16 Tiger Shrimp Tango (12 page)

Chapter Thirteen

FORT LAUDERDALE

T
wo men burst into the room and slammed the door. Weapons came out.

“Cool,” said Coleman, grabbing an appliance handle. “This is one of those motels that has a microwave and a mini-fridge and you didn’t even expect it.”

“It’s always more excellent when you don’t expect it.” Serge unzipped his gear bag. “It’s a sign that God accepts you as one of His children. And I never take it for granted because I’m otherwise perfectly content making grilled cheese sandwiches on the ironing board and filling the sink with ice for a cooler and then having to wash my hands in the shower the entire stay. But the surprise micro-fridge is God’s way of saying, ‘I like the cut of your jib. This one’s on Me.’ ”

“But, Serge, why don’t you just use the regular cooler we have out in the car?”

“It’s just not done that way.”

“I’m stoked you picked a place on A1A,” said Coleman. “It’s twenty-four-hour, take-no-prisoners partying!”

“Coleman, we’re not here for your enjoyment.” Serge continued unpacking. “It was Mahoney’s idea. He wants us in position.”

“For what?”

“He hired this consulting company called Big Dipper, and they’ve been crunching some random data on one of the scams.”

“What have they found?”

“Nothing so far. But this area is the last place one of the scammers struck.”

“So now what?”

“Hole up and wait for more data.”

Coleman bent down and peeked inside the freezer. “It’s even got ice-cube trays!”

“Gifts keep raining from heaven.” Serge unrolled a thick electric cord.

Coleman went to the sink with the trays. “What’s that thing?”

Serge stuck a plug in the wall. “My power strip. The key to holing up in motels is bringing your own power strip and taking control of the situation.”

“But the room has plenty of electric sockets.”

“Except they’re strewn all over the place including behind the bed, which is fraught with the peril of forgetting the stuff you’re charging: camera, cell phone, iPod, electric razor, laptop, camcorder, bullhorn, and miscellaneous flashlights including my giant search beam.”

“Do you have a bullhorn and search beam?”

“Not since I forgot the last power strip and lost everything. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s how they get you.”

Serge stared at the sink a moment. “Coleman, what are you doing?”

“Making ice cubes.”

“But you’re only filling the trays halfway. Not even.”

“That’s the point.” He slipped the trays into the mini-fridge. “I let the first half freeze, then I’ll take them back out in a few hours, add the rest of the water and let that freeze.”

Serge went back to his power strip. “I guess I’ve been doing it wrong all these years.”

“Don’t be hard on yourself.” Coleman closed the freezer door. “You’re doing it the normal way, but I have to go half and half for this . . .” He held a tall round cylinder next to his head and smiled.

Serge rubbed his chin. “Am I missing something?”

Coleman pointed at his hand with the other hand. “It’s a roll of Mentos. You haven’t heard of them? They’re breath fresheners for kids who want to fuck like in the commercials.”

“That wasn’t my question,” said Serge. “I’m hip to what’s going on out there with the Mentos and fucking. I’m just not getting the ice-cube connection.”

“Ohhhhh . . .”
Coleman nodded. “Okay, here’s the deal. You’ve seen what happens when you put Mentos in soda?”

“Yeah, it shoots an unbelievable geyser of foam because of a unique and unforeseen chemical reaction from a combination of polysaccharides, glycoproteins and potassium benzoate that generates a ferociously rapid release of carbon dioxide. The record eruption from a two-liter bottle is something like twenty feet.”

“How do you know all that?”

“Works much the same way when I was a kid and we’d launch toy rockets with baking soda and vinegar. And there are a bunch of viral Mentos-and-soda videos on the Internet.” Serge sat on the side of a bed and folded his arms. “Please continue, Professor Putz.”

“All right.” Coleman set the roll of candy down. “Here’s the part that’s off the hook! Say you’re at a bash, and some dude wants a drink, and you say, ‘I’ll get it. Is rum and Coke good?’ He says, ‘Goddamn right.’ And you go in the kitchen giggling and make the drink. And you drop these ice cubes in the glass, except they’re not
normal
ice cubes. They’re the ones where you froze half, stuck a Mentos in the middle, then froze the other half on top of it. But the guy’s not going to see the Mentos in the middle of the cubes because rum and Coke is dark, and you hand the drink to him while he’s talking up some chick. And a few minutes later when the cubes melt . . .” Coleman waved both arms in the air. “
Bloooooshhhhhh!
Foam exploding everywhere, all over the guy’s clothes, up his nose, in his eyes, and all over the pissed-off chick, who’s definitely not going to fuck him now.”

“So Mentos can also be used for birth control.”

“They should put that on the label,” said Coleman. “The whole thing’s priceless, everyone laughing their brains out. Except if it’s a really expensive house with nice carpeting and sofas, and then the owners are screaming maniacs, ‘What the fuck?’ Either way it turns out good for me.”

“Coleman, that actually took some advance thought,” said Serge. “We may have discovered an undetected lobe. I’m taking you in for a PET scan—”

A cell phone rang.

“Serge here . . . That’s great, I’ll do it right now.”

He hung up and plugged his laptop into the power strip.

Coleman lined up Mentos on the counter. “What was that about?”

“Mahoney just e-mailed me more crime data . . .”

PALM BEACH

The noon sun glinted off a hood ornament of a winged human.

Another Rolls-Royce rolled down pricey Worth Avenue. Then another.

But two Silver Clouds in a row didn’t turn any heads at the sidewalk cafés, because the island boasted the highest concentration of Rolls in the world.

At one of the outdoor tables, a fashion-plate couple leaned forward for private conversation. Gustave wore his yacht-club blazer and prepared to work his magic again. But not on the woman at his table, who was his latest partner in crime.

Sasha.

The two dating bandits had created a more than respectable revenue stream for their gang, but now it was time to raise the bar. It was South Philly Sal’s idea. If they teamed up, the pair could land some really big game.

Swingers.

The couples tended to be more affluent, especially in the jewelry department. And more secretive. The Palm Beach social register was invented for gossip. And this was tawdry stuff. Sal figured that when blue-blood swingers reported the burglaries, they’d become suspiciously vague when police inquired about their day’s activities. Not only would the couple provide ultra-vague descriptions of the suspects, but cops don’t like it when information is withheld. Even when it’s from victims. And the cases would fall to the lowest order of priority.

Another Rolls drove by the tables. Gustave suddenly noticed something over Sasha’s shoulder and stood up with an engaging smile. “You must be the Kensingtons.”

The couples exchanged introductions. The Kensingtons were at least fifteen years older with gray hair, and that was a critical part of the plan when Gustave had reeled them in with discreet e-mails through a special off-shore website that hooked up such like-minded adventuresome couples. Imagine the Kensingtons’ luck at finding such an attractive young pair who didn’t mind a little age difference. Mr. Kensington also wore a yachting jacket, but his sported an admiral’s insignia, because he had bought the insignia and told the maid to sew it on. He pretended to read the menu, instead guessing which positions Sasha might be into and if she’d mind wearing the admiral’s jacket to bed. He glanced up at her. “What looks good today?”

“Try the shrimp cocktail.”

Microscopes arrived, then four bites of food.

An hour later, the Kensingtons stood bewildered with the check in their hand, wondering where their lunch partners had disappeared to. A half hour after that, they stood in their living room, wondering where all their valuables had gone.

The police arrived.

A detective opened a notebook. “Have you seen anyone suspicious outside your home lately? Maybe in a utility truck?”

They shook their heads.

“What did you do earlier today?”

“We had lunch with some friends,” said Mrs. Kensington.

“What were their names?”

“Uh . . .” Mrs. Kensington turned to her husband.

The detective stopped writing and looked up. “You don’t know the names of the friends you just had lunch with?”

“They were strangers,” said Mr. Kensington.

“Strangers or friends, which is it?”

“Friendly strangers,” said Mrs. Kensington.

The pair began to wilt under the detective’s glare. “Look,” said Mr. Kensington. “The tables were pretty full and we met this nice-enough couple who offered their two empty chairs.”

“What did they look like?” asked the detective. “Start with the man.”

The Kensingtons answered simultaneously.

“Tall . . .”

“Short . . .”

They glanced at each other.

“Medium.”

The detective wrote
swingers
and closed his notebook. “Are you an admiral?”

“Not really.”

HIALEAH

A black Firebird cruised down the Palmetto Expressway.

Serge turned toward his passenger.

“What?” said Coleman. “Why are you looking at me in that creepy way?”

“Coleman, you’re a genius!”

“I am?”

Serge nodded hard. “You just gave me the perfect concept for my next science project.”

Coleman smiled confidently and hit a joint. “Never really thought about it, but I guess I am a little on the brainy side.” Another exhale. “So how am I smart?”

Serge waved for him to be quiet. He already had the phone to his head. “Alfonso, Serge here. I need a favor . . . What do you mean you don’t want that kind of trouble? . . . When has anything ever gone wrong? . . . That was just that one time . . . Okay, twice . . . Okay, now that time I did not burn down your warehouse . . . No, it was an electrical short from shoddy contractors . . . I did not overload the circuits making a Tesla arc transmitter to create artificial bursts of indoor lightning. Nikola Tesla won the Nobel Prize, so it had to be perfectly safe . . . Listen, I hate to remind someone when they owe me big-time . . . That’s better . . . Just a few things: a couple of fifty-five-gallon drums, arc-welding equipment and secure privacy. Got a pen? . . .”

Coleman noticed the Trans Am speeding up. “Where are we going?”

Serge still had the cell to his ear. “. . . And of course safety goggles.” He hung up. “Did you say something?”

“Where you driving to?”

“Alfonso’s Scrap Metal, Recycling and Lounge.”

“Lounge?”

“It’s on the edge of a weird municipal zoning thing, and Alfonso took advantage of it.” Serge hit his blinker for a Hialeah exit. “But he learned that after the lounge opens at night and drinking starts, it’s a good idea to turn off the hydraulic car-crusher and the big magnet that picks vehicles up. What were those people thinking?”

The Firebird rolled down an access road in an industrial district characterized by forklifts and Dobermans. They turned through a barbed-wire gate and into a cavernous sheet-metal building.

Serge zestfully jumped out of the car. “Alfonso!”

A lanky man in jeans raised the visor on his welding helmet and cut the gas to his torch. “Serge, it’s been three years.”

“I was in the neighborhood.”

“Whatever happened to ‘You wanna get some lunch’?”

“Why? You hungry?”

“No,” said Alfonso. “It’s just that most people don’t call out of the blue and go, ‘I’m five minutes away, and I need all this crazy shit, and seal the building tight so police can’t get nosy. And why do you need three different types of fire extinguishers?”

“To cover all bases,” said Serge. “I wouldn’t want you yelling at me again: ‘What’s with all the fucking lightning in here?’ ”

“Forget it.” Alfonso made a casual wave. “All your stuff is over there.”

“Excellent!” Serge clasped his hands together. “First I’m going to weld—”

“Stop!” Alfonso held up a hand. “I don’t want to know. I’m going to lock the place up now, and if you’re interrogated, I was never here.”

Coleman suddenly gasped.

“What is it?” asked Serge.

He pointed in horror at a sign on the door to the adjacent building. L
OUNGE
C
LOSED
U
NTIL
F
URTHER
N
OTICE
.

“Oh, that,” said Alfonso. “One of the bar customers figured out how to turn the big magnet back on. Made the papers.”

Serge walked over to his new toys and picked up a heavy black helmet. “I won’t forget this.”

“I wish you would.”

Serge lowered the visor on his helmet and ignited the torch.

Chapter Fourteen

PALM BEACH

P
olice had no leads on what they referred to in-house as the “Swinger Bandits.”

South Philly Sal had struck gold. And diamonds and artwork. It seemed Gustave and Sasha couldn’t fail. Until they did.

The de Gaulles owned the biggest mansion yet. And the grifters didn’t even have to detain them at lunch. The old farts just talked and talked. Usual stuff. Their vacation cottage on Nantucket, the chalet in Zurich, meeting the royals in Lisbon. Then, chaos. A cell phone vibrated in Mr. de Gaulle’s pocket.

The burglary crew had failed to detect the secondary alarm system, and a text alert had just been sent. But since the primary system hadn’t gone off, the couple figured their dog had probably gotten into mischief.

Mr. de Gaulle abruptly stood. “Sorry, but we have to go.”

“They’re bringing dessert!” said Gustave.

De Gaulle tossed a few hundreds on the table. “Our alarm went off. Probably nothing, but our dog is home.”

His wife grabbed her purse. “We just love Poopsie.”

They sped away in an Aston Martin.

Gustave fished out his own cell for the standard abort call. “Shit.”

“What is it?” asked Sasha.

“Battery’s dead. Give me your phone.”

“I didn’t bring it because you had yours. What are we going to do?”

What they did was race to the home. The Aston Martin was already in the driveway, but the couple was still on the footpath.

Gustave screeched up to the curb and yelled out the window. “Wait!”

Mr. de Gaulle’s face was a swirl of questions. “What are you doing here? . . . How’d you know our address? And why are you driving that crappy Datsun?”

Gustave jumped out and ran across the lawn, followed by Sasha. “Hold up! I have something important—”

“Just a second,” said de Gaulle. “Right after we check on our dog. Why isn’t she barking? That’s not like Poopsie.”

Gustave was almost there, ready to try anything. Seize the house keys and explain later.

Too late. He was already twisting in the knob and the door opened. The couple casually blustered inside. “Here, Poopsie, Poopsie— What in the hell?”

Four men with gloves froze where they stood in the dining room, literally holding the bag. Next to a dead dog. Everyone locked eyes.

The staring contest seemed like it lasted an hour, but was less than two seconds. The de Gaulles turned to run out the door for help and crashed straight into Gustave and Sasha, who beat their skulls in respectively with a sterling candelabra and a bronze statue of a little boy peeing.

Mr. de Gaulle was pronounced DOA, but his wife lay safely in a coma. Swingers or not, police closed ranks around the town and turned up the heat. Time for South Philly Sal to move south.

THAT EVENING

Coleman contentedly burned through an ever-dwindling twelve-pack suitcase of Busch. A lawn chair in the back of the warehouse gave him a front-row seat to the fireworks show of sparks shooting toward the ceiling and bouncing benignly off Serge’s thick rubber apron.

Serge turned off the torch and walked over to a drill press. Even louder noise this time. When the metalwork was finished, he gathered all the machined parts in the middle of the building and banged them together with a mallet.

Serge stood and nodded to himself in approval. He dialed his cell phone again. “Crazy Legs? This is Serge. I need a huge favor immediately . . . Has it really already been five whole years? . . . Because I was in the neighborhood . . . But— . . . I thought— . . . Why? Are you hungry? . . .”

Serge eventually negotiated an end to the conversation. Then he grabbed a crowbar and began disassembling the apparatus.

Coleman raised his hand.

“Yes, the student in the back of the class.”

“Serge, you just put it together. Why are you taking it apart already?”

“You always do a test fit in the lab to avoid on-site glitches during final assembly and launch.” A round disk clanged to the floor. “I should have worked on the Hubble Telescope.”

Coleman cringed at the sound of heavy metal dragging on concrete.

Serge stopped and wiped his brow. “Are you going to just sit around or give me a hand?”

“I was hoping to just sit.”

“Shut up and get over here.”

Coleman shrugged and shuffled across the warehouse. “What are we doing?”

“Loading all this for transpo to the final destination.” Serge took another deep breath. “I forgot to tell Alfonso that I also needed his van. Oh, well, he’s not using it tonight . . . Grab here like I am and pull. On three . . .”

Three came and they pulled. They stopped. “This isn’t working,” said Serge. “Let’s roll it.”

They reached the rear of the van, and Serge tilted the main assembly upright. He opened the back doors. “Coleman, get inside. I’ll lean it against the bumper to boost it from this end, and you pull from the other . . .”

Success. Coleman jumped down from the vehicle, and the doors slammed shut.

“Where to now?” asked Coleman.

“The biggest liquor store we can find.”

“Wait.” Coleman looked up into the empty sky. “Do you hear angels?”

“We’re not going for that reason,” said Serge. “It just happens to be the kind of place selling all the remaining requirements for my science project.”

Moments later, the van sat in a crowded parking lot while the pair roamed the aisles.

Coleman walked slowly, in awe. Arms outstretched religiously. “It’s as big as a department store.”

Serge pushed the shopping cart. “That’s why they call it Liquor Universe.”

“What are you shopping for?”

“These.” Serge stopped in front of a shelf and began filling the cart.

“Why do you need that stuff?”

“Of all people, I thought you’d know.” He ventured to a different section of the store and filled the bottom part of the cart under the basket.

“Are we finished?” asked Coleman.

“Almost,” said Serge. “I’m depending on your expertise. Find me an ice pick.”

Coleman closed his eyes, in a trance. He opened them. “Aisle six, middle shelf, halfway down on the left.”

Serge stared inscrutably at his colleague, then walked to the appointed spot and immediately located a broad selection of ice picks. “Coleman, have you ever been in this place before?”

“Never set foot.”

“But then how—”

“It just comes to me. I can’t explain it because it doesn’t happen anywhere else except head shops.”

“Don’t turn around,” said Serge. “And cover your eyes. What’s directly behind you?”

“Wild Turkey, in the seven-fifty-milliliter bottle.”

“What’s next to it?”

“Same brand, select barrel, full liter,” said Coleman. “Did I get it?”

“You are the chosen one.” Serge wheeled toward the register.

From halfway back up the aisle: “Can I uncover my eyes now?”

“Yes, come on!”

They loaded up the van, and Serge began stabbing away with the ice pick.

“Just one question,” said Coleman. “How did you decide on the final destination to assemble this?”

“The location picked itself. Remember I said we were waiting for data from Mahoney? He e-mailed me last night with more info from his latest clients, and I was able to make contact with prime suspects over the Internet.”
Stab, stab, stab.
“Criminals tend to operate in zones of comfort, but if all goes according to my plan, this will be the opposite of comfort.”

A few last stabs. “There, all done.” Serge tossed the pick on the dashboard. “Coleman, pass me my bottle of drinking water. I need to fuse this internal component and let it cure.”

Coleman handed it over and giggled like a five-year-old.

Serge poured water into an old rag. “You’re stoned out of your freakin’ mind.”

“No, I’m laughing because I finally get it.” More uncontrolled snickers.

“Coleman, that’s a personal record. You’ve never figured out my projects this early.”

He clutched another hit. “Definitely! I’ll bet I could even put it together all by myself.”

“Grasshopper, your journey is almost complete.” He started up the van and reversed course on the Palmetto Expressway, heading east toward A1A. In the rearview, the sky over the Everglades glowed blood-red from a just-set sun. Ahead, over the Atlantic, deepening purple. “Excellent timing. We’ll arrive under cover of darkness, which is critical because we’ll be exposed.”

They reached a causeway.

“Hey, Serge,” said Coleman. “Weren’t we just here a week ago?”

“Correct again, Mensa boy.”

The van pulled off the road and into a small park where they weren’t supposed to be after sunset, but bolt cutters gave them an invitation.

They stopped next to a small boat ramp, near a small vessel that was anchored out of sight around a bend in the mangroves. Serge removed his shoes and socks and began walking down the ramp’s incline.

“What the heck are you doing?” yelled Coleman.

Serge entered the water and was quickly up to his knees. “Called in a favor from Crazy Legs. He lent me the boat, but couldn’t leave it in a trailer in the parking lot because the county would tow at closing time . . . I’ll be right back.” He dove into the water and swam quickly around the bend.

Coleman sat on the back bumper and urgently burned a jay to enhance the coming attractions. “I cannot wait for this!” He peered into the darkness as the nose of an eighteen-foot fly-fishing Carolina Skiff emerged from the edge of the mangroves. Then the whole boat came into view, riding silently because Serge was using an ultra-quiet electric trolling motor that fishermen favor when they don’t want to scatter their quarry on the flats.

Next, Serge and Coleman rolled a giant metal tube down the ramp and strained to hoist it over the side of the craft. After that, the rest of the loading was chump work. Serge started the trolling motor again and sailed around the bend. This time he wedged the boat deep in the mangroves to avoid daylight detection. Then he swam back to the boat ramp.

“That’s it?” said Coleman. “We’re not going to use it now? I hate waiting when I’m high.”

“We don’t have any contestants yet.” Serge got out his keys. “Unless you want to volunteer.”

“I’d rather wait.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON

A van from the electric company rolled slowly through the finger canals off Las Olas Boulevard. Fort Lauderdale’s answer to Worth Avenue.

Since Miami-Dade was now two-thirds Hispanic, much of the wealth had migrated north over the county line into Broward. They called it Anglo flight.

The waterfront homes were getting ridiculous in scale. Thanks to building codes. Most ordinances in other cities limit the size of structures. Not here. In order to increase property values and the tax base, you could not purchase one of the older homes unless you agreed to bulldoze it and build something so big it would blot out the sun. Seriously.

Wayne Huizenga, former owner of the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins and Blockbuster video, has a home there. It’s a short limo ride to the downtown offices, but he likes to take the chopper from his backyard helipad. Seriously.

“There’s the house now.” Gustave pointed out the windshield. It wasn’t Huizenga’s place, but South Philly Sal was still impressed. “When are you supposed to meet this couple?”

“Noon for lunch. Actually a picnic.”

“What about the location?” said Sal. “That mess back in Palm Beach with the couple who came home early is still fresh. We need to watch our profile.”

“Sasha personally picked the spot,” said Gustave. “She’s totally comfortable there.”

“Okay, then.” Sal turned around to the rest of the gang in the back of the truck. “Everyone, we’re on at noon . . .”

At twelve on the dot:

Sasha merrily swung a wicker picnic basket as she strolled down a lush embankment of grass overlooking a mirror surface of water.

Gustave was close behind with a large checkered blanket. “What’s with you and this place? I don’t see how special it is.”

“Dumbfounding Bay?” said Sasha. “Are you joking? The history—”

“I know, I know,” said Gustave. “You have this thing for dangerous types.” He spread out the blanket under a nest of palms.

“Make sure none of those coconuts are over our heads,” said Sasha. “One knocked me out when I was a kid.”

Gustave looked up and slid the blanket to the left.

Sasha unpacked Evian, paper plates and pickles.

“What have you got in there?” asked Gustave.

The deli sandwiches came out next. “Wasn’t sure what they’d like, so I got a little of everything. Egg, tuna and chicken salad.”

Gustave checked his watch and looked around. A few cubicle people were enjoying lunch away from the office, but no couples. “Where are they? It’s already five past.”

Sasha opened the coleslaw. “They’ll be here.”

Two men walked up. “Are you Gustave and Sasha?”

The question caught them off guard.

“Why? Who are you?”

“We’re the people you’re supposed to meet. You know, the e-mails.”

“But . . . you’re two
guys
.”

“Is that a problem?” asked the man. “Because I can perfectly understand. It’s just that it’s usually cool in the swinging community.”