by Tim Dorsey
One of the dishes silently picked up a thin band of the electromagnetic spectrum. A tape recorder automatically clicked on inside a dark control room lit only by red instrument panels. A military technician with top-secret security clearance slid his castered chair across the floor and put on a headset. He started writing on a pad.
A phone rang in Miami.
Agent Schaeffer burst breathlessly into the office of the CIA station chief.
“Sir, we have to call off the invasion. We just got word from Key West that it’s completely infiltrated. Havana knows all about it. An overwhelming Cuban force is waiting to ambush them on the beach!”
“Son of a bitch!” said Renfroe. “I knew I should never have trusted this Serge! What did I really know about him? And Chi-Chi—that backstabbing little shit!”
“We have to call the boats back.”
Renfroe looked up at the wall clock. “Too late. They’re already in Cuban water, probably in sight of land. Even if they turn around, the cutters can easily chase them down. We are so fucked!”
“Sir, I have an idea. What if we get out ahead of this thing?”
“What do you mean?”
“Castro’s bound to parade the prisoners on TV to embarrass us. But what if before then, we preempt him with our own press conference announcing how we’ve broken up a rogue exile operation? We put our own prisoners on display.”
“But what about the invasion? He can still embarrass us, rogue operation or not.”
“We just got word that the force is full of Cuban spies, right? We announce that we let Castro know everything in advance and were working together to help his agents infiltrate the landing party and bust it up from the inside. We say we don’t like the Havana regime, but we’re not about to violate international law. What can he do? His only alternative then is to admit he had a bunch of spies in Florida.”
“Brilliant. We can turn this around,” said Renfroe. “Maybe even get commendations.”
“All we have to do now is apprehend some suspects before Castro can get the jump.”
“Dispatch all agents. Take down Serge!”
45
F IVE, FOUR, THREE, two, one—Happy New Year, 1965!”
Streamers flew, noisemakers blew, balloons fell from the ceiling of the Nautilus Hotel.
“Can’t believe a whole year’s passed since we were here last,” said Tommy.
“Good riddance,” said Chi-Chi.
“What’s the matter with you?” asked Mort.
“That’s what’s the matter.” Chi-Chi canted his head toward four plainclothes detectives standing against the wall, keeping watch over their table. “We can’t get away from those guys, thanks to Lou.”
“Has anybody seen Sergio?” said Mort. “I’m really worried.”
“Not since Jimbo’s,” said Coltrane.
“Don’t look now,” said Mort.
“What?” said Chi-Chi, turning in the direction of Mort’s gaze. Four other men in silk suits were staking out their table from the opposite wall.
“Over there,” whispered Greek Tommy.
They looked in yet another direction. Four beefy Asian men in derbies filed in from the lobby and took up positions by the entrance.
Chi-Chi turned back to the table. “Just great.”
“Pssst!”
They looked around.
“Down here!”
“Sergio!”
Sergio was crawling on the floor, wearing a pointy 1965 party hat. He poked his head up like a periscope, ducked back down. “Move your legs. I have to get under the table.”
“Please let us help,” said Mort. “Lou double-crossed you. We know the whole story. We’ll tell the police.”
“We’ll all go down together and explain things,” said Tommy.
“I’ll be a character witness,” said Chi-Chi. “I’ll tell them you’re a fucking idiot.”
The house orchestra began playing Martha and the Vandellas.
“Sergio, the best thing is to go to the authorities,” said Mort. “We read in the papers where they’re giving immunity. They recovered the gems.”
“Most of them,” said Sergio. “I’ve still got mine.”
“What!”
“I couldn’t make the handoff. Those reporters were always in the way. So I kept them.”
“He’s right,” said Chi-Chi. “I read where they got all the famous stuff back, but some of the diamonds are still missing.”
Mort nudged Moondog and nodded toward the detectives. “They’re coming over.”
They looked in the other direction. The silk suits were closing in. Then another, Asian men advancing.
“They must have seen us bending over.”
“…They’ll be dancing in the street!…”
The table and all the drinks went straight up in the air. Sergio took off running. Everyone gave chase—cops, robbers, Chi-Chi and company.
Sergio burst through the exit door. The silk suits and Asians reached it just as it was closing.
The detectives were right behind and pulled their guns.
“Freeze!”
They put their hands up. The detectives called for backup. One of them ran out the back door and down to the moonless beach, chasing a dark figure splashing out into the surf and swimming toward open sea.
Three A . M .
The typical miasma curdled over the room. The one that arrives whenever something goes awry at a wild celebration, the liquor’s shut off and cops turn on all the lights. Then hours of questioning. Euphoria rotting to hangover, bloodshot eyes, nobody that attractive anymore.
A detective wrote in a notebook. “You say he had a lot to drink?”
“I don’t think he had anything to drink at all,” said Mort.
“But he was crawling on the floor?”
Mort nodded.
Out on the dark beach, scattered flashlight beams cut back and forth as officers combed the shore in grids. Something washed up in a foamy wave. “Captain, over here.” The officer picked up a soggy 1965 party hat.
A reporter’s flashbulb went off.
46
Present
M IAMI BEACH, THE dead north end of the strip. A breezy afternoon. Broken glass in front of vacant, gray stores. Brown paper bags and newspapers blowing across the silent street. Chain link around a building that was left half sandblasted. A page of the sports section caught a gust of wind, sailing lazily over the road until it slapped into the grille of a speeding limo that bottomed out in a water-filled pothole and kept going.
Serge held a piece of paper on the steering wheel, the one he’d excavated from the hostage’s wallet. He glanced down to check the address he’d copied from directory assistance. Serge looked up and ran a yellow light, the newspaper page flapping over the top edge of the hood.
“What do you think that address is?” asked Lenny.
“We’re about to find out. Almost there.”
Serge slowed and looked out the side window, checking for a street number in a recessed doorway with wino legs sticking out. He faced forward again and slammed on the brakes. “What the…?”
Up ahead, a pair of white Ford sedans with extra radio antennas had come out of nowhere. They quickly emerged from alleys on opposite sides of the street and pulled nose to nose in the middle of the road, blocking the limo’s path.
Serge threw the limo in reverse, looked over his shoulder and began backing up at forty. Another pair of white sedans closed off the street behind him.
Serge hit the brakes again. He jerked his head around. No escape forward and back, men in starched shirts and black ties getting out of the sedans, fifty yards each way, crouching behind the cars, drawing weapons.
“Who are those guys?” asked Lenny.
“Don’t turn around,” said Serge. “The commissar’s in town.”
He looked left: a wall of boarded-up stores. He looked right: a bulldozed lot with a future construction sign and three plumes of concrete dust on the far side, kicked up b
y three more white sedans bouncing across the lot toward him.
Everyone was quiet in the car. Serge grabbed all the guns in arm’s reach and piled them in his lap, feeding new clips, going too fast, dropping bullets. “Everybody on the floor!”
Everyone already was.
The three sedans skidded to a stop in the dirt lot, evenly spaced, forming the cross-fire perimeter. A wide, dead-open space all the way around the limo. No-man’s-land.
Serge finished loading four pistols—Colt, Luger, Python, Baretta—then pulled a sawed-off from under the driver’s seat and racked the pump, slamming home a red-and-gold shell.
Everything was loaded. The onboard computer in Serge’s head made a status check. Green lights—all systems go. This would happen his way. He took a deep, defiant breath and calmly slipped on his polarized fisherman’s sunglasses, like James Cagney would, if they had polarization back then and if he fished.
From behind the smoked lenses, Serge surveyed the sedans. The men weren’t moving. This was the part where they got out the megaphones for negotiation. These guys didn’t. Everything was still. Serge’s wristwatch ticked.
The sweep second hand made a lap. Serge blinked hard twice, then winced and nodded with resignation. He hit the electric lever, rolling down his window. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I have some people coming out! They’re civilians!”
He took off his glasses, turned around and smiled. “Okay, everybody, this is it. End of the tour. Thank you for choosing Serge and Lenny’s.”
They just looked at him.
“That means you have to get out of the car now. We have some lovely parting gifts. And make sure you keep those hands way up in the air…. Go on, get going.”
The back doors opened. Mick, Chi-Chi, City and Country got out slowly and began walking across no-man’s-land with arms raised. Doug jumped out with his own arms up, running as fast as he could. “Thank God! I’m free! I’m free! Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!…” He ran to one of the sedans, opened the back door himself and dove inside.
Serge turned to Lenny in the front passenger seat. “You, too.”
Lenny’s eyes were getting glassy. “But, Serge…”
Across the street, men in bulletproof vests were running out from behind the cars and pulling the approaching people to cover.
“Nothing’s going to happen to me, buddy. Always trust the Master Plan. You’ll see.”
Lenny tried to smile, but his lips were trembling. He gave Serge a big hug, then grabbed the door handle.
Serge yelled out the window again: “Don’t shoot. I got another one coming out.” Lenny emerged and headed for the sedans.
Soon, everyone was safely out of the line of fire between the limo and the semicircle of sedans. The men crouched motionless again behind the trunks.
Just Serge.
Silence.
Slow motion.
Heartbeat.
An empty plastic grocery bag from Publix billowed out in the breeze and bounced across the street, a Florida tumbleweed.
Serge took another deep breath through flared nostrils. “Okay, here we are. You always knew this day would come, so remember to enjoy it. All right, final checklist: Guns loaded. Extra clips. Bystanders cleared. Gum…” He popped a stick of spearmint in his mouth. “What am I forgetting?” He nodded to himself and reached for the dash. “Tunes.”
The FM dial reached Y-100, the station with the dolphin billboards. Serge sang along with Eddie Money, adjusting the choke on his shotgun and bobbing his head.
“Gimme some water! Cuz I just shot a man on the Mexican border!”
CIA FIELD OFFICE, Miami
Agent Schaeffer burst into the office of station chief Chick Renfroe.
“Sir, good news! They found Serge. We have him pinned down in North Miami Beach. Doesn’t look like he’s going to let us take him alive.”
“Too late.”
“What?”
A crestfallen Renfroe pointed at the TV set on the corner of his desk. “The invasion. Action Five News already has the story. Shit.”
“But how did they find out so fast?…I don’t see—”
“How the hell should I know? They teased to it just before the commercial break. It’s going to lead the early-evening Eyewitness report. This is catastrophic. We need to have an emergency meeting and get our cover story together.”
“Look, it’s coming back on.”
They stopped talking. The trademark Action 5 intro opened over the Miami skyline. Urgent, teletype theme music.
“…And now Natalie and Blaine!”
“Good evening,” said a woman in a sharp blue suit. “Our top story tonight: History repeats itself as an exile invasion force is routed by Castro’s forces on the north coast of Cuba….”
Renfroe covered his face with his hands. “I can’t watch.”
“…Here’s some exclusive footage from our Eye in the Sky of the doomed flotilla crossing the Florida Straits earlier today. Initial reports indicate the operation never had a chance, with insurgents barely reaching shore before a massive and overwhelming ambush by elite Cuban commandos who clearly knew all facets of the plan in advance. Hundreds have reportedly been captured….”
“Ooooooh!” moaned Renfroe. “This is too painful. Shoot me, Schaeffer. Right in the back of the head.”
“…But unlike the Bay of Pigs, this redux has a twist. In an inspired turn of spycraft that would make James Bond jealous, the invasion appears to have been an exquisitely brilliant covert CIA operation that worked to perfection….”
Renfroe and Schaeffer looked dumbstruck at each other; they scooted closer to the TV and turned up the volume.
“…In a major embarrassment to Castro and a coup that must have the U.S. intelligence community toasting tonight with champagne, the ill-fated military strike now seems to have been a diversionary tactic in a grand payback scheme. Tonight, hundreds of the undesirables Castro dumped in America during the Mariel boatlift are now back on his shore. Accompanying them was the entire contingent of Cuban spies operating in the Miami area. And as a final insult, a few dozen of South Florida’s most notorious mobsters were thrown in for good measure. Immigration officials have no comment, but clearly there’s little chance they’ll be allowed back in the country….”
Blaine Crease shuffled papers on the anchor desk. “Looks like Castro has egg in his beard.”
“Okay, here’s how we take credit,” said Renfroe. “We don’t confirm anything, we don’t deny anything. That’s what they’ll expect. Everyone will just assume…. Damn, that Serge is good!”
Their heads snapped toward each other. “Serge!”
“Oh, my God, everything tanks if Serge turns up, dead or alive,” said Renfroe. “Not only do we not get credit, we look like fools.”
“They could already be shooting!”
SERGE TURNED OFF the radio in the limo. The sedans were waiting. An ant walked across the dashboard. Serge heard its footsteps. He pulled the handle on the driver’s door and propped it open an inch with his elbow. He grabbed the Colt in his right hand and the Baretta in his left, pointed upward at each side of his head.
“Well, this is it…. Thank you…for lettin’ me…be myself…again!”
Serge dove out of the car and rolled on the ground, jumping up and taking cover in a storefront doorway. He poked his head around the corner, ready to fire.
“Huh?”
The nose-to-nose sedans were backing up, clearing the road. He looked the other way. The Fords at the south end of the street retreated. In the vacant lot across the street, men in starched shirts opened the back doors of their vehicles, letting everyone out. They had to pull Doug from the car by his ankles. “No! No! No! I don’t want to go back!”
The three sedans quickly turned around in a series of random arcs and sped away.
The gang stood alone on the edge of the vacant lot. They started walking back to the limo.
Lenny climbed in the passenger seat and cracked a beer. �
�Where were we?”
Serge unfolded a paper scrap on the steering wheel. “Heading to an address.”
The limo continued south. A Crown Vic with blackwalls pulled out of an alley and fell in line two blocks back. Only one person in the car.
Serge eased off the gas as the numbers on the buildings approached the address in his hand. They started seeing people again, thin traffic. The transition zone. A brandless gas station, an empty Thai restaurant with the owner staring out the front window. The limo stopped in front of a low-occupancy apartment building with curved corners, glass blocks and peeling kiwi trim. Serge checked the address against the paper. He drove around the block and parked in back.
“Hey, this is the same place where we dumped Tony’s body,” said Lenny. “There’s the Dumpster.”
“So it is.” Serge reached up in the limo’s visor and pulled out a small, round dental mirror on the end of a metal stick. “Lenny, you ready?” Serge turned around. “Who’s not too fucked up to come with me?” Mick and Chi-Chi were doing bong hits with City and Country. “Looks like just Doug.”
He came out by the ankles again.
The lock was broken on the rear door of the apartment building. A stagnant hallway, mildewed carpet worn through the middle, a row of jimmied postal boxes with no names. They headed quietly up the stairs and came to the unit on the scrap of paper. Serge put his ear to the door. No sound. He got out his dental mirror. It was an old building. Wooden floors. The doors had a good half-inch clearance. Serge stuck the mirror under the crack, getting a mouse’s-eye view of the room. Nobody in sight. The ancient lock was child’s play for Serge’s credit card. They slipped inside.
It wasn’t at all what they had expected. Serge moved bewildered through the living room, a well-kept art nouveau museum. Funky bucket chairs, boomerang coffee table, wall clock with Betty Boop’s eyes moving side to side, turquoise Bakelite brush and comb on the dresser. Serge began going through the drawers, tossing aside period clothing. He opened the bottom drawer and froze.