"Gator A-GO-GO" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dorsey Tim)

Chapter Five

BOSTON

Patrick McKenna arrived for work, punctual as always. He got off the elevator. All the cubicle people stood and began clapping.

“What the heck?” Patrick went in his office and sat down at the computer.

A colleague opened the door and ran in. “Turn on the TV!”

“What’s happening?”

“Just turn it on!” He hit the remote.

“… It was an emotional homecoming after FBI agents raided a remote farmhouse in Essex County and rescued a college freshman who’d been held hostage for more than a week. The big break came when a local satellite imaging company…”

A commotion back in the doorway. His boss rushed in, followed by three TV crews jockeying for position. Patrick jumped up.

The boss threw an arm around his shoulders. “Here’s your hero!”

Blinding camera lights. Patrick shielded his eyes. “Get them out of here!”

“Smile,” his boss whispered sideways. “It’s great publicity for the firm.”

“I don’t want publicity.”

A thrusted microphone. “How does it feel to be a hero?”

FORT MYERS

Shafts of light hit the empty street.

“Sun’s rising,” said Serge. “We have to work fast.” He threw another rope to Coleman. “Pull!”

Moments later, they were done. Serge stood proudly before another enigmatic scene.

Their guest lay on his back, lashed into precise position with a spiderweb of thick rope stretching his limbs to the aching point and knotted around open wall studs and various heavy objects. His body was inside the garage, head resting on the ground outside, just over the threshold, staring up at the edge of the open automatic door.

Serge chugged a coffee thermos, then grinned gleefully and rubbed his palms together. “This is usually the part where I get a thousand questions! But I pride myself on being the perfect host and anticipate them all. Let’s get to it!”

Serge held a plastic box to the captive’s face. “Dig! RadioShack! I rigged my own universal garage door opener, conveniently tuned to this house’s frequency.” He reached up and carefully ran a finger along ultra-sharp metal. “Also sawed a horizontal groove in the broomstick attached to the bottom of the door. Now that’s patience! No need to thank me. Then I took the liberty of applying Kwik Dry superglue the entire length of the notch and inserting a bunch of razor blades I got at the drugstore.”

Coleman picked his nose. “Wondered what you were going to do with those.”

Serge squatted next to the head. “By your eyes I can tell you’ve guessed it. That’s right: Serge’s Garage-Door Guillotine! Patent pending.”

Fierce wiggling and gag-muffled screams.

“Better conserve energy because there’s a lot of work ahead if you want to make it out of here.” Serge looked back at the growing dawn light. “You’ll have at least an hour to free yourself.” Serge smiled again and tapped the man’s terrified cheeks. “Just joking. I wouldn’t put you through that kind of inconvenience. I made sure you can’t get loose… Although I could be bluffing. You’ve probably noticed I’m a different kind of cat. Maybe I made one of the knots a slipknot. Ain’t this a fun riot! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. More coffee for everyone!”

“But, Serge,” said Coleman, “garage doors come down pretty slow. It’ll just cut him a little. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m not very impressed by your guillotine.”

“That’s the whole beauty.” Serge walked to the middle of the garage and pointed up at the motor mounted to the ceiling. “This is a newer model I wasn’t familiar with, so it took a bit of extra analysis, but I finally cracked the code. The special chain here is key, with sprocket holes that go around the main gear.” He kept pointing above as he walked forward. “And here’s the end of the chain, which reaches the gear when the door gets near the bottom. Notice how I’ve removed a section of metal links and tied the other two ends together with kite string. Then I used my pocket knife to slice partially through the twine.” Serge spread his arms upward like a preacher. “And there you have it!”

Coleman fired a jay. “Have what?”

“When activated by my remote control, the chain lowers the door halfway, until it reaches the string, which snaps because the load’s too heavy, and the door free-falls under its own weight.”

“Is that enough to chop his head off?”

“Of course not. What is it with you always asking about chopping heads off?”

He shrugged. “Never seen it done.”

“Razor blades aren’t that long, but more than enough to do a number on major blood vessels, like the jugular and carotid, just to name a couple.” Then, looking down: “Will you stop trying to scream? That’s so impolite when someone’s attempting to have a conversation.”

Serge dragged garbage cans and a lawn mower into the driveway- “Blocking views from the street, in case you were curious.”

“When do we get to watch?” asked Coleman.

“We won’t be here.”

“Knew you were going to say that.” Coleman sighed and took a hit. “I always wait bored while you do your hobbies, but then you don’t let me see the good stuff.”

“Coleman, it’s going to get ridiculously bloody.” He shivered at the image. “Not something a normal person would enjoy.”

“But how will it happen if we’re not here?”

“The crowning cherry!” Serge held up a shiny, square plate with a lacquered surface encasing loops of embedded metal strips. “My alternative power source.”

“What is it?”

“Solar cell. I’ve decided to go green.” Serge laid it in the driveway. A wire extended from the side and into his modified garage opener. “When the sun rises high enough, it’ll activate my transmitter.” Serge reached toward the box.

“Can I?” asked Coleman.

Serge stepped back. “Be my guest.”

Coleman threw the toggle switch to “On.”

Serge stood over his guest a final time. “My advice? Pray for rain.”

SOUTH OF MIAMI

The early-afternoon sun gave everything a harsh yellow haze. All across Metro-Dade, long lines spilled from convenience stores and bodegas, people handing pink-and-white cards across counters. Lottery machines clattered and spit out tickets at a blistering rate.

“Those are my grandchildren’s birthdays…”

“I just feel extra lucky…”

A royal poinciana struggled to rise from a tight alley between two pastel green apartment buildings in West Perrine. The rest of the landscaping was accidental. Weeds; abandoned tires; a smattering of old-growth palms, some dead, leaving withered, topless trunks. Spanish store signs and billboards for menthol. Children played in broken glass, throwing rocks at lizards.

A late-model Infiniti sat across the street with the motor running.

“How long are we going to wait?” asked Miguel.

Guillermo’s eyes stayed to his binoculars. “As long as it takes.”

Raul leaned forward in the front passenger seat and twisted a knob.

Guillermo lowered the binoculars. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Listening to the radio.”

“… With no winners for the last five weeks, Florida ’s Lotto jackpot now stands at forty-two million dollars, and merchants are reporting huge backups-”

Guillermo clicked it off. “We’re working.”

The sun drew down.

“Maybe they’re not even home,” said Pedro.

“They’re home all right,” said Guillermo.

“How do you know?”

“Here they come now.”

The Infiniti’s passengers looked up at the second-floor balcony, where a door had just opened. Three men filed out. Colombian. They trotted down a concrete staircase by the poinciana and piled into the boxlike frame of a vintage Grand Marquis with gray spray-paint splotches over body work.

Guillermo threw the Inifiniti in gear and followed.

Raul unzipped a small duffel bag, handing out Mac-10s with extended ammo clips. “When do we move?”

“Not until I say.” Guillermo made a right behind the Marquis. “Let’s see where they’re going.”

“But we could pull alongside right now.”

“And a cop comes around the corner,” said Guillermo. “I personally want to get away.”

The Marquis reached South Dixie Highway and turned left.

“Brake lights,” said Miguel. “They’re pulling into that parking lot.”

The Infiniti slowly circled the gas pumps of an independent convenience store with water-filled potholes and a lunch window for Cuban sandwiches. Four steel pylons had recently been installed at the entrance after a smash-and-grab where a stolen Taurus ended up in the Slim Jims. The Marquis’s passengers went inside.

Guillermo parked facing the quickest exit back to South Dixie. He opened the driver’s door. “Don’t do anything until I give the signal.”

“But they’re all in there.”

“And armed,” said Guillermo. “Wait until they’re in the checkout line. Otherwise we’ll be chasing them all across the store, shooting at one another over the top of the chips aisle like last time.”

The crew tucked Macs under shirts and slipped to the edge of the building. They peeked around the outdoor self-serve freezer of ten-pound ice bags.

“Look at that fuckin’ lottery line,” said Raul.

“They’re all up front,” said Guillermo. He pulled a wad of dark knit cloth from his pocket, and the others followed his lead. “Try to keep your spread tight.”

Customers forked money across the counter and pocketed tickets of government-misled hope, just as they had every minute since the owner unlocked the doors.

The Marquis’s passengers looked down at their own penciled-in computer cards. One sipped a can of iced tea. Another idly looked outside. Four ski masks ran past the windows.

“Shit.”

He reached under his shirt for a Tec-9. The others didn’t need to see the threat, just reflexively went for their own weapons upon noticing their colleague’s reaction.

The doors flew open.

Then all hell.

Ammo sprayed. Beer coolers and windows shattered. Screaming, running, diving over the counter, two-liter soda bottles exploding.

Miguel took a slug in the shoulder, but nothing like the Colombians. A textbook case of overkill. They toppled backward, their own guns still on automatic, raking the ceiling.

Stampede time. Guillermo and the others whipped off masks and blended with a river of hysterical bystanders gushing out the door. After the exodus, an empty store revealed the math. Three seriously dead Colombians and four crying, bleeding innocents, lying in shock or dragging themselves across the waxed floor.

Sirens.

The Infiniti sailed over a curb and down South Dixie.