by Tim Dorsey
She left. Starched shirts came through doors. Ramirez looked up. “Tell me it’s good news.”
“It is.” An agent unfolded a fax. “Got a hit from that APB.”
Ramirez grabbed his coat. “Credit card?” He shook his head. “But might as well be.”
“So he’s where?”
“We don’t know.”
“How’s that good news?”
“We’re close. A pawnshop-”
“Pawnshop?”
“Required by law to get photo ID from everyone who makes a sale, then submit lists to police. That’s how we found him. McKenna pawned his class ring.”
Ramirez threw money on the table. “How far? This end of the strip or the other?”
The agents glanced at each other.
“Well?”
“A little farther than that.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
DAYTONA BEACH
The balcony of room 24 at the Dunes was jammed with students. Just like many other balconies at all the other hotels. The reason was down on the shore.
Wild yelling.
It came from the direction of the beach driving lanes. Slow traffic in the sand: Mustang, Cougar, Nova, Hornet, Fairlane, GTX, Dart and, of course, a perfectly restored 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona, cruising between 10 mph signs. Muscle cars all. Almost all.
The exception was in the middle.
“Woooooo!” yelled Serge. “I’m doing eleven! I’m doing eleven! I’ve set the modern record!”-no car, running up the beach, steering with an invisible wheel.
Lifeguards intercepted him.
“Sir, are you feeling okay?”
“Where’s the presentation stand? Matthias Day. Allen Morris. The Loop. Shit on the children. Are you getting all this? Are you from the Answer Tunnel? What happened to Space Food Sticks? Bosco, Tang, Trix are for kids, Genesis, sodomy, Elvis, viva Viagra! Kill those limp-dick motherfuckers! At the current rate, our economy will eventually be based entirely on phone minutes. Nothing else except the care and feeding of minute providers and users. Vocabulary Mash-Up Party Volume Seven: ennui, insouciant, de rigueur, cross the Rubicon! What the hell did Coleman do to my brain?”
Students pointed from balconies. “He’s on the move again.”
“What are the lifeguards doing now?”
“Same thing we are. Watching.”
Down on the beach, lifeguards stood with hands on hips as Serge ran in wild figure eights in the sand.
“Can’t catch me!” yelled Serge, whizzing by. “Try to catch me! Can’t catch me!…” He ran up to the guards. “Okay, you win.” He placed an index finger under his right eye and pulled the skin down. “Psych!” Then off in another figure eight. “Can’t catch me!…”
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
Another meeting in the Spanish stucco house. Another spread of paperwork across the cedar table.
“They all look too solid,” said Hector. “I don’t see any weaknesses.”
“Because there are none,” said Luis. “Every last man an upstanding citizen.”
“Thought you said we had something very promising.”
“We do-”
“I don’t understand,” interrupted Guillermo. “Cash Cutlass has a perfect delivery record. Why do we need to switch pilots?”
The brothers bristled at the silence-rule violation. Juanita intervened because Guillermo was her favorite.
“It’s been six months,” she explained.
Guillermo’s face said he still didn’t get it.
“There’s an expression in the stock market,” Juanita continued. “ ‘Everybody who makes money always sells just a little bit too soon.’ In our business, if you want to stay in business, you sever relationships while everything’s still smooth and no chance for the feds to turn someone. Six months, no exceptions. The principle has served the family well.”
Guillermo began to nod.
“Can we?” Luis snapped at his sister.
A glare in return.
“You were saying?” asked Hector.
“This one.” Luis passed a stapled packet to his brother.
“If not a weakness, then what?”
Luis told him.
“Interesting.” Hector rubbed a finger over an eyebrow. “Moral dilemma. I like it.”
“Just has to be played differently.”
Hector handed the pages across the table. “Guillermo, you’re chatty today. Think you can talk him into it?”
THE PRESENT
Perry, Florida. Between everything and nowhere.
The town of six-thousand-and-falling sits inland, at the state’s armpit, as the Panhandle swings down into the peninsula. It’s a long drive from any direction, Tallahassee, Tampa, Ocala, Jacksonville.
Maps show other small towns in surrounding counties, but they’re not really there. The region’s main industry is lapsed cellular reception.
Most people’s experience of Perry is waiting at traffic lights on the way to somewhere else, not seeing a soul, an evacuated dead zone giving little reason to stop.
The perfect place to hide out.
Guillermo and his crew had taken a strategically convoluted route out of Panama City Beach. Up to Blountstown, down through Port St. Joe and across Ochlockonee Bay to a prearranged drop spot in Panacea, where a Miami associate had been dispatched to swap their rental for an Oldsmobile Delta 88, which continued east and was now the only car in the parking lot of the Thunderbird Motel.
Rooms had dark wood paneling and anti-skid daisy stickers in the shower.
They had been instructed not to set a toe outside until getting an all-clear from the home office. Standard procedure, like the other times: Stock up on cigarettes, decline maid service, order pizza. The guys sat on dingy, coarse bedspreads, playing cards and passing a bottle of Boone’s Farm. Miguel slapped the side of the room’s original color TV, whose color was now raw sienna.
Guillermo hushed the others for a crucial phone call.
“… Madre, it’s me. Good news. We concluded our business meeting. It’s finally over.”
“No, it isn’t,” said the voice on the other end.
“What do you mean?”
“Guillermo, I’m very disappointed in you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Juanita stood in her south Florida living room, watching CNN with the sound off. “They just released the names. None of them is our friend.”
“That’s not possible. I was thorough.”
“Sure you had the right room?”
“Definitely. Got the number from a kid back at his dorm.”
“And you just took his word for it?”
“No, I did like you taught-double-checked by calling the front desk from the airport, then confirmed again when we got into town.”
“What a mess,” said Juanita. “It’s all over the news.”
“It isn’t the first time our work has been on TV.”
“Guillermo, Guillermo…”-he could picture her shaking her head over the phone-“… We always must take into account public relations. You brought me heat without a fire.”
“I’m so sorry, Madre. I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
“I haven’t any doubt,” said Juanita. “No matter what I say to you about business, you will always be my favorite.”
“Madre, I just need a little time to find out where he is.”
“I know.”
“Thank you for understanding.”
“No, I mean I know where he is.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
DAYTONA BEACH
We should take up surfing,” said Edna.
“But we don’t know how,” said Edith.
“That’s why it’s called ‘taking it up.’” She looked down a hundred feet at a handful of surfers in black wet suits trying to milk meager East Coast waves breaking off the Daytona Beach Pier. “It looks easy.”
The G-Unit continued out over the Atlantic Ocean in a pair of ski-lift-style gondolas that chugg
ed slowly over the length of the pier and headed back to shore.
“Doesn’t this thing go any faster?” said Eunice.
“It’s a gondola,” said Ethel.
“This ride bites.”
As the cable cranked down to the docking station, a sudden, distant scream.
“What was that?” said Eunice.
“Up there.” Ethel pointed. “Those kids.”
“Now that’s a ride!”
Moments later, the G-Unit members each had twenty-five dollars in hand.
The ride’s operator collected money and pointed at a stack of plastic bowls. “Put all your personal possessions in those.”
“Why?”
“You don’t want anything flying off.”
Ethel and Edna went first.
“Wheeeeeeeeee!…”
The remaining gals shielded their eyes, squinting up into the bright sky as an open-air ball sailed up until it was a tiny dot. It reached the ends of its bungee cords and jerked back down. Then up again, down, bouncing over and over with decreasing range until it ran out of steam.
The ride’s operator stepped onto the platform and raised the padded safety bars. The women climbed down.
“How was it?”
“Mind-fucker!” said Ethel.
The others’ turn on the Rocket Launch. The operator locked the safety bars over Eunice and Edith. “Sure you put everything in the plastic bowls?”
They nodded.
He went back to his control station. “Ready?”
“Hurry up before we croak.” The catapult released. “Wheeeeeeeeee!…”
At the top of the arc, Eunice covered her mouth and looked up at a jettisoned piece of space debris heading for orbit.
“What was that?” asked Edith.
“My dentures.”
Edith looked at the safety bar and into the tiny camera filming them. “I’m definitely buying this video.”
Down below, Coleman led the students across the beach. “… I once bought a modified Frisbee from a head shop that had a secret pot chamber in the middle. It was called Catch a Buzz…”
One of the kids looked up at faint screams. “Hey, check out those old ladies.”
They continued through the sand. A rescue team from Ocean Cops ran by with paramedic bags. They knelt and rendered aid to an unconscious young coed from Vanderbilt with a bloody forehead wound where dentures were embedded.
Johnny Vegas sat in the background, tears trickling down his cheek.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
“What do you mean a preexisting condition!”
Randall Sheets caught himself and lowered his voice on the phone. “It was not preexisting. She was in perfect health when we bought the policy… What? She already had it and we just didn’t know? That’s garbage!… But I don’t have the money and she’s going to die without treatment… Could you repeat that?… It’s classified as uncovered hospice care instead of corrective medicine?… Now you’re just making up reasons… Look, don’t think I won’t sue… Why can’t you talk to me anymore?… What company directive?… Because I mentioned litigation I can only talk to your attorneys from now on?… Wait! Don’t hang up!”
Click.
Randall slowly closed the phone.
“Honey…” The voice came from down the hall. Randall entered the master bedroom, his weak wife propped up on pillows. “Who were you talking to?”
“Nobody important.”
“Insurance people again?”
Randall pulled up a chair. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Aren’t you supposed to be somewhere?”
He lightly grabbed her hand. “I’m supposed to be here.”
“I’ll be fine. You should go to work.” She smiled. “It’s not like we need the money or anything.”
“But-”
“Go ahead.” She grabbed a remote control. “One of my shows is coming on.”
Randall drove across town with a head full of thoughts.
An hour later, a Cessna came into view. It cleared the fence of another private strip, this one in southern Palm Beach County. The landing was more than shaky, skipping twice before the wheels stayed down for good. No cross draft.
The propeller slowed to a jerky stop. Randall removed headphones and turned to the dermatologist in the passenger seat. “Not bad for a first landing. Same time next week?”
They climbed down from the four-seater with cursive lettering on the side:
TRADEWINDS F LIGHT S CHOOL.
The student hopped in a Corvette and sped off. Randall headed the other way for his own car. Next to it, four men with arms crossed leaned against the front of a BMW.
“Randall Sheets?”
“How can I help you fellas?”
“We need to hire a plane.”
“You want flying lessons?”
Guillermo shook his head.
“Then what?” asked Randall.
“We’ll get to that later.” Guillermo bent down and released a handle.
“What’s the briefcase for?”
“You.”
Randall hadn’t been in trouble a day in his life, the proverbial community pillar, as far removed from criminal circles as one gets. But he’d also been a pilot in Florida during the eighties, and he’d seen this movie before-what temptation had done to other pilots he’d known.
“I think you should leave.”
“How’s your wife?”
Randall’s expression changed. “What about my wife?”
“If we’re going to be friends-”
“We’ll never be friends! Leave! Now!”
“Have we offended you in some way?”
Randall reached in his pocket. “I’m calling the police.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Guillermo opened the BMW’s driver-side door. “We’re late for an appointment.”
The others piled back in.
“You forgot your briefcase,” said Randall.
“No, I didn’t.” Guillermo started the car. “Give my best to Sarah.”
They drove off.
Randall stood motionless and stared down at the brown leather case for what seemed like an eternity. Brain racing. He finally crouched, set it on its side and slowly raised the lid. Breathing shallowed. Then he heard something, like a far-off explosion.
Randall looked up through yellow aviator glasses at the clear southeastern sky: a tiny fireball smaller than a dime a thousand feet above the horizon toward Bimini. At a range of thirty miles, the sound of the blast still carried, but nothing like what the boats below in the Atlantic heard as twisted metal fluttered into the ocean from a Cessna registered to Cash Cutlass.
THE PRESENT
Coleman and followers continued along the Daytona shore.
“What’s going on over there?” A student pointed up the beach. “Looks like a concert or a fight. There’s a big crowd.”
And getting bigger. Word spread about something happening at the historic band shell. People running over from the hotels, the water, the bars.
Coleman’s gang arrived at the back of the audience. Someone in a necktie took notes. A press ID hung from his neck. Davis.
“Why are you taking notes?”
“I’m a reviewer for the News-Journal”-not taking eyes off his steno pad.
“What’s the deal onstage?” asked a student. “Is that some DJ warming up for a band?”
The reviewer shook his head and kept writing. “Incredible mono-loguist, like Eric Bogosian or Spalding Gray. He’s been going nonstop for over an hour. I don’t know how anyone can jump rapidly between so many topics and keep it all straight, let alone memorize an act this disjointed and long.”
“I didn’t know they had monologuists on the beach,” said a student.
“Neither did I.” The reviewer flipped a page. “Nothing about it in our events calendar-going to complain to the city about not getting us a press release. Luckily, I was down here covering something else.”
Coleman fel
t a tug on his arm. “Melvin, what’s the matter?”
“Holy cow! Look who it is.”
“Serge!”
“You know that guy?” asked the reviewer. “My best friend,” said Coleman.
“What’s his secret?”
“Special diet.”
They looked back up at the band shell. Serge cartwheeled toward the front of the stage, doubled over and laughed until his sides ached.
“Ooo-gah-chaka! Ting-tang-walla-walla-bing-bang! Su-su-ssudio!” He stood upright. “Sorry, got the giggles. Just thinking about Florida’s first family. That’s right, the Hulk Hogans. They’re everything our state stands for: weird, dangerous, crazy, childish, attention addicts, but above all, a freakin’ hoot! Victimized by a car-crash victim! Hurts too much to laugh! They nearly killed the guy and tried to squeeze a reality show from his morphine-drip bottle! News flash: They already have a reality show, and all of us are in it, too. It’s called the Sunshine State. Watch any national news. It’s the local news: Passenger boards plane at Tampa International with three gunshot wounds and asks flight attendant for Band-Aids, youth sodomizes grandmother’s Yorkshire terrier named Duchess, man arrested for selling beach sand on eBay, body found in orange grove, body found half-eaten by gator, body found in line at Disney, ‘The lone clue was a sawed-off thigh bone,’ ‘Wesley Snipes’s tax attorney claims the truth will shock and surprise the public.’ And who can forget those future brain surgeon teen girls who beat the snot out of a classmate, videotaped it and posted it on the Internet? Then Dr. Phil invites one of the attackers on his show, and everyone gets bent in pretzels. I say, No! No! No! Those Rhodes scholar predators are exactly the global TV face we want to put on our state. How else are we going to stop this viral, doomsday overdevelopment? The Hogans and that chick posse deserve citizens of the year. They’re helping get the word out that the quality of people down here is so fucking bad, you don’t want to come near us.“ He doubled over again with giggles.”Whoa, just noticed my feet. Aren’t feet insane? All day long: left, right, left, right. How do they do it? I suddenly want five pizzas and a loud stereo. Look, there’s an osprey. It’s got a fish in its claws. Every time I see an osprey flying with a fish, I always think: Fish lives entire life in the sea, then at the end, he’s looking down at everything from hundreds of feet up, thinking, ‘Oh, now I get it.’ “ More giggling.”Actually, he’s thinking, ‘Hey, watch the talons, man.’ Back to the headlines! Trapped retiree dials 911 with big toe; hurricane reporters in Key West jeered and hit with Super Soakers; frozen iguanas rain from trees during cold snap, injuring five; more families opting to live in storage units; man attempts to avoid DUI by abandoning car and jumping on horse in pasture; armed bandits invade home demanding nothing but an egg beater. Let’s sing! Everybody, after me: Biscayne Bay, where the Cuban gentlemen sleep all day… Free-credit-report-dot-com… Don’t you love those ads? Here’s mine: Florida-crime-report-dot-com, don’t let winos pork your mom. F-L-A, that spells flaw, tourists goin home in a box, doodah. Is it me, or do colors seriously rock today? I’m looking in your direction, Mr. Green.“ Another giggle fit. Serge felt something and looked down at a growing bulge in his pants.”Yowza. Who out there owns a stereo, wants to fuck and eat five pizzas? But you say, ‘Serge, what can I do about development?’ Give money to every street-corner lunatic you see with a cardboard sign and pipe cleaners in his hair. It’s like those minimum-wage roadside people in gorilla suits, waving you off the road for tax preparation. Except in reverse: The cardboard-sign brigade drives would-be residents away. But again, I know what you’re thinking: ‘Serge, if we promote “crazy,” then what kind of place is left for us to live in?’ And that’s exactly the litmus test for any true Floridian. It may be crazy, but it’s our crazy, it’s fun crazy, and in Florida, being crazy is the only way to stay sane. That circus-geek colony in Gibsonton is now the most normal place we got. The whole state’s an asylum, and I love every last freak show, even the schizos at the bus station who yell at me, ‘Motherfucker, we know the planetary council sent you to implant transmitters!’ And I smile and go, ‘Say no more. You had me at “motherfucker.” ’… Speaking of transmitters, I’m picking up ten channels in my noodle: Rooftop bandits steal copper from strip mall air-conditioners, DNA proves restaurant’s grouper is Asian catfish, Patriot missile found in Ybor City junkyard, missing children, missing wives, drag queen bingo night, boot camp deaths, baby formula thefts, loggerhead die-offs, red tide outbreaks, ‘Anglo flight,’ Solarcaine beats sunburn pain… Why am I so hungry? Could eat a horse, don’t cry over spilled milk, all that and a bag of chips, Jimmy crack corn, Jack Sprat could eat no fat, proof’s in the pudding, plum tired, bought a lemon, selling like hotcakes, bun in the oven, on the gravy train, my meal ticket, since sliced bread, we’re toast, you’re dead meat, stick a fork in it… Coleman!… Where are you?… How… do… I… turn… this… shit… off!…”