Electric Barracuda (17 page)

“We have our first caller!” said Carson.

White ran back to the couch as the host pressed a blinking button and grabbed the receiver. “
Florida’s Most Wanted.
You’re on the air!”

“I fronted you ten grams, Izzy! Where’s my fucking money? . . .”

Carson hung up and grinned. “Sorry, we get that a lot at this hour.”

Mahoney whipped a toothpick to the floor and pulled the giant steel microphone to his mouth. “Zotz it, you mumbling haircut. Serge prowls the night jim, packing gat and itching to squirt metal. So iron the sideways, or I’ll paste your beezer and we dangle.”

“I love this guy!” said Carson. “Switch seats with Green . . . So what are you, undercover as a mental patient?”

Chapter Twelve

Gulf of Mexico

A
hundred flecks of light twirled around the room.

Coleman looked up at the spinning mirrored ball. “I don’t get it.”

“Disco night,” said Serge. “They’re doing a seventies theme.”

“But how is this a ‘cruise to nowhere’?”

“Ship sails out of Tampa Bay, just past the edge of international water so they can legally play slots and blackjack. Then the boat does a bunch of circles in the water before heading back to the original dock. Hence, ‘nowhere.’ First-timers think it’s going to be a jolly evening until they discover they’re being held prisoner.”

“Prisoner?”

“. . . Shake, shake, shake, shake your booty! . . .”

“These cruises are brutal marathons. They set out in bright sunlight. And after a few hours of gambling, eating and dancing, they’ve had a nice time and are ready to head home. But no! They can’t escape! Helpless, grabbing the rails in terror, looking for a shore that is nowhere in sight. ‘Dear Jesus, will this boat never stop going in circles?’ ”

Coleman chugged a rumrunner. “But why the seventies?”

“. . . Stayin’ alive! Stayin’ alive! Ooo, ooo, ooo . . .”

“Shrewd business tactic. ‘Honey, I forgot how much I love disco. Let’s dance!’ Then, when it turns gruesome after midnight: ‘I forgot how much I hate disco. Please make this hell end!’ And the only option is to flee into the casino, drink heavily and blow the mortgage on roulette. Then finally in the wee hours, the boat heads back and serves greasy cheeseburgers and fries to soak up booze, until they reach the dock, where a million cabs are waiting like pelicans for passengers who can no longer remember what kind of car they drive.”

“I don’t see the problem,” said Coleman.

“Because you’re a professional. But imagine if an average, upstanding citizen was forced to live like you.”

“I see that every New Year’s,” said Coleman. “They’re annoying to be around. Slapping you on the back and laughing for no reason.”

“Or suddenly bursting into tears, confiding how they once stuck their dick someplace ridiculous.”

“That’s always awkward.”

“But it’s definitely an icebreaker.”

Coleman pointed at something Serge had just pulled from his pocket. “Cotton balls?”

“. . . I’m just a love machine . . .”

“Fugitive Tip Seventy-eight.” He ripped open the plastic Johnson & Johnson package. “Desperadoes always have to stay ahead of science, and the latest threat is facial-recognition programs. First they were just in airports, but now some cities even have cameras up on light poles, panning downtown streets to match against a national crime database. Not to mention nearly every casino, except they’re looking for blackballed gambling cheats.”

“Does this boat have them?”

“Doubt it,” said Serge. “But since it’s like a casino, I’ll pretend and test my techniques to blog the faithful cyber-audience how to defeat the software.”

“With cotton?”

“The public generally thinks computers try to compare your face, when actually they’re just looking for five or six specific recognition measurements. Ear length, nose width, distance between eyes and so on. If you can alter at least three points, it won’t register a match.” Serge gave Coleman a handful of cotton balls. “Just do what I do.”

They both crammed cotton balls up their nostrils. Serge pulled a roll of first-aid tape from his pocket and tore off four strips.

Coleman pulled a finger from his nose. “What do we do with that?”

“Tape your ears forward.”

“How far?”

“Fold them all the way over like I’m doing . . . Then take this black Magic Marker and color in the top of your forehead so it appears your hairline is two inches lower.”

Finally, Serge handed him more cotton. “Now fill both cheeks with as much as you can stand.”

They finished.

“Mdmlakjgd?
” said Coleman.

“Lfhoahfdi?
” said Serge.

Coleman emptied cotton from his cheeks. “How do I look?”

Serge emptied his. “I can’t hear you.”

“What?” said Coleman.

They untaped their ears.

“I said, ‘How do I look?’ ”

“Perfect,” said Serge. “Now we’ll go totally unnoticed.”

They replaced the tape and cotton, and went to the lounge.

The bartender had his back to them, switching out empty bottles. He turned around; his natural smile became forced as he assessed his latest customers: cotton hanging out of nostrils, bandaged ears, chipmunk cheeks, colored-in foreheads. Except Coleman had trouble coloring within the lines, and there were several stray marks across his eyelids and lips.

But it was after midnight, and the bartender had seen worse. “What can I get you guys?”

“Gkjlskdjsd
,
”
said Coleman.

“What?” said the bartender.

“
Jogjakkd
(What)?” said Coleman.

Serge pointed at a bottle of water.
“Pfddinsdn.”

Coleman pointed at whiskey.
“Rosnkdslf.”

They were served. The bartender aimed a remote control at the TV on the wall, turning up the volume on his favorite show. “You guys like
Florida’s Most Wanted
?”

“Sodnjslkjg.”

“Me, too,” said the bartender. “I never miss an episode. The crimes are a scream. This one guy broke into a home, waving a gun and demanding only an eggbeater . . .”

Photos of Serge and Coleman appeared on screen.

“Man, check out those mug shots,” said the bartender.

Serge and Coleman glanced nervously at each other.

The barkeep stepped forward for a closer look at the TV. “I’m sure I’d recognize those guys anywhere, especially the fat, ugly one.” He turned back around to face a pair of wide-eyed customers. “You fellas okay?”

Serge nodded.
“Hejdfkdls.”

The duo waved and walked off with their drinks. As soon as they were around the corner, out came the cotton and off with the tape.

Coleman grabbed his chest. “That was too close.”

“I couldn’t be happier,” said Serge, scribbling in his notebook. “My trial run went better than I even imagined, holding up under a close-quarters in-person encounter, which is more rigorous than cameras.”

“I smell cheeseburgers,” said Coleman.

“That means we’re close to land.”

They retired to the afterdeck with a crowd of staggering gamblers for early-morning drunk food.

The bartender closed up shop and joined his colleagues serving from the grill. Passengers laughed, cried, lay facedown on tables.

Coleman munched onion rings and strolled over to Serge in the chow line. “You wouldn’t believe where this guy just told me he put his wiener.”

The captain navigated the channel back through Johns Pass and eased toward the dock on the opposite side the waterway.

Serge reached the front of the line. “Cheeseburger, please.”

“There you go.” It was the bartender. He looked at Serge, then Coleman. He scratched his head.

“Excuse me,” said the next customer. “Can I get something to eat?”

“What? Oh, sure thing.” He began filling a plate, still watching Serge and Coleman move down the line.

Then it hit.

“Oh my God!”

A plate fell. The bartender ran.

“Hey, my food!”

The ship eased into its berth, and the shore crew secured davit lines. Taxi drivers waited next to a sea of yellow cabs in the parking lot.

The bartender reached the nearest phone and dialed a number he knew by heart.

Ten Miles Away in Clearwater

Three state agents and a local-access TV host sat at a table, staring at a bank of non-ringing phones. Ready to throw in the towel.

“We haven’t gotten any calls,” said White.

“We’ve gotten a
ton
of calls,” said the host.

“But they were all wrecked and laughing at us,” said Lowe. “Or wrong numbers for phone sex.”

White stood and grabbed his coat. “I’m bagging it.”

The phone rang.

“Another call!” exclaimed the host.

“Send us a Western Union,” said Mahoney.

Carson grabbed the receiver. “
Florida’s Most Wanted
. . . Yeah . . . uh-huh . . . Where? Right now? . . . Hold on.”

The agents were almost out the door.

Carson covered the phone. “Come back! We got a real tip! It’s my first one!”

White turned with a tired look. “What is it?”

“Gambling ship just came into Johns Pass. Bartender recognized both.”

“False alarm,” said White. “There’s no way they could be on that ship.”

Mahoney grinned wryly. “Bunk-a-lamma ding-ding.”

“Will you speak English?”

“Only one road out of Cedar Key. How do you think he evaded your roadblocks?”

“I don’t know, but he did.”

“Cedar Key,” said Mahoney. “Farm-raised clam capital of the country. And you know what they have almost as much of as cars on that island?”

“Clam boats. Shit.” White ran out the door . . .

A Crown Vic raced down Gulf Boulevard with a red bubble light flashing on the dashboard. White hopped a curb and cut through a parking lot, squealing up to the docks at Johns Pass.

The bartender headed toward them when he saw the police light.

White jumped out. “Where are they?”

The bartender pointed. “Just left.”

“Which one are they in?”

“Lost track,” said the bartender. “They all look the same.”

Three agents watched as a mass migration of identical yellow cabs headed back to the mainland.

Chapter Thirteen

Cyberspace

S
erge’s Blog. Star Date 201.538.

Listen up, gang, because this will be real important later, like foreshadowing.

Florida’s population boomed in the 1920s. Both coasts. In fact, Fort Myers on the gulf side was even bigger than Miami. Commerce ready to gush. Except no road to connect the two sides of the state. And a not-so-small hurdle in between.

The Everglades.

“Tamiami” is a contraction of “Tampa to Miami.” As in the Tamiami Trail. That’s the dream that businessmen had to bridge eighty bad miles across the swamp.

They said it couldn’t be done.

But they’d never seen a Walking Dredge.

It crawled across the glades like a mechanical dinosaur, scooping earth from beneath the swamp and building an elevated causeway ahead of it as it went.

The east and west thirds of the Tamiami were agreed upon. The argument lay in the middle. Entrepreneurs envisioned draining the swamp and making a ransom from a bunch of buildings. Whoever’s land the trail went through stood to make a killing.

Two parties faced off. Barron Collier proposed a northern route through the county that would later bear his name. The Chevelle Corporation advocated a parallel course to the south, through its holdings in Monroe County. They didn’t wait for an official answer—“build it and they will come”—and so they did.

Collier finally won out, and to this day, only the first few paved miles of the Chevelle road spurs off from Forty Mile Bend. The rest of the would-be, twenty-four-mile route is an unmaintained logging road that connects back to the Tamiami at Monroe Station. At best, it’s the ultimate washboard. At worst, it’s washed out most of the year except the dry season, when rangers from Big Cypress fill gaps where the swamp breached. Thick vegetation hugs the shoulders. Tiny bridges without guardrails, barely as wide as your wheelbase. At better spots, oncoming cars must ride up in the brush to pass. It’s literally impossible to turn around. You have to wait for alligators to get out of way, and they aren’t in a hurry.