Tiger Shrimp Tango

Chapter Thirty-Four

The Firebird blew through traffic on the MacArthur Causeway back to the mainland from Miami Beach. It dodged and wove through slower-speeding sports cars screaming past celebrity homes on Palm and Star islands.

“Serge, you drive fast,” said Coleman. “But not this fast. What if a cop spots us?”

“Then we’ll be on live TV, because I’m not stopping.”

“Righteous.”

Serge flipped open his own cell and hit redial. “Brook? Serge. I’m sorry about this, but something’s come up, and I swear to be back as soon as possible.”

“What is it?” Brook asked from the back of a taxi.

“Once again, better you not know,” said Serge. “But trust me that I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“Why? What can happen besides the police?” said Brook. “I’ve been thinking that a good lawyer can explain that.”

“It’s something else,” said Serge. “Just give me your word you won’t leave the room until I get back. You haven’t left the room, have you?”

“Uh, no,” said Brook, looking out the window at passing buildings. “Not for a second.”

“Good girl,” said Serge. “Now here’s the hard part. I’m going to have to stop taking calls soon because I don’t know what phones are tapped anymore. So you’ll just have to hang in there.”

“All right. When do you expect—”

“Got to go.”

He hung up and the cell rang again before it reached his pocket. Serge didn’t even look at the number.

“Mahoney, listen, I’m— . . . What? South Philly Sal is supposed to be where? The Tortugas Inn? Seven o’clock? . . . Who told you this? . . . They wouldn’t say? . . . Okay, thanks.” The phone clapped shut as Serge skidded over the line at minimum clearance between a Mitsubishi and a Pepsi truck, then whipped back into the fast lane.

Coleman made a rare check of his seat belt. “What was that about?”

“Mahoney got an anonymous tip. A room at the Tortugas Inn was registered to a customer named Enzo Tweel.”

“What’s that mean?”

“That Mahoney’s phone is tapped.”

“Just because someone called in a tip?”

“Enzo called in a tip on himself. Then listened when Mahoney forwarded it. He’s baiting me.” Serge nearly sideswiped a Gold Coast taxi skidding toward the exit ramp to Biscayne Boulevard. “What happened to Sasha back there. Same café, identical MO, even the same table. I’ll never forget that table as long as I live. He’s trying to provoke me into not thinking clearly.”

Coleman’s shaking hands prepared a drink. “What are you going to do?”

“Take the bait . . .”

Two miles south, a Cherokee was parked at a Citgo station. The driver had a telephoto camera aimed diagonally across the street at the Tortugas Inn. His other hand held a cell phone. “No, I don’t trust him one bit,” said South Philly Sal. “It’s definitely a trap. I’d bet anything that this character who calls himself Enzo Tweel is actually Serge . . . Because right now he has the edge since I have no idea what he looks like, and I mean to fix that. This Serge character is ruining our business.”

Two blocks in the other direction, binoculars aimed out the driver’s window of a parked Beemer. The Tortugas Inn filled the field of vision. Enzo was beginning to enjoy his role as puppet master in this demented marionette show. The binoculars swept the street, from the black-barreled barbecue stand three blocks north, then back to the Citgo station three streets the other way. All quiet on the western front.

A black Firebird turned off Biscayne a half mile south of the Tortugas Inn, and took a parallel road through a run-down neighborhood.

“Serge, if you know it’s a trap, why are we going?”

“Because he expects my anger to rush me into the web.” Serge checked all his mirrors during a prolonged pause at a stop sign. “Enzo is hanging back watching the motel for me to arrive. So, like a spider, we’re going to drive in tightening concentric circles from the perimeter because someone on surveillance isn’t looking backward . . .”

Over on the main drag, binoculars in the Beemer tightened again on the Tortugas Inn. A few hundred yards away, a telephoto lens snapped a rapid burst of room exterior photos from a Jeep Cherokee.

Serge explored the residential streets a block off U.S. 1 and turned into a trash pickup alley behind the storefronts facing Biscayne.

“I recognize that smell,” said Coleman.

“Just watch for anything odd.”

“Everything’s odd.” Coleman blazed a Thai stick. “Those chicks at the corner are dousing each other with spray paint.”

“That’s just huffing gone inaccurate.” The Firebird rolled up behind a gas station. “Coleman, how often do you see a telephoto lens sticking out a car window at a Citgo station?”

“Let me count . . .” Coleman strained mentally. “Uh, zero.”

“That’s what I thought.”

Serge parked out of sight behind the station’s car wash. High-pressure water jets and giant spinning brushes created a cover of sound. “Coleman, wait here and keep her running. He’s no doubt armed but riveted on the room, so I have a good chance to outflank him.”

Serge closed the driver’s door but let it stay unlatched. He moved slowly along the back wall of the car wash, sliding his right hand into the waistband of his shorts and feeling a familiar grip. He peeked around the edge of the car wash, but his view was blocked by a wet, gleaming Audi that emerged from the building and dripped water as it drove back to the highway.

The view was clear. There was the Jeep, its driver still preoccupied with his camera and phone. Serge retreated a step behind the building and rested the back of his head against the wall. He closed his eyes, flicking the safety off his pistol. He had ached two whole years for this moment, and now closure sat across the parking lot a few yards away.

Serge crept from behind the car wash and worked his way around the edge of the property, passing the fifty-cent tire inflater and a blue pay phone stand with the phone removed. He stopped and studied the Jeep’s mirrors and calculated the one, single straight line to the vehicle that would keep the mirrors blind to him. He began walking the asphalt tightrope.

The cell-phone conversation could be heard at a range of fifteen feet.

“. . . Yeah, he hasn’t shown yet. I think this is a big waste of time,” said Sal. “But you have to consider the source that vouched for this. Sasha can really be out to lunch sometimes . . .”

The phone was snatched from his left hand and smashed to the ground. His head spun. “What the fuck?”

Serge cracked him quickly in the side of the head with his pistol butt.

“You’re a dead man,” said Sal.

“Just set the camera down slowly on the dash.” Serge kept the .45 pressed to Sal’s temple and opened the door with his other hand. “Now get out.”

Sal eased himself from the driver’s seat. “Are you Serge?”

“That’s right, your new chauffeur.”

Moments later, behind the car wash, Sal lay in the bed of the Firebird’s trunk. Wrists and ankles bound with plastic ties. “You better make damn sure you kill me, or I’ll leave you in a million pieces.”

Serge tucked the gun behind his back and smiled. “I can work with that.”

The hood slammed.

A couple blocks south, binoculars lowered in a Beemer. Enzo Tweel checked his Rolex. What could be taking so long? One of his areas of expertise was human behavior, and provoking Serge with that Sasha business back at the beach was a can’t-miss.

And he was right.

The binoculars went to his eyes again just as a black Firebird sped south.

“Son of a bitch!”

The binoculars flew into the backseat as Enzo hit the gas to merge onto Biscayne.

And he merged T-bone-style into the side of a beer truck.

“You stupid fucking moron!” the beer-truck driver yelled down from his cab. “Look what you did to my truck!”

Enzo aimed a German pistol at the driver, who promptly raised his hands in silent surrender before diving across the front seat and scrambling out the passenger door.

The luxury sedan was crumpled to the side panels, and Enzo needed his shoulder to pop the door open. He crawled out of the car with a gash on his forehead and tiny pieces of windshield in his hair.

Enzo began limping away toward the camouflage of the adjoining neighborhood, looking up the highway as a southbound Firebird became a dot and disappeared.

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