Electric Barracuda (2 page)

“S
erge!”

A flashlight swept the bottom of a ditch.

“Serge, where are you? Yell if you can hear me.”

A head poked up from a pile of ripped-open garbage bags. “Coleman?”

The flashlight beam hit a face. “Serge, what are you doing at the bottom of that ditch with rotten food all over your head?”

“Isn’t that what I usually ask you?”

“Everything okay?”

“Couldn’t be better.” Serge hopped up and brushed himself off. “I just escaped.”

“Escaped?”

“It was touch and go, but I slipped Mahoney’s grasp again.”

“Mahoney?”

Serge pointed. “The big train derailment— . . . where’d the wreck go?”

Coleman turned around and looked at the dark side of a building. “Nothing but our motel.”

Serge squinted at his sidekick. “What’s going on?”

“Beats me.” Coleman clicked off the flashlight. “We were back in our room watching an old rerun of
The Fugitive
, and during the train crash in the opening credits, you ran out the door yelling, ‘I’m free! I’m free.’ ”

Serge slowly smiled and nodded with understanding. “I must have gone into a fugue state.”

“What’s that?”

“Hard to explain.” Serge climbed the muddy embankment. “But remember that time you were really ripped on peyote and passed out in that motel bed where the sheets were tucked in super tight, and somehow you got turned around in your sleep so your head was trapped at the foot of the bed, and you woke up trying to fight your way out, screaming that bugs had encased you in a cocoon, and you were turning into a giant winged insect?”

“That wasn’t a cocoon?”

“Your variation on the fugue state.”

“I get it now.”

Serge began walking back to the motel. “Think
The Fugitive
is still on?”

“Yeah, you’ve just been gone a few minutes.”

“Let’s watch the rest. Maybe they’ll catch the one-armed man.”

They went back inside their room as a convoy of unmarked cars cut their headlights and quietly rolled into the parking lot of the budget motel.

Coleman glanced toward a banging sound from the closet. “What about the guy you’re keeping tied up in there?”

“Oh,” said Serge, looking up from the TV. “Almost forgot about him.”

A
Crown Vic with blackwall tires arrived at the motel. Agent White rushed over to Agent Lowe.

“Where’s Serge?”

“Get down!” Lowe whispered. “He might see you.”

White stared curiously at his colleague, crouched behind a car, dressed completely in black, pulling a black hood over his head.

“What the hell’s going on?” asked White. “I thought you said on the phone you had Serge.”

“We do.” Lowe pointed over the trunk of the car. “He’s in that last room.”

White’s head sagged. “When you say you have someone, that means in custody. Back of a squad car. Maybe even handcuffed.”

“Not all the time.”

“Yes, all the time.”

“He’s just as good as in custody.” Lowe fitted night-vision goggles over his eyes. “We’ve got him pinned. See?” He gestured to his left at the black-clothed SWAT team squatting next to him. “Now, will you get down before he sees you?”

White stayed standing with hands on hips, watching his partner apply black face paint. “You’re still hung up about not making the SWAT team?”

Lowe’s goggles remained fixed on the motel room. “I’ll make it the next round of tests. I was
this
close.”

“But you still can’t do a chin-up. And you collapsed again during the mile run. They had to use a stretcher.”

“I’ve been working out. Huge progress on chin-ups.”

“How many?”

“I bought a chin-up bar.”

Something nagged at White. “The parking lot . . .” He looked around. “. . . The entire block. Why is it so dark?”

“Had the power company cut all outside lights.” Lowe removed the goggles and pulled a black ski mask down over his painted face. “For our ninja strike.” He turned to the nearest SWAT member and gave him a spirited thumbs-up. “Ready to rumble?”

“Just stay out of our way, limp-dick, and don’t fuck this up.”

Lowe smiled at White. “That’s how SWAT brothers talk.”

Out of the darkness, a human form materialized on the far side of the parking lot, casually walking toward them.

“Jesus!” Lowe whispered. “He’s going to ruin everything.”

The form took shape, wearing a tweed jacket and rumpled fedora. A toothpick wiggled in his teeth. His necktie had a pattern of vintage Las Vegas casino signs. He walked around behind the car.

White nodded in recognition. “Mahoney.”

Mahoney tossed the toothpick over his shoulder. “It’s my collar. I peeled the banana.”

“No argument,” said White. “But how’d you find him?”

“Serge has been slipping for years.” Mahoney dramatically fit a fresh toothpick in his mouth and stared back at the last motel room, where the outline of a lampshade glowed behind a moth-worn curtain. “Screwed the pooch and registered under his own moniker.”

“So why don’t we take him?” said White. “What are we waiting out here for?”

Mahoney glanced down at Lowe. “Ask the Green Hornet.”

A series of ripping sounds. Lowe tested various empty Velcro pockets on his tactical jacket designed to hold tactical equipment he wasn’t authorized to carry. “We’re waiting for the lamp to go out so he’ll be more off guard during our lightning breach with flash-bang grenades.” He produced a waterproof, spiral-bound book from a zippered pocket. “It’s in the manual.”

White rolled his eyes.

They waited.

The lamp stayed on.

N
ext to a lamp sat a snowy TV set. Serge slapped the side. A black-and-white episode of
The Fugitive
came into focus. “This is the one where he’s shot by police and takes refuge in an orphanage at a Navajo reservation outside Puma . . .”

Muted screams from next to the bed.

“Do you mind?” said Serge. “I’m trying to watch this.”

The desperation grew louder.

Serge sighed. “Everyone wants attention.” He got up and walked over. “Okay, you ruined my show. Now what’s the issue?”

The bound and gagged hostage looked up from his chair with pleading eyes.

Coleman killed a Schlitz and crumpled the can. “So who is this guy anyway?”

“Ever see the TV show
To Catch a Predator
?”

“Yeah.”

“I caught one.”

“Where?”

“At the playground. He was lurking in his car with porn.”

“What were you doing at the playground?”

“Just driving by this time. I used to love playgrounds, but jeez, I haven’t played in one in at least, what? Three months?”

“Why not?”

“If you’re an adult without a kid, it draws looks, even if I’m just going for the Guinness record on the monkey bars. And parents hustle their tots away every single time I stand on top of the jungle gym, beating my chest and roaring like a silver-back gorilla, even though I’m only trying to show them how it’s done.”

“They don’t appreciate it?”

“You’d think I was a red-ass baboon.”

“What about the teeter-totter?”

“One
is
the loneliest number.”

Coleman stubbed out a roach. “Too bad.”

“It’s all right,” said Serge. “We’re living in new times. Parents are understandably nervous these days. I’ve decided to stay away from the swing sets and not to add to their anxiety over, well, guys like this.”

“How’d you catch him?”

“Child’s play. He was too engrossed, and I flanked the car on foot—at his driver’s window before he knew it. First he thought I was an undercover cop and tried to hide the porn, but I said I was just a concerned citizen and wanted to have a little chat, emphasizing community fabric and maybe direct him to some treatment programs. You know, real polite and reasonable like I usually am.”

“You’re always caring.”

“But sometimes it turns ugly anyway. He’s a pretty big dude, as you can see. Jumped out his car and knocked me down. No biggie, I’ve been knocked down before. I get up and explain he hasn’t committed a crime yet—there’s still time to get help, but he just knocks me down again.”

“And that’s when you captured him?”

“No, I thought of what my psychiatrist said and stayed calm, because this wasn’t about me; it was for the children. I kept getting up, over and over, doing my best to win the heart and mind, but he’d just slam me to the ground again. After a while, I’m brushing dirt out of my hair and thinking: This really isn’t a conversation.”

“And that’s when you jumped him?”

“Almost there. When he saw he couldn’t rattle me, he went for my hot button, pointing back at all the giggling, running kids and . . .”—Serge momentarily closed his eyes— “. . . I can’t bear to repeat what he said, but certain threats were made. He yelled that because of me, he was now
definitely
going to do all these horrible things, just out of spite.”

“That isn’t nice.”

“Intimidate me all you want, but when you bring kids into it, a sequence of Serge’s pre-determined neighborhood-defense protocols are triggered. The only part I regret is that the families had to see it and fled again.”

“Because you were fighting?”

“No, because I stuffed him in my trunk. Even if someone clearly deserves to be locked in my trunk, the general public still gives off this vibe they’re a little uncomfortable.”

Serge unzipped a small duffel bag on the nightstand. The hostage tried screaming under the duct tape across his face.

Coleman found something on the floor, smelled it and put it in his mouth. “What are you going to do with him?”

Serge turned to the hostage. “Would you like to know, too?”

The Fugitive
played on in the background.

Terrified eyes grew wider.

“. . . So, stranger, what brings you to these parts? . . .”

Serge dumped the duffel’s contents on the bed. “You know those frowned-upon CIA interrogation techniques, like waterboarding? Except I don’t have a board. But I have plenty of water! They say people start talking almost immediately . . .” He quickly ripped the tape off his captive’s mouth.

The man yelled briefly at the sting, then babbled nonstop. “I swear I won’t do anything I said! I was just messing with your mind! You have to believe me! I’ll change!”

Serge smiled. “I know you will.”

The tape went back, and Serge returned to work.

“Yuck,” said Coleman, removing the item from his mouth and throwing it in the wastebasket.

Serge ripped cellophane off a spooled package. “What was that?”

“I think a mothball.”

“When did you suspect?”

“When I saw it on the floor.”

Serge unrolled the package. “And you still put it in your mouth?”

Coleman shrugged. “I could be missing out.”

Serge clicked open a box cutter.

Coleman leaned closer. “What’s that?”

“Observe.” Serge held up a strip of airy gauze, oozing with mucoid slime. He stepped forward and placed the cool, moist ribbon on the captive’s forehead. “Very thin, soothing, quite flimsy. A child could tear it apart. No possible way to harm anyone, right? So how can I possibly teach you a lesson with this?”

“How can you?” asked Coleman.

“Know my passion for all things Home Depot?”

“Well established.”

Serge began unwinding the roll of wet gauze. “I recently learned something interesting about plumbing repair. Now grab those scissors to cut off his shirt while I fill my squirt pistol . . .”

. . . Outside the room, heavy traffic wasted gas as the car sprinted between red lights at every block. They were in Kissimmee, just below Orlando. Highway 192 to be exact, otherwise known as Irlo Bronson, the budget tourist strip on the east side of Interstate 4 from Disney World, where families who couldn’t plunk down three hundred a night at the Grand Floridian commuted to the Magic Kingdom from ten miles of economy motels, where cabaret signs flashed $39.95 and Free Hbo. In between: mini-golf, go-carts, swimsuit outlets, and all-you-can-eat buffet barns filled with people shaped like upside-down lightbulbs. As the road continued east—and the drive back to Disney lengthened—prices cascaded downhill where the highway took a gooseneck jog south toward Old Town. Bottom-barrel room rates drew an increasing clientele that wasn’t tourists, or at least not the species seeking chamber-of-commerce-approved fun: a high-mileage, tumbleweed crowd anchoring the short tail of the left-expectancy bell curve. Serge’s World. With their growing, undesirable number, motel deeds changed hands, and the highway began seeing stark buildings that were the recognizable shells of recognizable hospitality chains, which now had unrecognizable names on temporary banners. Parking lots filled with rusty shopping carts, and shirtless guests sat outside rooms on milk crates, drinking malt liquor with purposeful gazes that suggested this was still too much achievement.