by Tim Dorsey
“You trying to bribe me?”
“It’s only a bribe if you’re a real cop,” said Serge. “You just got eagle patches… Four hundred?”
“That’s it. Conversation over.” The guard stepped forward. Serge blocked his path. “Get out of my way.”
“Let go of my friend.”
“Just wait till the police get here.” He tried to push by. Mistake. Serge seized the guard’s wrist and yanked it off Coleman’s arm. “You need to calm down. My very strong advice is to forget any of this ever happened.”
The guard was in his mid-twenties, average weight and height. Not much to bring to a fight, but he’d gotten cocky handling confrontation at the hotel since all the kids were hammered. Now he felt the latent energy in Serge’s sobering grip, and self-preservation made the correct decision to keep his powder dry.
He pulled away from Serge and backed across the patio, snatching the walkie-talkie off his belt.
“Crap.” It was Serge’s turn to grab Coleman’s arm. “Time to leave.”
ATLANTA
Muzak tinkled through a hollow terminal at Hartsfield. Just the janitors. Mop buckets and ropes across restrooms. CLOSED.
The last flight from Boston taxied to the terminal, hours late. Bleary travelers stumbled through the echoing airside. Unusually alert was a team of federal agents who were met at baggage claim by a local counterpart with a company car.
They watched hanging rubber flaps for luggage to appear.
Next to them at the belt, a man in a pulled-down baseball cap checked the name tag on a suitcase, pretended it wasn’t his and set it on the conveyor. It traveled thirty feet until Guillermo grabbed the handle and headed for a rental counter.
PANAMA CITY BEACH
The gals were wide awake when Serge hit the door.
“We saw you guys from the balcony,” said Country.
“What the hell did that idiot do now?” said City.
“No time.” Serge threw his suitcase on the sofa bed. “Collect your shit. We have to get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” said City. “Except back to bed.”
Serge looked in her eyes. Didn’t have to raise his voice. “The cops are coming.”
“Shit.”
He’d never seen women move so fast. In under two minutes, they’d packed essentials. Everything else would be memory. Serge opened the door.
The first patrol car was already in the parking lot as a backup arrived. The sound of elevator doors opening. Serge saw officers step out fifteen rooms down. He jumped back, crashing into the women.
“What’s going on?” asked Country.
“They’re already here,” said Serge. “Not fair. Four-minute response time is the minimum.”
The usually cool women looked at each other in panic, then at Serge. “What do we do?”
“Say good-bye to your luggage. There’s only one exit strategy.” He looked across the room.
“Jump off the balcony?” said City. “Fuck that!”
“They’re going to be banging on the door any second,” said Serge. “If Coleman can make it… Coleman, you think you can make it again?”
“Eyes closed.”
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! “Police! Open up!”
The gang looked oddly at one another.
More door banging.
Except it wasn’t their door.
Thuds and voices muted by distance.
“Don’t make us knock it in!”
Serge slowly turned the knob and peeked outside. Two cops continued beating on the door nine rooms up, the security guard and hotel manager behind them in the wings.
City was right over his shoulder. “What is it?”
“Unbelievable. They got the wrong room.”
“How’s that possible?” asked Coleman. “I told the guard where I was staying.”
“What’d you say?”
“Five forty-three.”
“Coleman, we’re in five thirty-four.” Serge wiped his forehead with relief. “Sometimes it’s better to be stupid than good.” He peeked again. The cops had gone inside the other room. “This is our break. Now!”
Three people ran onto the landing with suitcases.
“Where’s Coleman?”
Serge looked back inside just as fleshy feet left the balcony railing again. “Wheeeeeeeeee!…”
He groaned in agony. “Why is God doing this to me?”
“What happened to Coleman?” asked Country.
Serge raced for the elevators. “Didn’t get the memo on the updated exit strategy.”
Meanwhile, in room five forty-three:
The guard scratched his head.
An officer repeated the question: “You absolutely sure none of them is the guy you pulled from the pool?”
“This guy I’d definitely remember.”
“We weren’t even awake,” said Andy McKenna, pointing at the sleeping-bag-covered floor. “We haven’t done anything.”
“Jesus,” said the manager. “How many people are staying in this room?”
“Uh, six or seven. I think.”
“They might be telling the truth,” said the guard. “I didn’t see which balcony.”
“Bullshit,” said the manager. “They’re hiding him like the others… All you guys: You’re out of my hotel!”
“Don’t want any trouble,” said Andy. “We’ll be gone first thing in the morning.”
“No! Now!”
One of the officers radioed their status to dispatch. He clipped the microphone back on his shoulder and turned to the manager: “Without a positive ID from your guard, we really can’t do anything.”
“That’s okay,” said the manager. “I got it from here. Appreciate your assistance.”
The officers tipped their caps and left.
Down at ground level, four pairs of eyes peered from bushes. Three dry people, one not. Fishing Coleman out of the pool had critically delayed their escape. By the time they reached the parking lot, officers were getting off the elevators. The eyes followed blue uniforms across the pavement.
Patrol car doors slammed. One cruiser drove off; a dome light came on in the other.
“Why isn’t he leaving?” asked Coleman.
“Crap.” Serge swatted a mosquito. “He’s filling out the report.”
They all gazed at the Challenger, tantalizingly close, next to the police car.
A light rumbling sound.
“Get down!” said Serge. “Someone’s coming!”
A half dozen deflated students rolled luggage from elevators, the manager right behind to make sure. “I’ve got all your names and license numbers! Don’t ever come back!” He returned to his office.
The light went off in the patrol car. It drove away.
Students surrounded a pair of vehicles in the dark lot and loaded suitcases. “What are we going to do now?”
Four nonstudents broke from the bushes and rushed for the Challenger.
“They kick you out, too?” asked Andy. “What?” said Serge, sticking a key in the trunk. “Kick you out.” He pointed at the fifth floor. “We just got tossed for something we didn’t even do. What’d they get you for?”
“Get us for?”
“Why else would anyone check out at this ungodly hour, unless-”
“Oh, right,” said Serge. “Kicked out. Assholes! We should Molotov the office! What do you say? It’s looks really cool at night.”
Another student put his hands up passively. “All the same, we don’t need any more problems right now.”
“Just joshin’,” said Serge. He smiled. Then he didn’t. “Wait. Your voice… Do I know you?”
“Doubt it.” He grabbed a door handle.
“Damn it!” City yelled from the backseat. “Will you fucking get in already?”
“Hold that thought.” He looked back across the Challenger’s roof. His eyes suddenly lit. “Melvin! You’re Melvin Davenport!”
The student released the door handle. “Ho
w do you know my name?”
“Melvin!…” -thumping his own chest-“… It’s me, Serge!” Melvin squinted. “Serge?”
“We played catch when you were a kid. Don’t you remember?”
“No, I remember. It’s just-”
“Almost didn’t recognize you either.” Serge looked the kid over. “Wow, you really squirted. What? Six-one, two? But barely a buck thirty. Don’t fret; you’ll fill out soon enough. How’s Jim?”
“Dad’s fine.”
“And your mom?”
“Seriously pissed at you.”
“Still?”
“Probably strangle me just for talking to you like this.”
“Hoo, they really don’t forget.” Serge shrugged. “But that’s the whole point of college: Doing everything that would give your mother ten heart attacks. Speaking of which, I was only half-kidding about the Molotov. You in?”
“I’ll pass.”
“Good idea-it’s like forever getting that gasoline smell off your hands.”
“What the hell’s taking so long?” yelled City.
“Relax! Doesn’t Country have a joint or something?” Serge turned back around. “Sorry. Chicks.” He gestured up the empty street as pot smoke curled out the Challenger’s back window. “So where you heading?”
“No clue,” said Melvin. “Still hasn’t sunk in that we’re out on the street.”
A grin spread across Serge’s face. “Got the perfect idea. Swear you won’t regret it.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
INTERSTATE 75
A Hertz Town Car sped south through the starry Georgia night.
An exit for Robins Air Force Base went by. Raul opened a suitcase and passed out guns again.
“Keep those things down,” said Guillermo, letting off the gas and watching the speedometer drop to the posted 70 limit.
“What’s the matter?” asked Raul.
Guillermo glanced in the rearview. “We got cops.”
A Crown Vic with blackwall tires blew by in the left lane. Behind the wheel: “I just hope we’re not too late,” said Agent Ramirez.
One hundred and fifty miles southwest, a ’73 Challenger sped through empty farmland. It picked up I- 10 in Tallahassee and headed east out of the Panhandle.
“Breaker, breaker…”
“Is that you, Serge?”
Serge brought the walkie-talkie to his mouth again and looked in the Challenger’s side mirror. “Coleman, you’re supposed to say, ‘That’s a big ten-four, Captain Florida.’”
“Captain Florida’?” Coleman said into his own walkie-talkie from the backseat of a New Hampshire station wagon.
“That’s my handle,” said Serge.
“What’s mine?”
“How about ‘Lord of the Binge’?”
“Has a nice ring.”
The Challenger sped down open highway, followed by the station wagon and a Dodge pickup with Gator bumper stickers. They passed Live Oak, fifteen miles before the interchange with I-75, where a Crown Vic took the westbound ramp onto I-10.
“Breaker, Lord of the Binge…”
“That’s a big ten-seven.”
“Looks like we got us a convoy!”
The three-vehicle motorcade continued east, seeing no other cars for miles. Then:
“Breaker, breaker,” said Serge. “Smokey, eleven o’clock.”
Everyone cut back their speed as a Crown Vic driven by Agent Ramirez flew in the opposite direction.
“We’re clear,” said Serge. They sped on, approaching the I-75 cloverleaf, where a Hertz Town Car passed them going the other way toward Panama City Beach.
SUNRISE
“This is Maria Sanchez with Daybreak Eyewitness Action News Seven. I’m standing here on the crystal white sands of Panama City Beach as the sun peeks over the horizon and a number of college guests appreciating our wonderful community are up extra early to take in a morning stroll… Here comes one of them now… Sir, can you tell us what you’ve enjoyed most about your visit?”
“I don’t know where my hotel is. And I’m really drunk…”
Nearby, a packed Pontiac with Ohio plates arrived on the famous strip.
Ritual beers popped. “Spring break!”
Like so many others, the students had just completed another marathon drive that began in the snow the previous morning. They crossed the Florida line two hours before dawn and hit city limits at first light. Another impulse trip. “Who needs reservations?”
Budget motels lined the opposite side of the road from the beach. They stopped. Nothing available. Then the next. Full. The next. Sorry. And so on, until they reached the end of the strip. “We should have made reservations.”
The Pontiac turned around and headed back, this time trying the more expensive hotels on the gulf side. Same story, again and again. Looked like they’d have to head inland and find something north of town. They passed the Alligator Arms. Red neon under the sign: NO V ACANCY.
A passenger in the front seat turned around. “Did you see that?”
“What?” asked the driver.
“The ‘No’ on the ‘No Vacancy’ sign just went off.”
“Maybe it burnt out.”
“Can’t hurt to try.”
They parked out of view from the office, so the rest of the students could hide.
The manager looked up from his newspaper as the door opened. One of the kids pointed behind. “Saw the ‘no’ go out on the vacancy sign. Is that for real?”
The manager nodded and came to the counter. “One room left. Some other kids decided to depart early.”
“How much?”
“How many staying in the room?”
“Just us two.”
“That means at least five.”
“No, really.”
“Hundred and seventy a night.”
“What!”
“You’re not going to find another place for fifty miles.” The students pulled back from the counter and talked it over. Then nods.
“Okay, we’ll take it. Let me go out to the car and get some more money from the other three guys.”
The sun rose over the hotel roof as five Ohio students rolled luggage from their car.
Next to a newspaper box, someone sat on the curb with his chin in his hands.
“What’s the matter?” asked one of the students.
“No place to stay.”
“Why don’t you stay with us?”
“Really?”
“Wait a second,” said a second youth. “Why are you inviting a complete stranger to stay with us?”
“Because he’s the midget.”
They took the elevator several floors up and headed down the landing toward room 543.
SOMEWHERE IN NORTH FLORIDA
Another beautiful morning.
The ’73 Challenger barreled east on I-10 as a rising sun burnt off dew. Close behind, a woody station wagon and a Dodge pickup. They reached a junction in Jacksonville and headed south on 95.
The occupants of the various vehicles had been redistributed, at Serge’s insistence, “to resurrect the lost art of conversation.”
Serge sat behind the wheel of the Challenger. Melvin and Country had the backseat. Andy rode shotgun.
In the middle car, half the New Hampshire students and Coleman: “Brownies are the best!”
“I think smoking works better.”
“Much academic debate,” said Coleman. “But for my money, ingesting ensures a more complete absorption of the tetrahydrocan-nabinol psychoactive component. Only trade-off is a forty-five-minute delay to kick in. I’ll show you when we get to Daytona.”
Melvin’s roommate, Cody, drove the trailing pickup, with City and Joey filling out the rest of the tight front seat. Joey yawned and stretched out his arm in a furtive gambit to put it around City’s shoulders.
“I’ll break it.”
The arm came back.
Serge reached over and playfully punched Andy in the shoulder. “Ain’t this
the bee’s knees? You could have been stuck in the Panhandle, but now we get to travel back through spring break history! Look at that magnificent sky! This calls for coffee!” He grabbed a bottom-weighted travel mug off the dash. His other hand reached for his walkie-talkie. “Breaker, breaker. We got the big twenty-four lookin’ green all the way on the flip side.”
“What?”
“It’s a great fucking day!” He stretched an arm to Andy. “Coffee?”
“No, thanks.”
“Good, ’cause I want it all!” He sucked the mug dry, then turned his camcorder on and held it out the window. “There’s just something magical about setting out on the road at night and watching the sky gradually lighten until the sun arrives. Reminds me of childhood. We’d take trips to Cypress Gardens, Busch Gardens, Miami Seaquarium. For some reason, my folks found it essential to make good time and leave in pitch blackness. Our car was loaded the previous night, except for the cheap Styrofoam cooler. They started making ice days ahead and hoarded it in the freezer. Money wasn’t flying around like it is today, and people couldn’t justify buying bags of the stuff at 7-Eleven, which actually opened at seven and closed at eleven. Do we have any more coffee in here? Fuck it, I’ll just go: Mom made piles of bologna sandwiches ahead of time and stored them in Tupperware. America forgets its heritage, but back then Tupperware parties were hugely important tribal events, like Bar Mitzvahs for Gentiles. I want that on my tombstone: ‘There’s nothing’s more goy than Tupperware.’ Did I already ask about coffee? We owned an old Rambler, and I had the backseat to myself. Nobody thought about seat belts then, let alone child safety seats, and I sat on the floor behind Dad with my GI Joes and Tinkertoys. I once made a gallows from Tinkertoys and hung a GI Joe deserter, and my parents took me to a doctor. And on the other side of the drive-train hump, behind my mom’s seat, was the Styrofoam cooler of Total Joy. The back of the Rambler seemed so big then, and I was constantly moving around, as you probably guessed from my personality. Down on the floor, up on the seats doing somersaults. After a few trips, Dad wasn’t even distracted anymore by everything going on in the rearview mirror: little legs whipping by, flying GI Joes who’d stepped on land mines. But best of all-climbing up and lying on the ledge by the back window! Melvin? You can lie up on the ledge if you want. I can’t understate the experience.”
