The agent currently hunkered in a dark corner of a mangy old roadhouse near the ocean just east of Jacksonville. The tavern spoke to Mahoney. It said: The farther north you drive in the state, the more south you get. Definitely Florida, but no mistaking this for Madonna’s Miami Beach. Longnecks replaced mojitos, dark wood paneling, framed photos of Bobby Bowden and Bo Jackson, pool tables, yellowed stuffed fish over bottles of budget whiskey for package sale, handwritten liquor license, signs giving the heads up for loose women. The doors remained propped open to bright light and warm salt air. It was noon. They didn’t take plastic.
Mahoney wouldn’t have been caught dead with a laptop, except he thought the just-out-of-the-box Toshiba on the table in front of him was a 1932 Smith-Corona with a “magic screen.” He found Serge’s travel website. Fingers hit six keys: PETE’S.
Up popped a dispatch dated twelve hours earlier: “117 First Street, Neptune Beach, converted from Pete Jensen’s Market at the end of Prohibition. John Grisham used the joint as a setting in one of his novels, and you can sit beneath a charred oak barrel hanging from the ceiling that marks the spot where the Mississippi scribe sat while doing research, and-you’re not going to fuckin’ believe this!-the commemorative plaque on the barrel misspelled the book’s title. Finding that golden footnote made my whole week …”
Mahoney looked up and read the side of a barrel. “… The Bretheren.”
He nodded gravely. Serge was close, real close.
Mahoney tapped down to the bottom of the website. The last item was a thumbnail of the state flag over words: “This is my e-mail button. Serge really wants to hear from you! I promise to write back. In fact, you may have trouble getting me to stop writing back. Change your life forever: Click now!”
Mahoney clicked the button, hit an invisible carriage return and began typing with one finger.
The Javelin angled up the steep, cobbled drive of the St. Augustine Hilton and parked by the office.
Serge hit the bell ten times at the front desk. Someone appeared. He kept hitting the bell.
“You can stop ringing now.”
“Sorry. Surplus excitement about my life. One regular room please. And don’t think a free upgrade to your top suite will get you excellent marks in my travel company’s widely viewed website, even though it will.”
“I can upgrade you anyway. It’s pretty dead.”
Serge winked. “Of course it is.”
The trio checked into their suite and dropped bags. Coleman went in the bathroom. Serge meticulously stowed and restowed his gear, then cleared the dresser, nightstands and all other horizontal surfaces of ubiquitous welcoming literature, local guidebooks, stand-up cardboard advertisements and cable channel guides, stuffing them all in a bottom drawer “to preempt optical confusion.”
Story climbed into a one-piece swimsuit, and knocked on the bathroom door.
From inside. “Who is it?”
“I need a towel. I’m going to lay out by the pool.”
“Almost done.” Humming.
“You’ve been in there forever.”
Coleman eventually opened the door. “Serge, look at all these cute little bottles. What’s this stuff called ‘conditioner’?”
“In your world, background noise.”
“Jesus,” said Story. “Close the door!”
“Thought you wanted a towel.”
“That smell! It’s like a slaughterhouse. What have you been eating?”
“Stuff.”
She pinched her nose. “Screw it, I’ll air-dry.”
Serge slipped into his own trunks and grabbed a small, flexible cooler. “I’ll join you.”
Coleman came out of the bathroom with toilet paper trailing from his pants. “Wait for me …”
Story led the way across the parking lot and pushed open the safety gate. A small pool sat empty in the middle of a tiny patio with a narrow walkway between the far edge and the high concrete wall buffering the racket of unseen traffic. Story settled into a lounger with sunscreen and textbook.
“Look!” yelled Serge. “A bronze plaque!” He raced to the wall and delicately ran fingers over the lettering. “It commemorates Dr. King’s achievement! And I never would have found it without all my expert research skills!”
Story looked up with raised eyebrows.
“I was just about to find it when you blurted it out!”
She smiled and looked back down.
Serge grabbed a notebook from the side pocket of his cooler. “This is incredible. When corporations tear down all the special places, they usually don’t give a hoot about leaving plaques I can touch and make rubbings.” He held one of his book’s pages to the plaque and lightly brushed it with the angled tip of a pencil. “This gets the hotel Serge’s highest seal of approval, plus a personal thank-you note to Paris Hilton.”
Coleman climbed down into the pool with a six-pack and street clothes. Serge joined him and waded over with his cooler. He placed it at the side of the pool, removed three bologna sandwiches and began ramming them in his mouth as fast as he could, accelerating the process with swigs of bottled water. His cheeks bulged like a squirrel stowing nuts.
“That’s disgusting,” said Story.
