Three Classic Thrillers (50 page)

“What if they don’t have two rooms next to each other?”

“Okay, if anything goes wrong, two doors down is another dump called the Seaside. Check in there. Same name. I’m leaving here now, say one o’clock, and I should be there in ten hours.”

“What if they find the car?”

“They’ll find it, and they’ll throw a blanket over Panama City Beach. You’ve got to be careful. After dark, try to sneak into a drugstore and buy some hair dye. Cut your hair extremely short and dye it blond.”

“Blond!”

“Or red. I don’t give a damn. But change it. Tell Ray not to leave his room. Do not take any chances.”

“He’s got a gun, Mitch.”

“Tell him I said not to use it. There will be a thousand cops around there, probably tonight. He can’t win a gunfight.”

“I love you, Mitch. I’m so scared.”

“It’s okay to be scared, babe. Just keep thinking.
They don’t know where you are, and they can’t catch you if you move. I’ll be there by midnight.”

Lamar Quin, Wally Hudson and Kendall Mahan sat in the conference room on the third floor and contemplated their next move. As senior associates, they knew about the fifth floor and the basement, about Mr. Lazarov and Mr. Morolto, about Hodge and Kozinski. They knew that when one joined the firm, one did not leave.

They told their stories about the Day. They compared it to the day they learned the sad truth about Santa Claus. A sad and frightening day, when Nathan Locke talked to them in his office and told them about their biggest client. And then he introduced them to DeVasher. They were employees of the Morolto family, and they were expected to work hard, spend their handsome paychecks and remain very quiet about it. All three did. There had been thoughts of leaving, but never serious plans. They were family men. In time, it sort of went away. There were so many clean clients to work for. So much hard, legitimate work.

The partners handled most of the dirty work, but growing seniority had brought increasing involvement in the conspiracy. They would never be caught, the partners assured them. They were too smart. They had too much money. It was a perfect cover. Of particular concern at the conference table was the fact that the partners had skipped town. There was not a single partner in Memphis. Even Avery Tolar had disappeared. He had walked out of the hospital.

They talked about Mitch. He was out there somewhere, scared and running for his life. If DeVasher
caught him, he was dead and they would bury him like Hodge and Kozinski. But if the feds caught him, they got the records, and they got the firm, which, of course, included the three of them.

What if, they speculated, no one caught him? What if he made it, just vanished? Along with his documents, of course. What if he and Abby were now somewhere on a beach, drinking rum and counting their money? They liked this thought and talked about it for a while.

Finally, they decided to wait until tomorrow. If Mitch was gunned down somewhere, they would stay in Memphis. If he was never found, they would stay in Memphis. If the feds caught him, they would hit the road, Jack.

Run, Mitch, run!

The rooms at the Blue Tide Motel were narrow and tacky. The carpet was twenty years old and badly worn. The bedspreads had cigarette burns. But luxury was unimportant.

After dark Thursday, Ray stood behind Abby with a pair of scissors and snipped delicately around her ears. Two towels under the chair were covered with her dark hair. She watched him carefully in the mirror next to the antique color television and was free with her instructions. It was a boyish cut, well above the ears, with bangs. He stepped back and admired his work.

“Not bad,” he said.

She smiled and brushed hair from her arms. “I guess I need to color it now,” she said sadly. She walked to the tiny bathroom and closed the door.

She emerged an hour later as a blonde. A yellowish
blonde. Ray was asleep on the bedspread. She knelt on the dirty carpet and scooped up the hair.

She picked it from the floor and filled a plastic garbage bag. The empty dye bottle and the applicator were thrown in with the hair, and she tied the bag. There was a knock at the door.

Abby froze, and listened. The curtains were pulled tightly. She slapped Ray’s feet. Another knock. Ray jumped from the bed and grabbed the gun.

“Who is it?” she whispered loudly at the window.

“Sam Fortune,” he whispered back.

Ray unlocked the door, and Mitch stepped in. He grabbed Abby and bear-hugged Ray. The door was locked, the lights turned off, and they sat on the bed in the darkness. He held Abby tightly. With so much to say, the three said nothing.

A tiny, weak ray of light from the outside filtered under the curtains and, as minutes passed, gradually lit the dresser and television. No one spoke. There were no sounds from the Blue Tide. The parking lot was virtually empty.

“I can almost explain why I’m here,” Ray finally said, “but I’m not sure why you’re here.”

“We’ve got to forget why we’re here,” Mitch said, “and concentrate on leaving here. All together. All safe.”

“Abby’s told me everything,” Ray said.

“I don’t know everything,” she said. “I don’t know who’s chasing us.”

“I’m assuming they’re all out there,” Mitch said. “DeVasher and his gang are nearby. Pensacola, I would guess. It’s the nearest airport of any size. Tarrance is somewhere along the coast directing his boys in their all-out search for Ray McDeere, the rapist. And his accomplice, Abby McDeere.”

“What happens next?” Abby asked.

“They’ll find the car, if they haven’t already done so. That will pinpoint Panama City Beach. The paper said the search extended from Mobile to Miami, so now they’re spread out. When they find the car, they zero in here. Now, there’s a thousand cheap motels just like this one along the Strip. For twelve miles, nothing but motels, condos and T-shirt shops. That’s a lot of people, a lot of tourists with shorts and sandals, and tomorrow we’ll be tourists too, shorts, sandals, the whole bit. I figure even if they have a hundred men after us, we’ve got two or three days.”

“Once they decide we’re here, what happens?” she asked.

“You and Ray could have simply abandoned the car and taken off in another one. They can’t be certain we’re on the Strip, but they’ll start looking here. But they’re not the Gestapo. They can’t crash a door and search without probable cause.”

“DeVasher can,” Ray said.

“Yeah, but there’s a million doors around here. They’ll set up roadblocks and watch every store and restaurant. They’ll talk to every hotel clerk, show them Ray’s mug shot. They’ll swarm like ants for a few days, and with luck, they’ll miss us.”

“What are you driving, Mitch?” Ray asked.

“A U-Haul.”

“I don’t understand why we don’t get in the U-Haul, right now, and haul ass. I mean, the car is sitting a mile down the road, just waiting to be found, and we know they’re coming. I say we haul it.”

“Listen, Ray. They might be setting roadblocks right now. Trust me. Did I get you out of prison? Come on.”

A siren went screaming past on the Strip. They froze, and listened to it fade away.

“Okay, gang,” Mitch said, “we’re moving out. I don’t like this place. The parking lot is empty and too close to the highway. I’ve parked the U-Haul three doors down at the elegant Sea Gull’s Rest Motel. I’ve got two lovely rooms there. The roaches are much smaller. We’re taking a quiet stroll on the beach. Then we get to unpack the truck. Sound exciting?”

J
oey Morolto and his squad of storm troopers landed at the Pensacola airport in a chartered DC-9 before sunrise Friday. Lazarov waited with two limos and eight rented vans. He briefed Joey on the past twenty-four hours as the convoy left Pensacola and traveled east on Highway 98. After an hour of briefing, they arrived at a twelve-floor condo called the Sandpiper, in the middle of the Strip at Destin. An hour from Panama City Beach. The penthouse on the top floor had been procured by Lazarov for only four thousand dollars a week. Off-season rates. The remainder of the twelfth floor and all of the eleventh had been leased, for the goons.

Mr. Morolto snapped orders like an agitated drill sergeant. A command post was set up in the great room of the penthouse, overlooking the calm emerald water. Nothing suited him. He wanted breakfast, and Lazarov sent two vans to a Delchamps supermarket nearby. He wanted McDeere, and Lazarov asked him to be patient.

By daybreak, the troops had settled into their condos. They waited.

Three miles away along the beach, and within view of the Sandpiper, F. Denton Voyles and Wayne Tarrance sat on the balcony of an eighth-floor room at the Sandestin Hilton. They drank coffee, watched the sun rise gently on the horizon and talked strategy. The night had not gone well. The car had not been found. No sign of Mitch. With sixty FBI agents and hundreds of locals scouring the coast, they should have at least found the car. With each passing hour, the McDeeres were farther away.

In a file by a coffee table inside were the warrants. For Ray McDeere, the warrant read: escape, unlawful flight, robbery and rape. Abby’s sin was merely being an accomplice. The charges for Mitch required more creativity. Obstruction of justice and a nebulous racketeering charge. And of course the old standby, mail fraud. Tarrance was not sure where the mail fraud fit, but he worked for the FBI and had never seen a case that did not include mail fraud.

The warrants were issued and ready and had been fully discussed with dozens of reporters from newspapers and television stations throughout the Southeast. Trained to maintain a stone face and loathe the press, Tarrance was having a delightful time with the reporters.

Publicity was needed. Publicity was critical. The authorities must find the McDeeres before the Mob did.

Rick Acklin ran through the room to the balcony. “They’ve found the car!”

Tarrance and Voyles jumped to their feet. “Where?”

“Panama City Beach. In the parking lot of a high rise.”

“Call our men in, every one of them!” Voyles
yelled. “Stop searching everywhere. I want every agent in Panama City Beach. We’ll turn the place inside out. Get all the locals you can. Tell them to set up roadblocks on every highway and gravel road in and out of there. Dust the car for prints. What’s the town look like?”

“Similar to Destin. A twelve-mile strip along the beach with hotels, motels, condos, the works,” Acklin answered.

“Start our men door to door at the hotels. Is her composite ready?”

“Should be,” Acklin said.

“Get her composite, Mitch’s composite, Ray’s composite and Ray’s mug shot in the hands of every agent and cop. I want people walking up and down the Strip waving those damn composites.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How far away is Panama City Beach?”

“About fifty minutes due east.”

“Get my car.”

The phone woke Aaron Rimmer in his room at the Perdido Beach Hilton. It was the investigator with the Baldwin County Sheriff’s Department. They found the car, Mr. Rimmer, he said, in Panama City Beach. Just a few minutes ago. About a mile from the Holiday Inn. On Highway 98. Sorry again about the girl, he said. Hope she’s doing better, he said.

Mr. Rimmer said thanks, and immediately called Lazarov at the Sandpiper. Ten minutes later, he and his roommate, Tony, and DeVasher and fourteen others were speeding east. Panama City Beach was three hours away.

In Destin, Lazarov mobilized the storm troopers.
They moved out quickly, piled into the vans and headed east. The blitzkrieg had begun.

It took only a matter of minutes for the U-Haul to become a hot item. The assistant manager of the rental company in Nashville was a guy named Billy Weaver. He opened the office early Friday morning, fixed his coffee and scanned the paper. On the bottom half of the front page, Billy read with interest the story about Ray McDeere and the search along the coast. And then Abby was mentioned. Then the escapee’s brother, Mitch McDeere, was mentioned. The name rang a bell.

Billy opened a drawer and flipped through the records of outstanding rentals. Sure enough, a man named McDeere had rented a sixteen-footer late Wednesday night. M. Y. McDeere, said the signature, but the driver’s license read Mitchell Y. From Memphis.

Being a patriot and honest taxpayer, Billy called his cousin at Metro Police. The cousin called the Nashville FBI office, and fifteen minutes later, the U-Haul was a hot item.

Tarrance took the call on the radio while Acklin drove. Voyles was in the back seat. A U-Haul? Why would he need a U-Haul? He left Memphis without his car, clothes, shoes or toothbrush. He left the dog unfed. He took nothing with him, so why the U-Haul?

The Bendini records, of course. Either he left Nashville with the records in the truck or he was in the truck en route to get them. But why Nashville?

Mitch was up with the sun. He took one long, lustful look at his wife with the cute blond hair and forgot
about sex. It could wait. He let her sleep. He walked around the stacks of boxes in the small room and went to the bathroom. He showered quickly and slipped on a gray sweat suit he’d bought at a Wal-Mart in Montgomery. He eased along the beach for a half mile until he found a convenience store. He bought a sackful of Cokes, pastries and chips, sunglasses, caps and three newspapers.

Ray was waiting by the U-Haul when he returned. They spread the papers on Ray’s bed. It was worse than they expected. Mobile, Pensacola and Montgomery had front-page stories with composites of Ray and Mitch, along with the mug shot again. Abby’s composite had not been released, according to the Pensacola paper.

As composites go, they were close here and there and badly off in other areas. But it was hard to be objective. Hell, Mitch was staring at his own composite and trying to give an unbiased opinion about how close it was. The stories were full of all sorts of wild statements from one Wayne Tarrance, special agent, FBI. Tarrance said Mitchell McDeere had been spotted in the Gulf Shores-Pensacola area; that he and Ray both were known to be heavily armed and extremely dangerous; that they had vowed not to be taken alive; that reward money was being gathered; that if anyone saw a man who faintly resembled either of the McDeere brothers, please call the local police.