The Stingray Shuffle полностью

“I want to place a bet,” said Lenny, opening his racing program. “Number eight sounds good.”

“What’s the name?” said Serge. “It’s all in the name.”

“Entry Withdrawn.”

“Sounds like a winner to me.”

Serge chugged his espresso. “Uh-oh, pole time. You’ll have to wait for the next race to bet.”

A bell rang, the gates flew open. “They’re off!”

Identical descriptions of an unusual pink Cadillac began to crop up in crime scene reports from Tampa to Cape Canaveral to Palm Beach. The all-points bulletin went out with a warning in tall letters: “Call for backup.”

A patrol officer was making routine afternoon rounds in a quadrant west of 95, south of Atlantic Boulevard. He swung through a parking lot on standard auto-burglary sweep. Something caught his eye in the third row. He called for backup.

Police were everywhere. Seven cruisers clustered around the pink car in Section D, Row 3, of the Pompano Beach harness track. Evidence handlers with gloves went through the convertible; other officers questioned the valets.

“Look, Ivan! There’s the Cadillac!” said Alexi.

“The place is crawling with cops!” said Dmitri.

“So it is,” said Ivan. He eased the Mercedes slowly past the end of Row 3, then turned in the VIP parking lot. Five men with bandaged feet got out.

The horses went into the first turn.

Serge was strangely quiet. Lenny noticed the empty, crumpled paper espresso cup clutched in his fist. “Are you okay?”

Serge shook himself vigorously like a dog coming in from the rain.

“What’s the matter?” asked Lenny.

“Can’t you smell it?”

“Smell what?”

“The air. It’s crackling with the electricity of memories.” Serge’s arms went up to the sky, his fingers wiggling like he was feeling two big tits. “It’s overwhelming. I’m not sure I can stand it.”

“You all right?”

“I feel like this every once in a while when I get hit with a memory bolt.”

“Memory bolt?”

“My folks used to come here in 1964. Each time I blink, for a microsecond I see the way it looked back then on the inside of my eyelids…”

Lenny nodded. “I’ve gotten acid like that.”

The horses went into the second turn.

“What triggers it?” asked Lenny.

“Espresso and déjà vu. Like a light afternoon rain at the beach, or the sound of lawn mowers on a hot Saturday morning in July, or just before sunset when I’m on the turnpike and I go through those fucking great tollbooths made of coral, or I’m driving back from Miami International on the Dolphin Expressway, and I pass the Orange Bowl and accelerate for that magical skyline, no longer in control, suddenly finding myself in this crazy interchange, then I’m flying south, faster and faster, up on the raised highway, looking out across the sea of coconut palms and orange roof tiles and crime lights, and I’m pulled down a ramp into the city, vibrant murals on the sides of ethnic corner groceries, billboards in Spanish, kids rolling tires up the sidewalk with sticks, radios playing, flowers blooming — and it’s too much beauty, both my eyes feeling like they’re having simultaneous orgasms, an aching inside because I want to consume it all at once, like Van Gogh in Kurosawa’s Dreams, and I race over the Rickenbacker, through the sea grapes out to Cape Florida, jumping from the car, running along the seawall and screaming out to sea: ‘Touch one splinter of Stiltsville and I’ll rip your carpetbagging nuts off!’ and then I’m usually asked to leave.”

The crowd roared as the horses came out of turn number three. A knot of five husky men hobbled through the harness track lobby.

“Keep your eye out for a silver briefcase,” said Ivan.

“There’s one!” said Dmitri.

“There’s another one over there!” said Alexi.

“And there’s another one!”

“Of course,” said Ivan. “We’re at a parimutuel facility. These guys are good.”

“Ivan! Down by the track!”

The horses rounded the fourth turn, into the homestretch.

Lenny had a two-handed grip on the back of Serge’s belt as he hung over the railing near the finish line. “C’mon, Entry Withdrawn!”

Five men with bandaged feet came out a door on the left side of the building and began moving toward the track. On the right side, up by the grandstands, police officers questioned members of the track’s staff, who pointed at the finish line.

“Whew! What a race!” Serge jumped down from the railing. He saw something out the corner of his eye. “When’s the extraction team due?”

Lenny checked his wristwatch. “Just a few more minutes.”

“Start walking for the exit, real casual.”

25

Ivan pointed across the spectator deck at the Pompano Beach harness track. “They’re heading back to the main building.”

“They’re not the only ones,” said Dmitri, looking over at the cops closing in on Serge and Lenny.

“We have to head them off,” said Ivan. “Walk quickly but don’t run. We still have the advantage. None of them has seen us.”

Serge and Lenny began moving faster as they approached the glass exit doors.

“Walk quickly but don’t run,” said Serge. “They don’t know we’ve seen them.”