16 Tiger Shrimp Tango (10 page)

Chapter Ten

MIAMI BEACH

A
ll quiet on the nineteenth floor of a luxury resort hotel on Collins Avenue.

Three
A.M.

People spoke in whispers and hushed tones inside suite number 1901. All eight of them. It was the gang’s first team effort. Up until now, they had always worked solo, receiving assignments from their leader. Totally firewalled. Nobody knew anyone else’s action, to minimize damage in the event someone was captured and flipped for the prosecution.

Sitting on the edge of one bed were Gustave and Sasha, the dating bandits, and some others we haven’t met yet. Leroy and Short Leroy, who took out fraudulent mortgages; Tommy Perfecto, head of the burglary crew that struck while others kept their targets busy, Puddin’-Head Farina, the king of the obituary scam; and Pockets Malone, who sold hole-in-one insurance.

Standing before them was the brains of the operation, South Philly Sal, who was from Miami. He did financial backgrounds and surveillance on all the marks before making the final decision and dispatching his henchmen to ply their trades. He looked around.

“Where’s Uncle Cid?”

“Don’t know,” said Tommy Perfecto.

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I was waiting in the pickup truck behind the pancake house like we always do, but he never came back from the test drive.”

“Dammit, we need all hands,” said Sal. “That idiot’s going to shave the size of the score.”

The score.

Sal wouldn’t have otherwise risked penetrating the firewalls, but this one was too tasty. He got the idea from the Internet, literally tripped over it while lurking in a chat room. He stood and faced the rest of the gang. “You’ve read the transcripts?”

They nodded, holding packets of stapled pages from the Merry Pranksters’ last online meeting.

“Good, so you know how they work.” He pointed at the room’s TV, where a laptop had been wired into the auxiliary port and now displayed a webcam view that included their hotel’s entrance.

“What now?” asked Short Leroy.

“We wait and watch,” said Sal. “That’s the beauty of this. The television gives us all the intel we need as everything unfolds, from our targets’ location to police response.”

Gustave raised a hand. “Are we working with the Pranksters on this?”

Sal grinned. “They don’t have a clue. Which is the cherry on this sundae. Not only are they cracking the safe open for us, but once the authorities figure out what happened, they’ll get the blame. Nobody will be on our trail . . .”

I
f only I could pick up their trail,” said Serge.

“Whose trail?” asked Coleman.

“The Corvette guy wasn’t working alone. Mahoney’s client said an accomplice helped steal the car, and I’m guessing the tentacles reach much farther. Possibly a large organized gang preying on the most vulnerable. That really pissed me off.”

“What else pissed you off?” asked Coleman.

“When I open a website and music I didn’t ask for suddenly starts playing. And now the burden is on me to remember how to mute the computer.”

“Yeah, what the fuck is that about?” said Coleman.

“Someone forcing their musical taste on me, like I don’t get enough of that in Florida traffic.”

“It’s just too much to take,” said Coleman. “And then they expect you to get a job.”

Serge turned. “Coleman, what does any of this have to do with not getting a job?”

“It has everything to do with it.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Serge. “You always try to work into our conversations why whatever we’re talking about is a reason to stay unemployed.”

“It’s worth a shot.”

The black Firebird left the city behind and rolled down an unlighted country road.

“. . . And another item from the growing file of people who voluntarily wear dunce caps,” said Serge. “You’ll be talking cordially to someone and make an offhand reference, ‘I recently read where—’ and they’ll cut you off and say, ‘Oh, I don’t
read
’ . . . This is a tragedy on so many different levels. First, because they don’t read, they don’t know enough to keep it to themselves. Next, and this is the most amazing part, they use a demeaning tone like
I’m
the stupid one for wasting time with books.”

“How can you respond to that kind of person?”

“I usually say something like, ‘But you
can
read, right? Or is that name tag on your fast-food uniform just a bunch of gibberish?’ And then they go in the back, and I bend down and squint at counter level and see them spit on my hamburger. I don’t care much for that either.”

“Want to hear what really pisses me off?” said Coleman.

“Get it of your chest, man!”

“You know what the worst customer service in the world is? I’ll tell you. It’s the weed guys. You just cannot depend on these people. They’ll give you a time, right? And you’re looking forward to it all week and get off work on Friday at five. Of course I personally wouldn’t know, but I’ve heard of people with jobs. And the weed guy never shows up, and he doesn’t answer his phone, and you drive by his house and his car’s gone, and then you’re totally un-stoned at midnight and accidentally bump into the guy at a party and go, ‘Dude, what’s the deal? We had a time,’ and he says, ‘I was doin’ stuff,’ and I say, ‘Like what?’ and he says, ‘Listenin’ to music’ . . .”

“Coleman—”

“Wait, wait, wait! So then I say, ‘How would you like if I wasn’t there at the time?’ And he says, ‘But we had a time.’ ‘Exactly.’ ‘It’s not the same thing.’ ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘Yes’ . . .”

“Coleman—”

“Hold on! And every weed guy is the same. A disgrace to the drug community. And I’m arguing back and forth with this guy, and it’s like talking to a mirror.”

“You mean ‘brick wall,’ ” said Serge. “Correction: You do mean a mirror.”

“And I say, ‘You pull this same bullshit every time.’ He says, ‘Bullshit on you.’ ‘Well, fuck you.’ ‘Fuck you, too.’ ‘I hate your guts.’ ‘Don’t talk to me for the rest of your life.’ ‘You’re dead to me.’ ‘I screwed your mother last night.’ ‘I boned your sister up the ass.’ And people separate you before the punches fly, and you walk into the next room of the party and walk back five minutes later: ‘You still got that weed?’ ‘Yeah, man, you got the money?’ ‘Here it is.’ ‘Here’s your dope.’ ‘Cool.’ ‘Thanks.’ ‘Same time next week?’ ‘We’re on’ . . .”

Serge stared speechless at Coleman.

“What?”

A banging sound from the trunk of the car. Coleman twisted rolling papers in his lap. “I think the hostage came to again.”

“And just in time,” said Serge. “I hate carrying them unconscious into a remote field.”

Coleman licked a gummed edge. “Walking them at gunpoint is better.”

They parked next to just such a remote field and walked the hostage out with a .45 barrel in his back. Serge forced him to the ground and bound his ankles with plastic fasteners meant for electric cables in underground conduits. He handed Coleman the gun. “Just keep your finger off the trigger.”

“How am I supposed to shoot?” asked Coleman.

“You’re not,” said Serge. “He isn’t going anywhere with those fasteners, but you never know. The threat of that gun alone should be enough.”

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the car for the hurricane corkscrews and shovels.”

Coleman scratched his hip with the end of the gun. “Don’t tell me I have to dig again.”

“We’re not digging a hole. We’re filling one.”

Coleman stretched his neck in a straining attempt to see in the dark. “What’s that big thing over there?”

“Another recent purchase that I dropped off earlier.”

Serge reached the Firebird and was on his way back. Suddenly a distant flash. Followed by the delayed sound.

Bang
.

Coleman slowly toppled over. Serge dropped the shovels and went running. “Coleman! . . . Coleman! . . . Please, God! No!”

He arrived and fell to his knees next to a face-in-the-dirt, motionless buddy. Tears welled in his eyes. “Coleman . . .”

Coleman turned his head. “Serge, get down. Somebody’s shooting. I hit the ground when I heard the first shot.”

“Coleman, what’s that next to your hand?”

“Cool, a gun.” He grabbed it. “We can shoot back.”

“Coleman, I saw the flash from back there. You fired the shot.”

“No, I didn’t. I was just scratching my . . . Ohhhh, that’s what happened.” He stood and looked down at his right side. “The shot went through my pocket.” He stuck the gun barrel through the hole. “And I liked these shorts.”

Bang
.

Serge swiped the gun away. “No more bullets for you.”

“Good. Less to stay on top of.”

“Now grab the shovels and my duffel with the hardware.”

“Crap.”

“Hey, I have to drag this guy by the ankles.”

Coleman perched the spades on his left shoulder and grabbed a canvas strap. “Where are we going?”

“Over there.”

“You mean toward that thing I saw earlier.”

“Just don’t fall behind like the other times.” Serge tucked the ankles under his armpit and hiked forward, dragging the scam artist across the rocky terrain like he was hauling out a bag of trash, which he was.

“Hey, Serge, now I recognize what that is. I remember when you bought it earlier.”

Serge stopped and released the captive’s legs. He dialed his cell phone. “Hello, I’d like to get some work done in the morning . . . Yes, I have a credit card . . .”

MIAMI BEACH

Five
A.M.

Paramedics wrapped blankets around naked foamy people while police took statements.

“He said he was from the front desk . . .”

“Sounded so official . . .”

“What convinced me was the part about not taking the elevator . . .”

Other detectives confirmed the coordinated wave of incoming “front-desk” calls and traced them all to a proxy Internet server that disguised their true origin. Uniformed officers swept the nineteenth floor. They chalked up the smashed surveillance camera at the end of the hall to more mayhem from the Pranksters.

The authorities gave the okay for the guests to return to their rooms. The police left.

Thirty minutes later, they were back.

Another burst of 9-1-1 calls. They met the irate guests in the hallway of the nineteenth floor. Seems every one of the twenty-two evacuated rooms had been hit hard. Jewelry, laptops, cameras, expensive video stuff—all the things you’d expect from tourists in high-end resorts.

The police maintained poker faces, but they had to give the crooks grudging respect. They’d done their homework: It was one of those fancy hotels where the doors to the rooms don’t automatically close all the way, which meant no need for forced entry. And details of the hoax, especially the fire extinguisher and nudity parts, guaranteed guests would be leaving in a hurry without wallets and purses.

The police issued an APB and canvassed all exterior security cameras for vehicles leaving the premises between four and five
A.M.

What they didn’t know was the most savvy touch of all. Since the gang knew the police would check surveillance tapes for departing cars, they made sure not to appear on them. Instead, they went to the very last place the police might think to look, where they would remain until checkout time when the coast was clear: in their own room on the twentieth floor, enjoying the contents of the minibar.

Chapter Eleven

JUST BEFORE SUNRISE

A
convoy of landscaping trucks arrived before most people were out the door for work.

But those people were not near. The field was down a soothing country road west of the city. It curved through cattle land and bulldozed citrus groves awaiting rows of identical pre-fab houses with screened-in pools stacked on top of one another. Small egrets picked bugs off the backs of cows. Herons worked the standing water, and vultures worked the road.

Mini-tractors and other riding equipment were unchained and rolled backward off flatbed trailers. A lone machine began buzzing, which touched off many more, like the first cricket in a mating swarm.

Someone with a chain saw on a long pole attacked a dead limb overhead. Twin bush-hog mowers went at the field from opposite ends. Another tractor-like vehicle lowered a mechanical arm in front of the cab. At the end of the arm was a whirling vertical cutting disk with menacing carbide teeth along the circumference. The operator had a protective screen of safety glass to deflect any high-velocity debris as the disk hit the ground and swept side to side.

A giant branch snapped with a loud crack. A man in a construction helmet took off running with his chain saw before the limb landed where he’d just been standing. The bush hogs made progress to meet in the middle of the field like spike-drivers on the Transcontinental Railroad. The employee with the spinning disk had ear protection and didn’t hear when he hit metal. But he wondered what had just bounced so violently off his safety glass.

Then someone else in a helmet ran at him, waving wildly. “Stop the stump grinder! Stop the stump grinder!”

The employee operating the grinder was suddenly blinded when an aggressive red spray covered his safety glass. The machine went silent. The spinning disk slowly rotated to a stop.

All the mechanical crickets in the field were quiet when police arrived. The other employees had abandoned their own equipment and were standing around the stump grinder. Then they were told to stand somewhere else. The crime-scene people initiated a grid excavation with surveying stakes and twine. The only things they could bag and tag were small fragments of possible evidence.

The detectives hated wearing suits in open fields at noon. They threw their jackets in the cars and went looking for the medical examiner.

“Where’s the body?” asked the lead investigator.

“Working on it,” said the coroner.

“You called us out here and we don’t even know if we have a body?”

“No, we have a body all right,” said the examiner. “Just can’t rush and disturb the scene. This is an ugly one.”

“So where is it?” said a second detective.

“Right there.”

The detectives looked down at a broad circle of bloodstained wood chips. “Okay, that’s the homicide scene, but where’d they move the body to?”

“They didn’t.”

“What?”

A forensic excavator worked tediously with an archaeologist’s brush. He dusted off one of the larger roots along the edge of the stump. “Sir, I found another one.”

“Another what?” asked the detective.

The coroner didn’t answer as he knelt next to his assistant. “Okay, slowly cut the root, freeing the eyelet . . . Perfect. Now start twisting carefully . . .”

The detectives watched in bewilderment as an unidentified object slowly rotated up out of the ground and revealed itself.

“What’s that?”

The examiner grabbed it with a latex glove and pulled it the rest of the way from the dirt. He walked back to the detectives and slipped it into one of his larger evidence bags. “Hurricane tie-down.”

The investigators stared at the iron corkscrew. “Tie-down?”

“Found three so far, and I’d bet my paycheck there’s another in the fourth quadrant,” said the examiner. “They’re screwed into the ground to firmly secure sheds and stuff from being overturned or blown away in tropical storms.”

“I’m not making the connection here.”

The examiner handed the bag to an assistant. “The culprit used these to hold down the stump.”

“Forgive my ignorance,” said the second detective. “But don’t stumps do a pretty good job holding themselves down? That’s why people have to pay for heavy machinery to come out and remove them.”

The examiner shook his head. “Not this one. There are two ways to deal with stumps: Use a grinder to chip it down just below ground level, leaving only the roots. Or use a small front-end loader and scoop the whole thing. This one was scooped from somewhere else.”

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

“It makes perfect sense.” The examiner pointed to where his team now worked with lengthy crowbars to tip the stump. “After it was originally removed, someone sheared away the underlying root structure, leaving it with a level base to lie flat on the ground. And with the roots gone, the hurricane screws became necessary. They became the roots.”

“But why did they need to do that to begin with?”

“To hold the stump in place over the victim.”

“The victim’s under there? Jesus, are you saying he was killed by being buried alive?”

“You’re halfway there.” The examiner grabbed another evidence bag from an assistant and held it up toward the detectives.

“Looks like a small plumbing pipe.”

“For showerheads.” The examiner handed it back. “It’s how the victim was able to breathe underground. And the pipe was the first thing that bounced off the grinder’s safety glass.”

“You mean his face was right under—” The detective placed a palm on his stomach. “I think I may be sick.”

“I told you it gets ugly. Whoever did this had a lot of rage. He left the guy overnight to think about it, and arranged for the landscaping company to come in this morning and do the dirty work. Literally.”

A third detective arrived.

“Got any leads?” asked the one in charge.

The new guy shook his head and opened a notebook. “The property owner of record checks out. Clean rap sheet. Says he never ordered any work. And the landscapers say the job was requested over the phone, which turns out to be a prepaid disposable cell that’s impossible to trace.”

“Payment?”

“Stolen credit card.”

The detective stared down again at the nasty pool of blood, then closed his eyes tight. “What kind of monster are we dealing with?”

DOWNTOWN TAMPA

Skyline. Hustle and bustle. Historic theater with balconies, the hockey arena, the landmark “beer can” building. People moving briskly to the thriving rhythms of the big city.

In one of the towering buildings, people came and went in slow motion, indicating it contained government offices.

A black Firebird pulled into a metered spot at the curb.

“Lower that joint!” Serge jerked a thumb sideways. “That’s the county office.”

“But we just wrapped up that Corvette case for Mahoney.” Coleman cupped his hand for a quick hit. “It’s our day off.”

“Since when do we ever have a day off?”

“We’re always just aimlessly driving around.”

“
That’s
our job. Everyone else is too busy.” Serge grabbed a stack of papers from the glove compartment. “And since I did close that case, it’ll buy me some time with Mahoney to get started on my political private-eye career. Investigate some congressmen. The American people can’t wait much longer to be united.”

“And Felicia’s killer?”

Serge pursed his lips. “Okay, that’s the primary reason.”

“So how are you going to start?”

“I already did.” Serge flipped through the pages in his lap. “You can find almost anything on the Internet: voting records, campaign donors, business associations, even travel. And what I couldn’t find, I’m submitting Freedom of Information Act requests to be sent to Mahoney because we really don’t have a mailbox.”

“Who are you investigating?”

“Remember that political operative we took care of in the Gulf? He was wired into the whole conspiracy that got Felicia killed. So I figured why not start with the candidates he placed in office. It’s a two-for.”

Coleman stubbed out the roach. “Find anything yet?”

“Not sure.” Serge held up a page and squinted. “Like I said, the whole universe runs on patterns. And all his guys have some connection to Costa Gorda: junkets, trade bills, vacation villa, but it’s always something.”

“So you’ve figured it out?”

“Not yet.” Serge stuffed the papers away. “I’ll know more when those document requests come in to Mahoney. Meanwhile, we need to infiltrate the political parties so we can gather intelligence on the ground.”

“How do we do that?”

“The obvious first step is registering to vote.” Serge got out of the car with quarters for the meter. “We should do that anyway. It’s the sacred obligation of every citizen to participate in democracy and preciously preserve the integrity of the voting booth. So I got some fake IDs.”

Serge led Coleman into the building and up an elevator.

“How soon till they let us vote?” asked Coleman.

“Since we haven’t done it in a while, I’m hoping immediately.”

The elevator dropped them in a sterile office that was cut in half by a long counter with a series of customer-service stations. Serge took a paper ticket with a number, and they grabbed two chairs against the wall.

Coleman tugged Serge’s sleeve. “Are all the employees dead?”

“What?”

“They’re like statues. Nobody seems to be moving.”

“The human eye is inadequate. But special time-exposure scientific cameras have recently discovered they’re actually living organisms. It is believed they are the building blocks that create bureaucratic reefs.”

Serge raised his shirt, pulled out a clear tube attached to a plastic bladder Velcro’d to his stomach and began sucking coffee.
Slurp, slurp, slurp.
Coleman lifted his own shirt to grab a bladder tube for vodka.
Slurp, slurp, slurp.
A stranger sitting on the other side of Serge stared at them a second, then got up and moved six seats down.

Serge got up and took another chair six seats down next to the stranger. He clenched the tube in the corner of his mouth. “You got a lower number.”

“What?” asked the stranger.

“You have a lower customer-service number on your ticket than I do. Good for you, fair and square. Mine’s forty-three. People automatically think that the numbers are non-transferable, but they’re blind to possibilities. Like sometimes I’ll just go to a motor-vehicles office or a supermarket deli when I have no plans of conducting any business. Then I grab fifty numbers and wait for a whole bunch of people to arrive. And I redistribute the numbers based upon apparent need and good behavior until I’ve shuffled the whole social structure of the crowd.”
Slurp, slurp, slurp.
“It’s one of the few chances you get to play God. I know I shouldn’t play God, but the temptation is too great. You into Conrad?
Heart of Darkness? Apocalypse Now?
”

The stranger got up and moved another six seats away.

Serge stood and moved six seats with him.
Suck, suck, suck.
“Because the ticket system is a micro-example of everything that’s wrong with the country. We’re barreling full tilt into social Darwinism. Can’t thrive in the free market? Lie down in that unpatriotic ditch and die. Same thing in a supermarket deli. Low numbers often go to the pushiest people. Like I’ll see some young mother trying to manage three tots in a shopping cart, and then this buttoned-down young prick intentionally rushes past her to grab a number first. But he has no idea I’ve got my fifty numbers. So I hand the mom my lowest number and wish her blessings. Then more people arrive, and I give numbers to other moms, old people, the poor and the handicapped. Now the prick is ten more spots back. And he glares at me and opens his mouth, and I go, ‘Don’t say a word. I’ve got forty more numbers and can do this all afternoon.’ But he says something anyway—not polite to repeat it. And guess what? I did it all afternoon: Every time someone new arrived, I gave them a lower number, and the jerk could never get to the counter for his marinated mushrooms. I’m guessing about that part, but he looked the type . . . I sure would like your ticket, but I’d never ask. No, no, no, that would put you on the spot, and I’m all about not making people uncomfortable.”

The stranger tossed the stub in Serge’s lap—“take it”—and rushed out of the office.

Serge strolled back to Coleman, who was leaning with his head turned toward the door. “Man, that guy sure left in a hurry. Wonder what got into him.”

“Probably heading to the deli to play God.”

From flush-mount speakers in the ceiling:
“Number forty-two . . . Number forty-two? . . . Is forty-two here? . . .”

“He went to the deli,” yelled Serge.

Coleman tugged his sleeve again. “The guy gave you his number before he split.”

“Oh, right!” Serge jumped up and waved his ticket in the air. “Me! Me! Me! I’m forty-two!”

They took a couple of seats at the counter.

“Now, how can I help you today?” asked a matronly civil servant.

“We want to vote!” said Serge.

“Good to hear. You want to register to vote.”