Ivan slapped it away. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a pink Cadillac. A pimp saw them pulling out of the old train depot.”
Serge was driving south on US 1 again. Actually Lenny was driving; Serge was just sitting in the driver’s seat.
“My arm’s getting tired,” said Lenny, steering from the passenger side.
“Just a few more pictures,” said Serge. “I can’t believe how much has changed. The Dairy Belle’s still here, but not much else.” Click, click.
Lenny tried lighting a joint with his free hand but couldn’t get it going. The car began swerving.
Serge lowered his camera and looked over. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“What?” said Lenny, taking the joint out of his mouth.
“You’re driving, for Chrissake!”
They ran a yellow light, followed by a white Mercedes.
“Where are they going?” asked Dmitri.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” said Ivan.
“They keep changing lanes for no reason.”
“Classic evasion tactic,” said Ivan.
“Woah!” said Lenny. “I almost hit that bus. I think I’m too high to drive.”
Dmitri snapped pictures of the Cadillac with a spy camera. “Did you see how he angled around that bus?”
Ivan nodded. “Must have been trained by Israelis.”
Lenny reached under the seat and yanked a Bud off a plastic ring. “I need a beer to level out.”
“That’s where Indian River Citrus used to be,” said Serge. Click, click, click.
“Those two poor bastards back at the depot,” said Lenny, shaking his head. “On one hand, I feel sorry for them. On the other, we almost lost the briefcase. Did you really have to kill them like that?”
“They handled the briefcase.”
“But only for a second.”
“I told you it was cursed.”
Lenny took a swig of beer, wiped his mouth with the back of his arm and looked up at the sky. “What a great place to live!” The car swerved.
Click, click, click. “That’s where the Publix used to be, and that’s where they tore down the bazaar tower, and they closed Spanish Courts over there and…oh my God!…”
“What is it?”
Serge focused the camera. Click, click. “They bulldozed the porn theater!”
“You’re nostalgic about a porno joint?”
“No, but it used to be the regular Main Street theater back in the sixties when I was going to parochial school. That’s where the nuns took us to see The Sound of Music when it first came out.”
“You were taught by nuns?” said Lenny.
Serge nodded. “That’s how I became an altar boy.”
“Wait a minute. Hold the fuckin’ phone. You were an altar boy?”
“Good one, too. Right up until I was defrocked.” Click, click, click. “There was absolutely no reason for them to expel me from the program like that.”
“This is explaining a whole lot,” said Lenny. “Now it’s all starting to make sense.”
“It was Easter Mass, and we were wearing all those heavy vestments, the cassock and surplice. There were extra stage lights, and the place was packed — really hot. I had never fainted before, so I didn’t know what it felt like. I’m kneeling on the side of the altar ready to ring the bells and everything starts getting dim, and I’m wobbling around on my knees like a duckpin. Then it goes completely black. I’m right on the verge of fainting but for some reason I didn’t. The conditions were just perfect so I remained on that cusp, semiconscious and upright, but lights out. I’m just a kid — what do I know? I think some kind of miracle is going on. I feel around the ground and push myself to my feet and face the congregation. They say the priest was in the middle of the consecration when I raised my arms in the air and yelled, ‘I’m blind! God has made me blind!’ Then I fainted in the Easter lilies.”
The Cadillac sailed through the intersection at Okeechobee Boulevard, then Southern, Lake Worth, Lantana, Hypoluxo, down into Boynton Beach, Delray Beach, Deerfield Beach.
“Lenny, you’re from this area. Know any good safe houses?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Because I’d like to get this car off the road. It’s probably not a hot idea to keep driving it.”
“Didn’t you say the people were looking for us on US 1?” asked Lenny.
Serge nodded.
“Then why don’t we just switch to a different road?”
“Because I love US 1, and besides, most of the people on lookout are really, really, really fucked up. They can probably correctly make out the color pink, but after that it gets dicey. We drive by them, and maybe they see a Cadillac, maybe they see a giant laughing vulva with whitewall tires.”
Lenny unwrapped a Twinkie. “I don’t see what’s so great about this road.”
“It’s tradition. This is the same road that Magluta took when he was on the run.”
“Who?”
“Magluta, as in the Falcon and Magluta. Augusto ‘Willie’ Falcon and Salvador ‘Sal’ Magluta, local boys made good. Went to Miami High and struck it rich in the coke biz, something like five hundred million dollars, took up speedboat racing before the feds closed in. Magluta jumped bail, and they finally found him right here along this stretch of road, driving a Lincoln Continental, wearing a wig and carrying twenty grand in cash and a fake passport. US 1 has all kinds of character like that.” Click, click, click, Serge snapping photos of condemned motels and discarded malt liquor bottles in piles the size of ancient shell mounds. “I’ll take this any day over the suburbs and your Bed Bath and Beyond.”
“What a horror show,” said Lenny.
“Out here on US 1, life is close to the skin. Anything can happen at any time.” Serge knelt backward in the driver’s seat and took pictures out the rear of the car. Click, click. “This is where the armored car thieves shot it out with the FBI, and the raccoon jumped off that garbage truck and crashed through the windshield of those tourists, and they found the tractor-trailer full of pirated stone crab claws, and the box of Tide detergent fell out the back of a van and split open and three hundred thousand dollars blew all over the place except the local residents told police it was only like eleven dollars.” Click, click. Serge lowered the camera. “Is that Mercedes following us?”
“Don’t fuck with me, man. I’m so high, everything’s following us.”
24
“Shit. That Mercedes is still behind us,” said Serge.
“This car’s getting too hot. Is that safe house you know any good?”
“One of the best,” said Lenny. “Not only that, but a quick phone and they’ll come pick us up, extract us from just about anything.”
“Can they be counted on?”
“Stone-solid. Used ’em dozens of times.”
“I’m impressed. Very good, Lenny…. Dump truck.”
“What?” Lenny looked up. “Woahhh!” He cut the wheel, narrowly missing the truck making a slow left turn, forcing Lenny to make his own hard left across several lanes of braking, blaring cars.
The traffic light turned red; a white Mercedes eased up and stopped at the intersection as the Cadillac disappeared around the corner.
Lenny stepped up to the concession stand. He turned to Serge. “Espresso?”
“Better not.”
“It’s good.”
“Okay.”
“Two espressos, please.”
“You say the safe house is nearby?”
“Real close, but they’re still not answering the phone.”
“Try again.”
Lenny dialed and listened. “I think I’m getting through.”
“Ask them to send the extraction team.”
Lenny nodded. He said a few words in the phone and closed it.
“Well?” asked Serge.
“They’re on their way.”