Coleman made a rare check of his seat belt. “What was that about?”
“Mahoney got an anonymous tip. A room at the Tortugas Inn was registered to a customer named Enzo Tweel.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That Mahoney’s phone is tapped.”
“Just because someone called in a tip?”
“Enzo called in a tip on himself. Then listened when Mahoney forwarded it. He’s baiting me.” Serge nearly sideswiped a Gold Coast taxi skidding toward the exit ramp to Biscayne Boulevard. “What happened to Sasha back there. Same café, identical MO, even the same table. I’ll never forget that table as long as I live. He’s trying to provoke me into not thinking clearly.”
Coleman’s shaking hands prepared a drink. “What are you going to do?”
“Take the bait . . .”
Two miles south, a Cherokee was parked at a Citgo station. The driver had a telephoto camera aimed diagonally across the street at the Tortugas Inn. His other hand held a cell phone. “No, I don’t trust him one bit,” said South Philly Sal. “It’s definitely a trap. I’d bet anything that this character who calls himself Enzo Tweel is actually Serge . . . Because right now he has the edge since I have no idea what he looks like, and I mean to fix that. This Serge character is ruining our business.”
Two blocks in the other direction, binoculars aimed out the driver’s window of a parked Beemer. The Tortugas Inn filled the field of vision. Enzo was beginning to enjoy his role as puppet master in this demented marionette show. The binoculars swept the street, from the black-barreled barbecue stand three blocks north, then back to the Citgo station three streets the other way. All quiet on the western front.
A black Firebird turned off Biscayne a half mile south of the Tortugas Inn, and took a parallel road through a run-down neighborhood.
“Serge, if you know it’s a trap, why are we going?”
“Because he expects my anger to rush me into the web.” Serge checked all his mirrors during a prolonged pause at a stop sign. “Enzo is hanging back watching the motel for me to arrive. So, like a spider, we’re going to drive in tightening concentric circles from the perimeter because someone on surveillance isn’t looking backward . . .”
Over on the main drag, binoculars in the Beemer tightened again on the Tortugas Inn. A few hundred yards away, a telephoto lens snapped a rapid burst of room exterior photos from a Jeep Cherokee.
Serge explored the residential streets a block off U.S. 1 and turned into a trash pickup alley behind the storefronts facing Biscayne.
“I recognize that smell,” said Coleman.
“Just watch for anything odd.”
“Everything’s odd.” Coleman blazed a Thai stick. “Those chicks at the corner are dousing each other with spray paint.”
“That’s just huffing gone inaccurate.” The Firebird rolled up behind a gas station. “Coleman, how often do you see a telephoto lens sticking out a car window at a Citgo station?”
“Let me count . . .” Coleman strained mentally. “Uh, zero.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Serge parked out of sight behind the station’s car wash. High-pressure water jets and giant spinning brushes created a cover of sound. “Coleman, wait here and keep her running. He’s no doubt armed but riveted on the room, so I have a good chance to outflank him.”
Serge closed the driver’s door but let it stay unlatched. He moved slowly along the back wall of the car wash, sliding his right hand into the waistband of his shorts and feeling a familiar grip. He peeked around the edge of the car wash, but his view was blocked by a wet, gleaming Audi that emerged from the building and dripped water as it drove back to the highway.
The view was clear. There was the Jeep, its driver still preoccupied with his camera and phone. Serge retreated a step behind the building and rested the back of his head against the wall. He closed his eyes, flicking the safety off his pistol. He had ached two whole years for this moment, and now closure sat across the parking lot a few yards away.
Serge crept from behind the car wash and worked his way around the edge of the property, passing the fifty-cent tire inflater and a blue pay phone stand with the phone removed. He stopped and studied the Jeep’s mirrors and calculated the one, single straight line to the vehicle that would keep the mirrors blind to him. He began walking the asphalt tightrope.
The cell-phone conversation could be heard at a range of fifteen feet.
“. . . Yeah, he hasn’t shown yet. I think this is a big waste of time,” said Sal. “But you have to consider the source that vouched for this. Sasha can really be out to lunch sometimes . . .”
The phone was snatched from his left hand and smashed to the ground. His head spun. “What the fuck?”
Serge cracked him quickly in the side of the head with his pistol butt.
“You’re a dead man,” said Sal.
“Just set the camera down slowly on the dash.” Serge kept the .45 pressed to Sal’s temple and opened the door with his other hand. “Now get out.”
Sal eased himself from the driver’s seat. “Are you Serge?”
“That’s right, your new chauffeur.”
