“But, Serge”-Joey held up his watch-“We’ve been here less than two minutes. And we only stopped running when we got to the gold-medal case.”
“That’s right. I like to turn it into a ride.” Serge ran out the door.
Despite their age advantage, the kids had to hustle. They jumped back in vehicles as Serge left the parking lot. He raced fifty feet and parked in another.
The kids pulled into adjacent slots. “We drove ten seconds just to park across the street?”
“It isn’t about parking. It’s about hallowed earth.” Serge dropped to his knees and placed a palm on the hot tar. “This is the exact birthplace of spring break, where they paved over that first pool. A moment of silence. That’s too long.” He flipped down the pickup’s tailgate and hopped into the kiddie pool, reclining with arms hooked over the inflated edge. “Who wants to join me?”
Students stared at Magic Marker on the side: THE CASINO.
“Andy?” said Serge.
He jumped and swung the phone behind his back. “What?”
“Get in here! The water’s great!”
“I don’t really feel like-”
“Andy!”
“Okay.” He hid his phone on top of the pickup’s front left tire and climbed over the side of the pool in shorts.
Serge pumped his eyebrows. “How do you feel?”
“Stupid.”
“All the best things in life feel stupid at first. I think Dahmer said that.”
A police officer approached the pickup on foot. “Excuse me?” Serge turned. “How may I help you, officer?”
“I’m not saying what you’re doing is wrong. But what are you doing?”
“Resurrecting our state’s lost heritage!”
“Why do you have a kiddie pool in the back of a pickup?”
“Because if I set it up on the ground, that would be unusual.”
“Are you okay?”
“Excellent! You’re standing on sacred ground,” said Serge. “This was the original site of the Casino Pool, birthplace of spring break. So existentially any pool set up on this spot becomes the Casino, like this one. Under new management. Tarzan, Amsterdam, Colgate. I drank a lot of coffee today.”
The officer had seen everything but this extended the list. “Well, you’re not disturbing anyone and…”-he craned his neck to survey the pickup’s bed-“… I don’t see any beer cans or drugs, which is a welcome change, so I guess there’s nothing else here for-… Are you trying to signal me?”
“Me?” asked Serge.
“No.” The officer pointed. “Him.”
“I was just scratching,” said Andy.
“The heartbreak of psoriasis,” said Serge.
The officer tipped his cap. “Have a nice day.”
A few blocks north, other students with beer on their minds ran across A1A toward a convenience store.
The first jerked the door handle.
Bolted.
“That’s weird.”
They cupped hands around their eyes and pressed them to the glass. “I don’t see anybody.”
“The lights are on.”
“Damn.”
In the back room, Guillermo sat at a surveillance monitor and rewound a tape. It was a split screen: the view from behind the register, and another outside toward the gas pumps, in case of drive-offs. On the desk in front of Guillermo lay a sheet of paper with the location and time of a cell phone purchased with a credit card.
Guillermo stopped the tape and pressed play. Customers buying cigarettes and scratch-off tickets. The digital time record in the top corner was two hours early. He hit fast-forward. People comically scurried around with coffee, hot dogs and Alka Seltzer. The white numbers at the top of the screen flipped rapidly until they approached the time on Guillermo’s printed record. He hit play again.
A young man bought a cell phone with a credit card.
Guillermo froze the image. “So that’s what Andy McKenna looks like now.”
He unfroze the video and watched the other side of the screen. The youth climbed into a pickup with a Florida Gators bumper sticker.
Guillermo ejected the tape and took a wide step around a slick of blood spreading from the store’s owner.
Serge slapped the water’s surface in the kiddie pool. “Who’s the next lucky winner?”
Cody climbed up.
“Are you digging it? I’m digging it!” Serge reached over the side of the pool for his plastic specimen jar and dipped it in the water. “I’m saving this sample forever!… Who’s next?”
Students continued swapping places. Andy walked around the front of the pickup and grabbed his phone off the tire. He pressed buttons.
“Agent Ramirez?”
“Andy, where are you? I’ve been driving up and down A1A!”
“No. It isn’t safe.”
“You’re less safe where you are.”
“You don’t understand Serge. There’s no telling what he’s capable of if you show up.”
“Think he might be with Guillermo?”
“At first I wondered, but now I’m sure he’s not. He thinks he’s protecting me. Which I’m beginning to believe is even more dangerous.”
“Why do you say that?”
Serge stood behind the pickup with a map of Florida rolled into a cone like an old-style megaphone. “Swim! Swim! Swim!…”
Two students in the water. “Serge, our bodies are longer than the pool.”
“Swim! Damn it!…”
“I hear yelling,” said Ramirez. “Is everything okay?”
“No. Listen, you coming to me is out.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Think I can slip away later. Then we’ll meet. It’ll eliminate any unpredictable confrontation with Serge.”
“Just tell me when and where.”
“I saw this place yesterday…”
Serge raised the paper megaphone. “That’s it! Keep swimming! Tonight we’ll shave all your hair and come back to break every Casino record!” He refolded the map and walked around the front of the pickup.
“Andy, what on earth do you think you’re doing?”
“I… What?… This?”
“Where’d you get the cell phone?”
“At a convenience store.”
“You were trying to make a call, weren’t you?”
“Me? No. I swear.”
“Gimme that thing.” Serge snatched it away. “Now get back in the pool.”
“I don’t think it’s a good time.”
“Why not?”
Andy stretched out an arm. “Look.”
Students chanted: “Cole-man!… Cole- man!… Cole- man!…” Coleman stood on top of the pickup’s cab. “Woooooooo!” He licked a finger and stuck it in the air. “… Cole -man!… Cole -man!…”
“Coleman!” yelled Serge. “No!” Too late.
Serge and Andy defensively raised arms as they were soaked by the belly-flop splash. They ran around the back of the truck. Coleman lay facedown on a plastic mat.
Serge stood in horror. “You popped the Casino pool!”
Chapter Forty-Four
BAHIA CABANA
Serge burst in the door.
“There you are,” said City.
“When are we going to do something?” asked Country.
“Not now.”
“But we’ve been cooped up in here all day.”
“I offered to take you with us,” said Serge.
“On one of your lame tours? No, thanks!”
“I want to go to dinner,” said Country. “You promised.”
“Someplace nice this time,” said City.
Serge opened his cell phone. “But you already have plans for tonight.”
“That’s tonight?”
“We went over it several times. You agreed in exchange for the dinner I promised…” Serge walked to the far side of the room and dialed a number.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Guillermo. It’s me, Serge.”