Electric Barracuda (5 page)

Coleman knocked back his whiskey. “Like if Disney World had a dive?”

“I wish.” Serge opened a brimming computer file of previously taken photos. “The Bamboo’s founder died, and its future became a question mark. Then it closed—at least temporarily—while the faithful launched a campaign to save the landmark. But before they could, she was gutted by fire, which officials suspect was accidentally set by homeless squatters.”

“That always sucks.” Coleman’s finger wiggled at the bartender.

“Wasn’t a surprise to me. Shortly after closing, a friend mentioned he’d stopped by the place, hoping against hope. Looked abandoned, but he tried the door anyway and it opened. Totally dark inside, and these two guys popped up from behind the bar and asked if he wanted a drink, five dollars. He said he didn’t think so. They said, ‘Okay, two dollars.’ He said he was leaving and they asked him for a ride somewhere. Soon after, the fire.”

Coleman looked around again. “So if it all went up in smoke, how’d the stuff get here?”

“Farsighted patrons salvaged what they could beforehand and stored it. Then this place opened.” He looked toward the bartender. “Hey Patty, fill him in.”

She strolled over and wiped the counter. “Just after we went in business, all these people came in, about fifteen of ’em, carrying boxes. The owner never heard of the Boo and was understandably skeptical, but they made such a passionate case.” She swept an arm around the memento-cluttered interior. “That cushy chair over there is from the office of Walt Disney himself. And the red vinyl stool at the end of the bar is Ralph Kent’s, located in the same position it occupied at the original Bamboo. His widow gave it to us.”

“Ralph Kent?” asked Coleman.

Serge got up and led Coleman across the room. “Legendary Disney artist and fixture at the old haunt.” He pointed at a framed drawing on the wall. “Original Mickey Mouse.” Then down at the historic stool. “To those in the know, there’s the trademark duct tape over a rip in the vinyl, which is how you know it’s Ralph’s . . .”

Patrons came and went, including a short, bearded man with an aviator’s scarf, dark gloves and flying goggles propped on top of his head. He took a seat in the Walt Disney chair, remaining still and quiet. Staring at the back of Serge’s head.

A
gent White stood in a parking lot with negative amusement. “Wrong guy again. I think you can get off him now.”

The tactical unit unpiled.

A TV crew uprighted a crashed motorcycle.

White pulled out his handcuff key as another bum got up with skinned palms.

The SWAT team headed back to their van in a bitter haze of frustration.

Lowe raised a hand in the air and called over: “Great job, fellas. An honor working with you.”

One of them kicked Lowe’s SWAT bag into the road, and a bus ran over it.

Lowe raised his hand again. “Thank you.”

White opened his wallet and began counting out cash for the whiskered man. “Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Lowe came over with a shredded black bag. “That doesn’t look like Serge.”

White glared.

“You think it’s another decoy room?”

“Don’t talk to me for a while.”

Mahoney ran over from a pay phone with another scribbled-on matchbook. “New address.”

The convoy raced back up the strip, toward the Nu Bamboo.

C
oleman squinted at a drawing on the wall. “Mickey Mouse is shooting a bird at Iran.”

“From 1980,” said Serge. “During the hostage crisis. I believe that one’s unauthorized.”

Coleman pointed in another direction. “Check out the sign: This Is A Bar, Not A Rest Area, Now Get The Fuck Out! That’s classy.”

“The spirit of the Boo lives.” Serge looked down at Coleman’s drink in a mason jar, then back at the bartender. “No toilet-paper coasters?”

“Some of the newer customers aren’t ready.”

Another bourbon arrived in front of Coleman. “But, Serge, how’d you find this place? I never would have thought there was a bar way back here.”

“Me neither.” Serge kept typing on his laptop. “It’s virtually impossible to locate without word of mouth. The only hint is that tiny, easily missed sign by the highway, ‘Nu Bamboo Lounge,’ actually
written
in bamboo, but half the letters have fallen off. Then it’s a treasure hunt, wandering around until you find it stashed behind the lobby of this inn.”

“So why aren’t we staying at this motel instead of our dump?”

“Because this isn’t a dump. The Fugitive Tour must have integrity.” More typing. “And I needed a place closer to the original Boo’s site for spiritual closure.”

Patty brought over another water. “You wouldn’t know where we could find the old ambulance?”

Serge shook his head. “Been looking.”

“Ambulance?” said Coleman.

“Broken-down
M*A*S*H
-style thing by the highway. The original Bamboo was pretty hidden, too, back in tall brush, and that landmark ambulance is how people spotted it.” Serge turned his head and noticed the bearded man in the pilot’s scarf. The bearded man noticed him. They both looked away.

A
crowd of fans gathered on the sidewalk of a sub-economy motel. Disposable cameras flashed. Autograph requests. A TV crew collected mangled motorcycle parts. A roadie yelled inside the semi: “Get the backup chopper.”

White paid off another Sterno bum and turned to Mahoney. “Thought you said you finally had the right motel.”

Mahoney spit out a matchstick and nodded with reluctant admiration. “Serge has his game back.”

“It’s not a game to me.”

Lowe walked over and whistled. “Another decoy.”

White looked down at the destroyed SWAT bag in Lowe’s hand. “Aren’t you going to throw that away?”

The agent shook his head. “It’s seen battle.”

White sighed again and stared off. “How many motels can Serge be registered in?”

“F
ive,” said Serge, tapping a keyboard.

“Five motels?” said Coleman. “Why so many?”

“A question of ethics.”
Tap, tap, tap.
“I can’t just phone this in or I’m a fraud to the blogosphere. So I’m Method-acting, personally experiencing all the things I post to my website.”

“But isn’t it costing a lot?”

“Actually it’s free. Our surprise guest from the playground had a lot of cash on him.”

The evening wore on. Customers ran out the front door of the Nu Bamboo and back in. Then back out again. A pounding, heavy-metal bass thundered by on the street, rattling mason jars along the bar. The noise trailed off and the glasses became still.

Patty poured a beer for one of the regulars who’d just dashed back in. “What the heck’s happening?”

“Don’t know. All these unmarked cars keep speeding back and forth past this place. And the Doberman’s truck is with them.”

“The Doberman?”
said a man in a Bucs baseball cap. “I love that show, especially the one where he tried climbing down from a roof, but the rain gutter broke off the building.”

Serge furtively glanced at the bearded man, who hadn’t budged from the Disney chair. The man glanced back. They both quickly looked up at the ceiling.

A half hour later, more hard rock thumped up the road toward the bar. Except the noise didn’t fade off into the distance like the other times. Just blared nonstop. All the customers raced outside.

The dragnet pulled into a nearby parking lot.

Coleman stood in front of the lobby and drained a mason jar. “That’s a pretty cool Cadillac.”

“I’ve always wanted a yellow El Dorado,” said Serge.

Bringing up the rear was a turquoise T-Bird with the top down.

Serge squinted and rubbed his eyes. “No, it . . . can’t be. I’m seeing things.”

“Look.” Coleman gestured with his empty jar. “Isn’t that our motel? The SWAT team’s surrounding our room.”

“Probably have the wrong address,” said Serge. “There’s no way they could have figured out my alias. Unless . . .”

A bearded man with a pilot’s scarf stepped up next to Serge. They didn’t acknowledge each other.

Several customers pointed at once. “And here comes the Doberman!”

A new motorcycle flew out the back of a semi and wiped out in a row of garbage cans.

The bearded man, from the corner of his mouth: “It’s time.”

Serge nodded slightly. He tugged Coleman by the arm, and the trio slipped into the darkness behind the Nu Bamboo.

E
vidence techs combed the room.

Mahoney stood in the motel doorway.

White looked down at the registration card in the agent’s hand. “What alias did he use?”

Mahoney glanced at the name. “Dr. Richard Kimble.”

White rubbed his chin. “Kimble, Kimble . . . why does that name sound so familiar?”

“David Janssen’s character in
The Fugitive
.”

“Why would he do that?”

“It’s personal,” said Mahoney. “He’s taunting me.”

White looked across the room as someone from the medical examiner’s office photographed the head-slumped body tied to a chair in a large puddle of water. Eyes permanently open. “You sure that’s Serge’s work?”

“Solid MO.” Mahoney opened a manila folder. “Vic’s ID: one Arthur Franklin Kostlerman the Third, registered sex offender, decade stretch in Raiford; nothing since but a series of flatfoot rousts for hinky hoofing near schools and parks. Vehicle orphaned at playground Tuesday.” He turned a page: “Eyewitnesses bumped gums about some sap getting a trunk tour.” The agent looked up and nodded as a camera flashed. “Hands-down Serge. Trademark joker-deck snuff scene.”

“But what am I looking at?” said White. “In all my years I’ve never seen anything so sick, except I have no idea what I’m seeing.”

“M.E.’s still stumped,” said Lowe.

“Got this one,” said Mahoney. “Serge rides the home-improvement pony.”

“Come again?”

Mahoney walked over and knocked on the deceased’s chest like it was a door. He looked back at White. “Nobody home.”

“That sounded hard as a rock.”

“Gibraltar.”

“But what is that damn thing around his chest?”

“Plumbing aisle. Pressure line repair.” Mahoney picked up an excess roll of tape from the bed. “Like gauze you’d dress a wound with, except it’s been spiked. Serge wrapped his chest with a few hundred feet of the stuff.”

“How’d that kill him?”

“Didn’t.” Mahoney pulled a fountain pen from his pocket, leaned down and stuck it through a trigger guard so as not to smudge any latent prints. He held up a small plastic squirt pistol. “This did.”

“What was in it? Poison? Acid?”

“Tap water.” Mahoney raised it to the light. “Gem, too. Vintage early fifties, shaped like an alien ray gun.”

“Jesus! A man is dead!”

“The big snooze. Water activates slime on the film, which contracts and dries to form a concrete-hard fitting around a plumbing leak. Except a sex offender is no match for a lead pipe, and the death squeeze continues like an iron maiden. My guess? Serge explained the science to the perp, that his ribs would start cracking like a slow Buddy Guy drumroll, puncturing internal organs—but if it was his lucky day, his lungs would have trouble expanding and he’d pass out first. Maybe. Then Serge took it slow, real slow, standing back and squirting him with the pistol. This one was particularly heinous.”

“Why?”

Mahoney held up the water gun again. “He had to reload.”

White stared off. “What kind of demented bastard?”

“But you gotta give him points for style.”

“How’s that?”

“Molester killed with a child’s toy.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“You’re also not paddling.”

“What do you mean?”

Mahoney placed a hand on the victim’s chest. “Chemical reaction creates heat transfer. This just happened.” He turned back around. “Serge is slipping the net.”

“Shit.” White summoned nearby uniforms. “Top priority. Standard roadblock matrix. Get Serge’s photo out . . .”

Cops dispersed.

“That dog won’t hunt,” said Mahoney.

“Just watch,” said White. “This is my town. Looks like a busy city and an easy place to escape, but they built the theme parks to the south, surrounded by agricultural land. Just a few major arteries to seal—International Drive, Orange Blossom Trail, Interstate 417, firewall Orlando to the north and points south. Then all we have to worry about is the airport and Amtrak station.”

The motel manager came in with a portable office phone. “There an Agent Mahoney?”

“Depends,” said Mahoney. “Alimony come up?”

The manager shrugged and held out the phone. “I just know you got a call.”