The Riptide Ultra-Glide (9 page)

That was four years ago.

Back to live action: an anonymous motel room with the curtain pulled tight along U.S. Highway 1 in South Florida.

Catfish sat on the edge of the bed in deep thought as dozens of stranded Sterno bums wandered the beach in bib overalls. He was considered to be one of the top bosses in the Kentucky Mafia. Which didn't exist. But anytime three or more people of any ethnic or geographical group commit three or more crimes, it's the Polish Mafia, or Albanian Mafia, or Eskimo Mafia. And since the nicknames appeared in the newspaper, it had to be true.

The only other person in the motel room besides Catfish was his undependable right-hand man, Gooch Spivey, who had aspirations as a poker champ and used to stutter horribly as a youth until learning to overcome it with long pauses of intense concentration that appeared as if he were trying to levitate objects with his mind. It drove Catfish batshit.

“What are you . . . thinking about?”

“Can you not fucking do that?”

“Do . . . what?”

“Shut up!” Catfish ran both hands through his hair. At least the pauses came and went, and that gave him something to look forward to.

Gooch broke out a deck of airline playing cards to kill time.

Catfish looked up. “Gooch, why are you wearing mirrored sunglasses indoors. And a black cowboy hat?”

Gooch shuffled cards. “All the top TV champions dress like this on
Extreme
. . .
Poker
.”

Catfish tightly grabbed fistfuls of bedspread on each side of where he was sitting. “I'm going to have to kill myself.”

“ . . . Why?”

Teeth gnashed. Then a cartoon lightbulb came on. Catfish grabbed a notepad. “Forget Interstate 95. That's history. We need to come up with something that moves unnoticed between Florida and Kentucky by another route. What does Florida have?”

“Oranges?”

Catfish shook his head. “Agriculture inspections . . . What else?”

Gooch cut his deck and shrugged.

Catfish rested the tip of his pen on the pad. “Let's look at it from the other direction. What does Kentucky have?”

“Bourbon?”

“No good. ATF. They can be worse than the DEA. What else?”

“Horses?”

“No, they—” Catfish stopped and grabbed a road map from his suitcase. “You might have something there.” He traced up the spine of Florida with a finger. “That's it. That's how we're going to do it.”

“We're going to put the drugs in horses?”

“Don't be stupid.” Catfish began refilling a duffel bag with all the pills and cash on the table. “We need to get everything back in the Durango and clear out before they track us here. We'll be exposed for this one trip, but if we make it, we'll never have to worry again.”

“How long will we be exposed?”

Catfish glanced toward the map he'd left open on top of the TV. A spot was circled a bit north of Disney. “I was never good with those mile scales. Two or three hours?”

* * *

A
Dodge Durango rode through the night with little traffic. And no streetlights. That was the plan.

Catfish had picked up U.S. Highway 27 west of Plantation and headed north toward Lake Okeechokee. Just the moon and the emptiness of wind-flowing sugarcane fields that created a landscape from a movie where lost tourists fall victim. The only other rare vehicles were cattle trucks overloaded with migrant workers that raced past them next to the drainage canals full of fertilizer and gators. Route 27 was the spinal cord of Florida, practically vacant since the interstates, which took them up through towns with main streets that had the same early-evening closing hours since 1957. The only signs of life were the parking lights of local police cars on side streets, waiting for the local delinquents. Clewiston, Sebring, Clermont, Leesburg. An odd time to be passing through the sticks, but a Durango was the right vehicle to fit in.

Just after 2
A.M.
, Catfish pulled off 27 and turned into the countryside. Four-lane blacktop became a narrow, tree-canopied country road that dipped and rose across some of the few hills in all of Florida. Ten miles later, a wooden-plank fence began running along the side of the road. Painted white. The Durango gradually slowed and pulled onto the grass.

“What are you doing?” asked Gooch.

“Finding a quiet spot.”

“Then what?”

“We go to sleep.”

Chapter Eight

KEY LARGO

L
oud music. Jukebox. Loud people. Bikers.

And others—locals, tourists, nomads—not exactly a melting pot but more like another of those polygonal tolerance zones common throughout the Keys.

A mug of draft beer tipped over.

“My bad,” said Coleman.

“That's now a hat trick,” said Serge. “I'll get more napkins.”

“I'll get another beer.”

He returned with a foamy draft in an ice-cold mug. “This bar rules,” said Coleman. “People don't mess with you if you're just trying to enjoy yourself.”

“You mean like that time you started howling at the top of your lungs, then took off your shirt, twirled it over your head, and danced like a drunken orangutan until they made you leave?”

“Exactly.” Coleman wiped suds off his mouth with the back of an arm. “That bar was way too uptight.”

“Coleman, it was a department store.”

“What? Are you sure?”

“The lingerie section no less.”

“So that's why so many chicks were around. I thought I was just popular.”

“You did draw a crowd.” Serge idly peeled the label off his bottle of water. “But you're right about one thing: This bar does rule. The Caribbean Club, established 1938 on the shore of Blackwater Sound by the great Florida pioneer Carl Fisher as a so-called poor man's fishing vacation camp. Last project before his death.”

Coleman's head sagged over his beer with the neck posture of a vulture. “You're reading a newspaper again?”

Serge turned a page. “Correct. Next question.”

“But you read the newspaper on Tuesday.”

Another page turned. “They have a new one each day.”

Coleman belched. “Are you making that up?”

“And I especially love reading papers in the Keys.” Serge spread out the metro section. “It's the one place where most of the crime stories end with ‘the suspect tried to escape police in a dinghy.' I always read the crime stuff first: Two perps culminated a burglary spree with thirty pounds of frozen chicken nuggets; woman seen burying a stolen purse on the beach; someone sitting on a bicycle attached to a car's roof in a transportation rack—while the vehicle was going over the Seven Mile Bridge. They're thinking alcohol might have been involved.”

“I'll have to remember that one.”

Another page. “But this isn't just entertainment. I'm working.”

“Working.”

“Learning new scams and lining up scores.” Serge tapped a spot in the paper. “Like this dude. Got some address list of thousands of upscale restaurants in Florida, then mailed letters and a fake dry-cleaning bill for eleven dollars and fifty-three cents, saying a waiter spilled a drink on his jacket. It was such a small amount that most simply paid to avoid the fuss. Guy made twenty grand in three weeks.”

“Good scam,” said Coleman. “But you also mentioned scores.”

“Roughly the same group of stories,” said Serge. “Except I follow the old adage ‘Shoot up, not down.' If you take advantage of people in higher tax brackets, I salute. Exploit the little people, and you go on my list for a late-night visit.”

“To tell them it was wrong?”

“Might mention that in passing, but mainly I want money. My time's not free.” Serge flipped a page to local bowling results. “Florida is the national scam capital, gorged with predators who target the weakest of the weak, especially old folks on fixed incomes. Newspapers are always reporting the arrests, but they're white-collar criminals with good lawyers and almost always make bail, which leaves their social calendar open for me.”

“What do they do?”

“The list is endless,” said Serge. “Like this one guy who drove around retirement communities and knocked on doors, holding a clipboard and wearing a short-sleeve dress shirt with an ID clipped to his pocket, which looked official because it was laminated. When some eighty-year-old woman answered, he'd start talking fast about roof problems he'd spotted from the street, and how you never noticed structural damage from leaks until the whole house fell on your head—he'd actually seen it, helping paramedics close the ambulance doors. But even if it didn't collapse right away, the code violations would add up faster than her Social Security checks. And just as she was about to stroke out, he'd walk her to a chair inside, fetch a glass of water and say that lucky for her, he knew a crew in the area who could be there that afternoon before the big storm rolled in. Then he came back with a ladder, stomped around the roof for a half hour and drove off with a check for twelve thousand dollars.”

“That's a good job,” said Coleman.

“That's horrible,” said Serge. “So when I read about his release from jail pending trial, it was an easy public records search to find his house. I figured it would only be neighborly to drop by to inspect
his
roof, which I thought was pretty magnanimous of me because it was two
A.M.
and he lived in a three-story mansion. And here's the thing I've learned about night visits. The people always start out pissed off because you woke them at some ungodly hour. But once you get a stranger up on the roof of a three-story building after midnight, they're suddenly your best friend: ‘I'll do anything you ask.' Some people are prone to mood swings. So I said, ‘But I haven't fixed your roof yet.' Didn't matter; he opened his safe right up and gave me all these gold coins and jewelry and bearer bonds. I thanked him and said I'd be following his trial closely and might come back to discuss defense strategy. Turns out he pled guilty and made full restitution with interest.”

“Awfully nice of him.”

“That's why I try not to judge.”

Coleman nodded and looked around the inside of the bar. “Did they really shoot the movie
Key Largo
here like the sign says out front?”

“I wish, but that's for tourist consumption.” Serge sat back as a waiter placed an iced coffee in front of him. “They'd have you believe Humphrey Bogart and Edward G. Robinson hashed it out right here where we're sitting so contentedly. But for the serious researcher, a depressing discovery that it was shot on a soundstage in Hollywood. Fact-checking cuts both ways.”

“What do you mean?”

“See those tourists in the doorway?”

Coleman looked toward camera flashes. “Yeah, they seem happy. Kind of dazed, like starstruck.”

“Because they don't know the truth. They think they're breathing Bogart's air.” Serge's bottom lip pooched out. “But it's wrecked for me because I study history. I wish I could enjoy it the way they are . . .” He suddenly sat up straight. “And because I wish it, I will make it so . . . with the power of
coffee
!”

“Uh-oh. Here comes Underdog's Super Energy Pill.”

Serge chugged his cup, placed his palms flat on the table and began vibrating with a sputtering noise.

“What are you doing?” asked Coleman.

“Rewinding the film in my brain. Looking for a loophole . . .” Serge pointed dramatically. “And there it is!”

Coleman's head swung around. “Where?”

“Inside my head. You'd have to watch the movie a hundred times, which luckily I have. There's some stock background footage they shot on this island to supplement the Hollywood reels. I'm now watching the aerial sequence during the black-and-white opening credits. A bus is heading up the Overseas Highway, past unmistakable geographical contours of this coastline.” He waved a hand above the table. “Intrinsically speaking, this space was contained in celluloid frames of that 1948 classic. I have achieved bliss, Bogart's air, Hindus, round things, ‘ride a painted pony, let the spinnin' wheel spin.' ”

“Far out,” said Coleman. He downed his mug. “I just remembered. What do you think our friend's doing back at Lake Surprise?”

Serge drained his bottled water and stood up from his stool. “Time to head for parts north until the heat cools down after the police find him.”

“Why's that?” asked Coleman, gazing out the Caribbean Club's back windows at the rippling bay, where droplets began plopping into mild waves.

“Because it's starting to rain,” Serge said with a smile. “Patience pays.”

WISCONSIN

E
arlier that morning, Patrick McDougall had stood in the front of his classroom, strumming an acoustic guitar like normal.

“ . . . Puff the Magic Dragon . . .”

He couldn't stop yawning. Another late house call with one of his students' family.

The principal stuck his head in the door. “Pat, can I talk to you a second?”

“What is it?”

“In the hall . . .”

The principal looked terrible. “I feel terrible . . .” He gave Jack the news.

Change of plans. It affected all the dutiful teachers who had been laid off but decided to soldier on until the end of the school year. They now had to clear out their desks immediately, to make way for the new teachers who had just been hired because of the severe teacher shortage due to spending cuts.

At the other end of the hall, an assistant principal called Bar out of her classroom . . .

The McDougalls reached the staff parking lot at the same time. Pat stuffed his guitar in the back of the Geo. The beginning of the drive home was silent.

“What are we going to do?” asked Bar.

“Get other jobs.”

“You say that like it's easy.”

“We're blessed.”

They parked in a crust of dirty snow. Pat was his typically buoyant self, like Bar usually was. But she seemed different now. He'd never seen her so stressed. The solution was obvious.

“You know what we need?” asked Pat. “To take a vacation.”

“Okay, where do you want to go?”

“Florida.”

“Florida?” said Bar. “I thought you meant like a quick weekend trip to Milwaukee.”

“I mean a real vacation. We went to Milwaukee last year.”

“I had fun,” said Bar.

“I'm not saying that.” Pat unlocked the front door and held it for his wife. “Just that we should really treat ourselves this time, a whole week, nice hotel, toes in the sand.”

“Pat, I love the idea of getting away with you, but the timing couldn't be worse.” Bar set her purse down. “We just walked in the door after losing both our jobs. And the heating bill's late. What about money?”

“Credit cards.”

“I'd feel a lot more relaxed on vacation if we'd already secured our next jobs.” She extended an arm toward the tundra outside the living-room window. “And with this economy, who knows how long that's going to take.”

“That's why layoffs are the best time to take vacations.”

“That doesn't make any sense,” said Bar. “Just hit the road like a hobo? That's the responsibility level of a serial killer.”

“Here's what's going to happen,” said Pat. “We don't take this vacation, and then we easily get new jobs, become all caught up in that, and before we know it, it's another year and Milwaukee again. This is the perfect time to take that special trip we've always talked about. Spend some quality time together with no interruptions.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“We've been financially responsible our whole marriage.” Pat walked over to the computer. “We even spent our honeymoon in Sandusky—and I'm not saying I didn't love it. It's just that we should do something extra nice for ourselves for once.”

Bar could tell it would make her husband happy. And frankly her, too. She slowly began nodding. “Okay, I'm in. Let's do it.”

“Now you're talking.” Pat logged on to a travel Web site.

Bar leaned over his shoulder. “What part of Florida are you thinking about?”

Quick keystrokes. Photos of coconut palms. “I lived a few years near Fort Lauderdale. I remember it was beautiful, but you always take it for granted when you're a child.”

“You told me your family moved up here when you were six.”

“How much could it have changed?”

Bar pulled up a chair. They surfed the net together, talking a mile a minute, laughing and scrolling through chamber-of-commerce pitches. She was totally swayed. If it was this much fun just planning the vacation, imagine actually spending a week in paradise with Patrick.

“Here we are.” Pat stopped on a page with pink and orange flowers. Mediterranean stucco, turquoise swimming pool. “This looks like a nice place.”

“I can't really tell from the photos,” said Bar. “They're all taken at weird angles like they're trying to hide something.”

“The pictures looks great,” said Pat. “And check out the price.”

“That seems way too low.” Bar narrowed here eyes. “There's got to be a catch.”

“There is,” said Pat. “Once the tourist season is over at the end of April, and the state starts heating up, most accommodations cut their rates. Sometimes in half.”