The Pope of Palm Beach Read online

  “Are you seriously stupid?” asked Salenca. “This poor fool just decides out of the blue to anticipate us showing up here today, and he records a fake greeting?” Salenca charged toward the door. “Let’s get out of here before the cops arrive.”

  The Mercedes raced south toward Banyan Street. Salenca led the way storming back into the law office.

  Blanco stood quickly when he heard them, tossing the magazine aside like he wasn’t goofing off. “He hasn’t moved an inch since you left—”

  Salenca ignored him, taking three quick strides toward the front of the desk. Dunn began to open his mouth. Salenca swiftly pulled a nine-millimeter with a silencer.

  Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!

  A tight grouping of three bullets in the middle of the forehead. The wall behind the desk became modern art. The leather chair toppled over backward with only a polished black dress shoe still showing.

  Chapter 38

  The Next Day

  A folded-over newspaper shook in front of Kenny’s face as he lay back in his lounge chair.

  “Look!” said Serge, tapping the paper. “You’re climbing up the New York Times bestseller list. Isn’t that great?”

  A whimper.

  “Okay, you’re modest.” Serge set the paper aside. “Are you sure you don’t want to come to your next book signing tonight? I never realized how busy the publishers schedule you guys.”

  Another pitiful sound.

  “You’ll snap out of it. You should see your crowds.”

  “They give me drugs,” said Coleman. “I love books!”

  “Serge,” said Chris. “Kenny looks worse than usual. He hasn’t said a word since we got home last night.”

  “He’ll come around.”

  “I don’t know,” said Chris. “Do you think something happened yesterday while we were at the signing?”

  “His normal brain patterns have been altered by years in solitary. He just needs some interaction.” Serge worked a remote control. Bzzzzzz. “Kenny? Want to try shooting down my new drone? But I’ll have to warn you, I’ve been working on evasive maneuvers.”

  Kenny just stared.

  “Okay, not into the drone right now.” Serge walked to the front of the room. “How about some TV?” He clicked it on.

  “. . . Police continue to investigate the gruesome, execution-style murder of West Palm Beach lawyer Hanley Dunn . . .”

  Piercing shrieks as Kenny thrashed in his chair.

  “I understand,” said Serge. “Crime today can be a downer.” He changed the channel. “How about Family Feud?”

  “. . . Name something you might find under a motel bed . . .”

  “. . . A body . . .”

  Kenny shrieked.

  “. . . A body is the number one answer! . . .”

  Serge turned the set off. “Maybe peace and quiet is the best thing right now . . .” He faced the others. “Chris, Coleman. Ready to head out?”

  Miami

  A man in an odd-looking beard smiled.

  Just as he had been doing all morning.

  The smiling man was in the photo on the back cover of a novel, and the novel sat in Salenca’s lap. “I know this guy from somewhere.”

  Tito entered the warehouse office. “Sir, we still haven’t been able to find anything.”

  “Keep looking. And call our private eye back.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Tito. “But word is that this author’s a hermit. Nobody’s been able to find him for years.”

  “There’s got to be some— . . .” Salenca suddenly hung his head with an angry exhale. “I am such an idiot!” He quickly tapped his computer’s keyboard.

  “What is it, sir?”

  “Right in front of us the whole time!” Salenca pushed his chair back and extended a palm. “Look for yourself.”

  Tito came around the desk and squinted. “A book tour?”

  “I don’t read much, so it’s not part of my world.” Salenca scribbled an address and stood. “But it still should have been obvious.”

  “What do you want us to do?” asked Tito.

  “What else?” Salenca grabbed the pistol out of his desk. “Get autographs.”

  Boca Raton

  A lighted marquee outside the library: Kenneth Reese, 7 p.m.

  The parking lot was already at overflow, and the pickup trucks had to park in the street. Salenca called a huddle at the curb. “Have any of you been to a book signing before? Does anyone know what goes on at these things?”

  A hand went up. “I went to one as a kid, a book about a lonely panda. I got a balloon.”

  “Okay, shut up. Anyone else?”

  Heads looked at each other.

  “Then we need to play it careful because of all the civilians,” said Salenca. “We watch and observe and nobody does anything during the event, unless he tries to pull something. And then you only do something if I do it first. As soon as this foolishness starts breaking up at the end of the night, we’ll pick our move . . .”

  A cell phone rang. Tito took the call.

  “. . . Is everyone clear on their roles? On how delicate this is? There are way too many bystanders.”

  A round of nodding.

  “Good—”

  “Sir . . .”

  “What is it, Tito?”

  “That was our private eye.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Salenca jerked a thumb toward the library. “We’ve got him in our cross hairs. He can’t escape.”

  “No,” Tito replied. “Our detective says it’s not him.”

  “Come again?”

  “He did a facial-recognition scan on his computer that he adds to our bill—”

  Salenca pounded the hood of the Mercedes. “Dammit, I know what we’re paying him! Get it out of your mouth!”

  “It’s not him.”

  “You said that.” Salenca held up a book. “Of course it’s him! Bestseller! Author photo! National book tour! His name’s on the cover, for heaven’s sake.”

  Tito shook his head. “The detective kept working on the case like you told him. He compared the photo on the newest cover with the older books, and they don’t match.”

  “Of course they don’t match,” said Salenca. “He’s older and has a beard.”

  Tito shook his head again. “He said age wouldn’t have changed the distance between key points on the face—nose, eyes, ratio of forehead to chin—unless the guy had plastic surgery.”

  Salenca stared quietly at the ground, then slowly began to nod. “Okay, it’s starting to make sense now. I’ve had this weird feeling that I’ve seen the guy in the photo before, and I know I’ve never met this author.” He faced the group urgently. “Scrap plan A. No hot-and-heavy response at the end of the night. We don’t have any idea what we’re dealing with, so until we do, I need to collect intelligence. Put him under surveillance, and he might even lead us back to the real author. He’s clearly involved some way, but we can’t spook him or he’ll have home-field advantage before we even know what game this is . . . Tito?”

  “Yes?”

  “To avoid attracting attention, the rest of us will wait nearby while you attend the book signing alone. Observe, gather what information you can, and loosely tail him,” said Salenca. “Once he’s a safe distance away from all these people at the library, give us a call and we’ll join the surveillance.”

  “You got it,” said Tito. “One question: What do I do at a book signing?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never been to one. Just do what everyone else is doing.”

  Tito nodded respectfully and ran across the street.

  “The rest of you,” said Salenca, “move out. The Waffle House, on me.”

  The trucks drove away as Tito joined the readers funneling through the doors. He entered the rear of a well-lighted community room. He stopped to watch. People were loading up on punch and cookies from a back table. Tito loaded up. They took seats. Tito sat down.

  A bearded man stood at the front of the room, talking
with some readers ahead of time. A handful of people seated around Tito got up and headed that direction. Tito followed. They took selfies. Tito got out his own phone.

  Serge chatted amiably with the group before excusing himself for the restroom. Several followed Serge, and Tito followed them.

  Serge faced a urinal and unzipped his pants. Someone approached the next urinal and unzipped as well. “I can’t believe I’m peeing next to you!”

  Serge smiled. “I feel the same way.”

  Someone else walked up behind Serge. “I love your stuff! Hey, dude, if you haven’t gotten started yet, can I shake your hand?”

  Serge reached back over his shoulder and shook.

  The next person. “Can I take a selfie?”

  Serge leaned his head back and grinned. Click.

  “Thanks, man!”

  Serge zipped up and went to the sink. Someone else was waiting with a cell phone. “Can you talk to my father? He couldn’t make it.”

  Serge took the phone with dripping hands. “How’s it going? . . .”

  He left the restroom, and a woman waiting in the hall handed him another phone. “Could you talk to my daughter at college? . . .”

  “Study hard and don’t do drugs, but it’s okay to be curious about the lesbian thing—”

  The mother snatched the phone back.

  . . . In a nearby Waffle House, the crew dug into omelets, burgers, grilled cheese, BLTs and slices of lemon meringue. A cell phone rang. “Salenca here.”

  “It’s me, Tito. I have someone here to talk to you . . .” A shuffling sound with voices in the background. “Hello? Mr. Salenca? This is Kenneth Reese.”

  “Uh . . . okay . . .”

  “Tito says you like my books. Really appreciate it. I have to go. Here’s Tito again . . .”

  A fumbling sound. “That was him, Mr. Salenca.”

  “Tito, what in the fuck are you doing?”

  “What you told me to do. Acting like everyone else. Who knew this was going on?”

  “Jesus! Get off the phone! No more calls! Just watch and don’t talk to him anymore!” Salenca slammed the phone down, sloshing coffee around the table. “Unbelievable! . . .”

  . . . Back in the library, Serge chugged coffee as he listened to the introduction from the library director. She handed him the microphone.

  “Hello out there! Is everyone ready for a good time?”

  “Yeah!”

  “Thanks for coming! Just a couple of housekeeping items before we begin. I’ll sign as many books as you want, but I’m not writing anyone’s life story right now, and any drugs go to Coleman . . . You know what’s bugging me? Quite a few things, actually, like when a company delivers a package that you have to sign for, and you discover a note on your door and now must drive across town to pick it up. Except you were home the whole time! They’re ninjas! . . . Or you’re checking out at a register, and the clerk puts the bills and receipt in my hand first, and then the coins on top of it, and now that ordeal is on me . . . Another thing: A checkout clerk is not the person you’re supposed to talk to about your latest flare-up. And if you’re a clerk, don’t act interested! ‘Yeah, it flared up again.’ ‘Oh, that’s terrible. What happened?’ ‘I spent most of the night in the bathroom but got some knitting done.’ At this point I just reach all the way over and start scanning my own items myself, and then they both look at me like I’m the problem . . .” He grabbed a thermos. “. . . And these big-box stores that barely have any employees anymore. Try finding one when you need help. Here’s my new motto: ‘No customer service? No problem!’ And then the manager goes to lock up at the end of the day. ‘What the heck happened to our sidewalk?’ . . . Coleman!”

  Coleman wheeled out a large library media cart with a television and video machine. He hit play. A bone-rattling industrial sound filled the room.

  Ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching-ching! . . .

  “As you can see . . .” Serge pointed at the screen. “If you’re wearing an orange vest and a hard hat, and you have a couple of those wooden barricade things with round amber lights on top, you can use a jackhammer just about anywhere you want without questions . . . Any questions? You, over there.”

  “Are you going to read something?”

  “No! You’re going to read the book anyway, so let’s not waste time! Ever watch a book event on C-SPAN? Some guy with leather elbow pads on his jacket, reading the biography of a vice president from 1809 who made his mark as a ruthless haberdasher and had his wife committed to the sanatorium for compulsively licking people and then quacking. That’s not what you want! We’re here to celebrate life! . . . Coleman, the karaoke machine!”

  Coleman wheeled away the TV, and wheeled back a rented contraption from the Party Store.

  “Who’ll break the ice and go first?” asked Serge. He pointed in the back row. “Tito, get up here, you maniac!”

  “Me?”

  Serge waved frantically.

  Tito walked stiffly to the front of the room. “What do I do?”

  “Just sing from the prompter. Here’s your mike.”

  Tito cleared his throat. “ . . . Like a virgin . . .”

  Ten volunteers later. “ . . . Everybody was kung fu fighting . . .”

  Serge turned off the machine. “Remember when you were kids? Remember all the great stuff we had to play with? Kaleidoscopes, kites, kazoos?” He reached into a gym bag on the floor next to the podium and began shaking an aerosol can. “Hope nobody just came from the beauty shop.”

  The talk soon ended, and a long line of people formed with books in their arms and Silly String in their hair.

  The library director pulled Serge aside. “Just thought I’d give you a heads-up. You’ve got admirers. I overheard those two women over there say they were going to try to follow you back to your hotel.”

  “They’re pretty young.” Serge grabbed his thermos. “This requires coffee.”

  Serge was collecting his pens after signing the last book when Chris came up. “Wow . . . a different show every night.”

  “Listen, you and Coleman go on ahead without me.” He clandestinely gestured to the side of the room. “I have to ditch some people.”

  “Well, look at you. Groupies.”

  “This shouldn’t take long . . .”

  Tito was waiting for the crowd to thin so he could begin his tail. Finally, the room was down to the staff, the author, himself and two women whispering and giggling.

  Suddenly, Serge ran over to the wall and poked the two women on their arms. “You’re it! Can’t catch me!”

  A piercing alarm sounded as he bolted out the emergency door. The women were right behind. And Tito was behind them . . .

  Fingers impatiently tapped a table in a Waffle House. Empty plates with syrup and crumpled napkins. A waitress refilled coffee.

  The boss checked his watch. The door to the restaurant opened.

  “There you are! Where have you been?” He paused to look Tito over. “What’s in your hair?”

  “Silly String.”

  “How did you get all scraped up?”

  “Running through the woods with two women.”

  “What for?”

  “It was a book signing.” Tito set a novel on the table. “I got you an autographed copy.”

  “Didn’t you tail him?”

  “Yes.”

  “And? Where did he go?”

  “I lost him in the woods.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “You told me not to call anymore after I let you talk to him. Remember?”

  Salenca rubbed his forehead hard. “So what took you so long to get back?”

  “After the women and I lost him, we were lost. But one of the women was smart and could use the position of the moon.”

  Salenca calmly took off his glasses and squeezed drops in his eyes. “Anything else I should know that goes on at these book signings?”

  “They also made me get up in front of everyone and sing,” s
aid Tito. “I didn’t do well with Madonna, though I improved with the next song where this guy has never been to Spain, but he kind of likes the music.”

  “Stop! I don’t need to hear any more. I don’t want to.” He turned toward the toughest case at the table. Prison stretches for aggravated assault and attempted murder. “Lars, you’re up. Next book signing tomorrow night. Think you can handle it? No phone calls, no signing, no losing him in the woods.”

  “No problem.”

  Chapter 39

  Lars

  A group of intimidating men sipped Chardonnay at a sidewalk bistro as the sun went down.

  Salenca checked his watch. “Lars, you’re on.”

  Broad shoulders silently rose from the table.

  A few blocks away, Serge and friends entered the library. He went to the bathroom, followed by readers.

  More patrons arrived, including a pair of broad shoulders that filled the doorframe. Punch and cookies were especially big tonight. Lars remained in his chair like stone.

  Another introduction and round of applause. Serge placed a coffee thermos on the podium and yanked the microphone out of its stand.

  “Helllllllllo, Palm Beach Gardens! Everyone wants me to read from my book even though I hate to, so let’s get that out of the way. ‘Chapter One. My day had been exceedingly normal—which extended the streak to 9,632 normal days in a row—when the shotgun blast sent my life in an entirely new direction . . .’”

  . . . Three minutes later: “Blah, blah, blah . . . Hey, did anyone hear about the zombie stampede in Fort Myers? Totally true, look it up! They had a zombie convention at the popular tourist area by the yacht club. Everyone was in costume, and some guy got in a fight and started shooting a gun. Naturally all the zombies began screaming and running for their lives. But it gets better! All these other regular tourists with no awareness of the convention were out strolling the sidewalk cafés and galleries and martini bars, and suddenly they see all these zombies completely out of their minds, yelling and sprinting full speed toward them, so the tourists start screaming and running from the zombies! . . . Coleman!”