“That’s the craziest stunt I ever heard,” said somebody in a bright blazer. Actually, several of the men wore identical bright blazers. The blazers were orange.
“We’re taking this threat very seriously,” interjected the Dade County police chief, always jittery among civic-leader types.
“We think it’s going to happen during the parade,” Brian Keyes said, touching off another round of white-establishment gasping.
“Good Lord!”
“They’re going to kidnap the Orange Bowl queen in the middle of the parade?”
“On national goddamn TV? In front of Jane fucking Pauley?”
“And Michael Landon?”
“ ‘Fraid so,” Al Garcia said.
Jane Pauley and Michael Landon were scheduled to host the King Orange Jamboree Parade from an elevated booth on Biscayne Boulevard. Jane Pauley and Michael Landon were big celebrities, but Garcia tapped his cigarette ashes all over the orange walnut to let everyone know he didn’t give a shit about that. Brian Keyes admired the way Garcia had taken over the meeting from the guys in the blazers.
One of the vice-mayors turned to Keyes and said: “You’ve met these people. What do you think—would they listen to reason?”
“Doubtful,” said Keyes. “Very doubtful.” If necessary, he was prepared to tell them wkat happened to Ida Kimmelman, just so they’d give up the idea of trying to bargain with El Fuego.
“Mr. Keyes,” a vice-mayor said, “what is it they want?”
“They want us to leave,” Keyes said.
“All of us,” Garcia added, “from Palm Beach to Key West.”
“I don’t understand,” the vice-mayor said.
“They want Florida back,” Keyes said, “the way it was.”
“The way it was when?”
“When it wasn’t fucked up with so many people,” Garcia said.
The table erupted in snorts and sniggering, and the men in the blazers seemed to shake their heads gravely in syncopation. “Why doesn’t this kind of shit ever happen to Disney World?” one of them said mournfully.
The Orange Bowl chairman decided he’d heard enough dire news from the private eye and the rude detective, so he turned to the police chiefs for encouragement.
“Gentlemen, surely you’re not just going to sit and wait for these outlaws to show up and disrupt the parade. They must be arrested as soon as possible, before New Year’s Eve. It’s bad enough that the press already knows about them.”
“It’s pretty tough to keep the lid on mass murder,” remarked the Miami police chief. “God knows we’ve tried.”
“We’re doing all we can to find these people,” added the Dade County police chief. “We’ve got every available detective working the case, but it’s tough. Especially around Christmas. Half the department’s on leave.”
The Orange Bowl chairman said grumpily, “I don’t want your excuses. I want to hear exactly what you’re doing to catch these killers!”
The police chiefs turned to Al Garcia, who’d been waiting patiently for the ball to bounce back his way.
“Right now we’ve got six undercover guys in Little Havana looking for Jesus Bernal,” Garcia said. “We’ve got eight more over in Liberty City searching for Viceroy Wilson. The Indian—well, he’s a problem. Looks like he just disappeared off the planet. Anyhow, we got plenty of reward money out on the street—just how much, I can’t say, but it’s more than my whole damn pension. We’ve doubled the patrols at every big South Florida tourist attraction—the Seaquarium, Ocean World, Six Flags, the racetracks, the beaches. There was a rumor that the Monkey Jungle might be next so we’ve got a sniper team waiting upwind. What’s more, we got choppers and air-boats searching the Glades for El Fuego’s camp. We even hired our own Indian guide.”
A nearsighted Miccosukee, Garcia noted silently, but he was better than nothing.
One of the vice-mayors suggested that warnings be posted in all the major tourist hotels.
“Are you out of your mind?” screeched Sparky Harper’s Chamber of Commerce successor. “Are you trying to cause panic?”
“No one would panic,” the vice-mayor said defensively, “if the warnings were worded properly.”
“Perhaps in small type,” the chairman suggested.
“And perhaps in Chinese,” said Al Garcia.
The chairman glowered. “Sergeant, you don’t seem to understand what’s at stake here.”
“Human lives,” the detective said, raising his hands. “That’s all, far as I’m concerned.”