Tiger Shrimp Tango

Chapter Fourteen

PALM BEACH

Police had no leads on what they referred to in-house as the “Swinger Bandits.”

South Philly Sal had struck gold. And diamonds and artwork. It seemed Gustave and Sasha couldn’t fail. Until they did.

The de Gaulles owned the biggest mansion yet. And the grifters didn’t even have to detain them at lunch. The old farts just talked and talked. Usual stuff. Their vacation cottage on Nantucket, the chalet in Zurich, meeting the royals in Lisbon. Then, chaos. A cell phone vibrated in Mr. de Gaulle’s pocket.

The burglary crew had failed to detect the secondary alarm system, and a text alert had just been sent. But since the primary system hadn’t gone off, the couple figured their dog had probably gotten into mischief.

Mr. de Gaulle abruptly stood. “Sorry, but we have to go.”

“They’re bringing dessert!” said Gustave.

De Gaulle tossed a few hundreds on the table. “Our alarm went off. Probably nothing, but our dog is home.”

His wife grabbed her purse. “We just love Poopsie.”

They sped away in an Aston Martin.

Gustave fished out his own cell for the standard abort call. “Shit.”

“What is it?” asked Sasha.

“Battery’s dead. Give me your phone.”

“I didn’t bring it because you had yours. What are we going to do?”

What they did was race to the home. The Aston Martin was already in the driveway, but the couple was still on the footpath.

Gustave screeched up to the curb and yelled out the window. “Wait!”

Mr. de Gaulle’s face was a swirl of questions. “What are you doing here? . . . How’d you know our address? And why are you driving that crappy Datsun?”

Gustave jumped out and ran across the lawn, followed by Sasha. “Hold up! I have something important—”

“Just a second,” said de Gaulle. “Right after we check on our dog. Why isn’t she barking? That’s not like Poopsie.”

Gustave was almost there, ready to try anything. Seize the house keys and explain later.

Too late. He was already twisting in the knob and the door opened. The couple casually blustered inside. “Here, Poopsie, Poopsie— What in the hell?”

Four men with gloves froze where they stood in the dining room, literally holding the bag. Next to a dead dog. Everyone locked eyes.

The staring contest seemed like it lasted an hour, but was less than two seconds. The de Gaulles turned to run out the door for help and crashed straight into Gustave and Sasha, who beat their skulls in respectively with a sterling candelabra and a bronze statue of a little boy peeing.

Mr. de Gaulle was pronounced DOA, but his wife lay safely in a coma. Swingers or not, police closed ranks around the town and turned up the heat. Time for South Philly Sal to move south.

THAT EVENING

Coleman contentedly burned through an ever-dwindling twelve-pack suitcase of Busch. A lawn chair in the back of the warehouse gave him a front-row seat to the fireworks show of sparks shooting toward the ceiling and bouncing benignly off Serge’s thick rubber apron.

Serge turned off the torch and walked over to a drill press. Even louder noise this time. When the metalwork was finished, he gathered all the machined parts in the middle of the building and banged them together with a mallet.

Serge stood and nodded to himself in approval. He dialed his cell phone again. “Crazy Legs? This is Serge. I need a huge favor immediately . . . Has it really already been five whole years? . . . Because I was in the neighborhood . . . But— . . . I thought— . . . Why? Are you hungry? . . .”

Serge eventually negotiated an end to the conversation. Then he grabbed a crowbar and began disassembling the apparatus.

Coleman raised his hand.

“Yes, the student in the back of the class.”

“Serge, you just put it together. Why are you taking it apart already?”

“You always do a test fit in the lab to avoid on-site glitches during final assembly and launch.” A round disk clanged to the floor. “I should have worked on the Hubble Telescope.”

Coleman cringed at the sound of heavy metal dragging on concrete.

Serge stopped and wiped his brow. “Are you going to just sit around or give me a hand?”

“I was hoping to just sit.”

“Shut up and get over here.”

Coleman shrugged and shuffled across the warehouse. “What are we doing?”

“Loading all this for transpo to the final destination.” Serge took another deep breath. “I forgot to tell Alfonso that I also needed his van. Oh, well, he’s not using it tonight . . . Grab here like I am and pull. On three . . .”

Three came and they pulled. They stopped. “This isn’t working,” said Serge. “Let’s roll it.”

They reached the rear of the van, and Serge tilted the main assembly upright. He opened the back doors. “Coleman, get inside. I’ll lean it against the bumper to boost it from this end, and you pull from the other . . .”

Success. Coleman jumped down from the vehicle, and the doors slammed shut.

“Where to now?” asked Coleman.

“The biggest liquor store we can find.”

“Wait.” Coleman looked up into the empty sky. “Do you hear angels?”

“We’re not going for that reason,” said Serge. “It just happens to be the kind of place selling all the remaining requirements for my science project.”

Moments later, the van sat in a crowded parking lot while the pair roamed the aisles.

Coleman walked slowly, in awe. Arms outstretched religiously. “It’s as big as a department store.”

Serge pushed the shopping cart. “That’s why they call it Liquor Universe.”

“What are you shopping for?”

“These.” Serge stopped in front of a shelf and began filling the cart.

“Why do you need that stuff?”

“Of all people, I thought you’d know.” He ventured to a different section of the store and filled the bottom part of the cart under the basket.

“Are we finished?” asked Coleman.

“Almost,” said Serge. “I’m depending on your expertise. Find me an ice pick.”

Coleman closed his eyes, in a trance. He opened them. “Aisle six, middle shelf, halfway down on the left.”

Serge stared inscrutably at his colleague, then walked to the appointed spot and immediately located a broad selection of ice picks. “Coleman, have you ever been in this place before?”

“Never set foot.”

“But then how—”

“It just comes to me. I can’t explain it because it doesn’t happen anywhere else except head shops.”

“Don’t turn around,” said Serge. “And cover your eyes. What’s directly behind you?”

“Wild Turkey, in the seven-fifty-milliliter bottle.”

“What’s next to it?”

“Same brand, select barrel, full liter,” said Coleman. “Did I get it?”

“You are the chosen one.” Serge wheeled toward the register.

From halfway back up the aisle: “Can I uncover my eyes now?”

“Yes, come on!”

They loaded up the van, and Serge began stabbing away with the ice pick.

“Just one question,” said Coleman. “How did you decide on the final destination to assemble this?”

“The location picked itself. Remember I said we were waiting for data from Mahoney? He e-mailed me last night with more info from his latest clients, and I was able to make contact with prime suspects over the Internet.” Stab, stab, stab. “Criminals tend to operate in zones of comfort, but if all goes according to my plan, this will be the opposite of comfort.”

A few last stabs. “There, all done.” Serge tossed the pick on the dashboard. “Coleman, pass me my bottle of drinking water. I need to fuse this internal component and let it cure.”

Coleman handed it over and giggled like a five-year-old.

Serge poured water into an old rag. “You’re stoned out of your freakin’ mind.”

“No, I’m laughing because I finally get it.” More uncontrolled snickers.

“Coleman, that’s a personal record. You’ve never figured out my projects this early.”

He clutched another hit. “Definitely! I’ll bet I could even put it together all by myself.”

“Grasshopper, your journey is almost complete.” He started up the van and reversed course on the Palmetto Expressway, heading east toward A1A. In the rearview, the sky over the Everglades glowed blood-red from a just-set sun. Ahead, over the Atlantic, deepening purple. “Excellent timing. We’ll arrive under cover of darkness, which is critical because we’ll be exposed.”

They reached a causeway.

“Hey, Serge,” said Coleman. “Weren’t we just here a week ago?”

“Correct again, Mensa boy.”

The van pulled off the road and into a small park where they weren’t supposed to be after sunset, but bolt cutters gave them an invitation.

They stopped next to a small boat ramp, near a small vessel that was anchored out of sight around a bend in the mangroves. Serge removed his shoes and socks and began walking down the ramp’s incline.

“What the heck are you doing?” yelled Coleman.

Serge entered the water and was quickly up to his knees. “Called in a favor from Crazy Legs. He lent me the boat, but couldn’t leave it in a trailer in the parking lot because the county would tow at closing time . . . I’ll be right back.” He dove into the water and swam quickly around the bend.

Coleman sat on the back bumper and urgently burned a jay to enhance the coming attractions. “I cannot wait for this!” He peered into the darkness as the nose of an eighteen-foot fly-fishing Carolina Skiff emerged from the edge of the mangroves. Then the whole boat came into view, riding silently because Serge was using an ultra-quiet electric trolling motor that fishermen favor when they don’t want to scatter their quarry on the flats.

Next, Serge and Coleman rolled a giant metal tube down the ramp and strained to hoist it over the side of the craft. After that, the rest of the loading was chump work. Serge started the trolling motor again and sailed around the bend. This time he wedged the boat deep in the mangroves to avoid daylight detection. Then he swam back to the boat ramp.

“That’s it?” said Coleman. “We’re not going to use it now? I hate waiting when I’m high.”

“We don’t have any contestants yet.” Serge got out his keys. “Unless you want to volunteer.”

“I’d rather wait.”

THE NEXT AFTERNOON

A van from the electric company rolled slowly through the finger canals off Las Olas Boulevard. Fort Lauderdale’s answer to Worth Avenue.

Since Miami-Dade was now two-thirds Hispanic, much of the wealth had migrated north over the county line into Broward. They called it Anglo flight.

The waterfront homes were getting ridiculous in scale. Thanks to building codes. Most ordinances in other cities limit the size of structures. Not here. In order to increase property values and the tax base, you could not purchase one of the older homes unless you agreed to bulldoze it and build something so big it would blot out the sun. Seriously.

Wayne Huizenga, former owner of the Miami Dolphins, Florida Marlins and Blockbuster video, has a home there. It’s a short limo ride to the downtown offices, but he likes to take the chopper from his backyard helipad. Seriously.

“There’s the house now.” Gustave pointed out the windshield. It wasn’t Huizenga’s place, but South Philly Sal was still impressed. “When are you supposed to meet this couple?”

“Noon for lunch. Actually a picnic.”

“What about the location?” said Sal. “That mess back in Palm Beach with the couple who came home early is still fresh. We need to watch our profile.”

“Sasha personally picked the spot,” said Gustave. “She’s totally comfortable there.”

“Okay, then.” Sal turned around to the rest of the gang in the back of the truck. “Everyone, we’re on at noon . . .”

At twelve on the dot:

Sasha merrily swung a wicker picnic basket as she strolled down a lush embankment of grass overlooking a mirror surface of water.

Gustave was close behind with a large checkered blanket. “What’s with you and this place? I don’t see how special it is.”

“Dumbfounding Bay?” said Sasha. “Are you joking? The history—”

“I know, I know,” said Gustave. “You have this thing for dangerous types.” He spread out the blanket under a nest of palms.

“Make sure none of those coconuts are over our heads,” said Sasha. “One knocked me out when I was a kid.”

Gustave looked up and slid the blanket to the left.

Sasha unpacked Evian, paper plates and pickles.

“What have you got in there?” asked Gustave.

The deli sandwiches came out next. “Wasn’t sure what they’d like, so I got a little of everything. Egg, tuna and chicken salad.”

Gustave checked his watch and looked around. A few cubicle people were enjoying lunch away from the office, but no couples. “Where are they? It’s already five past.”

Sasha opened the coleslaw. “They’ll be here.”

Two men walked up. “Are you Gustave and Sasha?”

The question caught them off guard.

“Why? Who are you?”

“We’re the people you’re supposed to meet. You know, the e-mails.”

“But . . . you’re two guys.”

“Is that a problem?” asked the man. “Because I can perfectly understand. It’s just that it’s usually cool in the swinging community.”

“No, we’re fine,” said Gustave. “It’s just that when you said your names were Nathan and Jamie, I naturally assumed—”

“Is that tuna salad? I love tuna salad.”

They all sat down for lunch and small talk.

“This place sure is beautiful,” said Nathan.

“Sasha picked it out,” said Gustave.

“She must have a thing for Mob types.”

“Why yes,” said Gustave. “But . . . I mean . . . How did you know?”

“You kidding?” said Nathan. “The history of this place. They found Johnny Roselli bobbing in a drum right over there with his legs sawed off. That gives me an appetite.” He took a big bite of his tuna sandwich.

Gustave and Sasha glanced warily at each other. “Uh, what exactly do you do for a living?”

Nathan noshed another bite. “Consulting work mainly. Right now I’m getting a lot of action from a private investigator. He was just hired by the family of this couple that was attacked in Palm Beach . . .”

A cell phone vibrated. Gustave flipped it open. Sal screamed so loud on the other end that everyone could hear: “Abort! Abort! The house is occupied! The people you’re meeting aren’t who they say they are—”

The phone was snatched from Gustave’s hand and flung in the water. Then a gun barrel pressed between his eyes. “My name’s actually Serge. I thought you should know that since we’ll be spending some quality time together.”

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