Cadillac Beach Read online

  The salesmen peeked out the rear window. Men scattered from the sedan before the tanker exploded in an orange-black ball of jet fuel, catching the Lear on fire, the pilot wiggling out his window and falling to the runway.

  The chauffeur continued accelerating. More gunfire raked the limo. The back window blew, the trunk popped. A security guard ran into the middle of the road and blocked the service exit, waving both arms for them to stop.

  Doug cowered and wept on the floor of the vehicle, covered with glass and blood and mayo, pressing buttons on his cell phone. “I have to call my wife.”

  The guard dove out of the way as the limo crashed through the chain-link gates, which flew open and bounced back against the sides of the stretch. The driver made a skidding left turn in honking traffic and headed back toward downtown Miami.

  Doug put the phone to his head.

  “Honey, I’m in trouble.”

  1

  Tampa—1996

  A BEARDED MAN in rags stood on the side of a busy noon intersection, holding up a cardboard sign: WILL BE YOUR PSYCHIC FRIEND FOR FOOD.

  A Volvo rolled up. The bum leaned to the window.

  “People are out to get you. Vaccinations will be rendered obsolete in coming years by superaggressive bacteria. Your memory will start playing tricks. Tackle those feelings of hopelessness by giving up.”

  The driver handed over a dollar. Serge stuffed the bill in his pocket and waved as the car pulled away. “Have a nice day!”

  The traffic light cycled again; an Infiniti pulled up.

  “Today is the day to seize opportunities and act on long-term goals. But not for you. The House of Capricorn is in regression, which means the water signs are ambiguous at best. Meanwhile, Libra is rising and out to fuck you stupid. Stay home and watch lots of TV.”

  A dollar came through the window.

  “Peace, brother.”

  The light ran through its colors. Serge knocked on the window of a Mitsubishi. The glass opened an inch.

  “Put off making that crucial life-decision today because you’ll be wrong. Stop and notice the small things in life, like pollen. Wear something silly and give in to that whimsical urge to kick people in the crotch.”

  A dollar came through the window slit. Serge waved cheerfully as tires squealed. Next: a cigar-chomping man in an Isuzu. Serge bent down.

  “The word ‘smegma’ will come up today at an awkward moment. Begin keeping a journal; write down all your thoughts so you can see how stupid they are. Don’t be rash! Blue works for you!”

  “Hey, what kind of a reading is that?”

  “Top-of-the-line,” said Serge, holding out his hand. “Where’s my money?”

  “I’m not paying you.”

  “Come on, ya cheapskate!”

  “That was a lousy reading!”

  “Okay, let’s see what else I got.” Serge placed the back of his hand to his forehead and closed his eyes. “Wait, I’m getting a strong signal now. A transient will take down your license plate, track your address through the Department of Motor Vehicles, come to your house at night and kill you in your sleep.” Serge opened his eyes and smiled. “How was that?”

  The silent driver held out a dollar.

  “Oh, no,” said Serge, “that was my special five-dollar prediction.”

  The man didn’t move.

  “No problem,” said Serge, pulling a notepad from his pocket. “I’ll just jot down your plate and come by later to get the money.”

  The man pulled a five from his wallet, threw it out the window and sped off.

  Serge picked up the bill, kissed it and waved. He looked around and smiled at his chosen surroundings: drive-through liquor stores, robbery stakeout signs, bus benches advertising twelve-step programs, billboards for deserted dog tracks and talentless morning radio. A sooty diesel cloud floated by. Ah, the great outdoors! Serge turned and headed away from the street. Back to the swamp. It was a small swamp, but it was his swamp, nestled in the quarter-loop of a freeway interchange in the part of Tampa where I-275 dumps Busch Gardens visitors off for thrifty motels and breakfast buffets and encounters with local residents that make the Kumba inverting three-G roller coaster look like a teeter-totter. Serge pushed back brambles and shuffled through underbrush until he popped into a clearing at a hobo camp. Smudge-faced men tended a small fire in the middle of the cardboard boomtown, empty quart bottles randomly strewn everywhere, except on the southeast quadrant, where bottles formed strict geometric crop patterns in Serge’s “quart-bottle garden.”

  Serge sat down at the fire. The other guys scooted closer to him. Serge began handing out money.

  “How do you make so much?” asked Toledo Tom.

  “Why do you just give it away to us?” asked Saratoga Sam.

  “Why don’t you have a nickname?” asked Night Train O’Donnell.

  “I’m a simple man, with simple needs,” said Serge. “I’m on an Eastern ascetic journey right now, trying to shed material wants.”

  “How did you get to be homeless?” asked Whooping Cough Willie.

  “Oh, I’m not homeless,” said Serge. “I’m camping.”

  They laughed and passed a bottle.

  “No, really. I love camping, ever since I was a kid. I used to go to the state parks, but cities are much more dangerous and fun.”

  “But your beard…?”

  “Your smelly clothes…?”

  “Begging on street corners…?”

  “That’s for the cops. If you’re a fugitive and want the police to leave you alone—if you want everyone to leave you alone—go homeless-style. No eye contact, nothing. It’s like being invisible. Even if you get in some kind of scrape, you’re too much trouble to be worth the paperwork. They just tell you to move along or drive you to the city limits, not even fingerprints.”

  “You’re hiding from the cops?” asked Tom.

  “Ever since I escaped from Chattahoochee.”

  “You escaped from Chattahoochee?” Sam said with alarm.

  “A few times.”

  “Isn’t that where they keep the crazy people?” asked Willie.

  “Oh, like you guys are a group photo of solid mental health,” said Serge.

  “What were you in for?” asked Tom.

  “I killed a bunch of vagrants.”

  They began crab-walking backward from Serge.

  “That was a joke! I was kidding! Jesus!”

  They slid forward.

  “Of course, how do you really know when someone from Chattahoochee is kidding?”

  They stood up.

  “I was kidding that time,” said Serge. They sat back down. “But do you really know for sure?”

  They took off running in crooked directions.

  “Guys! It was a joke! I thought if anyone could appreciate irony…!” Serge stood and made a megaphone with his hands. “I’m just joshin’ ya! I’m pulling your leg!…Or am I? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!”

  A rustling came from the woods on the far side of the camp. Men burst into the clearing.

  “There he is! That’s the one who threatened me!” said the Isuzu driver.

  “Uh-oh.” Serge got up to run, but three cops quickly tackled him facedown.

  Serge turned his head sideways and spit out some dirt. “I predict you will soon be seated in a Dunkin’ Donuts.”

  A TALL REDHEAD in wire-rim glasses and conservative gray suit tapped a pencil. She looked up at a stark wall clock hanging against institutional cinder blocks with fifteen coats of high-gloss latex, then over at the man sitting across from her.

  “You know, not talking says a lot, too,” said the psychiatrist. “And it’s usually not good.”

  Serge swayed in his beige straitjacket, humming.

  “I know you’re angry to be back at Chattahoochee,” said the doctor. “That’s natural.”

  Serge hummed louder.

  “I’ll bet you’re angry about a lot of things. Why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “But I’m
not angry.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “Couldn’t be happier.”

  “The first step is to recognize denial.”

  “I’m not in denial.”

  “That’s a denial.”

  “Things are looking up.”

  “How can you say that? You’re sitting there in a straitjacket forced to talk to someone you clearly hate. I can tell by your body language.”

  “It’s the cut of this jacket. I’ve asked them to take it out.”

  “Why won’t you admit you’re angry?”

  “Because I’m not,” said Serge. He looked up at the diplomas on the wall. Alix Dorr. “What kind of spelling is Alix?”

  “My mother used an i to make it feminine, but it didn’t work. I still get all kinds of junk mail for men’s magazines.”

  “And this makes you angry?” said Serge.

  “Interesting,” said the doctor, leaning over and writing.

  “Will you stop that!”

  “If you’ll admit your true feelings—”

  “Look, from your angle over there, I can see how this predicament doesn’t look too festive. But I’m a glass-is-half-full kind of guy. I have my health, there are some books I still want to read. I can’t help it if I have a naturally high positive charge. In a resting state, I’m extremely buoyant.”

  “You’re lying to yourself.”

  “I’m telling the God’s honest truth. It’s all your frame of mind. Every second I’m alive, it hits me like a thunderbolt: ‘Holy fuck! I’m still breathing! What a great day!’ So in your book that makes me sick?”

  “No, the physical violence makes you sick.”

  “I already explained. Some people just don’t obey the rules, have no respect for the social contract.”

  “So you have to beat them?”

  Serge grinned. “But I’m happy when I beat them.”

  The doctor wrote something.

  “Is it better if I’m angry when I beat them? Will that get me out of here sooner?”

  “How about you don’t beat them at all?”

  “Oh, right, like that’s an option.”

  The doctor wrote something else and looked up. “Have you ever killed anyone?”

  “That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

  “This could go against you. Maybe increase your stay.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Why are you so uncooperative this time?”

  “Because last time I trusted you and opened up. Next thing I knew, my release was on indefinite hold and you were injecting me with all kinds of crap that made my brain feel like honeycomb and gave me the sensation I was in Spain.”

  “You have chemical imbalances.”

  “I like me.”

  “There’s nothing to feel guilty about.”

  “I don’t.”

  “It’s hereditary. Your grandfather had the same thing, long history of dissociative behavior. I have his file here from the VA….”

  “Let’s stick to you and me.”

  “You don’t like to talk about your grandfather, do you?”

  Serge looked away and whistled.

  “Is it because he committed suicide?”

  “He did not commit suicide!”

  “You’re angry now.”

  “I got sunshine…on a cloudy day….”

  “We’ll call it accidental, how’s that?”

  “It was no accident. He was murdered. And someday I’m going to find out who.”

  “So you’re carrying this anger around with you? And you plan to unleash it on the person you suspect of killing—”

  “I ain’t gonna deliver a Candygram, if that’s what you mean.”

  The doctor tabbed back in her manila file. “You said in our last session that his death had something to do with missing gems?”

  “I don’t think, I know. And someday I’m going to get to the bottom of it. If I can only track down those diamonds I’m sure it will lead to the killer. I’ve decided that as soon as I get out of here, I’m going to launch a far-reaching investigation by a blue-ribbon panel. Of course, I’ll be the only person on it, because I hate panels.”

  “Same thing in your grandfather’s file: an obsession with some make-believe jewels. I find that very intriguing—the same delusion.”

  “You never heard of the Museum of Natural History job in ’64? Murph the Surf and the Star of India?”

  The psychiatrist shook her head as she wrote. “You give your figments some imaginative names.”

  “Damn it, check the microfilm in any library! It drives me nuts when people don’t believe me just because they haven’t done their homework.”

  “And that makes you angry?”

  “I’m not talking anymore.” Serge began swaying again to the soundtrack in his head. “I’ve had it with doctors.”

  “Like the one you put in the hospital?”

  “Oh, I see where this is going. You’re all in a fraternity.”

  “No, I just want to understand.”

  “Then help me understand. What is it about doctors that makes them think they’re a superior species? First they demand a special title in front of their names, and next they’re treating everyone else like the subterranean Morlock race from H. G. Wells.”

  “So you broke his skull?”

  “A man can only take so much. Every time I had an appointment, it was at least an hour before I could see him. Every single time. I can’t tell you how crazy waiting makes me. I’m a very punctual person. If I have to be somewhere, I synchronize my watch to the second with the Time Channel.”

  “Why didn’t you just get another doctor?”

  “You fuckin’ guys! You have no idea what it’s like on this side of the little paper smock. You ever been in one of those managed-care Sam’s Clubs? You can’t just let your fingers do the walking. Then I read this article, and I almost hemorrhaged when I found out there are medical seminars teaching doctors how to manipulate a patient’s wait—they’ve actually done cost studies on how long people will tolerate the lobby, when to move them to the examining room, and how long they’ll wait there. Which is longer than you’d expect because, after all, ho! ho!—you’re in The Room! Then they instruct doctors to chop up the wait some more by sending in the nurses for blood pressure and other tap dancing. And you’re thinking, Hey, foolish to leave now—this is almost like actual treatment!”

  “What triggered the attack?”

  “I saw a thing on Fox News about this horrible new disease that has no symptoms. And I thought, Shit, I’ve got that! So I rush in for an appointment, and I tell the woman at the desk that we don’t have any time to waste. I’m showing none of the symptoms of the new disease on TV…. Sure enough, it’s another whole hour before I get to the examination room, and the nurse comes in and Velcros that rubber thing around my arm and starts pumping her little turkey-baster bulb. I glance at my arm, then squint at her and whisper, ‘I know what’s going on here,’ but she just acts innocent and says, ‘What?’ And finally, when he’s good and ready, the doctor comes strolling in all smiles. I say, ‘Doc, my appointment was over an hour ago.’ He keeps smiling and says they got behind and then starts opening my chart. I reach out and snap the chart shut and say, ‘Not so fast, Kildare. I’m on to your game.’ I tell him he can’t treat people this way. I describe my disease and the microscopic pictures I saw on television of these horrible alien-looking things with all these legs and suckers that were going condo in my pancreas. Then I demand he cut his patient load in half immediately and start attending patients in a more timely fashion. And you know what? He laughed at me!”

  The psychiatrist pointed with the eraser end of her pencil. “And that’s when you head-butted him, resulting in the cranial fracture?”

  “Hey, he was the doctor. He knew the medical risks better than me.”

  “What about the creatures in your pancreas?”

  Serge grinned and turned red. “Boy, am I embarrassed! I misse
d the top of the TV segment. Turns out they’re common parasites we all have. They’re actually good for us.”

  The psychiatrist nodded and scribbled. “This is excellent. You’re opening up.”

  “That’s opening up?…You tricked me. I’m not saying any more.”

  “I think it’s a mistake. You were starting to make progress.”

  “That’s my point. I poured out my heart the last time I was here, and you lengthened my stay. Then you turned around and released Crazy Luke, who kept his mouth shut the whole time.”

  “You didn’t think that was fair?”

  “Jesus! On his first day out, he chopped off all those people’s heads!”

  “Psychiatry is an imprecise science. That couldn’t have been foreseen with any certainty.”

  “You’ve got, like, a million degrees and you couldn’t see that coming? Every frothing lunatic in this hospital would have told you he’d do it!”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because he never stopped talking about it! All day and night: ‘Yep, gonna chop me some heads off.’ You try to sleep with that kind of shit coming through the walls.”

  “Nobody told me.”

  “Did you need a diagram?” said Serge. “His name was Crazy Luke, for heaven’s sake! Didn’t that tell you anything? That’s ‘crazy,’ as in insane. What did you think the context of ‘crazy’ was? Like glue? Like he worked really well?”

  “Now you’re getting your anger out.”

  Serge deliberated a moment. He took a deep breath. “All right. Since you’ve already made up your mind to keep me in for the max, I’ll tell you what makes me angry. Tire ads.”