Synthesized music throbbed from a dozen industrial speakers.
Serge shuffled quickly in place, shooting gang signs. Then a hyper set of jumping jacks and push-ups.
The audience exchanged odd looks.
Serge finished warming up with a series of somersaults toward the center of the stage, jumped to his feet, and grabbed the mike: Serge is back, Jack, with all new facts The South Beach Diet and bikini wax Burmese pythons, the pit bull attacks Cunanan, Shaq, German tourists in T-backs I roll like Ricky Martin in “La Vida Loco” Caught the Mariel down to Calle Ocho Dissed the TEC-9s, and the dealers with the blow And the motherfuckin’ drivers who have never seen snow.
Serge: Miami’s trivia pimp is just the way that I rap.
Coleman: Look at all the black people. I think I’ll crap. Brazilians, the Euros, and all the Latin foxes Winning their hearts with all my souvenir boxes The beautiful ladies are what propel my rants From The Golden Girls to the chicks with implants. Survived the hurricanes and the oil spills Syringes on the beach and OxyContin pills The hookers, crackheads, meth freaks with bad gums Saw the Orange Bowl come down with the Sterno bums.
Serge: I’m stormin’ ashore with all the rhymes you’ll ever need.
Coleman: Is anybody out there holdin’ any weed? Smacking down the predators with just one hand While rockin’ out to KC and the Sunshine Band The Dolphins, the Marlins, the Panthers, the Heat Geriatric brawls at the shuffleboard meets. Janet Reno, Don Johnson, cigarette boats City-hall bribes, stolen election votes Anglo flight, dos cervezas, por favor Got my OCD buzz on like an epileptic whore.
Serge: Packin’ cameras, my pistols, Florida DVDs.
Coleman: The other night I spit up in my BVDs. You’re welcome for a visit, but you better not laugh Carjackings, race riots, drug informants sawed in half Cavity searches and the AWACs aircrafts Bales in the surf and the refugee rafts. The Gables, the Grove, cruisin’ Biscayne Bay I float like a flamingo, and sting like a ray Givin’ preservationists all of my hugs And only anal love for the litterbugs…
Serge and Coleman bowed. The crowd came to its feet in wild, unending applause.
Ten minutes later. A low-riding Cadillac DeVille cruised out of Liberty City with the top down. Serge, Felicia, Coleman, and Ted all crammed in the backseat of the whip. Giant chrome hubs. Amped stereo system with magnum subwoofer in the trunk, pumping out the tunes:
“Sweet home Alabama…”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Felicia had the wheel.
Ten more blocks, then a red light at Eighth Street, more commonly known as “Calle Ocho,” the main drag and social artery through Little Havana.
“Where’d you get this tip?” asked Serge.
Felicia sped up to make a yellow light. “Someone deep in our military.”
“That you slept with?”
“Don’t be disgusting. It was a hand job.”
Coleman tapped Serge’s shoulder. “I miss Ted. Why’d we leave him at the motel?”
“Because you gave him all those pills. He’ll regain consciousness.” Serge turned back to Felicia. “So where’s this fool’s errand taking us?”
“Fifteenth Avenue.”
“Fifteenth?” said Serge. “You don’t mean Maximo Gomez?”
The next thing Serge knew, Felicia was pumping quarters into a parking meter. “We need to keep an ultralow profile. I can’t stress that enough. There are way too many people around. Absolutely no unnecessary attention.”
Serge stood on a street corner, staring at a gold bust on a marble pedestal. A man in a military jacket with a wildly bushy mustache. A brass plaque:
GENERALISSIMO MAXIMO GOMEZ, 1836–1905, LIBERTADOR DE CUBA.
His trance shifted to the public park behind the statue and a living tradition of the old days. Under the shade of awnings, dozens of old, espresso-fueled Cuban men in straw hats sitting around special tables, playing furious games of dominoes.
“Serge!” said Felicia. “Were you listening?”
“Right, no extra attention.”
Minutes later: Everyone’s attention on one particular table. An excited crowd clustered tight behind the chair of the man holding court.
“Now, this is how you play dominoes!” said Serge, lining up the little white rectangles. A chorus of urgent Spanish whispers.
In the background, a wall with a mural of Latin leaders from some past hemispheric summit. In front of the wall, a bench. Felicia sitting, shaking her head.
Serge extended an arm without looking. “I need more!”
Someone slapped a leather case in his hand.
“Espresso me!”
Someone else held a tiny thimble of jet-fuel coffee to Serge’s mouth.
Felicia sagged.
It took another ten minutes, but Serge finally reached the last domino, gingerly setting it on end. “Now observe and regale.”
His index finger dramatically reached for the last rectangle, slowly tipping it over. And they were off! The initial row of dominoes fell like, well, dominoes, then forked and broke into multiple lines, snaking, curving, making jumps, reaching another table that had been pushed over, until they were all down, and the underlying pattern took shape: the island nation of Cuba in red, white, and blue, below a motto. C ASTRO S UCKS C OMMIE C OCK.
A mighty cheer went up.
Everyone pressed forward to shake Serge’s hand and slap him on the back.
“I’m his best friend!” said Coleman, who immediately had a giant cigar stuck in his mouth while another person lit it.
Felicia remained alert. The crowd began to disperse, revealing someone she hadn’t detected before. A bulbous man in a Tommy Bahama shirt wiped his brow, departing toward Calle. She stood up on her bench, drawing on years of surveillance training, taking in the audience as a whole and filtering its movement for the one who stood out.
She found him.
Another bench near the gold statue. A man rose with a folded newspaper, pulled the brim of a Panama hat down low over his eyes, and headed in the same direction as Evangelista. Carrying a briefcase.
Then she saw Coleman weaving erratically across the patio. “Uh-oh.”
He crashed into Serge, knocking him against the table and scattering the dominoes that spelled cock. Cuban expatriates scrambled to realign them.
“Coleman!” said Serge. “Watch it, man.”
Coleman wavered on his heels, pupils like pinholes. He held out the cigar. “What’s in these things?”
“Where’d you get that?”
Felicia ran over. “We gotta split. They’re on the move.”
“Who is?”
“Evangelista and his contact.”
“You saw the contact?”
“Not his face. They’re heading west on Ocho.”
Serge jumped up. “Coleman, we have to-” He looked around. “Coleman?”
Coleman stared upward with a smile of total peace. “My nuts like this.” His eyes rolled back in his head and
