Electric Barracuda (24 page)

“I saw one of those in Boca Raton,” said Coleman. “It was a slow fight.”

“Second, it’s Warm Mineral Springs,” said Serge. “Opened 1954, one of the last thriving pre-Disney roadside attractions. A one-and-a-half-acre swimming area over a spring-fed, two-hundred-and-thirty-foot-deep hourglass sinkhole connected to the Floridan aquifer and pumping nine million gallons a day. Then there’s my fondness of the weird for which I’ve become widely known. Remember our walk out here from the admission window?”

“That was freaky.”

“Totally surreal, like those near-death experiences you always hear about. The building had this super-long breezeway that creates a dark tunnel with a bright dot of light at the end where you finally emerge at this spring. And along the way, piped-in celestial music.”

“That was creepy, too. I’ve never heard music like that.”

“Neither have I. It’s like if you took a Muzak song, and made a Muzak version of
that
. Then we came out of the tunnel, and there were all these happy, super-old folks frolicking in this cheerful water park.”

“Do you think heaven’s like that?”

“Could be worse,” said Serge. “You know all those pushy people who keep telling us we’re not going to heaven? It could be full of them instead.”

Coleman made a face. “But everyone here’s so . . . wrinkled.”

“Coleman, respect your elders!” said Serge. “I know I do. I see some ninety-year-old dude driving ten miles an hour, clutching the steering wheel to his face. Everyone else impatiently honks, but I say, ‘Rock on!’ and shoot him a gray-power fist salute. You have to give a guy like that credit, if only for excellent attendance.” Serge turned to the group of seniors nearest him and waved. “You’re my heroes! I love absolutely everything you’re doing with this whole ‘not dying’ thing!”

They quickly waded away.

“Where was I?” asked Serge.

“Warm Mineral Springs.”

“That’s right.” Serge interlaced his fingers on the pond’s surface and made water squirt. “Brochures tout it as the Original Fountain of Youth.”

“But Serge,” said Coleman. “How can they make such a fantastic claim?”

“That’s probably what the people who sell tickets in St. Augustine want to know. I’ve been expecting a rumble for years, drive-bys in Buicks and Oldsmobiles, raking each other’s signs with automatic fire. I even offered my services to this place to put the arm on the competition, walking down the customer line in Saint Aug to correct the historical record. I actually did that, purely on spec.”

“How’d it go?”

“I was only trying to explain that the fountain obviously isn’t where Ponce de Leon explored, except the older tourists today are jumpy and overreact when I whisper, ‘You want to live, don’t you?’ ”

“So you think this place might be for real?”

“The science is behind it. They’ve got the highest mineral content in the United States. Feel any younger?”

Coleman lay on his back. “I just feel like I’m floating higher.”

“Minerals give you more buoyancy.”

“Buoyancy is good?”

“In a sinkhole, better than the alternative.”

Coleman paddled his arms. “Where do these people get their connection to the Fountain of Youth?”

“That’s the funny part.” Serge floated on his own back. “They say that after Ponce de Leon got disgusted with Saint Augustine, he brought his search for the fountain to Florida’s west coast, making landfall in 1521 at Port Charlotte, just a few miles from here, arguably to find this spring.”

“Did he find it?”

“No, Indians killed him with arrows.”

“Isn’t that like the reverse of the Fountain of Youth?” asked Coleman.

“Doesn’t seem to have hurt business.”

Skid Marks floated over and blew a small fountain of water in the air. “Serge, imagine my surprise that we would team up again. How long now?”

“Been meaning to keep in touch, but one thing after another.”

“Sorry about your granddad.”

“Appreciate it.”

Coleman wiped a pool booger. “You knew Serge’s granddad?”

“Met a few times,” said Skid Marks. “My grandfather and his, back in the old days . . .”

“The gang was legendary,” said Serge.

Skid Marks smiled. “And talk about trouble.”

“Wait,” Coleman said to Serge. “You mean
the
gang, like Chi-Chi and Coltrane and Roy the Pawn King that you keep telling me about, running the bookie and fence rackets?”

“That’s them,” said Serge. “Miami Beach fixtures.”

Skid Marks reclined on his back again. “Nobody remembers anymore. No respect.”

“Which one was your granddad?” asked Coleman.

“Greek Tommy.”

Serge adjusted the inflatable swim fins on his arms. “Tommy expanded the business. One of the best drivers for hire.”

“Driver?” said Coleman. “Like getaway?”

“No, moonshine running,” said Serge. “In the off-season, when the tourists went home and gambling dried up, they made deliveries from the many stills hidden throughout the Everglades. But it took a lot of talent behind the wheel because cops were usually waiting.”

“They all knew about the gang,” said Skid Marks. “But they were never able to pin anything.”

“Tommy was incredible,” said Serge. “Forget what you see in the movies. He knew every back road, every puddle and mud hole and maneuver to get pursuing police stuck. Or take a blind turn and send them sailing into the swamp. Like I said, the best.”

“And
your
granddad was the craziest,” said Skid Marks. “Lost as many loads as he delivered.”

“But never got caught,” said Serge.

Skid Marks laughed. “Because the cops were too smart to chase a lunatic like that.”

“Those were the glory days.”

“And of course the Gator Hook.”

“What’s a gator hook?” asked Coleman.

“Generally, a hooked pole poachers use to prod alligators out of their holes,” said Serge. “But in this case, a landmark lodge in the middle of the Everglades on the Loop Road.”

“Remember that night our granddads took us out there?” said Skid Marks.

“Like it was five minutes ago . . .”

Everglades 1964

Two Cadillacs bounced down the Loop Road.

An airboat hopped out of the swamp and came the other way. They parked next to each other in bright gravel outside a plain building with an open door. The floor was bare and so were a lot of the feet.

Wailing bluegrass.

Greek Tommy knew the place well. It was on his regular route, except he didn’t make any deliveries there. His “safe spot.” The cops all knew his car and he was constantly picking up tails. If Tommy wasn’t holding, he’d just drop in at the Gator Hook Lodge. And when they came to roust him: “I’m just here for the music.”

On this particular night in late October, the Miami Beach gang hopped from DeVilles and started toward the door. “Anyone carrying a knife or gun?” asked Tommy.

“No,” said Coltrane. “That sign says they’re not allowed.”

“Why do you think they need that sign?” asked Tommy. “Stay here. I’ll go back to the cars and get some.”

That kind of place.

They went inside and pulled tables together. Half the customers already stewed. Beer arrived. Someone fell across their tables. He laughed and rolled in sawdust until friends dragged him outside.

Chi-Chi turned the tables back up. “I’ll get more drinks.”

Coltrane looked around. “What’s going on?”

“What do you mean?” said Tommy.

“It just got a lot quieter.”

“Because they’re waiting for
him
,” said Tommy.

“Him?”

“Ervin Rouse.”

“Who’s that?”

“Ever heard of ‘The Orange Blossom Special’?”

“Who hasn’t? Considered the best fiddle song ever written.”

“Rouse wrote it back in the 1930s. Got the idea late one night hanging out at the Jacksonville train platform to see the arrival of this fantastic new train everyone was talking about.”

“What’s that got to do with this place?”

“Ervin lives like a hermit a spit away from here on the Loop Road.”

“You had me going.” Coltrane laughed. “A world-famous musician living in one of the most remote spots of the Everglades.”

“He’s not kidding,” said Sergio. “I know about this.”

“Don’t you start, too.”

“Here’s the coolest part,” said Greek Tommy. “On Saturday nights—like tonight—Ervin just strolls up the road with his fiddle, walks into this funky little outback joint and starts playing ‘The Orange Blossom Special.’ ”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” said Coltrane.

Greek Tommy picked up his grandson Skid Marks and set the boy on his lap. Except back then he was just called Bobby. The grandfather looked toward a small stage in the corner and whispered something in the child’s ear.

Sergio did the same with Little Serge. “See that microphone over there?”

Little Serge nodded enthusiastically.

“Keep watching it,” said Sergio. “You’ll see something historic you can tell your children about.”

Bang
.

Coltrane jumped. “That sounded like gunfire.”

“It was,” said Tommy, eyes remaining on the corner stage. “A tradition. They’re shooting off the back porch.”

Coltrane looked through the open rear door. “At what?”

“Dynamite.”

“Dynamite?”

“Up in the fork of a tree. Winner gets free beer.”

Bang
.

Tommy pointed. “Here he is.”

A grizzled old man walked across the room, wearing a shirt that looked like it was woven by Seminoles. He reached the microphone and raised his fiddle in the air to acknowledge the applause.

Everyone piped down. The old man rested a bow atop the strings—and he was off, playing furiously to an even louder eruption of appreciation.

“. . . Comin’ down that railroad track . . .”

“I wouldn’t have believed it,” said Coltrane.

Bang
.

“. . . It’s The Orange Blossom Special . . .”

Bang, bang.

“They’re still shooting at dynamite?”

Tommy looked around. “Where’s Little Serge?”

“Over there on the back porch with Sergio,” said Coltrane. “What’s he doing letting him have that gun?”

Bang. BOOM.

“Little Serge just won beer.”

“. . . Goin’ down to Florida! . . .”

Chapter Twenty-one

Present

T
hey all had a good laugh in the tepid waters of Warm Mineral Springs.

“Man, that takes me back,” said Skid Marks. “The Gator Hook, ‘Orange Blossom,’ Granddad . . .”

“Memories,” said Serge. “But that isn’t even close to the best stories . . .”

A few hundred yards away, outside the ticket booth, a redhead in a T-Bird sat under a coconut palm, keeping her eye on the only two motorcycles in the parking lot.

“Your
great
-granddad,” said Serge. “Now, that was the high-water mark.”

“Crazy Murphy?” Skid Marks did the backstroke. “Yeah, my granddad told me all about him.”

“Not to take anything away from the gang,” said Serge. “Moonshine running in the sixties was no piece of cake. But Prohibition—now, that was the real action. What I wouldn’t give! . . . I can see it all . . .” Serge stared up at the sky. “. . . Me and Coleman racing through the swamp with a full load of hooch, Eliot Ness on our tail, tommy guns shooting out my tires, but no surrender! Escaping into the glades on foot like chain-gang refugees, just ahead of the bloodhounds, dragging Coleman behind me . . .”

“Serge! Stop dragging me around the water!”

“. . . Then we hook up with my trusty Indian guide, Breaking Wind, who makes us invisible to the White Man and we flee by dugout canoe to Chokoloskee Bay . . .”

“Serge,” said Skid Marks. “I think you should calm down. Everyone’s staring again.”

“But I’m invisible to the White Man.”

“Serge, please . . .”

“I’m always born too late.” He smiled and looked up. “Is it true Crazy Murphy worked for Capone?”

“More like only the occasional delivery,” said Skid Marks. “Capone had this wild place just over the Monroe line.”

“Damn, I wish I could have seen that,” said Serge.

“It was long gone by the time of the Gator Hook, but people still talked about it.”

“And now even the Gator Hook’s a pile of rubble.”