Electric Barracuda (19 page)

Serge leaned over from the backseat, paying the cabbie. “. . . And here’s a little something extra for yourself because you never saw us. Pay no attention to what I just said. It’s only the Fugitive Tour—not like we killed a bunch of people. What’s the appropriate tip if we
had
killed a bunch of people? But then I guess at that point you’d be satisfied just getting out alive. Rule Ninety-two: Pump taxi drivers for information generally not available elsewhere. Like if a passenger did kill someone, what’s the best way to conceal it from an unwitting getaway taxi driver? Act confident and casually drop ‘shallow graves’ into the discussion to show you have nothing to hide? By that look on your face, probably talk sports instead. Here’s another twenty to forget this whole conversation. I got the super-big coffee. Are we cool?”

Serge and Coleman climbed out.

The taxi sped off.

Just the sound of wind. Three people solemnly appraised each other at a range of twenty yards—Serge and Coleman by the edge of the road, and the ranger at the gate.

Then Serge broke into a smile and a trot. He closed the final distance to the pickup and threw his backpack in the bed. “Coleman, I’d like you to meet a good friend, Jane . . . Jane, this is Coleman.”

She shook his hand. “Heard a lot about you . . .” Then, with an irrepressible grin at Serge: “I’d ask what you’ve been up to, but I don’t think I want to know.”

“Listen,” Serge said in a lowered voice, “you haven’t mentioned this to anyone—”

Jane put up a hand. “Stop. I can’t be an accessory. You’re just another park visitor.”

They climbed into the pickup’s cab.

Jane drove like a rancher. And cursed like one. Nature Jane. No makeup, brown ponytail halfway down her back. Black-rimmed glasses because she didn’t have the guile for contacts. Heavy on the freckles. A tall Sissy Spacek. She and Serge kept glancing at each other. Been five years. Or was it six? They first met when Serge was down by the dam with his camera. It was summer flood stage, and Serge had taken the knee-deep hiking trail in scuba boots. He perched precariously on the slippery spillway.

Jane paddled up in a canoe. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy about this park!” said Serge.

“There’re alligators all around you.”

“I understand their habits.”

She sighed with contempt. “Get in the boat, you fool.”

Jane was never meant to work anywhere other than a park, but rescuing bozos was not in her ambition set. Just wanted to get him back to the airboat launch as fast as possible, less talk the better.

“Let’s talk,” said Serge. And he was off and running. She formed a determined mouth and paddled faster.

Halfway back, a sea change, drifting with paddles in the bottom of the canoe. Other guys wanted in her pants. Serge wanted the names of flora and fauna.
Click, click, click
. . . Then she noticed those ice blue eyes . . .

“. . . And that’s a
snowy
egret,” said the ranger. “You can tell—”

“That one I know,” said Serge. “Colors switched. Yellow feet, black beak . . . Can I ask you something?”

Great, here we go.

“Always wanted to stay in one of your log cabins, but they’re always booked. I
love
those cabins.”

“Why?”

“Depression-era built by the Civilian Conservation Corps.”

“You know that?”

“Who doesn’t?”

“I think one might be free. We’ll check at the station.”

They picked up paddles.

Back on shore: One indeed was available by cancellation. She handed him the key. Who
was
this guy? At first glance Serge represented the cocky masculine type she normally found repulsive, but everything he did made that impossible. She actually caught herself about to smile and say it was a pleasure meeting him.

“It was a pleasure— . . . where’d he go?”

Serge sprinted full speed through the woods, waving a key over his head. “I got my cabin! I finally got my cabin!”

And a great cabin it was. “Cobbled from cabbage-palm trunks and hand-hewn pine, held tight with tar and sawdust.” Serge kissed the front door. “Roomy yet cozy, fireplace for rare Florida cold snaps . . .”

Just after midnight, a knock at the door.

Serge looked up from his Audubon Field Guide and got out of bed. “Who can this be? . . .”

. . . Yes, it
was
six years ago. Serge barely aged in all that time. And now he’d finally popped up out of the blue and returned to her park. Jane looked across the pickup’s cab and punched Serge in the shoulder.

“Ow.”

“Cocksucker! You could have called.”

“Swear I must have picked up the phone a hundred times.”

“The cabin was empty when I woke up the next morning. Not even a note!”

“I . . . had appointments.”

But she wasn’t the long-burning emotional kind. “Got the same cabin. Want to go there first or—”

“Deep Hole,” said Serge. “Still no check mark on my Life List.”

“Should have figured.” She quickly cut the wheel. “When you get your little heart set.”

The four-by-four truck left the public section of the park and rattled down a bladder-bouncing path through a restricted area accessible only by special permit.

Coleman grabbed the dashboard, but his head kept hitting the ceiling anyway. “So what’s Deep Hole?”

“Better wait till we get there,” said Serge. “It’ll only freak you out.”

Miami

A small gathering in the back bedroom of a hacienda.

Chi-Chi rested comfortably.

Except when they made him laugh. Old stories from the sixties heyday. Then things ached under his ribs.

“Sorry,” said Tommy Junior. “Didn’t mean to get you riled.”

“No, I’d rather hurt that way,” said Chi-Chi, grabbing his left side. “What a memory: the deadbeat asshole in my trunk escaping by popping the hood with the tire jack.”

“That was priceless,” said Coltrane.

“Yeah, it’s funny now,” said Chi-Chi. “You didn’t get the repair bill.” He began coughing.

“Just relax,” said Roy the Pawn King. “Guys, no more jokes.”

Tommy happened to look toward the doorway. “How long has
she
been there?”

Then they all looked.

A demurely dressed woman in her late sixties. One of Chi-Chi’s granddaughters stood next to her: “Says she would like to have a moment.”

“What’s this about?” asked Roy.

The woman took a respectful step inside. “Sorry to bother at such a time . . .”

“Do you know Chi-Chi?” asked Coltrane.

She nodded. “But I knew Sergio better.”

“You knew
Sergio
?” said Roy.

Chi-Chi’s head lay sideways on the pillows. “Wait, I recognize you now. But I don’t remember where . . . I’m sorry.”

“That’s all right.” She walked closer. “It was just in passing a number of times.”

“Hey,” said Coltrane. “I recognize you, too.”

“Come to think of it,” said Roy, “you
do
look familiar. What’s your name?”

“Mabel.”

The guys looked at each other.

“Don’t know a Mabel,” said Coltrane.

“You wouldn’t,” said the woman. “I’ve just been sort of keeping track of the gang.”

“Keeping track?”

She nodded again. “Since the late sixties.”

“Like stalking?” said Tommy.

Roy walked over until they were a foot apart. In a hushed but firm voice: “He’s very weak. Let’s go outside and you tell me what this is really about.”

“It’s about Serge.”

“You mean Sergio?”

“No, his grandson.”

“Roy,” said Chi-Chi. “Did I hear her say ‘Serge’?”

“You need to rest.”

He shook his head. Another cough. “Bring her over here.”

Tommy offered a chair. “Thank you.”

Chi-Chi turned his head. “Now, what do you have to tell us?”

A long story. She took a deep breath and began . . .

Almost an hour later, she finished. Everyone sat around in silent shock.

“We need to get word to them,” said Roy.

“But how?” asked Coltrane.

Chi-Chi raised his head slightly. “Tommy, what about your sons?”

“Uh, they’re out of town on business.”

“Can’t we call them?”

“They hate cells—into this whole freedom-of-the-road thing, like when Peter Fonda threw his watch away at the beginning of
Easy Rider
,” said Tommy. “Have to wait for them to call in on a pay phone.”

“This won’t wait.” Roy rubbed his face. “And no offense, Tommy, but this is as sensitive as it gets—maybe not the best fit for your sons. I think I know someone.”

“But we can’t just—” Tommy began. “I mean it needs to be handled right. We probably should bring all the parties together in one place first or it could be messy. It’ll require a specialist.”

“Take my word,” said Roy. “This is the guy for the job.”

“Who?”

A smile. “First name starts with an
M
.”

“You don’t mean the Undertaker?”

Deep Hole

A park ranger truck slid through a sand turn, then accelerated across an open palmetto prairie.

“Come on,” said Coleman. “You can tell me.”

“Okay,” said Serge. “Little-known but infinitely stunning natural Florida feature. Giant sinkhole. Scientists measured as far as a hundred and forty feet down with a remote probe, but who knows the real depth because nobody’s going diving.”

“Why not?” asked Coleman.

“Because it’s got the largest concentration of alligators in the world.”

Jane smiled. “Like my own private Jurassic Park. They grow gigantic this far out. We’ve counted well over a hundred at a time, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg—what’s on the surface and banks. Who knows how many more below?”

Coleman did a double take at both of them. “There’s a big fence around it, right?”

“Coleman, this is real nature,” said Serge. “Not a zoo.”

“Then we’ll be wearing special steel suits?”

“Chill,” said Serge. “Unlike gators in the more visited areas of the park, these rarely see humans and have retained their innate fear.”

“Wish they had more,” said Jane, bounding hard around another turn through sabal palms. “We’re getting hit by poachers.”

“You’re kidding,” said Serge. “Way back here?”

“Fuckers come out at night with halogen beams, and the gators don’t stand a chance,” said Jane. “Still trying to catch ’em.”

“How do you know it’s poachers?”

“They deliberately leave the evidence in the open, right in our faces.” Jane began to steam. “You can tell by the remains.”

“Tell what?”

“If the tail’s gone along with hide, it’s old Florida crackers who are going to eat the meat. I don’t like it, but at least I can understand it.”

“As opposed to?”

“White-collar weekend-warrior pussies. They just take the heads for trophies and leave the rest of the body to rot,” said Jane. “I’m unable to get my brain around that level of cruelty. How can anyone kill another living thing for sport?”

“Well, a lot of reasons,” said Serge.

Jane turned and looked oddly at him.

Serge grinned. “I mean, a lot of reasons that are very, very wrong.”

A couple miles later, Jane parked on a bluff. “Far as we can take the truck. Have to make the last quarter mile on foot.”

They gingerly worked their way down a grassy embankment and began the trek across a vast plateau.

Coleman stared down at the caked, cracked ground. “What are we walking on?”

“Dry lake bed,” said Serge. “There’s only a tight window each year when you can get out like this. You don’t see the sinkhole the rest of the time because it’s several feet underwater. And that’s why there are so many alligators in Deep Hole.” He swept an arm across the pristine panorama. “When dry season hits, all the gators that live in this giant lake are funneled into the sinkhole that’s smaller than some motel pools.”

Jane stopped and bent down. “Cougar.”

“What’s she looking at?” asked Coleman.

“Shit, dude.”

“Fine, I won’t talk to you either.”

“No, I mean real shit. She’s an expert tracker.”

Jane stood back up. “Thought it was boar. We’re trying to rid the park because they’re exotics.”

Serge scanned the earth. “Scat’s actually valuable among naturalists to teach species identification.”