Serge ran back to Hammerhead Ranch double-time, looking over his shoulder. He locked the door, watched Florida fishing programs all day on TV and took a nap.
He awoke after dark and poured himself a tall glass of orange juice. He sat up at the head of his bed and leaned back against the wall. He grabbed the remote control and turned on the TV.
Serge’s picture immediately filled the screen, and Serge spilled juice in his lap. Florida Cable News correspondent Blaine Crease said the suspect, Serge A. Storms, had been sighted in the Tampa Bay area and a team of FBI agents was en route from Quantico, Virginia.
“That’s the problem with the media today,” Serge complained out loud. “Too much bad news-always focusing on the negative.” He clicked the TV off and made a mental note to write a letter to the station, requesting more upbeat stories.
“I gotta get out of this room.”
Serge jumped in the scorched Chrysler and headed for the Howard Frankland Bridge. As he started over the bridge, he took in the sparkling lights of Tampa across the bay, the rivulet of cars cresting the bridge’s hump, and the jets landing at Tampa International. He was in his zone. He turned on the radio, to add a soundtrack.
“…We interrupt this program to bring you an update on the manhunt for the spree killer from the Florida Keys. Authorities are now certain he’s trapped in the Tampa Bay area. They’re setting up roadblocks on all major highways out of town and posting agents at bus stations, train depots and the airports…”
This is getting ridiculous, Serge thought. Time to hit the eject button. He hated to do it, but he would have to leave Florida, at least for a little while, until things cooled down.
After the bridge, Serge got in the exit lane for the airport. As he approached the terminal, three police cars raced by. I’ll have to hurry, he thought, but I still have a chance if I can get through before they establish a perimeter.
Serge skidded into long-term parking and took the Tony Janus Shuttle to the terminal. Serge held on to the subway-style pole in the shuttle and involuntarily recited from memory. “Tony Janus: Aviator who began the world’s first regularly scheduled airline route, St. Petersburg to Tampa, 1914.”
Serge walked calmly through the concourse. Every couple of minutes, officers ran by. Serge checked gate after gate, concourse after concourse, but each time police were set up before he got there. He turned and headed back toward the exits, but now the cops were there too. More trotted through the terminal. “Shit,” Serge muttered and put his head down and walked into the cafeteria.
He grabbed a tray and stood in the chow line, looking up at the menu board of food priced like jewelry. “I’d rather do time!” he said, and walked out without a purchase. More cops. He ducked in the newsstand and nonchalantly rifled a glossy magazine that delved into the courage of John Travolta and tastier pound cake.
He held the magazine up to his nose and peeked over the top of Travolta’s head, looking for an angle.
He studied arriving travelers. Businesspeople with jet lag, middle-class vacationers back from middle-America, glassy-eyed relatives arriving for a funeral, skiers back from Aspen, golfers back from Pebble Beach, nuns, and four illegal Asian immigrants slipping past customs posing as Chinese nuclear spies. Everyone rolling suitcases with wheels, moving with purpose.
A distinguished businessman rolled his suitcase into the bar across from the newsstand, and Serge kept an eye on him. The man had touches of gray at the temples that made him look senatorial, but he was in fact the front for a Pacific conglomerate selling counterfeit gold-crown car air fresheners. The man took a seat in the airport bar, ordered a Harvey Wallbanger and wolfed Spanish peanuts from a sterling service bowl. Two seats down was an elegant, tall brunette of obvious sophistication, who initiated conversation.
After five minutes of small talk the salesman was discreetly propositioned by the call girl. The pair left together for the airport hotel. Serge’s eyes swung across the concourse. No cops at the elevator to the airport hotel-they were expecting a fugitive to flee, not put up for the night.
Serge put down the magazine and began following the businessman forty feet back. He looked around. Off to his right, a cop was moving toward the hotel elevator. Serge picked up his pace.
The businessman and call girl were in the elevator, smiling at each other, waiting for the doors to close. The cop was talking in his walkie-talkie, just arriving at the elevator. Serge was fifteen feet back. The doors started closing.
Serge called out toward the elevator and began running: “Mr. Johnson, wait up! The office has been trying to reach you all day!” He jumped through the closing elevator doors as the cop turned to say something.
“I’m not Mr. Johnson,” said the businessman.
“I know,” Serge said, and smiled and then looked up at the ascending floor numbers over the door.
The businessman made an unheard joke to the call girl, and they both laughed at Serge’s expense. Serge turned to them and nodded and grinned.
The doors opened at seven. The businessman got out a magnetic plastic card and opened a room across from the elevators. Serge headed down the hallway, looking for the stairwell.
Serge had walked down to the fourth floor when he heard two cops coming up the stairs. He ran back up to seven and down the hall.
When Serge burst into the hotel room with gun drawn, the businessman was sitting on the edge of the bed in a Santa Claus outfit, and the hooker was on his lap wearing altar boy vestments.
“I can explain…” the man began.
Serge cut him off with a pistol whip. “I don’t want to know. Just gimme all your money and ID.”
He had another thought. “And gimme that red suit, too, while you’re at it.”
11
Welcome Miami Vice fans!” read the pink-and-aqua banner over the hotel entrance on Miami Beach.
In the lobby, dealers sat behind dozens of card tables, doing brisk business. Jan Hammer CDs. Philip Michael Thomas 8×10s. Ferrari Matchbox cars. Board games, coffee mugs, police badges. There was a line of people with luggage waiting to check in at the front desk, wearing Ray-Bans, pastel T-shirts and white Versace linen jackets.
Later that evening in the auditorium, a man who did not look remotely like Don Johnson was onstage playing Sonny Crockett. A woman dressed like a prostitute played Gina.
Suddenly, “Gina” ripped off her wig and threw it to the ground.
“I didn’t get my GED just to play a prostitute!” she yelled.
Don Johnson grabbed her wrists and said he loved her.
The audience whistled and applauded.
It wasn’t part of the script. The woman ran out the side door of the hotel, and the man followed.
He found her sitting and crying in his convertible parked on a side street off Ocean Drive. It was a pink Cadillac Eldorado. Running the length of the car down to the tail fins was an airbrushed Miami Vice logo and the words Lenny Lippowicz-The Don Johnson Experience.
Lenny Lippowicz was the pride of Pahokee, Florida. He dropped out of high school and bounced around as a spot welder in the shipyards and Ploeti petroleum storage compounds of Jacksonville, Tampa and Fort Lauderdale. He did a little bartending, worked a carnival in Margate, and stinted as an unqualified dive operator off Boca Raton.
He got fired from the dive boat after a bad head count left a never-found tourist behind at sea, and he drove west across the swamp. He stopped at an authentic Indian Swamp Village, where he bought authentic tribal garb woven by authentic Chinese political prisoners. When he got to Fort Myers, he put on the colorful Indian outfit and walked into the administrative office at Sunken Parrot Gardens and applied for alligator wrestler.