Electric Barracuda (6 page)

Mahoney placed it to his head. “Mahoney here, jaw to me . . . uh-huh . . . I see, I see . . . Don’t you mean the
Big
Bamboo? . . . Really? . . . Okay, thanks Scratchy. I owe you.” He tossed the phone back to the manager.

“Who was that?” asked White.

“Snitch who ratted this flop.” Mahoney reached in his pocket for a toothpick. “There a joint near here called the Nu Bamboo?”

“Yeah, opened a year ago. Why?”

“Serge eyeballed at the bar. Might still be there . . .”

Sedans screeched into the parking lot of the next motel. Agents poured through the lobby. White was first in the bar. He lunged at the counter and held a mug shot to Patty. “Seen this guy.”

Patty barely had to look. “Yeah, Serge. He’s right over . . .” She set a mason jar in front of a customer and looked around. “He was just in here.”

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“A few minutes ago. We were all standing out front watching these cops race around.”

Lowe raised his hand. “That was us. We’re under deep cover.”

“Shut up,” said White, then back to Patty. “Any idea where he went?”

“Nope,” said the bartender, setting empty glass jars in the sink. “If you know Serge, one second he’s here talking a mile a minute about how he could stay forever, then he gets bored and poof.”

“Thanks for your help.” The detective handed her a business card. “If you think of anything else—”

“White!” Mahoney yelled from the far end of the bar. “Come quick! I think I found something!”

The agent raced over. “What is it?”

Mahoney pointed down at a stool. “I’d know that duct tape anywhere.”

“Yeah?” said White, leaning forward in tense anticipation. “And?”

“It’s Ralph Kent’s.”

“I don’t understand your methods, Mahoney, but this puts us on Serge’s trail, right?”

“No, I’m just jazzed.”

White’s thoughts drifted to strangulation.

“Look!”
yelled one of the customers.

Everyone turned.

“It’s the Doberman!”

“And he’s got the Litter!”

The bounty hunter entered the bar with blood-matted hair and left arm in a makeshift sling. Patrons swarmed for more autographs.

“You’re my hero! . . .”

“Are you on the hunt? . . .”

“Remember when you ran over yourself with your own dune buggy? . . .”

White grabbed Lowe. “Come on. We’ve got real work to do.”

The detectives sped west in an unmarked Crown Vic.

“Roger,” White said in the police radio. He hung the mike on the dash. “Everyone’s in roadblock position.”

Lowe flipped through his manual. “You really think we’ve cut off all escape routes?”

“Tighter than Fort Knox,” said White, scanning both sidewalks. “Called in the Orange County sheriff. Got deputies checking everyone on even the most obscure back roads.”

A
short drive up the Kissimmee strip: more bottom-shelf amusement. Bungee towers, video arcades, rock-climbing walls. Farther off the highway, a long, dark grassy field.

Serge and Coleman climbed from a golf cart. Then up a ladder.

They were sitting in front.

Something roared to life with a tremendous, shuddering noise.

Coleman sipped a flask and looked back at the bearded man in a scarf. The man saluted. Coleman turned and yelled in Serge’s ear: “Who is that guy?”

“Rickenbacker. I called in a favor.”

“What kind of favor?”

“Help me with the Fugitive Tour,” shouted Serge. “This is our ‘Out’ for Kissimmee.”

“And yet nobody’s chasing us?”

“Not a soul,” said Serge. “My audience deserves nothing but the finest fake chaos.”

“Why?”

“You still don’t get the conceit of this tour?”

“What?”

Serge threw up his arms in exuberance. “It’s hot out of the mold of that uniquely American genre: the Great Chase Movie!”

The grass field began moving beneath them. Slowly at first, then picking up speed, then slowing again.

Coleman looked around. “Is this thing safe?”

“Rick’s the best. Couldn’t be in better hands.”

Velocity increased again. They reached the middle of the field. Then slowed again.

A loud bang.

The flask flew from Coleman’s hand. “What the hell was that?”

“Just a backfire,” said Serge.

A shout from Rick in the rear seat: “Better hang on.”

Serge and Coleman bounced up and down, clutching a horizontal metal bar.

They reached the middle of the field, which was connected back to the road by a winding cart path. The path ended at a slapped-together wooden ticket booth facing the highway. A tattered orange wind sock hung flaccid. The booth was unstaffed and padlocked. But during the day, tourists could see an old bearded man inside. And a sign: Historic Biplane Rides, $50.

Another hard bounce, and threadbare tires left the ground. They touched down again.

Bang
.

The wheels lifted off for good this time, and the restored two-winger gained altitude. Sort of.

The wind sock suddenly inflated and threatened to tear loose.

Coleman clutched Serge’s shoulder and pointed with a quivering arm. “Power lines!”

“Relax. Rick’s done this a million times.”

“Has he ever hit the power lines?”

“Never . . . Okay, a few times, but just skimmed with the wheels. Not his fault—he had a tailwind.”

“A few times!”

“But the tires are rubber, so they’re insulated from electricity. In theory.”

“Do we have a tailwind now?”

“Hell yeah. Strong one.”

The plane slowly rose toward the brightness of the Kissimmee strip.

Coleman covered his eyes. “I can’t look.”

Rick gave it the throttle and up she went, twin bursts of sparks as wheels clipped high-tension lines.

Coleman peeked through his fingers. “We made it. We didn’t die.”

“Told you.” Serge stuck his face over the side as they flew above the highway. “Hey, there’s all those police cars again, and the SWAT team.”

“I can see the Haunted Mansion,” said Coleman. “And Space Mountain.”

“What are all those highway flares?”

“Where?”

“Interstate entrance ramp.”

“Some kind of wreck?”

“Don’t think so,” said Serge. “Looks more like a roadblock.”

“I see more flares over there . . . and more that way.”

“Another bunch by the tollbooths.”

“They must be after someone really frightening,” said Coleman.

“Good thing we left town when we did.”

Higher and higher they went into the chilly night air. Over MGM and Universal and Pirates of the Caribbean. Soon, they left city lights behind. Sparse countryside. Farms and forests. It became quite peaceful as the moon’s reflection tracked across the countless lakes of Lake County.

“This is actually kind of nice,” said Coleman.

“I love my job,” said Serge.

“So where are we going now?”

“Fugitive Tour Stop Number Two. They’ll be raving for years about this make-believe chase.”

Rickenbacker banked his wings and the plane came around hard to the left. The pilot locked on a course straight into the giant full moon sitting low on the western horizon, perfectly silhouetting the two heads in the seat in front of him.

Part I

A MONTH AGO

Chapter One

Morning

F
DLE, otherwise known as the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, is the state’s version of the FBI.

Furniture was rearranged in the Orlando bureau. Workers carried two desks into a private office meant for one.

A task force had been formed.

Agent White sprayed disinfectant and scrubbed the top of his scratched-up metal government desk, of which he was the forty-seventh steward. Same procedure for his beige phone. Then he meticulously set family photos around a scuffed desk blotter with a virgin calendar pad.

Across the tiny office, in front of the window with missing blinds, Agent Lowe dumped out his collection of SWAT team shoulder patches from across the U.S. and Canada. He arranged them in rows on the top of his desk and held the formation in place with a large rectangle of tempered glass.

Agent White was black. Thirty-eight years old, new school. Everything by the book. Seamlessly responsible. Never late on a house payment, changed his oil every three thousand miles and recycled. He hit the gym Monday, Wednesday, Friday, so he could chase suspects. Despite White’s age, his hairline had prematurely receded, and he was concerned it might affect advancement. So five years ago he shaved the works, giving him a vague resemblance to Michael Jordan.

Promotions followed.

White maintained an impeccable record, which led to his appointment as commander of the task force.

“What are those?” asked White.

Lowe placed decorative items around the edge of his desk. “Model police cars and helicopters and boats. The lights and sirens work.”

“We need to stay focused,” said White. “This is a very important assignment. It’ll take every edge—”

Woo-woo-woo-woo-woo . . .

“Turn off the Adam-12 car,” said White.

The task force was what they call on TV a cold case unit. Ostensibly designed to reopen dead-end homicides. In reality, it was a bone-toss to the press. And it had one particular suspect in its crosshairs.

The media embarrassment had been seismic. A series of unsolved, high-profile murders. All gruesome, all very public. Charred body splattered poolside after falling off a motel balcony, another unrecognizable corpse from a sabotaged amusement ride, plus a home-brew guillotine and two bodies hanging forty stories up from a construction crane. The handiwork of a single hand.

Not unusual for Florida. But they all took place in the middle of spring break, generating extensive coverage in northern markets, meaning tourism.

Off the record, law enforcement couldn’t have cared less. The homicides closed dozens of cases against violent, organized criminals who’d remained just out of reach. But headlines were headlines, and they always rolled downhill. A series of telephone calls wound its way through the bureaucracy from Tallahassee to Orlando, until Agent White was called in.

“You can count on me,” said White. “How many people do I get?”

“Lowe.”

“What? A low number?”

“Agent Lowe. There’s a budget crisis.”

They picked White because he was good on camera. They gave him Lowe because he was useless half the time. The other half, he did damage.

Lowe: short, skinny, ultra-pale, thick glasses that barely passed the medical, and the curse of genes that grew wild, comical hair. White may have resembled Jordan, but Lowe
was
Woody Allen. Couldn’t develop muscles to save his life. In the police weight room, bench-press spotters constantly grabbed barbells before they crushed Lowe’s larynx. But nothing crushed his spirit. Lowe never wanted to be anything other than a cop. Since childhood. He graduated at the bottom of his academy class and proudly hung the diploma on the wall of his new office, next to a photo of him with a SWAT team during career day. Since then, his career had stalled from chronic short-term disability leaves. But unlike malingerers, all his injuries were overly legitimate. Contusions, concussions, fractures and lacerations. Lowe was hyper-eager to prove himself, and never hesitated to sacrifice his body. Dependability became Lowe’s trademark. During every felon chase, he could be counted on to leave by ambulance. They ordered him to stop jumping on the hoods of getaway cars and being flung. His reports had the best handwriting. He always wanted to get a dog, but never did.