Electric Barracuda (28 page)

A truck pulled around back. “Let’s get some help out here!”

Frenchy and the Swede trotted down the steps. “Steamer trunks?”

“Just grab a handle.”

“Damn, it’s heavy,” said the Swede. “What’s inside?”

“Don’t ask questions.”

A phone rang inside the lodge.

One of Capone’s top lieutenant’s answered. He could barely hear above the clamor, and covered his other ear. “Could you repeat that? . . .” The call was Key Largo. “. . . Got it. Thanks.” He rushed over and whispered in Al’s ear. Capone nodded. That was all he needed to say. The lieutenant ran out the back screen door. “Frenchy! Swede!”

Another lieutenant directed steamer-trunk traffic. “They can’t leave right now. I need them.”

The first shook his head. “Straight from Al. Got to get them up Forty Mile Bend.”

Everyone knew what that meant.

“Shit!” said the other lieutenant. “Move it! I’ll watch the trunks.”

The Swede and Frenchy ran to the front of the lodge and jumped in a pair of designated cars. They sped east on the Loop Road.

The lieutenant who had taken the phone call from their informant strolled over to the grand piano and told the musician to cool it.

“Everyone, may I have your attention, please?”

Liquor said no.

“Excuse me!” he shouted.

Noise dwindled. They looked toward that piano.

“Thank you,” said the lieutenant. “There’s nothing to worry about. We have everything under control and plenty of time, so please remain calm. We need you all to leave in an orderly fashion—”

“Boooo!”

“I just got here!”

“What is this bullshit?”

“Please, we need your cooperation,” said the lieutenant. “The police are about to raid us.”

So much for orderly.

A drunken stampede out all exits that left the floor of the lodge with shattered highball glasses, lost shoes and a broken necklace that sent pearls rolling under toppled chairs. Out front, a half-dozen cars sideswiped each other, snapping off mirrors and busting headlights.

Total contrast to the staff inside, boxing up everything with military precision.

Five miles east, the race was on.

The finish line: Forty Mile Bend, where the Loop Road joined the Tamiami Trail.

Two cars sped through the night, inches apart.

Junction ahead.
Come onnnnnnn
. . . The fork came into view. Cops not there. Yes!

The Loop’s pavement was significantly lower, and both cars bounded up, back tires sliding. They straightened out and hit the gas.

The race hadn’t been won by much.

Oncoming police lights up the Tamiami.

Frenchy hit the brakes, and the Swede whipped around on the left. He drove a quick hundred yards and made an expert 180-degree moonshiner’s turn in the middle of the road. The drivers accelerated, then turned steering wheels at the last second for a slow-speed head-on crash designed to leave both cars sideways.

For insurance, Frenchy threw a match under a ruptured gas tank.

The police screeched up and jumped out. “Are you guys all right? . . .”

Much of the Tamiami Trail has no shoulders. And to this day, the mildest crash completely shuts down the highway for hours.

Present

“Time to change motels,” said Serge. “This one’s gotten too hot for the tour.”

“We’re checking out?” asked Coleman.

“Car’s already packed,” said Serge. “Will you move it?”

“Just one more thing.” Coleman set the motel room’s alarm clock for three
A.M.
“I’m ready.”

The ’69 Barracuda cruised south on the Tamiami Trail and crossed the massive bridge over the Peace River at Port Charlotte.

A blob of Silly Putty hit the inside of the windshield and stuck.

“Mikey?” Serge looked in the rearview. “You good back there?”

Mikey nodded, munching a bowl of frosted cereal in the backseat.

Coleman sat content, toking his breakfast. He stopped and looked left and right. “What the fuck?”

“Don’t swear in front of my child, you degenerate dick-wad!”

“Sorry, the joint flew out of my hand.”

“Where is it now? Setting fire to the carpet?”

“I don’t know—that’s the weirdest thing,” said Coleman. “If there’s one area I’m dependable, it’s hanging on to a joint.”

“So what happened?”

“A sudden gust of wind. Like out of nowhere.”

“You’re roasted to the eyeballs.”

“No, seriously.”

Serge’s dashboard notepad began fluttering and flew over his shoulder. “What the—?”

“Told you.”

He checked the rearview. “Where’s Mikey?”

Coleman turned around. “One of the back doors is open!”

Serge became unhinged. “My only son!”

Coleman knelt backward in his seat and reached down. “I got him.” The child came back in, and the door slammed. Coleman sat back straight. “It’s cool. He was just trying to pick something up off the road.”

An hour later: Fort Myers.

The Barracuda sat in front of a Motel 3. Room 11.

Some kind of creaking, rhythmic sound from the other side of the door.

“Higher!” said Serge. “Go higher!”

Father and son jumped up and down on one of the beds. Coleman had been jumping on the other, but was thrown clear and knocked the cover off the air conditioner.

“Higher!” yelled Serge.

Coleman sat up and rubbed a knot on his forehead. “I thought we weren’t supposed to jump on beds.”

“That’s what motel rooms are for.” Serge sprang up again. “Everything you’re not allowed to do at home.”

“Don’t the motel people mind?”

Boing, boing, boing . . .

“It’s Motel 3. Everything in the room is manufactured to prison standards.” Serge bounced up again, hair brushing the ceiling. “It’s impossible to break anything.”

Coleman tried fitting the a/c cover back on. “I think I just broke this.”

Serge hopped down to the floor. “That’s enough jumping pleasure . . . Mikey! Here! I’ll catch you!”

The boy leaped into Serge’s arms and they spun in the middle of the room. “Weeeeeeeeee! I’m a dad! . . . Mikey, let’s do something else!”

Coleman was looking for another in a lifelong series of misplaced joints. “Wait, what’s this? A bag of pills? I don’t remember these. The last person in the room must have left them. Or maybe they’re Serge’s. He gets the
best
prescriptions from his psychiatrists.” Coleman opened the sack and grabbed a bright orange capsule. “But he always refuses to take them, so it’s not really stealing.” His eyes shifted suspiciously to Serge on the other side of the room, playing with his son. Nope, they hadn’t spotted him getting into the medicine. He turned the other way, popped the capsule in his mouth and chased it with beer. “Now, let’s see what that bad boy does.”

“I know!” said Serge. “We’ll wrestle! Fathers are always supposed to wrestle with their kids!”

“Great memories,” said Coleman, grabbing a chair and a bottle of whiskey. “I used to wrestle with my uncle. We’d roll on the floor and he’d act like I was stronger and let me crawl all over him and win every time.”

“Please,” said Serge. “That’s amateur hour. If Mikey’s going to succeed in life, I’ll need to teach him the Pile Driver, Atomic Knee Drop, foreign objects, folding metal chairs and, of course, from the critically acclaimed movie
The Wrestler
, the one and only Ram-Jam! . . . Mikey, climb up on the dresser . . . Not high enough. Can you balance on top of the TV?”

The child nodded.

“Okay,” said Serge, lying on the floor. “I’m the evil Ayatollah, and you’ve just knocked me into next week against the turnbuckle . . . The crowd’s cheering you on!
Ram-Jam! Ram-Jam! Ram-Jam!
. . . Now raise your fists next to your ears and get ready for the headfirst dive to finish me off! . . .
Ram-Jam! Ram Jam!
. . . On three! . . . Ready? . . . One . . . two . . .”

Part IV

THE LAST FRONTIER

Chapter Twenty-five

Warm Mineral Springs

A
Crown Vic raced south on the Tamiami Trail.

“Motel secure?” asked White.

“Undercovers at all possible escape points,” said Lowe. “Discreet like you said.”

“Manager?”

“Held back maid service on the room. Sir, do we know if he’s even still there?”

White shook his head. “But we have to assume so for the safety of civilians. That’s why the undercovers.”

“How exactly did we get the call?”

“Just like the state park. Retired couple with rheumatoid was down in the healing pool and recognized them from that TV show we did. Suspects were swimming with some bikers, acting weird.”

“Weird?”

“One was doing cannonballs, and the other congratulated them on not being in a coffin.”

Lowe pointed up the road. “There’s the motel.”

“Remember, we’re going in ultra-quiet. Until we know his status—”

A motor coach passed them, blaring Ted Nugent.

White sighed and pulled up to the office.

The manager made another positive ID on the mug shots. He gave them the key.

“How many staying on that side of the motel?” asked White.

“Just three couples. Your guys slipped them away a half hour ago.”

White led Lowe and Mahoney along the corridor, staying as close to the building as possible until they reached the door.

The trio braced against the outside wall, took deep breaths, then burst inside.

And froze.

Three sets of eyes processed the scene: burned curtains, flooded bathroom, marijuana, Frosted Flakes, Elvis condoms.

Mahoney wiggled a toothpick in his teeth. “Isn’t it always the case?”

Meanwhile . . .

“Serge,
Serge
,
Serge
. . . Are you okay,
okay, okay
. . .”

Serge sat up. “Where am I?”

“Motel 3,” said Coleman

“What happened?”

“Mikey knocked you out.”

“He did?”

“You’ve been gone for twenty minutes.”

“Was it the Ram-Jam?”

“I don’t know. He just jumped from the TV.”

Serge beamed. “My son! . . .” He looked around. “Where is he?”

“Under the bed,” said Coleman. “He grabbed a bunch of candy bars. I tried to get him out but he keeps biting.”

Serge crouched down and pulled up the skirt of the bedspread. “Mikey, excellent Ram-Jam! I know what we can do next! Let’s go to the playground, and I’ll show you all the unapproved, alternate equipment usage. I saw a really cool one up the street.”

Mikey crawled out.

Serge grabbed his keys. “This will be great! I can finally return to the playground without everyone staring because now I have a kid with me!”

Fifteen minutes later.

Everyone stared.

Mikey stood on the very top of the jungle gym, beating his chest.

Serge was at the bottom: “Now make roaring sounds and yell, ‘I’m a silver-back gorilla, king of all I survey!’ . . .”

They made the rounds of the rest of the equipment.

“No,” said Serge. “Walk
on top
of the monkey bars.”

Thanks to his new diet, Mikey was now even too hyper for Serge, and the tired new father let his son go free-range across the grounds.