Between four and four-thirty, the police scanners went wild. The squawking was nonstop. A clerk at the Holiday Inn made a probable ID of Abby, as the woman who paid cash for two rooms at 4:17 A.M., Thursday. She paid for three nights, but had not been seen since the rooms were cleaned around one on Thursday. Evidently, neither room had been slept in Thursday night. She had not checked out, and the rooms were paid for through noon Saturday. The clerk saw no sign of a male accomplice. The Holiday Inn was swamped with cops and FBI agents and Morolto thugs for an hour. Tarrance himself interrogated the clerk.
They were there! Somewhere in Panama City Beach. Ray and Abby were confirmed. It was suspected Mitch was with them, but it was unconfirmed. Until 4:58, Friday afternoon.
The bombshell. A county deputy pulled into a cheap motel and noticed the gray-and-white hood of a truck. He walked between two buildings and smiled at the small U-Haul truck hidden neatly between a row of two-story rooms and a large garbage Dumpster. He wrote down all the numbers on the truck and called it in.
It hit! In five minutes the motel was surrounded. The owner charged from the front office and demanded an explanation. He looked at the composites and shook his head. Five FBI badges napped in his face, and he became cooperative.
Accompanied by a dozen agents, he took the keys and went door to door. Forty-eight doors.
Only seven were" occupied. The owner explained as he unlocked doors that it was a slow time of the year at the Beachcomber Inn. All of the smaller motels struggle until Memorial Day, he explained.
Even the Sea Gull's Rest, four miles to the west, was struggling.
Andy Patrick received his first felony conviction at the age of nineteen and served four months for bad checks. Branded as a felon, he found honest work impossible, and for the next twenty years worked unsuccessfully as a small-time criminal. He drifted across the country shoplifting, writing bad checks and breaking into houses here and there. A small, frail nonviolent man, he was severely beaten by a fat, arrogant county deputy in Texas when he was twenty-seven. He lost an eye and lost all respect for the law.
Six months earlier, he landed in Panama City Beach and found an honest job paying four bucks an hour working the night shift at the front and only desk of the Sea Gull's Rest Motel. Around nine, Friday night, he was watching TV when a fat, arrogant county deputy swaggered through the door.
"Got a manhunt going on," he announced, and laid copies of the composites and mug shot on the dirty counter. "Looking for these folks. We think they're around here."
Andy studied the composites. The one of Mitchell Y. McDeere looked pretty familiar. The wheels in his smalltime felonious brain began to churn.
With his one good eye, he looked at the fat, arrogant county deputy and said, "Ain't seen them. But I'll keep an eye out."
"They're dangerous," the deputy said.
You're the dangerous one, Andy thought.
"Post these up on the wall there," the deputy instructed.
Do you own this damned place? Andy thought. "I'm sorry, but I'm not authorized to post anything on the walls."
The deputy froze, cocked his head sideways and glared at Andy through thick sunglasses. "Listen, Peewee, I authorized it."
"I'm sorry, sir, but I can't post anything on the walls unless my boss tells me to."
"And where is your boss?"
"I don't know. Probably in a bar somewhere."
The deputy carefully picked up the composites, walked behind the counter and tacked them on the bulletin board. When he finished, he glared down at Andy and said, "I'll come back in a coupla hours. If you remove these, I'll arrest you for obstruction of justice."
Andy did not flinch. "Won't stick. They got me for that one time in Kansas, so I know all about it."
The deputy's fat cheeks turned red and he gritted his teeth. "You're a little smart-ass, aren't you?"
"Yes, sir."
"You take these down and I promise you you'll go to jail for something."
"I've been there before, and it ain't no big deal."
Red lights and sirens screamed by oiuihe Strip a few feet away, and the deputy turned and watched the excitement. He mumbled something and swaggered out the door. Andy threw the composites in the garbage. He watched the squad cars dodge each other on the Strip for a few minutes, then walked through the parking lot to the rear building. He knocked on the door of Room 38.
He waited and knocked again.
"Who is it?" a woman asked.
"The manager," Andy replied, proud of his title. The door opened, and the man who favored the composite of Mitchell Y. McDeere slid out.
"Yes, sir," he said. "What's going on?"
He was nervous, Andy could tell. "Cops just came by, know what I mean?"
"What do they want?" he asked innocently.
Your ass, Andy thought. "Just asking questions and showing pictures. I looked at the pictures, you know?"
"Uh-huh," he said.
"Pretty good pictures," Andy said.
Mr. McDeere stared at Andy real hard.
Andy said, "Cop said one of them escaped from prison. Know what I mean? I been in prison, and I think everybody ought to escape. You know?"
Mr. McDeere smiled, a rather nervous smile. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Andy."
"I've got a deal for you, Andy. I'll give you a thousand bucks now, and tomorrow, if you're still unable to recognize anybody, I'll give you another thousand bucks. Same for the next day."
A wonderful deal, thought Andy, but if he could afford a thousand bucks a day, certainly he could afford five thousand a day. It was the opportunity of his career.
"Nope," Andy said firmly. "Five thousand a day."
Mr. McDeere never hesitated. "It's a deal. Let me get the money." He went in the room and returned with a stack of bills.
"Five thousand a day, Andy, that's our deal?"
Andy took the money and glanced around. He would count it later. "I guess you want me to keep the maids away?" Andy asked.
"Great idea. That would be nice."
"Another five thousand," Andy said.
Mr. McDeere sort of hesitated. "Okay, I've got another deal. Tomorrow morning, a Fed Ex package will arrive at the desk for Sam Fortune. You bring it to me, and keep the maids away, and I'll give you another five thousand."
"Won't work. I do the night shift."
"Okay, Andy. What if you worked all weekend, around the clock, kept the maids away and delivered my package? Can you do that?"
"Sure. My boss is a drunk. He'd love for me to work all weekend."
"How much money, Andy?"
Go for it, Andy thought. "Another twenty thousand."
Mr. McDeere smiled. "You got it."
Andy grinned and stuck the money in his pocket. He walked away without saying a word, and Mitch retreated to Room 38.
"Who was it?" Ray snapped.
Mitch smiled as he glanced between the blinds and the windows.
"I knew we would have to have a lucky break to pull this off. And I think we just found it."
38
MR. Morolto wore a black suit and a red tie and sat at the head of the plastic-coated executive conference table in the Dunes Room of the Best Western on the Strip. The twenty chairs around the table were packed with his best and brightest men. Around the four walls stood more of his trusted troops. Though they were thick-necked killers who did their deeds efficiently and without remorse, they looked like clowns in their colorful shirts and wild shorts and amazing potpourri of straw hats. He would have smiled at their silliness, but the urgency of the moment prevented smiling. He was listening.