“No good.” Serge kept the binoculars glued. “People have been known to hire more than one private eye, and who knows what or when she’ll find out. We definitely can’t take the chance of a civilian like her walking in on the middle of our party. This way her reaction will no longer be an unknown variable. If she stays put at home in the condo for a reasonable period after Mahoney’s call, we know it’s a false alarm.”
“What if she doesn’t and goes after the guy?”
“Then we intercept before she’s out of the neighborhood, and assure her we’re on top of everything.”
Coleman prepared another jumbo beverage from his portable bar designed specifically for stakeouts.
“Coleman,” said Serge. “This is one time you must slow down on your drinking.”
“I
“But the cup you’re using is twice as large.”
“How does that figure in?”
“Just stay sharp.”
Coleman chugged and began pouring again. “So when’s Mahoney supposed to make this call, anyway?”
Serge checked his glow-in-the-dark atomic wristwatch. “Two minutes ago.”
A cell phone rang. Before Serge could answer, Coleman gestured at the house with a cocktail strainer. “The front door’s opening.”
“She’s not staying put.” Serge threw the car into gear. “Time to talk some sense into her.”
“Wow,” said Coleman. “She really looks pissed. Did you see how she whipped out of the driveway?”
“Just what I feared.” Serge hit the accelerator. “This is going to be a hot intercept.”
“Serge, look! She just blew through that stop sign at the end of the block.”
“And took out a mailbox.” The Firebird raced without stopping through the same intersection and scattered sparks bottoming out over a speed bump.
Coleman’s eyes got big. “A station wagon’s pulling out!”
Serge slammed on the brakes with both feet, throwing Coleman into the dashboard.
“Hey, I got a beverage here.”
“Shut up! This other asshole’s driving too slow and she’s getting away . . .”
“Can’t you get around him?”
“The street’s too narrow and some other bozo who lives around here is having a party: Look at all these parallel-parked cars . . . Damn, and now I’ve lost sight of her. I need you to spot me through the gauntlet.”
Coleman hung his head out the passenger window and looked down as they passed parked vehicles. “Three inches clearance . . . Still three inches . . . Alllllllmossst . . .
Serge worked the pedals with heel-toe precision, whipping around the station wagon and getting back over the line before rear-ending the next parked car.
“You did it,” said Coleman.
“I haven’t done anything until we catch up with her, and I don’t see her taillights,” said Serge. “She’s going to get herself killed for sure, all because of me.”
They started through another intersection. “There she is!” yelled Coleman. “I just saw her taillights when we were crossing that last street. She made a left turn.”
Serge screeched in reverse and spun out across the intersection, leaving their car pointed in the desired direction. He floored it again, barreling down on the tiny Ford Focus four blocks ahead. Then three blocks, two, one . . . Now only car lengths, closing fast.
The Firebird was finally right up on her bumper.
“We did it!” yelled Coleman. “She’s not going to die.”
“All that’s left now is a tactical traffic stop, which I’ve done a million times in my sleep.” Serge stared down over the dash at Brook’s taillights a few yards ahead. “Nothing can possibly go wrong now . . . Coleman, what are you drinking?”
“What?”
“That drink.”
“Just a little Jack Daniel’s.”
“And?”
“And Coke.”
“And?”
“That’s it, just Jack and Coke.”
“What’s floating in it?” said Serge.
Coleman stared into the glass. “Huh?”
“Where’d you get those ice cubes—”
Foam sprayed everywhere. On the windshield, in their eyes . . .
“Coleman, get that shit out of here!”
“I can’t see!”
The Trans Am slalomed wildly back and forth across the road, threatening to go up on two wheels. Serge steered into the skid. “Coleman! It’s still spraying!”
Coleman covered his face. “It stings!”
The Firebird whipped across the road a last time before jumping the curb, taking out a hedge and crashing head-on into a coconut palm.
Steam spraying from the radiator, but the foam had stopped.
Coleman looked over at the driver’s seat. “Serge, didn’t you see that tree?”
“You idiot.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
MIAMI
An hour after dark, an oil-dripping Ford Focus cruised down a residential street a mile east of the turnpike.
Brook Campanella glanced in her rearview mirror again. She had grown suspicious of a Firebird that she could have sworn was following her, but now there was nothing back there. She’d heard the sound of a wreck and checked a side mirror to see the car a half block back, crashed into a tree.
Tough luck. Bigger things on her mind.
