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…”

Chapter Forty-One

THE CRADLE

Students 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.