Electric Barracuda (40 page)

“There!”

Coleman saw a weather-beaten two-story clapboard building with boarded-up windows. “What is that place?”

“Monroe Station. Travelers’ oasis back in the forties. Gas pumps long gone.” Serge cut the wheel hard right. “It marks the beginning of the road.”

The Barracuda barreled toward where no road seemed to be.

Coleman covered his eyes. “We’re going to crash in those trees.”

“No, we’re not.” Serge hit the high beams and a small gap appeared at the edge of the woods. “Watch your heads. It’s going to get rough.”

Into nothingness they went.

The Barracuda bounced wildly on the washboard dirt surface. Branches scraped both sides of the car as tires left the ground.

Serge constantly jerked the steering wheel back and forth to avoid crater-size potholes. “Anything?”

“Still dark,” said Coleman. “Just lost a hubcap . . . How does anyone pass the other way on a road this narrow?”

Serge splashed through a washed-out patch of mud. “That’s a problem . . .”

Behind on the Tamiami, a Crown Vic sped east.

Mahoney looked out the window at a broken-down building. “Stop! Pronto!”

White hit the brakes. The trailing deputy swung out into the oncoming lane to avoid a rear-ender.

“What is it?” asked White. “See Serge?”

“No, Monroe Station.”

“You made me almost wreck for that?”

“Marks the beginning of the Loop Road.”

“What’s the Loop?”

Mahoney delayed his answer. He looked ahead up at the Tamiami, then south toward a small, desolate opening into the swamp. Decision time. “Sixty-forty Serge took the Loop. Hang a rico.”

White knew there was no cushion for small talk. He stomped the gas, slinging through the gravel parking lot of the former filling station.

The radio crackled. It was the deputy.
“You not taking the Loop?”

“Playing the odds.” White accelerated and aimed his car at a tiny hole punched into the edge of the swamp.

The radio again:
“You sure you want to go down the Loop? At
night
?”

“What’s the matter?” asked White.

“I know some of the most fearless cops who won’t . . . I mean, maybe I should go with you.”

“No,” said White. “I need you to keep heading up the Tamiami in case we’re wrong.”

“Ten-four.”

The deputy accelerated east, and the Crown Vic disappeared . . .

Chapter Thirty-nine

The Loop Road

A
n electric blue Barracuda crashed through more branches and went high on a bank in a tight bend.

Serge snaked through the swamp as fast as he could, which was about thirty. Then over occasional creek bridges that seemed barely engineered for foot traffic. Wood storks and cranes and vultures flew off in the headlights.

They rode out the bone-jarring run in silence. A sharp right below the Monroe County line put them on a straightaway. A tight alley of trees perfectly lined up with a crescent moon rising from the east.

A half hour in, Coleman grabbed his queasy stomach. “How far do we have to go?”

“About twenty miles.”

Another hubcap sailed.

“How far have we gone?”

“Eighteen . . . Alligator!” Serge slammed the brakes with both feet.

Coleman and Mikey watched breathlessly as the gator took its time, its nose into the brush on one side of the road before its tail had finished clearing the other.

Serge hit the gas.

“Lights,” said Coleman.

“What?”

“I see some lights back there. A car’s coming.”

Serge swerved again. “Actual bulbs or just the ends of the beams?”

“Just beams hitting some branches way back there.”

“Probably hasn’t seen our taillights yet.” He looked in the rearview. The beams behind him began straightening out, slowly swinging toward the rear of the Barracuda. “Damn!” Serge looked ahead. Still a good fifty yards to the next bend. He floored it.

The front wheels took flight, then violently slammed down, popping the back end up . . . They cleared the bend, just as the headlights behind them lit up the trees.

“I hate to do this,” said Serge.

“Do what?” said Coleman.

Serge punched out his own lights.

“Jesus!” yelled Coleman. “I can’t see anything. How can you drive?”

Serge sideswiped a cypress. “I’m using the moon.”

“Will you be able to see if there’s another gator?”

“No.”

A hard left, then right, another left, another brief airborne adventure. Serge hit redial on his cell and cut left again. “Lucky? We’re almost home. It’s going to be tight—got someone crawling up my ass . . .”

“Gate’s open. How far?”

“Couple hundred yards.”

“I don’t see your lights.”

“Had to cut them.”

“You what!”

Coleman tried holding his stomach down. “Lights back there again.”

Serge, into the cell: “Almost there. But I can’t see your place. Where are you?”

“I hear your engine. Get ready . . .”

“Don’t see anything.”

“You got company. Lights . . .”

“Still don’t see anything.”

“You’ll have to trust me and turn blind,” said Lucky. “I’ll time it with the sound of your car . . .”

“Everyone hang on!” yelled Serge.

Lucky: “Three . . . two . . . one . . . turn!”

Serge cut the wheel, barely missing the left side of a solid, eight-foot-tall wooden stockade fence. But he was inside. Both feet on the brakes, the Barracuda sliding sideways. Behind them, bright lights and another engine sound.

An unseen man swung the gate shut. Then he hit the ground. They all held their breaths as the Crown Vic slowed. A search beam sent slits of light through fence panels, hitting bushes concealing the Barracuda.

The Vic sped back up. Everyone remained still inside the fence until the other vehicle’s sound finally dissolved into a quiet rustling of trees.

Exhales.

Car doors opened. Serge got the customary bear hug that raised him off the ground. “You crazy bastard!”

“Good to see you, too, Lucky. You can put me down now.”

“Who’ve you got with you?”

“Throwing up in your yard is my backup man, Coleman.”

Lucky smiled. “Bumpy ride?”

“Yeah, but he does that anyway, so there’s no baseline.”

Coleman came over. “Sorry about the puke. Can I see nude women?”

Something darted behind them through the darkness. Lucky’s head swung to the side. “What the hell was that?”

“Shit.” Serge took off in a sprint. “Forgot the leash.”

Lucky stepped next to Coleman, watching Serge’s silhouette zigzag off into the night. “Did Serge bring some kind of wild animal in here with him?”

“Yes,” said Coleman.

Two forms eventually returned across the lawn: One tall, the other . . .

“A child?” said Lucky.

“My son,” said Serge. He looked down. “Meet Uncle Lucky.”

“Well, hello, little fella . . . Ow!” Lucky rubbed his shin.

Serge jerked the end of the leash. “Just found out.”

The left side of Lucky’s mouth curled into a grin. “Wondering when you’d get to meet Mikey.”

“What do you mean— . . . Wait, I didn’t tell you his name.”

“Molly, right?”

Another surprised look. “How do
you
know Molly?”

“Remember the old joke,” said Lucky. “ ‘Have any naked pictures of your wife?’ ”

“Right,” said Serge. “And the guy answers, ‘No.’ ”

“And the punch line,” said Lucky. “ ‘Want some?’ ”

Serge smacked himself in the forehead. “Don’t tell me.” Then a knowing smile. “You always had an eye for redheads.”

A deep laugh. “That I do.” He simultaneously slapped Serge and Coleman hard on the backs. “Why don’t we go up and sit on the porch.”

Chapter Forty

Five
A.M.

T
he Tamiami Trail looked like some kind of chain-reaction traffic pileup, or hazardous materials disaster.

Scores of flashing red and blue lights. Countless police jurisdictions. Cars parked every which way at Forty Mile Bend.

Highway flares.

The command post.

All the brass were on the scene, poring over the same map spread across the hood of a Crown Vic. Agent White stretched his arms, touching a pair of spots on opposite sides. “Can we get a couple more roadblocks at each end of the Tamiami?”

“Shouldn’t be a problem,” said a Collier sergeant. “We’ll put out a press release diverting incoming traffic to Alligator Alley. But I suggest moving the western checkpoint over here so we don’t have to cover 29 . . .”

“. . . Then it’s down to just a few back roads into the swamp that have no way out,” said a lieutenant from Miami-Dade. “We can get a chopper up at dawn and send prowler cars in for the sweep.”

“Appreciate it,” said White.

“One question,” asked the lieutenant, looking up the road at a bunch of vehicles waiting on the side of the highway. “Who are all those people?”

White sighed. “Apparently this case has attracted a lot of attention.”

In the background, Agent Mahoney stood next to a junior officer. “Brass knuckles?”

“No thanks.”

The Loop Road

“Can I borrow a flashlight?” asked Coleman.

“What for?” said Serge, sitting in peaceful darkness.

Coleman walked around the porch. “He’s got all these framed pictures of babes on the wall. But I can’t see them too good.”

“One on that table,” said Lucky. “Knock yourself out.”

The beam slowly moved over the photos. “Got a question,” said Coleman. “How come the guys in that police car didn’t knock on the gate or break it in. It’s one of the first places we could have pulled off the road.”

“But not the last,” said Serge.

“It’s the Loop,” said Lucky. “Always been outlaw country. I remember back in the seventies, there were all these really bad guys—warrants, killers, anything—burrowed deep off the logging roads just east of here. The cops knew, but they didn’t
want to know
, if you get my drift.”

“It’s calmed down since,” said Serge. “Still, there’s a handful of privacy fences like Lucky’s, and some spooky driveways with K
EEP
O
UT
! and G
O
A
WAY
! signs.”

“And they mean it,” said Lucky.

Serge looked at the sky. “Starting to get light.”

Lucky rubbed his knees and stood. “Better put that car under cover before the helicopters.”

They drove the Barracuda under some trees and threw netting over it. Then a layer of branches and leaves. “That should do it,” said Lucky.

Serge looked east. “Sun’s coming up.”

“Let me show you around . . .”

The growing daylight revealed the extent of Lucky Cole’s private compound, the residue of decades of personality: several small wooden buildings and sheds and mobile homes with more makeshift wooden structures growing off the side. A screened Quonset hut for a pet goose and another with a prize apiary. Near the gate was a doghouse with a sign, Very Dead Dog, and what appeared to be such inside. A shack covered with license plates. A pole with arrows—New York, Key West, Cuba. In the back, the shooting range, deluxe outhouse, open-air shower and, just beyond a small seawall holding off the swamp, a bathtub on a stilt platform out in the water, next to another sign, Do Not Feed Alligators.

“I use the tub for model shoots,” said Lucky. “Shower, too.”

“This is my dream house,” said Serge. “Like Citizen Kane’s Xanadu, except the opposite.” He looked toward one of the screened barns. “How are the hives?”

“Busy as ever. I’ll get you a jar.”

“Coleman,” said Serge. “Lucky here makes some of the sweetest Florida honey you ever had. From his own secret strain of cross-bred bees.”

“They do all the work,” said Lucky. “I just get the credit.”

“Did you see the Victor Nuñez film
Ulee’s Gold
, shot up in Wewahitchka? Van Morrison sings ‘Tupelo Honey’ over the end titles.”

“Possibly the greatest beekeeping movie of all time.”

“Possibly the only,” said Serge. “And Florida has it!”