by Tim Dorsey
McSwirley drove slowly through the second parking deck, looking for a free spot. “In the garage. I just saw a bunch of police out front. Anyone covering it? If you want me to check it out—”
“No! Don’t!” said the editor. “Get in the building as fast as you can! We’re all up here waiting for you.”
The maximum editor snapped his finger at an assistant. “Call security. Get some people to the garage!”
“You’re at the office awfully early,” said McSwirley. “I thought I was going to get the overnight reporter. Something big must be up, eh?”
“Just get in the building!”
“Oh, no!” said McSwirley.
“What is it?” shouted Tom. “What the hell’s happening?”
“I thought I found a spot, but it’s a motorcycle.”
“Are there people nearby?”
McSwirley looked around. “Nope…. Hey, I found a space!…People?”
“You need to find people! Get in the building!”
Jeff climbed out of the Fiero. “What’s going on?”
“We’ll tell you when you get inside. Just hurry!”
“Okay.” Jeff closed his phone.
Tires screeched. Jeff turned around. Serge jumped out of a black H2, waving a pistol. “Hurry up! Get inside!”
Jeff stumbled backward.
Serge rushed forward, excitedly gesturing at the reporter with the gun barrel. “You’re not safe here!”
Jeff kept backing up.
“What’s your problem?” Serge lunged and grabbed the reporter by the arm. “We have to get you out of here. Something bad’s happened. Just heard it on the radio.”
Jeff went limp, and Serge had to drag him the rest of the way. Coleman opened a back door.
“Up you go!” Serge boosted the reporter inside and slammed the door. He climbed into the driver’s seat and peeled out. They screeched down the exit ramp.
Two security guards strolled into the quiet garage, looked around and shrugged.
Max stared at his wristwatch. “What’s taking him so long? It’s only a couple minutes from the garage.”
Sports raised a pen. “Something bad must have happened.”
A news clerk held a phone. “Security just found his car abandoned in the garage. The driver’s door was left open.”
A cell phone rang. It almost flew out of Tom’s hands as he answered. “McSwirley! Where are you?…What!”
“What is it?” asked Max.
The metro editor covered the phone. “He’s been kidnapped. The killer jumped him in the garage.” He uncovered the phone. “Are you all right?…Thank God! How are you calling? Are you locked in the trunk or something?…Serge told you to make the call? Why would he do—…He wants everyone to know you’re all right?…What? Could you repeat that last part?…Okay, I’ll hold.” Tom covered the phone again. “He’s putting Serge on.” Tom uncovered the phone. “Serge?…Listen, you touch a single hair and I swear I’ll kill—…Huh?…What do you mean you’re taking over Justin’s old job?…You’re McSwirley’s partner now?…No, wait! Don’t hang up!”
The metro editor slowly closed his phone.
“What’s going on?” asked Max.
The metro editor turned with a blank face. “They’re working on a story.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
FOUR DAYS LATER
Editors sat solemnly around the conference table at Tampa Bay Today. Hope fading.
“He’s probably dead.”
“Don’t say that!”
“But you saw that crazy police chase on TV.”
“I still can’t believe they got away from all those helicopters.”
Someone staggered through the newsroom’s entrance.
“It’s McSwirley!”
“He’s alive!”
They stampeded over.
“You’re white as a sheet!”
McSwirley looked like he was about to faint. “I need to sit down.”
“Get him a chair!…McSwirley, you need anything?”
“I could use a soda.”
“Get him a soda.”
“Not grape Fanta,” said Jeff.
They crowded around.
“Are you okay?”
“What happened?”
“How’d you escape?”
“Everyone, back off!” said Metro Tom. “Give him some air!”
“I didn’t escape.” Jeff rested forward with elbows on knees. “They let me go.”
“Let you go?”
“Just down the street. Said they’d watch until I was safely in the building.”
“Did they hurt you?”
Jeff shook his head. “At first I was scared they would, but they actually turned out to be pretty nice.”
Mahoney combed gel into his hair. “Stockholm syndrome.”
“I don’t get it,” said Max. “If he just let you go, why’d he grab you in the first place?”
“To save me from the killer.”
“But he’s the killer,” said Tom.
“He doesn’t think so,” said McSwirley.
“Split personality,” chimed Mahoney. “Told you.”
A news clerk handed Jeff a grape Fanta. “All they had.”
McSwirley took a big guzzle. “He said I was the next target.”
“Why does he think that?”
“Recently watched The Mean Season again—he has this thing for Florida movies.”
“I don’t remember that one,” said Tom.
“Me neither,” said McSwirley. “But Serge knew all about it.” He flipped open his spiral note pad. “…MGM, 1985. Based on In the Heat of the Summer by John Katzenbach, son of former attorney general. Serial killer contacts reporter. Filmed at the Miami Herald, but they called it the Journal. Climactic location shots in the ’Glades…”
“McSwirley…” said Max.
“…Freeze-frame and you can see Pulitzer Prize–winning crime reporter–turned–novelist Edna Buchanan as an extra in one of the newsroom pans….” He turned a notebook page. “…And Mariel Hemingway shouldn’t have shown her knockers—”
“McSwirley!”
“What?”
“That’s all very informative, but how does it make you a target?”
“The killer goes after Kurt Russell at the end.”
“Completely cracking up,” said Mahoney. “Not much longer until he makes the crucial mistake.”
“Serge told me your plan to flush him out won’t work,” said Jeff. “I got the feeling he doesn’t like you.”
“I’m crushed.” Mahoney opened his own notebook. “Did he mention anything else about me?”
“He said ‘fuck’ a lot. And ‘cocksucker.’”
“Just thank God you’re safe,” said Tom.
“He wants me to write an article,” said Jeff.
“Article?”
“Set the record straight. Even stopped at a Walgreens to buy me supplies so I could get it all down.” He held up the bulging spiral book. “Craziest story I ever covered. You’re not going to believe what happened.”
“So what happened?”
“It all started after they grabbed me in the garage….”
AFTER THEY GRABBED HIM IN THE GARAGE
A black H2 sped north on the Nuccio Parkway.
Serge looked back over the seat. “Honor to finally meet. I’m a huge fan. My name’s Serge, although you probably guessed that, being a crack reporter.”
McSwirley’s color drained.
Serge pointed across the front seat. “I’d like you to meet Coleman.”
Coleman made a quick salute with a joint. “Yo.”
They turned right onto Seventh Avenue. McSwirley found his voice. “W-w-what do you want from me?”
“Want from you?” said Serge. “Nothing.”
“Then why’d you kidnap me?”
“We didn’t kidnap you. We saved you.”
Coleman exhaled a big hit. “We’re like your heroes.” He offered the joint to Jeff.
>
McSwirley shook his head. “Saved me from what?”
“You seen TV this morning? Listen to the radio?”
McSwirley shook his head again. “I just got up and came right in to work.”
“Oh, my God!” said Serge. “That partner of yours? Justin? Dead! Real nasty, too.”
“Justin’s dead!”
“Chopped up good. Chain saw.” Serge sped up to run a yellow. “Lots of pieces, blood splattered all over the place. His severed head…”
Coleman finished another hit. “Serge…”
“What?”
“I think you’re upsetting him.”
Serge looked in the rearview. “What are you crying for? You’re safe. We rescued you just in time.”
McSwirley’s blubbering got worse.
“Don’t cry,” said Serge. “Please don’t cry…. How about this: Justin only got a boo-boo? Happened to be inoperable.”
Through sobs Jeff finally managed heaving words. “I…can’t…take…this…anymore!” Then more wailing.
“Of course you can take it!” Serge began playing with one of his new guns. “You’re a great reporter! I’ve read your stuff. Pithy, precise, incredible turns of phrase, a human touch most could only dream of. I hate to speak ill of the dead, but you were carrying that Weeks guy. So I wouldn’t be that upset.”
McSwirley sucked in sniffles. “It’s not him.”
“What is it then?”
“Everything. All those people I’ve interviewed. Their sad faces…”
“Listen,” said Serge, “I’m sad, too. I just don’t cry. Except at the end of Million Dollar Baby. Who didn’t? Coleman, how were you after that movie?”
Coleman exhaled. “Torn the fuck up.”
“There you go,” said Serge, cocking his pistol. “A lot of people are sad. There’ve been a bunch of murders lately. Absolutely gruesome. Not to mention everything else in the world. Watch CNN any length of time and you’ll slash your wrists to your shoulders. The important thing is appreciating what little you’ve got for the short, miserable time you’re sharing this godforsaken hellhole of a planet with those motherfuckers…”—waving the gun near the ceiling—“…douche-bag scientists and their fucking manatee-viewing platforms—”
Bang.
Serge looked up. “Dang. Now I’ll have to patch that. See, Jeff? We all have our problems.”
“Serge…” said Coleman.
“What?”
He canted his head toward the backseat.
“Why are you crying again?” said Serge. “I’m trying to cheer you up. Look out your window! There’s a birdie! Isn’t he cute? Just chirping away! Happy to be alive, blissfully unaware he’s someone else’s meal, if the mercury poisoning doesn’t get him first. Then it goes right up the food chain. Brain damage. Blindness. Coma and slow death. The key is not to think about it. Don’t look at the birdie.”
“I’d like to get out now, please.”
“And let you fall into the hands of the killer?” said Serge. “We’re more loyal than that. Hey, look again! There’s the landmark Columbia Restaurant. Try the paella, or the 1905 salad. That virgin olive oil they use!” Serge kissed his fingertips. “Know why it’s called the 1905 salad? That’s the year they first opened. Very historic. Over a hundred years in the same spot. And you know what that means? Everyone who ate those first salads: all dead.”
The H2 made a left at the corner and accelerated for the interstate.
“Please,” said Jeff. “If you want to save me, just take me back to the paper. They have guards.”
“That was my first plan,” said Serge. “After I saw the predawn TV report on Justin, I said, ‘Coleman, you know what this means?’ But Coleman’s a slow starter in the morning, so I was essentially talking to myself. I said, ‘McSwirley must be next. We have to get to him before the killer does.’ So we staked out the garage, because it was the logical place for a psychotic to lie in wait, but luckily we got to you first. Then I was going to drop you off at the front door and watch until you made it safely inside. But the place was crawling with cops. Never seen so many flashing lights. That’s why I don’t chop bodies. Raises eyebrows.”
“So you really didn’t kill Justin?”
“There you go!” said Serge, slapping the dash. “I knew you were tough. Ever the reporter! Notice how you tried to slip in that investigative question? Good for you! No, I didn’t kill Justin. That was disgusting. Whoever did that is screwed up…. Go ahead, ask all the questions you want. Except the ones where, if I answered, I’d have to kill you.”
“Can I get out now?”
“Already answered that one. Next question.”
“Where are we going?”
“Don’t know. Where do you want to go?”
“Back to the office.”
“But it’s a beautiful day. Besides, you need a secret place to hole up now that you’re a target. Why don’t you stay with me? I can be pretty hard to find when I want to.”
“I don’t think so.”
“I’ll put you down for a maybe. Give it a few days. Doesn’t work out, we shake hands. But in exchange for our free trial period of protection, I’d like to ask you a favor. Only reasonable.”
“I thought you said you didn’t want anything from me.”
“I lied. Felt you needed to get to know us first and realize we’re not like all the other people who just want something. So here’s what I want: You know that unnamed source of yours?”
“I’m not allowed to reveal sources.”
“It’s okay. I already know it’s Mahoney.”
“How’d you know that?”
“I didn’t. Only suspected. I just tricked you into telling me. So there goes Mahoney’s theory of me losing my edge. I have another favor to ask. Actually, it’s a favor I’m going to do for you.”
“What’s that?”
“Justin’s dead.”
“I know.”
“You need a new partner.” Serge turned all the way around in the driver’s seat and smiled his widest.
McSwirley looked perplexed. “Who?”
“Me!”
“You want to be my new partner?”
“Always dreamed of working for a paper. And have I got a big story! Giant inside scoop!”
“What’s that?”
“Me again!”
“I don’t know….”
“Bet your editor would agree. There’s a newspaper war on. Where’s that cell phone you’ve secretly been trying to dial?”
“But I wasn’t—”
“It’s okay. I’d be trying, too. Call him right now. He’ll be so excited!”
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
TAMPA
Word swept Gladstone Tower.
“McSwirley escaped from the killers!”
“He’s telling the story!”
Employees from all departments raced down stairs and elevators, streaming into the newsroom from every direction. They surrounded McSwirley’s chair in a hush.
“And that’s when you called me on the cell phone?” asked Tom.
McSwirley nodded.
“What happened next?”
“He wanted to show me the Vinoy Hotel in St. Pete, where Gehrig and Hemingway hung out. But cops spotted us on the other side of the bay.”
“That’s right,” said Max. “The big chase across the bridge with all those helicopters.”
“We saw the whole thing on TV,” said Tom.
McSwirley opened another soda. “Thought I was dead for sure.”
“So did we,” said the maximum editor. “I had someone start your obit.”
Jeff looked up.
“Nothing personal. We have deadlines.”
“But, Jeff, how on earth did Serge get away? There must have been five choppers.”
“I couldn’t believe it either.” McSwirley opened his notebook. “Never heard so many sirens….”
Sirens screamed across the choppy surf. A dozen squad cars raced onto the Courtney C
ampbell causeway with more right behind. A police helicopter swooped over the middle of the bridge and the black H2 speeding east.
“Jeff! Isn’t this exciting? Are you getting it all down in your notes?”
“We’re going to die!”
“Eventually,” said Serge. “But not today.” He leaned forward in the driver’s seat and looked up through the windshield.
“There’s no way out,” said Jeff. “You have to surrender.”
“There’s always a way out.”
Two news helicopters came in low out of the setting sun and joined the chase. Colorful emblems on tail rotors: ACTION 2, EYE-WITNESS 5.
McSwirley rolled down his window and waved an arm at the sky. “Help!”
Serge hit the electric switch, raising Jeff ’s window. “Better get your arm in.”
McSwirley retrieved it just in time. “We’re doomed!”
“Have faith.” Serge changed lanes and whipped around a bakery van. More whapping blades overhead. A green-and-white sheriff ’s helicopter joined the blue one from Tampa police. Another direction: Florida Cable News. The thick air traffic negotiated an impromptu formation chasing the fugitive vehicle.
McSwirley’s cheek was against the glass, eyes upward. “…Three, four…. Serge, there are five helicopters now! Nobody can get away from five helicopters!”
“I’m not worried about the helicopters.” Serge checked the flashing lights in his rearview: police cruisers hampered by slow-moving bridge traffic a mile back at the hump. “We still have a solid lead on the land vehicles. That’s all that counts.” Serge reached the end of the bridge and made a skidding right turn across three honking lanes.
Whap, whap, whap. Helicopters all over them.
“Not worried about the helicopters?” said McSwirley. “But that’s how everyone gets caught, even if they lose the police cars. You’ve seen TV chases. It’s all over once the choppers have you.”
“Because those are idiots who don’t even plan their next breath.”
“You have a plan?”
“Watch the doctor operate….” Serge cut the wheel and threw McSwirley against the door. They made another last-second turn onto a just-appeared exit ramp. Serge curled into the cloverleaf, pushing the H2’s low center of gravity to the centrifugal edge. He came out on a straightaway and floored it.
