FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
Small children shrieked and chased one another around a swing set. One with an autograph-covered plaster cast on his left arm hung upside down from the monkey bars as he had been told so many times not to.
Boynton Beach, closer to West Palm than Miami.
A cork ball rattled inside a referee’s whistle. An adult waved.
Children hopped off playground equipment and, after a period of mild disorganization, formed a single line behind the jungle gym. They followed their teacher back inside a cheerful classroom at Kinder Kollege.
Nap time.
Foam mats unrolled beneath walls of finger paintings with gold and silver stars.
Tires squealed. The teacher went to the window.
Five sedans and a windowless van skidded to the curb outside the chain-link fence. No fewer than twenty people jumped out, dressed in black and white. Dark sunglasses. Running.
As the team raced for the school’s entrance, it shed members at intervals, creating a grid of sentries across the lawn. The teacher was straining for a sideways view from the window when the classroom’s door flew open. Five strangers moved quickly. The teacher moved just as fast, blocking their path. They met in front of the alphabet.
“You can’t come in here!”
The first agent flashed a badge with his right hand and looked at a photograph in his other. “Which one’s Billy Sheets?”
A tiny boy sat up in the back of the room. The agent checked his hand again. He hopped over tot-filled mats and seized the boy under the arms.
The teacher ran after him. “I demand to know what’s going on!” From behind: “It’s okay, Jennifer.”
She turned to see the principal in the doorway with a look of grave concern, but also a nod to let the visitors proceed.
Moments later, the teacher, principal and all the children were at the windows. Car doors slammed shut in a drum roll. Vehicles sped off, Billy in the middle sedan, growing smaller, staring back at classmates with his hands against the rear glass.
And a look on his face: This is new.
PRESENT DAY, EARLY MARCH
Southwest Florida.
A white ’73 Dodge Challenger sped south over the Caloosahatchee River.
It came off the Edison Bridge into Fort Myers.
The driver’s head was out the window.
“Can you smell it?” said Serge, hair flapping in the wind.
“Smell what?” asked Coleman.
“You know what time of year this is?”
“Fall?”
“Spring!”
“I always get those confused.”
Serge’s head came back inside. “I love everything about spring! Reeks of hope, new lease on another year, blooming possibilities, lush beds of violet wildflowers along the interstate, nature’s annual migration: whooping cranes, manatees, Canadians.”
Coleman cracked a beer. “I’m into spring, too.”
“Who would have guessed?”
“Definitely! High Times named West Florida the ’shroom capital of the country. Each spring they sprout like crazy in cow poo.”
“I still don’t comprehend the allure,” said Serge. “You boil them into a tea, drink a giant tumbler, then turn green with cramps before running into the bathroom and sticking your finger down your throat.”
“Because you can’t let that poison build up in your body. I thought you were smart.”
“I’m overrated.” They continued west on MLK. “So what’s the point of these toadstool ceremonies?”
“To party!”
“But isn’t all that throwing up unpleasant?”
“Some things are worth vomiting for.”
“I think I’ve seen that crocheted on a pillow.”
Early-afternoon clouds parted. Patches of sunshine swept up the street.
“Excellent,” said Serge. “Afraid the game was going to get rained out.”
“Game?”
“Spring training is the best!”
Coleman looked at the running camcorder in the middle of the dashboard. “Your documentary?”
“Haven’t found the hook yet. Because the hook is key. Otherwise it’ll incorrectly look like I’m filming aimlessly.”
A distant siren from behind.
“Shit!” Coleman stuffed a joint in his mouth. “The Man!”
Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo!…
Serge checked the rearview. “Just a fire engine.” He hit his blinker and eased to the side of the road.
Traffic blew by.
Serge’s face reddened, cursing under his breath.
“What’s the matter?”
“Look at all these jackasses not pulling over for an emergency vehicle,” said Serge. “When the fuck did this deterioration start?”
Coleman twisted around in his seat. “We’re the only car stopped.”
“Another sign our civilization will soon be covered with dust.”
Coleman popped another beer. “What’s wrong with people?”
More cars sailed by as the siren grew louder.
“These are the first responders,” said Serge. “Our state’s finest, putting their lives on the line for the rest of us every single day, and what thanks do they get? A highway of dickheads who don’t want to miss the next traffic light.”
“It just isn’t correct.”
“Not stopping for these heroes represents an inexcusable affront to the entire community. You might as well walk down the street throwing handfuls of shit at everyone you see.”
“That really happened,” said Coleman. “I saw this TV thing about a guy in Miami -”
“Get a grip,” Serge told himself. “A heart attack will solve nothing.”
“Wait,” said Coleman, looking out the back window. “Another car’s stopping. He’s pulling up behind us.”
“Thank God I’m not alone,” said Serge. “Maybe all isn’t lost.”
Honk-honk!… Honnnnnnkkkkkkkk!
“Serge, why is he honking at you?”
“Because he didn’t stop for the fire engine. He just got boxed in behind me from all the other rule-breakers flying by in the next lane.”
Honnnnnkkkkkk! Honnnnnkkkkk!
Serge reached under the seat for his.45 automatic. “No, it’ll only increase work for first responders.” He slid it back under.
Honnnnnnnnnkkkkkk!
Coleman stuck both arms out the passenger window, shooting double birds. “Eat my asshole!”
He came back inside and smiled.
Serge looked across the front seat. “That was Gandhi, right?”
The honking was now nonstop, just leaning on the horn, thanks to Coleman.
Serge closed his eyes and took slow, deep breaths. “… two… three… four…”
“Here comes the fire engine,” said Coleman. The siren whizzed by, dropping in Doppler pitch. “And there it goes.”
Serge opened his eyes and took his foot off the brake. “Finally. Our lives can diverge, and he’s free to go his own separate way toward an anti-future.”
“He’s not going his separate way,” said Coleman, kneeling backward in his seat. “Still right behind us.”
“Because he hasn’t found a gap yet in the next lane to pull around.”
“Then why is he still honking?”
“Involuntary genetic reflex, like getting a mullet.”
“He’s still there.”
“I’ll speed up and open a gap.”
“Still there.”
“Then I’ll slow down and force him to pass.”
“Still there. Still honking.”
Serge took another deep breath. “Okay, I’ll turn down this next side street.”
“I’m amazed,” said Coleman.
“I know,” said Serge. “As the saying goes, the difference between genius and stupidity is genius has its limits.”
“Not him,” said Coleman. “You.”
“What about me?”
“I’ve never seen you go this far to avoid an idiot.”
Serge hit his turn signal. “I’ve completely rededicated myself to a life of nonviolence.”
“But you still have that gun.”
“No need to obsess.”
The Challenger swung around a corner.
“He’s turning, too,” said Coleman. “Still following.”
Serge’s head sagged in exasperation. “And I’ve got a full to-do list.”
“He just threw something out the window.”
“Litter,” said Serge. “A beer can, no less.”
The Challenger pulled to the side of the road behind an aluminum scrap yard. A low-riding Toyota parked behind. The driver got out. Barrel gut, stained tank top. He walked to the Challenger and banged hard on the driver’s window.
Serge stared straight ahead. “Haven’t we been here before?”
Coleman grinned and waved across Serge at the other driver. “I can’t count that high.”
Bam! Bam! Bam!-Right up to the Underwriters Laboratories shatter point. “Get the hell out of the car! I am so going to fuck you up!”
Serge rolled his window down a crack. “What seems to be the problem?”
“Did you tell me to eat your asshole?”
“Not me.” Serge turned. “What about you, Coleman?”
“Might have mentioned it in passing. But I don’t want him to actually do it, if that’s what he’s asking.”
Serge returned to the window slit. “Apparently it was figurative. He’d rather you not eat his asshole. Are we done now?”
The Challenger was a beaut, Serge’s dream car ever since Vanishing Point and Death Proof. Recently restored, new rings and valves. Snow-white paint job, tangerine racing detail. And now shivers up Serge’s neck, as a car key scraped the length of the driver’s side.
Serge grabbed the door handle with his left hand and reached under the seat with his right. “Coleman, I won’t be long.”
SOUTH OF MIAMI
Ringing on a triangle bell.
“Dinnertime!”
Four men, twenty-nine to thirty-five years old, filed in from the back porch where they’d been smoking. Chairs filled around the long cedar dinner table of Cuban-American cuisine in steaming bowls and casserole dishes. Beans, rice, mashed potatoes, yams, plantains. In the middle was a large paella, a slab of roast beef and a ceramic pitcher of milk.
The woman said grace. They made the sign of the cross. Serving bowls passed clockwise.
It was a three-bedroom Spanish stucco ranch house with an orange tile roof and black burglar bars. One of those homes that seemed smaller inside because its owner was from the culture that respected too much contents. Sofas, quilts, pillows, family pictures, magazine racks, display cabinets of china. It used to be an upper-middle-class neighborhood, just off Old Dixie Highway between Palmetto Bay and Cutler. Now it was lower. The home stood out with its regularly maintained yard, because of the men at the table.
The woman stood in a red-and-white checkered apron, slicing meat with an electric carving knife. She offered a generous piece balanced on the tip. “Raul?”
He raised his plate. “Thanks, Madre.”
She was slightly plump at sixty, hair always up in a tall, dark bun with streaks of gray. Her name was Juanita, but they all called her Madre. They weren’t related.
The men ate with manners and strong appetites. Cuban loaves at one end, Wonderbread in its original sack at the other. Bottle of sangria. Idle conversation, weather, sports, relatives’ diseases. Against the wall, eighty bank-wrapped packs of hundred-dollar bills on a dessert cart.
The woman rested back in her chair, sipping wine. She looked to her left. “Guillermo, will you be able to take care of our situation today?”
He washed down a bite with milk. “Yes, Madre. No problem.”
“Good.” She paused and nodded. “Very good.”
Behind her on the kitchen counter, stacks of tightly bound kilo bricks and a yellow raincoat.
“What about civilians?” asked Miguel.
Juanita shrugged. “If that’s what it takes to be certain.” She stood and dug two large wooden spoons into the paella. “Pedro, you’re getting too thin.”
He placed a hand on his stomach. “Stuffed.”
She turned with the spoons. “Miguel?”
He pushed his plate back. “Can’t eat another bite.”
The rest set napkins on the table.
Juanita reached into her apron and handed Guillermo a folded sheet of stationery. “Here’s the list of names he gave me.”
“Glad he’s not working for us.” Guillermo stuck the list in his pocket. “Didn’t hold out very long.”
“They never do,” said Juanita.
Everyone turned toward the head chair at the opposite end of the table.
Juanita stood again. “Is he secure?”
“Won’t be running off anywhere soon.”
“Funny,” said the woman. “Didn’t touch his food.”
A round of laughter.
Juanita walked along the back of the table. Her shoes made a crinkling sound on the plastic tarp under the last chair. She looked down at the tied-up man, a black hood over his quivering head.
Guillermo came over from the other side and yanked off the hood. The man stared up at them with pleading eyes, gag in his mouth.
Juanita simply held out her arms. Two others at the table quickly got up, grabbed the yellow raincoat and slipped it on her. She smiled and patted their involuntary guest on the head, then turned her back.
When she faced him again, the man’s eyes went to what was in her hands.
Juanita leaned forward, placed the electric carving knife to his neck and pressed the power switch.
FORT MYERS
Thud, thud, thud.
Coleman turned around in his passenger seat. “We got another that likes to bang.”
“Note to self,” Serge said into a digital recorder. “Soundproof trunk.”
The Challenger pulled into a strip mall.
“What are you doing?”
“My new business. Spring-training tickets and trunk insulation aren’t free.” Serge got out, popped the rear hood and motioned with a pistol. “Would you mind rolling a little to your left? You’re on top of something I need… Thanks.”
He closed the trunk.
Thud, thud, thud.
They started at the far end of the shopping center. Dry cleaners. Bells jingled. Serge approached the counter.
“Can I help you?”
“No, but I can help you!” said Serge. “Hate to cold-call like this, but spring training left me no choice.”
“I’m sorry,” said the clerk. “We don’t allow solicitors.”
“Then we’re brothers in the struggle!” Serge held up his hand for a high five that never came. The clerk looked curiously at Coleman, swaying and drinking from a paper bag.
Serge slapped the counter. “Pay attention! Opportunity knocks! Sometimes it plays a tambourine or makes shadow puppets, but mostly it knocks. Are you ready? Bet you can’t wait! Knock-knock! Hi, I’m Opportunity!” Serge placed a pile of large, thick-stock white cards on the counter. He flipped up the top one, covered with Magic Marker handwriting.
NO SOLICITING.
The clerk scratched his head. “You’re soliciting to sell ‘No Soliciting’ signs?”
“I know! Can’t believe it hasn’t been thought of before: The perfect mix of product and presentation. We came in here creating a problem and providing the solution. Just look at my friend here…“ -Coleman burped and fell back against the door frame-”… Do you need this kind of nonsense all day long?”
“I-”
Serge pounded the counter again. “Hell no! You have important stains to get out and can’t waste time with every bozo who wanders in from the street with bottles of the latest stain-removal craze, but they’re really just giving all their money to a doomsday cult with their fancy suicide machines and little or no interest in the laundry arts. I’m sure they’ve already been in here a thousand times.”
“Not really-”
“Five dollars,” said Serge. “I’ll even throw in ‘No Public Rest-rooms.’ That’s actually more critical. Ever seen a restroom after Coleman’s done his fandango?” Serge whistled. “Not a pretty picture.”
“I don’t think-”
“There’s a guy in our trunk,” said Coleman.
“Maybe I need to amp the presentation.” Serge leaned comfortably against the counter and stared at the ceiling. “I love dry cleaners. Could hang out for hours…”
Coleman raised his hand. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“… Always wondered,” said Serge, idly tapping his fingers. “What the fuck’s Martinizing?”
“If you don’t leave I’m calling the police.”
Next stop, dentist office. Same story. Accounting firm, ice cream parlor, nope, nope.
Computer repair, walk-in clinic. “Howdy! Pay no attention to the man behind the beer…”
The owner of the dog-grooming service pointed at an already-posted NO S OLICITING sign.
“My point exactly,” said Serge. “Did it stop us?”
“Out!”
They reached a drugstore. Serge pulled a handwritten list from his wallet and headed toward the back.
“Wait up,” said Coleman. “Aren’t you going to sell your signs?”
“Not yet. Have to pick up a few things. Let’s see…” He began grabbing items off shelves. “… Nylon rope, pliers, razor blades, duct tape-naturally-nine-volt batteries, broom, saw…”
“One of your projects?”
Serge turned up the next aisle. “If this baby doesn’t win me a grant… Kwik Dry superglue, wire cutters, tape measure, kite string…”
He finally arrived at the counter and tried to pay with some signs, but the cashier said they only took dollars and credit cards.
“But America was founded on a barter economy.” Serge reached for his wallet. “That’s the whole problem with stores. It’s all about money.”
Serge walked across the parking lot and opened the Challenger’s trunk. A head popped up. He smacked it with a tire iron. “Not your turn.”
Coleman peed on the side of the building. The front side. He straggled over. “We didn’t sell any signs… What are you doing now?”
“The free market was built on artificial demand.”
Serge rummaged through the trunk and removed a larger sign on a wooden stake. He hammered it into the ground next to the road.
They drove away. Downtown came into view.
“ Fort Myers, City of Palms!” Serge raised a camera. Click, click. “And there’s the new baseball stadium!”
“Serge, do we really have to watch a stupid baseball game?”
“It is not stupid.”
“Nothing happens. Dudes stand in a field a long time, then every once in a while someone runs a little bit, then they stand around again.”
“They serve beer.”
“I love baseball.”
A few miles back, passing motorists stared curiously at a sign in front of a strip mall.
CLEAN P UBLIC R ESTROOMS (S OLICITORS E AT F OR F REE).
“We’re here!” said Serge, screeching into the parking lot. “Spring training home of the Red Sox!”
“Thought the Tampa Bay Rays were your favorite team.”
“They are,” said Serge. “ Boston was my team before Florida had any, but now we do. And that’s why we drove down here today. They’re playing the Rays! Anyone who doesn’t root for his home team deserves to be spat upon and have his head shaved like those French chicks who screwed Nazis during the Resistance.”
“Are there Nazis at spring training?”
“Yes, but they keep a low profile in the bleachers and are now too old to goose-step and start their shit again.” Serge grabbed a baseball glove from the glove compartment. “I’m getting a ton of foul balls!”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You haven’t seen me in action.”
19 DEGREES FAHRENHEIT
City plows had pushed the previous day’s snowfall into dirty banks. People bundled in thick coats walked quickly along Lans-downe Street, heads ducked low in the icy wind. They were made even colder by a structure towering up the south side of the road that blocked the sun. At its top, thirty-seven feet above street level, sat a cantilevered balcony. More foot traffic came around the corner, scurrying past the back side of the Green Monster, the fabled left-field wall at Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox.
One of the pedestrians blew into freezing hands as he reached Brookline Avenue and made a sharp right turn, climbing through the gray, wet crust. He grabbed a door handle and jumped inside. Rambunctious chatter and cheering. Waitresses rushed by with teetering trays.
Overhead TVs everywhere, all the same channel.
The man rubbed his arms and climbed onto one of the few vacant stools. A finger went up for the bartender. “Sam Adams.”
The televisions showed a news correspondent in bright natural light, surrounded by palm trees and dozens of screaming, waving people with baseball caps and ghostly non-tans fighting their way into the camera frame.
“This is Jill Montgomery down in sunny Fort Myers, Florida, where the temperature is a fabulous seventy-eight degrees, and the faithful of Red Sox Nation have begun their annual migration to the spring training home of their beloved team. Let’s talk to one of them right now…” She motioned for a bald man in a Josh Beckett jersey. “ Sir, where are you from?”
“Red Sox going all the way! Wooooooooo!”
“And where are you from?”
“Yankees suck!”
Beer arrived. The man on the next stool looked out the windows at dreariness, then up at the TV. “I’m jealous.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Well, if you can’t be there in person…”-he glanced around the pub’s crowded interior-“… Cask’n Flagon is the next best.”
“Won’t argue with that.”
The man extended a hand. “Carl Lemanski.”
They shook. “Patrick McKenna.”
Eyes back to the TV. “Lucky sons of bitches.”
“… But a down note this morning as emergency personnel hospitalized an eighty-one-year-old fan from Quincy bludgeoned in a local economy motel. Under arrest are two unemployed construction workers who were on a weeklong crack binge in the next room… Now, back to the game!”
“I’m a supervisor at the water department,” said Carl.
“Day off?”
“No.” He signaled for another beer. “So what are you into, Pat?”
“Hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
“Fancy title is ‘commercial location specialist.’”
“Never heard of it. What do you do for that?”
“Count parking spaces.”
“Spaces?”
“Or at least ones with cars in them.”
“Seriously, what do you do?”
“Seriously.”
“… Varitek doubles to the right, bringing home Pedroia!…”
“That’s really a job?”
“Boring stuff.”
“I’d like to hear.”
“You would?”
In most circumstances, Patrick was economical about himself. But more beer came and the Sox took the lead. “Niche specialty, skyrocketing demand.”
“From who?”
“Chain stores and mall developers,” said Patrick. “Always expanding into new markets. But pick the wrong location, it’s an expensive mistake. And at least one person’s job.”
“That’s where you come in?”
“Scout the competition. If a rival chain’s already got a store in the target locale, we count customers’ cars in the parking lot. Various hours, weekdays, weekends, Christmas rush. Then crunch raw numbers into usable data that determines whether the location can support a second store. Or a whole shopping center.”
“… Youkilis takes strike two, looking not happy with the call…”
“But doesn’t that take a lot of time?”
“Back in the day, it took a hell of a lot of time,” said Patrick. “We actually had to drive to the sites, stand on ladders and count manually with binoculars.”
“Every car?”
Patrick shook his head. “Estimates with geometric sampling equations, but statistically reliable.”
“I had no idea this was going on.”
“It isn’t anymore. Today, computers do it all.”
“Computers count cars?”
“No, satellites.”
“You just lost me.”
“Like the proliferation of the Internet. In the beginning, when they first made orbital photography available to the private sector, resolution was too low. Plus you’d be lucky to find a picture a month of your site-not enough to extrapolate consumer behavior. But now…” He made an offhand gesture toward the pub’s ceiling. “… So many whizzing around up there I’m amazed they don’t crash into one another, and not just government ones anymore. If you buy from all the ser-vices-which we do-you can get several shots a day.”
“Must cost a fortune.”
“It does. But our customers pay even more because it’s nothing compared to the price of an empty store,” said Patrick. “And photo resolution’s gotten so good we just started a new service: analyzing makes and years of cars so we can sell reports on shopper demographics, including income level.”
“You can tell all that from a satellite photo?”
“Up to seventy percent accuracy, but we’re shooting for ninety by year’s end.”
“Wow. Sounds really interesting.”
“More so than actually doing it.”
“… Jim, there’s some kind of disturbance in the right-field stands over a foul ball. Let’s see that on slow-motion replay… Holy cow!…”
The water supervisor looked up at the TV. “Is that guy out of his fucking mind?”
“And here come the security guards,” said Patrick.
“… We’ll take a short break in the seventh, Sox up five to three…”
The TVs switched to a local news update. “… Authorities are still seeking the public’s help in the disappearance of an eighteen-year-old Boston freshman last seen Saturday night leaving her Cambridge dorm…”
Carl formed a disgusted look. “Been following this story?”
“Horrible.”
“They act like there’s hope, but frig it. She’s already dead.” He drained his mug. “What’s happening to the country? It’s a constant backbeat of abducted kids and college students…”
“Or wives who go missing,” said Patrick, “and the husbands appear on camera like they’re okay with it.”
“… Meanwhile, city officials are responding at this hour to a major water line break near the Charles…”
“Shit.” Carl jumped up and grabbed his coat. “You didn’t see me.”
FORT MYERS
A ’73 Challenger sped away from City of Palms Park and made a hard left. Three baseballs rolled across the dashboard.
“What an excellent game!” said Serge.
Coleman unscrewed his flask. “What was the score?”
“Three.”
“I thought scores had two numbers, one for each team.”
“I don’t keep track of teams, just foul balls. My best game yet! And that was only seven innings. Imagine if I was allowed to stay for the rest, let alone back end of the doubleheader.”
“Those security guards were really mad.”
“Because of envy.”
“What about?”
“First, my foul ball collection. Second, I can outrun security. They really hate that. But it’s their own fault, not willing to leap from heights.”
“Maybe it was that last ball you got, diving over four rows into those people. It was raining popcorn.”
“It’s a baseball game. That’s what separates the sport from all others and makes it my favorite!”
“How so?”
“The entire stadium’s in play. Anyone who sits in the stands knows and assumes the risk: One second you’re munching a hot dog and hearing the magnificent crack of a Louisville Slugger, the next you’re hit with a frozen-rope line drive. Or me diving to catch it. Either way, you end up on a stretcher, covered in mustard. No better way to spend an afternoon.”
The Challenger slowed and circled a budget motel in the heart of downtown, walking-distance from the stadium. Litter, vacancy, lengths of fallen-down roof gutters stacked behind overgrown shrubs, rusty fence surrounding a drained swimming pool with a busted TV at the bottom. An unhinged sign dangled sideways by the office, saying they spoke French.
“We staying here?” asked Coleman.
“No.” Serge leaned over the steering wheel. “Another of my spring traditions.”
“What’s that?”
“Tourist protection. We’ve been getting a bad rap lately, because we deserve it. And I mean to fix that. Keep your eyes peeled for anyone wearing a Red Sox cap.”
“Why?”
“Because fans come down here for spring training, see magnificent tropical surroundings and think they can stay in just any ol’ budget motel. They don’t realize that wearing those baseball caps at certain accommodations is like stumbling through Central American guerilla strongholds with ‘Kidnap me’ signs on their backs.”
“But we stay at these kinds of motels.”
“Right,” said Serge. “We’re part of the problem.”
“I forgot about that.”
Serge rounded the back of the motel. “Oh my God! Shit’s on!”
BOSTON
The fifth-floor corner office had views of both the Hancock and the Prudential. Two computers running. Plus a small personal TV, which was against the rules.
Patrick McKenna had the biggest accounts. He decided to put in a couple hours on his day off, studying satellite photos from the Midwest. As the computer panned an image, his firm’s proprietary optical-recognition software tabulated parking lot occupancy and entered data on a spreadsheet. Large numbers for a Wednesday afternoon. Patrick closed the image and opened another, this one darker: Thursday, sunset. Numbers rang up again like a telethon tote board.
First impressions of Patrick McKenna were uniform: not impressed. Mainly it was his five-foot-six stature, but it was more. People told him he looked like Michael J. Fox with darker hair. Patrick had just turned forty-two, maintained his weight and was one of the few people at the company who placed his Rs in the correct parts of words. He disliked neckties, loud personalities and nonessential conversation. In fact, Patrick would have kept to himself entirely, except he was driven to support his family. He consciously forced himself to look others in the eye. He was a loner disguised as a people person.
As Patrick moved his mouse over the next satellite image, he wasn’t watching the computer. Because the Florida Marlins had the bases loaded on his personal TV.
A knock on the door.
Patrick hit the television’s remote. The channel changed to the second game of a Red Sox doubleheader.
His boss came in. He looked at the small TV, then Patrick. “Watching the Sox on company time?”
Patrick grinned sheepishly.
“Got the game on in my office, too,” said the supervisor. “One of these days I’m going to have to get to Fort Myers for spring training. Numbers?”
Patrick swiveled his chair toward the computer. “Solid. As long as they continue holding, but I’m sure they will.”
“Good. They’ve been calling.” The boss walked back to the doorway. “Think you’ll finish by tomorrow?”
“Today.”
“I’ll let them know.” The door closed.
Patrick tapped his keyboard through time: Friday morning, noon, evening, then three more Saturday images and four on Sunday. Sure enough, the numbers remained strong.
A spreadsheet filled. Patrick saved the file and attached it to an e-mail. He pressed the send button. “ Western Indiana, hello, Big Mart!”
Then he opened another file. This time the computer superimposed a template with overhead images of vehicles, like World War II silhouette cards used to identify enemy and Allied aircraft. Except this program contained a database with more than ten thousand permutations of automotive make, model and year. Patrick had personally spearheaded the software’s development. The corner office followed. His company was DPX Technologies Inc. The initials didn’t stand for anything, but a consulting agency said its computer determined the letters were the combination that potential customers responded most favorably to, especially the X.
Aerial shapes on the computer flickered rapidly. With each positive match, a tiny car in the parking lot stopped flashing and turned red. Patrick watched the hits climb until they stopped at a record 81 percent recognition. “Yes!” He opened the next day’s image…
The Red Sox reached the seventh-inning stretch; local news filled the gap: “Authorities received a break this morning in the case of a missing Boston freshman and released this security video from inside a local department store, where she can be seen leaving at three P.M. with two shopping bags… ”
“Shoot!” said Patrick, remembering his neglected Marlins game. He grabbed the remote to change the channel. He stopped and turned up the volume instead.
“… A second surveillance camera picks her up outside as she loads the bags in the trunk of her Hyundai Sonata, which was found by police with the key still in the driver’s door. Unfortunately, the vehicle was at the edge of camera range, and the location of her abductor is just out of view. All we can see is the assailant’s arm…”
Patrick sat intently through the rest of the report. When the Sox came back, he shuffled feet on the floor, wheeling his chair across the office to a second computer. He opened files from another client.
Ten minutes later, the door to a fifth-floor corner office opened. Patrick emerged into cubicle land. “We got a VCR machine around here?”
FORT MYERS
The Challenger sat clandestinely in the back of a budget motel parking lot.
“See that old guy with the cane and baseball cap?” asked Serge.
“Yeah,” said Coleman. “He’s talking to that dirtbag. So what?”
“This is how it always starts.” Serge shook his head. “They exploit the open friendliness of our fine visitors, who don’t realize Florida is still the Wild West.”
“What if he’s a nice dirtbag?” asked Coleman. “Most of my friends are.”
“You’re right,” said Serge. “Dirtbags are people, too. We’ll sit here and see what develops so I don’t jump to conclusions and barge in waving a gun like at that bridal shower.”
They sat.
Coleman turned an empty can upside down. “I’m out of beer.”
“Not now.” Serge leaned over the steering wheel. “Something’s happening.”
“What is it?”
“The old dude’s inviting that dirtbag into his room. This is the takedown. Roll!”
Serge ran across the parking lot and pressed himself against a wall.
Coleman came up behind. “Anything happening yet?”
“Don’t know.” Serge crept forward and placed an ear to the door.
“What do you hear?”
“Too quiet,” said Serge. “That’s a bad sign. We’re going in!”
Serge pulled a chrome.45 automatic from under his tropical shirt, took a step back and kicked the door open.
“Freeze, motherfucker. The nightmare is over. Serge is on the case!”
Two stunned men looked up from a small table, where they had been drinking soda and playing cards.
“I-I-I just got paid,” said the dirtbag, removing his wallet with a shaking hand. “You can have it all!”
The old man in the Red Sox cap removed a wristwatch. “It’s gold. Just don’t hurt us!”
“Hurt you?” said Serge. “I’m here to protect you.”
Speechless.
“What’s the matter?” asked Serge. “You don’t look so good.” He noticed their eyes on his gun.
“Oh, that.” He tucked it back in his pants. “Sorry for the misunderstanding. Think I’ve got the wrong room. Was looking for the one where someone had a huge knife at his throat. Enjoy your card game.”
Serge closed the door and headed back to the Challenger. “Shit!”
“What is it?” asked Coleman.
“Not sure, but I’m guessing I just made things worse image-wise.” Serge climbed in the car and sagged. “If only there was some way I could make it up, so he’ll forget all about the gun and go back to thinking Florida is fairyland.”
Serge stared at the center of the steering wheel in concentration. An index finger suddenly rose. “Got it!” He grabbed a baseball off the dashboard. “I’ll give him an authentic souvenir-this one was hit by David Ortiz, I think. Fuck it; I’ll just say it was. He’ll be so tickled to see me!”
“But I don’t think-”
Serge was already out of the car, running across the lot. Without breaking stride, he kicked the door in again and thrust the treasure over his head. “Have I got a surprise for you!”
Silence.
The ball bounced on the terrazzo floor, rolling through scattered playing cards and spilled soda cans.
Serge whipped the gun from under his shirt. “Don’t make any sudden moves. Now slowly, take the knife away from his throat.”
BOSTON
Patrick’s face was practically against the computer screen when the knock came.
His boss walked in. “Usually when people want to see me, they come to my office.”
Patrick waved him over without looking up. “Check this out.”
“What am I supposed to be seeing?”
“Know the missing freshman?”
“Of course. Been all over the news.”
Patrick spun his chair toward the TV.
“Where’d you get a VCR?”
“Barney had one.” Patrick hit play. “They’ve been running the surveillance tape every half hour.”
“I saw that thing. Chilling.”
“They actually recorded her being grabbed.”
“Can’t imagine what her parents are going through. What’s it got to do with us?”
Patrick switched the grainy, black-and-white footage to slo-mo. “Okay, this is it. She walks around to the driver’s door and gets out her keys…”
“Patrick, is everything all right?”
“… Keep watching. Here’s where the passenger door on the next car opens, and the guy grabs her and pulls her out of view.” He stopped the tape.
The boss waited a moment. “So?”
“Police caught a break. Or half of one. The edge of the surveillance camera’s perspective is right next to her vehicle. The only thing we see of the abductor is his arm. If the camera had been turned just a few degrees to the left…”
“That’s what everyone’s talking about,” said the boss. “Again, what’s it got to do with us?”
Patrick spun back to the computer and pulled up an image. “Remember the Kitchen and Linen account?”
“Yeah, it’s late.”
“I knew the shopping center on TV looked familiar.” He pushed his chair out to create room.
The boss leaned closer. “Don’t tell me a satellite got the kidnapping.”
“No. Odds would be astronomical.” Patrick tapped a spot on the screen. “But right here. The satellite pass was an hour before the time stamp on that surveillance video.”
“And?”
“Here’s her Sonata. Our software confirmed it. The vehicle next to hers is an ’05 Ford Ranger.” Patrick zoomed the image back and pointed at the top of the screen. “Shopping center’s right by this entrance ramp to the turnpike. That would be the logical getaway. Toll booth probably has a picture of the license plate.”
“What are you, Columbo now?”
“I know it’s a long shot. He could have left a different way. And the Ford might not even have anything to do with it. Maybe it was just in the same parking space and left before the kidnapper arrived.” He picked up the phone. “Still, if I was her parents, I’d want the police to know.”
FORT MYERS
Six A.M.
A ’73 Dodge Challenger with a keyed driver’s door took an underpass to the east side of I-75.
Bulldozers and mounds of burned trees lay on one side of the road; a golf course was already in business on the other.
No traffic at this hour. The Challenger rolled through woods with FOR S ALE signs offering five hundred acres and up. Another bulldozed clearing. Then a dense thicket of identical houses and screened-in pools around a man-made pond. A fountain that sprayed during daylight was still.
Developer world.
Serge turned off the highway and wound through residential streets that weren’t on the map yet. Only one completed house for every dozen lots. In between, fire hydrants, concrete footers and new streetlights waiting to be wired into the power grid.
Someone was awake in one of the homes, reading a book upstairs. Others had cars in driveways. Serge studied each passing residence. Nothing he liked. The Challenger drove on. More isolated homesteads. More checkmarks in the negative column.
The Challenger reached the back of the future subdivision and rounded a broad cul-de-sac with surveyors’ stakes. Serge parked and studied the last house three lots up. No cars or other signs of life, but the porch light was on, which meant electricity, essential to his science project. A rolled-up garden hose hung from its cradle by the back fence. The mailbox: THOMPSON.
Owner-occupied. Excellent.
Just one last thing. Serge got out of the car without closing the door and tiptoed to the mailbox. He opened it. Full.
Serge ran back, started the car and whipped up the driveway. “Coleman!” Shaking his pal’s shoulder with a hand holding a pistol.
“We’re here!”
Snoring.
“Wake up!” Serge jabbed him in the cheek with the gun.
A groggy Coleman startled. Another jab with the pistol. A loud groan. Coleman’s eye blinked and stared into the barrel of a huge gun. He grabbed his heart. “Thank God! I was having a nightmare I was out of dope.”
Thuds from the trunk.
Coleman found some potato chips in his pocket. “I wish they’d stop all that racket.”
“It will soon be peaceful in the jungle.” Serge aimed a rectangular plastic box at the house.
“What’s that?”
“Garage door opener.” Serge turned a knob.
“I didn’t know garage openers had dials. Or were that big.”
“Mine’s the only one.” More intricate twisting. “I bought a regular opener, extracted the gizzards and made a trip to my beloved RadioShack. Then I rebuilt the components inside a blank electronics box. All other openers have a button you temporarily press, so I soldered the power circuit to this on-off toggle switch, allowing continuous transmission. Also, openers only broadcast on a single, fixed frequency, which I bypassed with a variable gang capacitor attached to this dial, permitting me to tune it like a radio across the entire garage bandwidth.”
“Variable gang?”
“Long explanation.” The dial rotated farther. “But a childhood of building crystal radios put me in the kill zone.”
Crunch, crunch. “The door isn’t opening.” Crunch.
“What are you eating?”
“Potato chip pieces and lint.”
More careful tuning. “If my guess is correct…”
A quiet mechanical grinding in the night.
“It’s opening,” said Coleman. “It works.”
Serge grabbed his drugstore shopping bags and a broom. “Justice is afoot.”
The trunk lid popped open. Whining from two bound and gagged hostages.
“My manners,” said Serge, reaching over them for a small toolbox. “Forgot the formal introduction… Tourist-robbing motel dirt-bag, meet not-pulling-over-for-fire-truck horn-honking car-keyer, and vice versa… Eeny, meeny, miney, mo-which social goiter has to go?”
“What are you doing?” asked Coleman.
“Choosing.”
“Why not do both?”
“Want to save one for dessert. It’s like when fortune shined on me as a little kid and I found myself with two Reese’s peanut butter cups. I’d always hide one for later to make the magic last, but they always melted in my underwear.”
“That still happens to me.”
“… My… mother… said… to… pick… the… very… best… motherfucker… and… you… are… it!… Coleman, give me a hand with the dirtbag.”
After a forced gunpoint march, the would-be robber was flung down on cold cement. Serge flicked the toggle on his plastic box. The garage door lurched and cranked back down behind them.
“Coleman, hit that light switch on the wall.”
The hostage squinted in sudden brightness. Then puzzlement at the ensuing flurry of activity.
Serge dragged a ladder to the center of the garage, then climbed up with pliers and metal snippers. He stretched a tape measure along the lifting chain of the garage opener’s motor. Bending and cutting. Twisted links of broken chain bounced on the floor. He grabbed kite string in his teeth and flicked open a pocket knife…
Ten minutes later, Serge folded the ladder against a wall. He placed the broom on a workbench, sawed off the business end and carved a lengthwise groove down the shaft.
“Coleman, kill that light.”
In darkness, Serge raised the door again. He walked to the garage’s threshold, reached up and tore weather stripping off the bottom edge, then generously applied a ribbon of superglue. The truncated broom went in place, reinforced with duct tape. He knelt on the ground, unscrewing the back of his custom transmitter.
Coleman felt inside his other pocket and pulled out something round and tan. He tasted it. “What are you doing now?”
“Removing the nine-volt battery so I can wire my alternate power source.” He stood with the resulting configuration, left the garage and placed the automatic opener in the driveway. “I need your help. Grab that rope.”
Coleman threw a pebble over his shoulder. “What do you want me to do?”
“After I finish these knots, pull as hard as you can…”
BOSTON
Patrick McKenna arrived for work, punctual as always. He got off the elevator. All the cubicle people stood and began clapping.
“What the heck?” Patrick went in his office and sat down at the computer.
A colleague opened the door and ran in. “Turn on the TV!”
“What’s happening?”
“Just turn it on!” He hit the remote.
“… It was an emotional homecoming after FBI agents raided a remote farmhouse in Essex County and rescued a college freshman who’d been held hostage for more than a week. The big break came when a local satellite imaging company…”
A commotion back in the doorway. His boss rushed in, followed by three TV crews jockeying for position. Patrick jumped up.
The boss threw an arm around his shoulders. “Here’s your hero!”
Blinding camera lights. Patrick shielded his eyes. “Get them out of here!”
“Smile,” his boss whispered sideways. “It’s great publicity for the firm.”
“I don’t want publicity.”
A thrusted microphone. “How does it feel to be a hero?”
FORT MYERS
Shafts of light hit the empty street.
“Sun’s rising,” said Serge. “We have to work fast.” He threw another rope to Coleman. “Pull!”
Moments later, they were done. Serge stood proudly before another enigmatic scene.
Their guest lay on his back, lashed into precise position with a spiderweb of thick rope stretching his limbs to the aching point and knotted around open wall studs and various heavy objects. His body was inside the garage, head resting on the ground outside, just over the threshold, staring up at the edge of the open automatic door.
Serge chugged a coffee thermos, then grinned gleefully and rubbed his palms together. “This is usually the part where I get a thousand questions! But I pride myself on being the perfect host and anticipate them all. Let’s get to it!”
Serge held a plastic box to the captive’s face. “Dig! RadioShack! I rigged my own universal garage door opener, conveniently tuned to this house’s frequency.” He reached up and carefully ran a finger along ultra-sharp metal. “Also sawed a horizontal groove in the broomstick attached to the bottom of the door. Now that’s patience! No need to thank me. Then I took the liberty of applying Kwik Dry superglue the entire length of the notch and inserting a bunch of razor blades I got at the drugstore.”
Coleman picked his nose. “Wondered what you were going to do with those.”
Serge squatted next to the head. “By your eyes I can tell you’ve guessed it. That’s right: Serge’s Garage-Door Guillotine! Patent pending.”
Fierce wiggling and gag-muffled screams.
“Better conserve energy because there’s a lot of work ahead if you want to make it out of here.” Serge looked back at the growing dawn light. “You’ll have at least an hour to free yourself.” Serge smiled again and tapped the man’s terrified cheeks. “Just joking. I wouldn’t put you through that kind of inconvenience. I made sure you can’t get loose… Although I could be bluffing. You’ve probably noticed I’m a different kind of cat. Maybe I made one of the knots a slipknot. Ain’t this a fun riot! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. More coffee for everyone!”
“But, Serge,” said Coleman, “garage doors come down pretty slow. It’ll just cut him a little. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not very impressed by your guillotine.”
“That’s the whole beauty.” Serge walked to the middle of the garage and pointed up at the motor mounted to the ceiling. “This is a newer model I wasn’t familiar with, so it took a bit of extra analysis, but I finally cracked the code. The special chain here is key, with sprocket holes that go around the main gear.” He kept pointing above as he walked forward. “And here’s the end of the chain, which reaches the gear when the door gets near the bottom. Notice how I’ve removed a section of metal links and tied the other two ends together with kite string. Then I used my pocket knife to slice partially through the twine.” Serge spread his arms upward like a preacher. “And there you have it!”
Coleman fired a jay. “Have what?”
“When activated by my remote control, the chain lowers the door halfway, until it reaches the string, which snaps because the load’s too heavy, and the door free-falls under its own weight.”
“Is that enough to chop his head off?”
“Of course not. What is it with you always asking about chopping heads off?”
He shrugged. “Never seen it done.”
“Razor blades aren’t that long, but more than enough to do a number on major blood vessels, like the jugular and carotid, just to name a couple.” Then, looking down: “Will you stop trying to scream? That’s so impolite when someone’s attempting to have a conversation.”
Serge dragged garbage cans and a lawn mower into the driveway- “Blocking views from the street, in case you were curious.”
“When do we get to watch?” asked Coleman.
“We won’t be here.”
“Knew you were going to say that.” Coleman sighed and took a hit. “I always wait bored while you do your hobbies, but then you don’t let me see the good stuff.”
“Coleman, it’s going to get ridiculously bloody.” He shivered at the image. “Not something a normal person would enjoy.”
“But how will it happen if we’re not here?”
“The crowning cherry!” Serge held up a shiny, square plate with a lacquered surface encasing loops of embedded metal strips. “My alternative power source.”
“What is it?”
“Solar cell. I’ve decided to go green.” Serge laid it in the driveway. A wire extended from the side and into his modified garage opener. “When the sun rises high enough, it’ll activate my transmitter.” Serge reached toward the box.
“Can I?” asked Coleman.
Serge stepped back. “Be my guest.”
Coleman threw the toggle switch to “On.”
Serge stood over his guest a final time. “My advice? Pray for rain.”
SOUTH OF MIAMI
The early-afternoon sun gave everything a harsh yellow haze. All across Metro-Dade, long lines spilled from convenience stores and bodegas, people handing pink-and-white cards across counters. Lottery machines clattered and spit out tickets at a blistering rate.
“Those are my grandchildren’s birthdays…”
“I just feel extra lucky…”
A royal poinciana struggled to rise from a tight alley between two pastel green apartment buildings in West Perrine. The rest of the landscaping was accidental. Weeds; abandoned tires; a smattering of old-growth palms, some dead, leaving withered, topless trunks. Spanish store signs and billboards for menthol. Children played in broken glass, throwing rocks at lizards.
A late-model Infiniti sat across the street with the motor running.
“How long are we going to wait?” asked Miguel.
Guillermo’s eyes stayed to his binoculars. “As long as it takes.”
Raul leaned forward in the front passenger seat and twisted a knob.
Guillermo lowered the binoculars. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Listening to the radio.”
“… With no winners for the last five weeks, Florida ’s Lotto jackpot now stands at forty-two million dollars, and merchants are reporting huge backups-”
Guillermo clicked it off. “We’re working.”
The sun drew down.
“Maybe they’re not even home,” said Pedro.
“They’re home all right,” said Guillermo.
“How do you know?”
“Here they come now.”
The Infiniti’s passengers looked up at the second-floor balcony, where a door had just opened. Three men filed out. Colombian. They trotted down a concrete staircase by the poinciana and piled into the boxlike frame of a vintage Grand Marquis with gray spray-paint splotches over body work.
Guillermo threw the Inifiniti in gear and followed.
Raul unzipped a small duffel bag, handing out Mac-10s with extended ammo clips. “When do we move?”
“Not until I say.” Guillermo made a right behind the Marquis. “Let’s see where they’re going.”
“But we could pull alongside right now.”
“And a cop comes around the corner,” said Guillermo. “I personally want to get away.”
The Marquis reached South Dixie Highway and turned left.
“Brake lights,” said Miguel. “They’re pulling into that parking lot.”
The Infiniti slowly circled the gas pumps of an independent convenience store with water-filled potholes and a lunch window for Cuban sandwiches. Four steel pylons had recently been installed at the entrance after a smash-and-grab where a stolen Taurus ended up in the Slim Jims. The Marquis’s passengers went inside.
Guillermo parked facing the quickest exit back to South Dixie. He opened the driver’s door. “Don’t do anything until I give the signal.”
“But they’re all in there.”
“And armed,” said Guillermo. “Wait until they’re in the checkout line. Otherwise we’ll be chasing them all across the store, shooting at one another over the top of the chips aisle like last time.”
The crew tucked Macs under shirts and slipped to the edge of the building. They peeked around the outdoor self-serve freezer of ten-pound ice bags.
“Look at that fuckin’ lottery line,” said Raul.
“They’re all up front,” said Guillermo. He pulled a wad of dark knit cloth from his pocket, and the others followed his lead. “Try to keep your spread tight.”
Customers forked money across the counter and pocketed tickets of government-misled hope, just as they had every minute since the owner unlocked the doors.
The Marquis’s passengers looked down at their own penciled-in computer cards. One sipped a can of iced tea. Another idly looked outside. Four ski masks ran past the windows.
“Shit.”
He reached under his shirt for a Tec-9. The others didn’t need to see the threat, just reflexively went for their own weapons upon noticing their colleague’s reaction.
The doors flew open.
Then all hell.
Ammo sprayed. Beer coolers and windows shattered. Screaming, running, diving over the counter, two-liter soda bottles exploding.
Miguel took a slug in the shoulder, but nothing like the Colombians. A textbook case of overkill. They toppled backward, their own guns still on automatic, raking the ceiling.
Stampede time. Guillermo and the others whipped off masks and blended with a river of hysterical bystanders gushing out the door. After the exodus, an empty store revealed the math. Three seriously dead Colombians and four crying, bleeding innocents, lying in shock or dragging themselves across the waxed floor.
Sirens.
The Infiniti sailed over a curb and down South Dixie.
TAMPA
A bong bubbled.
Coleman looked up from the couch. “Hey, I’m on TV.”
On the screen, a bong bubbled.
“Serge, when did you shoot that?”
“Couple minutes ago.” He loaded a fresh tape in his camcorder.
Coleman watched as the TV scene panned around their one-bedroom apartment. Souvenirs, ammunition, row of ten bulging garbage bags against the wall.
A cloud of pot smoke drifted toward the ceiling. “You filmed the inside of our crib?”
“The big opening of my documentary.” Serge switched the camera to manual focus and aimed it at the television. “I finally found my hook.”
“Why are you filming the TV? It’s only playing what you just filmed.”
“This is bonus material. The ‘making of’ documentary of the documentary. You need that if you expect decent distribution in Bangkok.”
“What’s your documentary about?”
“Everything.”
“Everything?”
The camera rolled as Serge walked into the kitchen and grabbed a mug of coffee with his free hand. He filmed the cup coming toward the lens. “If you’re going to do something, shoot for the best. People have made documentaries about the Civil War, baseball, ocean life, Danny Bonaduce, but as yet nobody’s attempted to document absolutely everything. My director’s cut box set is slated to top out at seven hundred volumes.”
“Will it include Danny Bonaduce?”
“Volume three hundred and twenty-four.”
“But how can you do a film on everything?”
“Spare batteries.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m also thinking of getting at least three more cameras that run continuously.” He held up the current unit. “This will be angle one, pointing forward with the viewfinder. Then I’ll have two waist-mounted cameras on a special belt, and finally a fourth in a sling on my back, aimed behind me, in case something important happens after I leave.”
Serge drained his coffee and turned off the camera. “My documentary on everything is complete.”
“Thought there were seven hundred volumes.”
“Flexibility is critical during production.” Serge ejected the tape from his camera. “The key to filmmaking is knowing what to leave out. That way you make the audience think, filling in gaps themselves and arguing about it on the way home.”
Coleman scraped out his bong and strolled over to the row of garbage bags.
“Been meaning to ask,” said Serge.
“The bags? I’m letting them age.”
“Silly question.”
“It’s all timing.” Coleman bent down and read adhesive labels he’d stuck on each: drugstore addresses and dates. “This one’s ready.”
Serge watched, puzzled, as Coleman carried it into the kitchen and dumped the contents on the table. “Let’s see what we’ve got…” He pawed through refuse. “Here’s something promising… here’s another… and another…”
“Prescription bags?”
“Three weeks old,” said Coleman. “Between the pharmacy counter and the front door, a lot of people just rip their sacks open, pocket the bottle of pills and toss the rest in the trash can outside the door. Then I make my rounds.”
“I’m guessing there’s a point, but I’ve been wrong before.”
Coleman held up one of the small paper bags. “See? Got all the information: patient’s name, medicine, day prescribed and, most crucial of all, any refills.”
Serge sat back at the table with amused attention.
“Of all people, I thought you’d figure it out by now,” said Coleman. “When was the last time they asked for ID picking up a prescription?”
“Never, but-”
“I calculate the pill quantity and dosage directions off the bag, then call a day or two before the person would normally order a refill.”
“What if the real customer’s already called? You’ll get caught.”
“Let me see your cell.”
Serge handed it over. Coleman dialed. He read the side of the bag, pressed a sequence of numbers and hung up.
Serge took the phone back. “What just happened?”
“Big chain stores now use automated phone refill systems. If the customer already called, you’d get a robot’s voice saying it’s too soon to refill. No harm, no foul.”
“I’m amazed at the level of thought,” said Serge. “And yet you still put your shoes on the wrong feet.”
Coleman looked down. “There’s a difference?”
Serge logged on to his laptop.
“Whatcha doin’?”
“Planning my next documentary. But not too hasty: This one must be stunningly insightful and redirect the flow of culture as we know it.”
“Why?”
“My Documentary on Everything set the bar prohibitively high. Reviewers unfairly hold that against you.”
Coleman pulled up a chair. He took off his shoes and switched them. “The pain’s gone.”
“It definitely has to be about Florida.” Serge surfed various history sites. “Just haven’t zeroed in on the specific topic.”
“Why does it have to be about Florida?”
“To set the record straight. Remember the highest-grossing movie ever filmed here?”
“You told me. Deep Throat.”
“Bingo. And the state’s bestselling documentary?”
Coleman shrugged.
“Girls Gone Wild: Spring Break.”
“Oh, yeah!” said Coleman. “Great plot!”
“Plot?”
“Get chicks drunk and have them make out with each other.”
“That’s your idea of a plot?”
“The best there is,” said Coleman. “Unless, of course, they can convince three-”
“That’s exploitative!” Serge tapped his way around the Internet. “I cannot idly stand by and allow that gooey stain to sully my home state’s fabric.”
“There’s a sequel,” said Coleman. “They have this hot tub-”
“Enough!” Tap, tap, tap. “Now I absolutely must make this film. But what subject? Calusa shell mounds? The eight ‘lost’ Florida parishes when the Panhandle used to extend to Louisiana? Tampa ’s Great Blizzard of 1899? Mosquito control through the ages?…”
Time flew. Coleman passed out at the table with his cheek on a wicker place mat.
“… Sports? Rail infrastructure? Osceola’s heartbreak? Our chief export behind citrus: fucking up national elections?…”
Coleman raised his head and looked around. “Am I here?”
“Why can’t I find the hook?” Tap, tap, tap…
Coleman drank from the open beer he discovered in his hand. “Just remembered. What about the horn-honker in your trunk? He’s been in there a day now.”
“That’s why I hung gerbil-pellet and water dispensers from the spare tire.” Tap, tap, tap…
“What are you doing?”
“Checking my in-box.”
“Wow, you really won the Irish lottery?”
“Coleman-”
“We’re rich!” He jumped up and broke into a Riverdance jig. “We’re rich! We’re rich! We’re-rich-we’re-rich-we’re-rich!…”
“Coleman-”
He plopped back down and wedged his head between Serge and the laptop. “How much did we win?”
“Nothing.”
“No, really?”
“I’m serious.”
“Nothing?” Coleman sat back in his chair. “Then why do the Irish buy the tickets?”
Serge scrolled down the screen, deleting more spam. He stopped.
“What’s this?”
“What?”
Serge opened the next junk e-mail: Online Pharmacy Spring Break Blowout! Quality meds without prescription!
“Coleman, it’s a sign from God!” Serge got up and pulled a suitcase from the closet. “That’s two references this afternoon, which can be no coincidence. I’ve just got my new documentary.”
“What’s the subject?”
“Serge and Coleman do spring break!”
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
Friday afternoon, last class of the week.
Gray sky. Gusting wind.
Students in bulky coats and parkas dragged luggage down snow-covered dormitory steps. Others with wool scarves up to their eyes pumped gas.
Madison, Wisconsin. Ice scraped off windshields. Portable stereos went in trunks.
Columbus, Ohio. Car heaters warmed. Traffic stacked up at red lights heading out of town.
The same scene across the northern tier of the country. Milwaukee, Chicago, East Lansing, Hartford. Everyone in the starting gate. Heading south, expressways, truss bridges, railroad yards, brick chimneys, leafless trees, frozen riverbanks.
Rear window paint:
FLORIDA OR B UST.
In Durham, three University of New Hampshire students loaded final bags into a station wagon with wood paneling.
“Hope you didn’t forget to make reservations like last time,” said the driver.
“No,” said another student, slamming the rear hatch. “Taken care of. Alligator Arms.”
“Sounds like a dump.”
“It’s cheap.”
The driver checked his watch. “Where is he? We have to get moving.”
“He doesn’t realize he’s going yet.”
“What?”
“You know the guy. He’d never come on his own. And even if he did agree in advance, he’d back out at the last minute like he does for everything else.”
“Nobody told me about this.” The driver looked at his wrist again as a snowflake landed on the Timex. “It’s going to blow our schedule. Weather’s turning.”
“But he’s our friend. All that studying can’t be healthy. We owe it to him to show him some fun.”
“When do we break the good news?”
“When we find him.”
“You mean you don’t know where he is?”
“Sure I do. Somewhere studying.”
“This is already a disaster,” said the driver.
“It won’t kill us to do a good deed. I’m actually starting to worry about him.”
“You overthink shit.”
“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed. The more I’m around him, the more I get this vibe.”
“What kind of vibe?”
“Like he’s trying to hide something.”
FLORIDA
A 1973 Dodge Challenger raced up the gulf coast on U.S. 19.
Coleman’s window was down, his head outside like a cocker spaniel. “Are the chicks from the videos going to be there?”
“By the thousand.”
“Cool!”
“Coleman, this is a serious documentary. We’re not interested in drunk babes flashing tits.”
“Serge, a space creature has taken control of your vocal cords.”
“Spring break is one of the most profound social influences Florida has given the rest of the nation. Because of our state, kids not only come here, but now flock to Mexico, the Lesser Antilles, even Colorado ski slopes. And it all started in a single swimming pool in 1935.”
Coleman hung farther out the window. “Show me your tits!”
“Dude, get a grip. There’s nobody around.”
“Spring break! Wooooooo! I’m Gertrude Schwartz!…”
Serge pulled him back inside by his belt. “Coleman, that’s seriously ripped, even for you.”
Saliva began stringing from Coleman’s mouth, pooling on his stomach.
Serge passed a Kleenex from his door organizer. “Thought you had that problem mastered.”
Coleman placed the tissue on his chest like a bib and handed Serge a dark-orange safety bottle.
Serge read the label: GERTRUDE SCHWARTZ. Then the contents. “Coleman, this is one of the most powerful narcotics known to man. How’d you get it? You’re not a woman.”
“Dfjoiakl-said I was her son- msdffkdsflsd…”
An hour later, Coleman’s head lolled on its neck swivel. “Serge, someone messed with that highway sign. Says we’re going north.”
“We are going north.”
“Who drives north for spring break?”
“People who want to travel back in time.”
“I thought we were heading to a beach.”
“We are. But time travel is the structure of my award-hoarding documentary,” said Serge. “ Florida ’s always had a love-hate relationship with spring break. First a community wants the money and rolls out the red carpet. Then they get rich and weary of hotel damage- ‘Yo, students: Thanks for the cash, now scram!’-deploying police harassment. So another city with a lesser economy says, ‘Hey, kids, why put up with that crap? We’ll treat you right.’ Then that place prospers and asks, ‘Why do we have to put up with this crap? Get ’em out of here!’ And so on.”
“How many times has it happened?”
“The history of spring break in Florida can be divided into three distinct epochs: Panama City Beach, the current party mecca; Day-tona Beach, which ruled the late eighties and nineties; and Fort Lauderdale, where it all began.”
“So we’re going to…?”
“ Panama City. I’m working my way back through time.”
“I thought this was about Florida.”
“What are you talking about? It is Florida. The Panhandle.“
Coleman tapped an ash out the window.”Then why’s it called Panama?”
“A rare relevant question. The city’s original developer, George West, bestowed the name because if you draw a line from Chicago to the Panama Canal, it runs through there.”
“That’s fucked-up… Serge, I see fish with nipples.”
“Weeki Wachee, home of the famous mermaid shows and one of the first roadside attractions in the state.”
“Real mermaids?”
“I wish. They just wear costumes and breathe from special tubes hidden in underwater rocks. Tourists watch from below-ground grandstands through giant windows… And from the only-in-Florida file, a classic newspaper photo three decades ago of mermaids on strike in full uniform, picketing along the side of the highway.”
A billboard went by: SWIMMING OUR TAILS OFF SINCE 1947.
“You aren’t stopping,” said Coleman. “You always stop.”
“Not this place.” Serge shot photos out the window without slowing. “My mug shot’s probably posted in their ticket booths on the no-fly list. And just because I dove in the pool during one of the shows in a selfless attempt to save the attraction. Who knew they had big capture nets?”
“How were you trying to save it?”
“By spicing up their act as the Creature from the Black Lagoon-1954, filmed in Florida -which is why I dragged that mermaid to the bottom, but then I forgot which rock had the breathing tubes.”
“What happened?”
“Reached the surface just in time, but no thank-you, only another ‘We’re calling the police.’ That’s usually a good time for lunch. On the bright side, a disgruntled mermaid with Broadway aspirations chased me across the parking lot and asked for a lift. Hit it off right away. And the sex!”
“You had mermaid sex?”
“Around the clock. Name was Crystal, like the river. Barely left the motel room for a week, but finally had to slow down when I started walking bowlegged. Then we broke up.”
“Why’d you break up with a mermaid?”
“Other way around. You know how women are? Mermaids are even worse. Started getting pissed that I always insisted she wear the costume to bed. Accused me of really being in love with it instead of her. I said, ‘Is that a problem?’ When chicks decide they’re leaving you, they really fly. At least I got to keep the suit.”
“Did you try it on?”
“Of course. How often do you get the chance? Except those things are pretty binding, and I had to cut a long slit in the tail to go shopping, but it turned out the stores didn’t want my business anyway.”
Onward. North.
Flea markets, RV parks, drive-through liquor barn, civil war reen-actment, sign beside a house selling Peg-Boards, direct-to-you outlets of preformed pools tipped up toward traffic. Sun umbrellas shaded roadside squatters hawking fresh produce, Tupelo honey, jumbo shrimp, salted mullet… Into Citrus County. Homosassa city limits. Serge jumped the curb and dashed into a visitors’ center.
Coleman ran after him. “Serge? Serge, where are you?…” Peeking through doors. “Serge?… There you are.” He looked around. “What is this place?”
A digital camera flashed nonstop. “The Florida Room at Homo-sassa Springs Wildlife State Park. Exhibit honoring my favorite artist, Winslow Homer.” Sprinting around the room, flash, flash, flash. “Painted these watercolors of local nature during vacation in 1904. And look! Here’s a page of the guest register he signed at the Homo-sassa Lodge!” Flash. “I could stay here forever! Back to the car!”
Farther north, Crystal River, swim-with-the-manatees country. Tour boats and dive specials and viewing platforms. Red-white-and-blue manatee statue in front of city hall.
“Coleman, did you know that hundreds of years ago, manatees were thought to be mermaids?”
“By who?”
“Pirates at sea too long.” Bang, bang, bang.
Coleman turned around. “I think the guy in the trunk wants something.”
“Gerbil dispensers are probably empty.”
MIAMI
People in smartly pressed suits came and went through a high-security gate.
Inside the utilitarian government building, an anthill of movement and efficient activity. Phones rang, reports filed.
CNN was on. A repeat of the breaking story on the missing college student found alive in Massachusetts.
A case agent named Ramirez looked up at the TV.
Patrick McKenna’s face filled the screen.
“… I don’t feel like a hero…”
Agent Ramirez closed his eyes. “Oh, no.”
NORTH FLORIDA
A ’73 Challenger entered Levy County.
The tiny hamlet of Inglis. REDUCED S PEED A HEAD. Serge tried to time a stoplight but lost.
He punched the steering wheel. “Life drains from my body at red lights!”
Coleman popped a can. “I use them to drink beer. Green lights, too.”
“Come on! Come on!…” He began unscrewing a thermos. “Hold the phone. I can’t believe it!”
“What?”
Serge pointed up next to the traffic light, where a green-and-white sign marked the cross street.
Coleman squinted. “Follow That Dream Parkway?”
“It’s a sign.”
“Yeah, metal. See them all over the roads.”
“No, I mean a religious one. God wanted that light to turn red, like a burning bush. From now on, I’ll never question the apparitions of the red lights.”
“What are you going to do?”
Serge hit the left blinker as the light turned green. “Follow that dream!”
The Challenger skidded around the corner. “There’s the chamber of commerce. They’ll have answers.” He pulled into the parking lot.
“Serge, it’s closed.”
“What the hell? The economy doesn’t stop on Sunday.”
Coleman burped. “Back there, I saw a-”
“Not now.” Serge grabbed his camera. “Maybe I can find answers through the office window with my zoom lens.”
“But, Serge-”
He was out of the car. He came back.
“Answers?”
“Only more questions.” He stuck a key in the ignition.
“Serge, what was that brown sign we passed racing around the corner?”
“Coleman, I’m trying to think!” He stopped and turned. “Did you say brown?”
“Yep. Big one.”
“Brown means information, which means God left another message on my machine.”
Serge threw the Challenger in reverse and squealed backward a hundred yards. He stared at the sign, then at Coleman.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“He speaks through you.”
“Cool.” Coleman switched to his flask. “What’s this dream parkway jazz about anyway?”
“The sign reveals all.”
Serge got out and stood fervently before the sun-faded paint. At the top, a rust-streaked logo of an old-style movie camera. Below: Elvis spent July and August of 1961 in this area filming his ninth major motion picture Fo//ow That Dream… The main set was located 5.8 miles ahead at the bridge that crosses Bird Creek.
Serge dashed back to the car. Coleman dove in after it began moving.
They sped west through Crackertown.
The odometer ticked under Serge’s watchful eye. “… Based on the novel Pioneer, Go Home! by Richard Powell…”
Coleman pointed at the running camcorder on the dashboard. “I thought this documentary was about spring break.”
“It is,” said Serge. “In the movie, Elvis plays Toby Kwimper, whose family drives to Florida and homesteads on the side of the highway. Presley was such a force of nature, he created his own spring break. Plus another righteous Florida footnote: One of the film hands from Ocala brought his eleven-year-old nephew to the set, and he was bitten by the Elvis bug, dedicating his life to rock ‘n’ roll. That child? Tom Petty!”
The odometer reached 5.7.
“Is that the bridge?”
“Elvis lives!”
The Challenger skidded to a stop on the tiny span. Serge got out with his camcorder, filming the surrounding marsh. “Coleman, there’s much to do. We must get down on that bank and fashion a bivouac like the Kwimpers’ from available natural materials. Then I’ll buy a guitar and rehearse the theme song while you round up extras from the day-labor office. Nothing in the universe can make me waver until this mission is complete.”
“What about the guy in the trunk?”
“Or we can do that.”
MEANWHILE…
A British Airways jumbo jet cleared the Dolphin Expressway and touched down at Miami International. The control tower had to-the-horizon visibility for minimum landing separation. Minutes later, another transatlantic from Berlin. And Rome. And Madrid. Then the domestics, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Nashville.
The cadence of swooping turbines rattled the inside of a tiny bar on the back of an ill-stocked package store with Honduran cigars and a bulletproof Plexiglas cage for night sales that was so thick it was like looking at the cashier through an aquarium.
Only four customers in the late afternoon. Guillermo and his boys. The bar sat just north of the airport on the side of Okeecho-bee Boulevard. The interior was dark, choked with cigarette smoke from insufficient ventilation, which consisted of an open back door on a windless day. Out the door: roosters and roaming dogs pulling wet clothes from laundry lines. Beyond that, an unassuming drainage canal that began a hundred miles away near Clewiston, cutting south through a million sugarcane acres, then the Everglades, past western quarries and jumping the turnpike for a perfect, man-made straight diagonal shot through Hialeah, eventually assuming natural bends when it became the Miami River before dumping into Biscayne Bay.
The connectivity of that waterway could stand as a spiritual metaphor for the irreversible series of events Guillermo and his colleagues were about to set in motion, but that would just be shitty writing. Before coming to the lounge, they’d fished the bullet from Miguel’s shoulder with tweezers and tequila. Not a bad job of swabbing the wound. Now Miguel wanted more tequila, and Guillermo wanted quiet as the TV over the bar went Live at Five from the so-called Lottery Massacre in West Perrine. When the report finished, Guillermo asked the bartender to change the channel. There it was again. And the next channel. Guillermo exhaled with relief. He’d been worrying that they had jumped the gun and removed ski masks too soon in their rush out the door. Another channel, CNN taking the south Florida fire-fight to the nation. But still no surveillance footage of the assailants, because the low-grade convenience store couldn’t afford real security cameras and went instead with decoy boxes and blinking red lights.
“We lucked out,” said Guillermo.
“Tequila,” said Miguel.
BIRD CREEK
Serge stood in the middle of the bridge with coils of white rope. He threw one end over the west side and the other over the east.
“What are you doing?” asked Coleman.
“Making a guitar.”
Serge walked twenty yards and tied monofilament fishing line to the bridge’s railing. Then he went forty yards the other way and tied another.
“Guitar?” Coleman looked around. “Where?”
“The bridge is the guitar.“ Serge tested a hitch knot.”Elvis deserves only the biggest.”
“But how can a bridge be a guitar?”
“Just a matter of proportion. The tones of an instrument’s strings are determined by their thickness.” Serge pointed. “That braided, inch-thick nylon would be the E string”-he turned-“and the fishing line is-let me think. Treble scale. ‘Every good boy deserves fudge’- probably G.”
Serge ran to the end of the bridge and down the bank.
A horn-honker lay in the mud, gagged, hands behind his back.
Serge grabbed two discarded crab traps and splashed out into the shallow creek. He stacked them beneath the bridge.
Ten minutes later, the hostage stood on top of them.
“That rope gives you balance,” said Serge, clamping a D-ring. “Which is important because you definitely don’t want to fall off those crab traps.”
Coleman stood knee deep with a Pabst. “No noose?”
“Been there, done that.” Serge crouched and stretched fishing line. He looked up at his captive. “Remember: The traps are everything. If you can stay balanced on them long enough, someone’s bound to find you. If not, they’ll still find you, but you won’t like it.”
Coleman crumpled his empty can and pointed. “What are those for?”
Serge knotted lines through crab trap wires. “Refreshment.”
The hostage stared in front of his face at a pair of gerbil dispensers hanging from the underside of the bridge and inserted through his mouth gag.
“Well, time to run.” Serge stood and smiled. “Gotta follow that dream!”
MIAMI
Transcontinental flights continued thundering over a bar next to Okeechobee Boulevard.
Miguel got deeper into the tequila.
TV still on CNN.
The bartender started changing the channel to Marlins spring training.
“Stop!” shouted Guillermo. “Keep it on this.”
The bartender withdrew his arm and went back to his own drink.
Guillermo leaned for a better look at the screen, now into the next segment from the cable channel’s Boston affiliate.
“… I don’t feel like a hero…”
Below the interviewee’s face: HERO P ATRICK M CK ENNA.
“So that’s what he goes by now.”
“Who?” asked Raul.
“You’re too young to remember,” said Guillermo. “Son of a bitch looks exactly the same.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Quiet.” He flipped open his cell and dialed. “… Madre?… It’s me, Guillermo… No, there aren’t any complications from our business meeting… You’re not going to believe this. Sitting down?… Because I just found an old friend.”
HIGHWAY 98
A ’73 Challenger blazed north on the desolate stretch with scarce traffic lights. Otter Creek, Chiefland, Fanning Springs, Perry, through forested hunting country-Woody’s Famous Cajun Boiled Peanuts- and west into the Panhandle.
Coleman burnt his fingertips on the nub of a joint. “Are we there yet?”
“Almost. Just have to make one more stop at a police station.”
“Police station?” The roach went out the window. “Are you nuts?”
“Don’t worry-it’s not open anymore.” Serge crossed his fingers. “If it’s there at all.”
Another reduced-speed zone in Carrabelle. Serge scanned the side of the road. “There it is!” He parked at the curb and handed Coleman his video camera. “Film this.”
“A phone booth?”
“Not just any phone booth. The world’s smallest police station. I’m getting inside-shoot me through the glass… Help! Help! I’m innocent! It was the one-armed man!… That’s enough.”
Through Apalachicola and Port St. Joe, past a roadside display with replaceable numbers:
ONLY 89 D AYS L EFT T ILL H URRICANE S EASON.
A series of bone-rattling roars over the car.
Coleman looked at the ceiling. “What the hell was that?”
“The sign we’re almost there.” Serge pointed through the windshield at a cluster of tiny specks disappearing out over the gulf. “Fighter jets from Tyndall Air Force Base.”
They caught the first whiff of spring break in Mexico Beach. Students in front of a convenience store, cracking open Budweiser twenty-four-packs and draining melted cooler water on the ground.
“Regular unleaded is going back up again? This seriously cramps my lifestyle,“ said Serge.”Remember when gas was four dollars a gallon?”
“No.”
“They made a windfall, then deliberately pulled back before we mustered sufficient motivation to wean ourselves off the black heroin. I predicted at the time they’d ratchet it back up again and here we are. Ever see those oil assholes testify before Congress?”
“Is that where, like, on TV nothing’s moving?”
“I’d love to get my hands on just one of them for some private testimony.”
Finally, they were there. Stuck in traffic. Kids on the sidewalk moving faster than cars. Small planes flew over the beach, pulling banners for drink specials and the Geico cavemen.
Coleman grunted as he struggled to open Gertrude’s prescription bottle again.
“Having problems?”
He passed the vial to Serge. “It’s childproof.”
“Here you go.”
“Thanks.” Coleman popped a tablet in his mouth like a peanut. “Which one’s our hotel?”
“Right up there. The Alligator Arms.”
BIRD CREEK
A dozen police cars parked every which way on a tiny bridge in Levy County.
A corporal looked over the side. “Isn’t this where they shot that Elvis movie?”
The detectives arrived.
“Where’d you find him?” asked the lead investigator.
The corporal pointed. “Top half above the navel washed up in those reeds…” He turned. “Tide took the rest downstream.”
“What’s with those people?”
They looked toward a Buick with Mississippi plates and a damaged grille, where another officer consoled a retired couple on vacation.
“Pretty shaken up,” said the corporal. “Claim the rope just came out of nowhere.”
“Rope?” said the detective.
“Wrapped across the front of their car, and they pulled it to the end of the bridge until it finally snapped and the Buick spun out.”
“Is it connected to the homicide?”
“Our forensic guy’s still working on it.”
“Where is he?”
“Under the bridge.”
The detective examined a frayed piece of fishing line tied to the railing. “What the hell are we dealing with?”
The forensic tech climbed up the bank in rubber boots. “Think I got it solved.”
They waited.
Boots squished across the bridge. “Rope was wrapped around his stomach and held in place with a D-clamp so it wouldn’t slip.”
“You saying rope cut him in half? How’s that strong enough?”
“More than enough,” said the tech. “Human body’s some of the most fragile material on the planet. This was like wrapping a string around a banana and pulling the ends. Banana slices right in two.”
“That’s disgusting,” said the detective.
The corporal looked back at the Buick. “But what’s with those people saying the rope came out of nowhere?”
“That was the trigger,” said the tech.
“Trigger?” asked the detective.
The tech nodded. “This is where it gets… fancy.” He swept an arm behind him. “Whoever’s responsible wired the bridge like a giant guitar.”
The corporal nodded. “Death by Elvis.”
“This isn’t for your amusement,” said the detective.
“Sorry.”
The tech pointed down. “Killer looped the rope in a complete circle over the bridge’s railings and down to the victim, with the extra coils I mentioned around his stomach. But he left enough slack so the part across the top of the bridge just lay unobtrusively on the ground where a driver wouldn’t notice it or give a second thought. That’s how it came out of nowhere.”
“How did it come out of nowhere?”
“This is a pretty remote road,” said the tech. “Dead end. Almost no traffic, but a car passes by every now and again. That’s where the fishing lines come in, tied to the crab traps the victim was forced to stand on under the bridge.”
“That’s weird.”
“Gets weirder. The assailant was thorough, didn’t know which direction the next car would come from, so, twenty yards on each side of the big rope, he stretched clear, hundred-pound-test monofilament lines across the bridge at radiator level, invisible to motorists.”
“Starting to sound like the roadrunner and coyote show.”
“Fitting analogy,” said the tech. “The thick nylon rope would remain flat on the road as long as the victim stayed on top of the traps. Then a car comes along, hits the fishing line he doesn’t see, jerking the traps out from under the deceased, dropping him in the water, pulling the rope tight around his waist, which suddenly jerks the rest of the rope up off the roadway-again, to radiator level-just as the car reaches it and… two halves of a banana.”
“Holy Jesus,” said the detective.
“What are those things in your hand?” asked the corporal.
The tech looked down at gerbil dispensers. “Haven’t figured that part yet.”
The detective stared across the marsh. “What kind of monster is out there?”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
The lobby of the Alligator Arms was jammed and loud. Gal-vanized-steel parade barricades separated lines of students at the check-in.
Coleman dragged luggage and huffed. “What’s with the barricades?”
“A hint,” said Serge.
“About what?”
“If you ever want to be treated like shit by the hospitality industry, check into a spring break hotel. That’s why I booked four nights.”
“We’re staying that long?”
“No, the reservation is for four. But we’re only staying three.”
“Why?”
Serge nodded toward a sign: Checkout 8 A.M.
“Eight?” said Coleman. “I never heard of such a thing.”
“Welcome to Give-Us-Your-Money Town. Population: You suck.”
They eventually reached the desk. “Reservation, Storms, Serge.” He winked at Coleman. “Eight A.M.? Is that sign correct?”
The receptionist relished firing another routine bow shot. “Look, I got two hundred rooms and it’s the only way we can turn them around in time.”
“Really?” said Serge. “I’ve stayed in five-hundred-room Marriotts, and they seem to manage. But you must know better, because the pay at a dump like this can only attract the best and brightest.” A grin.
Glare in return. “Fill out this form. And we need a twenty-dollar deposit for the phone.”
“But you have my credit card.”
“We need cash.”
“Can I get a receipt for the deposit?”
“Don’t have any.”
“What a shock.” Serge scribbled a false address, then tapped the desk with his pen. “I don’t remember my license plate. Sheraton lets me slide with just the make and model. Is it okay?”
“No.”
“That was a test.” Serge leaned over and scribbled. “I know my plate number.”
“Test?”
“Quality check to ensure no leaks in your exquisite business model: Making us feel like family… the Gambino family.” Another grin.
The receptionist’s face turned bright red. “Your keys!” Slapped on the counter.
Serge grabbed them and raised his video camera. “I’m shooting a documentary. May I capture the recreational rudeness that is the high-water mark of your existence?”
“No! Turn that off!”
“More!…” Serge beckoned with his free hand. “Give me more!”
“Turn that thing off right now!”
Serge raised a clenched fist. “Now with feeling!”
“I said turn that goddamn thing off!”
“Excellent!” Serge lowered the camera and gave her another iridescent grin. “You take the ‘service’ out of ‘customer service.’”
They hit their fifth-floor unit.
Coleman dropped bags. “It’s huge.”
“I got the one-bedroom suite. You snore… Here, take this.”
“Another video camera?”
“I picked up a second for you to film the ‘making of’ documentary. Can you handle that responsibility?”
“Which way does it point?”
Unloading routine: Serge with his usual electronic gadgets, souvenirs and weapons. Coleman’s paraphernalia: an endless assortment of clips, glass tubes, circular metal screens and hypodermic needles.
Serge stared at the last items. “Coleman, please tell me you’re not riding the white pony.”
“Heck no. That’s dangerous.” He pulled something else from his bag.
“Oven mitts?”
“Needles and oven mitts are the cornerstones of commercial-grade partying.”
Serge darted one way with a small zippered bag, and Coleman went another for the TV. He pointed the remote and channel-hopped, stopping on a beach backdrop.
“Hey, Serge, look! It’s that cool new show Ocean Cops.” Coleman got an odd sensation. He looked at the television, then off the balcony. “I think they’re filming here… Yeah, they’re definitely filming here. Just said on the screen, ‘Spring Break Special, Panama City Beach.’”
Serge hung a tri-fold toiletry bag in the bathroom. “What’s happening?”
“Some unconscious guy on a raft is drifting out to sea.”
“Sure it’s not you?”
Coleman looked down at the front of himself. “Pretty sure.” He wandered onto the balcony for a joint break. He raced back in. “Serge! Come quick! There’s so much tits and ass you can’t see the sand!”
“It’s spring break.” Serge organized dental-care products and plugged in his rechargeable razor.
“Something’s going on,” said Coleman. “They’re throwing this little guy around.”
“How little?”
“Pretty little.”
“Is he wearing a crash helmet?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s the midget.”
“Midget?”
“High-society tradition that started in Australia.”
“Why do they throw midgets?”
“Sometimes for distance, sometimes style points, like when they’re covered with Velcro and stick to walls.“ Serge joined him on the balcony.”Or greased up for bowling lanes.”
Coleman leaned over the railing. “Looks like they’re just tossing him around the sand.”
“Because the legislature intervened.”
“Legislature? Are you just making up words now to fuck with me?”
“In 1989, we became the first state in the union to ban midget tossing.” Serge uncapped a water bottle. “Bunch of people thought, it’s about time. Finally, Florida’s forward-thinking…”
“Serge, cops are moving in with riot shields.”
“… But those of us who live here know the truth. It wasn’t legal foresight; they were simply forced to extinguish another wildfire weirdness outbreak.”
“What does it have to do with him being out on the beach?”
“Because of that law, he can’t work anymore except on the sly…”
“Ooooooh, the little dude just bounced off a shield.”
“… So he’s forced to strike out on his own in public venues like street musicians.”
“You don’t mean-”
“That’s right.” Serge nodded solemnly. “The Wildcat Midget.”
Down on the shore, a TV correspondent worked quickly with a brush. “How’s my hair?”
Thumbs-up from the cameraman. He gave a silent countdown with his fingers.
“Good afternoon. This is Meg Chambers, reporting live from spring break in Panama City Beach. Homelessness is a difficult life, particularly for dwarfs, who are often driven into the midget-tossing trade for spare change and leftover pizza. As you can see behind me, local police are continuing their crackdown on the controversial sport, which has drawn mixed reactions from the midget-advocate community…” The camera swung left, where a tiny person in a helmet was handcuffed, to loud jeers from students. “It looks like they’ve again arrested local favorite Huggy ‘Crash’ Munchausen… Let’s see if I can get a word…” She stepped forward as police led him by. “Crash, anything to say to our viewers?”
“It’s a victimless crime. Why not legalize and tax it?” Police hustled him into a squad car.
The reporter turned back to the camera. “Victimless crime? You be the judge!… This is Meg Chambers reporting for Eyewitness Close-Up Action News Seven.”
The cameraman signaled they were clear.
She threw the microphone down in the sand. “I got a master’s for this shit?”
The correspondent stormed past Serge and Coleman.
BOSTON
A United 737 from Miami landed in a light dusting of New England snow at Logan International.
Two case agents walked purposefully through the terminal.
“We’re all FBI,” said Ramirez. “Do we not talk to each other anymore?”
“How were they supposed to know who he was?” said his partner.
“What an unbelievable cluster-fuck,” said Ramirez.
A local junior agent met them at baggage claim. He went to shake hands but saw that wasn’t happening. “Awfully sorry. Just want you to know everything’s under control now.”
“Everything was under control.”
Their unmarked sedan sped south to Dorchester and pulled up in front of an older, two-story brick house surrounded by field agents, TV crews and satellite trucks. A sniper stood on the roof behind a chimney.
Ramirez took a deep breath and massaged his forehead. “Is this what goes for ‘under control’ up here?”
Sedan doors opened. An armored van screeched up. G-men sprinted across a brown lawn as TV lights came on. A correspondent broadcast live to lead the six o’clock.
“… Tom, we have yet to learn exactly what’s happening, but something major has developed at the home of hero Patrick McKenna, now swarming with FBI…”
Moments later, the front door flew open. A ring of agents circled a man in a Kevlar vest and rushed him toward the curb.
“… Tom, I think it’s our hero now, but I can’t be sure because of the coat over his head… Let me see if we can get a closer look…”
The feds ran for a dozen government vehicles lining the street, assembling a protective convoy. They shoved Patrick in the van, and a shielding agent jumped on top of him.
“Mr. McKenna, how does it feel to be a hero?…”
The motorcade took off.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Coleman trudged through sand, toting a plastic convenience store bag. “We missed the midget riot.”
“There’ll be others.” Serge’s eyes stayed on the viewfinder as he filmed continuously, the only person on the beach with a cup of coffee.
They reached the advertising. Twenty-foot inflatable suntan lotion bottles and promotional booths for energy drinks. Army recruiters had set up an obstacle course, where drunk students fell from rope ladders. Closer to shore, navigation became tricky with the growing concentration of bodies on blankets.
“Hey, watch it, asshole!”
A Frisbee glanced off Coleman’s head. “Ow.”
“One of nature’s awesome mating spectacles.” Serge stopped and panned. “This shames any salmon run.”
“I hear a loudspeaker.” Coleman turned in a circle. “Where’s it coming from?”
“Over there.” He gazed several hundred yards up the beach at a massive stage with scaffolds and amps. “A free concert from MTV.”
“You mean the channel that doesn’t play music?”
“That’s the one,” said Serge. “MTV has become the pork and beans of television.”
“What do you mean?”
“You buy a can of pork and beans, getting all excited about upcoming pork, and then you open the can and go, ‘What the fuck?’ So you poke around and the only thing you find is a single, nasty-ass slime cube from a liposuction clinic. I wouldn’t even mind that if they’d just be straight and call it what it is on the label.”
“Who would buy ‘nasty-ass slime cube and beans’?”
“Me,” said Serge. “Just to taste truth.”
Coleman peeked back and forth, then furtively popped a can of Schlitz inside his convenience store bag. Another suspicious glance. He raised the bag to his mouth and chugged.
“What are you doing?” asked Serge.
“Not getting arrested.”
“Coleman, look around.”
He did. “Serge, everyone’s drinking openly. How can that be possible?”
“It’s not only possible, it’s encouraged.”
“Don’t tease me.”
“That’s the core history of spring break I was telling you about.” Serge filmed a beer-bong contest. “When I mentioned that communities alternately welcome and reject students, their chief tool is the alcohol-on-the-beach policy: either look the other way or crack down like Tiananmen Square. And right now, Panama City Beach is the most party-friendly town in Florida, maybe the whole United States.”
Coleman stopped and placed a reverent hand over his heart. “I’m never, ever leaving this place.”
“We’ve barely scratched the surface.”
“There’s more?”
“You have no idea.”
Coleman discarded the plastic bag and carried the six-pack by his side. “Wait up.”
Serge approached a group of students tanning beneath a giant Georgia Bulldogs flag.
“Howdy!” Serge drained the foam coffee cup and aimed his camcorder.
Coleman: “Check out the chicks’ butts!… Ooooh, don’t feel good…”
An engineering major stood. “You guys from Girls Gone Haywire?”
“No,” said Serge. “I’m from the Florida Betterment Coalition of One, and my friend”-he gestured at Coleman, on all fours, burying his puke in the sand-“is working on his thesis.”
“What’s his freakin’ problem?”
“A special case I’ve been studying for years,” said Serge. “Coleman’s the only human afraid of vacuum cleaners.”
The student gave him a condescending up-and-down appraisal. “What the hell do you want?”
“Just a few questions for my documentary on the zeitgeist of today’s top scholars. Number one: pork and beans. Your thoughts?”
“Get lost!”
“I’m already lost. In my love of history! Did you know Colgate University started spring break in 1935?”
“Want to move along or be hurt?”
“That’s an easy one. Come on, Coleman… Coleman?”
Serge wandered the beach. “Coleman!… Where are you?…”
He came across a group of Yale premeds standing in a circle, looking down. Conversation in the back row:
“Amazing…”
“Some kind of genius…”
“Probably has a chair at MIT…”
Serge tapped a shoulder. “What’s going on?”
“This guy’s teaching us thermodynamics of maintaining proper beer temperature.”
Serge cupped his hands around his mouth. “Coleman!”
“Is that you, Serge?”
“Excuse me,” said Serge. “Mind if I slip through?”
He reached the inner circle. Coleman was on his hands and knees again, sand flying out between his legs as he rapidly dug a hole like a Labrador retriever. “… It’s best to start below the mean high-tide mark, then excavate until you reach the water table…”
“But what about our coolers?”
“Sun’s too hot out here,” said Coleman. “Wet sand is a better insulator. Someone hand me a sixer…”
A student complied. Coleman crammed it in the hole. “If you plan on power-partying into the late afternoon, insulation technique is absolutely critical.”
“Thanks, mister. Any other advice?”
Coleman scratched his crotch in thought. “Well, you got any events back up north where they allow coolers but not alcohol?”
“Yeah,” said a sophomore. “We try to hide the booze in plastic soft drink bottles, except they always catch us.”
“That never works.” Coleman stood. “What you want to do is get a clear liquor-vodka, gin-pour it into a strong Ziplock bag, then freeze the sack inside a block of ice.”
Serge filmed as Coleman was rewarded with a hearty round of back slaps and all the beer he could carry.
“I’m never leaving this town.”
DINNERTIME
A triangle bell rang.
Men came inside the stucco house south of Palmetto Bay.
A full-course meal awaited on the cedar table. Place settings precise as usual, except this time each also had a one-way plane ticket to Boston under the fork.
After saying grace and passing bowls, Juanita poured sangria for Guillermo. “You’re a good boy.”
“Thank you, Madre.”
“So Randall Sheets now calls himself Patrick McKenna?”
Guillermo mixed beans and rice on his plate. “Yes, Madre.”
Juanita smiled. “It only took fifteen years.” She reached into her apron and handed him a single-page computer printout. “From our private investigator. Those are the addresses of his home and business, plus vehicle information.”
They ate faster than normal because of flight departure.
At the front door, Guillermo gave Juanita a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll call as soon as we know something.”
She waved as the car pulled out of the driveway. “Be safe.”
NEW ENGLAND
A highway sign with a pilgrim’s hat went by. The Mass Pike.
The government convoy remained in tight formation.
“Get off me!” yelled Patrick McKenna.
“It’s okay,” said the case supervisor. “You can release him now.”
The shielding agent got up.
Patrick pushed himself off the van’s floor and pulled the coat from his head. “Was that really necessary?”
“Was it necessary for you to go on TV in front of the whole world?” asked a Boston agent.
“Why are you talking to him?” said Ramirez. “It’s not his job to know your job.”
“You Miami hotshots fucked this whole thing up.”
“Mother-”
Everyone blew. A loud, overlapping, profanity-laced exchange.
“Hey,” said Patrick. “Guys.”
Nonstop yelling.
Then, uncharacteristically: “Everyone! Shut up!”
They all stopped and looked at their star witness. “Sorry,” said Patrick. “But what about my son?”
“You have a son?” asked a Boston accent.
Ramirez shook his head. “Typical you didn’t know.” The Florida agent placed a reassuring hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “We’re taking care of him.” Then, with an edge of sarcasm, “Someone had to.”
“This isn’t going anywhere,” said the ranking Boston agent. “Let’s start over from right now. Status on the son?”
“My people should have arrived at the college the same time we got to Dorchester,” said Ramirez. He opened an encrypted cell phone. “I’ll check in-probably already have the son and are on their way back to meet us now…”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Serge tilted the viewfinder as he walked. Hair-care products went by on both sides. He turned the corner and headed up the toothpaste aisle.
“Serge,” said Coleman, “what are we doing here?”
“My eye-opening documentary must be the final word on spring break.” He zoomed in on an endcap display of paper towels. “The footage is more compelling than I’d hoped.”
“Wal-Mart is part of spring break?”
“Not until 2006.” Serge entered the pet section, filming bird seed. “That’s when Drake University sophomore Skyler Bartell decided to spend his entire spring break in a twenty-four-hour Iowa Wal-Mart.”
“That’s odd.”
“No odder than what we’ve already seen here.” He panned across litter boxes for all income levels. “From March nineteen to twenty-one, Skyler spent forty-one straight hours in the store before detection. I mean to break that record. Wild horses can’t drag me out of here before I succeed and am written up in medical journals.”
“Where did he sleep?”
“On toilets.”
Coleman wandered through electronics. “I don’t want to sleep on toilets.”
“You do it all the time.” Serge checked his wristwatch, then shook it and held it to his ear.
“What’s the matter?” asked Coleman.
“Thought my watch had stopped. Could have sworn we’d been here more than three minutes.”
“Seems like hours.”
“I’ve just made an important discovery of the galactic bent-space continuum. Time slows down in Wal-Marts.”
Coleman followed his buddy back toward the front of the store. “Serge, where are you going?”
“Leaving.”
“Thought you were staying for at least forty-one hours.”
“I may have already.” They approached automatic doors. “Back through the wormhole to check regular clocks.”
FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES NORTH
The southern border of New Hampshire is guarded by a string of sales-tax-free state liquor stores, militarily positioned like pillboxes. Their parking lots are full of Massachusetts plates, half customers, half Massachusetts alcohol agents who follow residents back over the commonwealth line for citations. Except they can’t, because New Hampshire agents block them in until customers make a clean getaway. Such is the delicate fabric of the republic, no more evident than in a state with the motto “Live Free or Die” stamped on its license plates, which comedians note are manufactured in prison.
New Hampshire’s trademark is the Old Man of the Mountain, an uncanny, eons-old geological rock formation high up the side of Franconia Notch. Its profile is ubiquitous: postage stamps, the state quarter, a thousand highway signs, flags, welcome centers, the capitol rotunda, history books, maps, pot holders, paperweights, snow globes and every tourist brochure ever printed. Residents proudly identify with the Old Man in a fierce emotional bond, much like Parisians and the Eiffel Tower or Texans and the Alamo. On May 3, 2003, the face slid off the mountain and disintegrated.
Somewhere between the liquor stores and the collapsed head is Durham, home of the University of New Hampshire, where a team of FBI agents raced down dormitory steps.
It began to snow.
A phone rang.
An agent flipped it open on the run. “Oswalt here… No, still at the college… Not yet… Of course we checked the dorm… It’s spring break. Everyone’s either gone home or to Florida… I realize that… I know that… We did try his cell phone… Three times, no answer… You sure he wasn’t going back to Dorchester for the week?… I didn’t mean it that way… We’re headed to the student paper where he works… Right, I’ll call as soon as we learn something.”
The phone went back in a jacket.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Heavy foot traffic on the strip.
Everyone over thirty was ignored or insulted. There were always exceptions.
Young women’s heads universally turned as a suave Latin hulk strolled down the sidewalk. Tanned six-pack abs; long, sexy dark hair. Easily a movie double for Antonio Banderas.
Two blondes wore long, wet Indiana State T-shirts over bikinis, giggling at suggestive boys in passing pickups. Then they saw him.
“Rrrrrrrrrrrow!”-double-taking as he went by.
“But he’s old enough to be your father.”
“So fucking what?”
“Good point.”
Two pairs of bare feet made a U-turn on the sidewalk.
Johnny Vegas continued along the strip to more female rubbernecking. He’d just had his fortieth birthday, and he wasn’t playing around anymore.
The reaction of the opposite sex had been the same Johnny’s entire life. His trust fund didn’t hurt either. Almost as much attention from the same gender: “That son of a bitch must have more tail falling off his truck than we’ll ever see. It’s not fair.”
It wasn’t.
Despite appearances to the contrary, Johnny Vegas held a deep secret that would have shocked the populace. He’d never been able to close the deal. Not once.
Oh, sure, with the least flirtatious glance from those smoldering dark eyes, he could form a rock-concert line of willing partners. But it was always something. Always Florida. Some kind of typical Sunshine State strangeness invariably erupted at the worst possible moment. Hurricanes, brushfires, wayward alligators, overboard passengers, meth freaks, bodies under hotel beds, Cuban exile unrest. The odds were off the charts. Then again, there are a lot of guys in the world, and someone’s chips had to be resting on the unluckiest roulette square.
That would be Johnny Vegas, the Accidental Virgin.
His body clock ticked deafeningly between his ears. How long could he count on his drop-dead looks? Time to go fishing with dynamite.
Johnny had seen the Girls Gone Haywire spring break videos. What the hell was wrong with the world? Here he was, the ultimate bachelor. Then he pops in a DVD, and all these hometown-values girls are stripping for dorks with video cameras. What a colossal corruption of youth and moral decay. Johnny had to get there as fast as possible.
It wasn’t five minutes since he’d parked his Ferrari when the wolf whistles began.
“Hey, handsome.”
Johnny turned around on the sidewalk. Indiana State blondes. Good Lord, two, and he’d just gotten into town. No need for some dishonest ruse; Johnny would take the high road.
“I work for Girls Gone Haywire.”
“Let’s party.”
The roommates made the choice for him. “I think I’ll get some more sun on the beach. Behave yourself, Carrie.” Wink.
She took him by the arm.
“My name’s Johnny,” he said as they continued up the sidewalk.
“Johnny, where’s your hotel?”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Serge and Coleman wove up the sidewalk against the college tide. Standard mix of rolling luggage and coolers. Serge held his running camcorder at chest level. People handed out coupons for nightclub drink specials; the Coors girls waved; an airplane dragged a banner for faster Internet service; church youth flapped posters at traffic, offering free pancakes and a road map to salvation.
The pair stepped into a beachwear shack to adopt the proper spirit and came out in new T-shirts reflecting their respective outlooks.
COLEMAN’S: ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS SHOULD BE A CONVENIENCE STORE, NOT A GOVERNMENT AGENCY.
Serge’s: THERE ARE IO TYPES OF PEOPLE IN THE WORLD: THOSE WHO UNDERSTAND BINARY, AND THOSE WHO DON’T.
The documentary continued.
Coleman drew a steady stream of insults. Frat boys noticed something on Serge’s ear, snickered and made sideways wisecracks to their buddies. Until Serge returned the look. They noticed something unfamiliar in his eyes and wanted to keep it that way.
“Serge,” said Coleman, “what’s that funny thing on your ear?”
“A Bluetooth.”
“I never figured you for the Bluetooth type.”
“That’s why it’s not a real Bluetooth. I hate Bluetooth types, walking around all self-important like they have to be plugged in every second of the day. Can’t tell you how many times I’m in a public place having a pleasant conversation like a normal human being, and one of these fuck-heads walks right between us talking at the top of his lungs.”
“If it’s not a real Bluetooth, then what is it?”
“A piece of plastic garbage I found on the street that I rigged with paper clips. Got the idea from the smash-hit HBO series Flight of the Conchords. Except that guy had a real Bluetooth, just no receiver. I decided to take it the rest of the way and go completely anti-Bluetooth.”
“Don’t those paper clips hurt?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“Why wear it?”
“Because, like Bluetooth people, I’m also constantly walking around talking to myself, but just because I don’t have that stupid crap on my ear, people give me a wide berth and jump to the mistaken conclusion that I’m simply another jabbering street loon. Yet ever since I attached this thing to my head, completely new attitude, no matter what I’m saying: ‘I’ll destroy that motherfucker for ten generations!’”
“People dig that?”
“No, they still recoil-but in admiration. Now they think I’m a killer in the boardroom.” He nodded and smiled to himself. “Yes, sir, total respect.”
Beach babes passed the other way, pointing and laughing.
Coleman tugged Serge’s shirt as they reached a makeshift liquor stand. “Hold up-”
“No! Told you we can’t stop. The documentary is practically filming itself.” He stepped in front of a sloshed brunette from Rutgers. “Excuse me, miss…”-raising the viewfinder to his right eye- “… mind if I ask you a few questions?”
She began pulling up her shirt.
“No, not your tits.” Serge reached and yanked it back down. “I want your soul.”
“Fuck off, weirdo.”
“Is that like your generation’s catchphrase?” asked Serge. “Because I’ve been getting it a lot lately.”
She brushed past him. “Blow me.”
“That’s a close second.” Serge turned off the camera.
Another tug on his shirt.
“Coleman, we don’t have time to stop for liquor.”
“Not booze. Look!”
Serge followed his pal’s gaze up toward the sky. Two massive steel towers rose like a giant V. Between them, even higher, distant screams from a tiny flying ball. The sphere had open-air seating for two students, who were held in place by a triple-reinforced roller-coaster harness. A pair of super bungee cords ran from the tops of the towers to the sides of the ball.
Moments earlier, the ball had been sitting at street level. Underneath, a large metal latch held it to the base platform. The ride’s operator worked controls that turned gears on the tips of the towers, stretching the elastic cords to the max. Then he hit the button, releasing the latch and firing the catapult.
The kids went vertical, zero to 120 miles per hour in under three seconds. They pulled six Gs before the ball reached its apex high above the city and the cords stretched the other way, jerking them back down. The bungees stretched almost to the ground, launching them again, this time slightly less high. Then down again. Up again, tumbling randomly, students shrieking all the way. Down, up, down, each time dissipating energy, now slowly arcing over at the peaks.
In less than two minutes, it was over. The ball sagged motionless thirty feet from the ground, and the operator reversed his controls. The towers let out line, lowering the kids the rest of the way. They climbed from the ball, dizzy and sick. “That ruled!”
The students left through a safety gate and past a sign-THE R OCKET L AUNCH-where Serge waited impatiently, waving cash. “Ooooooh! Me, me, me! I’m next!”
The operator led Serge and Coleman onto the platform and pointed at a pair of plastic bowls. “Empty your pockets and take off anything loose. Sunglasses, hats, that thing on your ear.”
Serge’s wallet, cell phone and keys went in one bowl. Coleman filled the other with a bottle cap, M &Ms and twigs.
The operator looked at Serge’s left hand. “You can’t take the camcorder.”
“It’s all right,” said Serge. “I’m filming the most shocking documentary ever made.”
“No, I mean there’s no way you’ll be able to hang on to it. You’re going to snap pretty hard the first way up.”
“But I’m recapturing state pride.”
The operator pointed at the restraint bar. “We got a tiny camera mounted toward the seats. You can buy a souvenir DVD afterward if you want.”
“What a deal!”
The pair climbed into the ball, and the operator strapped them in. Then he left the platform, positioning himself behind the control panel. Gears stretched cords again.
Serge grabbed handles on the front of the massive, padded harness pressed against his chest. “Coleman, what an excellent idea! I’ve seen these all over Florida-here, Kissimmee, Daytona Beach-but I was always in too much of a rush.”
“Knew you couldn’t resist.” Coleman wiggled against the restraint to reach a hip pocket. “Always talking about going into space.”
“This is like the Gemini missions. They were the best! Capsules held two astronauts, just like us.” Serge bobbed enthusiastically in his seat and stared at the heavens. “Also, Gemini was the fastest manned flights off the pad, using converted Titan intercontinental ballistic missiles. Until the ride’s over, call me Wally Schirra.” He turned his head sideways toward the unseen operator. “Can you give us a countdown?”
“You want a countdown?”
“And call me Wally.”
“Wally?”
“Thanks. Means the world.”
“Whatever…”
Elastic cords finished stretching.
“Ten… nine…”
Coleman finally achieved success with his hip pocket.
“Coleman!” said Serge. “You were supposed to put everything in the plastic bowl!”
“… six… five…”
“There’s no way he was getting my flask. Plus I wanted a swig for the ride.” He unscrewed the top.
Serge faced forward and gripped the handles harder. “Houston, we have a problem.”
“… two… one… liftoff!”
The latch released.
The pair went screaming into the sky.
In mere seconds they reached the top, hundreds of feet above the strip. Then a hard yank from the cords.
“My flask!” Coleman watched it quickly sail high into the blue yonder until it disappeared.
The guys bounced up and down for another ninety seconds, until the operator reeled them in.
The harnesses unlocked. Serge jumped from the ball and snatched his wallet from a plastic bowl. “I absolutely must have the DVD.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Agents rushed into the office of the student paper. A morgue. One lone kid in sweats, staying behind to wrap up a three-part series on the education budget.
A badge. “Seen Andy McKenna?”
The student shrugged.
“Know where he might be?”
“Try the dorm?”
Agents ran into the cafeteria. Only two students, both female. Then rounds of all the popular study areas and TV lounges, giving themselves a full self-guided tour of the evacuated campus.
“Let’s check the dorm again.”
They met the agent they’d left behind in the room in case the sophomore returned.
“I take it he hasn’t come back.”
“You mean you didn’t find him?”
“Great.”
“Sir…” The agent gestured at the trashed interior. Papers, CDs, candy wrappers everywhere. Underwear and pizza boxes on the floor. “Looks like someone ransacked.”
“It’s a college student’s room,” said Oswalt. “They all look like this. Mine was worse.”
“I got a weird feeling something’s not kosher.”
“How’s that?”
“Can’t quite put my finger on it. The room just seems light, like stuff’s missing.”
“Anything more specific?”
“Not really.”
Another agent: “Maybe ring his cell again?”
Oswalt flipped open his phone, hit buttons and placed it to his ear. A faint, muffled musical tone came from somewhere in the room.
The agents listened and walked silently, trying to home in on the source. Four of them ended up in a circle, staring at the floor. One reached down and lifted a pizza box. The tone got louder.
“At least we found his phone.”
“I’m not laughing,” said Oswalt. “Let’s go…”
They stepped into the hall. A solitary student walked by with a watering can and containers of fish and bird food.
“Excuse me.” The badge again. “What’s your name?”
“Jason Lavine.”
“You know Andy McKenna?”
He nodded.
“Know where he is?”
He shook his head.
“Any chance he left campus?”
“No… Definitely not.”
“How are you so positive?”
The student pointed into the room with a canister of pellets. “He’s got an aquarium.”
“So?”
“I make a fortune staying behind during spring break, feeding pets. And watering plants-but those are just the girls’ rooms.”
“How does that mean he couldn’t have left?”
The student looked through the open door at guppies. “He didn’t pay me.”
Oswalt sighed.
“Can I go now?”
The agent answered with an offhand wave.
The team trotted down the dorm’s front steps again.
Snowing harder.
Oswalt put his hands in his pockets and stared across the barren commons. “Where can he be?”
MEANWHILE…
Johnny Vegas accelerated his pace up the sidewalk toward his hotel.
“In some kind of a rush?” joked Carrie, clutching his arm harder. A couple of times she reached back and squeezed his ass. He attributed it to the fact she was already halfway in the bag. His kind of girl.
They reached the edge of a parking lot. “Here we are!”
Carrie got on her tiptoes and whispered something in his ear.
Johnny coughed and pounded his chest. “Holy God!” he thought. “She wants to do that” He closed his eyes and mentally pumped a fist in the air: “Yes! I’ve finally done it! Nothing can go wrong now!”
He opened his eyes and began leading her toward the lobby doors.
Suddenly, Johnny felt his arm released. He looked left.
No Carrie.
He looked down. There she was. Lying unconscious on the pavement with a nasty forehead gash. Next to a dented flask.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Rood Lear reached a net worth of twenty million by his thirtieth birthday. Which was two years ago. Total now closer to forty. Mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Park Avenue penthouse, private jet on call.
Despite the staggering wealth, Rood still went to work every day.
Rood’s company, Bottom Shelf Productions, had booked the top floor of one of the strip’s finest hotels under his lawyer’s name.
Noon.
The floor’s largest suite was brightly lit, even with curtains closed. Wires and cables ran everywhere, held firmly to the carpet with black electrical tape. Large white umbrellas in the corners filled facial shadows from camera lights.
Rood looked at least seven years younger, because he was so short and had to shave only every three days. He surveyed the suite’s bedroom and bit his lower lip. Something wasn’t up to Rood’s high standards. He found the answer. “Give ’em liquor.”
“I think they’ve already had more than enough,” said his executive assistant.
“I say they haven’t.”
“Sir”-the assistant held a pair of well-worn laminated cards- “I don’t think these drivers’ licenses are legit. See the edges? Someone slit them with razor blades and resealed ’em on an ironing board.”
“You work for CSI now?”
“I’ve seen this trick a hundred times. And we just paid a million in fines.”
“They gave us the IDs, and we accepted them in good faith,” said Rood. “If they’re fake, we’re the victims.”
The assistant turned toward the bed, where a pair of topless, tipsy seventeen-year-olds swatted each other with pillows.
“Harold!” said Rood. “Are you going to give them more liquor or look for another job?”
The assistant walked out the door and slammed it behind him.
“Stop filming!” Rood stomped across the room. “Guess I have to do everything!”
He went to work at the wet bar, ice clanging in a sterling cocktail shaker. Then he approached the bed with two tumblers of his personal recipe: Hawaiian Punch, 7 Up and grain alcohol. “You girls look thirsty.”
Giggles. A feather floated by.
“Bottoms up!”
The first took a big sip. “What’s in this? I don’t taste anything.”
“Exactly.” Rood walked back behind the cameras. “Jeremy, start filming.” Then louder: “Pillow fight!”
Swatting began again.
One of the girls’ knees slipped, and she spilled off the bed.
“You all right?”
The teen stifled more giggling and nodded extra hard.
“Okay, back on the mattress.”
The girl started getting up but fell down again, pulling a sheet with her.
“Jeremy,” said Rood. “Give her a hand.”
The cameraman helped her the rest of the way.
He returned. “I think they’re ready.”
“I think you’re right. Roll camera.” Rood raised his voice toward the bed: “Make out with each other. And I want to see lots of tongue on nipples!”
“Forget it!”
“That’s gross!”
Rood went over to the wet bar.
BOSTON
A buzzer sounded. A belt jerked to life in baggage claim.
Anxious travelers ringed the carousel and bunched near the front where luggage came out, trying to see through the hanging rubber strips as if it would accelerate the process.
People snagged suitcases and tote bags. Some placed them back on the belt when the name tag was wrong. Others were easily identified from a rainbow of ribbons their owners had tied to the handles.
Guillermo saw an orange ribbon and snatched a Samsonite. His colleagues grabbed their own luggage, which came by at random intervals.
Finally, they had retrieved everything. And they stayed there.
A taxi stopped outside at the curb. A man with red hair and freckles emerged. One of the few people bringing baggage into baggage claim. He took a spot on the opposite side of the carousel from the Florida visitors. Two grandparents rolled bags away; he stepped forward and set a black suitcase at his feet. Guillermo knew the man was there, but neither looked. After sufficient time to allay suspicion, the man studied the name tag on the black suitcase and pretended it wasn’t his. He placed it on the belt.
Guillermo watched it make the turn and nonchalantly grabbed a handle on the way by. They headed for the rental counter.
Thirty minutes later, a Hertz Town Car cruised south on I-93. Raul rode shotgun, opening the black suitcase in his lap. He reached into the protective foam lining and passed out automatic weapons. “What was the deal back there with the Irish guy?”
“Raul,” Guillermo said patiently, “what is it about not checking machine guns through in your luggage that you don’t understand?”
They took the Dorchester exit at sunset and reached a bedroom neighborhood in the dark. Large oaks and maples. TV sets flickering through curtains. The Town Car slowed as it approached the appointed address. Guillermo parked a house short on the opposite side of the street.
Miguel leaned forward from the backseat. “Is that the place?”
Guillermo checked his notes, looked up and nodded. Everything appeared normal. That is, except for the fiercely bright spotlight in the middle of the front yard.
The gang watched as a last, straggling TV correspondent wrapped up a taped spot for the eleven o’clock report. The yard went dark. Guillermo opened his door.
“Excuse me? Ma’am?”
The woman turned.
Guillermo jogged toward the station’s truck as a cameraman removed his battery belt. “Do you have a second?”
“What is it?”
“Is that the home of hero Patrick McKenna?”
“You know him?”
“Went to school together. Amazing what he did!”
“You went to school with him?” She looked over her shoulder. “Gus, get the camera. We might have something.”
“No!” Guillermo’s palms went out. “I mean, no, my wife will kill me. I was supposed to go to this boring dinner party but told her I was working late.”
She sagged. “Forget it, Gus.”
Guillermo looked toward the house. With the camera off, it became obvious there wasn’t a light on in the place, not even the porch. He turned back toward the woman. “Anyone home?”
She shook her head and opened the van’s passenger door.
“Expect him back?” asked Guillermo.
“Not any time soon.” She climbed inside.
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he moved out.”
“Moved? When?”
“This morning. It was crazy.”
“How was it crazy?”
“If you can tell me anything at all about him, I won’t use your name,” said the reporter.
“I’ll try,” said Guillermo. “But what happened this morning?”
“All the stations were set up on the lawn, waiting for him to show, and suddenly these cars came flying up, and a bunch of government guys rushed him out with a coat over his head. You wouldn’t have any idea what that was about, would you?”
Guillermo shrugged. “Last time I saw him, we were in the chess club… These guys say they were government?”
“No, but you could just tell. All business, not even a ‘no comment.’ Then, fifteen minutes later, two giant moving vans pulled up, except they didn’t have any markings on the side. And they had like twenty guys. Cleaned the place out in less than an hour.”
“Thanks.”
The TV van pulled away.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
A camcorder scanned the west end of the strip. Nightclubs, hotels, swimsuit shops, condos. The lens passed something and backed up. It stopped on a neon sign.
The camera fell to Serge’s side and dangled by its shoulder strap. “I don’t believe it.” He broke into a trot, then a run.
A half mile later, Serge grabbed a hitching post and panted beneath colorful curved glass tubing: HAMMERHEAD R ANCH B AR & G RILLE.
He went inside.
Everything was dark wood with heavy layers of varnish to preempt wear and tear from the beach crowd. Sunlight streamed through open veranda doors. Strands of beer pennants hung from rafters. Walls and ceiling covered with old license plates, old photos, old fishing equipment-all bought from a restaurant supply company to give new businesses artificial age. The T-shirt shop took up a quarter of the floor space.
The joint was empty, too early yet for the student shift. Chairs still on tables from mop duty. Singular movement behind the bar: A Latin man in a polo shirt inventoried liquor stock with a clipboard. He jotted a number.
“Tommy?” Serge yelled across the dining room. “Tommy Diaz? Is that really you?”
The man looked up from his paperwork. “Who wants to know?”
“Tommy, it’s me, Serge!”
“Serge?” Tommy set the clipboard against the cash register. “You’re still alive?”
“Rumor has it.”
“What the hell are you doing up here?”
“Just about to ask you the same thing.”
“We’ve gone legit,” said Tommy.
“No way!”
“Way,” said Tommy. “You wouldn’t believe how packed this place gets. We’re making it hand over fist. And I thought there was a lot of money in cocaine.”
“What about the old motel-” Serge caught himself. “Don’t tell me you sold out. That’s our heritage!”
“No, it’s still there, dumpy as ever.”
“Whew!”
Early birds in Iowa State Hawkeye jerseys arrived and grabbed stools. Tommy checked his watch. “Where are those bartenders?”
Serge grabbed his own stool and looked up at a stuffed hammerhead shark painted psychedelic Day-Glo and wearing sunglasses. “Tommy…” He winced at the shark and waved an arm around the interior. “It’s so… yuck.”
Tommy checked student IDs and stuck frosty mugs under draft spigots. “Got to stay up with the times. Our motel in Tampa Bay has become something of a landmark, everyone pulling over to take snapshots of that row of sharks, but it ain’t makin’ shit. So we decided to franchise the name recognition.”
Serge frowned. “Feels like I’m in Cheers.”
“If you’re between gigs, we could always use a bouncer…” He looked back at the swinging “staff only” doors to the kitchen that weren’t swinging. “… and bartenders who show up on time!”
“Personnel problems?” asked Serge.
Tommy poured off foam before setting the students’ mugs on cardboard coasters. He strolled over and leaned against the other side of the bar from Serge. “That’s the only rub. You hire the hottest babes available, dress them accordingly and cash just avalanches. But then you have to put up with their lifestyle.”
Swinging doors creaked.
One of the Hawkeyes looked up from his beer. “Holy God!” Tommy turned and tapped his wrist. “Late again. We got customers.”
“Bite me.”
Students’ jaws unhinged. Before them, visions from Victoria’s Secret. Both statuesque six-footers in stretch-to-fit black tank tops and matching skimpy silk shorts. Perfect bookends: one a classic blond farm girl from Alabama, the other a gorgeous Brooklyn import who gave Halle Berry a run.
“Serge,” said Tommy. “What are you drinking? On the house.”
“Bottled water.”
“Haven’t changed.” Tommy faced the just-arrived employees. “Call me crazy, but can I ask you to work? Man wants a water.”
The blonde sneered, then placed a coaster in front of Serge and twisted off the plastic cap. Something made her pause. She stared into his ice-blue eyes. Serge stared back.
Mutual traces of faint recognition, but they couldn’t quite piece it together because of geographical displacement.
Then, suddenly, the woman’s arm sprang out and stuck a finger in Serge’s face. “You!”
Serge’s brain caught up. “Hey, long time! How’s it been going?”
“Motherfucker!” She turned to her colleague. “Guess who just slimed into our bar?”
“Who?”
“Serge!”
“Motherfucker!” A hand flew into a purse and whipped out a.25-caliber automatic.
DORCHESTER
Guillermo sat in a Town Car across from an empty house, staring at his cell. “This is one phone call I’m not looking forward to.” He took a full breath and hit a number on speed dial. “Hello, Madre? It’s me. I’m afraid we’re too late. Looks like the feds pulled him back in this morning.”
“You did your best,” said a maternal voice on the other end.
“But we didn’t succeed.”
“Maybe I have some good news.”
“What is it?”
“Randall had a son.”
“That’s right,” said Guillermo. “What was he? Four, five at the time?”
“That would make him about twenty now.”
“But how’s that good news?”
“Billy Sheets is now Andrew McKenna. Got something to write with?”
Guillermo to the rest of the car: “Give me a pen.” One appeared. “Ready.”
“University of New Hampshire…”
He scribbled the rest of the data, including dorm and room number. “But how’d you get all this?”
“Our investigator. He’s good,” said Juanita. “Once we had Randall’s new name, it was a simple public records search. And a few diplomatic phone calls for nonpublic records.”
“People just give our private eye confidential info over the phone?”
“He lies to them.”
Guillermo paused to choose words. “Madre, I don’t want to disappoint you again. If the feds already scooped up Sheets, I’m sure they also went to the school.”
“You may be right,” said Juanita. “But who knows with college students? They don’t keep routines like other people. We might get lucky.”
Guillermo opened a map in his lap and hit the dome light. “Madre, we’re leaving now-shouldn’t take more than ninety minutes.”
“You’re a good boy, Guillermo.”
He was still on the phone as the Lincoln went in gear and proceeded slowly down the tree-lined street. “If we do find him, you want us to, uh”-he considered the unsecure line-“invite him for an interview?”
“No, our government friends would never agree to an exchange.”
“Then what?”
She didn’t answer, which was the answer itself.
“I’ll personally handle it,” said Guillermo. “And, Madre, I’ve always learned from you, so may I ask a question?”
“Please.”
“If it’s the father we’re after, what purpose would that serve?”
“The best purpose of all.”
“Which is?”
“Revenge.”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Tommy Diaz jumped into action. He grabbed his bartender’s wrist and pushed it down, sending a bullet through the wooden floor. “Not in my bar!”
She gritted her teeth. “Get your fucking hands off me.”
“Agree first,” said Tommy. “Not in the bar.”
“You’re hurting me!”
“Give me the gun and I’ll let go.”
Still gritting, then a slight nod. Tommy released her.
She joined her friend, staring daggers across the counter.
Tommy wandered over. “Serge, looks like you’re winning another popularity contest. Some history here?”
The blonde pointed again. “That shit-eating bastard left us stranded on the side of the road!”
“What?… I… Huh?…” Serge tapped his own chest. “Me?…”
“It was the middle of the damn state,” said the other. “Hot as fuck!”
The Hawkeyes leaned as a group, digging the babes’ dirty talk.
“Huge misunderstanding,” said Serge. “I thought you were tired of being around me.”
“Bullshit! You peeled out of the parking lot…”
“… And you looked back as we chased your car down the street. I was combing dust out of my hair for hours!”
“Ouch,” said Tommy.
“That was years ago,“ said Serge.”Life’s too short. You should focus on all the laughs we had.”
“I can’t believe I actually sucked your dick,” said the blonde. Hawkeyes adjusted their bulging pants. Serge squinted at a blue butterfly. “See you got a tattoo.”
“Don’t try and change the subject!”
Then a crash next to Serge as a stool went over. Coleman pulled himself up from the floor. “Yo, Serge. Sorry I’m late…”
“Who’s that boob?” asked the blonde.
Serge put an arm around his buddy’s shoulders. “Coleman, this is a special day! I’d like you to meet a couple of dear old friends, City and Country.”
“What happened to Lenny?” asked Country.
“Still living with his mother. Probably grounded again… Coleman’s the original: Lenny, beta version, initial glitches intact.”
“We’re still going to kill you,” said City, glancing at her boss. “Just not in the bar.”
Tommy saw this could go one of two ways, and he couldn’t afford to lose his best meal tickets. Plus he’d grown fond of Serge. “Let’s make peace.”
He gave them the afternoon off, placed a few calls and tended bar himself until reinforcements arrived.
The foursome grabbed a corner booth, and Tommy set them up with sweating metal ice buckets of Rolling Rock.
Electric tension around the table. The women steamed with crossed arms, cats ready to claw eyes out. Then alcohol began oiling conversation. Two hours in, empty green bottles scattered everywhere. The women switched to Jack Daniel’s.
Coleman awoke and lifted his face off the table. Serge brought him up to speed, making an extremely long story USA Today-short.
City and Country. From the blue-collar side of the usual town-gown friction at any university. Both ingenues back then, which was a decade, sweet as pie before the highway life as fugitives. Bogus murder case. Never should have gone into that student bar. Trash talk about them being trash. The ringleader was a sorority president from a prominent donor family. Then, in the restroom, the coked-out sister fell on the knife she’d been using to cut rails in one of the stalls. Country tried first aid but lost the patient and her future. Only one thing to do when you’re outside the local power structure, uneducated and panicking with blood on your hands and fingerprints on the knife:
Florida road trip!
Before entering that fateful saloon, they barely drank, didn’t smoke, definitely didn’t do drugs and had no legal scrapes of any sort. Since then, shit. Anything went. Anything. A ten-year mountain of petty and not-so-petty crimes. Never caught. Whatever it took to get by. Prison didn’t turn them out any tougher.
With almost anyone else, the lifestyle ushered a downward spiral. In rare cases like City and Country, it sharpened survival skills to a fine, glinting edge and, all things considered, allowed them a half-decent existence in the gray margin of society.
“Some story,” said Coleman.
“Sucks,” said Country, expertly rolling a joint on the table. “Jesus!” Serge glanced around. “Trying to get us pinched?”
“Fuck it.”
“Cool,” said Coleman.
Country lit the number and passed it under the table to City.
She passed it back. “On three…”
They did shots.
The Hawkeyes were turned around on their stools with backs against the bar.
In love.
So was Country; her altered blood chemistry drooped eyelids and formed a coy smile at memories of old times with Serge. She got up, whiskey hips swaying, and, without intention, couldn’t have caused more drooling on her way to the jukebox.
Her right hand braced against the domed glass; her left pressed buttons, mechanically flipping miniature album covers. Flipping stopped.
B-19.
The bar echoed with the slow, immediately recognizable forty-year-old cadence of a cowbell. Charlie Watts joined on drums. A single guitar chord.
Country sauntered to the middle of the floor, giving Serge a bedroom smile and making a naughty “come hither” motion with an index finger.
Serge could dance, but it wasn’t a smooth prospect. He had only one speed: open throttle. Duck-walking, backflips, jumping jacks, sliding across the floor for imaginary home plates. Country told him to just stand still.
“… I met a gin-soaked barroom queen…”
She did all the work. Her back to him, slithering up and down against his chest, running hands through her wild, curling hair.
Over in the corner booth, Coleman raised his eyebrows toward City and nodded toward the dance floor.
“Are you retarded?”
Coleman strained to think.
She hit her joint.
He reached for it.
“No.”
Back on the dance floor, Country continued grinding into Serge, shifting tempo perfectly with the music. The chorus came around again and she flung her head side to side, that blond mane whipping back and forth in front of her face.
“Honnnnnnnnky-tonk women…”
At the bar, six Hawkeyes with outstretched arms pointed cell phone cameras.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Snow fluttered.
Big, thick flakes clumped before they hit ground. Accumulation reached three inches on the steps of the Dimond Library. Inside, toasty and empty.
Only four students. Three on the main floor and another in archives.
Andy McKenna sat at a microfilm machine, researching an article for the student paper on plans to attach a full-scale plastic replica of the Old Man of the Mountain at the top of Franconia Notch.
His iPod earphones: “More than a feeling…”
He didn’t hear the door open behind him.
Several pairs of feet moved quietly across the carpet. Andy’s eyes stayed on the screen as he advanced the reel.
Feet moved closer. Fifteen yards, ten, five… the back of Andy’s head growing larger… four, three…
At the last second, Andy caught a reflection in the microfilm’s screen, but it was too late.
A thick forearm wrapped around his neck. Andy grabbed it with his hands, thrashing left and right, earbuds flying, feet kicking the ground.
No use.
A voice from over his shoulder: “Just accept it and this will go a lot easier.”
“Let go of me!”
The arm released.
Laughter. The three amigos: Joey, Doogie and Spooge.
Andy jumped up and grabbed his chest. “That wasn’t funny. You nearly scared me to death!”
More laughing.
“What’s this about?” asked Andy.
“A kidnapping. It’s futile to resist.”
“Leave me alone.” He sat again. “Got work to do.”
A hand reached down to the wall and unplugged the microfilm viewer. Andy’s head fell back with a deep sigh.
“Come on,” said Joey. “We have to get going before the snow’s too deep.”
“Going? I’m not going anywhere.”
Joey was the one with big forearms, thanks to the rowing team. “Guys?”
They snatched Andy under his arms.
“Okay, okay!” He jerked free. “Where are we going? If, that is, I agree.”
“Agreeing’s not part of it,” said Spooge. “Florida,” said Doogie. “Florida? I can’t go to Florida!”
“You don’t have a choice…”
“… Andy, it’s spring break!”
“… It’ll be wicked excellent!”
“Send me a postcard.” Andy reached for the electrical plug. He was blocked. Another sigh. “Besides, you have to go.”
“Why?”
“We used your credit card to reserve the room. You have to show picture ID at check-in.”
“Dang it!”
“Relax, we’ll pay it all back. You were the only one with a card, at least not over the limit.”
“This already sounds like a disaster.”
“We’re looking out for you. All this work isn’t healthy.”
“I can’t just leave. I’ve got too much to do.”
“That’s why this is a kidnapping. We knew you’d never come on your own.”
“But I’ll have to pack. It’ll make you late.”
A smiling face. Joey raised a gym bag and backpack. “All taken care of.”
“You broke into my room?”
“You’ll thank us someday.”
“But I don’t have my cell phone.”
“It’s spring break.”
“What about my fish?”
“We’ll call Jason from the road.”
“My dad will be worried.”
“We’ll call him, too.”
“I don’t know…”
“Andy, be spontaneous for once.”
Outside, three sedans parked in a fire zone. Agents bounded up library steps.
“This is crazy,” said Andy. “I should have my head examined.”
“Now you’re talking!”
An elevator opened on the ground floor. Agents rushed inside. The doors closed as the next elevator opened and four students got out.
“This is going to be wicked excellent!”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Coleman was down for the count, leaving Serge on solo night patrol. He reached a bend in the sidewalk and focused his camcorder on three cheerful youths waving homemade posters.
“Oooooooh,” Serge said with delight, lowering his camera. “Free pancakes!”
He walked over.
“Howdy! I’m Serge!”
“Hi, Serge. Want a free pancake breakfast?”
“But it’s night.”
“That’s when all the kids eat breakfast. Soaks up alcohol.”
“What’s the catch?”
“There is no catch.”
“There’s always a catch.”
“Why don’t you come inside with us?”
Serge followed and was soon seated in a church activities room. On the table in front of him: the largest pile of pancakes the volunteer group had ever seen anyone assemble.
Three sparkling kids pulled out chairs and joined him. They didn’t have pancakes.
Serge, chewing: “Great breakfast. Deeeeeeeeelicious!”
“It’s Serge, right?”
He nodded and stuck a fork in his mouth.
“Serge, have you ever heard of the one true living God?”
“Of course,” said Serge. “He’s like a household name.”
“Are you saved?”
“That’s a long story.”
They handed him inspirational pamphlets.
Serge smiled. “Knew there was a catch.”
“No catch. It’s the path to redemption.”
“Fair enough,” said Serge, setting his fork on the plate. He leaned back and folded his arms. “You gave me a great meal, I can at least listen. But if this turns into a time-share thing, I can’t guarantee your safety.”
“It’s not.”
“Then give me your best shot.”
The trio took turns effervescently sharing the marvelous change in their lives. A pastor circulated through the room, hands clasped behind his back. He smiled at the youths around Serge’s table doing the Lord’s work. The kids finished their pitch.
“Impressive,” said Serge. “Sounds like you got quite a program there. Unfortunately, no sale. I already have my own program.”
“You belong to a religion?”
Serge returned to his food. “Absolutely.”
“Which denomination?”
“My own.”
“What do you mean your own?”
“So far I’m the only member. But it cuts printing costs for the monthly bulletin.”
“Your religion can’t have just one member.”
“Why not?”
“It’s… you just can’t.”
“Every religion started with only one person.” Pouring syrup. “Even yours.”
“No, it didn’t-”
One of the others nudged his friend and whispered, “Actually, it did.” He turned to Serge. “So what is your religion?”
“Well,” said Serge, digging in his fork again, “it’s an awful lot like yours, except with massive confusion.”
“Confusion?”
“I question everything. And I’m still totally baffled. Which only makes my faith stronger-God’s so incredible, he’s beyond comprehension!”
“You’re devoutly baffled?”
“All questions, all the time! And as the lack of answers mounts, the infiniteness of the Almighty swells in my soul. People who claim to know his every last thought in order to bully others are just shortchanging his omnipotence. Like politicians who say, ‘Pay no attention to our performance on the economy. Look! Over there! Gay people are trying to get married! ’”
“But homosexuality is a sin against God. Says so in the Bible.”
“That’s what I thought, too,” said Serge. “But it just didn’t jibe. So I took another look at Genesis…”
“You know Genesis?”
“And Nehemiah, Ezra, Proverbs, Lamentations-one of my favorites, hilarious subtext, but I can’t read it on airplanes, where people get upset with laughing fits. The whole book’s a classic.”
“You read the whole Bible?”
“Couple times. And you know how in Genesis, Lot’s the only good guy in the twin cities, Sodom and Gomorrah. These two male angels come to stay with him. Apparently they’re lookers. Think Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in Dogma. And these people from his street bang on Lot’s door, wanting him to let the houseguests out so they can have gay sex. Now Lot’s always been an accommodating neighbor, but this ain’t no potluck dinner. They argue back and forth, going nowhere. So, finally, in an attempt to show that sex with girls is much more fun and convert them to heterosexuality, Lot offers to turn over his two underage, virgin daughters for gang rape.”
“It doesn’t say that!”
“Let me see your Bible.” Serge executed a perfect sword drill, finding chapter nineteen in seconds. He turned the book around, slid it back across the table and tapped verse eight.
Three youths crowded over the page. “It does say that. But how can it be?”
“Because God blessed us with curiosity. Read it with an open mind and you realize it’s actually a brilliant satire on homophobia. Think as an individual: The Lord doesn’t want a train pulled on little kids. It’s like reading Swift’s Modest Proposal and thinking he really wants to eat babies. What the Bible’s trying to say is we’re all his children. But if you take Lot’s story literally, well, nice family values, eh? But that’s just my interpretation, which I’m now questioning. I could be way off.”
The youths got up and went over to their pastor.
“I think we’ve been wrong about gay people…”
“… They’re fellow children of God.”
At the next table, a homeless midget in a crash helmet spread whipped butter.
The youths returned.
Serge smiled. “Looked like your preacher was telling you to stay on message.”
“Do you realize the only path to righteous glory-”
Serge took another bite. “Let’s talk about evolution…”
NEW HAMPSHIRE
A Hertz Town Car crossed the Durham city line. Snow melted to ice. The car parked at a dorm.
Four Latin men ran up steps. Guillermo led the way down a hall. He stopped in front of a door and checked the number against his scrap of paper. Then he motioned for Raul, the lock-pick specialist.
He eased the door open, and they went inside.
Empty.
The gang fanned out, carefully combing the room for any clue to track Andy. Day planner, travel receipts, phone numbers, anything.
Failure.
Finesse gave way to destructive ransacking. When they were done, the room was neater.
“Guillermo,” said Miguel, “I don’t understand it. We usually at least find something. It’s like he has no routine at all.”
“It’s college.”
They left the room and closed the door. Halfway down the hall, Guillermo called a huddle.
“Any ideas?”
“Stake out the dorm from across the street?” said Miguel.
“Campuses have too much security,” said Guillermo.
“Then what are we going to do?”
“Let me think…”
Pedro nodded up the hall. “Who’s that?”
They looked back, where someone was entering the room they’d just left.
“It can’t be this easy,” said Miguel.
Guillermo led the way back. “We’ll soon find out.”
Flakes of fish food were tapped into an aquarium and spread out across the water’s surface. Guppies darted. A door opened.
Jason turned around. “Who are you?”
Guillermo walked toward him. “Andy McKenna?”
Jason shook his head.
The rest of the men came inside and closed the door behind them. The butt of a Mac-10 submachine gun protruded from one of their jackets.
Jason’s breathing became rapid. His eyes swung back and forth.
Guillermo smiled and stepped forward. “Is this your room?”
“No,” said Jason, backing up. “Just feeding fish.”
“Can I see some ID?”
“What for?”
“ID, please.”
The calmness of Guillermo’s tone was unnerving. Jason pulled a driver’s license from his wallet and presented it with an unsteady hand.
Guillermo read it and stuck it in his own wallet. “Know where we might find Andy?”
“What’s going on?”
“We’re close family friends. His mother’s sick.”
“His mother’s dead,” said Jason.
“Then it’s worse than we thought.”
They stared a moment, Guillermo’s smile broadening. Jason felt faint and almost knocked over the aquarium.
“Someone get him a chair.”
Raul brought one over and Jason fell into it.
Guillermo pulled up his own and sat in front of him. “Where did he go?”
“S-s-spring break. Panama City Beach. Bunch of guys.”
“You’re doing great,” said Guillermo, patting an arm that flinched at the touch. “When did they leave?”
“I don’t know. I mean, they called me from the road. I think it was a last-minute thing.”
“Where are they staying?”
Jason’s mouth opened, but no sound.
“I know they told you the hotel.”
Jason nodded.
“It’s very important we reach him. What hotel?”
Jason still had trouble getting his mouth to work.
Guillermo leaned. “Whisper it.”
Jason did.
Guillermo stood. “Now, that wasn’t so hard.” He noticed a clip on Jason’s belt. “Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Give me your phone.”
Jason handed it over, still shaking. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Do to you?” said Guillermo, flipping open the cell. “We don’t have to do anything to you.”
Jason’s expression said he didn’t understand.
Guillermo wrote something on a paper scrap. “You’re a college student?”
Jason nodded.
“Well then, you must be pretty smart.” Guillermo gave the phone back. “So you probably figured out that when we want to find someone, we don’t stop, no matter how long or far.” He patted his wallet, which now contained Jason’s license. “And if you make us want to find you again, it’ll go differently.”
Jason’s chest heaved.
“It’s smart to forget we were ever here.”
The men left.
Jason slowly rose on unsteady legs, then jackknifed over and threw up in the aquarium.
Guppy heaven.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Three youths crowded around Serge in a church activities hall. A fourth came over. “I got your coffee.”
“Thanks.” Serge blew on it and took a sip. “The thing about evolution is needless bickering among groups who should be enjoying life together. I’ve noticed some people making a creationist end run with the Trojan horse called intelligent design. Except they accidentally stumbled onto something without realizing it. What you need to be marketing is self-organization.”
“What’s that?”
“Evolution only makes my faith stronger. Except the problem with evolution-and this is where I totally understand your objection-is emphasis on the godless randomness of natural selectivity. Like those Galapagos turtles with the longest necks were the only ones who could reach higher leaves and survive when low-hanging food was gone, so now they all have long necks. That’s true, but there’s more. Much more.”
The youths leaned with rapt attention.
“Many evolutionary scientists subscribe to an additional component of their theory. Anyone?”
“Self-organization?”
“Shazam! Anti-religious types would have you believe that the universe follows the ol’ axiom ‘Given an infinite amount of monkeys, typewriters and time, one of them will eventually write Hamlet.’ “ Serge swept an arm in the air.”Look around you. That can’t be right. It’s more like one of the monkeys is Shakespeare in a chimp suit. All life aggressively yearns to organize itself and become more complex, springing forth from every corner of the planet. You think we started with a bunch of prehistoric ooze, and some of it just happened to turn into Bella Abzug?”
They shook their heads.
“There were some dead ends along the way, hence natural selectivity. But for my money, the rest is God in a Darwin costume. So if you can wrap your brain around self-organization, then evolution is intelligent design. The Lord is even greater!… But I’m not sure.”
They got up for another pastoral visit.
“I think we’ve been wrong about evolution.”
“What on earth’s going on over there?”
“He has a lot of good points. I’ve never felt my faith so strong.”
“You’re supposed to convert him, not the other way around.”
They returned.
Serge smiled again. “Warned you about going off the reservation?”
“Eternal life is only possible through belief-”
“Glad you brought that up,” said Serge. “Let’s talk about eternal life…”
The pancake feast hit its peak hour as students felt that empty beer rumble in their tummies. The pastor stood at the entrance, welcoming waves of newcomers.
“Now everyone close your eyes,” said Serge. “This is what I want you to imagine…”
More and more students came pouring in. The pastor was smiling and shaking hands when suddenly, hysterical shrieking erupted from the far side of the hall. Everyone turned.
Serge frantically raced around the table, grabbing shoulders of uncontrollably sobbing youths. “Guys! It’s all okay! Forget everything I said!”
The pastor ran over. “What did you do to them?”
One of the tearful kids looked up. “He said many people believe in God only because of the selfish reward of eternal life…”
Another blew his nose. “So in order for our faith to be pure, we have to stop believing in God.”
“What!”
“Only temporarily-just long enough to imagine eternal darkness…”
“… Then, once we could handle that, we were free to return and believe selflessly.”
“… My belief’s never been stronger.”
Serge grinned awkwardly. “Harmless experiment. I hear they do it all the time in college philosophy classes.”
The pastor shot him a steely glare.
“Give me one more chance,” said Serge. “I promise you won’t be sorry.”
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
Cars poured out of Gainesville in all directions, past the football stadium and brick dorms.
In one of the rooms:
“Who goes north for spring break?” asked Melvin Davenport.
“We do,” said his roommate, Cody. “It’s Panama City Beach! MTV’s there!”
“And?”
“Everybody’s going to be fucking!”
“I can see why the women love you.”
“Don’t be a jerk. We graduate next year and we’ve never been to spring break. This could be our last chance.”
“I don’t know.” Melvin sat at his desk, proofing a term paper. “You’re talking about leaving right now, and we haven’t done any planning. Did you even make reservations?”
“That’s the whole point of spring break. You don’t plan-you just go!”
“Why don’t you just go?”
“Because I need your truck.”
“Figured.”
Cody snatched the term paper.
“Hey!”
“You’ll thank me later.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Snow seriously started coming down.
A Hertz Town Car headed south from campus. It avoided the interstate in favor of a looping, scenic night route through empty countryside. Last homes and streetlights miles behind. Nothing but high beams and black ice on a two-laner through white-blanketed woods.
“I don’t get it,” said Raul. “Why’d you let the kid back there live? We never leave a witness unless there’s a good reason.”
“There’s a good reason,” said Guillermo. “I need him alive for disinformation.” He punched numbers on a cell and placed it to his head. “Panama City Beach… Holiday Isles… Yes, I’d like you to connect me for a modest charge…” He let off the gas as the road took a series of hairpin twists down a small mountain. “Front desk? I’d like the room of Sam Jones, please… You don’t have a Sam Jones? Well, I think Sam’s his middle name. Probably registered under his first… No, I don’t know it. You have any Joneses at all?… Four? What first names are they under?… I understand you can’t give out that information, but this is an emergency… Okay, connect me to the room on the top of your list…”
“What are you doing?” asked Miguel.
“Shhhhh!” said Guillermo. “It’s ringing… Hello? Is Mr. Jones there?”
“Speaking.”
“Sam Jones?”
“No, you got the wrong Jones.”
“Are you sure?”
“Who are you?”
“Mr. Jones, this is room service. Someone at the pool just charged two hundred dollars of champagne on your account. As a courtesy to our guests, we always like to verify when it’s an amount that high.”
“I didn’t order any champagne! I’m not paying that!”
“You’re not Sam Jones?”
“No, Kyle. Listen, you have to-”
“Already taken care of, Mr. Jones. We’ll get hotel security right on it. Sorry for the inconvenience.” Guillermo hung up and dialed again, this time for the dorm they’d just left.
Raul looked confused. “I don’t understand-”
“Quiet!” Guillermo raised his deep voice an octave. “Hello? Is this Jason?… Jason Lavine?… This is Kyle Jones… I realize you don’t know me. I’m from Boston College-just hooked up with your friends at a rest stop… Guess they saw ‘Florida or Bust’ on our windows. Anyway, I was asked to give you a call. They’re switching hotels and wanted you to know in case you need to reach them. Something about feeding fish… Because we got a killer block of rooms super-cheap at a better place, but some of our guys dropped out, so your friends are taking up the slack… Holiday Isles in Panama City… Right, it’s in my name, Kyle Jones… Uh, sure, it’s going to be wicked excellent.” He hung up.
High beams sliced through the New Hampshire night. Two glowing dots appeared in the distance. Headlights hit a small deer on the center line. It darted into trees. The Lincoln approached a bridge over a tiny creek. Guillermo carefully applied brakes on the slick surface.
“What’s that business about switching hotels?” asked Pedro.
“Buying time with our government friends.” Guillermo opened his phone again.
Raul lowered his electric window on the passenger side and braced himself against the abrupt arctic blast.
“Madre?” said Guillermo. “Good news… No, we don’t have him. But our friends don’t either…”
The Lincoln stopped in the middle of the bridge.
“… Because I know exactly where he’s headed… Thank you, Madre…”
As previously instructed, Raul began collecting automatic weapons from the other occupants and flinging them over the side of the bridge.
“… On our way to the airport right now… Looks like we’re going to spring break…”
A Mac-10 sailed into the darkness.
“… No, they won’t get there before us. At least not at the correct hotel… Because I made a couple phone calls…” Guillermo turned toward an odd sound from Raul’s open window. “… I’ll let you know as soon as we get there. Good night, Madre.” He hung up. “Raul, did you check-”
“Check what?” The final gun was flung.
Crack.
Guillermo reached for the glove compartment. “Don’t tell me.”
Car doors opened. The gang shivered at the bridge’s railing. Guillermo swept a flashlight beam thirty feet down into the chasm below, where three Mac-10s sat motionless. The fourth slowly spun to a stop on the iced-over creek.
“Guillermo, how was I supposed to know?”
“Just get back in the car.”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Four people stood on the side of the road waving signs for free pancakes. Three kids wore T-shirts with the Jesus fish. Serge flapped the fourth sign. They’d given him a shirt, too. He’d drawn feet on his fish with a Magic Marker but hadn’t changed the name inside to Darwin.
A line of sporty cars came to a standstill at a red light. People hung out windows, waving drinks. “Look at the loser freaks!”
“Hey, Jesus Crispies, eat me!”
The light turned green. The cars drove off.
Serge turned with raised eyebrows. “You get that a lot?”
“All the time.”
“What do you do about it?”
“Nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“It’s okay. We turn the other cheek.”
“Good for you,” said Serge.
They resumed poster waving.
Another red light. More insults.
And so on.
An hour later, a student dangled out the passenger window of a Mustang, vigorously shaking a beer. “Yo, Christian faggots!” He popped the top, spraying them with suds. “Ooops… please forgive me!” The car filled with cackles.
Before the passenger knew what was going on, Serge had both hands through the open window, seizing hair. The youth’s face repeatedly smashed the dashboard in rhythm with Serge’s instructions: “Treat… others… as you… would have them… treat you!”
He released his grip, and the unconscious student flopped back in his seat, blood streaming down his frat shirt. The others in the Mustang normally would have jumped from the vehicle at the welcome opportunity to whup butt, but the intensity of Serge’s onslaught made them screech off instead.
Serge rejoined the stunned roadside gang. He pointed at the ground. “Dropped your posters.”
“But I thought you believed that turning the other cheek was a good thing?”
“My complete quote was, ‘Good for you.’ It’s just like the Bible: One must consider the overall context. Remember when Jesus went on that money-changers-in-the-temple lights-out cage match? I really like that part…”
Sudden yelling from behind: “Inside! Now!”
They’d never seen their pastor so angry. The foursome headed for the activities room.
“No!” The preacher pointed at Serge. “Not you!”
The remaining trio demurely ducked inside for an unprecedented tongue-lashing. “I couldn’t believe what I just witnessed in the street!”
A tentative hand went up.
“What is it?” snapped the pastor.
“But nobody’s ever defended us like that before.”
“Violence is wrong! It’s against everything we stand for!”
“You don’t know what it’s like out there. They say all this stuff.”
“Turn the other cheek!”
“What about money changers in the temple?”
“Did Serge tell you that?”
The boy lowered his head. “Maybe…”
The pastor took a deep breath. “From now on, you are to go nowhere near that man!”
“But…”
“But what?”
“We… kind of like him. And he knows the Bible inside out.”
“The devil can quote scripture with the best. He’s trying to make you nonbelievers.”
“Just the opposite. He said that unlike politicians and TV preachers, we’re magnificent ambassadors for our religion because our faith is so pure and beautiful, and we should never stop nurturing it.”
“I saw his T-shirt!” said the pastor. “He drew feet on the Jesus fish!”
“But he didn’t change the name to Darwin.”
“So?”
“That’s the magnetic appeal of his theology: He respects all religions, then mixes and matches for himself.”
“No!” yelled the pastor. “No mixing and matching!”
“Why not?”
“It’s against the rules.”
“But we already have. Even you.”
“What do you mean?”
“He said that if Jesus and the apostles didn’t mix and match, our own religion never would have gotten off the ground.”
The pastor turned purple. “I’ve heard more than enough! My decision is final! Stay away from him! Am I understood?”
INTERSTATE 95
A station wagon with a University of New Hampshire parking decal crossed the Virginia line.
Each new state called for another beer. It was the law.
The driver crumpled a State of Maryland speeding ticket and threw it on the floor.
“What are you doing?” asked Doogie.
“When am I ever coming back to Maryland?” said Spooge.
“On the return trip, hopefully.”
“So someone else will be behind the wheel.”
Their drive had been touch-and-go for a while. The increased snowfall back on campus was the leading edge of an approaching blizzard that would soon hammer most of the northern seaboard. Visibility had almost stopped them in southern Connecticut, but the New England quartet pressed on and outran the system’s front by Delaware.
Now, clear sailing.
Andy held a borrowed cell phone.
A phone rang in Dorchester. And rang.
Andy closed it again. “Still no answer. He’s going to be worried if he tries to reach me.”
“Leave a message on his machine,” said Joey. “You’re an adult. It’s not like you have to ask permission.”
“He doesn’t have a machine. It’s one of those answering features from the phone company.”
“What’s the difference?”
Andy shrugged and dialed again, letting it ring through to an automated message.
Beep.
“Hey, Dad. It’s me, Andy…”
“You’re his only child,” said Doogie. “Calling him ‘Dad’ kinda clues him in-”
“Shut up!… Dad, I know this sounds nuts, but some friends and I are driving down to Florida for spring break. We’ll be staying in Panama City Beach at-” Andy called to the front seat, “What’s the name of that hotel again?”
“Alligator Arms.”
“Dad, we’re staying at-” Andy stopped at the sound of a robotic voice on the other end: Mail… box… full… From all the reporters calling nonstop for hero interviews.
Andy hung up.
Spooge glanced over his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell him the hotel?”
“No more recording time. He’s going to be worried.”
“You worry too much. If it’s so important, why not try his cell?”
“Don’t remember the number.”
“You don’t remember your own dad’s number?”
“Don’t need to. It’s stored in my cell-I just hit his name. But someone wouldn’t let me go back to my room.”
“You’ll thank us.”
Doogie turned on the radio. Weather report.
“We lucked out. They’re snowed in at Logan…”
At Logan: Agent Ramirez stared up at a screen of flight info, all delayed. He was on the phone. “We’re snowed in. I’ll call when I know more.” He hung up and dialed again.
All around, people made pillows from rolled-up clothes and settled in uncomfortably.
“… So keep looking,” Ramirez told Oswalt, who breathed heavy as he backtracked across campus in the dark. “… Then start from the beginning and check every place again… No, I don’t care how long it takes.” He hung up.
Next to him, Patrick McKenna closed his own phone.
Ramirez turned. “Any luck?”
“Still no answer in his room.”
“Try his cell again?”
Patrick hit numbers. The phone was on speaker mode. Someone answered. “Agent Oswalt here…”
Patrick turned. “You want to talk to him?”
Ramirez rolled his eyes. “You sure he was staying at school over the break?”
“Positive. Said he had a ton of work and needed quiet.” Patrick held up his phone. “I know my son. He would have called if anything changed.”
“… Hello? Anyone there?… Is that you, Ramirez?”
Ramirez snatched the phone and clapped it shut. “Maybe he tried you at home.”
“No, he just calls my mobile number.”
“Worth a shot.” Ramirez handed the phone back.
Patrick dialed again. A disconnected phone in Dorchester rang through to the answering service. He worked a retrieval menu and entered his PIN, then listened.
Ramirez saw the expression. “What is it?”
Patrick closed the phone and scratched his head. “Says he’s going to Florida.”
“Florida?”
Patrick nodded. “Spring break. That’s not like him.”
“Where?”
“Panama City Beach.”
“Did he say which hotel?”
“About to, but the mailbox filled up.”
Ramirez walked over to the terminal’s windows. “This is a nightmare.” He dialed Oswalt again and stared out at snow swirling over runway lights.
THE NEXT MORNING
Bright sunshine.
A camcorder panned toward a tall wooden wall on he beach, where the U.S. Army had set up their obstacle course. The wall had thick, knotted ropes running down the side.
The filmmaker turned off his camera and approached a recruiter. Three church youth waited in the background.
“Howdy! I’m Serge! Do you have any coffee?”
“Uh, no.”
“It’s okay, I brought my own. Essential for war.” He unhitched a canteen from his waist and chugged. He looked around. “Where’s the line?”
“Line?”
“For the obstacle course. I love obstacle courses! They’re just like life! Perfect metaphors for both obstacles and courses… Ooooooh! Are those trophies over there for the obstacle course? I’d give anything to win a trophy!”
“Don’t you think you’re a little old?”
Serge did stretching exercises. “Maybe in earth years.” He touched his toes. “That’s why I use the outer planets, where I’m still an infant.”
“I mean the obstacle course is meant for people who still meet age requirements for service.”
Serge twisted side to side. “There’s nobody here. The spectacle of my record-shattering technique is bound to fix that and draw an overflow crowd, boosting enlistment. What’s the harm?”
The recruiter shrugged. “Then I guess you’re next.”
“And I want a trophy.” Serge went over to the starting line, crouching and digging his toes into the beach. “You going to time me?”
The recruiter raised a stopwatch.
“Ready when you are,” said Serge.
“On your mark… Get set… Go!”
Serge blasted out of his sprinter’s stance with blazing speed, sand flying behind him. He raced past the tires, metal tubes, wooden ramps, water jump, monkey bars and finally the rope wall.
Recruiters stared in disbelief as Serge launched himself into the air and dove across the finish line. He collapsed, catching his breath. “What’s my time?”
“You didn’t do any of the obstacles. You ran around all of them.”
“Exactly,” said Serge. “They’re obstacles.”
“But you missed every one.”
“Perfect score,” said Serge.
“But you’re supposed to do the obstacles.”
“That’s stupid.” Serge stood and brushed off his arms. “By definition, obstacles are things you avoid. Can’t believe nobody thought of that yet.”
They just stared.
Serge retrieved his canteen from a table. “Which one’s my trophy?”
“You didn’t do any of the obstacles.”
“We already went over that,” said Serge. “I think that’s the problem. You’re enlisted. I’m obviously officer material…”
Farther up the beach, a large group of students circled some kind of attraction. In the middle, Coleman sat on the sand with a tangelo and syringe. He stuck the needle in the fruit and drew back the plunger.
“The key is to extract an identical cubic centimeter volume as the agent you intend to introduce. That’s the most common mistake: Excess alcohol dribbles down your shirt, the authorities smell it and you’re history.” He squirted juice in the sand, then filled the syringe from a bottle of vodka and injected the tangelo. They heard yelling up the beach behind them.
“Let go of me!”
“What’s all that noise about?” asked Coleman, removing the hypodermic.
One of the students stood and shielded his eyes against the sun. “Looks like those army guys are throwing some dude out in the water.”
“Here’s another trick,” said Coleman. “One of the most important turbo-partying tools that everyone overlooks. Only ninety-nine cents.” He reached in his pocket and dramatically held aloft a serrated orange plastic device.
Students took a closer look. “Isn’t that a kid’s citrus sipper from those roadside souvenir stands?”
Coleman carefully twisted the cutting edge into the tangelo. “Most people try to suck the doctored fruit through an unsecured aperture. Mistake number two. Big mess and more heat from the Man.” Coleman stuck the sipper in his mouth and squeezed the tangelo to a flat peel. “Ahhhh! That was refreshing. And not a single valuable drop lost.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
“… Amazing…”
Behind the last row of onlookers, a trophy-less Serge walked by, filming.
“Coleman?” Another direction: “Coleman? Where’d you go?” Shuffling down the shore. “Coleman?”
BOSTON
Bedlam at the airport.
The blizzard was over. At twenty-six inches. Plows worked the runways.
Travelers pitched heated battles with ticket agents. Their win-loss record: zero to infinity. Others stared up in defeat at overhead departure screens. Status columns flashed.
All flights delayed.
Unless they were canceled.
The low-pressure front finally passed, but planes that had already taxied from the terminal were stacked twenty deep at de-icing machines by the foot of each runway.
At every gate, rows of vinyl chairs connected in single racks. All taken. A stress farm. Babies wailed, complainers complained, others phoned relatives to whine in different time zones. Candy bars, laptops, handheld video games. Some tried catching winks on the floor.
In a remote corner of the airside, a rare patch of empty seats, where agents formed an alert perimeter around Patrick McKenna, sitting with a floppy hat pulled down over his face. The sign at the gate’s departure desk: ANCHORAGE.
Ramirez paced with a cell phone to his head. University administration in Durham. On hold.
Another agent walked over. “Any luck?”
“Campus security turned up something,” said Ramirez. “Found one kid at the dorm feeding pets.”
“Didn’t Oswalt already talk to that guy?”
“Something new-” He returned his attention to the phone. “Yes, Sergeant, I’m still here… Under sedation? What’s he doing in the infirmary?… I see. Did he say anything before-… One second…” Ramirez flipped open a notebook and clicked a pen. “Fire away…”
Other agents strained for a glimpse as Ramirez scribbled in unrecognizable shorthand. “Thanks, Sergeant. I owe you.”
The rest were waiting: “Get the name of the hotel?”
“And the room. Holiday Isles, registered to one Kyle Jones.” He stuck the notebook in his pocket. “We’re splitting up. Johnson, Malone, Polaski: You take McKenna. The rest of us are going to Florida. Hatfield, check with the airlines.” He opened his phone again.
“Who are you calling now?”
“We’re not going anywhere soon with this snow. I’m getting some local people to that hotel before Madre’s crew can beat us there.”
Travelers grumbled. A plow went by the windows. Agent Hat-field finally returned, waving three electronic tickets. “Last seats, Atlanta.”
“Atlanta?” said Ramirez.
“Everyone’s rebooking. It’s the closest I could get without waiting till tomorrow.”
“Aren’t any of the bureau’s own planes available?” asked another agent.
“They all are,“ said Ramirez.”Stuck in snow.“ He looked at the Georgia tickets.”At least we’re out of here in six hours.”
“Gate’s at the other end of the terminal,” said Hatfield.
The agents began walking.
At the other end of the terminal: “Atlanta?” said Guillermo.
“Closest they had,” said Pedro, waving tickets. “Everyone’s trying to get out.”
“Which is our gate?”
“That one.”
They took seats, facing dim windows.
Guillermo was back on his cell. “Yes, I’m trying to reach Andy McKenna, room five forty-three… He hasn’t checked in yet?… But five forty-three is his room number, right?… Thanks for your help.” Click.
“Do we even know what the kid looks like?” asked Raul.
“Saw him once with his dad.” Guillermo stuck the phone in his jacket. “Back in the day.”
“Fifteen years ago?”
“Right, we have no idea what he looks like. That’s why I just made that phone call. Ensure we have the right room.”
“But if we don’t know what he looks like, how can we be sure we get the right one?”
Guillermo gave him the same look he’d gotten just before they’d gone in that convenience store.
“Oh.”
A row away, three agents settled into seats with newspapers and magazines.
“So Madre’s people already visited the campus?” asked Hatfield. Ramirez nodded. “That kid who feeds the pets was pretty shaken. Means they’re close.”
“How close?”
Behind them, Raul offered an open foil bag to Guillermo. “Chex Mix?”
A TV hung from a bracket between the gates.
The G-men and Guillermo’s crew looked up.
“And for those of you snowed in back in Boston, we bring you another day of Red Sox spring training from sunny Florida…”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Behind one of the beach motels, another massive event at a swimming pool. Hundreds of plastic beer cups. Students rimmed the patio ten deep.
A loudspeaker: “… our next contestant. Please give it up for Coleman!”
Thunderous applause.
Coleman wobbled to the end of the diving board with a pilot’s scarf around his neck. He licked an index finger and raised it to gauge crosswind. Then he bounced twice and sprang into the air.
Enormous belly flop.
A row of judges marked scorecards for style, splash height and stomach redness.
Four blocks away, on the other side of the road from the beach, a pastor walked out of a church activity hall. He reached the edge of the street and rubbed his chin. “Where’d they go?”
He returned to the building. Leaning against the outside wall: four free-pancake signs.
“Holy…”
Serge stopped behind the Holiday Inn SunSpree to empty sand from his sneakers.
Church kids took seats around him on the ground. “What else do you have?”
“Well,” said Serge, putting his left shoe back on. “There’s Casey Kasem’s American Top Forty. You know where the oldest lyrics ever to be heard on his show came from?”
Heads shook.
“Book of Ecclesiastes.” He stood. “Adapted for the Byrds’ mega-hit ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’”
“Cool.”
Serge moved west up the beach, and his flock followed.
Heading the other direction, farther toward the waterline, a growing procession followed Coleman. “… This is the Boardwalk Beach Resort, headquarters of MTV… And that’s La Vela, largest nightclub in the entire United States. Afternoon special: all the beer you can drink, twenty bucks, but the catch is, unless you pay extra for a jumbo plastic mug and rights to the VIP filling station”-he held a thumb and finger slightly apart-“you get these tiny cups and have to wait forever…”
They approached the club’s entrance. Beefy guards checking drivers’ licenses from twenty states. One of the kids quickly produced a wallet to pay Coleman’s cover.
Pounding music greeted them on the massive party patio. The students got in a seemingly endless beer line. Another wallet came out, buying Coleman a giant mug and VIP-line status. All around: hooting and hollering. In the middle of the pool stood a concrete dance-contest island connected to the patio by a small bridge. A driving beat boomed from a 360-degree sound system as a parade of young women strutted onto the island and jiggled their rears.
Coleman found an empty table in back where the previous occupants had left empty cigarette packs and a pile of giveaway sample condoms. Students quickly cleared the surface to make space for Coleman’s beer mug. It was promptly empty. He began getting up.
A student’s hand on his shoulder. “Sir, we got it…”
“I’m never leaving this town.”
For the next three hours, proxy students made perpetual trips to keep Coleman’s mug full.
At the four-hour mark, Coleman and his new friends were all in the pool, lining the edge of the dance island, surrounded by hundreds of other tightly packed students holding identical orange plastic cups. As many more kids hung over balconies wrapped around the patio.
“Woooo!…”
“Shake it, mama!…”
A new contest on the island. One girl lay on her back with a balloon in her mouth. Another climbed on top, trying to pop it with her tits.
“How do they possibly think of this clever shit?”
Music started again for the next competition. An emcee whipped the crowd into a sexual froth with double entendre. Then he looked at a list in his hand and introduced the first contestant, a drop-dead biology major from the Tar Heel State, who began a grind that would shame most pole dancers.
“Coleman!” said one of the students. “What an excellent place! Thanks, dude!”
Another stunning series of the hottest coeds pranced around the island with skimpy swimsuits and contortionist moves. Illinois, Ball State, Duke. The audience roared.
“Coleman! You rock!… Coleman?” The youth turned to a friend. “Where’d Coleman go?”
The second student looked around. “I don’t know. He was just here.”
A junior from Nebraska finished her butt wiggle, and the emcee came back out. “Let’s give a huge hand for Missy!… And now our final contestant…” He checked his list, and his voice became a question. “… Coleman?”
His followers erupted as Coleman strutted out. He interlaced his fingers behind his head and began thrusting his sunburnt belly.
Students banged cups on the edge of the island. “Shake it, Coleman!…”
Coleman hit the concrete stage and rocked back and forth on his stomach like John Belushi.
Everyone came unglued.
“The dude parties without a net!…”
SIX BLOCKS AWAY
An FBI team from Tallahassee swarmed a room at the Holiday Isles Resort.
An agent came through the door and handed front-desk phone records to his supervisor.
The guest sat on a bed. “I’m telling you, I don’t have any idea what’s going on.”
“Your real name’s Kyle Jones?” asked the agent in charge.
He nodded.
“And you say you only got one phone call? From room service?”
Another nod.
“Just stay seated.”
Other agents pulled luggage apart, opened every drawer. His cell phone was checked for recent activity.
An hour later, the lead agent pulled out his own phone, dialing a number that rang in Logan Airport.
“Agent Ramirez? This is Baxter from Tallahassee. The guy you asked us to check out is clean.” He flipped a notepad. “Kyle Jones, real estate broker from Oshkosh. Not even here for spring break. Said he has no idea who McKenna is or how they got his name.”
“Something’s not right,” said Ramirez.
“I agree,” said Baxter. “He’s forty-three and never went to Boston College. And that business about charging champagne to his room? The hotel has no record, refunded or otherwise.”
“What about the call from room service?”
“Never happened. The hotel has record of just one incoming to his room. We traced it to a prepaid disposable.”
“Hold him till I get there.”
“When will that be?”
“Don’t know. With the drive from Atlanta, probably tomorrow morning.”
“But I said he came up clean.”
“Just hold him,” said Ramirez. “He might be lying and working with the people on the other end of that phone, which means he was waiting in that room to ambush our guy. If not, someone’s using him as a red herring. Either way I want to know the connection.”
“Anything else?”
“Do a full background workup, the whole nine yards, like he’s applying for Secret Service.”
“You got it.” Baxter closed the phone.
“Excuse me,” said Kyle. “Can I go get dinner now?”
“No.”
SUNSET
Serge had his favorite light for documentary filming.
Three church youths stood in the background as their mentor interviewed a Michigan State Spartan. The student smiled big. “I’m really going to be on CNN?”
“Haven’t gotten all the bids yet,” said Serge. “Please stick to the questions. You’re from a prestigious university, so what on earth can you be thinking?”
The youth contemplated his answer when a fellow Spartan whispered in his ear.
“He’s doing what?”
“Hurry up,” said the second student. “It’s about to start.”
“Sorry,” the interviewee told Serge. “I gotta run.”
“What’s happening?” asked Serge.
The student hopped up. “Man, if you’re doing a documentary on spring break, you definitely don’t want to miss this…”
Serge and his disciples followed the Michigan students, who were soon joined by rivers of other spring breakers streaming in from all directions.
They funneled through the back deck of a jumbo-capacity beach bar that was quickly packed beyond fire-marshal code. The chant had already begun.
“… Cole-man!… Cole-man!… Cole-man!…”
Serge pushed his way forward.
On the stage for the nightly band, Coleman lay on his back with a clear tube in his mouth. Three assistants continued pouring a staggering amount of Budweiser into the beer bong.
“… Cole-man!… Cole-man!… Cole-man!…”
“Incredible,” said Serge.
“You know him?” asked one of the church youth. “Unfortunately.” He turned for the door. “Where are you going?”
“Back to my motel room.”
“Can we come with you?”
“Knock yourself out.”
THAT EVENING
Stop-and-go traffic on the strip. A high-mileage pickup with a Florida Gators bumper sticker rolled into town.
“Look at all the babes!” said Cody.
“We need to find a hotel room,” said Melvin Davenport.
“Which one do you like?”
“We just need to find something. All the signs I’m seeing say ‘No Vacancy.’”
“I ignore those.”
“This one,” said Melvin.
He pulled into the parking lot. Then pulled out.
“How about that one?” said Cody.
In and out again.
“Knew we should have gotten reservations,” said Melvin.
“That’s just the first two,” said Cody. “Here’s another…”
Ten motels later: “This isn’t good.”
“You worry too much,” said Cody. “Something will probably open up later tonight.”
“Who checks out at night?”
“Whoa!” said Cody. “Check that ass!”
“I’d rather check into a hotel.” They passed the Alligator Arms.
ALLIGATOR ARMS
Room 534.
Three kids sat on the floor around Serge.
“Never heard of that.”
“It’s true,” said Serge. “Major first-century schism between Paul and Peter. The apostles were divided. Should the new Messiah be just for the Jews, or should the gospel also be preached to Gentiles? Arguably the most critical turning point affecting life as we know it today.”
“How do you know all this stuff?”
“It’s history. How can you not be fascinated?”
“Serge?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s the matter?”
“What do you mean?”
“That look on your face.”
“Sorry. My mind drifted into negative country. Got cheated out of a trophy today.”
“When?”
“At the army obstacle course. Remember? You were there.”
“Oh, you mean when they threw you in the ocean instead?”
“I guess that’s second place. And I wanted it so bad. I’ve never won a trophy for anything my whole life. Been eating at me ever since Little League, and this morning it was so close I could taste it-”
They heard a violent slam against the outside of the motel room door. Then loud talking. Something shattered on the ground. Another crash against the door.
The students jumped. “What the heck’s that?”
Serge stood. “It’s how Coleman always enters a room.”
“You mean the guy from the stage?”
The door flew open and banged against the wall.
Coleman stumbled in, followed by a dozen students from across the eastern United States.
Serge stared bug-eyed at Coleman’s arms, overflowing with trophies. “Where’d you get all those?”
“What a great day!” Coleman walked past Serge and began lining gold statues atop the TV cabinet. “This one’s for the belly flop, this is for dirty dancing, here’s the chugging contest, goldfish eating-but they were only those little crackers because of animal rights people-and this is for the fat-guy sunburn, and… I don’t remember this one. I was pretty fucked up. They just handed it to me. And I got this big mother with these three chicks…”
Serge walked away and plopped down next to the church youth.
One of them raised a hand. “So what happened to the schism?”
“Paul prevailed and sent a bunch of junk mail to the Galatians.”
“Wow.”
Other side of the room: Coleman and a dozen helpers spread rolling papers across the coffee table. They picked apart buds from a half O-Z.
Coleman sprinkled liberally along Job 1.5s. “It’s called the Seventh Son of the Seventh Son.”
“Why’s that?”
He licked a gummed seal. “You smoke forty-nine joints, then tear open the roaches and use the contents to roll seven more joints. Then you smoke those and use the last seven roaches to twist up one kick-ass doobie with such concentrated resin it’ll blow your eyeballs out.”
“Wow.”
Someone tugged Serge’s sleeve on the other side of the room. “Are you okay?”
“I can’t believe he has a bigger congregation.”
Coleman: “… Works every time. We should try it tonight.”
“Sounds like an urban myth,” said one of the students. “Where’d you hear about it?”
“On a Keys radio station,” said Coleman. “I would have doubted, too. But you have to know the Keys-anything’s possible. Then me and my friends tried it ourselves and pay dirt!”
“How’d you do it?”
“Know how police stake out certain bars at closing time for DUIs?”
They nodded.
“Coleman,” Serge yelled from across the room, “that stupid story’s on the Internet.”
“If it wasn’t true before, it is now. Me and my friends did it, remember?”
“Sadly.”
“Never mind him.” Coleman turned back to his ring of acolytes. “My gang was tying one on at this funky Key West dive on Simonton. Almost closing time, and Johnny Law is parked across the street as usual. So my wingman, Bonzo, staggers into the parking lot, falling down, dropping his keys, getting up, tripping over the curb, crashing into garbage cans-while the rest of us leave the bar and drive away until the parking lot’s empty except for one last car.”
“Bonzo’s?”
“Correcto-mundo. And as soon as Bonzo starts the engine and moves an inch, blue lights everywhere. Cop gives him the Breathalyzer and he blows a zero. Then a field sobriety test. Walks a straight line, touches his nose, says the alphabet backward and forward.”
“Doesn’t make sense.”
“That’s what the cop thought. He says, ‘You were falling-down drunk a minute ago and now you’re sober as a judge. What’s going on?’”
“Bonzo says, ‘All my friends drove away without getting DUIs. Tonight I was the designated decoy.’”
INTERSTATE 95
A station wagon with New Hampshire plates blew through early-evening traffic.
Continuous snowbanks began showing small breaks until the breaks became larger than the frozen stretches. Another state line went under the headlights. Beers popped.
A crumpled speeding ticket hit the floor. “Let Virginia try to find me.”
The car stopped.
Slamming doors awoke Andy McKenna in the backseat. He looked around the nightscape. Cars pulling in, tractor-trailers idling, picnic tables, square building in the middle.
He yawned and rubbed his eyes. “Where are we?”
“Welcome center.”
“Florida?”
“North Carolina.”
Other student vehicles arrived. Vermont. Rhode Island. Football stickers. Greek letters.
The rest of the station wagon’s occupants returned from rest-rooms and vending machines. Doritos, coffee. They switched drivers and pulled back onto the highway. Radio low.
“… Good, good, good! Good vibrations!…”
The signs began. Every few minutes. SOUTH OF THE B ORDER, 112 M ILES… 105 M ILES… 98…
“Aren’t we going to find a motel?” asked Andy.
“Absolutely not,” said Joey.
“It’s spring break,” said Doogie.
“And?”
“You have to drive straight through all the way or it doesn’t count.”
SOUTH OF THE B ORDER, 53 M ILES… K EEP Y ELLING, K IDS. T HEY’LL S TOP.
“When do you think we’ll get there?”
“Three A.M., maybe four,” said Spooge, the just-relieved driver snuggling against a backseat door with a bunched-up beach towel.
Andy opened a borrowed phone. “I’m going to try my dad again.”
“You’ve called a dozen times now.”
“I’ll eventually catch him.” He dialed. Ring, ring… Andy noticed the numeric display. “Shoot, I must be tired. Accidentally dialed my own cell number.” Ring…
“Gimme that.” Spooge snatched the phone away.
“Agent Oswalt here…”
The phone folded shut.
“What’d you do that for?” asked Andy.
“We’re on spring break. Chill out.”
A thousand miles north, Agent Oswalt looked at the unfamiliar number of the disconnected call. He hit call.
“New rule,” said Spooge, reaching for a switch on the commandeered cell. “All phones off.”
Click.
South Carolina line.
SOUTH OF THE B ORDER, I M ILE.
Andy stared out the window at a giant, lighted sombrero marking the historic kitschy rest stop. “I got Mexican jumping beans there when I was a kid.”
“What did you say?”
“Just talking to myself.”
He lay back and closed his eyes. Snoring…
A wild cheer went up in the station wagon.
Andy shook his groggy head. “What is it?”
The driver pointed at a passing sign:
WELCOME TO F LORIDA.
“How long was I asleep?”
“Two states.” A traffic citation ripped in half. “I just need to stay out of Georgia for seven years.”
They still had a good ways down to the gulf coast. But finally, twenty-nine hours after leaving their New England tundra, the students arrived in the hot, sticky Panama City night.
“There’s our hotel.”
The pasty foursome stared up at a flickering neon sign of a smiling alligator standing on its hind legs. It was one of those older, animated jobs from the sixties. Every other second, the gator pumped its reptilian claws up and down like a go-go dancer.
The station wagon pulled into the parking lot. Students rolled baggage toward the office, past a newspaper box with a photo of Andy’s father on the front page.
Next to the box, two students in orange-and-blue T-shirts sat sullenly on the curb, chins in hands.
Andy stopped rolling luggage. “You guys okay?”
“We didn’t make reservations,” said Melvin Davenport.
“That’s crazy,” said Spooge. “The whole city’s sold out. You do realize you’re not going to find anything.”
Melvin gave Cody a look.
“I got an idea,” said Spooge. “It’s a budget motel, but it’s still beach priced.”
“We could use the extra scratch,“ said Doogie.”You guys have money?”
“And sleeping bags,” said Cody.
“But then we’re up to six,” said Andy. “It’s over the room limit.”
“That’s practically empty compared to our other trips,” said Doogie.
“Room limits are just suggestions,” said Spooge.
“I’ll go check in,” said Joey. “You two wait here so they don’t see you.”
The others walked the rest of the way across the lot and pushed open the lobby door of the Alligator Arms.
ALLIGATOR ARMS, ROOM 534
Loud knocking on the door.
Serge opened up. “Welcome to hell.”
Two women entered with duffel bag straps over shoulders. Country began coughing. “What’s all that smoke?”
City fanned the air in front of her face, staring at the dozen students toking up around Coleman. “Who are all these people?”
“Coleman likes to bring home strays.” Serge reached for Country’s bag. “Let me help you. Any trouble with the landlord?”
“Doesn’t know yet.”
“Smart thinking.” Serge threw the duffel in a corner. “Skipping out on rent always prevents those sentimental farewells.”
“It sucks.”
From across the room: “City! Country!” yelled Coleman. “Welcome to Party Central!”
The students were agog at the sight-“They’re gorgeous!” “I’m in heaven!”-and even more stunned when the women took seats on the couch next to them and grabbed joints.
“Coleman,” asked one of the students, “you actually know them?”
“We go way back. Very close friends.” He turned to the sofa. “Aren’t we?”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Serge waved for Country to come over. She handed the number to City and met him by the kitchenette. “What is it?”
“Let me give you the grand tour.” He led her inside the suite’s bedroom and locked the door.
Soon, the rest of the unit was silent, everyone listening to ecstatic female shrieking through the wall.
“… Fuck me harder!…”
Students gulped.
The bedroom door opened and a bare-chested Serge stuck his head out, wearing a Gatorland baseball cap. “Coleman, my souvenirs…”
“Got you covered.” Coleman grabbed an antique cigar box from a dresser drawer, walked over and handed it to Serge.
“Thanks.”
The door closed. Listening resumed.
“… Oh God, oh God… I’m almost there… Fuck me faster!… Don’t stop!…”
“… And this swizzle stick is from Alabama Jack’s. That’s Card Sound Road in Key Largo for those playing along at home…”
Twenty minutes later, Serge emerged with a towel around his neck and a cigar box. Behind him, Country stumbled out of the room and bounced off a wall, looking like she’d just finished a triathlon.
The couple went out on the balcony. City joined them and closed the sliding glass door. They gazed out across the calm, moonlit Gulf of Mexico.
“What a great view,” said Country.
“Incredible,” said City, turning to Serge. “But don’t ever leave us stranded like that again.”
“I told you it was just a big misunderstanding.”
The sliding door opened. “Excuse me,” said Coleman. He stuck the end of a Heineken bottle in the door frame. The cap popped, followed by foam. A student behind him made a check mark on a sheet of hotel stationery. Coleman closed the door.
City looked through the glass. “What kind of stupidity now?”
“Who knows?” said Serge. “We’re in uncharted damage-deposit territory.”
The trio went back inside. Coleman wedged the end of another Heineken under the TV and gave the green barrel a quick smack with his fist. A cap flew. A student made a check mark.
Serge turned to someone in a Rutgers T-shirt. “What’s going on?”
“Nobody had a bottle opener, so Coleman’s showing us one hundred and one ways to open bottles with his bottle opener.”
“What’s his?”
“The room’s the bottle opener.” He read the checklist. “So far he’s shown us the flange method, pneumatic, heat exchange, friction damper… and he also got into a wine bottle with only a safety pin.”
“The guy’s amazing,” said another student. “How does he do it?”
“Easy,” said Serge. “He’s been on spring break since 1977.”
City rummaged through the mini fridge. “Country, screwdrivers?”
“I’m in.”
“Serge?”
“Coffee.”
The three huddled and watched the proceedings from the relative safety of the kitchenette. Coleman stood on a chair and raised a bottle toward the smoke detector.
City opened cabinets fully stocked with spotless plates and cups. “Impressed.” She closed them. “When you offered your place, I pictured a dump.”
“Got the one-bedroom suite. It has everything, which reminds me…” Serge opened a closet door and grabbed an electric cord. “I heard a comic say this is what separates us from animals, but I beg to differ.”
“You’re going to do housework?” asked Country.
“Observe.” Serge plugged in the vacuum cleaner.
A beer bottle shattered on the floor, and Coleman ran and hid in the bathroom.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Tradition continued.
Bars closed in the wee hours.
Ten minutes later, the night people appeared. Silhouettes on the beach against the edge of the surf. They stumbled through the sand, individually and in bunches of five or six, trying to find the way back to their hotels. Some made several passes in both directions. A freshman carrying a pizza box tried climbing over the locked back gate of the Alligator Arms.
Serge used low-light mode to film the spectacle from his balcony, then went back to bed.
Country opened her eyes. “Where’d you go?”
“The documentary continues.”
“What’s that yelling?”
“Kids on other balconies. After last call, the ones who make it back to their hotels resume partying where they’re most likely to take dangerous falls.”
Down on the pool patio, a night security guard in a smartly pressed uniform made rounds. His shoulder patches featured gallant eagles that projected the intimidating authority of someone who has cheap shoulder patches. He walked across the patio, helped a student up off the ground and peeled pizza from his chest. Then he returned to his post, stationary, back against the fence on the far side of the pool.
Staring upward.
At hotels in other cities, night watchmen patrol for muggings and car break-ins. In spring break towns, they’re on balcony duty. Some of the cheaper, off-beach joints along the Panhandle had seen enough and didn’t need the liability headaches. Balconies overlooking the pool were caged in with burglar bars or chicken wire.
These options weren’t available to the higher-priced waterfront properties, where that kind of low-rent eyesore would run off a profitable slice of their rest-of-the-year clientele. Hence the guard right now behind the Alligator Arms. Tonight he had his hands full, eyes on five different balconies spread across the back of the hotel. Kegs and coolers and shouting.
He continued round-robin surveillance, scanning two seconds on each balcony. The guard saw something three floors up and dashed around the pool. He clicked on his flashlight. “Hey!…”
A kid sat backward on the balcony railing, swaying with a plastic cup. The beam hit the side of his face. “What the hell?” He looked down.
“Are you crazy?” yelled the guard. “Get off that.”
“Sorry.”
The guard went back to his post, taking deep breaths to lower heart rate. It was the same all night, every night, like monitoring a kindergarten class issued razor blades, racing to head off the next brainless crisis almost before the last had ended.
Inside Serge’s one-bedroom suite, a crash.
Country raised her head. “What was that?”
“Don’t know…” Serge listened. More bad noises, things banging. He threw the sheets off his legs. “But I have a good idea.”
He went out to the living room. “Coleman?”
No Coleman.
He turned the corner. “Oh my God! Coleman! No! Don’t do it!”
Coleman was on the balcony. He’d climbed atop a plastic chair, braced his left arm against the side wall and put an unsteady foot on top of the railing.
Serge ran forward. “Whatever it is, we can talk about it! This isn’t the answer.”
Coleman got his other foot on top of the bar, and without hesitation: “Wheeeeeeeeeeee!…” -voice trailing off as he disappeared.
Serge sprinted for the balcony.
Down below, the security guard assisted another student who’d taken a nasty spill over the locked gate. His back was to the pool when he heard the explosion of Coleman’s cannonball.
“Oh my God!” He ran toward the edge of the water, kicking off shoes, but Coleman cheerfully bobbed to the surface and dog-paddled toward the stairs at the shallow end. The guard switched from rescue to enforcement mode. He grabbed Coleman roughly as he staggered up the steps.
The watchman had the disadvantage of not seeing which balcony Coleman came from. “What room are you in?”
“Uh, five forty-three.”
“You’re in big trouble!”
Serge watched it unfolding from the balcony and filled in the coming attractions. “Damn it, Coleman!” He raced for the front door. Country came out of the bedroom. “What’s going on?”
“Just stay here.”
He sailed down flights of stairs and onto the pool deck. The unamused guard led Coleman by the arm.
Serge went for the respect approach. “Is there a problem, officer?”
“You know this man?”
“We’ve met.”
“Better get some bail together.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It’s a misdemeanor. I’m calling the police.”
“Is that really necessary?” said Serge. “I’ll take him into my personal custody. You have my word it won’t happen again.”
“And you’re out of the room, too!”
“Wait. Stop walking,” said Serge. “We can discuss this. How much for your trouble?” He opened his wallet. “I have three hundred.”
“You trying to bribe me?”
“It’s only a bribe if you’re a real cop,” said Serge. “You just got eagle patches… Four hundred?”
“That’s it. Conversation over.” The guard stepped forward. Serge blocked his path. “Get out of my way.”
“Let go of my friend.”
“Just wait till the police get here.” He tried to push by. Mistake. Serge seized the guard’s wrist and yanked it off Coleman’s arm. “You need to calm down. My very strong advice is to forget any of this ever happened.”
The guard was in his mid-twenties, average weight and height. Not much to bring to a fight, but he’d gotten cocky handling confrontation at the hotel since all the kids were hammered. Now he felt the latent energy in Serge’s sobering grip, and self-preservation made the correct decision to keep his powder dry.
He pulled away from Serge and backed across the patio, snatching the walkie-talkie off his belt.
“Crap.” It was Serge’s turn to grab Coleman’s arm. “Time to leave.”
ATLANTA
Muzak tinkled through a hollow terminal at Hartsfield. Just the janitors. Mop buckets and ropes across restrooms. CLOSED.
The last flight from Boston taxied to the terminal, hours late. Bleary travelers stumbled through the echoing airside. Unusually alert was a team of federal agents who were met at baggage claim by a local counterpart with a company car.
They watched hanging rubber flaps for luggage to appear.
Next to them at the belt, a man in a pulled-down baseball cap checked the name tag on a suitcase, pretended it wasn’t his and set it on the conveyor. It traveled thirty feet until Guillermo grabbed the handle and headed for a rental counter.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
The gals were wide awake when Serge hit the door.
“We saw you guys from the balcony,” said Country.
“What the hell did that idiot do now?” said City.
“No time.” Serge threw his suitcase on the sofa bed. “Collect your shit. We have to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said City. “Except back to bed.”
Serge looked in her eyes. Didn’t have to raise his voice. “The cops are coming.”
“Shit.”
He’d never seen women move so fast. In under two minutes, they’d packed essentials. Everything else would be memory. Serge opened the door.
The first patrol car was already in the parking lot as a backup arrived. The sound of elevator doors opening. Serge saw officers step out fifteen rooms down. He jumped back, crashing into the women.
“What’s going on?” asked Country.
“They’re already here,” said Serge. “Not fair. Four-minute response time is the minimum.”
The usually cool women looked at each other in panic, then at Serge. “What do we do?”
“Say good-bye to your luggage. There’s only one exit strategy.” He looked across the room.
“Jump off the balcony?” said City. “Fuck that!”
“They’re going to be banging on the door any second,” said Serge. “If Coleman can make it… Coleman, you think you can make it again?”
“Eyes closed.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! “Police! Open up!”
The gang looked oddly at one another.
More door banging.
Except it wasn’t their door.
Thuds and voices muted by distance.
“Don’t make us knock it in!”
Serge slowly turned the knob and peeked outside. Two cops continued beating on the door nine rooms up, the security guard and hotel manager behind them in the wings.
City was right over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“Unbelievable. They got the wrong room.”
“How’s that possible?” asked Coleman. “I told the guard where I was staying.”
“What’d you say?”
“Five forty-three.”
“Coleman, we’re in five thirty-four.” Serge wiped his forehead with relief. “Sometimes it’s better to be stupid than good.” He peeked again. The cops had gone inside the other room. “This is our break. Now!”
Three people ran onto the landing with suitcases.
“Where’s Coleman?”
Serge looked back inside just as fleshy feet left the balcony railing again. “Wheeeeeeeeee!…”
He groaned in agony. “Why is God doing this to me?”
“What happened to Coleman?” asked Country.
Serge raced for the elevators. “Didn’t get the memo on the updated exit strategy.”
Meanwhile, in room five forty-three:
The guard scratched his head.
An officer repeated the question: “You absolutely sure none of them is the guy you pulled from the pool?”
“This guy I’d definitely remember.”
“We weren’t even awake,” said Andy McKenna, pointing at the sleeping-bag-covered floor. “We haven’t done anything.”
“Jesus,” said the manager. “How many people are staying in this room?”
“Uh, six or seven. I think.”
“They might be telling the truth,” said the guard. “I didn’t see which balcony.”
“Bullshit,” said the manager. “They’re hiding him like the others… All you guys: You’re out of my hotel!”
“Don’t want any trouble,” said Andy. “We’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”
“No! Now!”
One of the officers radioed their status to dispatch. He clipped the microphone back on his shoulder and turned to the manager: “Without a positive ID from your guard, we really can’t do anything.”
“That’s okay,” said the manager. “I got it from here. Appreciate your assistance.”
The officers tipped their caps and left.
Down at ground level, four pairs of eyes peered from bushes. Three dry people, one not. Fishing Coleman out of the pool had critically delayed their escape. By the time they reached the parking lot, officers were getting off the elevators. The eyes followed blue uniforms across the pavement.
Patrol car doors slammed. One cruiser drove off; a dome light came on in the other.
“Why isn’t he leaving?” asked Coleman.
“Crap.” Serge swatted a mosquito. “He’s filling out the report.”
They all gazed at the Challenger, tantalizingly close, next to the police car.
A light rumbling sound.
“Get down!” said Serge. “Someone’s coming!”
A half dozen deflated students rolled luggage from elevators, the manager right behind to make sure. “I’ve got all your names and license numbers! Don’t ever come back!” He returned to his office.
The light went off in the patrol car. It drove away.
Students surrounded a pair of vehicles in the dark lot and loaded suitcases. “What are we going to do now?”
Four nonstudents broke from the bushes and rushed for the Challenger.
“They kick you out, too?” asked Andy. “What?” said Serge, sticking a key in the trunk. “Kick you out.” He pointed at the fifth floor. “We just got tossed for something we didn’t even do. What’d they get you for?”
“Get us for?”
“Why else would anyone check out at this ungodly hour, unless-”
“Oh, right,” said Serge. “Kicked out. Assholes! We should Molotov the office! What do you say? It’s looks really cool at night.”
Another student put his hands up passively. “All the same, we don’t need any more problems right now.”
“Just joshin’,” said Serge. He smiled. Then he didn’t. “Wait. Your voice… Do I know you?”
“Doubt it.” He grabbed a door handle.
“Damn it!” City yelled from the backseat. “Will you fucking get in already?”
“Hold that thought.” He looked back across the Challenger’s roof. His eyes suddenly lit. “Melvin! You’re Melvin Davenport!”
The student released the door handle. “How do you know my name?”
“Melvin!…” -thumping his own chest-“… It’s me, Serge!” Melvin squinted. “Serge?”
“We played catch when you were a kid. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I remember. It’s just-”
“Almost didn’t recognize you either.” Serge looked the kid over. “Wow, you really squirted. What? Six-one, two? But barely a buck thirty. Don’t fret; you’ll fill out soon enough. How’s Jim?”
“Dad’s fine.”
“And your mom?”
“Seriously pissed at you.”
“Still?”
“Probably strangle me just for talking to you like this.”
“Hoo, they really don’t forget.” Serge shrugged. “But that’s the whole point of college: Doing everything that would give your mother ten heart attacks. Speaking of which, I was only half-kidding about the Molotov. You in?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Good idea-it’s like forever getting that gasoline smell off your hands.”
“What the hell’s taking so long?” yelled City.
“Relax! Doesn’t Country have a joint or something?” Serge turned back around. “Sorry. Chicks.” He gestured up the empty street as pot smoke curled out the Challenger’s back window. “So where you heading?”
“No clue,” said Melvin. “Still hasn’t sunk in that we’re out on the street.”
A grin spread across Serge’s face. “Got the perfect idea. Swear you won’t regret it.”
INTERSTATE 75
A Hertz Town Car sped south through the starry Georgia night.
An exit for Robins Air Force Base went by. Raul opened a suitcase and passed out guns again.
“Keep those things down,” said Guillermo, letting off the gas and watching the speedometer drop to the posted 70 limit.
“What’s the matter?” asked Raul.
Guillermo glanced in the rearview. “We got cops.”
A Crown Vic with blackwall tires blew by in the left lane. Behind the wheel: “I just hope we’re not too late,” said Agent Ramirez.
One hundred and fifty miles southwest, a ’73 Challenger sped through empty farmland. It picked up I- 10 in Tallahassee and headed east out of the Panhandle.
“Breaker, breaker…”
“Is that you, Serge?”
Serge brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth again and looked in the Challenger’s side mirror. “Coleman, you’re supposed to say, ‘That’s a big ten-four, Captain Florida.’”
“Captain Florida’?” Coleman said into his own walkie-talkie from the backseat of a New Hampshire station wagon.
“That’s my handle,” said Serge.
“What’s mine?”
“How about ‘Lord of the Binge’?”
“Has a nice ring.”
The Challenger sped down open highway, followed by the station wagon and a Dodge pickup with Gator bumper stickers. They passed Live Oak, fifteen miles before the interchange with I-75, where a Crown Vic took the westbound ramp onto I-10.
“Breaker, Lord of the Binge…”
“That’s a big ten-seven.”
“Looks like we got us a convoy!”
The three-vehicle motorcade continued east, seeing no other cars for miles. Then:
“Breaker, breaker,” said Serge. “Smokey, eleven o’clock.”
Everyone cut back their speed as a Crown Vic driven by Agent Ramirez flew in the opposite direction.
“We’re clear,” said Serge. They sped on, approaching the I-75 cloverleaf, where a Hertz Town Car passed them going the other way toward Panama City Beach.
SUNRISE
“This is Maria Sanchez with Daybreak Eyewitness Action News Seven. I’m standing here on the crystal white sands of Panama City Beach as the sun peeks over the horizon and a number of college guests appreciating our wonderful community are up extra early to take in a morning stroll… Here comes one of them now… Sir, can you tell us what you’ve enjoyed most about your visit?”
“I don’t know where my hotel is. And I’m really drunk…”
Nearby, a packed Pontiac with Ohio plates arrived on the famous strip.
Ritual beers popped. “Spring break!”
Like so many others, the students had just completed another marathon drive that began in the snow the previous morning. They crossed the Florida line two hours before dawn and hit city limits at first light. Another impulse trip. “Who needs reservations?”
Budget motels lined the opposite side of the road from the beach. They stopped. Nothing available. Then the next. Full. The next. Sorry. And so on, until they reached the end of the strip. “We should have made reservations.”
The Pontiac turned around and headed back, this time trying the more expensive hotels on the gulf side. Same story, again and again. Looked like they’d have to head inland and find something north of town. They passed the Alligator Arms. Red neon under the sign: NO V ACANCY.
A passenger in the front seat turned around. “Did you see that?”
“What?” asked the driver.
“The ‘No’ on the ‘No Vacancy’ sign just went off.”
“Maybe it burnt out.”
“Can’t hurt to try.”
They parked out of view from the office, so the rest of the students could hide.
The manager looked up from his newspaper as the door opened. One of the kids pointed behind. “Saw the ‘no’ go out on the vacancy sign. Is that for real?”
The manager nodded and came to the counter. “One room left. Some other kids decided to depart early.”
“How much?”
“How many staying in the room?”
“Just us two.”
“That means at least five.”
“No, really.”
“Hundred and seventy a night.”
“What!”
“You’re not going to find another place for fifty miles.” The students pulled back from the counter and talked it over. Then nods.
“Okay, we’ll take it. Let me go out to the car and get some more money from the other three guys.”
The sun rose over the hotel roof as five Ohio students rolled luggage from their car.
Next to a newspaper box, someone sat on the curb with his chin in his hands.
“What’s the matter?” asked one of the students.
“No place to stay.”
“Why don’t you stay with us?”
“Really?”
“Wait a second,” said a second youth. “Why are you inviting a complete stranger to stay with us?”
“Because he’s the midget.”
They took the elevator several floors up and headed down the landing toward room 543.
SOMEWHERE IN NORTH FLORIDA
Another beautiful morning.
The ’73 Challenger barreled east on I-10 as a rising sun burnt off dew. Close behind, a woody station wagon and a Dodge pickup. They reached a junction in Jacksonville and headed south on 95.
The occupants of the various vehicles had been redistributed, at Serge’s insistence, “to resurrect the lost art of conversation.”
Serge sat behind the wheel of the Challenger. Melvin and Country had the backseat. Andy rode shotgun.
In the middle car, half the New Hampshire students and Coleman: “Brownies are the best!”
“I think smoking works better.”
“Much academic debate,” said Coleman. “But for my money, ingesting ensures a more complete absorption of the tetrahydrocan-nabinol psychoactive component. Only trade-off is a forty-five-minute delay to kick in. I’ll show you when we get to Daytona.”
Melvin’s roommate, Cody, drove the trailing pickup, with City and Joey filling out the rest of the tight front seat. Joey yawned and stretched out his arm in a furtive gambit to put it around City’s shoulders.
“I’ll break it.”
The arm came back.
Serge reached over and playfully punched Andy in the shoulder. “Ain’t this the bee’s knees? You could have been stuck in the Panhandle, but now we get to travel back through spring break history! Look at that magnificent sky! This calls for coffee!” He grabbed a bottom-weighted travel mug off the dash. His other hand reached for his walkie-talkie. “Breaker, breaker. We got the big twenty-four lookin’ green all the way on the flip side.”
“What?”
“It’s a great fucking day!” He stretched an arm to Andy. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Good, ’cause I want it all!” He sucked the mug dry, then turned his camcorder on and held it out the window. “There’s just something magical about setting out on the road at night and watching the sky gradually lighten until the sun arrives. Reminds me of childhood. We’d take trips to Cypress Gardens, Busch Gardens, Miami Seaquarium. For some reason, my folks found it essential to make good time and leave in pitch blackness. Our car was loaded the previous night, except for the cheap Styrofoam cooler. They started making ice days ahead and hoarded it in the freezer. Money wasn’t flying around like it is today, and people couldn’t justify buying bags of the stuff at 7-Eleven, which actually opened at seven and closed at eleven. Do we have any more coffee in here? Fuck it, I’ll just go: Mom made piles of bologna sandwiches ahead of time and stored them in Tupperware. America forgets its heritage, but back then Tupperware parties were hugely important tribal events, like Bar Mitzvahs for Gentiles. I want that on my tombstone: ‘There’s nothing’s more goy than Tupperware.’ Did I already ask about coffee? We owned an old Rambler, and I had the backseat to myself. Nobody thought about seat belts then, let alone child safety seats, and I sat on the floor behind Dad with my GI Joes and Tinkertoys. I once made a gallows from Tinkertoys and hung a GI Joe deserter, and my parents took me to a doctor. And on the other side of the drive-train hump, behind my mom’s seat, was the Styrofoam cooler of Total Joy. The back of the Rambler seemed so big then, and I was constantly moving around, as you probably guessed from my personality. Down on the floor, up on the seats doing somersaults. After a few trips, Dad wasn’t even distracted anymore by everything going on in the rearview mirror: little legs whipping by, flying GI Joes who’d stepped on land mines. But best of all-climbing up and lying on the ledge by the back window! Melvin? You can lie up on the ledge if you want. I can’t understate the experience.”
“Don’t think I should.”
“Why not? Coleman does it all the time.”
“No, thanks.”
“Anyway, childhood’s over.” Serge reached under his seat. “Now vacation means a whole new adult routine.” He popped the ammo clip from a chrome.45 and checked the chamber.
“What’s the gun for?” asked Andy.
“What do you think?” Serge replaced the magazine. “Florida.”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
Another stop-and-go morning on the strip. Agent Ramirez slapped the steering wheel of a Crown Vic, caught between overloaded Jeeps of hollering, mug-hoisting students. Holiday Isles was in sight, but who knew how long?
The government sedan crept past the Alligator Arms, where a Hertz Town Car pulled into a parking space. Four men headed toward the elevator.
Ramirez’s Crown Vic only rolled another hundred yards in the next ten minutes.
“Hell with this.” He put two wheels up on the curb and honked kids out of the way. The sedan sped up the valet lane at Holiday Isles. Agents jumped out and ran for the entrance.
Hotel employees in blazers: “Hey! You can’t park there!”
Badges.
“Please park there.”
They raced to a room on the ninth floor. Three local uniforms on the balcony guarded the door. Even more crowded inside. Ten agents compared notes.
A real estate broker fidgeted in a chair. “How much longer is this going to take? I’m paying a fortune for this room!”
Ramirez entered. “You Kyle Jones?”
“Yeah. And I demand to know-”
“You don’t demand anything.”
Jones muttered under his breath.
“I didn’t catch that,” said Ramirez.
“Nothing. But I’ve already answered a million questions. I have no idea what’s going on.”
“Shut it.” He turned. “Baxter?”
“You must be Ramirez.”
Shook hands.
“Thanks for sitting on this for me.”
“Gets stranger the more we look at it.” He gave Ramirez a printout. “That’s the background check you requested. Spotless, except for mortgage-fraud lawsuits.”
“So he isn’t working with them after all?”
“That’s how it smells.”
“It stinks,” said Ramirez. “He showed up on someone’s radar.”
“Can’t figure the connection except the one phone call. And that’s a dead end.”
Ramirez stared toward the balcony. “There’s got to be something.”
INTERSTATE 95
The southbound ’73 Challenger blew past all three St. Augustine exits. Signs for five-hundred-year-old stuff and adult video stores.
“Melvin,” said Serge, “how’s it going back there?”
“Fine.”
Serge checked his mirror and smiled. Melvin bashfully looked at Country, who returned a confident gaze. She’d been working on a bottle of vodka and poured generously through the open tab of a half-empty can of Sprite. Then she covered the hole with a thumb and shook. “Want some?”
“No, thanks.”
Country shrugged and drank it herself.
“Melvin,” said Serge, “what do you think of your traveling companion back there?”
“She’s okay.”
“Come on,” Serge chided. “I’ve seen the way you been looking at her.”
He blushed so brightly you could almost read a map by it.
“Serge,” said Country, “I think your friend’s kind of cute.”
“Hear that, Melvin? She thinks you’re cute.”
More blushing.
“Have a girlfriend?” asked Country.
“No.”
“Ever had one?”
“Well, in grade school.”
“Serge,” said Country. “He’s adorable.”
“Why don’t you ask her out?” said Serge.
“Who?” said Melvin. “Me?”
“Anyone else back there named Melvin?”
“I couldn’t. I mean she, I… What if she says no?”
“You’ll never find out unless you ask.”
Melvin couldn’t get his mouth to work. Country poured more vodka.
Finally: “Would you consider, you know, maybe-”
“Sure.” She handed him a soda can. “You need to drink that.” This time Melvin accepted. “How’d you get the name Country?”
“ ’Cause I’m from Alabama.”
“So tell me something about yourself.” He took a sip.
“I’m Serge’s girl.”
Melvin spit out the drink and made a panicked retreat to the farthest corner of the car. “Serge, I didn’t know! I swear!”
“Relax.” Serge checked his blind spot to pull around a slow-moving horse trailer with tails flapping out the side. “Me and Country got an open thing. Ask her when she wants to go out.”
Silence.
“Melvin?”
“Uh, when do you want to go out?”
Country tilted her head. “This is a kind of date right now.”
“What kind?”
She just smiled.
“Andy,” Serge said sideways across the front seat, “ever been to Florida before?”
“Nope. This is my first time.”
“Then you’re in for a real treat!”
Andy McKenna leaned his head against the passenger window, faintly recognizing old billboards for citrus and marmalade stands. His mind drifted back to a childhood in Boynton Beach and that day fifteen years ago when the men in dark suits whisked him from kindergarten…
… Staring out the rear window of their car, watching teachers run down school steps, pointing and gossiping. The school disappeared. Someone gave him a lollipop.
“Who are you guys?”
“Billy, we’re friends of your father.”
“Where is he?”
“Taking you to him right now.”
Then unstoppable crying, no matter how many lollipops.
The cars whipped into the parking lot of a run-down motel off Southern Boulevard near the West Palm airport.
Crying dovetailed to sniffles as the convoy stopped, and the child pressed himself against the glass. Lots more men, same suits. They stood along a row of rooms and in various spots across the lot. Billy’s head swiveled back and forth. No Dad.
Then a burst of action. Five men ran to the car. One grabbed a door handle but didn’t open it. Others stuck hands inside jackets.
Someone gave the signal.
Out of the car. Nothing gentle. One of the men grabbed Billy under the arms. The rest surrounded them, sprinting for a middle room. Billy thought they were going to crash into the door, but at the last second it opened from inside. More men. This time he saw guns.
The door slammed behind him. In front, an agent opened another door, the one to the bathroom. Someone came out.
“Daddy!”
Billy hit the ground running for the tearful hug. His father rubbed his sandy hair and squeezed him tighter than ever before. “You okay, son?”
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
“That’s all over now. You’re with me.”
“Are we staying in this hotel?”
“No, we have to be leaving soon.” He held the boy out by the shoulders and tried to calm him with a false smile. “ Guess what? We’re going on a vacation!”
“Where?”
“You’ll get to see snow!”
“Snow? I’ve never seen snow before!” Billy realized something and looked around. “ Where’s Mom?”
“Already there waiting for us.”
Five hours of motel room life. An uneventful evening in eventful circumstance. They watched TV and ate McDonald’s the agents brought in. “Son, I know this won’t make any sense to you now, but it’s very, very important. From now on, your name is Andy.”
“Andy?”
“Andy McKenna.”
“I don’t understand.”
The father pulled the boy to his chest again. He saw one of the agents give him a look.
“Son, it’s time to go…”
At the end of a long day, a Boeing 737 touched down in Detroit. “Andy” had a window seat. “Wow, snow!”
A hand shook Andy’s arm and he jumped. “What?”
Serge gave his passenger a double take. “Didn’t mean to startle, but you were zoning. Like it was something distressful.”
“Just tired.”
PANAMA CITY BEACH
“Think!” yelled Agent Ramirez.
“Told you, I have no idea,” said the real estate man named Kyle. A breathless field agent ran into the room. “Think we got something.”
“What?” asked Ramirez.
“Call from the hospital in New Hampshire. Oswalt talked to the kid again.”
“What kid?”
“Pet feeder.”
“I remember.” Ramirez nodded. “Madre’s boys paid him a visit. Surprised he’s still alive.”
“Still a basket case, but coming around. He remembered something. You know how he gave us the name of this hotel and Kyle’s name?”
“Yeah?”
“The hotel info was a call he got from the road.”
“Right, from Andy.”
“Not from Andy. Kyle Jones of Boston College…”
“Who doesn’t exist?” said Ramirez.
“The kid back at campus never heard of this Jones before, just got a call out of the blue from a guy who said he’d met his friends at a rest stop. Upon further questioning, turns out he never spoke to anyone known personally.”
“But I thought he spoke directly to Andy about feeding fish.”
“That was the first call.”
“First?”
“Second was from our mystery man who said they switched hotels to this one.”
“Don’t tell me there’s another hotel.”
“Alligator Arms.”
Memory flash. “Son of a bitch!” Ramirez ran onto the balcony and stared up the strip. An older, unsleek building stood in the distance. Out front, a neon alligator smiled at him.
A walkie-talkie squawked. A local sergeant guarding the room grabbed it. “… Ten-four, Alligator Arms.” He looked at Ramirez. “Sorry, something’s come up.” Then to other officers: “Need to roll pronto.”
They sprinted for the elevators. A growing chorus of sirens approached in the distance.
“Wait!” Ramirez ran after them. “Did you say Alligator Arms?”
DAYTONA BEACH
A Andy.” Serge shook his shoulder again. “How can you be tired? You’re a kid.”
“I’ve been up all night.” He leaned back against the door. “Let me sleep.”
“You can sleep tomorrow, or the next day,” said Serge. “That’s when I plan to. But not now-I’ve got a super-special adventure planned. Anything can happen.”
“Like what?”
“Daytona! It’s crazy! Twenty miles of beach you can drive on, right where they used to hold the old races and land-speed record attempts. Want to go for our own attempt?”
“Not really.”
“Maybe you’re right, because the speed limit on the sand is now ten miles an hour. But we could always shoot for eleven and set the modern record.”
“Why are we going to Daytona, anyway? We could have just hit another Panhandle town.”
“Time travel!” Serge stuck his camcorder back out the window. “You’ve already had the Panama City experience. Daytona was the previous hot spot. A few students had been going there for years, but it seriously took off in 1985. That’s when the birthplace of spring break, Fort Lauderdale, drove kids out of town with draconian laws, and they migrated north. The next year, MTV held its first spring break jamboree in Daytona, and visitor estimates hit four hundred thousand. Then the place got cash-fat and gave students another heave. Today it’s back down to barely a trickle, which means plenty of driving room on the beach. I’m definitely going for eleven!”
“But how are we supposed to have fun if the city doesn’t want us?”
“Wear biker shirts.”
“Biker?”
“Town shakers now woo two-wheelers because they spend more insanely than students. If you check the chamber of commerce home page on the Internet, there are two huge motorcycle fests but not a single word about spring break. For that, you have to go to a local-merchant site angling for the wholesome crowd with something called ‘Spring Family Beach Break,’ which is like radiation to college students. And since the kids aren’t coming in effective numbers anymore, there’s no money or reason to update the old beach arcades and boardwalk, inadvertently preserving them in their original historic state, like a mini Coney Island, not to mention the venerable band shell, Florida’s version of the Hollywood Bowl. I’m getting a diamond-hard boner just thinking about it. That was probably too much information.”
The sun rose high as the convoy grew closer to its destination. Palm Coast, Flagler Beach, Ormond Beach. It was quiet in the Challenger. Too quiet.
Serge glanced in the rearview. “Melvin, you haven’t been saying much lately.”
Melvin stared straight ahead, blinking and breathing rapidly.
“Melvin? You all right?… Melvin?…”
Then something else. Something out of place.
Serge leaned for a different angle in the mirror. “Where’d Country go?… Country?…”
Her head popped up into view. “I’m still here.” She disappeared again.
“Melvin, you sly dog!” said Serge, smiling in the mirror. “I didn’t know you were into road-trip tradition.”
PANAMA CITY
A mass of students from the beach moved into the parking lot of the Alligator Arms. Beer, music, rumors, emergency vehicles and flashing lights. Everyone looking up at crime tape across an open door on the fifth floor.
Traffic cops waved a motorcade of government sedans through the entrance. Agent Ramirez ran for the elevator. A small plane flew over the roof of the motel with an advertising banner for coconut rum.
Ramirez raced down the fifth-floor landing as coroners wheeled another sheet-covered stretcher the other way. Police met him outside the room.
Only one question on his tongue: “IDs?”
A sergeant checked scribbled notes, rattling off five names gathered from out-of-state drivers’ licenses.
“No Andy McKenna?”
The sergeant shook his head. “But that name sounds familiar.” He called to a corporal. “Ray, where did I hear the name Andy McKenna?”
“That’s who the room was registered to. Or was.”
“Then where is he?” said Ramirez.
“Got kicked out yesterday.”
“What for?”
“We went back and looked at last night’s incident reports. Someone almost killed himself diving into the pool from the balcony,” said the corporal. “It’s a bit of a problem around here. Especially with the more educated types.”
Ramirez felt himself slipping through the looking glass. Another stretcher rolled out the door. He raised the crime tape and ducked inside.
Walls a splatter fest. Local cops among themselves: “… Never seen anything like it…”
Ramirez had. Miami. The good ol’ days. “Only one person could be behind this.”
“Who?” asked his top assistant.
“Guillermo.”
“Guillermo?”
“Madre’s lead boy. Calm, calculating, complete psychopath. No conscience whatsoever.” He quickly called a huddle with his team. “McKenna’s still out there. As soon as the victims’ names hit TV, Guillermo’s crew will know they missed the target and come back. Call every hotel in the city, see which one he switched to. Question all other guests staying here and canvass the staff. Get out an APB on Andy, but for law enforcement eyes only. No press or it’s up for grabs. Go!”
They dispersed.
Ramirez walked onto the balcony and dialed his phone. “… Need you to track a credit card for me… Andrew McKenna, address either Dorchester or Durham… And this is important. Except for you and the chain of command, nobody is to see it but me…” He didn’t say why, didn’t have to. An informant in the house.
“Thanks…” Ramirez hung up and looked down over the railing at an extra-tiny chalk outline on the patio.