ROD AND REEL PIER
Agent Mahoney bobbed a line in the water.
A phone rang.
“Mahoney here. Mumble to me.”
“It’s Harold. If you’re still interested, I just got a hit on that credit card.”
“Where!”
“Bar in New Smyrna. It’s called…”
Mahoney knew the place inside out. “Thanks, Dutch.”
He closed the phone. “Here, kid. Have a fishing pole.”
“Gee, thanks, mister. And it’s got a fish on it.”
Mahoney cleared out of room 3 at the Rod and Reel Motel and sped east in a ’68 Dodge Monaco.
PALM BEACH
The Atlantic was calm. A light chop sparkled from a late-morning sun and glistened off the windows of old-money mansions.
Unlike other parts of the state, the continental shelf drops like a cliff just a few miles out, where the big freighters and yachts cruise. Route A1A continued south, leaving the famous Worth Avenue shopping district and swinging out to the edge of the beach. A ’73 Challenger rolled by security cameras at the entrance of the Trump compound, station wagon and pickup close behind.
Andy was up front with Serge. City and Country passed a bottle in the backseat. Coleman was there, too. Normally, it would have been tight quarters.
Serge looked in the rearview and raised his walkie-talkie. “Lord of the Binge, you okay?”
Coleman keyed his own walkie-talkie. “I like it here.”
Andy visibly shook as he turned around and stared at Coleman lying up on the rear window ledge, then back at Serge and his walkie-talkie. “No offense, but I’m not sure I want to be riding with you guys anymore.”
“Don’t have a choice,” said Serge, draining a travel mug of coffee.
“Is that a threat?”
“For your own safety.” Serge set the cup back on the dash. “You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”
“I get the feeling something will anyway.”
“I was saving this, because I knew how spooked you were.”
“Saving what?”
Serge took his hands off the wheel and clapped them together. “I have great news! This is going to make your whole day, sure to boost your spirits!”
“What is it?”
“Remember me mentioning the birthplace of spring break? I just found the original spot. I mean the exact, genuine GPS location, not like the Fountain of Youth, where they dug a hole in St. Augustine, planted a sign and took my fucking money without even letting me climb down the well, but I did anyway. More like fell-Coleman let go of my ankles. But what are you going to do?”
“I’d like to get out of the car now, please.”
“We’re going too fast.”
They left Boynton and crossed the Broward line.
“I still think we should call the authorities,” said Andy.
“Told you: There’s a mole.”
“But what can one guy do? If I call, they’ll send a whole team like they did before…”
“And take you to a safe house?”
“Right.”
“That’s why I can’t let you,” said Serge. “I know this game. When there’s a mole, the precise moment you’re in greatest danger is during the hand-off. It’s the last open shot they’ll have. Besides, I got something better than a regular safe house.”
“Which is?”
“Serge’s Safe Fun House!”
Somewhere along the Atlantic coast, a cell phone rang.
“Agent Ramirez here.”
“Received a hit on that credit card.”
“Finally! Where?…”
The ’73 Challenger continued down A1A, speeding past giant new condos and boutiques where history had been demolished.
“Serge,” said Andy. “Why are you waving a gun out the window at those buildings and making shooting sounds with your mouth?”
“Does that bother you?”
They crossed Sunrise Boulevard. Recent construction gave way to the old Lauderdale strip. Andy looked out the window at a postcard view: endless sea, bent coconut palms, lifeguard shacks and the famous whitewashed balustrade along the sidewalk. “Where are we?”
“The cradle.” He pulled into a convenience store parking lot, and students from the other vehicles gathered ’round.
“Supply run,” said Serge. “Stock up heavy. Gets expensive fast if you run out down where we’re staying.”
Coleman and the kids went for beer coolers. Serge spun racks of souvenirs. Melvin grabbed bags of chips.
Andy glanced around. “Pssst, Melvin. Can I ask you a favor?”
“Why are you whispering?”
“Don’t want Serge to hear.” Andy handed him his credit card and a disposable cell phone in a plastic blister pack. “Buy this for me.”
“Why don’t you buy it?”
“Serge doesn’t want me making any calls.”
“I don’t think he wants anyone making calls.”
“You’re not worried?”
Melvin laughed. “You don’t know Serge like I do. This is all just fake drama. That’s what I was finally able to explain to the other guys. He’s hilariously eccentric. I convinced them to sit back and go along with his imagination. Trust me, it’ll be a riot.”
“I don’t think this is fake.”
“Of course it is. Why? You know something we don’t?”
Andy opened his mouth, thinking of all the things he wanted to say-canceling each one before it came out. “Can you buy the phone?”
“It’s not my credit card.”
“These people never check.”
“I don’t think Serge is going to let me.”
“He likes you. Tell him it’s about a girl.”
Serge was at the checkout.
“Sorry,” said the cashier. “We just have those magnets and key chains.”
Serge leaned far over the counter and looked down. “Sure you don’t have anything else back there? Bet you do if you look. Tequesta artifacts; Stranahan family mementos; Las Olas bricks; wood splinters from coastal forts, whence this city got its name.”
“We have little thimbles.”
“You should have bricks. I can get some if you want. Hot seller.” He grabbed an item from a cardboard counter display. “Better than this cigarette lighter that looks like a penis. I can have you up to your neck in bricks by sundown. Just say the word.”
“Sir,” said the cashier. “Someone wants to buy something.”
“Oh, sorry.” He stepped aside. “Melvin, what are you doing with that phone? You know what we talked about.”
Melvin looked at his shoes. “It’s… a girl.”
Serge slapped him on the back. “You are a sly dog.”
A luxury motor coach blocked traffic in both directions on A1A as the driver negotiated a challenging turn radius.
Car honked. Not from annoyance. They recognized the company name and paint job. Girls Gone Haywire had come to town!
The driver finally cleared the road and pulled into the parking lot of a towering resort.
Rood and staff climbed down.
His chief assistant assessed the new shooting locale. “Sir, I don’t think kids come to Fort Lauderdale for spring break anymore.”
“Some still do,” said Rood. “We’ll just have to be patient.”
“But what if those hags show up again with their signs?”
“Nobody can follow us forever.”
The assistant looked up the strip. “I still haven’t seen a single babe.”
“Like I said, be patient.”
The gang regrouped outside the convenience store.
“Where’s Andy?” said Serge.
“Think he’s in the bathroom.”
Andy was torn. He sat on the toilet, staring forever at his new cell phone.
He’d started to dial and hung up three times already. Serge was clearly insane. But so had been his own life ever since that day in kindergarten. And Serge was smart. Andy figured it a 50-50 proposition he was right about a mole and the danger of going in.
Decision time.
He dialed again and let it ring through. Answering service.
“Dad, it’s me, Andy. I think some people discovered our witness identities. I wanted to call the special number they gave us, but there might be an informant. Except the guy who told me that is-… I’m so confused. I don’t know who to trust…”
Banging on the door. “Andy, it’s me, Serge. You okay in there?”
“Fine. Just be a minute.” He set the phone’s ringer on vibrate and returned it to his head. “What am I supposed to do? I’m in Fort Lauderdale; call when you get this message…”
THE CRADLE
Students assembled on the sidewalk in front of Serge, getting wasted but remembering his advice to keep drinks concealed because they were now “behind enemy lines.”
He looked across sunburnt faces. “Anyone?”
A hand went up. “Didn’t it start with the movie Where the Boys Are?”
“Excellent answer,” said Serge. “And wrong. That’s when it really exploded, except it actually began in 1935 just up the street. But since we’re outside Tour Stop Number One, the infamous Elbo Room, let’s talk about that movie…”
They went inside and ordered a round. “… This area here is where they filmed. Students had been flocking from northern universities for years until the migration reached twenty thousand in the late fifties, still extremely modest by today’s standards. Then in 1960, after that movie came out, numbers exploded to more than three hundred thousand, making the required pilgrimage to this very bar. If you look closely at the carved-up wood, you might find your parents’ initials. Or grandparents’…”
Andy was in the rear of the group, facing the other way, surreptitiously sliding a cell phone from his pocket.
“… Until that movie, Middle America had been in the dark about what was going down in Florida… But their first hint came the year before when, on Monday, April 13, 1959, Time magazine exposed the secret world of booze, sex, throwing alligators in motel pools, driving twenty-seven hours from Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College and rioting when a bar ran out of beer during an all-you-can-drink-for-a-dollar-fifty special.”
“Dollar fifty!” said a student.
“Ain’t heritage an ass kicker? And here’s your free bonus: an ultra-cool history footnote that has come to be known as my signature, or obnoxiousness, depending on the reviewer. Remember, it was still 1959, the year before the movie. And that Time article ended with a girl being asked to explain the attraction of spring break. Her answer? It’s ‘where the boys are.’”
“Wow.”
“Andy!” yelled Serge. “What are you doing back there?”
“Nothing!” The cell went back in his pocket.
“The Elbo was even slated for the wrecking ball a couple years back, but the condo market went bust and saved her, for the time being… Kill those drinks-we’re on the prowl!”
Three minutes later, the convoy parked in metered slots a few blocks south. Serge led the gang on foot around a private gate.
“And this is Bahia Mar Marina, home of literature’s Travis McGee and his houseboat, the Busted Flush…“ He walked briskly through a dock entrance.”… His creator, John D. MacDonald, died in 1986, and the following February they erected a magnificent brass memorial plaque on a stately concrete pedestal at Travis’s boat slip, F-18, which is…“-he turned the corner-”… right here… What the fuck?”
“What is it?”
“The monument! It’s gone!”
“It’s a pretty big marina,” said Spooge. “Sure you didn’t get the wrong spot?”
“Not a chance,” said Serge. “This shit I know inside out. Always have to stop and touch the plaque each time through town, ever since the ’97 World Series when I came here with Sharon and nearly shot-Better stick with my official account.”
A security guard in a golf cart zipped by.
“Excuse me!” yelled Serge. “Mr. Make-Believe Cop!”
The cart stopped.
Serge sprinted across the dock.
“Can I help you?” asked the guard.
Serge pointed behind him. “The monument!… MacDonald!… Disappeared!… Was it Maoists?…”
“Oh, the plaque. About some books. Yeah, they moved it to the dockmaster’s office.”
“Why’d they do that?”
The guard shrugged.
“Which way?”
“Last building over there.”
Serge looked back at the gang and made a big wave of his arm. “I found it! Hurry!… Andy, what’s that behind your back?”
“Nothing.”
Serge and the students ran down a seawall along the Intracoastal Waterway. Andy fell farther and farther behind. He began slipping a hand into his pocket again. Before he could reach the phone, it vibrated.
Andy almost fell in the water. He quickly flipped it open with a whisper: “Hello?”
“Andy? Is that you? Andy McKenna?”
“Who’s this?”
“Agent Ramirez. Are you all right?”
“Thank heavens! You have to help…” He stopped and looked at the recently bought disposable phone. “Where’d you get my number? Nobody has it. You’re… Guillermo, aren’t you?”
“I can explain. Don’t hang up!”
He hung up.
Serge cut across a lawn and burst through the doors of the dock-master’s office, lunging at the woman behind the nearest desk.
“Can I help you?”
Serge straightened his posture and collected himself. “Yes, the helpful security guard told me about the relocation of one of our state’s holiest touchstones.”
“Our what?”
The office was small. Students snaked behind Serge and out the open door. Andy was last. His phone vibrated again. He opened it slowly but didn’t speak.
“Don’t hang up! I got lucky and decided to give your father’s answering service another shot. This number was attached to your message.”
Silence.
“Andy? Still there?”
“You know my father?”
“I’m one of the agents who originally moved you fifteen years ago.”
“I had a Dolphins poster in my room-”
“Larry Csonka.”
More silence, this time from shock.
“Andy?”
“Thank God! You’re telling the truth! You’ve got to get me out of here!”
“Where are you exactly?”
“With some lunatic…”
“Andy!” Serge yelled out the door. “What are you doing out there?”
“Nothing!”
“Don’t hang up!”
Click.
Andy trotted toward the office.
“Feeling okay?” asked Serge, holding the door. “You’ve been acting kinda weird.”
“I’m fine.”
“Good, because these kind people just showed me where the plaque is. It’s behind the door on that little stand unworthy of Travis.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Listen up. This puts us behind schedule, so keep the line moving…”
The dockmaster’s staff thought they’d signed up for marina administration. But the new placement of the plaque had drawn a stream of hard-core MacDonald buffs and their spectrum of behavior-so barely a blip registered on their radar as the column of young visitors marched past the stand and ritualistically touched the plaque. They finished and walked out the door. Except one.
“Andy, why aren’t you touching the plaque? What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me? How can you goof around at a time like this?”
“I’m not goofing around. It’s all part of the Master Plan…” -he lowered his voice-“… Remember what we talked about in the car?”
“What does touching plaques have to do with any of that?”
“The plan… has tangents.”
“There is no plan! You’re going to get me killed!”
“Touch the plaque. For me?”
Andy sighed and halfheartedly brushed it with the back of his hand.
“Now, how hard was that?”
“I am so dead.” He walked out the door.
Serge turned back to the office staff. “Appreciate the hospitality. But the plaque really should be back on the dock.”
“What?”
“I know it wasn’t your doing.” Serge winked. “We’ll talk later.”
MIAMI
Another phone call.
“Hello?” said Juanita.
“Credit card’s been used again.”
“Where?”
“If I may say something, they’ve got agents all over this. Good ones. We could take a big fall, and for what?”
“The address.”
“You hear what I said?”
Juanita went from ice to thermonuclear in a blink. “You never speak disrespectfully to me! I took you in! I stood by you!”
“Didn’t mean it that way.”
“Anyone else would have been killed for letting Randall Sheets slip away!”
“I made it up to you. Even with everyone looking at us, I still went back for those informant files. Jesus, they were your brothers!”
“You’re the one who gave me their names.”
“And I’ve regretted it every day since.”
“Are we not paying you enough?”
“That isn’t what I mean. This is a business, and this makes no business sense.”
“Because of who you are to me, I will make an exception and ask you one more time, but only one more time. What is the address where the credit card was used?”
A pause. “Have something to write with?”
“That’s a good boy.”
FORT LAUDERDALE
The Challenger-led convoy sped south on A1A and turned right onto Harbor Drive.
A well-kept old Florida motel. Two floors, fresh yellow paint, blue trim. Configured at acute, retro angles protecting a courtyard with lush tropical plants and picnic tables.
Serge hopped out. “This is our place! The fabulous Bahia Cabana!”
Serge checked in at the office across the street. They gathered again in the middle of the courtyard. “Here are your room keys…”
Serge stopped and stared up the street at a much more expensive resort.
“What is it?” asked Coleman. “The Girls Gone Haywire bus.”
“Girls Gone Haywire is here?“ said Coleman.”Cool!”
“Not cool,” said Serge. “They exploit children.”
“So why are you smiling?”
“Because I have an idea.” He turned back to the students. “Okay, I’ll need some help with the pickup truck.”
“What kind of help?”
“Our next spring break history stop-this one’s the best! Clear everything out of the back bed.”
“You got it.”
Students emptied trash and tools. Serge retrieved a duffel bag from the Challenger’s trunk and flipped down the pickup’s tailgate. He unzipped the bag and pulled out what looked like a giant plastic tarp covered with cartoon fish and octopuses.
“What’s that?”
“The commemorative revival of where it all started.” Serge laid it in the pickup’s bed, uncapped a clear tube and began blowing.
Nothing happened for the first minute. Students watched curiously. Then the plastic began taking shape, slowly unfolding itself with each breath, until it flopped open in a circle.
Serge continued blowing furiously. The circle began to rise. Serge began to slide down the side of the pickup.
“Serge, you’re hyperventilating! Take a break!”
Serge shook his head and clenched the tube in his side teeth. “Only way to inflate anything is all at once as fast as you can.” Blowing accelerated.
“Serge! Stop!”
“You’re going to hurt yourself!”
Bam.
“Serge fainted!”
Coleman ran over as air wheezed out the inflation tube.
Serge sat up with giddiness. “I see sparkly things.”
“Inflating stuff gets you high?” said Coleman. “I’m there!”
He took over where Serge had left off. Puffy cheeks turned scarlet. He fell on the ground next to Serge. “Sparkly things. Excellent.”
Students peered over the side of the truck. “A kiddie pool?”
Andy hid in one of the motel’s alcoves, dialing a cell phone. He put it to his head.
“Andy, what’s happening?” asked Agent Ramirez.
“I think Serge is inflating a kiddie pool.”
“Serge?”
“The lunatic I told you about.”
“I know all about Serge,” said Ramirez. “You have to get away from him immediately. He’s extremely dangerous.”
“I’m scared.”
“You should be.”
“What happened in Panama City?”
“Best to put it out of your head. The important thing is that you let me take you in. But we need to hurry.”
“Because there’s an informant.”
No answer. “Agent Ramirez?”
“I’m here.”
“Serge said there’s an informant. Is that true?”
“Yes. I’m so sorry. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this.”
“Serge said if there’s an informant, then taking me in is the most dangerous time.”
“That’s why I’m personally going to escort you myself. I’ll be the only one you’ll meet.”
“You won’t have a giant SWAT team or something?”
“I shouldn’t be telling you this, but when there’s an informant, you never know,” said Ramirez. “That’s how they’ve been able to track you down the coast. I’m not sure who I can trust anymore.”
“Oh my God.”
“Andy, you have to keep it together just a little longer.” Ramirez looked out his car window at surf and palms. “I’m almost to Fort Lauderdale. Tell me where you are and I can pick you up in no time.”
Andy took a deep breath. “Okay, I can handle it.”
“Where are you?” asked Ramirez.
“Andy!” yelled Serge. “Where are you?”
“Shit!”
“Don’t hang up!”
Click.
Andy pocketed the phone as Serge came around the corner.
“There you are! What are you doing lurking back here?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on! You’re missing all the fun!” Serge looked left and right. “Just need to find a hose…”
Andy pointed behind the building.
“Glad to have you on the team.” Serge unscrewed the fitting and carried green rubber loops over his shoulder.
The rest of the students were waiting. Serge attached the hose to another nearby faucet and unrolled it back to the truck.
“You’re probably wondering, ‘What the heck is crazy ol’ Serge up to now?’ We’re at the finish line! All the way back to the beginning of our history quest! Or at least we will be when we get to the next stop.” He pointed the hose, and water splashed down into the bed of the pickup. “Spring break is one of the very few social phenomena where you can actually pinpoint the exact geographical location of its origin, latitude 26-06-59 north, longitude 80-06-19 west, the tiny bowl of primordial soup from which it bubbled to life. Now symbolized by our kiddie pool…”
Water reached the top of the first inflatable ring, then the second.
“… It all started just blocks north of here on the side of A1A when, in 1928, the city constructed the first Olympic-size pool in the state of Florida. It would have stopped there, except for the father of a student attending Colgate University in Hamilton, New York. Back then, they didn’t have many indoor facilities, and swim teams couldn’t practice in cold months.“ Water cascaded out the back of the pickup.”That dad was living in Fort Lauderdale and contacted legendary coach Sam Ingram, saying the team could gain an edge if they came down and worked out in Florida-”
“Serge, the pool’s overflowing.”
“And we’re in a drought. Another sign of what’s gone horribly wrong with society…” He ran and turned off the faucet, then quickly returned and pulled a Magic Marker from his pocket.
“Where was I?”
“Colgate.”
“Right. In 1935, the swim team came to practice in the Casino Pool, filled with comfortably warm saltwater from the Atlantic.” Serge reached into the bed of the truck and wrote something on the plastic. “Besides splashing around, they also enjoyed pristine beaches and an incredible climate that stood in stark contrast to what they’d just left. The very first spring breakers! When they returned to school, word spread. The following year: Why hunker down in snow when paradise awaits? More and more teams descended, and the informal practices turned into the massive annual College Swim Coaches Association forum. Non-athletes started joining the party, their numbers swelling steadily over the next twenty-five years until Where the Boys Are blew the roof off.“ Serge pulled a plastic specimen jar from his pocket and set it next to the pool.”Let’s rock!”
A Crown Vic with blackwall tires drove past the end of the street. Agent Ramirez opened his phone.
FORT LAUDERDALE
Serge’s convoy peeled out on A1A. “Remember to take plenty of pictures…”
A Delta 88 passed them northbound. Guillermo pulled up to an independent convenience store and went inside. He casually collected sodas and granola bars.
The man behind the register was bald with gray on the sides.
Guillermo set his purchases on the counter. “You the owner?”
The man nodded and began ringing up.
“Noticed your security cameras…”-pointing fingers in different directions-“… That’s the business I’m in. Make you a great deal on a new system.”
The owner scanned the bar code on a Sprite. “We like the one we got.”
“I know those models,” said Guillermo. “They never last. And when they go, you won’t find another offer like mine.”
“Thanks, but I’ll pass. That’ll be nine sixty-two.”
“Understand.” Guillermo pulled a ten-spot from his wallet. “But mind if I take a look at the monitors and recorder in the office anyway and see if I can work up a price? What do you have to lose?”
“I don’t think so.”
The ’73 Challenger turned off A1A and parked under a sign.
FORT LAUDERDALE AQUATIC COMPLEX.
Serge led the gang through yet another gate.
“Damn!” said Joey. “Look at the size of this place!”
Competitors triple-twisted off high dives and breast-stroked down lap lanes.
“Is that the Casino Pool?”
“No,” said Serge. “Fuckers demolished it in the mid-sixties.” He dipped a hand in the new pool and rubbed it on his neck. “This is its spiritual replacement, so we’ll have to make do. The cool part is that it’s open to the public for swimming.”
“We’re going to swim here?”
“Got something far better in mind. Follow me.”
They walked out the rear of the patio, across a lawn and past a giant abstract sculpture of someone doing the Australian crawl. Ahead: a nondescript building stashed in the rear of the property. Serge stopped at the entrance. “Andy, come here…”
Behind: A white Crown Vic with blackwall tires raced by the swim complex on A1A, Agent Ramirez frantically dialing and redialing his cell phone. “Come on! Why won’t he answer?”
“Check it out, Andy.” Serge looked down at the sidewalk and old inlaid blue-and-white ceramic tiles: INTERNATIONAL SWIMMING HALL OF FAME. “I’m getting tingles.”
Andy stood next to Serge, staring down with a pained expression of desperation as his pocket silently vibrated.
“You need to loosen up.” Serge slapped him hard on the back. “I know you’re thinking something utterly horrible might happen any second, but I have the same feeling all the time and it doesn’t stop me from being a happy chipmunk. Let’s go inside!”
Serge signed the guest book with bold calligraphy. They had the place to themselves as he gave the group his whirlwind A-tour. “… Here are Buster Crabbe’s medals and trophies… life-size mannequin with a creepy wig of Duke Kahanamoku, father of modern surfing… Mark Spitz… Rowdy Gaines… 1935 seashell plaque honoring Katherine Rawls, the greatest swimming sensation of her day, who trained here…” Students rushed to keep up with Serge’s unbroken stride. “… Esther Williams’s movie poster… 1958 photo of the Casino Pool with Mediterranean bathhouse… and finally the piece de resistance-check out this glass case. Those are Johnny Weissmuller’s five gold medals from the 1924 and ’28 Olympics in Paris and Amsterdam. Imagine that! Tarzan’s coolest shit! And nobody knows it’s just sitting here in this fabulous empty museum, which should be mobbed but isn’t because they don’t have any rides. Let’s get the hell out of here!”
“But, Serge”-Joey held up his watch-“We’ve been here less than two minutes. And we only stopped running when we got to the gold-medal case.”
“That’s right. I like to turn it into a ride.” Serge ran out the door.
Despite their age advantage, the kids had to hustle. They jumped back in vehicles as Serge left the parking lot. He raced fifty feet and parked in another.
The kids pulled into adjacent slots. “We drove ten seconds just to park across the street?”
“It isn’t about parking. It’s about hallowed earth.” Serge dropped to his knees and placed a palm on the hot tar. “This is the exact birthplace of spring break, where they paved over that first pool. A moment of silence. That’s too long.” He flipped down the pickup’s tailgate and hopped into the kiddie pool, reclining with arms hooked over the inflated edge. “Who wants to join me?”
Students stared at Magic Marker on the side: THE CASINO.
“Andy?” said Serge.
He jumped and swung the phone behind his back. “What?”
“Get in here! The water’s great!”
“I don’t really feel like-”
“Andy!”
“Okay.” He hid his phone on top of the pickup’s front left tire and climbed over the side of the pool in shorts.
Serge pumped his eyebrows. “How do you feel?”
“Stupid.”
“All the best things in life feel stupid at first. I think Dahmer said that.”
A police officer approached the pickup on foot. “Excuse me?” Serge turned. “How may I help you, officer?”
“I’m not saying what you’re doing is wrong. But what are you doing?”
“Resurrecting our state’s lost heritage!”
“Why do you have a kiddie pool in the back of a pickup?”
“Because if I set it up on the ground, that would be unusual.”
“Are you okay?”
“Excellent! You’re standing on sacred ground,” said Serge. “This was the original site of the Casino Pool, birthplace of spring break. So existentially any pool set up on this spot becomes the Casino, like this one. Under new management. Tarzan, Amsterdam, Colgate. I drank a lot of coffee today.”
The officer had seen everything but this extended the list. “Well, you’re not disturbing anyone and…”-he craned his neck to survey the pickup’s bed-“… I don’t see any beer cans or drugs, which is a welcome change, so I guess there’s nothing else here for-… Are you trying to signal me?”
“Me?” asked Serge.
“No.” The officer pointed. “Him.”
“I was just scratching,” said Andy.
“The heartbreak of psoriasis,” said Serge.
The officer tipped his cap. “Have a nice day.”
A few blocks north, other students with beer on their minds ran across A1A toward a convenience store.
The first jerked the door handle.
Bolted.
“That’s weird.”
They cupped hands around their eyes and pressed them to the glass. “I don’t see anybody.”
“The lights are on.”
“Damn.”
In the back room, Guillermo sat at a surveillance monitor and rewound a tape. It was a split screen: the view from behind the register, and another outside toward the gas pumps, in case of drive-offs. On the desk in front of Guillermo lay a sheet of paper with the location and time of a cell phone purchased with a credit card.
Guillermo stopped the tape and pressed play. Customers buying cigarettes and scratch-off tickets. The digital time record in the top corner was two hours early. He hit fast-forward. People comically scurried around with coffee, hot dogs and Alka Seltzer. The white numbers at the top of the screen flipped rapidly until they approached the time on Guillermo’s printed record. He hit play again.
A young man bought a cell phone with a credit card.
Guillermo froze the image. “So that’s what Andy McKenna looks like now.”
He unfroze the video and watched the other side of the screen. The youth climbed into a pickup with a Florida Gators bumper sticker.
Guillermo ejected the tape and took a wide step around a slick of blood spreading from the store’s owner.
Serge slapped the water’s surface in the kiddie pool. “Who’s the next lucky winner?”
Cody climbed up.
“Are you digging it? I’m digging it!” Serge reached over the side of the pool for his plastic specimen jar and dipped it in the water. “I’m saving this sample forever!… Who’s next?”
Students continued swapping places. Andy walked around the front of the pickup and grabbed his phone off the tire. He pressed buttons.
“Agent Ramirez?”
“Andy, where are you? I’ve been driving up and down A1A!”
“No. It isn’t safe.”
“You’re less safe where you are.”
“You don’t understand Serge. There’s no telling what he’s capable of if you show up.”
“Think he might be with Guillermo?”
“At first I wondered, but now I’m sure he’s not. He thinks he’s protecting me. Which I’m beginning to believe is even more dangerous.”
“Why do you say that?”
Serge stood behind the pickup with a map of Florida rolled into a cone like an old-style megaphone. “Swim! Swim! Swim!…”
Two students in the water. “Serge, our bodies are longer than the pool.”
“Swim! Damn it!…”
“I hear yelling,” said Ramirez. “Is everything okay?”
“No. Listen, you coming to me is out.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Think I can slip away later. Then we’ll meet. It’ll eliminate any unpredictable confrontation with Serge.”
“Just tell me when and where.”
“I saw this place yesterday…”
Serge raised the paper megaphone. “That’s it! Keep swimming! Tonight we’ll shave all your hair and come back to break every Casino record!” He refolded the map and walked around the front of the pickup.
“Andy, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I… What?… This?”
“Where’d you get the cell phone?”
“At a convenience store.”
“You were trying to make a call, weren’t you?”
“Me? No. I swear.”
“Gimme that thing.” Serge snatched it away. “Now get back in the pool.”
“I don’t think it’s a good time.”
“Why not?”
Andy stretched out an arm. “Look.”
Students chanted: “Cole-man!… Cole- man!… Cole- man!…” Coleman stood on top of the pickup’s cab. “Woooooooo!” He licked a finger and stuck it in the air. “… Cole -man!… Cole -man!…”
“Coleman!” yelled Serge. “No!” Too late.
Serge and Andy defensively raised arms as they were soaked by the belly-flop splash. They ran around the back of the truck. Coleman lay facedown on a plastic mat.
Serge stood in horror. “You popped the Casino pool!”
BAHIA CABANA
Serge burst in the door.
“There you are,” said City.
“When are we going to do something?” asked Country.
“Not now.”
“But we’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
“I offered to take you with us,” said Serge.
“On one of your lame tours? No, thanks!”
“I want to go to dinner,” said Country. “You promised.”
“Someplace nice this time,” said City.
Serge opened his cell phone. “But you already have plans for tonight.”
“That’s tonight?”
“We went over it several times. You agreed in exchange for the dinner I promised…” Serge walked to the far side of the room and dialed a number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Guillermo. It’s me, Serge.”
“How’d you get this number?”
“Pedro. He’s a real talker. Just yap, yap, yap.”
“Got your greeting card.”
“Like it? Always try to be thoughtful, but you can’t be sure what to get some people.”
“You’re a dead man.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“What do you want?”
“Remember De Niro and Pacino in Heat?”
“I saw it.”
“Didn’t you love that movie? I sure did! One of my favorites, especially the codes they lived by-”
“Is this going anywhere?”
“That scene when they took a time-out and met in that coffee shop.”
“You want to meet?”
“This is getting out of hand. We should negotiate a truce.”
“Sure, we can negotiate a truce. When would you like to chat?”
“I knew you were a reasonable person. How about this evening?”
“That works.”
“Great,” said Serge. “Here’s the hotel and room number…”
A ’68 Dodge Monaco raced south on A1A and screeched into the parking lot of a convenience store.
The address matched Agent Mahoney’s credit card trace.
He ran to the front door.
Bolted.
“Don’t tell me…”
Without hesitation, he grabbed a metal trash can, smashed out the door’s bottom glass and crawled through.
First check: behind the counter. Nothing.
Then the back room.
Mahoney’s feet went out from under him as he crashed in a pool of blood.
He made a quick 911 call and dashed over to the surveillance recorder. A finger pressed eject.
Empty.
A camera crew in matching red shirts and low spirits sulked back to their custom motor coach.
Rood leaned against the side of the bus and kicked sand off a shoe. “This sucks.”
“All afternoon and no decent women who’d let us film,” said his assistant. “Unless you want to count those four old ladies.”
“The G-Unit, for God’s sake.” Rood kicked his other shoe against a tire. “Have I been reduced to this?”
“We should go back to Panama City. Those bitches can’t still be there.”
“I think you’re right.” He turned to the rest of the crew, unstrapping gear and collapsing tripods. “Everyone, back on the bus.”
“Hold it,” said the assistant. “What’s this?”
“What?”
“Three o’clock. Can’t miss ’em.”
Rood turned. “Holy mother.”
Coming toward them: a pair of women hotter than anything they’d netted the whole trip.
“Excuse me,” said the blonde. “Aren’t you Rood Lear?”
Rood glanced at his assistant. “Patience.” He sucked in his gut. “Why, yes I am. What can I do for such exquisite creatures?”
“I can’t believe it’s really you,” said the other. “You’re famous!”
“Like a star!” said the blonde.
Rood licked his lips. “Would you like to be in one of my films?”
“Would we!…”
“You really mean it?…”
“That would be a dream come true…”
“Better not be playing with us…”
Rood smiled at his assistant. “This can’t get any better.” He held out a hand to shake. “What are your names?”
“City and Country.”
Another sideways grin from Rood. “It just got better.”
The assistant: “Why don’t we all head up to our suite?”
“Can’t right now,” said City. “Have to be somewhere.”
“But this evening?” said Country. “Will that mess it up?”
“We’re booked pretty solid,” lied Rood. “But I think we can fit you in.”
The women huddled and whispered. They smiled and giggled in Rood’s direction, then whispered some more.
“What are you ladies talking about?” asked Rood.
“Uh… could we…”-Country lowered her head and feigned bashfulness-“… talk to you in private?”
Rood smirked at his assistant. “Be right back.”
“Go get ’em, tiger.”
He walked a few steps. “What is it?”
“We’d kind of like to ask a favor,” said City.
Uh-oh, thought Rood. Here it comes. Money. “What kind of favor?”
“You’re cute,” said Country. “I’d like to get to know you better.”
“Me?”
She blushed and looked down again. “I’ve never… been with a celebrity before.”
Rood almost choked. “That’s the favor? You want to spend some time?”
The women smiled at each other.
This time Rood did choke.
“Need a glass of water?”
Rood shook his head. “You mean both of you?”
They nodded eagerly.
He gulped and blinked hard. “Think I can clear the suite for a bit.”
“No.” Country pointed toward one of the resort’s upper floors. “Our room.”
“Why?”
“That’s where we have all our… toys.”
Rood became woozy. “What time are you free?”
“Say nine?”
“Nine’s my favorite number.”
The women waved as they sauntered away. “Don’t be late.”
Rood walked back to the bus and braced himself with an arm against the door.
“Jesus,” said the assistant. “You look like you’re about to have a stroke.”
“They want a threesome.”
“Them? Holy shit.”
“And just when I started to think life wasn’t fair.”
THAT EVENING
Two men sat in an idling Delta 88 with the lights off. Into their second hour with little conversation. Watching the high-rise hotel a block away.
“Don’t like the looks of this,” said Miguel. “I think it’s a trap.”
“I know it’s a trap,” said Guillermo.
“Then what are we doing here?”
“Every trap is an opportunity to set your own trap.”
“So that’s why you’re wearing a room service uniform?”
“Nothing gets by you.”
“Who is this Serge guy anyway?”
“A nuisance we can no longer afford.” He looked at the car’s analog clock and grabbed his door handle. “It’s time.”
“He said an hour from now.”
“That’s why it’s time.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ll be fine. Just make sure not to fuck up your end.” He patted his jacket pocket. “Call me on the cell if it looks like I’m made on the way-or if anything else is out of place once I’m inside.” He hopped out.
Miguel watched as Guillermo waited for traffic to clear before jogging across A1A, still moist and shining in the moonlight from an earlier rain. Miguel picked up binoculars, tracking his colleague. Guillermo avoided the main lobby entrance and circled to the pool deck. Binoculars slowly panned the main entrance. Tourists unsteadily getting out of a cab and laughing. Idiots. The magnified field of vision drifted southward over the parking lot. A family at an open trunk struggled with a stubborn baby stroller that wouldn’t close. Miguel smiled. Farther, a bum on a park bench. Worth watching. Common stakeout disguise. A romantic couple strolled past the bench and suddenly high-stepped as the bum vomited explosively toward their feet. Well, there’s undercover and then there’s what can’t be faked. The binoculars moved on, reaching the street straight out the windshield in front of him. Coast clear. Time to pan back the other way.
Suddenly, his entire view was filled with a crazy, smiling face. “Ahhhhh!” Miguel jumped back in his seat and dropped the binoculars.
Serge waved manically, wearing his most tattered comfy T-shirt and sweat pants. He walked around and tapped the side glass.
Miguel hit an electric level, lowered the window a slit. “Get lost!”
“I’m not asking for money or to clean your windshield with spit.”
“I said, get lost!”
“Just need a light. Mine got all wet when I was caught in the rain.”
“Are you deaf?”
“It’s only a stupid light.”
The window rolled up.
Serge knocked on the glass. Miguel stared straight ahead. Serge knocked and knocked. His voice was muted through the closed window: “Be a neighbor.”
“Goddamn it!” Miguel lowered it a slit again. “I’m warning you!”
“We’re wasting time arguing, when I could already be long gone. Just a light. Come on.”
“Fuck it.” Miguel reached in a hip pocket for his Zippo, opened the window the rest of the way and held it outside. “Where’s your cigarette?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“Then why’d you ask for a light?”
“To keep your hands busy and away from the gun. You’re the lookout.”
“Shit!” Miguel went for the piece in his jacket but stopped when he felt a cold barrel on his cheek.
NINE O’CLOCK
Rood had been waiting by the bus since eight, wearing his sexiest, tightest slacks and a silk shirt. He checked his watch again.
9:01.
Two women trotted across the street.
“There you are,” said Rood.
“Worried we were going to be late?”
“Not for a second.”
He took one on each arm. “Shall we?”
The trio strolled up the drive and through the resort’s automatic lobby doors.
“My gosh,” said Country. “Can’t believe we forgot.”
“Forgot what?” asked City.
“You know. The drugstore.”
“What’s at the drugstore?” asked Rood.
The women tittered. “It’s a surprise.”
“Something we can’t do without.” City opened her purse. “Here’s our room key and number. Why don’t you go up and make yourself at home? This’ll just take a few minutes.”
“You both have to go?”
Giggles again.
“I get it,” said Rood. “A chick deal, like restrooms.”
They took a couple steps back toward the entrance. Country stopped and turned around. “Oh, one more thing. If anyone asks, your name is Serge.”
“Serge?”
“That’s my uncle.”
“Why do I have to say I’m your uncle? For that matter, who’s going to ask? Is someone else staying with you?”
“No,” said City. “And it’ll probably never come up.”
“That’s right,” said Country. “Shouldn’t have mentioned anything. Forget about it.”
“Wait a minute,” said Rood. “I don’t want to get in the middle of a situation. Is this like a jealous boyfriend or something?”
“Or something.”
Rood fished the magnetic room key from his pocket. “Maybe I ought to take a rain check.”
Country went over and wrapped sultry arms around Rood’s neck. “Look, it is my boyfriend. And he is jealous. Very jealous. But he’s also totally harmless. I’m not worried about him doing something crazy; I’m worried about him breaking up with me.”
“Guy’s a pussycat,” City said from behind. “Once he thought my boyfriend was flirting with Country, and it took us twenty minutes to stop his crying.”
“He’s got a good heart,” said Country, tightening her arms around Rood’s neck. “But sometimes I need a real man.”
“I help where I can,” said Rood. “My name’s Sal.”
“Serge.”
“Right, Serge. How long you going to be?”
Automatic doors slid open. “Back before you know it.”
A rabbit argued with a Martian.
Coleman giggled on the couch and popped a beer. “Serge, come quick! This is the one where Bugs goes to the moon and saves our planet. It’s so realistic.”
“I’m busy.” He grabbed his cell and started to dial. He stopped and looked at it. “Battery’s dead! Of all times-not now!” He ripped apart his suitcase. “Where’s that damn charger?…”
“What about the room phone?”
“Might be traced…” He snatched car keys from the dresser.
“Where are you going?” asked Coleman.
“… You have stolen the D-12 modulator…”
“Find a pay phone.” He ran for the door, unbolting locks. “But where are pay phones these days with all the cells? Now I’ll be late and screw up the Master Plan. I’m so stupid!”
“Why don’t you just use Andy’s phone?”
Serge slowly walked back. “Just about to think of that.” He reached the dresser and picked up the disposable phone he’d confiscated at the Casino kiddie pool.
“… Earth to Bugs, come in…”
Serge dialed. “Hello, is this the anonymous Crime-Stopper Tip Reward Hotline?… Oh, I’ve got a tip all right! Real doozy! Someone you been looking all over for, possibly committing a crime as we speak. Here’s the address…”
Bugs clung to the tip of a crescent moon.
“… Thanks,” said Serge. “And may I say your phone manners have been impeccable, not like those 911 operators who never take me seriously when they’re tearing down a landmark. If that isn’t an emergency, what is?”
“… Get me out of here!!!!!…”
Serge plopped on the sofa next to Coleman. “What did I miss?”
“The whole thing.”
“Dang, and it was one of my favorites.”
“Another’s coming on.”
“Righteous! I love this one!”
Coleman grabbed another beer. “What about that lookout guy you got in your trunk?”
“He’ll keep,” said Serge. “Pump up the volume.”
Rood pressed an elevator button. His mind fluttered through porno reels of his deepest fantasies.
The appointed floor was empty except for room service trays. Rood whistled down the hall. He stopped in front of a door and checked the number against the magnetic key’s sleeve.
Rood went inside the dark unit and closed the door behind him. He felt along the wall for a light switch. Before he could find one, a lamp came on across the room.
“Who are you?” asked Rood.
Guillermo sat in a cushy chair, gun resting on the arm. “You know who I am.”
“Let me explain.”
“Please do.”
“I’m Serge.”
“I know.”
Back at Bahia Cabana.
Serge and Coleman cackled through another Looney Tunes.
The door opened.
City grabbed a wine cooler and plopped into a chair. “Better have reservations at the Four Seasons for what we went through.”
“Serge, are you listening?” said Country.
No answer.
She stepped in front of the television. “I’m talking to you!”
Serge tilted to the side. “Could you please move? You’re blocking-”
“After all we just did!” said Country. “And you’re watching fuckin’ cartoons?”
“But it’s a classic,” said Serge. “The one where the guy doing demolition finds a singing frog in the cornerstone. Everybody’s doin the Michigan rag!…”
“Un-freakin’-believable. Not even a thank-you.”
Serge looked up. “When you’re right, you’re right.” He stood. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?” asked Country.
“To show my gratitude.”
He led her into the bedroom and closed the door.
Another typical round of female shrieking. “… Oh, yes!… Harder!… Faster!… Didn’t think it was possible, but you’ve gotten even better!… Dear God!… Is it because of what you’ve got around the base of your cock?…”
Serge thrust again. “That would be my guess.”
“… Ohhhh!… Ohhhh!… Yes!… Yes!… What is that thing?…”
Another thrust. “I enlarged the hole in the middle of my favorite View-Master reel of the Everglades.”
“… Don’t stop!… Oh, God!… I’m coming!… I’m coming!!!!!!!”
The ecstatic yelling came through the wall into the living room. Coleman turned and grinned drunkenly at City.
An empty wine cooler glanced off his forehead.
“Ow!”
In the bedroom, Country tried catching her breath after going off like a string of black-cat firecrackers. She wiped sweat from the blond hair matted across her face. “That was beyond incredible…”-still panting hard-“… The best I ever-”
“Just wait till round two.”
“Round two? I don’t think I can take any more.”
“You’ll take it and like it.”
He jumped up and went across the room in the dark.
“Where are you going?”
“To get more inspiration.”
Country strained to see in the blackness. “What are those sounds?”
“Shhhhhh!”
He returned to the bed, immediately picking up where they’d left off.
“… Oh, God!… Yes!… Yes!… Oh-… Hold on. Time out! Time out!… What the hell’s hitting me in the face?”
“Uh… nothing.”
More thrusts.
“Shit! You got me in the eye!” Country rolled over and clicked on the bedside lamp. She stared at Serge’s chest, then up at his face.
“What in the fuck?”
“Is something the matter?”
“What’s all that crap hanging from your neck?”
He looked down. “Oh, Tarzan’s five gold medals.”
“Gold medals?”
“From the Olympics.”
She looked at his chest again. “They’re just those chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil that you taped string to.”
Serge looked down again. A pause. “No, they’re not.”
“Yes, they are!” Country snatched one off a string, peeled the foil and took a bite.
A gasp. “The hundred-meter freestyle!”
“Sorry…” She set the coin on the nightstand. “Didn’t mean for you to have a cow.”
“No…,” said Serge, breathing quickly. “Heritage…”
She looked him in the eyes and dropped her voice a sensual pitch. “That turns you on, eh?” She grabbed the coin and took another bite, this time running her tongue around the edge first.
Country almost choked on it as Serge lost control and harpooned her deeper than ever before.
Her chin snapped up toward the ceiling. “… Yessssssssssssss!…” She snatched the rest of the coins from Serge’s neck and swatted the lamp off the nightstand, shattering its bulb on the floor.
On the other side of the wall, Coleman pointed at the TV with the remote. “No, you see, that’s why it’s so funny: The frog only sings and dances for the construction worker.”
“Frogs can’t sing and dance,” said City.
“This one can.”
“Hold it,” said City. “Turn down the volume.”
Coleman did, and they both listened to new sounds from the wall.
“… Yes!… Faster!… Harder!… Chocolate, mmmmm!… I’m unwrapping another one…”
“… Eat the history!…”
LATER THAT NIGHT…
“Development, development, development!” said Serge. “Will they never stop with this state?”
“What are you going to do to me?” asked Miguel, a gun pressed to the middle of his back.
“Construction sites everywhere!” said Serge, carrying two large monkey wrenches over his left shoulder. “On the other hand, I love construction sites, especially at night. Ever since I was a kid, poking around with a flashlight to see how things are made and what’s going on inside walls. I’m naturally curious that way.”
“You’re the one who whacked Pedro, aren’t you?”
“No, that was gravity, the senseless killer.”
“You’re going to fire me into the air?”
“Negative.” They walked past a pallet of bricks. “But you will be facing gravity, so I suggest you start thinking of a counterstrategy. I always am. Like a jet pack. You wouldn’t know where I can get one?”
Miguel shook his head.
Serge began to smile as they stepped through the wire mesh of a concrete form. “There isn’t much security at construction sites, because who’s going to walk off with sheets of drywall and twelve-foot rebar except me? And that was just to take care of another jerk…”
Miguel began to weep.
“… Plus this place is totally unguarded, lucky for us. Well, for me. There’s luck for you, too, but it’s not the right kind.”
Weeping became racking sobs.
“Buck up,” said Serge. “You weren’t too misty when your gang was trying to kill Andy. He’s just a kid, for heaven’s sake.”
“That wasn’t my idea,” said Miguel. “I was going to try and stop it. You have to believe me!”
“Really?”
Miguel nodded furiously.
“Then I guess the only fair thing is to show some mercy.”
“You’re going to let me go?”
“I said some mercy. Jesus, you give people an inch…“ Serge tucked the gun in his pants.”Now lie on your stomach right there. And don’t try anything. I’m a pretty quick draw.”
Miguel flopped down. Serge clamped the monkey wrenches on a circular metal hatch and pulled in opposite directions.
Creak.
“Wow, that was easy. Probably didn’t even need those things.” He tossed the wrenches in the dirt and unscrewed the loosened hatch the rest of the way.
The gun came out again. “On your feet.”
“I’ll give you money.”
“Get in.”
Miguel stared through the opening, then back at Serge. “In there?”
“It’s a two-foot hatch, but you should fit.”
“Isn’t it full of-”
Serge shook his head. “Completely empty. They don’t fill until ready for use. Otherwise it destroys the works.”
“But I’ll suffocate.”
“Not a chance. It’s deceptive, but there’s a ton of room once you’re inside, more than enough air till morning.” Serge pulled a flashlight off his belt and held it together with the gun, sweeping its beam through the hole. “Loads of space. The real trick is the blades.”
“Oh my God! I’ll be chopped to pieces!”
“Will you stop making everything worse than it is?” Serge aimed the flashlight through the hole again. “You must be a real treat on long trips… See? They’re just generally called blades, but the edges are completely dull. And not too tall, about a foot, so you shouldn’t have much difficulty stepping over them, at least for the first couple hours.” A wave of the gun. “Now in.”
Miguel trembled as he climbed headfirst through the hole. He got stuck halfway and hung by his stomach, kicking his legs.
Serge threw his hands toward the stars. “Everyone wants my help.” He grabbed Miguel by the knees and boosted him the rest of the way inside. Miguel fell to the bottom with a heavy thud and an echo: “Ouch!”
Serge picked up the hatch cover.
Miguel’s face appeared in the middle of the round opening. “You mentioned mercy?”
“That’s right. I always like to give my students a way out of jams. Because I’m into optimism. What about you?”
A blank stare.
“Should try it sometime,” said Serge. “No point going through life sweating the small stuff when shit like this can spring up. In your particular case, the mercy is gasoline capacity. Once I turn this baby on, it can’t run forever. If you just keep hopping over those blades until the fuel runs out-which should be around dawn when work crews arrive-you get to live. But if the blades start tripping you up”-Serge winced-“well, let’s just say things start going downhill pretty fast.”
“You really think I have a chance?”
“Definitely.” Serge fit the hatch cover over the hole and began screwing.
A knock from the other side.
Serge sighed. He unscrewed the cover and pulled it back. “What now?”
“I can’t see in here. It’s completely dark.”
“Shoot, thanks for reminding me. If you don’t see the blades, they’ll start tripping you immediately, and then there’s absolutely no way you can make it.” Serge pulled the flashlight off his belt again and handed it through the hole. “You’ll need this.”
“Thanks.”
He screwed the hatch back on.
Five minutes later, Serge finished stripping insulation from a pair of wires and flicked his pocketknife shut. He touched the metal ends together. Sparks. The sound of a heavy industrial mechanism coming to life. The copper tips were twisted into a permanent connection with rubber-handled pliers.
The noise grew louder as Serge walked back around to the hatch. He banged a fist on thick steel. “How are you doing in there?”
“Not too bad. I think I might be able to make it.”
“That’s the spirit!”
“So how long are these flashlight batteries supposed to last anyway?”
“Oops, I didn’t think of that.”
THE LATE NEWS
Television satellite trucks filled the parking lot of a resort hotel. Correspondents were stacked on top of one another, using a custom motor coach for backdrop.
“… Authorities still have no leads on the gangland-style assassination of Girls Gone Haywire founder Rood Lear, whose bullet-riddled body was discovered…”
“… Witnesses said two young women were seen earlier in the lobby…”
“… Following a heated confrontation in Panama City Beach…”
“… Described only as ‘persons of interest’ are leaders of the activist group MAGGH, Mothers Against…”
“… Responding to an anonymous tip, police arrived at the motel room seconds after the shooting but were too late to apprehend the assailant…”
“… Meanwhile, online sales of the controversial videos continue to shatter records…”
Someone held a microphone in front of Rood’s tearful chief assistant. “… He was always giving and giving…”
Two people sat in front of a TV, convulsing with laughter.
“Whew!” Serge wiped tears from his face.
“That was a good one!” said Coleman.
Serge’s laughter bled into an expression of concentration.
“What’s the matter?” asked Coleman.
“Not sure,” said Serge. “You know how you sometimes hear something and it doesn’t seem important at the time? But days later, out of the blue, when you’re doing a completely unrelated activity, the significance suddenly dawns on you?”
“No.”
“Andy said his mother shot herself.”
“Poor kid.”
“Coleman, women take sleeping pills or jump. Men shoot themselves.”
“Maybe she didn’t have pills or bridges.”
“Can’t explain it, but I just have this feeling.”
Coleman fidgeted on the couch. “What are you doing?”
“I think I’m sitting on something.” He clicked the TV remote and reached for a beer.
“Most other people would find out what it is,” said Serge. “Maybe even get off it.”
“Really?” Coleman rolled to his side and reached down.
“My phone charger!” said Serge.
“Why’d you put it under my butt?”
“Gimme that thing.” He went to the wall and plugged it in.
The display came up. “Coleman, you made me miss a call.” He redialed. “Serge here. You rang?”
“Nice try.”
“Hey, Guillermo. Thought you’d like that touch. Guess the cops didn’t get there in time.”
“You underestimate me.”
“Likewise; I got Miguel,” said Serge. “So I guess it’s just you and me now. We’re going to have so much fun!”
“Where’s Andy?”
“Someplace safe where you’ll never find him.”
“You’re not getting my meaning,” said Guillermo. “I’m not asking you to tell me where he is. I’m asking if you know where he is.”
“What’s your point?”
Click.
Serge looked quizzically at the phone.
“What is it?” asked Coleman.
“Shit!” Serge jumped up and ran out of the room. He knocked hard on the next door.
Spooge answered.
“Andy with you guys?”
“No, thought he was with you.”
He ran to the next room and knocked again. City and Country passed joints with the rest of the gang. “Andy in here?”
“Said he was going for a walk.”
Serge’s head fell back on his neck. “Andy, Andy, Andy, what have you done?” He looked at the students again. “How long ago?”
“Just missed him.”
“Wonderful!” He turned to leave.
“Oh, Serge. You know when Melvin’s coming back? He’s got the keys to the truck and we need it.”
“What do you mean, ‘coming back’? Where did he go?”
“I don’t know. Left with this guy in a car.”
“Guy?”
“Really old dude. Your age.”
“Wouldn’t happen to remember what he was driving?”
“That’s easy. Wicked excellent ride, Delta 88.”
“You guys are supposed to be smart,” said Serge. “None of this raised any flags?”
“Thought he was alumni or something.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because he was looking at the Gators bumper sticker on the pickup before Melvin went over and asked what he was doing.”
“And then what happened?”
“I got more beer.”
LAS OLAS BOULEVARD
The case dossier lay in a lap.
“Agent Mahoney’s Monaco sat in a parallel space along the bistro district. Wine, sidewalk tables, palm trees wrapped year-round in strands of white Christmas lights-just down the street from the demolished Candy Store nightclub, national birthplace of the wet T-shirt contest in the bygone spring break era, making it a church of sorts. Mahoney had rescued his share of cops from that lounge, and now the chips were due. He stared at the folder of paperwork and faded photos resting on his legs.”
Mahoney stopped talking to himself. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the answer was in there somewhere.
He started back at the beginning again, the whole strange saga of Randall Sheets. Wife’s illness, the flights, Madre-that really took him back to the old days-grand jury testimony, son pulled from kindergarten, Battle Creek-
The agent paused on the page. He took off his fedora and ran a hand through his hair. “Women don’t shoot themselves.” He fished out the autopsy, looking for caliber. “Nine-millimeter? That’s weird…”
His eyes widened. “Oh, no.”
The agent flipped open his cell and dialed.
“Bugsy, I need travel records for a specific date.”
“How long ago?”
“Fifteen years.”
“That’s almost impossible.”
“Plus I need a sealed juvenile record.”
“That is impossible.”
“And I want both in a half hour.”
“You’re crazy. What’s the big rush?”
“Someone’s going to die.”
MIDNIGHT
Rain started again.
A light drizzle, but with ocean gusts that promised a bigger show. Students in sports cars and Jeeps cruised the strip. Decent numbers, but not like the sixties, when it brought A1A to a standstill.
The rain came down harder, scattering people off sidewalks and into bars.
Or bushes.
Andy poked his head up from shrubs along the front of a seafood grill. A quick scan of the surroundings, then another hundred-yard dash south, hugging buildings, staying as far from the street as possible. Another dive into manicured hedges.
A ’73 Challenger rolled down the strip. Serge cranked his windshield wipers from intermittent to full. “How far could they have gotten?”
“Finding one person in this rain is hard enough,” said Coleman. “But two?”
“We have to find them!”
The Challenger blew through a yellow light at Sunrise Boulevard. The Crown Vic behind him ran the red. Agent Ramirez checked his watch and his gun.
Andy wiped rain from his eyes, surveying the street again from behind landscaping.
A Delta 88 crossed a drawbridge at the causeway and made the northern swing onto the strip.
“Maybe he went the other way,” said Coleman.
“You might be right.” Serge made a skidding U-turn where A1A forks at the Oasis Cafe.
Andy waited for the taillights to fade, then jumped out from behind a coconut palm at the Oasis and bolted across the street through honking traffic.
Guillermo drove past a marina just as Andy dove behind a closed ticket shack for fishing charters. But Guillermo wasn’t looking for Andy. He turned to his passenger in the front seat. “Get both hands back on the dash.”
“What are you going to do to me?” asked Melvin.
“Nothing,” said Guillermo. “Just need you to straighten something out for me.”
“Why do we keep driving back and forth?”
“Waiting for a phone call…”
Guillermo reached Oakland Park, passing a southbound Challenger in the intersection.
“I’ll never forgive myself,” said Serge. Another U-turn. And another.
Coleman rode out the centrifugal force against the passenger door. “I have no idea which way we’re going anymore.”
The driver of an ’07 Mustang tried to make the light at Sunrise, then changed his mind. Tires didn’t hold the wet street, and he spun into a lamppost.
“Why are we slowing down?” asked Coleman.
“Must be some kind of accident.” Serge strained to see through sweeping wipers that couldn’t handle the volume. Flares in the road. “Can’t even imagine Floridians driving on snow.”
Police put out the cones, snarling traffic to a single lane.
“Dammit!” Serge punched the steering wheel. “What a time for this!”
They crept along, getting closer to the traffic cop in a rain poncho waving cars by with a lighted baton. Only twenty vehicles back now, which put them five behind a Delta 88, ten behind a Dodge Monaco and fifteen behind a Crown Vic with government plates.
The rain became a sheeting downpour, killing visibility. Hazard lights blinked. A glowing baton waved the Crown Vic by. Ramirez hit the gas and raced a block to the appointed street corner.
The Vic hadn’t come to a complete stop yet when Ramirez saw Andy jump from behind the charter-boat shack and sprint down a knoll. The agent leaned across the front seat, opening the passenger door, and Andy dove in.
Ramirez took off.
A Delta 88 and a Challenger rolled through the intersection.
“Serge, what’s the point…”
“I’m not giving up on Melvin and Andy!”
“I ain’t saying give up, just that all this driving back and forth isn’t working.”
“I know, and time’s running out! It might already be too late. If only there was some way to turn back the clock and give me time to think-” Serge cut himself off and snapped his fingers.
“Is this like what you were talking about before?” asked Coleman. “A thought pops into your head later?”
“Hang on to something.” Serge cut the wheel hard for a vicious right turn.
Three blocks ahead, Andy crossed his arms tightly, soaked and shivering.
“Sorry,” said Ramirez, turning off the car’s AC. “How you holding up?”
Teeth chattered. “I’m not.”
“That’ll change,” said the agent. “It’s all over now. You made it in.”
The Crown Vic passed Bahia Mar and disappeared south on A1A.
The rain let up. People emerged from restaurants and bars, resuming the nightly sidewalk stroll along the strip. A Delta 88 drove south past Bahia Mar.
TWENTY MINUTES LATER
Andy sat on a couch in dry FBI clothes that were three sizes too big.
Ramirez peeked out the curtains again. “What now?” asked Andy.
“Wait.”
“Can I watch TV?”
“No. We might not be able to hear.”
“Hear what?”
Ramirez laid out a collection on top of a bedspread. Glock, extra clips, pistol-grip twelve-gauge, Taser,.38 ankle backup with snap release.
“Agent Ramirez,” said Andy. “Hear what? What are we listening for?”
“Anything. Just a precaution.”
“Thought you said I was safe now.”
“You are, as long as we follow procedure.” He grabbed his phone. “Just have to make final arrangements.”
Ramirez went in the bathroom and dialed.
A half mile away, Serge burst through the door at Bahia Cabana.
City and Country looked up from a bong at the clamor.
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Wal-Mart.” Serge ran across the room.
“Wal-Mart?” said City.
“Time slows down,” said Coleman.
Serge pawed through luggage. “Just the cushion I needed to retool the Master Plan and catch back up… Here it is!“ He grabbed Andy’s disposable cell and frantically pressed buttons.
”What are you doing?” asked Coleman.
“Trying to find his call log…” More menu buttons. “Here it is.” Serge scanned the tiny screen, the same number repeating all the way to the bottom, both incoming and outgoing. “Just as I thought.”
He hit redial.
“That’s right,” Ramirez said into his cell. “With me right now. Perfectly safe… Okay, we’ll sit tight.”
The agent hung up; the phone instantly rang again.
“Agent Ramirez.”
“Where’s Andy?”
“Who’s this?”
“Serge. What have you done with him?”
“Done with who? I don’t know any Andy…”
Andy sprang from the couch in alarm.
Ramirez held out an arm and shook his head: nothing to worry about.
The boy tentatively sat back down.
“You’re not a good liar,” said Serge. “This phone number’s all over his cell. That’s why we’re talking right now.”
“Why are we talking?”
“I want Andy.”
“I just told you-”
“Knock off the act. I know about his mother.”
“Why don’t you come down to the local office and discuss it with us?”
“That’s the last thing you want.”
“This conversation’s over.”
“You killed her.”
“Now it’s really over.”
“Hang up on me, and the next call I make will be to the local office.”
Ramirez looked toward Andy, then faced the other way and lowered his voice.
“You still there?” asked Serge.
“I’m here,” said Ramirez. “You need to calm down. I know you cared about Andy, but he’s safe now. Your mind’s playing tricks.”
“My mind tells me women don’t shoot themselves.”
“Some do.”
“You’re the informant.”
“You really do need to settle down.”
“Seen The Godfather?”
“You’re insane.”
“When I figured out there was an informant, I knew that whoever eventually contacted Andy to take him in would be someone he trusted. And the traitor. But what sealed it was his mother.”
“Quite an imagination.”
“Let me tell you a story. A long time ago, Madre had an agent on the payroll. No biggie. Just a little intel now and again-tip-off to a raid or shipment about to be intercepted. Then it all changed with a witness for the prosecution. It wasn’t what you bargained for, but too late. They had enough leverage for a life sentence. Now are you following?”
No answer.
“So you went to see Andy’s dad in Battle Creek-one of the few people who knew where he lived. He wasn’t home. But Andy’s mother was. Except you didn’t shoot her.”
“I thought you said I did.”
“You were responsible for her death, but no, you’re not cut out to be the shooter.”
“Who then?”
“My money? Guillermo was with you. Madre would have insisted, so you couldn’t fake McKenna’s death and have him pose for confirmation photos with ketchup on his chest. Guillermo was the right age back then and the wrong psychological makeup to find the house with no McKenna. I’m guessing you tried to stop him.”
“Some story…”
A Delta 88 made a U-turn. A phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Guillermo?”
“Hi, Madre. I have great news. I got Andy. Was just waiting for the call from you where to meet Ramirez for the positive ID, so we don’t go through another Panama City.”
“What do you mean, you’ve got Andy?”
“Right here in the front seat with me. Matches the convenience store video.”
“My name’s Melvin.”
“Shut up.”
“Guillermo,” said Juanita, “I did get the call from Ramirez. He says he has Andy.”
“That can’t be right.”
“Somebody’s wrong. I hope you can sort it out.”
“Where’s Ramirez?”
She gave him the hotel and room number. “How far are you?”
Guillermo looked in the distance at a giant lighted sign atop a high-rise hotel. “Almost there.”
“I don’t want you to disappoint me.”
“I won’t, Madre.”
“I know you’re a good man,” Serge told Ramirez on the phone. “That’s why I’m betting you lied that you couldn’t gain access to the family’s new address when they were relocated. They’ve just twisted you for so long you can’t see up or down.”
“How’d you know about his mother?”
“I didn’t. It was guess,” said Serge. “You told me just now.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”
“So her condition hadn’t recurred at all,” said Serge. “She was in perfect health?”
“She was fine.”
“Hasn’t this gone on long enough? There’s still time to make it right.”
“No, there isn’t.”
“It gets worse,” said Serge. “You have a second problem.”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ve got Melvin.”
“Who’s Melvin?”
“Another kid that Guillermo apparently got confused with Andy.”
Ramirez fell down in a chair.
“I’m guessing Panama City didn’t stomach well,” said Serge. “You have a conscience, but Guillermo’s out where the buses don’t run. You couldn’t stop Battle Creek, but you can stop this…”
Banging against the wall of Serge’s room. Laughter, shouts, students getting restless and deeper into the alcohol supply.
Serge walked toward the window to hear better. “Listen to me. If I know anything about human nature, this is one you’re not going to be able to live with. There’s a defining point in every life where you have to do the right thing no matter what personal cost…”
Ramirez could no longer face Andy.
“… Tell me where you are,” said Serge. “We’ll take out Guillermo together. And I won’t say anything to Andy or anyone else about our conversation.”
“It’s too late.”
“No, it’s not! I can… hold on-” Serge pressed a hand over his other ear as more noise drowned out the call. A fire engine screamed by with all the sirens and bells, fading down the street. Serge uncovered his ear. “I’m begging: Tell me where you are!”
“I have to go…”
“Don’t hang up!”
From Ramirez’s end of the line, Serge heard a fire engine.
Click.
A1A
A ’68 Dodge Monaco raced south.
Mahoney punched buttons on a cell.
Agent Ramirez’s phone rang. He stared at it for the longest time. Mahoney’s name in the display. Then:
“Ramirez.”
“Where are you?” said Mahoney.
“What’s going on?”
“Please don’t hurt Andy.”
“Andy? Why would I do anything to him?”
“You’re the informant.”
“What are you talking about?” said Ramirez. “I was the one who told you there was an informant.”
“Nice ruse. Like when you’re playing Clue and hold the card for Mr. Mustard but ask other players if they have Mr. Mustard.”
“You’re insane.”
“You’re the one who told Madre about the class ring and the credit card trace.”
“Madre?”
“I know about the convenience store.”
“What convenience store?”
“The work of one of her boys.”
“Her boys?”
“You should be familiar,” said Mahoney. “You’re one of them.”
“What I am familiar with is your hospital stays.”
“Got your juvenile record. Probation lists Juanita as your employer. Fits her MO, grooming young guys out of jail.”
“How many times were you committed?”
“I also know about Andy’s mom. You had a Detroit flight the same day.”
Ramirez’s brain reached overload.
“You still there?” asked Mahoney.
“What do you want?”
“Andy.”
“I have to go.”
“Where are you?”
Click.
The Challenger screamed out of the motel parking lot.
Coleman slammed into the door again. “He told you where they are?”
“No, the fire engine did.”
“What fire engine?”
“Passed our hotel northbound. At that speed and the delay I heard on the phone, it’s a half mile, give or take. Which can mean only one hotel…”-a skidding left up a driveway-“… This one.”
“But how do you know which room?”
“We’ll just have to play that by ear.”
They jumped from the car.
“Coleman! Watch out!” Serge grabbed his arm and pulled him from the path of a speeding Delta 88 that screeched to a stop in the fire lane.
“What a jerk,” said Coleman.
“Guillermo!” said Serge.
“And there’s Melvin!”
Guillermo entered the lobby. Melvin was two paces in front and one to the right, standard separation for someone at gunpoint, unless the gunman’s left-handed.
Serge and Coleman ran for the entrance.
Behind in the street, squealing tires and rubber smoke. Even in darkness, there was no way Mahoney could mistake the distinct outlines of that odd couple running for the hotel.
The Monaco backed up and whipped into the lot.
Guillermo reached the elevators, holding a black leather briefcase in his left hand and staring up at descending numbers. Serge charged through the front doors and immediately saw the pair on the far side of the lobby. Couldn’t risk an all-out assault with Guillermo’s gun still pointed at Melvin. He broke stride and walked casually toward the elevators, mentally walking through the next few moments: standing next to Guillermo waiting for their lift. “Good evening…” Guillermo responding in kind. Then all three getting in the elevator, and only two would get off. Serge just prayed Melvin could hold it together and not give him away.
He was closing fast, walking as briskly as he could without drawing notice. Thirty feet to go. He didn’t count on one thing.
Guillermo and Melvin stepped into an elevator.
“No!” Serge sprinted across the rest of the lobby. The doors closed just before he could stick a hand through the crack and pop them back open.
A thumb mashed the up button.
Coleman arrived. “What’s happening?”
Serge muttered to himself, staring up at ascending numbers.
The next elevator dinged open. “Coleman! Hold that one!”
“I got it.” Coleman stood on the second car’s threshold, its doors repeatedly banging open and closed against his shoulders. “Aren’t you getting in?”
Serge continued staring up. “Just a sec.” The numbers went higher and higher.
Mahoney dashed into the lobby. “Serge!”
Serge watched the elevator numbers pause. “Eighteenth floor!”
He jumped in the second car with Coleman, and the doors closed.
Mahoney ran to the elevators, pressed a button and looked up at numbers.
Agent Ramirez sat on the edge of a bed with eyes closed.
Knock-knock.
Andy flinched. “Who’s that?”
Ramirez didn’t respond, just walked across the room and opened the door.
Guillermo came in with his briefcase and young guest.
“Melvin,” said Andy. “What are you doing here?”
“Not my idea.”
A poke in Melvin’s back. “Over there with your friend.”
He walked toward Andy, revealing the gun behind him.
Guillermo set his briefcase on the dresser. “What’s this business about two Andys?”
“That’s what I need to talk to you about,” said Ramirez.
Guillermo flipped latches and raised the top. “It’s all there, two fifty. You can count if you want.”
Andy backed up against a wall. “Serge was right.”
The agent closed the briefcase.
Guillermo cracked an unfriendly smile. “We always did work on trust.”
“That’s not it,” said Ramirez. “I want to make a deal.”
“Deal?”
“You keep the money. Nobody will ever find out, not even Madre.”
“What do you get?”
“The kids.”
Guillermo laughed.
Andy eyed Ramirez’s weapons spread out on the bed.
“I’m serious,” said the agent. “He was just five at the time, never had anything to do with our business.”
Guillermo turned with his.380 automatic. “Little too late to grow a conscience.”
“Serge was right,” said Ramirez.
“Serge!” said Guillermo. “What is it with that guy?”
“Listen to me,” said the agent. “This accomplishes nothing.”
“Accomplishes revenge.”
“You can’t deposit that in a bank.”
“I always do what Madre wants. You did too, until now.”
Guillermo stepped forward.
Ramirez side-stepped to block his path.
“Have any idea what you’re doing?” said Guillermo.
“This needs to end.”
“You’re making a big mistake. If Madre ever found out you-” Guillermo stopped and smiled again, placing a hand on Ramirez’s shoulder. “I understand this isn’t your territory. Like our trip to Battle Creek. Bothers most people…”
“Battle Creek?” said Andy. “What about Battle Creek?”
“… So I’m going to forget about this, okay? Now move aside.”
Ramirez didn’t budge.
An elevator opened at the end of the hall. Serge and Coleman jumped out running.
“Which room is it?” asked Coleman.
“I don’t know,” said Serge. “Andy! Andy! Can you hear me? Just yell!…”
Guillermo stepped chest-to-chest with Ramirez. Half foot taller. He looked down into the agent’s eyes. “This has become tiresome. Last chance to give you a pass.”
In the next split second, events cascaded.
Ramirez’s eyes briefly glanced toward the bed.
Guillermo caught the look and began raising his gun.
Before he could, Ramirez shoved him hard in the chest. Guillermo stumbled as the agent dove for his weapons.
Guillermo’s automatic and Ramirez’s ankle gun came up at the same time.
Standoff.
They stared without blinking. Ramirez carefully walked backward. “Andy and Melvin, get behind me.”
“Put the gun down,” said Guillermo. “Move away from them.”
Serge reached the west end of the floor and turned down another corridor.
“This hotel’s freakin’ huge,” said Coleman. “How many hallways are there?”
“Too many,” said Serge. “Andy!… Andy!… Where are you?”
At the east end of the floor, someone in a fedora ran around a corner. “Serge!… Andy!… Where are you?…”
Andy peeked over Ramirez’s shoulder.
“It doesn’t have to end like this,” said Guillermo.
“I might as well be dead,” said Ramirez. “All those horrible things you got me into. This won’t make up for it, but at least it won’t add to it.”
“There’s more money,” said Guillermo. “We should have talked about that earlier. The kid took a lot of work on your part. It’s only fair.”
“Even if I give him up, you’ll still kill me. Maybe not here, now. But you will.”
Still aiming guns, trigger fingers twitching, getting sweaty.
“Nonsense,” said Guillermo, waiting for the slightest distraction to get off the first shot and not take a slug in return. “Even if you don’t trust me, think about it: We’ve got too much invested in you. How will we replace such a valuable asset?”
“My guess is you already have others,” said Ramirez. “I never should have gotten mixed up with your fucking family.”
Guillermo gritted his teeth. Nostrils flared.
Faintly, from outside: “… Andy! Andy!…” The voice trailing off as it went by. “ … Call out if you can hear me!…”
“In here!” yelled Andy. “I’m in here!”
Serge hit the brakes and ran back a few doors.
Coleman crashed into him. “Is this the room?”
“Don’t know… Andy! You in there?”
“Serge! Quick!”
Serge threw his shoulder into the door.
Ramirez involuntarily glanced toward the sound.
It was a microsecond, but all the time Guillermo needed. He fired, hitting Ramirez in the stomach. The agent shot back, but he was off balance from the gut wound, and the bullet went wide, splintering through the door.
Serge grabbed his ear and looked at his hand. Blood.
Guillermo’s second shot hit Ramirez’s shooting hand. The gun ricocheted off a wall. Guillermo marched forward, continuing to fire at the defenseless agent.
Ramirez’s mind attained clarity. This was why he was born. Anyone else would have gone down long ago, but with whatever strength the agent had left, he willed himself to remain an upright human shield for the two boys.
More shooting, now from two directions: Guillermo riddling Ramirez, and outside the room, where Serge blew the doorknob off.
Guillermo’s next shot struck Ramirez in the forehead, dropping him like an anvil.
No place for Andy and Melvin to hide.
Guillermo pulled the trigger. Click.
“Shit.” He replaced the clip.
Another shot from the hall blew the deadbolt halfway across the room.
Guillermo aimed between Andy’s eyes.
Serge kicked the door open and fired.
The bullet struck Guillermo’s arm from behind, spinning him. He returned fire as Serge ducked out of the doorway.
Serge hit the ground in the hall and poked his gun around the door frame, aiming at an upward angle so if he missed Guillermo, stray lead wouldn’t hit the kids.
He didn’t miss. The second shot hit Guillermo in the same arm. It pissed him off. He switched the gun to his left hand.
There are two distinct types of firefights: police and military.
Police take up defensive positions behind squad car doors and trees. Military strategy is to overrun the enemy. Guillermo favored the latter. He ran for the hall, firing on the way.
Serge retreated, shooting behind him without aim. He turned the corner and joined Coleman, who’d already ducked down another corridor. They pressed themselves hard against the wall. Plaster exploded past their heads.
Back in the room, Andy was paralyzed, staring at a side view of Guillermo in the hall, framed by the open door. Blasting away toward Serge and Coleman.
Andy surprised himself with what he did next. Almost like an out-of-body experience, looking down from the ceiling observing someone else. He dove for the bed, grabbed Ramirez’s nine-millimeter Glock and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
He turned the gun over and back in confusion. TV cop shows ran through his head. “Don’t they pull some kind of slide thing to load a bullet?”
Guillermo emptied his gun again. The ejected clip bounced on the carpet as another magazine slammed home.
Andy watched out the door as Guillermo pulled a slide thing. He looked down at his own gun and followed the example.
“He’s changing out clips,” Serge told Coleman. “Now’s our chance!” Serge reached around the corner. A bullet whistled by before he could get off a round. He jumped back. “Faster than I thought.”
Guillermo heard sirens coming up A1A. Then he heard something slam into the wall behind his neck. He looked at the bullet hole, then turned quickly to trace the line of fire to its source: an open-mouthed Andy, stunned that the gun in his hand had actually gone off.
He raised his pistol toward the boy. A bullet ripped into Guiller-mo’s thigh from Serge’s direction.
“Son of a bitch!”
“Is he still up?” asked Coleman.
“Guy’s like a Frankenstein.”
Andy fired again, but Guillermo had disappeared from the doorway, racing toward Serge’s position.
Serge peeked around the corner. “Shit. Run!”
They took off down the second corridor, Serge again shooting wildly behind them.
Guillermo reached the corner in full psychopathic bloom. He fired over and over at the retreating pair, but handgun accuracy delivers rapidly diminishing returns over distance. A hail of bullets from both directions passed each other in the middle of the hall and hit nothing but walls and fire extinguishers.
At the other end of the hall a man in a fedora rounded the corner. One of Guillermo’s last bullets found a target. Mahoney went down, grabbing his calf.
Serge heard the gunfire end. “Why’s he stopping?”
Guillermo turned in the middle of the hall and reversed field.
“He’s going back for the boys!” Serge crouched for a steady shot.
Click.
“I’m out!”
“Serge!”
He turned.
“Mahoney, what are you doing down there?”
“Catch!”
Serge grabbed a.38 police special out of the air and sprinted back toward the room, where Andy was slapping the side of his gun. Jammed. Actually he’d just accidentally hit the safety. He heard something in the hall and looked up. Guillermo grinned wickedly and took aim. “Good night.” He pulled the trigger.
A ceiling lamp shattered. Andy covered his head as glass rained. Guillermo continued twirling in the hall from Serge’s well-timed slug in his unwounded arm, which had sent Guillermo’s last shot high into the lighting fixture.
“Motherfuck!”
Louder sirens. Then they stopped. Which meant they were here.
Guillermo had never taken such a beating before. He emptied his gun in Serge’s direction and limped away for the fire escape.
“Coleman! He left!” Serge ran to the doorway. “Let’s go, kids.”
They all fled through the corridor where Mahoney had been hit.
“You going to be okay?” asked Serge.
“Don’t move,” said Mahoney.
“What are you doing?”
“Guillermo’s gone now, and the kids are safe.” Mahoney aimed his backup piece. “You’re under arrest.”
“That’s fair. I know our rules, but…”-he gestured with an upturned palm at two peach-faced students-“… They’re not safe. Guillermo and Madre are still out there, and who knows who else they have inside. You know I’m their best bet. Another time?”
Mahoney kept steady aim, then lowered the gun. “Get the hell out of my sight.”
The entire building had heard the gunfire. Nine-one-one operators and the hotel’s front desk became swamped with freaked-out calls that placed the shooting on almost every floor. First officers at the scene were spread thin as they responded to a dozen false locations.
Guillermo grabbed a bath towel from a cleaning cart and wrapped it around his shoulders-one of the least noticeable people as he casually escaped out the pool deck in a multi-directional stampede of screaming sunbathers.
Serge’s group caught a break with the service elevator. They ran into the kitchen.
Chefs had armed themselves with their largest carving knives. “What the hell are you guys doing in here?”
Serge, still running, pointed behind him. “Someone’s shooting!”
The trio pushed open a steel door to the loading dock with a box compactor and crates of rotten lettuce.
“What now?” asked Andy.
Serge looked up the alley toward the front of the hotel and the back edge of a growing throng of onlookers.
“If we just can get into that crowd…”
More and more squad cars screamed into the parking lot.
The quartet watched from the rear of the mob, then slowly retreated across the street.
Back up in the blood-soaked room, two hands grabbed a briefcase.
BAHIA CABANA
City and Country were bored, starved and car-less.
They had clicked the remote through all TV channels ten times.
Serge ran into the room.
City jumped up. “Where the fuck have you been?”
“Someplace.” He ran for the sink, stuck his face down and splashed water.
“Holy Jesus! What did you do to your ear?” said Country.
“What the hell happened to Andy and Melvin?” said City.
The pair collapsed on the couch, pale as they come.
“Give ’ em space.” Serge held paper towels to the side of his head. “They just had a close one.”
Andy stared at nothing. Shock suddenly gave way to delayed emotion. Weeping and shaking.
Serge sat and put an arm around his shoulders. “It’s okay.”
“I’m so sorry. Should have listened to you. I almost got us all killed.”
“That part wasn’t good.”
“Swear I won’t screw up again.”
“You can relax-you’re safe now.”
Andy sniffled and wiped his eyes. “But what about Guillermo? He’s still out there.”
“You leave that to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Andy, I have to tell you something. This might not be the best time, considering what you just went through, but I’d want to know if I was in your shoes.”
“What is it?”
“It can wait till later. Just let me know when you’re ready.”
“I’m good now.”
“You sure? It’s pretty heavy.”
Andy nodded.
“Your mother.”
“What about her?”
“Andy… I’m just going to say it. She didn’t kill herself.”
“Of course she killed herself. She shot-” He stopped and read Serge’s face. “Are you saying she was murdered?”
“Afraid there’s not much of a happy distinction between the two. But you’ve been under the impression all these years that she lingered through prolonged suffering and put herself out of misery.”
“She wasn’t sick?”
Serge shook his head. “Some of the happiest years of her life. And if it’s any consolation”-Serge crossed his fingers behind his back- “Ramirez told me she never heard it coming. Almost like going in her sleep.”
“Ramirez killed her?”
Serge shook his head again. “Like I said, you leave that to me.”
“Guillermo?”
Serge pulled the pistol from under his shirt for a tear-down mechanism check.
Andy remembered something, feeling the bottom of his own shirt and Ramirez’s Glock, which he’d concealed underneath in all the excitement. He decided not to bring it up. “What are you planning to do?”
Serge reassembled the gun. “I’m foreclosing on his karma.”
THE NEXT MORNING
Six A.M.
Dawn on the way. But still half-dark.
Headlights from pickup trucks bounded onto the construction site of a new downtown Miami condo.
The trucks stopped and doors opened.
Work boots, lunch boxes, hard hats.
A foreman began unfurling blueprints, then heard a sound that wasn’t supposed to be there. He looked back at his crew. “Someone leave that thing running?”
Seven A.M.
Crime scene tape, police, TV cameras.
The head of homicide arrived. “What have we got here?”
“One twisted bastard,” said the case detective. “Nobody hot-wires these things.”
They watched as paramedics passed what was left of Miguel out the hatch of a cement mixer.
“I’ve heard of death by a thousand cuts,” said the detective. “This was death by ten thousand blunt traumas. All minor enough to let him last for hours.”
“Wouldn’t he just roll around and get dizzy?”
“Most people might think, but the foreman explained that these trucks have blunt stirring blades to mix the cement-much like laundry dryers-and once the victim kept tripping and couldn’t get up, those blades continued lifting and tumbling him over and over.
“Who would do such a thing, let alone think it up?”
Eight A.M.
South of Miami. A Delta 88 sat in the driveway of a nicely kept hacienda with barrel tiles.
Only one person home.
The shower was running. A bottle of Jack Daniel’s hung in the soap caddy. A diluted pink mixture of water and blood swirled down the drain.
The leg wound had been a pass-through in the meaty part of the thigh, and another bullet had just grazed the right shoulder. That left two in his favored arm.
Guillermo screamed.
A twisted piece of lead bounced on a rubber shower mat. Guillermo hung tweezers from the caddy and grabbed the bottle of sour mash. Some went in his mouth, the rest over an inelegantly gouged-out wound. Another scream.
He set the bottle back and grabbed the tweezers again.
Drain water turned darker red.
Nine A.M.
Ice cubes fell in a crystal rocks glass, followed by two fingers of Jack Daniel’s. A first-aid kit lay open. Two pools of spilled whiskey on the dining room table and more dripping off Guillermo’s fingertips from the limp arm hanging by his side.
He cringed and gently eased himself into a chair at the table, gauze bandages bleeding through. Guillermo unwrapped the worst and tossed the wad in a trash basket next to his seat.
He reached in the first-aid kit and took another slug of whiskey, then tore off a fresh stretch of white tape with his teeth.
A Mercedes pulled up the driveway. The front door opened. Juanita hummed merrily, a bakery sack in her arms. The foyer filled with the aroma of just-out-of-the-oven Cuban bread. Then she smelled liquor.
Juanita came around the corner to the dining room, only seeing his back and the bottle. Uncharacteristic.
“Guillermo?” She slowly set the bag on a counter. “Are you… drunk?”
“Not yet.”
“Guillermo, I’m surprised…” She took a few more steps. “Oh my God! What happened to you?”
The bottle poured. “Ramirez double-crossed us.”
“He’s a dead man.”
“Right.”
“You’re in no condition.” She picked up the phone. “I’ll take care of this Ramirez. Almost makes me cry what he did to you.”
“No, I mean, ‘right,’ as in he’s already dead.”
She put down the phone. “You handled Ramirez?”
A boozy nod.
She patted him on the head. “Good boy… What about Andy?”
He shook his head. “There were like a million of ’em. I was ambushed.”
“You didn’t take care of Andy?”
“No, but I’ll find him.”
Another pat. “You rest.” She grabbed the phone again. “I’ll send someone else.”
“Who?”
She opened her mouth to say “Pedro,” then stopped. She thought of Raul. Stopped again. Miguel. A longer pause. “Is anyone left at all?”
“Just me.”
Juanita took a seat at the table and stared down in thought.
SIMULTANEOUSLY
A ’73 Challenger cruised south on Biscayne Boulevard.
Just Serge and Andy.
They crossed the intersection for the causeway to Bal Harbor. A skyline came into view.
“Holy smokes,” said Serge. “There’s more every time I come here, and that’s usually only months apart.”
Andy was in a funk.
“Andy”-shaking his arm-“are you looking?”
“Yeah, I’m looking. More what?”
“Condos under construction.” Serge stopped at a red light next to the Miami Shores Country Club. “They’re all over the dang place, blotting out the sun.”
“I thought those were office buildings.” Andy stared out the window at towering high-rises, most with unfinished upper floors. “They’re putting condos downtown?”
“Now they are. Almost outnumbering businesses.” His eyes moved north to south. “… Nine, ten, eleven…”
“What are you doing?”
“Counting construction cranes. I do it every time I’m here… thirteen, fourteen, now fifteen! Amazing. I still remember one of the local TV anchors joking that the city’s official bird should be the crane.”
“Fifteen are getting built at the same time?”
“Probably a couple less,” said Serge. “They glutted the market in the housing crisis. I’m betting work’s stalled on a few from lack of pre-sales. That’s how the Elbo Room was saved.” He aimed his camcorder out the windshield at the skyline.
“Serge, what are you doing?”
“I’m always in awe at the scale of those things.”
“How can you be so flip at a time like this? Talking about buildings and cranes when Guillermo is still loose.”
“You were just talking about them, too.”
“I was distracted.”
“Promised I’d take care of this.” Serge turned on the radio, Randy Newman. “That’s where we’re going now.”
Andy bolted up straight. “We’re driving to Guillermo?”
“Heck no.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Research. Putting an end to something requires thorough preparation and a killer sound track.”
“Why do I have to come?”
“… Gee, I love Miami…”
“After what you pulled yesterday, we’re joined at the hip.” Serge clicked off his video camera. “In the meantime, no sense fretting between stops. Enjoy the beautiful day!”
Andy pounded the dashboard in whining desperation. “Please…”
“It’s almost over,” said Serge. “Just a little longer.”
“It is over. Ramirez was the traitor. So now you can take me in.”
“Sometimes there’s more than one. We have to cut the snake off at the head. Then it doesn’t matter how many they got inside… Look! One of the cranes is starting to move!”
“… every building’s so pretty and white…”
“Serge!”
“Shhhhhh!” He grabbed his camcorder again. “It’s incredible how those things work. Ever watch Modern Marvels?”
“No!”
“Check out that tiny guy fifty stories up in the glassed-in control cab. He’s just moving little levers…”-Serge panned down to a massive steel beam leaving the ground-“… yet able to lift tons of metal hundreds of feet into the air and place it precisely where he wants…”
The Challenger continued south along the waterfront, past the American Airlines Arena, Freedom Tower, Bayside Market. Serge made a right on Flagler and drove through a district of small shops with Spanish signs.
“Where are we now?” asked Andy.
“Here.” Serge parked on the street.
“The library?”
“Not just any library. The main Miami-Dade.“ Serge ran up steps.”Hurry! Crime-fighting’s loads of fun!”
“Wait up!” Andy chased Serge across a vast, elevated brick courtyard, where people in business suits ate takeout lunch on shaded benches.
Serge knew right where to go. In minutes, he was sitting at a projector, reading negative images of a fifteen-year-old Herald. It was a Wednesday, final street edition.
Andy dragged over a chair. “Why are we reading newspapers?”
“You’re too young to remember…”-Serge turned the advance knob; Thursday, Friday-“… but back then, Madre was legendary, like the bogeyman. Everyone knew what she was up to, but five levels of law enforcement could never touch her. Witnesses were petrified, and those who did talk ended up in the Miami River, not all in one place.”
“How does that help us?”
“There was a big raid with her brothers. And when arrests make the paper, there’s an address.” Serge turned the knob again. Frontpage story with four-column photo: Two men and a woman being led handcuffed from a south county hacienda. “Here we go. And I lucked out. Not only the address, but a photo of the house… Man, she looks young there.”
“But what are the odds she’s still living at the same place after all these years?”
“You’d be surprised.” Serge dropped coins in a slot and pressed a button. A copy spit from a printer. “These old families don’t move.”
Serge slid the folded page into a pocket and left the microfilm room. They waited at the elevators.
“Hold on a second,” said Andy.
“What is it?”
He ran back toward the microfilm room. “I forgot something.”
“I’ll be here.”
Andy went inside, stuck a spool back on the machine and fed coins in a slot.
I-95
A ’73 Challen ger drove back toward Fort Lauderdale. Serge avoided interstates in most situations, except when time was critical.
“Time’s critical!”
“What are you planning?” asked Andy.
“Can’t tell you,” said Serge. “Sorry, but it’s for your own good. You’d become an accessory.”
“They killed my mom.”
“I know.”
“I should be the one.”
“Andy, don’t throw your life away.” Serge took the Broward Boulevard exit as an Amtrak pulled into a station by the overpass. “Outcome will be the same.”
“But I want revenge myself.”
“It pains me to see this change.” They crossed the bridge to the beach. “You’re one of the good guys. Leave this to me and forget about it before these assholes turn you into something you’re not.”
“Can I at least be there? For closure?”
“Closure?“ said Serge.”Don’t bullshit a bullshitter. But yes, you can come along. Only if you agree to remain way back.”
“Will I be able to see from there?”
“I have a funny feeling everyone will be able to see.”
The Challenger reached A1A and turned south.
BAHIA CABANA
Serge ran back in the room with a bucket of ice and jammed two water bottles inside.
City and Country passed a joint and watched more tube.
Serge pulled a map from his suitcase and laid it down next to the microfilm printout from the library.
“We’re going to dinner now?” asked Country.
“What?” Serge combed streets.
“You swore to take us to this great place,” said City.
“When?”
“Fifty times. Pick one,” said Country. “And after your last lie, you gave your word it would be today.”
“I’m working.”
“You always say that.”
“This time I really am working.” Serge circled a spot on the map in ballpoint. “Something big’s come up.”
“We’re tired of being stuck in this room.”
“Why aren’t you taking advantage of the pool?” asked Serge.
“Because we were waiting to go to dinner!” said Country.
“We fucked up and believed you,” said City. “This is just like when you ditched us on the side of the road.”
“Except worse,” said Country. “It’s a perpetual ditch. Popping in and out. Stringing us along with promises.”
“I promise.” Serge rummaged through his hanging toiletry bag. “Just let me wrap this up.”
“You’re doing it again,” said City. “At least last time we could get on with our lives.”
Serge dug through all the pockets, then started again with the first.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Where are my car keys?”
“Andy took ’em.”
Serge’s head swung. “Andy’s not in the room?”
“Duh!”
“But I told him to stay put,” said Serge. “Where’d he go?”
“He took your keys, so I guess somewhere else.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
City took a hit. “What’s the big deal?”
“Oh, Andy, Andy, not again!”
“Again what?”
“When did he leave?”
“Just before you came back from getting ice,” said Country. “Surprised you didn’t bump into him in the hall.”
Serge grabbed his map off the dresser and ran out.
“When are we going to dinner?”
Students in the next room flipped quarters into shot glasses.
Serge charged through the door. “Need to borrow your car.”
“Here…”
Keys flew across the room and broke a mirror.
Serge jumped in a station wagon and raced south.
SOUTH OF MIAMI
A ’73 Challenger rolled down a quiet residential street with burglar bars and neglected lawns.
Andy slowed, reading mailbox numbers. He reached what he was looking for and stopped at the curb. A microfilm printout in his lap, the old Herald photo of the arrest. Andy looked up at the hacienda. New roof and trees, but not much else had changed. A Delta 88 and a late-model Mercedes sat out front.
He drove off.
The Challenger parked seven blocks away at a baseball field with a rusted Pepsi scoreboard. Standard getaway vehicle placement from the movies. Andy set out on foot. The Glock slipped from his waistband into his underwear. He stopped to pull it up.
The front door of a hacienda opened. Juanita strolled to the driveway. A Mercedes backed out.
There’d been better days.
Guillermo had disappointed her again. Not only that, but Serge had depleted her crew. To recruit reinforcements, she now was compelled to do what she hadn’t in years. But Juanita could still drive to the jail in her sleep.
Five blocks down the road: “What’s this?”
She drove past a young man trotting up the sidewalk the other way, glancing around suspiciously.
Juanita looked in the rearview. A gun suddenly fell from Andy’s belt. He quickly grabbed it off a lawn.
Juanita smiled. Obviously green, but already into the life. The day’s fortune had just changed. She made a wide U-turn in a vacant intersection.
Andy jogged through another cross street, holding his stomach. Three blocks to go.
A Mercedes pulled alongside. The passenger window went down. “Need a lift?”
Andy almost came out of his skin.
“No!”
“You sure? It’s awfully hot out today. Your shirt’s soaked through.”
From nerves.
“I’m fine.”
“You look hungry.”
Andy and the car simultaneously slowed until they both stopped.
Juanita leaned over the passenger seat and opened the door. “Why don’t you get in?”
Andy stared at the car and it fell into place. From the hacienda’s driveway. Either incredibly good luck or terribly bad. The perfect opportunity for him to get the drop. Or, if he’d been recognized, then they had the drop. He didn’t give a shit anymore.
“Okay, thanks.”
Andy climbed in. Air-conditioning chilled his sweat. He recognized the way the car was going.
“I’m Juanita, but all my boys call me Madre. What’s your name?”
“Bill. Billy.”
“Which is it?”
“Billy.”
Juanita smiled. “How old are you?”
“Nineteen.” Andy’s heart pounded so hard now he was sure she could hear it. His hand slowly fell toward his belt, in case…
Juanita stared straight ahead. “What’s the gun for?”
His heart almost blew. “What gun?”
Another smile. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.”
“Tell who?”
“You were running.” She laughed. “And looking more than guilty. Where’d you just come from?”
“Nothing… I mean nowhere.”
“Have you been a bad boy today?”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“Relax, I don’t like the police either.”
“Why do you think I don’t like the police?”
She patted his knee. “I’ve raised a lot of boys.”
Andy, thinking what might await him at the house: “How many boys do you have?”
“Why don’t I make you lunch?”
The Mercedes pulled up a driveway.
“Nice place,” said Andy.
Juanita turned and looked into his eyes with decades of maternal manipulation. “Would you like a job?”
“What kind of job?”
“Pretty much the same as you’re doing now. Except better pay. And less sloppy. You won’t get caught.”
“What do I have to do?”
“Whatever I say.” She opened her door. “Are you obedient?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Call me Madre.”
Serge barreled down South Dixie Highway, timing green lights. Ignoring red.
“God, just this one favor…”
Juanita led Andy through the front door.
“Guillermo,” she called from the foyer, hanging her purse on a hook. “There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.”
They came around the corner into the dining room.
Guillermo’s back was to them, head sagging. The clear part of the Jack Daniel’s bottle now much bigger than the brown.
Juanita turned to Andy. “Don’t get the wrong idea. He just had an accident, in a lot of pain.”
“Not anymore,” said Guillermo, reaching for the sour mash.
They walked around the table into his view.
“Guillermo,” said Juanita. “I’d like you to meet Billy… Billy, Guillermo.”
“Yo.” Guillermo was now pulling straight from the bottle.
“Billy,” said Juanita. “Let me see your gun.”
Moment of truth. The pistol was his only ace. Unarmed, he’d be helpless. A calculation.
He pulled it from his shirt. “Here you go.”
Juanita popped the clip and racked the slide. A bullet ejected into the air and bounced across the wooden floor. She replaced the clip and racked again.
“Glock. Nice one.” She handed it back. “You said you were obedient?”
Andy nodded.
Juanita looked toward Guillermo. “Shoot him.”
Serge got stacked up behind five cars at a traffic light.
“Screw it!”
He cut the corner through a gas station, briefly leaving the ground as he sailed over a curb where there was no exit.
“Shoot him?” asked Andy.
“That’s what I said.”
“Ha!” blurted Guillermo. “The test!”
“What test?”
“Don’t worry,” said Guillermo. “Just to see if you’re loyal.”
“Shoot him,” Juanita repeated.
Andy raised his arm, lowered it, raised it again.
“Go on, shoot me,” said Guillermo, knowing he was her favorite and remembering how she’d rigged his own test in the beginning. “What are you waiting for?”
Juanita stepped up to his side. “What are you waiting for?”
Andy raised his arm again. This is what he’d come for. Why couldn’t he close the deal?
“I’ll make it easy,” said Guillermo, pushing himself up from the table to create a larger, swaying target.
Andy aimed the gun at his face, hand shaking heavily.
“Look,” said Guillermo. “It’s not loaded. So make her happy and pull the trigger.”
Andy pulled the trigger.
Bang.
Guillermo’s eyes went wide. He grabbed his neck, blood running between his fingers.
“Son of a bitch!”
He looked at Juanita. “Madre, you left a round in the chamber. Have to be more careful.”
“I know.”
“Well, it’s just another flesh wound, like I don’t have enough.” He grabbed paper towels. “But this is getting ridiculous.”
“Guillermo,” said Juanita, “when I said ‘I know,’ I meant I know I left a round in the chamber.”
“What? Why?”
“You used to be magnificent. What’s happened to you?”
“But I’ve always done everything you asked.”
She turned to Andy. “Shoot him. This time steady it with two hands.”
Andy stretched out both arms. Guillermo backed up and crashed into a china hutch. Adrenaline. Liquor haze parted.
“Madre,” shouted Guillermo, lighting up with recognition, “that’s Andy! Andy McKenna!”
“Andy?”
“I recognize him from the hotel room with Ramirez.”
Juanita shook her head. “You’re just saying that now to save your hide. If it really was Andy, you would have mentioned it when we first came in.”
“That was because of the whiskey, but now I’m sure!”
“You disappoint me.”
“Just listen,” said Guillermo.
Juanita smiled at her new recruit. “You’re not Andy, are you?”
He shook his head.
She looked back at Guillermo. Out the side of her mouth: “Shoot him.”
Instead, she felt the barrel of a Glock against her temple.
“I’m not Andy. But I am Billy. Billy Sheets, son of the mother you killed. And the father you tried to.“ He raised the gun and cracked her in the side of the head.”Now go around the table and stand next to him.”
A woody station wagon skidded up the driveway of a hacienda south of Miami.
Serge ran through the front door with gun drawn. “Andy? Are you here?…”
He turned the corner into the dining room. “Andy, don’t shoot!”
“Fuck it.” He steadied the gun in two hands like Juanita had instructed.
“Easy with that trigger,” said Serge. “You’re shaking.”
“Good!… You two ready to die?”
“Let’s calm down and talk,” said Serge. “This isn’t the Andy I know. You haven’t shot yet, which means something.”
“Yes, I have.”
Guillermo pointed at his neck.
Serge raised his eyebrows. “Okay, but you haven’t shot twice.”
“Shut up!” Andy stretched his arms to the fullest.
“Don’t make any sudden moves,” said Serge. “I’m coming up behind you.”
“What do you care? I thought you wanted ’em dead almost as much as me.”
“Not by your hand. Mine are already dirty.”
“He’s crazy!” said Guillermo.
“You ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Serge. He stepped beside the boy and slowly reached. “Carefully let go of the trigger and I’m going to take the gun, okay?”
Andy stood rigid. As Serge’s hand grabbed the top of the barrel, an index finger uncurled.
The youth let go the rest of the way and fell crying into one of the dining table’s chairs. “I let my family down.”
“Just the opposite.” Serge took aim. “Where’d you leave the Challenger?”
“Up the street.”
“Get in it, go back to the motel and forget everything.”
“But-”
“I’ve got it from here. This isn’t your turf. Now go.”
Andy stood up and went out the front door.
Serge motioned with the gun. “Have a seat.” The pair slid forward and pulled out chairs.
Serge grabbed his own on the other side of the table. They sat facing each other.
“What are you doing?” asked Juanita.
“Waiting for dark.” Serge leaned back, bracing the gun against his stomach. “Now no more talking.”
FOUR A. M.
“Where are we?”
Serge poked the gun into Guillermo’s back. “Keep walking.”
The air atop the Miami skyline was electric with decorative floodlights bathing the sides of banks and offices. A bridge over the bay glowed blue underneath like a car pimped with neon tubes.
A different story down in the dark streets south of the MacArthur Causeway.
Underpass world. Shopping carts, malt liquor bottles. The lobster shift of bums begged at red lights.
Serge kept the pistol aimed as he approached yet another construction site and pushed down a loose stretch of chain-link fence that had previously been vandalized by graffiti artists. He waved them through, then picked up the gym bag at his feet and followed.
“What’s in the bag?” asked Guillermo.
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
MONDAY
Eight A.M.
Morning rush, downtown Miami.
Traffic crawled. Honking. People on phones, shaving, applying makeup.
Movement began at one of the high-rise condos under construction.
Sixty stories above Biscayne Boulevard, a worker sat in a small control booth with green-tinted windows. The booth slid along grooved tracks in the arm of a massive crane.
When the operator was in position, the booth stopped. A lever went forward.
Down on street level, a temporary fence with NO T RESPASSING signs surrounding the work site. A steel girder began rising from the ground.
Tied beneath the beam were two long stretches of thick rope that weren’t supposed to be there. The other ends trailed behind large piles of construction material and debris concealing the view to the road.
When the ascending beam reached the second floor, the rope pulled two people to their feet.
The feet left the ground.
Madre and Guillermo were three stories up before anyone noticed. Then everyone noticed. They screamed and waved at the crane operator, who smiled and waved back. People called police on cells; others ran along the fence, trying to find someone in a hard hat on the other side. The rest simply looked up in horrified shock.
Madre and Guillermo passed the fourth floor, hands tied behind their backs, kicking and wiggling at the ends of their nooses.
By the fifth floor, wiggling became spasmodic twitches. Madre went limp by the seventh, but Guillermo held on for two more.
The girder kept going up, higher than most of the neighboring buildings, which no longer blocked a stiff onshore wind at that height.
Word finally reached the crane operator. A level yanked back. The girder shuddered to a stop. Fifty stories above the boulevard-with magnificent views of Key Biscayne and South Beach, all the way to distant Fort Lauderdale-Madre and Guillermo swung side by side in the breeze.