“I don’t see anyone, but let’s move along anyway because there’s so much to experience here.” Serge looked around the other boardwalks, the covered verandas and gator-filled ponds. “Where’s the next most natural setting? . . . Ooo, a penny-flattening machine . . .”
Coleman found himself in a chase again. He arrived out of breath. Serge was already sorting through pocket change in his hand. “The penny machines are even better than the domes. But you need the shiniest penny. Then you just stick it in this slot here and start cranking the big wheel . . .”
“It fell in the chute,” said Coleman. “We didn’t have to get limbs inside this one.”
“We’re on a roll now!”
Serge left the gift store with a topped-off shopping bag. “It’s weird. Souvenirs and coffee turn me into Ivana Trump.”
“Next nature stop?” asked Coleman.
“Up there!” Serge shielded his eyes. “They put in a zip line for my convenience . . .”
. . . Ten minutes later and fifty feet above the ground: “Serge, I don’t want to ride a zip line over the lake of a thousand alligators. I’m on mescaline.”
“Off you go!”
Push.
Back in the Firebird: “Serge, isn’t Mahoney going to be mad? He called this morning and wanted us to check out a lead at that motel. But instead we just wasted a bunch of time back there.”
“And that’s what everyone thinks: If you’re a private eye, you’re supposed to follow the plot, but I say fuck that linear bullshit.” Serge slurped coffee from the tube while wearing children’s Gatorland sunglasses with cartoon characters on the corners. “Real life rarely stays on point like in the movies . . . These sunglasses are too tight for my head. It hurts . . . Ninety percent of our existence is tangents. So tangents are actually the real plot. But even more importantly, if you avoid a tangent you normally would have taken, you could create a rip in the quantum fabric of the universe.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It’s like a
“So what you’re saying is if we didn’t screw around back there at Gatorland . . .”
Serge nodded. “We could have been spun off into the galaxy.”
Coleman fired up a joint. “Then we should probably stop again.”
“Good thinking.” Serge hit his blinker and sucked the coffee bladder dry.
A cell phone rang. Serge checked the display.
Mahoney.
“Serge here. And before you say anything, I can explain: We had to make sure everyone was born.”
Chapter Nineteen
FORT LAUDERDALE
A cell phone sat upright against a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table. It was the eighth-floor condo of a retired firefighter from New York. Brook Campanella pressed a button.
It was one of those calls with speakerphones on both ends.
A disembodied voice came from the middle of the table. “This is Ken Shapiro, and I have one of my partners, Linda Tataglia, in the office with me. Miss Campanella, I understand your father is with you?”
“He’s right here.”
“Good. First thing, another colleague of ours is calling the Washington DEA office right now to say we represent you, so that shuts them down there. They’ll have to go through us from now on and cannot legally contact you directly. And if for some reason, they
“Mr. Campanella, this is Linda Tataglia. I also need to advise you that if they come to your door and ask you to step outside for a private conversation, don’t do it. That’s a common ruse. They can’t arrest you inside your home without a warrant. Outside, they can.”
“But what if they have a warrant?”
“If they did, they wouldn’t ask you to step outside. They’d just show it to you.”
Ronald began shaking again. “But I didn’t do anything!”
“That’s irrelevant. Right now what you need to do is let the law play out. From what you’ve told us, it doesn’t sound like you’re who they’re really after. We’ll take care of this as quickly as we can.”
“Excuse me,” said Brook. “You’re making this sound a lot more serious than it actually is.”
“It’s not more serious, just more complex,” said Ken. “When you have an entity the size of the DEA, and the proverbial train has already left the station, it can entail a bit of red tape. The important thing is not to worry.”
Ronald scoffed. “Easier said than done.”
“There is some good news,” said Ken.
“How’s that?”
“They contacted you by phone. If you were a serious target, they would have tried to catch you off guard, like in a parking garage. People are more talkative under such duress.”
“So what does a phone call mean?” asked Ronald.
