Chapter Thirty-One
THE DUNES
Serge’s entourage arrived back in the parking lot and headed for the stairs.
The office door opened behind them. “Excuse me,” said a woman in a hairnet. “Aren’t you the guys in room twenty-four?”
“Yeah.”
“Someone left you a message. Well, not really a message. Think it was just a ring.”
Serge looked at the woman, then up at their room. Could have sworn he left those curtains open. “Guys, wait here a minute.” He followed the receptionist inside.
She walked back behind the front desk. “Real nice guy. I think he wanted to give it back himself, but we don’t disclose room numbers. Security, you know.”
Serge looked up at a ring sitting in a wooden slot marked “ 24.”
“Ma’am,” said Serge, “was he standing right where I am when you put that in the slot?”
“I guess so.” She dragged over a footstool again, grabbed the ring and climbed back down. “Here you go-”
The glass door to the empty office was closing.
Serge bolted for the Challenger. “Back in the cars! Back in the cars!”
“What’s going on?”
“Just hurry!”
The vehicles raced a half mile, and Serge whipped up a circular drive to the valets. “Staying with us?”
“Only dinner.” He took the ticket. “Hear your food’s great.”
Serge hustled the gang into the lobby of one of the strip’s newest luxury resorts.
“Where are we going?”
“Just keep up.”
They ran out the back doors on the ocean side.
Minutes later, a row of kids sat mutely along a stone ledge, legs dangling over the side.
Serge paced feverishly in front of the seventy-year-old coquina band shell.
“I pray I’m wrong, but I seriously doubt it…”
Serge’s voice echoed back at them from the concave dome. He spun and paced the other way. “That shooting in Panama City Beach? Now I’m a hundred percent it was mistaken identity.”
Melvin raised his hand. “Why do you think that?”
“Because they were really after you.”
“Us?”
“Well, one of you.”
Murmurs shot down the row, students glancing at one another.
Another hand. “Why would someone want to kill one of us?”
“Who knows? Anyone witness a murder lately?”
Heads shook.
“Maybe a second case of mistaken identity,” said Serge. “But unlike those poor kids in the Panhandle, this case follows you around.”
“Why?”
“They’ve got one of your names.” Pacing resumed. “I’d bet my life on it. Could simply be an identical name they confused with the target they’re really after.”
“It was Andy’s ring,” said Joey. “Must be his name.”
“Or not,” said Serge. “You booked Panama City with his credit card. Maybe they just think it’s someone staying with him.” He turned. “Andy, anything in the family closet?”
Andy heard guilty thoughts blaring out his ears. “Uh, nope.”
“What about the rest of you?” Serge slowly walked down the row of students, each wilting under his gaze. “We’re all in this together now. If someone’s got a secret, this is the time.”
Heads shook again.
Serge hopped up and sat on the ledge, leaning with elbows on knees. “This is a tough one.”
“So we’re going to take off,” said Andy. “Right?”
“Absolutely not. This is our big chance.”
“Chance?”
“We have a rare window of advantage. They don’t know where we are, but I know where they are.”
“Where?”
“In your room. The guy got the number from the mail slot in the office when he dropped off the ring. And I’m positive we left the curtains open.”
“Oh my God! They’re here?” said Spooge. “In our room!”
A group freak-out. “We should definitely split!…”
“I’m calling my parents!…”
“No!” snapped Serge. “Stop pissing yourselves. If one of you really is the target, the first thing they’ll do is watch relatives’ houses and tap their phones.”
“But they’re not cops. How do they get inside to tap?”
“They can do it across the street in a car. Parabolic receivers pick up portable phones and now even hardwired landlines. Back in the eighties, Miami had a counter-surveillance store on every block.” Serge hopped down from the ledge. “Until I find out what we’re dealing with, nobody makes any outside contact.”
“What about the police?”
“Especially the police,“ said Serge.”Coleman and I do a lot of pawning, and I have a pretty good idea how they found that ring.”
“How?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“If you want us to trust you…,” said Spooge.
“Okay,” said Serge, and he told them.
“Dear Jesus,” said Doogie. “The police are in on it?”
“Only takes one,” said Serge.
“Where do we go in the meantime?”
“I’ll get you registered into this place.” Serge headed back toward the resort. “Then I have some business.”
The Challenger sat behind a liquor store three blocks up A1A from the Dunes.
Serge whistled merrily up the sidewalk, climbed stairs and walked along a second-story landing. Eyes peeked from a curtain slit as he passed room 24. He stuck a key in the next door.
City and Country were kicking back with a bong and HBO.
“There you are!”
“We thought you ditched us again!”
Serge went straight for the door to the adjoining room and quietly locked it. He pressed his right ear to the wood.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We have a problem,” said Serge.
Country blew City a shotgun. “You’re the one with a problem.”
“This isn’t a joke. I need a favor.”
“What’s happening?”
He told them, play by play. “… They’re in twenty-four right now, but they don’t know we have the adjoining room. I can’t do this without you.”
“Bullshit on that,” said City.
“Double bullshit,” said Country. “We got enough trouble as it is.”
“But these kids are sheep,” said Serge. “They don’t stand a chance.”
The pair stared and stewed. Finally, City snatched the bong and lighter. “You bastard.”
“That means you’ll help?”
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO
Randall Sheets saw his future disintegrating.
“Turn the other way,” said Agent Ramirez, sitting with him in the back of a speeding sedan.
The agent twisted a tiny key; cuffs popped loose.
Randall rubbed his wrists. “What’s going to happen to me?”
“Better than if we didn’t show up.”
Waves of panic were so strong, Randall felt himself drowning. Then it came from nowhere, an eruption of sobs and babbling. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t know what to do. My wife. The bills. These guys. The briefcase. I’m so sorry!…”
Ramirez gave him a handkerchief. “We know about your wife.”
Randall blew his nose. “You do?”
Ramirez continued facing forward. “So did they. You got played. It’s how they operate. You never had a choice.”
“I didn’t. What would you have done?”
“Same thing. But that’s behind you.”
“It is?”
“You’re going to testify before the grand jury.”
“Not a chance. They’ll kill me for sure.”
“There’s a duffel bag waiting for you in Bimini,” said Ramirez.
“You know about that, too?”
“Weighs the same as the others with coke.”
“Not coke?”
“Bomb.”
“Doesn’t make sense. I’ve got a perfect delivery record, making them a fortune.”
“They change pilots every six months. And not by mutual agreement. That’s why we had to take you in now.”
Randall’s face fell in his hands. “How long have you known?”
“Two days. Finally got an informant, someone on their inside. Been trying to get a pilot for years but, well, you’re the first.”
“Oh my God!” Randall just remembered. “My family!”
“All taken care of. Picked up your wife and son an hour ago.”
That’s what mattered most to Randall, the next less so: “How much prison am I looking at?”