Electric Barracuda (36 page)

“No, they just left.”

“What about this new bloom?”

“Sometimes when one drops from the tree, another takes it place. Sometimes not. That’s why I said you’re in luck.”

“Where is it?”

“Take the boardwalk south.” The man gestured out the back door. “It’s way off the trail about fifty feet up the tree. You can’t see it with the naked eye, so there’s a photo and arrow attached to the railing showing where to point binoculars.”

“Can I pretend to be Nicolas Cage?”

“What?”

“From the excellent Florida movie
Adaptation
, based on
The Orchid Thief
, which was inspired by true events at the nearby Fakahatchee Strand.” Serge turned sideways. “Check my profile. People always say I look like Cage. Wait, I got that wrong. They always
don’t
say it, but who’s going to stop me? Right? You look like someone I can trust. Do you have coffee?”

“You okay?”

“Super-duper! I totally rededicated my life in the parking lot: ghost orchids or death! . . . Mikey! Mush!” The child pulled Serge out the door.

They clomped down the winding boardwalk, bend after bend, until the bus people appeared.

Silent reverence. Cameras and binoculars. Others sat in their stadium chairs while a high-definition TV camera filmed from a tripod, and someone else held a directional boom microphone over the railing.

Serge and company quietly slipped behind. Coleman tugged his shirt. “There’s way too many people to beat off. Maybe if we hang around until there’s just a few left, and I can stand in front of you . . .”

“Coleman, I was being facetious.”

“Is that where you put your finger up your ass?”

“Keep your voice down!”

Another tug. “I don’t see it.”

“The man said you need binoculars.” Serge raised his. “Wow. It’s incredible. It’s awesome. It’s taking my breath away.”

He handed the binoculars to Coleman. “It’s a flower.”

Serge opened a book on the railing.

“What are you reading?” asked Coleman.

“River of Grass
.
”

“What’s that?”

Serge showed him the cover of a white heron gazing out over the landscape. “Groundbreaking preservation work by Marjory Stoneman Douglas, first published in 1947. A lone voice back when everyone else just saw dollar signs and a swamp that needed to be drained. But not Marjory! She single-handedly launched popular appreciation for one of our state’s prized treasures, earning her the nickname ‘Grande Dame of the Everglades.’ ”

“But what’s the river part of the title?”

“Because the Everglades actually is a river. Except you wouldn’t know it because it’s fifty miles wide and the flow is too slow to notice since the land only slopes a couple inches per mile. Douglas was barely five feet tall and lived to be a hundred and eight, but even at the end she was, pound for pound, the deadliest political street fighter in the state. Even won the Presidential Medal of Freedom except, surprisingly, no action figures of her with eyes that shoot laser beams and a purse covered with poison-tipped spikes. Imagine what they’d be worth today in the original box with all the accessories.”

Out front, the parking lot filled fast with a rush of vehicles led by a Crown Vic and trailed by a tour bus pounding Metallica.

“Sure hope you’re right about this hunch,” said White. “This was another long drive to nowhere.”

Lowe wiped his forehead. “And hotter than hell.”

Mahoney fanned himself with his hat. “Parlay lock. Flower hit the papers.”

Chapter Thirty-five

Corkscrew Swamp

T
hree state agents arrived at a ticket counter.

White continued his unending routine of holding up a badge and mug shots. “Seen these guys?”

“Not sure. We had a lot of people just come through.” He put on reading glasses. “Maybe this one, but I could be wrong.”

“Do you remember anything in particular?” asked White. “Think hard. A minor detail that might seem unimportant could be crucial to our case.”

“Well, there was one thing, but it didn’t make any sense.”

“What was it?”

“He asked permission to be Nicolas Cage.”

“Pay dirt,” said Mahoney.
“The Orchid Thief.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Tail me.” He headed out the back door.

They reached the boardwalk, and Agent White unfolded his park map on the railing. “It’s a big oval with no escape but a swamp full of gators . . . Mahoney, you go that way and Lowe and I will head the other. If he’s out here, we can’t miss him.”

The trio split up . . .

A mile west on the boardwalk, a crowd of seniors watched with rapt attention. Serge’s obsessive picture-taking blended in. Celebratory wine bottles sat empty on the planks. Some had cell phones out, texting fellow aficionados across the country.

Then, in silence, a flower silently fell off a tree and helicoptered down into the water.

Gasps

“Son of a bitch! . . .”

“Motherfuck! . . .”

“Bullshit root structure! . . .”

They angrily threw their gear together, preparing to hike back to the nature center.

“Perfect,” said Serge. “Excellent chance to test my latest ‘Out.’ ”

“You never told me what that was,” said Coleman.

“Near the top of the fugitive’s arsenal is camouflage.” Serge pulled the brim of his hat down. “And the best camouflage is to hide in plain sight. Whenever there’s a large, homogenous group all dressed alike, the human brain processes it as a single unit, not as individuals. And fugitive hunters are looking for an individual.”

“But how are you going to test it?”

“See those two guys in white dress shirts coming toward us? Let’s have fun and pretend they’re state agents on our trail.”

“Okay,” said Coleman. “But I’ve been wondering. You’ve done a lot of stuff over the years. How do you know you’re not really being tracked.”

“The Law of Shit Happens: If you’re worried about a specific problem like getting strangled in the food court, it never happens while you’re thinking about it—only when you’re daydreaming about sports cars or Totie Fields . . . Here they come. Keep your head down.”

Two state agents approached an oncoming procession of surly orchid enthusiasts. White flipped open his cell and dialed. “. . . Mahoney? White here . . . Any sign of Serge?”

“Snake eyes.”

“Mahoney, that doesn’t put me any closer to a yes or no.”

“No.”

“Keep looking.” He hung up and nodded politely at the passing visitors. “Where on earth can he be?”

“Up ahead,” said Lowe. “It’s the picture on the railing marking the ghost orchid site. But nobody’s there.”

“Maybe around the bend . . .”

Ten minutes later, Lowe saw movement through the cypress. “Look! Someone’s coming on the boardwalk.” He reached for a shoulder holster.

The person appeared.

White sagged. “It’s just Mahoney. Let’s call it a day and head back . . . Mahoney! We’re going!”

Mahoney just gazing into murky water. A turtle surfaced.

“We covered the whole boardwalk from opposite directions,” said White. “If he was here, you know we would have intercepted.”

Mahoney continued gazing off the railing at the lettuce lakes and rubbed his two-day stubble. “Dizzy tiggle gashouse yegman biscuit-town.”

White put a hand on his shoulder. “I have absolutely no idea what that means, but I want you to realize that despite my occasional annoyance, I sincerely appreciate your dedication . . . Now we all could use a little rest.”

They made it back to the nature center and reached the doors to the parking lot.

“Oh, detectives?”

They turned around. The ticket man.

“That guy in the picture you showed me? Is this him?”

“Where?”

“On my security monitor. I rolled the tape back.”

White ran over. “How long ago?”

“Fifteen minutes, tops.” The man looked up. “Camera got him on the way out.”

The trio raced around the desk for a view of the replaying footage.

On the black-and-white screen, Serge and Coleman strolled away in the middle of a pack of seniors.

“I’ll be damned,” said White.

“Where’d he get the kid?” asked Lowe.

“We’ll ask when we catch him.”

They ran out the door.

White started up the Crown Vic and looked over his shoulder. “Mahoney, where to now?”

“The Big-H 29 shimmy-sham.”

Everglades

A ’69 Barracuda sped south on Highway 29.

“Roadkill,” said Coleman. “Armadillo.”

“Got it.” Serge swerved as vultures took off.

Mikey pasted his face to the window. “Squishy guts!”

“I think he’s going to be a doctor,” said Serge.

Kid Rock blared as they crested the overpass across Alligator Alley.

“. . . Singing ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ all summer long! . . .”

“I didn’t know you liked the Kid,” said Coleman.

“I didn’t,” said Serge. “Or I was indifferent, until I heard he got in brawl at a Waffle House after a gig. Anyone with that kind of money who still goes to Waffle House, I’m down with.” The song ended. Serge picked up his iPod and spun the click wheel. “This trip needs fugitive tunes or swamp music, and preferably both . . . Here we go . . .”

“Where
are
we going?”

“If you’re a fan of studying maps and looking for the most remote dead ends at the edge of nowhere, you can’t do better in Florida,” said Serge. “I know a spot at the very bottom of the state where nobody but nobody will find us.”

“Roadkill. Opossum.”

The Barracuda slalomed around baked remains on the pavement.

Serge reached under his seat for a small shopping bag. He removed an item, peeled off the covering over its adhesive base and stuck it in the middle of the dashboard.

They passed a couple of places on the map called Jerome and Copeland, but what were actually just a few reclusive homes. Some had driveways off the highway, across dubious wooden bridges over a drainage canal.

Coleman stared at the dashboard. The head of a small plastic figurine wobbled to road vibrations. “Serge?”

“Yes, Tonto?”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve never seen a dashboard bobble-head?”

“Many times. It looks like a baseball player.”

“Used to be Derek Jeter.”

“But you taped his legs together and painted his uniform into a dress. And glued cotton all over his helmet.”

“Correct,” said Serge. “I knew we were coming to the Everglades, and whenever they don’t sell what I want, I have to make my own.”

“Own what?”

“Marjory Stoneman Douglas bobble-head.”

“Why did you paint her eyes red?”

“To shoot laser beams.”

“. . . Amos Moses was a hell of a man . . .”

“I remember this song,” said Coleman. “Don’t think I’ve heard it in thirty years.”

“About a fugitive in the swamp,” said Serge. “Good omen.”

“Who sings it?”

“Another Sunshine State six-degrees-of-separation bonus: Jerry Reed.”

“Roadkill. Unknown.”

Another swerve. “Reed was in all three quintessential Florida fugitive films, the
Smokey and the Bandit
trilogy, starring none other than Florida favorite son Burt Reynolds. Filming locales included Jupiter, Indiantown, West Palm, Clearwater, Silver Springs and the Seaquarium, to name but a few.”

“I dug the cop in those movies.”

“. . . Gonna getcha Amos! . . .”

“Sheriff Buford T. Justice, played by Jackie Gleason, who had moved his TV show to Miami Beach. Coincidence? I think we both know the answer.”

“Remember Sally Field in those movies? She was hot back then.”

“Still is,” said Serge. “But I blanch at her new commercials. The heartbreak of the bandit’s squeeze pimping bone-loss supplements . . . which reminds me, another degree of separation that brings us full circle.” Serge grabbed his iPod and dialed another song, striking up a wicked fiddle. “One of our state anthems, ‘The Orange Blossom Special,’ was on the Smokey sound track.”

“. . . Hey, look a yonder comin’ . . .”

Thirty miles back, a Crown Vic turned south on Highway 29. “Mahoney, you really think he came this way?” asked White.

“Hophead on the heritage pipe.”