Gator A-Go-Go (22 page)

ROD AND REEL PIER

A
gent Mahoney bobbed a line in the water.

A phone rang.

“Mahoney here. Mumble to me.”

“It’s Harold. If you’re still interested, I just got a hit on that credit card.”

“Where!”

“Bar in New Smyrna. It’s called . . .”

Mahoney knew the place inside out. “Thanks, Dutch.”

He closed the phone. “Here, kid. Have a fishing pole.”

“Gee, thanks, mister. And it’s got a fish on it.”

Mahoney cleared out of room 3 at the Rod and Reel Motel and sped east in a ’68 Dodge Monaco.

PALM BEACH

The Atlantic was calm. A light chop sparkled from a late-morning sun and glistened off the windows of old-money mansions.

Unlike other parts of the state, the continental shelf drops like a cliff just a few miles out, where the big freighters and yachts cruise. Route A1A continued south, leaving the famous Worth Avenue shopping district and swinging out to the edge of the beach. A ’73 Challenger rolled by security cameras at the entrance of the Trump compound, station wagon and pickup close behind.

Andy was up front with Serge. City and Country passed a bottle in the backseat. Coleman was there, too. Normally, it would have been tight quarters.

Serge looked in the rearview and raised his walkie-talkie. “Lord of the Binge, you okay?”

Coleman keyed his own walkie-talkie. “I like it here.”

Andy visibly shook as he turned around and stared at Coleman lying up on the rear window ledge, then back at Serge and his walkie-talkie. “No offense, but I’m not sure I want to be riding with you guys anymore.”

“Don’t have a choice,” said Serge, draining a travel mug of coffee.

“Is that a threat?”

“For your own safety.” Serge set the cup back on the dash. “You know I’d never let anything happen to you.”

“I get the feeling something will anyway.”

“I was saving this, because I knew how spooked you were.”

“Saving what?”

Serge took his hands off the wheel and clapped them together. “I have great news! This is going to make your whole day, sure to boost your spirits!”

“What is it?”

“Remember me mentioning the birthplace of spring break? I just found the original spot. I mean the exact, genuine GPS location, not like the Fountain of Youth, where they dug a hole in St. Augustine, planted a sign and took my fucking money without even letting me climb down the well, but I did anyway. More like fell—Coleman let go of my ankles. But what are you going to do?”

“I’d like to get out of the car now, please.”

“We’re going too fast.”

They left Boynton and crossed the Broward line.

“I still think we should call the authorities,” said Andy.

“Told you: There’s a mole.”

“But what can one guy do? If I call, they’ll send a whole team like they did before . . .”

“And take you to a safe house?”

“Right.”

“That’s why I can’t let you,” said Serge. “I know this game. When there’s a mole, the precise moment you’re in greatest danger is during the hand-off. It’s the last open shot they’ll have. Besides, I got something better than a regular safe house.”

“Which is?”

“Serge’s Safe Fun House!”

Somewhere along the Atlantic coast, a cell phone rang.

“Agent Ramirez here.”

“Received a hit on that credit card.”

“Finally! Where? . . .”

The ’73 Challenger continued down A1A, speeding past giant new condos and boutiques where history had been demolished.

“Serge,” said Andy. “Why are you waving a gun out the window at those buildings and making shooting sounds with your mouth?”

“Does that bother you?”

They crossed Sunrise Boulevard. Recent construction gave way to the old Lauderdale strip. Andy looked out the window at a postcard view: endless sea, bent coconut palms, lifeguard shacks and the famous whitewashed balustrade along the sidewalk. “Where are we?”

“The cradle.” He pulled into a convenience store parking lot, and students from the other vehicles gathered ’round.

“Supply run,” said Serge. “Stock up heavy. Gets expensive fast if you run out down where we’re staying.”

Coleman and the kids went for beer coolers. Serge spun racks of souvenirs. Melvin grabbed bags of chips.

Andy glanced around. “Pssst, Melvin. Can I ask you a favor?”

“Why are you whispering?”

“Don’t want Serge to hear.” Andy handed him his credit card and a disposable cell phone in a plastic blister pack. “Buy this for me.”

“Why don’t
you
buy it?”

“Serge doesn’t want me making any calls.”

“I don’t think he wants anyone making calls.”

“You’re not worried?”

Melvin laughed. “You don’t know Serge like I do. This is all just fake drama. That’s what I was finally able to explain to the other guys. He’s hilariously eccentric. I convinced them to sit back and go along with his imagination. Trust me, it’ll be a riot.”

“I don’t think this is fake.”

“Of course it is. Why? You know something we don’t?”

Andy opened his mouth, thinking of all the things he wanted to say—canceling each one before it came out. “Can you buy the phone?”

“It’s not my credit card.”

“These people never check.”

“I don’t think Serge is going to let me.”

“He likes you. Tell him it’s about a girl.”

Serge was at the checkout.

“Sorry,” said the cashier. “We just have those magnets and key chains.”

Serge leaned far over the counter and looked down. “Sure you don’t have anything else back there? Bet you do if you look. Tequesta artifacts; Stranahan family mementos; Las Olas bricks; wood splinters from coastal forts, whence this city got its name.”

“We have little thimbles.”

“You should have bricks. I can get some if you want. Hot seller.” He grabbed an item from a cardboard counter display. “Better than this cigarette lighter that looks like a penis. I can have you up to your neck in bricks by sundown. Just say the word.”

“Sir,” said the cashier. “Someone wants to buy something.”

“Oh, sorry.” He stepped aside. “Melvin, what are you doing with that phone? You know what we talked about.”

Melvin looked at his shoes. “It’s . . . a girl.”

Serge slapped him on the back. “You
are
a sly dog.”

A luxury motor coach blocked traffic in both directions on A1A as the driver negotiated a challenging turn radius.

Car honked. Not from annoyance. They recognized the company name and paint job.
Girls Gone Haywire
had come to town!

The driver finally cleared the road and pulled into the parking lot of a towering resort.

Rood and staff climbed down.

His chief assistant assessed the new shooting locale. “Sir, I don’t think kids come to Fort Lauderdale for spring break anymore.”

“Some still do,” said Rood. “We’ll just have to be patient.”

“But what if those hags show up again with their signs?”

“Nobody can follow us forever.”

The assistant looked up the strip. “I still haven’t seen a single babe.”

“Like I said, be patient.”

The gang regrouped outside the convenience store.

“Where’s Andy?” said Serge.

“Think he’s in the bathroom.”

Andy was torn. He sat on the toilet, staring forever at his new cell phone.

He’d started to dial and hung up three times already. Serge was clearly insane. But so had been his own life ever since that day in kindergarten. And Serge was smart. Andy figured it a 50-50 proposition he was right about a mole and the danger of going in.

Decision time.

He dialed again and let it ring through. Answering service.

“Dad, it’s me, Andy. I think some people discovered our witness identities. I wanted to call the special number they gave us, but there might be an informant. Except the guy who told me that is— . . . I’m so confused. I don’t know who to trust . . .”

Banging on the door. “Andy, it’s me, Serge. You okay in there?”

“Fine. Just be a minute.” He set the phone’s ringer on vibrate and returned it to his head. “What am I supposed to do? I’m in Fort Lauderdale; call when you get this message . . .”

THE CRADLE

S
tudents assembled on the sidewalk in front of Serge, getting wasted but remembering his advice to keep drinks concealed because they were now “behind enemy lines.”

He looked across sunburnt faces. “Anyone?”

A hand went up. “Didn’t it start with the movie
Where the Boys Are?
”

“Excellent answer,” said Serge. “And wrong. That’s when it really exploded, except it actually began in 1935 just up the street. But since we’re outside Tour Stop Number One, the infamous Elbo Room, let’s talk about that movie . . .”

They went inside and ordered a round. “. . . This area here is where they filmed. Students had been flocking from northern universities for years until the migration reached twenty thousand in the late fifties, still extremely modest by today’s standards. Then in 1960, after that movie came out, numbers exploded to more than three hundred thousand, making the required pilgrimage to this very bar. If you look closely at the carved-up wood, you might find your parents’ initials. Or grandparents’ . . .”

Andy was in the rear of the group, facing the other way, surreptitiously sliding a cell phone from his pocket.

“. . . Until that movie, Middle America had been in the dark about what was going down in Florida . . . But their first hint came the year before when, on Monday, April 13, 1959,
Time
magazine exposed the secret world of booze, sex, throwing alligators in motel pools, driving twenty-seven hours from Pennsylvania’s Dickinson College and rioting when a bar ran out of beer during an all-you-can-drink-for-a-dollar-fifty special.”

“Dollar fifty!” said a student.

“Ain’t heritage an ass kicker? And here’s your free bonus: an ultra-cool history footnote that has come to be known as my signature, or obnoxiousness, depending on the reviewer. Remember, it was still 1959, the year before the movie. And that
Time
article ended with a girl being asked to explain the attraction of spring break. Her answer? It’s ‘where the boys are.’”

“Wow.”

“Andy!” yelled Serge. “What are you doing back there?”

“Nothing!” The cell went back in his pocket.

“The Elbo was even slated for the wrecking ball a couple years back, but the condo market went bust and saved her, for the time being . . . Kill those drinks—we’re on the prowl!”

Three minutes later, the convoy parked in metered slots a few blocks south. Serge led the gang on foot around a private gate.

“And this is Bahia Mar Marina, home of literature’s Travis McGee and his houseboat, the
Busted Flush
. . .“ He walked briskly through a dock entrance.”. . . His creator, John D. MacDonald, died in 1986, and the following February they erected a magnificent brass memorial plaque on a stately concrete pedestal at Travis’s boat slip, F-18, which is . . .“—he turned the corner—”. . . right here . . . What the fuck?”

“What is it?”

“The monument! It’s gone!”

“It’s a pretty big marina,” said Spooge. “Sure you didn’t get the wrong spot?”

“Not a chance,” said Serge. “This shit I know inside out. Always have to stop and touch the plaque each time through town, ever since the ’97 World Series when I came here with Sharon and nearly shot—Better stick with my official account.”

A security guard in a golf cart zipped by.

“Excuse me!” yelled Serge. “Mr. Make-Believe Cop!”

The cart stopped.

Serge sprinted across the dock.

“Can I help you?” asked the guard.

Serge pointed behind him. “The monument! . . . MacDonald! . . . Disappeared! . . . Was it Maoists? . . .”

“Oh, the
plaque.
About some books. Yeah, they moved it to the dockmaster’s office.”

“Why’d they do that?”

The guard shrugged.

“Which way?”

“Last building over there.”

Serge looked back at the gang and made a big wave of his arm. “I found it! Hurry! . . . Andy, what’s that behind your back?”

“Nothing.”

Serge and the students ran down a seawall along the Intracoastal Waterway. Andy fell farther and farther behind. He began slipping a hand into his pocket again. Before he could reach the phone, it vibrated.

Andy almost fell in the water. He quickly flipped it open with a whisper: “Hello?”

“Andy? Is that you? Andy McKenna?”

“Who’s this?”

“Agent Ramirez. Are you all right?”

“Thank heavens! You have to help . . .” He stopped and looked at the recently bought disposable phone. “Where’d you get my number? Nobody has it. You’re . . . Guillermo, aren’t you?”

“I can explain. Don’t hang up!”

He hung up.

Serge cut across a lawn and burst through the doors of the dock-master’s office, lunging at the woman behind the nearest desk.

“Can I help you?”

Serge straightened his posture and collected himself. “Yes, the helpful security guard told me about the relocation of one of our state’s holiest touchstones.”

“Our what?”

The office was small. Students snaked behind Serge and out the open door. Andy was last. His phone vibrated again. He opened it slowly but didn’t speak.

“Don’t hang up! I got lucky and decided to give your father’s answering service another shot. This number was attached to your message.”

Silence.

“Andy? Still there?”

“You know my father?”

“I’m one of the agents who originally moved you fifteen years ago.”

“I had a Dolphins poster in my room—”

“Larry Csonka.”

More silence, this time from shock.

“Andy?”

“Thank God! You’re telling the truth! You’ve got to get me out of here!”

“Where are you exactly?”

“With some lunatic . . .”

“Andy!” Serge yelled out the door. “What are you doing out there?”

“Nothing!”

“Don’t hang up!”

Click.

Andy trotted toward the office.

“Feeling okay?” asked Serge, holding the door. “You’ve been acting kinda weird.”

“I’m fine.”

“Good, because these kind people just showed me where the plaque is. It’s behind the door on that little stand unworthy of Travis.” He turned to the rest of the group. “Listen up. This puts us behind schedule, so keep the line moving . . .”

The dockmaster’s staff thought they’d signed up for marina administration. But the new placement of the plaque had drawn a stream of hard-core MacDonald buffs and their spectrum of behavior—so barely a blip registered on their radar as the column of young visitors marched past the stand and ritualistically touched the plaque. They finished and walked out the door. Except one.

“Andy, why aren’t you touching the plaque? What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? How can you goof around at a time like this?”

“I’m not goofing around. It’s all part of the Master Plan . . .” —he lowered his voice—“. . . Remember what we talked about in the car?”

“What does touching plaques have to do with any of that?”

“The plan . . . has tangents.”

“There is no plan! You’re going to get me killed!”

“Touch the plaque. For me?”

Andy sighed and halfheartedly brushed it with the back of his hand.

“Now, how hard was that?”

“I am so dead.” He walked out the door.

Serge turned back to the office staff. “Appreciate the hospitality. But the plaque really should be back on the dock.”

“What?”

“I know it wasn’t your doing.” Serge winked. “We’ll talk later.”