The Riptide Ultra-Glide (27 page)

Chapter Twenty-nine

ONE MINUTE LATER

T
he McDougalls survived the gauntlet and ran around the side of the building into the alley. The officer pushed them behind him, then flattened against the wall. He reached for his shoulder radio to report their position.

“What on earth's going on?” asked Pat.

“Probably find out on the news tonight.” The officer looked at both of them. “Do you know any of those people?”

They shook their heads. “Never seen them before.”

“What about the dead driver in your car?”

“He highjacked us from our motel, the Casablanca.”

“The Casablanca?” said the officer, appraising their intelligence level. “Why the hell would you do something crazy like stay there?”

“We're from Wisconsin.”

“Just remain put.” The officer crept to the corner of the building, holding his pistol upright at the side of his head. He took a quick peek around the edge. Lead and plaster dust exploded by.

He retreated to the couple and grabbed his radio mike again. “Where's that backup?”

“What did you see?” asked Pat.

“They're advancing.”

“Advancing?”

“Military tactic. They've reached your car.” He turned around and looked down their alley, which dead-ended against a junkyard fence topped with razor wire. Then into his radio again: “Need backup now! Taking fire, location vulnerable.”

“Are we going to be okay?” asked Pat.

“We'll be fine,” lied the officer.

More rounds hit the corner of the copy shop and the end of the sidewalk, which meant their position was known. The officer didn't risk his head this time, just reached the pistol around the corner and fired blindly. Not to hit anything, just slow 'em down.

The cop glanced quickly at the McDougalls. The obvious targets of the melee. It wasn't adding up. You never knew about some people, but others you did. And these definitely weren't the type to get mixed up in this. The officer didn't know why they were wanted dead, and he didn't care. But he knew why he'd become a cop. He was now a one-man Thin Blue Line. They weren't getting at this couple except through him.

His training said the shots were less than a block away, maybe half. He pulled out his wallet for a quick look at some family photos, then tucked it away and got on one knee. Shooting stance. “No matter what, stay behind me.”

The McDougalls complied and dropped to their own knees.

“But don't grab my shoulder,” said the officer.

“Sorry,” said Bar.

Weapons grew louder. Almost there. The officer's finger put a couple pounds' pull on the trigger, so his first shot wouldn't take much more.

Even louder fire. Then
more
fire. But a different echo, meaning different origin. And different caliber. M16s. Standard SWAT-team issue.

Cavalry time. The officer's backup made a big splash, led by an armored police assault vehicle. In no time, they easily swept the street of bad guys like they were brushing off a case of fleas.

The cop holstered his gun, turned around to the couple and tried to hide a body-racking wave of relief.

But the McDougalls were still shaken, staring toward the empty street and trying to imagine the unseen violence that had transpired around the corner. Pat looked down at an engraved rectangle of plastic over the cop's pocket.

“Thank you, Officer Garcia.”

“No problem. And we're going to check you out at the hospital, if for nothing else, give you something to help you sleep after all that.”

“Does this happen often?” asked Bar.

“It was pretty common back in the early eighties, but now something like this is a five-year event. Guess it was your lucky time for a vacation.” Garcia pulled out a pad and pen. “Need to get a preliminary statement from you.”

“Sure, anything to cooperate. I mean I think you just saved our lives, right?”

“Do you have any idea what that was all about? Seems to be a little more involved than a simple carjacking.”

“I think it has something to do with a suitcase. Or cocaine. Or both.”

“What suitcase?”

“I don't know, but the guy who forced his way into our car had been making threatening phone calls,” said Pat. “And another caller claimed we had mistakenly picked up his suitcase at the airport.”

The officer stopped writing. “That's it.”

“What's it?”

“You're in South Florida. Do you have any idea how many pieces of luggage and briefcases are floating around? Undeclared cash, heroin, uncut diamonds?”

Pat and Bar shook their heads.

“Well, it's a lot,” said the officer. “Mostly they stay with the right people, but with the sheer volume out there, a few are bound to get away from time to time . . . Where is this suitcase?”

“Probably back in our room right now,” said Bar.

“Probably?” said the officer. “You wouldn't recognize big piles of money or drugs?”

“We haven't had time to look in all our bags,” said Pat. “The airline lost them for a while.”

The officer had a chance to pause for the first time. “What's wrong with your face?”

“Jellyfish. And sunburn.”

“Do you think you could take me to your luggage now?” asked Officer Garcia.

“Sure,” said Pat. “We're not doing anything else.”

They headed out of the alley.

An unmarked Crown Vic with a blue light on the dashboard came bouncing around the corner into the alley. The driver's window rolled down. Dark sunglasses. “What have we got here? These the victims?”

The couple could tell by the way Officer Garcia stood straight that this was someone a few pay grades higher. So far up the chain of command that Garcia had never seen him before. But if anything could bring out this level of rank, it would be the mess still sitting out on U.S. 1.

“Sir,” said Garcia. “I believe I know what triggered our altercation.”

“Altercation? It's a goddamn shooting gallery out there.”

“Yes, sir.”

“As you were saying?”

“I strongly believe that this visiting couple—” He looked over at them. “Names?”

“Pat,” said Pat. “Pat and Bar McDougall.”

Garcia faced the brass again. “ . . . That the McDougalls accidentally picked up a suitcase of contraband at Fort Lauderdale International. Some competing interests tracked them to their motel, where they got caught in the middle.”

Dark sunglasses studied the officer a moment. “You already got that whole cluster-fuck in the street figured out? All by yourself? Jesus, I can still smell cordite.”

“Yes, sir.”

The supervisor shook his head. “I'm not making any promises . . . Forget that. I
am
making promises. Start clearing wall space at home for an attractive plaque.”

“Thank you, sir. And you should know that they were just about to take me to the suitcase right now.”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Nobody, sir.”

“Then don't you think we ought to get the hell over there pretty fast before any more bad guys can show up first and grab whatever the fuck it is?”

“Yes, sir.”

The driver of the Crown Vic hit the unlock button. “Okay, everybody get in.”

A nine-millimeter pistol came out the window. Silencer.

Officer Garcia looked down in disbelief at the gunshot wound in the middle of his chest. Then up at the supervisor in the window of the Crown Vic, before slumping lifelessly against the wall of the copy shop.

The driver got out of the car.

“Holy shit!” said Pat, jumping back a step. “You shot Officer Garcia! You shot another cop!”

“Whoever said I was a cop?” He waved at them with the pistol. “Now get in.”

They didn't move. It wasn't from courage. They were paralyzed.

“Look,” said the driver. “I'm not going to kill you. Then I'd never find out what room you're staying in at the Casablanca—and never get the suitcase.”

Movement returned to Pat's body. “Garcia never mentioned the Casablanca. How'd you know where we're staying?”

“It's my job.”

“Who
are
you?”

“The guy who found your travel itinerary, including this motel, in your luggage. You seemed awfully anxious to get back to Wisconsin. And I'm shocked that you were smoking crack.”

“So the guy who carjacked us? He was working with you?”

“No, I don't know what that was about. But I recognized him. He's a low-level coke dealer. Or was.”

A flash of understanding hit Pat. “You're the one who shot him through the windshield!”

“I couldn't let him get away and do something terrible to you guys. And as you saw, I took great pains to make sure you weren't hit, so you can trust me.” A motion with the gun. “Get in.”

“You're just going to kill us right after you get the suitcase,” said Pat.

“If you keep pissing me off.” The man extended his shooting arm. “Now get in!”

“You're Mexican.”

“What are you, prejudiced?” A more urgent gun gesture. “No more stalling! Get the fuck in!”

Pat turned to his wife. “If we get in that car, we're dead. But as long as we stay here, he won't shoot us because he needs the room number.”

“You're priceless.” The man laughed behind the dark sunglasses. “This isn't a TV show. You think you can compete with me in this game? This is chess, and you're playing tic-tac-toe.”

“See,” Pat told his wife. “He needs the room number.”

“Here's the game: There are two of you, and I only need one alive.” He stiffened his arms and held the gun firmly with both hands. “Checkmate. Please get in the car.”

The couple froze again with mouths open.

“You're seriously beginning to hack me off.” He aimed the gun at one, then the other. “You have exactly five seconds to get in the car, or who will it be?”

They still didn't move.

“Have it your way.” He swung the gun back and forth between husband and wife as he counted off. “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe . . .”

The McDougalls closed their eyes.

Bang
.

They opened their eyes.

“Motherfucker!” yelled Gaspar Arroyo, wincing and grabbing his bloody shoulder where the bullet had torn through and sent his pistol flying.

Then the couple looked down at the bottom of the alley, where Officer Garcia remained slumped against the wall, his arm barely strong enough to hold up the just-fired gun. Then it fell by his side and his head sagged for good.

Pat grabbed Bar's arm. “Run! . . .”

Chapter Thirty

BACK AT THE CASABLANCA . . .

C
ut! Print!” yelled Serge, standing on the second-floor balcony. He turned off his camcorder and headed for the stairs. “This reality show is turning out better than I ever expected. I got the whole shooting sequence, and it was dumb luck. I just had the camera running for stock footage of a carjacking when all hell broke loose.”

“How'd you know to follow those tourists?”

“I didn't. I was following everyone else. After discovering that ID card in the suitcase, we just drove up and down until I saw a Jeep and then a Durango staking out this motel, and the rest fell in place.”

Coleman ran after him. “Where to now?”

“The copy shop up the street.” Serge bounded down the steps two at a time. “I want to interview those tourists while their memory is fresh. After such a traumatic experience, they could be highly quotable. Or they could be shitting themselves in terror and begging for us to get them out of Florida. Either way, great television.”

Coleman reached the street just behind Serge and struggled to keep up on the sidewalk. “But what do you think all that shooting was about?”

“It's U.S. 1,” said Serge. “So it doesn't have to be about anything. But this time it was about a suitcase full of cash from that other shoot-out this afternoon—the indoors one at the pirate motel. That luggage was like a basketball rebound that gets tipped in the air over and over and nobody can quite get a handle on it. This could make the whole series! And depending upon their camera presence, we might require them to ride along with us at least a week—for their own good—to film a three-to-five-show arc. Even if they initially resist, they'll come around.”

“How do you know?”

“Have you seen the audition lines for
American Idol
? Everyone wants to be on television.”

Serge picked up the pace, checking battery life on his video camera. “There's the copy shop.” He clicked on the camcorder. “We need to be filming when we come around the corner to catch them in their natural state. And just in case they've calmed down from all the action, we'll need to jump out and scream like wild maniacs to remind them of their panic. You're a witness in case someone calls it a breach of journalism ethics.”

“It isn't?”

“Not if we really scare them.”

“Here's the corner,” said Coleman.

“Ready? . . . Now!”

Serge and Coleman leaped out into the end of the alley, jumping and waving their arms.

“Booga! Booga! . . .”

Then Coleman yelled for real.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhh!”

Tires squealed.

“Watch out!” yelled Serge, tackling his buddy and knocking him to the ground on the other side of the tight corridor. A Crown Vic with tinted windows blasted by them and made a skidding turn south on U.S. 1.

Serge rose to his knees and filmed the unmarked car as it disappeared, then swung the camera down at his pal's face.

“Holy Jesus!” said Coleman. “That guy almost killed me! My heart!”

Serge zoomed in tighter. He made a beckoning motion with his free hand. “More freak-out! Give me more freak-out!”

“But, Serge, I really am freaking out.”

“I love it!” The free hand formed into a fist. “Now fake it for real! . . .”

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

“Man, you really can act. I never knew . . .”

“No, Serge. Look!”

The camera swung. “It's a cop! He's been shot!”

Serge ran over and felt for a pulse.

“Is he alive?”

Serge shook his head, eyes following a separate trail of blood to where the Crown Vic had been parked.

“Think it was the tourists?” asked Coleman.

“Unlikely.” Serge stood back up. “And that guy who almost hit us was driving an unmarked police car, probably wounded. This isn't normal. We need to find that couple. But first we need to get out of this alley before we're unfairly blamed again.”

Serge raced around the corner and took off down the sidewalk.

“Wait up!” yelled Coleman. “Where do you think they went?”

“Who knows?” Serge stopped at an intersection. “But I know where they might be going. They were carjacked after pulling into the parking lot of the Casablanca, so that's where they're probably staying.”

“Why do you think they'll come back after all this?”

“Because they left their stuff,” said Serge. “It's a fifty-fifty proposition. Maybe they'll abandon it and split, or maybe they need something from that room in order to get out of town.”

“So what now?”

“Go back to the motel like nothing's happened, and if they do return, we pounce for the ambush interview.” Serge began running again with an enthusiastic spring in his step. “Everyone loves the ambush interview!”

SIX BLOCKS AWAY

B
ehind a scratch-and-dent patio-furniture outlet.

Pat McDougall poked his head out around the edge of the store. His wife tightly clutched the back of his shirt. “See anything?”

“No.”

“Maybe we should try calling the police.”

“I told you, we can't. We don't know who's on what side. That guy threatening us at gunpoint in the alley was a cop.”

“He told us he wasn't,” said Bar.

“He shot another cop! But lying's beneath him? . . . And by now he's probably pinned that murder on us. Our prints are all over the alley.”

“What are we going to do?”

“Get out of Florida. Then we find some police we know we can trust and explain everything.”

“But how can we leave?” said Bar. “We're broke, no credit cards, and now we don't even have a car.”

“That's why we need to go back to the room.”

“Go back? Have you lost your mind?” said his wife. “After everything that just happened?”

“Especially after everything that just happened,” said Pat. “We don't have a choice. We're helpless street people now until we get in there and grab the emergency cash in my suitcase . . . Duck!”

They crouched behind a hedge on the side of the building.

“What was it?” asked Bar.

“Police car. But not the guy from the alley.”

“How are we going to get in our room? Someone might be watching it.”

“So we also watch it,” said Pat, peering around the corner again. “We go back after dark and hang out across the street until we're absolutely sure it's clear. If anything's suspicious, we leave.”

“Then what?”

“Figure something else out.” Pat reached down and touched his leg. He held up his palm.

“You're bleeding,” said Bar.

“Skinned my knee when I tripped getting out of that alley.” He grabbed his left sleeve. “And my shirt's ripped.”

Bar looked down at herself, then at her husband. “We're completely filthy from crawling around bushes for the last mile.”

“That's the least of our problems.” He raised a dirty foot that had lost a shoe. It was bloody, too.

“How long till dark?”

“At least seven or eight hours . . . Duck.”

They crouched again as another squad car went by.

“What do we do until then?”

“Stay out of sight.”

“I'm hungry,” said Bar. “I didn't eat lunch. And only had a bite for breakfast. I'm thirsty.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Sometimes they give free samples in the grocery store,” said Bar. “There's one up the street.”

“I don't think they give samples to people looking like us,” said Pat. “In fact, I think they have procedures to deal with people like us . . . And we won't be out of sight.”

“Eight hours?”

Pat felt something in his stomach. Not hunger. Frustration at being unable to take care of the woman he loved. “Don't worry. I'll get you something.”

“Where?”

He looked around. “That strip mall next door. It's got a couple restaurants.”

“They're not giving away free food.”

“Not that.” He pointed. “The Dumpsters out back.”

“Oh God, I just lost my appetite.”

“Baby, how many times have we seen people leave half a plate of perfectly good food? Restaurants also throw out unserved stuff that's just a little old. We're not in a position to be picky.”

“I'd rather hold out,” said Bar. “Let's sit down and rest.”

They reclined in the bushes.

Two hours later:

Snoring. An incredibly deep nap from exhaustion.

Something woke them up.

“Bastards!” Pat grimaced and scratched welts running down both arms. “What the heck kind of ants do they have down here in the bushes?”

“Apparently big red ones,” said Bar, rubbing her own arms. Then she heard her stomach growl. “I guess it wouldn't hurt to take a
look
in a Dumpster.”

They went in the alley behind the strip mall. The search was tentative at first. They stood back with folded arms, afraid to even make contact with the metal lip. Then Pat found a stick and began moving trash around. “I see half a bagel.”

“Grab it.”

He reached over the edge and retrieved the baked good. Then brushed off some coffee grounds and handed it to his wife.

She sniffed it, and pointed back in the trash bin. “Is that an egg roll?”

“I think so,” said Pat. He hung farther over the side and snagged it. “You were right.”

“Trade?”

They swapped and ate like they'd just crossed the Sahara.

A police car drove by. And kept going.

The couple dove for cover after the fact.

“Dammit,” said Pat. “Our guard was down. We were so busy digging for food that we forgot to stay alert and hide.”

“I think we
are
hiding.” Bar munched the egg roll. “Not bad.”

“What do you mean we're hiding?”

“Look at us.” Bar held out her arms. “Look what we've become. I'd cross the street if I saw us coming.”

“We do look kind of homeless,” said Pat.

“I think we've just turned invisible,” said Bar. “And technically we
are
homeless.”

“You might have something there.”

Bar got on her tiptoes and hinged at the waist, leaning deep into the trash bin. “I think it's a sticky bun. I can't reach it.”

“Let me help.”

“Just give me a boost. I'm almost there.”

Bar's fingertips brushed the pastry. “A little more . . .”

Suddenly the garbage in the bottom of the bin erupted. Napkins and old lettuce flew.

The couple screamed and fell back on the ground.

A head popped out of the Dumpster. “Oooo, don't feel so good. What day is it?” The head looked left and right. Then down. “Hey there. How's it going?”

“Who are you?” asked Pat.

“Lawrence.” He disappeared back into the bin. Heavy rustling sounds. Pat and Bar looked oddly at each other.

The head popped back up again. An arm raised an uncapped bottle of Boone's Farm. “My lucky day. A little left at the bottom.” He held it over the side. “Want some?”

“We'll pass.”

Lawrence shrugged and climbed out of the bin.

He smiled, then a different look. “Good Lord, what happened to you?” he asked Pat. “You look awful.”

“Is it that noticeable?” said Pat.

“Your face is all blotched and peeling with a bunch of red streaks,” said the stranger. “I've seen a lot of guys living out here, but you must have been on the streets forever.”

“Just this afternoon.”

“Jesus, man, pace yourself.”

“We're on vacation.”

“Me, too,” said Lawrence, staring at the welts on their arms. “Don't you know about fire ants?”

“We're from Wisconsin.”

“That's why I don't recognize you.”

“It's been a bad couple days.”

“Been there myself.” Lawrence drained the bottle and chucked it over his shoulder into the bin. “You'll be back on your feet in no time. Just look at me.”

They did.

“I'm a hedge-fund manager,” said Lawrence. “Or used to be.”

“The economy?” asked Pat.

Lawrence shook his head. “Big misunderstanding with human resources. Falsely accused of smoking crack. Okay, I smoked crack, but they made a big deal like I was a long-term addict when I just smoked a whole bunch in a short amount of time.”

A police car drove by. The couple flinched.

Lawrence cracked a smile. “I get it now. You've had your own little misunderstanding with the law.”

“We just need a place to stay low until after dark,” said Pat. “When we can sneak back to our motel room.”

Lawrence gestured behind himself at the trash bin as he walked away. “You can stay at my place. I'm not expecting company.”