16 Tiger Shrimp Tango (21 page)

“By that expression, I know what you’re thinking,” said Serge. “Is choosing my weapon a trick question? . . . Because you just noticed the cigars. And they’re a real prize, three authentic Cubans, the Cohiba, Partagás and El Rey del Mundo. Not cheap.”

The man nodded.

“You want the cigars?”

He nodded harder.

“The cigars it is! Excellent decision.” Serge lifted another duffel bag from beside the bed. “And I definitely appreciate the selection because Florida relevance always motivates my work. With the Cuban influxes of 1960 and ’80, these beauties are now ubiquitous in Miami, which has become the free-Cuba cigar capital of the world.” He unzipped the bag. “And now to prepare your selection . . .”

A number of benign and confusing items came out of the bag, plus an emergency travel tool kit. Serge smiled over his shoulder at yet another bewildered expression. “What? You didn’t think I was just going to let you smoke these? They’re bad for your health.”

He produced three small metal canisters. “Ever get a bunch of dust in your laptop’s keyboard? Drives me crazy!” said Serge. “But luckily most computer stores sell these cans that contain compressed air to send those little dust bunnies scurrying.”

Into the bag again. This time three plastic containers came out. “And these are empty pump spray bottles that you can get at any drugstore. Mainly women use them to spray shit in their hair, so that’s why they’re foreign territory to us men. But if you’re a dude, simply remember they work just like perfume bottles: When you press the little pump button on top, the liquid inside is transformed to a fine mist in accordance with the Venturi effect, named after Italian physicist Giovanni Venturi, who derived complex equations for fluid transfer in different diameter channels. Who would have thought it would lead to spray-on butter? . . .”

Serge cut and snipped and taped and twisted for half an hour. Then a last tap with the butt of a screwdriver. “There.” He stood.

Coleman looked up from the moaning transmission shop. “You’re done? We’re leaving?”

“Yes and no,” said Serge. “We
are
leaving, but I have to come back later and activate this sucker.”

“I don’t understand.”

“We need to let it set and cure awhile until it’s ready. Like letting a fine brandy breathe.”

Coleman hopped off the bed. “Can we go to a bar?”

They headed down the elevators and Coleman popped a beer. “So did the guy guess right with the cigars? It’s what I would have picked.”

“So would most people, and that’s exactly why you
don’t
pick the cigars.”

“But, Serge, you always give someone a way out,” said Coleman. “And everything else on the table was a deadly weapon.”

“The revolver was unloaded.”

“Pretty clever.”

“I even had it turned toward him so he could see the empty chambers, but he was too busy freaking out.”

“Some people are just naturally nervous.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

FORT LAUDERDALE

T
he three
A.M.
repeat of the eleven o’clock news just closed with word of a strike by another dating bandit, this one a more mature woman going for the Hope Lange look from the sixties smash-hit television series
The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.
The news report noted that the show also starred Charles Nelson Reilly.

The kitchen was dark except for the glow of the TV and a laptop screen on the table next to a mug of coffee and a bottle of bourbon. The computer had surfed to an Internet chat room devoted to fake DEA agent Rick Maddox.

Eyes leaned close to the screen. An index finger tapped the scroll button down through recent posts.

D.L. in D.C.: “I’m killing that son of a bitch if I ever find him!”

Mango Mark in West Palm: “Not if I find him first!”

Pirate Fan in Pittsburgh: “I can’t believe he actually had me shaking the whole time I was on the phone. Said importing illegal Oxy carried a ten-year sentence. I’ve never even seen Oxy.”

Wasted in Margaritaville: “Same thing happened to me. Thought I was going to stroke out!”

Pirate Fan: “At least he didn’t take you for a grand!”

Wasted in Margaritaville: “No, two grand!”

Djgherbr Smith: “Hey everyone, I was able to unblock his bogus 202 area-code number, and found he’s moving south from Tennessee.”

Choco-holic: “That was last week. He’s in Florida now.”

Shitless in Seattle: “I tracked him to Miami.”

Mets Fan: “You got him confused with the real DEA agent who lives in Miami. He had his name stolen by this fuck-head.”

Shitless in Seattle: “I know that. But the fake guy’s going there, too.”

Pirate Fan: “Did anyone see where we shut out N.Y. tonight?”

Mets Fan: “Stay on subject. Is this asshole really in Miami?”

Lucy Skrooz-Alot: “I can confirm that. Hired a private investigator. He thinks the fake agent is going to the city where the real agent works as a smoke screen to throw us off, because he must be reading our bulletin board.”

The Fluffer: “Lucy, can you e-mail me your picture?”

Lucy: “Drop dead.”

The Fluffer: “Check your handle, slut.”

Mets Fan: “Everyone cool out. Lucy, what else did your PI say?”

Lucy: “That’s all. I ran out of money to keep him on retainer.”

Wasted in Margaritaville: “I’m willing to pitch in to get him back on the case. Anyone else?”

Djgherbr Smith: “Count me in.”

Choco-holic: “Me, too.”

Shitless in Seattle: “Make it four.”

Pirate Fan: “Hell, why not?”

Mets Fan: “Let’s do it! And while we’re at it, what do you say we all take a relaxing warm road trip south.”

Djgherbr Smith: “I’m game.”

Choco-holic: “I’ll go.”

Shitless in Seattle: “Wouldn’t miss it.”

Wasted in Margaritaville: “I’m already here.”

The Fluffer: “Is Lucy going?”

Lucy: “Not if Fluffer’s going.”

Mets Fan: “Lucy, ignore him. What’s the name of your private eye? . . .”

Brook Campanella tossed back a shot of whiskey at her kitchen table, and scrolled down through the message board until finally arriving at Lucy’s answer. She got out a pen and wrote a name.

DAWN

The police initially thought it was a duplicate call.

Made sense because of the record volume at the 9-1-1 center. The Merry Pranksters had struck again, this time a luxury high-rise resort on Biscayne Boulevard. And they had graduated from practical jokes to grand theft. Cleanup crews were still sweeping porcelain from the street, and insurance adjusters took photos of parked cars with toilet lids through windshields.

The cops had been back and forth to the hotel all night—from the initial naked, extinguisher-foamed chaos in the street to the later discovery of all the burglarized rooms—and now dispatch handed them another urgent request to return to the resort.

Seconds after arriving again on the seventeenth floor, it became clear the call was no duplicate.

An extremely late guest, tied and gagged in a chair, sat with his head slumped lifelessly to the side.

“Holy Mother, what happened to this poor guy?” said the first sergeant on the scene. “And what the hell are those weird things on the floor?”

The room grew in popularity. First the detectives in suits, then evidence techs, the medical examiner and finally the precinct captain, with gold braids on his visor and shoulders, to manage damage control because of all the satellite-TV trucks in the street.

“Nobody says a word of this to anyone. All statements will come from community relations at headquarters. Understood?”

Nods around the room. Then back to work.

The captain strolled over to the medical examiner. “What have we got here?”

“Cigars,” said the examiner, working with tweezers and a clear bag.

“I know they’re cigars,” said the captain. “I meant, do you think we’ll get lucky and be able to extract the killer’s DNA so we can close this case fast? I hear just a little saliva on a cigar—”

“Doubt there’s any DNA here.” Tobacco remnants fell into a bag that was sealed and signed.

“Then why are you starting an evidence chain?” asked the captain.

“Because it’s a murder weapon.”

The captain did a double take. “Come again?”

“This is what the killer used.”

“I don’t— What?”

“That’s a normal reaction.” The examiner opened another bag. “It’ll take a long explanation because this required a bit of technical expertise. But these definitely did the victim in.”

“Wonderful,” said the captain, closing his eyes and massaging the bridge of his nose. “Absolutely fantastic. The press is going to be all over this.” He opened his eyes. “Please tell me those aren’t Cuban cigars.”

“Afraid so.”

“Dammit,” said the captain. “Freak murder. Killed by Cubans in Miami . . . Could this crime be any more headline-ready?”

“Not really.”

The captain took off his hat and pulled up a chair. “Okay, get me up to speed so I can start piling the sandbags back at headquarters.”

The medical examiner pointed to an evidence bag containing three drinking glasses with a tannic film inside. “This was the first step. He put one cigar in each glass and filled them with water. Then he let it set. After a few hours, the water turned dark brown from the cigar’s ingredients—hold that thought in your mind. Now, this guy was sharp: He used Cuban cigars to ensure his plan worked.”

“Why’s that?” asked the police captain.

“Because of the embargo, you often see ads for cigars grown in other countries from Cuban
seeds,
but they’re not the same.” The examiner set a bag aside and picked up another. “It’s all about Mother Earth. Most places with rich topsoil are inches deep, but because of Cuba’s prehistoric volcanic activity, its richest soil often goes down seven or eight feet, which nurtures cigars that are a league apart in strength. Think of it as Bud Light versus grain alcohol.”

“I still don’t see how it killed him.”

“Stay with me.” He held up the next bag. “These are common pump bottles from a drugstore. Spray anything with them like perfume . . .” Another bag. “. . . And these are compressed air canisters from a computer store to clean keyboards. See how it has a long tube to get in tight spots between the keys?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So the killer substituted his own flexible tubes, and inserted the other ends into holes he had fashioned into the spray bottle’s pump mechanism. Then he disabled the original mechanism.”

“Slow down. I’m having trouble following.”

“Okay, it simply accomplished this: Instead of having to pump your finger on the button every time you wanted the spray bottle to squirt something, the can of compressed-air keyboard cleaner now powered the spray bottle, creating a continuous mist.”

“I’m starting to catch up,” said the captain. “Now what?”

“I’d love to meet this guy and pick his brain.”

“No, I mean what was the next step with these contraptions?”

“He activated all three by using heavy-duty duct tape to hold down the buttons on the air canisters.”

The captain just stared.

“You don’t get it?”

“Lost me again.”

“These cigars obviously contain a high amount of nicotine, which is also used as a powerful pesticide. In liquid form, that is. So after soaking the cigars, he poured the fluid in the spray bottles and activated the air canisters. Then I’m guessing he left pretty quickly. See those three circular tan stains on the carpet? They’re just like the marks you’d get if you didn’t lay down newspaper first before using Black Flag to bug-bomb a room.”

“He was bug-bombed to death with Cuban cigars?”

“I’d bet my paycheck you won’t find a single roach anywhere in here.”

“But why go through all that trouble?” said the captain. “Why not just use regular bug bombs?”

The examiner shook his head. “Not strong enough. The victim would get dizzy and nauseous, maybe require a brief hospitalization. The killer knew he needed maximum strength.” A smile crossed his face. “This was at least a dozen times more toxic, with a pretty cool Miami angle.”

The captain glared.

“Sorry, I know you’re not looking forward to the headlines.”

A
police captain stormed out through the lobby of a luxury high-rise resort on Biscayne Boulevard.

A team of workers from a local glass company stood idle next to a man in a tuxedo playing a baby grand.

Someone called to the officer. “Excuse me?” It was the hotel manager.

The captain turned. “What!”

“When can you release those rooms? We’ve got a lot of customers coming in and the glass company is waiting.”

“I’ll release them when I feel like it!” Then he was out the door.

The manager turned and barked even louder. “What are all of you looking at? Get back to work.”

The staff at the reception desk quickly stared down at their computer screens.

The day wore on.

Competition for tourist dollars was especially fierce among the downtown resorts. It was the economy, and it was Miami. The hotel manager was particularly testy because the home office had him on a brutal occupancy quota, and now twenty rooms on the seventeenth floor didn’t have windows. Which meant added urgency to free up all other suites.

He stuck his head in a back room. “How are those maids coming? I want every last room ready in thirty minutes or you’re fired!”

The tension spilled into the hotel lounge, where guests were stacking up and going through free liquor courtesy of the management. The three o’clock check-in time had come and gone. Now it was almost five. The manager knew the booze could hold them at bay for only so long, and then it would turn on him. The bar had a theme of eighteenth-century sailing ships, complete with masts and riggings. The manager took over one of the reservation computers himself to speed the process. He nervously glanced over at the lounge and was met with a row of icy stares coming back at him through the portholes.

Detectives and crime-scene technicians began dribbling off the elevator.
That’s a good sign,
thought the manager, typing away.

The people in the lounge grew surlier as they drank. Except one person. Sitting alone at the bar. The eyes of every woman were on him. Because he was:

Johnny Vegas, the Accidental Virgin.

Johnny didn’t mind the delay because he never intended to stay at the hotel—although he wouldn’t mind suddenly needing a room.

A tap on his shoulder. Johnny turned around.

“Hi there.” The luscious blonde swayed with an umbrella drink in her hand. Twenty-five years old, tops, with a plunging neckline and come-hither green eyes. “My name’s Fawn. What’s yours?”

“J-J-Johnny.”

“Well, J-J-Johnny. My girlfriends and I placed a bet . . .” She looked back at a corner table, where four equally fetching gals whispered and giggled over their own drinks in pineapples and coconuts. Fawn took the stool next to Johnny, except she misjudged and Johnny had to grab her arm.

The bartender looked up with raised eyebrows, thinking,
Nice save.

“My knight in shining armor,” said Fawn, sipping her tropical drink through the stirring straw. “What was I talking about?”

“You had a bet with your girlfriends.”

“We wanted to know how long your ring finger was compared to your index finger.”

“Why?” He curiously held up his hand.

Fawn grabbed his wrist. “Holy shit!”

She pulled up his arm to display his hand toward the table in the corner. Four jaws fell. Then they huddled over the drinks and giggled again and something got spilled.

Johnny looked toward the circular booth and back at Fawn. “What’s going on? What’s with the fingers?”

“It’s supposed to indicate the size of your . . . you know.” She covered her mouth and chortled. “I can’t believe I’m doing this. Normally I would never . . . I’m a little drunk.”

Thirty seconds later, Johnny crashed into the reception desk that was staffed by the manager. “I need a room immediately! I don’t care what it costs!”

“Do you have a reservation?”