatening to destabilize my country!”
“Maybe that’s a tad dramatic,” said Serge. “Ow, you popped me in the ribs.”
“Your own government is in bed with him!”
“Now wait a minute. That would be illegal.”
“The Iran-Contra Affair was illegal and look where that led.”
“Ollie North got a cable-TV show. Haunting.”
“I’m not amused.” Felicia pulled out a scrap of paper with coded times and locations. “We need to finish tracking these shipments before the big summit finale.”
The Road Runner turned into a wooded entrance and pulled up to a booth. “Four tickets, please.”
Felicia looked up the road. “There’s another black SUV. Give me your camera.”
“Now you’re talking.”
Felicia snapped photos as they drove by.
Serge parked with the rest of the tourists. Actually only two others because it was an educational Florida attraction with no water slides or tiki bars.
Coleman hopped from the backseat. “I’ve seen this place before.”
“Television.” Serge began walking. “It’s the historically designated Charles Deering Estate, over f
our hundred majestic acres on the shore of Biscayne Bay. Now a museum. The ceiling of the south porch is inlaid with seashells.”
“Check the size of that freakin’ lawn!” said Savage.
“And to the left are the landmark rows of palm trees made famous every Friday night in the opening credits of Miami Vice.” Serge stroked one of the trunks. “It’s like I’m at the Vatican.”
“Stop screwing around!” yelled Felicia. “Let’s go!”
Serge caught up with her at the front door. “Where are we heading?”
She marched inside. “The wine cellar.”
The quartet trotted down stairs.
A Latin man in a guayabera came the other way up the steps. He glanced suspiciously at Felicia, then looked back down at a tourist pamphlet.
Serge turned and watched the man depart. “You know him?”
“In passing.”
Serge winked at Coleman. “Told you spies meet in museums.”
“Wine cellar?” asked Coleman.
“Deering liked his grapes, but it was Prohibition.” Serge grabbed a wooden support and swung it back and forth. “So he built this bookcase that secretly rolls out to reveal that giant safe door.”
“The wine is in the safe?”
“The safe is a subterranean party room.”
They slipped inside the half-foot-thick metal door with ancient tumblers and entered the clandestine space. Curved, concrete bunker roof supported by brick arches. Walls covered with custom woodwork creating a thousand individual slots.
“Whoa!” said Coleman. “Look at all the wine bottles!”
“And recessed tables that conveniently fold down for festivities.”
“What’s Felicia doing?”
She was at the back of the room, reaching in a cubbyhole. Four rows down, sixth wine bottle from the left. A tiny square of paper unfolded in her hands.
Serge went over. “Fan mail from some flounder?”
“My friend in the stairwell.” She mentally decoded the symbols, then handed the paper to Serge. “Destroy that.”
He tore it in pieces and handed them to Coleman. “Eat these.” Then back to Felicia: “What did it say?”
“It’s happening sooner than I thought.”
“Where?”
“Right here, right now.” She looked around. “But why this place?”