Electric Barracuda (10 page)

“There it is,” said Lowe.

White pulled into the parking lot and looked up at cursive letters down the side of a building frozen in time.

“Now I get it,” said Lowe. “The Orange Bowl. A bowling alley.”

They went inside.

White tilted his head. “Lane three.”

Pins scattered, six-ten split. A man in a tweed coat and rumpled fedora grabbed another ball and addressed the spare. He began running and swung his arm back.

“Mahoney?”

Gutter ball.

He flicked a toothpick behind him. “Who’s chimin’?”

“What?” said White.

“Mahoney,” said Lowe. “I called you in Saint Pete.”

Mahoney formed a cynical smile. “Pokin’ the Serge lay-down?”

The partners looked oddly at each other.

They took seats around the scoring table and White leaned earnestly. “When was the last time you saw Serge?”

Mahoney reclined in the molded plastic chair. “Full-moon baker’s dozen in J-town, cashed out scraping leather on a midnight twist before the shield flash.”

White squinted. “I didn’t understand a word you just said.”

“He means a year ago in Jacksonville,” said Lowe. “Serge eluded police capture and escaped.” He turned to Mahoney. “And that’s what led to your last, uh, disability leave? This obsession thing?”

Mahoney just crossed his arms.

White leaned again. “What were you doing chasing Serge in Jacksonville? I thought you were under strict orders to stay away from him.”

“Not angling Serge,” said Mahoney. “James Donald Woodley.”

News flash. White’s expression changed. “The cop killer?”

Mahoney straightened the fedora’s brim. “Snitch coughed a handle to peg the crib. Dilly switcheroo-ski on the mark drop.”

“Do you always talk like this?”

“He means they found out Woodley’s alias,” said Lowe. “Tracked him down to a motel. Except it turned out to be Serge’s room.”

“Serge was using the same alias as a cop killer?” said White. “How did that happen?”

Mahoney shrugged.

“And this was the last time you saw him?” asked White.

“No face grab.”

“He didn’t actually see Serge,” said Lowe.

White looked at both of them. “Then how do you know he was there?”

Mahoney stared off across the empty lanes. “It’s all coming back to me now . . .”

White looked at Lowe. “What’s he doing?”

“I think he’s going into a fade-out.”

“No!” White snapped at Mahoney. “No fade-outs!”

Mahoney raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “Seems like just yesterday . . .”

. . . A
Plymouth with bald tires parked in darkness behind a long, graffiti-tagged building with concrete cracks from water seepage.

Doors slammed.

Two men headed for an even darker alley.

“Another thing that pisses me off,” said Serge. “Movie titles that are predicates.
Raising Helen, Feeling Minnesota, Regarding Henry . . .
wait, the last one’s a preposition. I hate that sentence-diagramming bullshit even more.”

Coleman crumpled a beer can. “I say:
Biting Me.
”

Serge stopped. “Coleman. You can conjugate.”

“Fuckin’-A.”

“You did it again.”

Six hours earlier, they had checked into an economy motel on Jacksonville’s hardworking west side. Only three cars in the lot. A neon sign with Arabic letters sizzled in the humid heat, someone on a flying carpet. The night manager ate cold chop suey behind bulletproof glass.

And now, after a robust day of souvenir gathering and crime fighting, Serge had returned. It was their first time at the motel, so he employed his patented precautionary tactic of parking a couple blocks south behind a Vietnamese grocery. If the stolen car was made, it couldn’t be connected to the room, and if the room was made, he had a stashed getaway vehicle. If neither happened, Serge would make Coleman chase him for fun.

They worked their way toward the motel through multiple alleys.

“Looks like the coast is clear,” said Serge. “Ready?”

“But I don’t want to chase you.”

They turned another corner.

Flashing red and blue lights reflected off the muffler shop next door.

Serge leaped back behind the building.

“What is it?” asked Coleman.

“Cops.”

“They found us! Let’s get out of here!”

“There’s no way they could have found us.” Serge peeked around the corner. “I used my backtracking, triple-reverse cloaking fugitive maneuver. Besides, have you seen how busy the police are in this town? Probably some other wanted felon.”

Serge slipped into the alley that led to the front of the motel.

“What the hell are you doing?” said Coleman.

“Going to see the takedown.” Serge stepped around puddles. “Takedowns crack me up:
I’m not resisting! Stop hitting me with batons! I can’t breathe with your knee on my back! Don’t do the choke hold! That’s the choke hold! Grahhhsfdjgpaojdsg
. . . How can you not laugh at excessive force?”

They slowly crept up the alley and poked their heads around the next corner.

“Holy mother,” said Serge. “I’ve never seen so many patrol cars. Like a thousand cops and . . . why are they surrounding our room?”

“Told you,” said Coleman.

“Must be some kind of mistake.” Serge pulled back until only one eye was at the edge of the motel.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Crash!

“What was that?” asked Coleman.

“The SWAT team just went in and . . . Uh-oh.” Serge began backing up with uncharacteristic fear.

“What’d you see?”

“Mahoney!” Serge quietly turned around. “So they
are
after us. Let’s just creep back to the car.”

Coleman began making exaggerated tiptoe steps like he was in a cartoon.

They almost reached the back of the alley, ready to make a dash into the safety of darkness. Serge breathed easier.

Suddenly, from behind, a bath of bright white light.

They spun and shielded their eyes from the headlights of another patrol car that had just pulled up the drive. “Shit!” Serge turned back around. “Walk faster.”

Car doors.

“Police! Don’t move! Get your hands in the air!”

Serge froze and clenched his eyes shut with a wince.

A different officer’s voice: “Now walk backward and keep those hands up!”

The pair complied until they were ten feet from the cops.

“Stop right there! Now turn around very slowly!”

They did.

Two police officers, one aiming a 9mm, the other with a flashlight. Its beam hit their faces. More reflexive squinting.

“You staying at the motel?”

“Yes,” said Serge. Then, preemptively: “Room twelve.”

The second officer aimed his flashlight down at a mug shot, then looked at his partner. “Neither one of them’s him.”

“You sure?”

“Not even close.”

The first officer looked up at Serge and Coleman. “Seen the guy staying in room seven?”

“Nope, just checked in.” Serge felt the brass key to room seven burning red-hot in his pocket. “Why? What did he do?”

“That’s not your concern,” the cop said as he walked away. “But you might want to stay at another motel.”

“Thank you, Officer.”

They took off, snaking back through the network of dark alleys for their getaway car. Broken glass broke into smaller pieces under their shoes.

“What just happened?” asked Coleman.

“Divine intervention,” said Serge. “We’ll know more from the late news.”

Two hours later, another twenty-nine-dollars-a-day dump. Peeling wallpaper and soggy stains in the avocado carpet. Serge and Coleman sat propped up in a lumpy bed, sharing a bag of barbecue chips. Their faces glowed from the room’s original, flickering Magnavox. The TV newscast ended.

“So that’s why there were so many patrol cars,” said Serge. “They were after a cop killer.”

“But you’ve never killed a cop.”

“And I never will.” Serge popped a chip in his mouth. “But Franklin Ignatius Turnville did.”

“Who’s Franklin Ignatius Turnville? . . .”

. . . M
ahoney blinked a few times, coming out of his transfixed gaze. He turned back toward the agents. “And that’s my last brush with Serge.”

Lowe leaned and whispered to his boss. “But how did his fade-out have the perspective of the suspects if he was in front of the motel and never saw them?”

White shook his head not to pursue it.

Bowling pins clacked. The manager sprayed disinfectant in rented shoes. Lowe translated for Mahoney. . . .

White finally sat back in his chair. “So you discovered Serge was there by reviewing tape from the dashboard camera of that cruiser?”

Mahoney nodded.

“That’s quite a coincidence,” said the agent. “Using the same alias as that cop killer.”

Lowe opened a textbook. “Not as much as you’d think. I’ve been studying false IDs, and it’s actually a very common technique—”

“Please,” said White, then to Mahoney: “And that’s the last you’ve heard of him?”

A slighter nod. Mahoney conveniently omitted the whole string of spring break murders, when he was supposed to be on medical leave. He’d sworn to take Serge down. And almost did. Even had him at gunpoint in Fort Lauderdale. But they both lived by a mutual code of honor, and Serge had exposed himself to assist police. He wanted Serge more than anything, but not like that.

Mahoney got up from the table, grabbed a heavy black ball that lost its shine in 1962 and rolled another split. He returned and put his hand over the dryer.

“Sure could use your help,” said Agent Lowe, opening a file on the table. “We’ve gone back ten years—every last sighting, victims, motel rooms, ditched cars.”

“Goose eggs?” said Mahoney.

“Do you have the slightest lead we might follow?” asked White. “Even the most long-shot detail that might seem irrelevant?”

“Ducats to dice on the heel-cooler shimmy-sham.”

“What?”

Mahoney grabbed another ball. “I know his next stop.”

“You do?” said Lowe. “Where?”

“Kissimmee.”

“Here?”

Mahoney picked up the split and marked it on his scorecard.

“But how do you know?” asked White. “We’ve been poring through ten boxes of reports around the clock.”

Another ball popped out of the chute. Mahoney stuck fingers in holes and addressed the fresh set of pins. “Serge has a website.”

Chapter Five

Miami

A
quiet hacienda off Calle Ocho in Little Havana.

Chi-Chi’s granddaughter’s place. He’d been in assisted living before the hospital stay, but his family wasn’t having that now with time short.

Three generations filled the home, taking turns in the bedroom. And of course the old gang.

Coltrane popped his head in the door. “Roy, got a second?”

“What is it?”

“Better we talk out back.”

They stepped onto the porch and closed the sliding-glass door. “Got a problem.”

“What kind?”

“Money. We were doing a little advance planning, you know, funeral home.”

“If his family’s short, we can all pitch in,” said Roy. “They know that.”

“It’s a little worse. You might want to go home and check your portfolio.”

“I’m not following.”

“That attorney of ours, Brad Meltzer?”

“Came highly recommended,” said Roy. “Handles all our estates, starting back with Sergio.”

“It’s gone.”

“Yeah, everyone’s taken a beating in the market.”

“Not the market,” said Coltrane. “Brad moved stuff around recently with his accountant. He’s got it offshore.”

“How do you know?”

“After we saw Chi-Chi’s situation, I looked at mine. Then called Tommy Junior . . .” He leaned against a concrete statue on the porch.

“That’s the Virgin Mary!”

Coltrane looked down. “Oops.” He quickly lifted his arm. “Anyway, we took all our paperwork to another accountant this morning. Guy said it was all completely slimy and totally legitimate. We left a ton of messages, but Brad won’t return our calls.”

“How could this have happened?” asked Roy.

Coltrane shook his head. “We gave him power of attorney, and he covered himself with a whole pile of Latin bullshit disclaimers.”