Electric Barracuda (13 page)

THE PRESENT

Chapter Seven

Somewhere Above Florida

T
he sun peeked over the eastern horizon. The first to catch its light was anything in the air. Birds, clouds, wings of a vintage biplane.

The Sopwith Camel made good time as the crow flies, but its airspeed wouldn’t get a ticket on I-75. It had taken the rest of the night to reach the coast from their narrow escape in Kissimmee.

Coleman woke up. “Look, the Atlantic Ocean.”

“Actually the Gulf of Mexico,” said Serge. “The sun’s behind us.”

“What’s that mean?” He bent down, repeatedly flicking a Bic.

Rickenbacker pulled hard on the controls. The plane abruptly tilted down. A buzzing engine roar increased in their steep, noisy descent, like a strafing run.

Coleman abandoned his valiant attempt to light the joint and sat back up. “Where are we going?”

“See the fishing village on that little island just offshore?”

“Barely.”

“Our next fugitive stop.”

Twenty minutes later, they flew directly above the island.

Coleman looked over the side at a waterfront wharf of rustic wooden buildings. “Serge, this isn’t a seaplane.”

“Correct.”

“I mean, I don’t see a place to land.”

“That’s the fun part.”

They left the island behind, heading out into the open gulf. Still descending.

The altimeter’s needle followed their sharp drop until they were barely skimming the water. Rick raised the nose and put the plane into another hard back, taking her around 120 degrees.

Due southeast.

They lined up with a second, smaller island, just north of the wharf.

“I see it now,” said Coleman. “That tiny runway.”

“I love remote runways. Unattended, no authorities. Weeds growing through cracks in the pavement. Intrigue,
Casablanca
.” Serge’s right palm shot out. “Camera me!”

Coleman reached for a backpack and slapped a digital in his pal’s hand.

Serge raised it.
Click, click, click
. “But here’s the cool part. There’s just two taxi companies in the area, each independent with only a single car. And besides their regular radios, both have aviation bands. If you’re arriving by plane like we are, you can call ahead for a cab ride to the village.”
Click, click, click
.

Coleman squinted into the wind. “Things seem different from the air. Way up here, that runway almost looks too short.”

“It
is
too short,” said Serge. “Only two thousand three hundred and fifty-seven feet, taking up the whole island. Water and treacherous rocks inches from each end. Notorious in aviation circles for planes constantly ending up in the drink. Or worse. Only the best pilots . . .”

“Jesus, Serge. I was just getting over the power lines.”

“Get ready to taste life!”

The pilot got on the radio. “Catfish, it’s me, Rick. Need a lift for two passengers in five.”

Wings wobbled as they swooped over crescent sand shoals and a submerged clam farm in the shallow, emerald green water. Salt filled sinuses. White-capped waves crashed against the end of the elevated runway, approaching quickly at eye level.

“We’re too low!” said Coleman.

“Rick’s got it.”

It wasn’t artful, but a quick back-and-forth on the throttle gave the plane a stomach-squeezing burst of lift, popping the plane up over the island’s jagged shore and down toward the pavement. Wheels skidded on a giant, sun-faded number five in the middle of the runway, as if there were four others.

The biplane slowed as it reached the end of the runway, then rotated in place. The propeller jerked to a stop. Rick got out and set the ladder against the side again.

Coleman climbed down and threw up.

Rick jumped back from the splash. “Serge, your friend all right?”

“That’s just his morning warm-up regimen.”

Serge unloaded a couple of backpacks as Rick climbed back into the cockpit, started the engine and threw a scarf over his shoulder.

They exchanged until-we-meet-again salutes, and he was off. The biplane lifted from the runway, veered east and disappeared into the rising sun.

It was quiet again.

Serge hoisted his bag and turned. On the edge of the runway, a short, grinning man leaned against the fender of a checkered cab.

“Catfish!”

“Serge! Long time.”

They gave each other the heterosexual, shoulder-slapping guy hug. Serge pointed. “And the man with the teddy bear backpack is my trusty sidekick, Coleman.”

“He’s not going to throw up in my cab, is he?”

“It’s a crapshoot.”

They climbed in, and the driver looked over the seat. “Where to first?”

“The cemetery’s on the way into town.”

Minutes later, they approached a gate and a rusty ship’s anchor.

“Serge.” Coleman fished a beer from his bag. “How come we always go to cemeteries?”

“First, because they’re historic. See?” He gestured at a plaque: Est 1886. “Almost nothing in Florida is that old. The ancient anchor over there was snagged by someone fishing for mullet. And in the early days, they could only hold burials during low tide, because this road was otherwise underwater . . . Catfish, stop here.” Serge hopped out with a camera and notebook
. Click, click, click 
. . .

Coleman ran up beside him and chugged.

Click, click.
Serge lowered his camera. “Coleman, dig. I love Florida cemeteries, especially ones like this: beach sand, fiery azaleas, moss-draped oaks, more anchors, graves surrounded by sea-smoothed boulders and shells and shit around the dead people. So cheerful.”
Click, click, click
. . . He stowed the camera, flipped open a notebook and was on the move.

Coleman did his best to keep up. “You said, ‘First.’ ”

Serge uncapped a pen. “What?”

“Cemeteries. You said, ‘First, because they’re historic.’ That usually means a second.”

“Second, the Fugitive Tour.” Serge accelerated his march, checking headstones. “It’s always good to keep a list of tombstone names with birth dates close to yours. Ones who died as infants before they could get Social Security cards. Preferably the same gender.”

Coleman stopped and reached for his zipper. “Why?”

“To assume false identities. Everyone does it.” He fanned through notebook pages as a visual aid. “I’ve got dozens of names from every corner of the state . . . Coleman!”

“What?”

“Don’t pee on a grave.”

“But he’s dead.”

“There’s much we don’t know about the afterlife. That guy could be somewhere right now, going ‘What the fuck?’ How would you like it?”

“I can’t cut off the stream.”

“Just walk. There’s a tree.”

Coleman left a drip trail through the sand and peeked around an oak trunk. “But how do you get a new identity?”

“Order a birth certificate from vital statistics, or counterfeit your own with a high-end printer, then score a driver’s license. Or just get a library card with a doctored utility bill, and if anyone checks, it’s kosher at first blush as long as they don’t get too curious . . .”

“Using dead people’s names seems creepy,” said Coleman.

“What’s really creepy is the other major fugitive use of cemeteries. Someone faking his own death by digging up a body, sticking it in his car and setting it ablaze. Fugitive Tip Eighty-eight.” Serge continued his quest with growing frustration. “Dang, this cemetery’s too old.”

“Thought you liked old stuff.”

“I do, but for my mission, I need newer headstones, something around 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.”

More and more walking, grave after grave, until they finished circling all the way back to the big anchor. “This isn’t going to work. I’ll just have to make do.” Serge stepped into a family plot and opened his notebook again. “Let’s see, father, mother and, man, they had a lot of kids . . . five, six, seven . . .”

“This family over here has nine,” said Coleman. “And this one twelve. They were really fucking back then.”

“Because there was no TV.” Serge reached the end of the plot. A small cherub slept atop the headstone. He jotted on a page. “The youngest son’s as close as I’ll get.” He closed the book and headed back for the cab. “From now on, call me Horatio. And I’m one hundred and nineteen years old.”

Coleman pulled out another beer. “So is this what we were doing in that spooky cemetery last year in Jacksonville?”

“That’s right.” Serge reopened his notebook. “My most excellent harvest. Got six names that night within a month of my birthday, including Franklin Ignatius Turnville.”

“Turnville?” Coleman scratched his head. “Where have I heard that name?”

“It was the false identity I used to check into the motel where we almost got busted during the hunt for that cop killer.”

“The dead guy in the cemetery was a cop killer?”

“Coleman, try to follow: The cop killer did exactly what I did, copying names from graves.” Serge stuck the notebook in his pocket. “Fugitive Tip Eighty-eight, Subsection B: Don’t use tombstone names for false IDs: You never know who’s been there before you.”

“Then why are you still collecting them?”

“There’s another purpose.”

“What’s that?”

“Exit strategy,” said Serge. “I’m collecting ‘Outs.’ ”

Kissimmee

Dawn broke south of Orlando.

The last in a nightlong series of highway flares burned to nubs.

Deputies checked driver’s licenses and trunks on the Beachline Expressway toward Cape Canaveral.

Just past them, a Crown Vic sat on the shoulder of a road. Agent White was on the radio, getting a round robin of reports from other checkpoints. “No, I understand. Appreciate your assistance . . .”

Agent Lowe was in the passenger seat, working on a sausage biscuit. “You should try one of these.”

Silence.

“Still no luck?”

White stared down the road. “I don’t understand it. We covered every escape route . . . And we nearly had him at the Nu Bamboo.”

Lowe reached into a paper sack and held a biscuit in front of White’s face. “Want one? Smells good.”

“Get that thing away from me.”

Lowe shrugged. “Don’t blame yourself. Whoever heard of four decoy motels?”

White unfolded a road map on the steering wheel. “Must still be lying low somewhere inside our perimeter. It’s the only answer.”

“Fool’s bet,” Mahoney said from the middle of the backseat. He sipped black joe from a Moon Hut coffee mug. “Serge couldn’t stay planted if he jonesed. Seen him skim the tightest scrape.”

“Okay, smart guy,” said White. “Then what happened?”

“I’m down on his fade.”

“Want to share?”

Mahoney did.

The Crown Vic pulled away from the shoulder of the road, followed by the SWAT van, a yellow Cadillac, black Beemer, convertible T-Bird and bounty hunter tour bus.

Chapter Eight

Meanwhile . . .

A
checkered cab drove toward town, past a small school next to a water tower: Cedar Key Sharks. Over a small bridge with tin-roofed shacks and crab traps. Down by the water on First Street, ibis poked at the muck; flocks of gulls swooped in the stout, onshore wind.
Click, click, click.
Serge lowered his camera. “Coleman, see that rotted, falling-apart stilt house out in the surf that looks like it’s about to collapse?”

“Yeah?”

“One of the most recognizable views in the state that nobody recognizes. Nicknamed the Honeymoon Cottage. I’m guessing sarcasm.”

“How can it be recognized yet not recognized?”

“Because it’s in souvenir stores all across the peninsula, featured on novelty joke postcards—Waterfront Property for Sale—on the spinning metal racks just above fat-ass ladies on the beach and the totally black cards: Florida at Night.”

The taxi reached the middle of the old village.

“Next stop?” asked Catfish.

“Probably get our room.” Serge took more shots.
Click, click.

“What fancies you today?” asked the driver.

“The old Cedar Inn, the Dockside, Cedar Cove and don’t forget the Island Hotel, built in 1859 as a general store, which also housed the first post office.”

“Which one?”

“All of them.”

“What do you mean ‘all of them’?” asked Catfish.

“For the Fugitive Tour.”