The Riptide Ultra-Glide (2 page)

Chapter One

ONE MONTH EARLIER

A
fisherman found the body in the mangroves just before dawn. Actually, tiny crabs found it first. The tide had ebbed from an inlet near the top of the Florida Keys, and the muck began to give off that funk. The homicide was what authorities like to call a classic case of overkill. But they were still stumped about the specific cause of death because of the way . . . well, it's complicated. And all this didn't happen until tomorrow. Right now the victim was still very much alive, and the residents of Key Largo had their attention on something else . . .

* * *

A
t the very bottom of the state—below Miami and the zoo and the Coral Castle and everything else—sits the tiny outpost of Florida City. Last stop. Nothing below on the mainland but mangroves and swamp.

There was some agriculture and migrants on the outskirts, but mainly it was just a short tourist strip where the end of the state turnpike dumps motorists into a cluster of economy motels and convenience stores: a final gas-up, food-up and beer-up before the long, desolate run to the Florida Keys.

Sportsmen bashed bags of ice on the curb in front of a Shell station, college students toted cases of beer, and a '72 Corvette Stingray flew south doing eighty. It ran a red light and was pushing a hundred by the time it passed the last building—the Last Chance Saloon—and dove down into the mangroves.

The driver looked in the rearview. Faint sirens and countless flashing blue lights a mile behind. He floored it.

Coleman leaned back and shotgunned a Schlitz. “Serge, do you think we'll ever be caught?”

“ ‘Caught' is a funny word,” said Serge. “Most criminals catch themselves, like getting stuck at three
A.M.
in an air duct over a car-stereo store, and the people opening up in the morning hear crying and screaming from the ceiling, and the fire department has to get him out with spatulas and butter. If your arrest involves a lot of butter, or, even more embarrassing, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter, then you actually need to go to jail, if for nothing else just some hang time to inner-reflect.”

“Those cops are still chasing,” said Coleman, firing up a hash pipe.

“Where did they all come from?” Serge leaned attentively. “There was nobody following, and then,
bam
! The road hits Florida City and suddenly it's like a
Blues Brothers
chase back there.”

“Florida City?” Coleman dropped a Vicodin. “So that's what that string of motels is called?”

Serge nodded. “Actually a funny story. Used to be called Detroit.”

Coleman swigged a pint of Rebel Yell. “Now you're making fun of me because I'm wrecked.”

“Swear to God. You can look it up,” said Serge. “I wouldn't shit you.”

“I know,” said Coleman. “I'm your favorite turd.”

“And naming it Detroit wasn't even an accident, like the other times when two pioneer families set up shop in the sticks and there's no one else around to stop them, and they're chugging moonshine by the campfire, ‘What should we call this place?' ‘Fuck it, I already spent enough effort today running from wild pigs,' and then you end up with a place called Toad Suck, Arkansas—you can look that up, too. Except modern-day Florida City started as an ambitious land development with hard-sell advertising and giant marketing geniuses behind the project. Then they had the big meeting to concoct a name: ‘I got it! What do people moving to Florida really want? To be in Michigan!' ”

“Bullshit on Michigan,” said Coleman.

“That was pretty much the universal consumer response back in 1910,” said Serge. “But I still can't wrap my head around that management decision to name it Detroit. The brain wasn't engineered to deal with that rarefied level of dumbness.”

“Sounds like they were all on acid,” said Coleman.

“Exactly,” said Serge. “So here's what I think really happened: The top guy mentioned the name, and everyone else obsequiously nodded and went along with the idea like they do around Trump, and then months later they take the train south, and the main cat sees the signs at the city limits: ‘You idiots! That was sarcasm!' ”

“The cops are still back there,” said Coleman.

“Chasing is in police DNA memory, like Labradors running after sticks,” said Serge. “They probably don't even know why they do it. They just put the lights on and go, and a while later the partner who isn't behind the wheel says, ‘Why are we stopping?' ‘Something inside just told me to because there's a really cool crash up ahead. It's weird; I can't explain it.' ”

“I hope we never get caught,” said Coleman.

“That would be my choice,” said Serge. “Unfortunately, a lot of people are looking for us, and heading down to the Keys is never a good call when you're on the run.”

Another Schlitz popped. “Why?”

“Geography. There's just one road in and no way out, so it's a fool's move,” said Serge. “Except in our case, because I can line up some boats. I know these guys.”

“The cops are getting closer.”

Serge gestured with the book he was reading. “Turn up the volume on the TV.”

Coleman twisted a knob. “That Corvette is really flying.”

“I love watching live police chases on TV,” said Serge. “You usually have to live in California.”

“They have more helicopters out there,” said Coleman.

“But our Channel Seven whirlybird is staying right with him,” said Serge. “Down the Eighteen Mile.”

“What's that?”

“The name for the empty stretch of road through the limbo of mangroves from the bottom of Florida City until the bridge to Key Largo.”

Coleman pointed. “He's crossing the bridge . . . The cops are right behind.”

“It's the big new bridge,” said Serge. “Takes you right across Lake What-the-Fuck.”

“Is that another real name?”

“No,” said Serge. “That's what I call it. It's really named Lake Surprise. But surprise is usually something good that provides delight, like winning the lottery or reaching in the back of the fridge and finding an unexpected jar of olives. But this lake got its name because it pissed people off.”

“How'd it do that?”

“Another funny story. When Henry Flagler started the Overseas Railroad down the Keys, he looked for the route with the most land, because bridges over water cost more. So he sent out surveyors, and they began laying tracks south from the mainland of Florida, across some little islands and an isthmus to Key Largo. And I can't believe they built that far before realizing that right in the middle of a big chunk of land was this giant lake, and now they have to build an
extra
bridge that wasn't in the budget.”

“I guess the guys at the lake didn't yell, ‘Surprise.' ”

“That's why history gives me a woody.” Serge nodded toward the television. “Even recent history. Like this bozo heading our way.”

“The TV people said the Corvette was stolen in Coconut Grove.”

“He's coming off the bridge,” said Serge. “The rocks will start soon.”

“Rocks?”

“It's local tradition, and another reason I love the Keys.” Serge stood and put on his sneakers. “It's our version of when those people went out to the overpasses and waved at O. J. Simpson during the slow-motion chase. Except in the Keys, when there's a high-speed pursuit on TV heading south, the locals line the road and wait for the car to come off the bridge to Key Largo. Last time was around Christmas.”

“You're right.” Coleman pointed at the TV again. “They're lining the side of the road. They're throwing rocks.”

“And we're at Mile Marker 105, so that gives us about three minutes.” Serge tightened the Velcro straps on his shoes. “Let's go throw rocks.”

“Cool.”

They went outside.

“Is this a good rock?” asked Coleman.

“I think that's a hardened piece of poo.”

“Righteous,” said Coleman, tossing the brown oval up and down in his palm to gauge heft. “I'll bet nobody else is throwing this at the car.”

“My wild guess is you're probably right,” said Serge. “Man, look at all the freakin' people out here. There's barely room for us.”

“It's like a parade, only better.”

A drumroll of pinging sounds came up the road toward them. Pieces of gravel and brick ricocheted off the Chevrolet frame.

“There he is now,” said Serge.

“He's swerving all over the place,” said Coleman. “And the car's completely beaten to shit.”

“That's why it's always better to be at the front of the rock line.” Serge fingered a smooth stone in his pitching hand. “Here's the secret to enjoying this moment in history: In World War Two, ten percent of the pilots got ninety percent of the kills, and most were from southern states where they did a lot of hunting.”

“What's that got to do with it?”

“They learned to lead their targets,” said Serge. “But you're inexperienced. So stand ten yards on the far side of me, and when you see me throw, you let her rip. Your marijuana reflexes will build in the necessary time lag.”

The pinging sounds grew louder.

Serge stretched his right shoulder in a circular motion. “People in the Keys don't hunt, so even if you're not at the front of the rock line, they usually still leave you the prize.”

“Which is what?”

“The driver's window.”

“Here he comes!”

“Readddddddyyyyy . . .”
Serge wound up. “Now!”

Serge let fly.

Coleman did, too.

Smash
.

“You got the window,” said Coleman.

“And I think your shot went through the opening I created. Good teamwork.”

“He's fishtailing,” said Coleman. “He's losing control.”

“And now the other rock people are scattering to make room for him sliding sideways into that mailbox.”

“The police are slowing down,” said Coleman. “But they don't seem to know why.”

“Here's where they pull him out through the window by his hair. Let's listen . . .”

“Ow! Ow! I'm not resisting . . . Someone hit me with poo. Who throws poo?”

“Welcome to the Keys,” said Serge.

“It's hot,” said Coleman. “Let's go back inside.”

MEANWHILE . . .

A
blistering afternoon on U.S. 1.

People fanned themselves under the shade of a bus-stop shelter. Several had inexplicably massive amounts of worthless possessions in a variety of unsturdy containers that symbolized the earth's history of evolutionary dead ends. The bus finally came, and the driver wouldn't let someone on because he had a George Foreman Grill, even though it wasn't lit. Alongside the bus, someone else in a safari hat drove a riding lawn mower through a thin strip of grass in front of an outreach ministry. The bus pulled away. A man stayed behind on the bench and considered the downside of being able to suddenly barbecue with little warning.

But it was best not to think too hard about this strip of hot tar below Deerfield and Pompano. Which put it in Broward County, between Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. Shop after shop in endless miles of scrambled economy: ceiling fans, patio furniture, Oriental rugs, barbers, psychics, Pilates, a massage parlor on the up-and-up, herbs for the pretentious, used car lots for customers with radioactive credit, carpet remnants for people who didn't give a shit anymore, a karate studio run by a prick, and one business that simply said L
ASER
.

The traffic was typically heavy and frequently slowed by countless school zones. People in orange vests escorted children across the street. A school bus drove by. A man in a gorilla suit stood on the corner, twirling a sign advertising divorce representation.

More school buses. Regular ones, short ones, public, parochial. And one that looked like the others, except upon closer inspection. All males, all adults. The license plate read: T
HE
B
LUEGRASS
S
TATE
. The bus cleared a school zone and accelerated a few more blocks before pulling into a shopping center that was busier than the others. A lot busier, cars everywhere, no parking at all on the south end. A psychic came out of her shop and wondered what was going on. The bus pulled around back.

Inside, a waiting room spilled into another waiting room, every chair taken, overflowing outside onto the front patio, where people fiddled with cheap radios and cell phones. Except the wait was surprisingly short, and people moved chair to chair like they were turnstiles. A platoon of nurses called names from manila folders and continuously funneled the clientele into a series of individual examination rooms that ran the length of a hall. A single doctor emerged from the last door, came down the hallway and started again at the first. The loop took twenty minutes, even if someone was chatty. Because most of the patients spoke Spanish, and the doc had no idea what they were saying.