Tim Dorsey - Hammerhead Ranch Motel

“Okay, I have to escape now. But I want to make sure you’re all right,” said Serge. The doctor was suffocating with dread. Serge clipped the Walkman to the doctor’s elastic waistband and pressed play.

“This is the Sergeant Pepper’s album,” said Serge. “You’ve got the right guys in the control tower to talk you down-they’re pros. A lot of positive messages. Just keep playing the tape over and over.”

Serge placed the earphones on the doctor’s head and checked the clock. Shift change fifteen minutes ago. New staff. They hadn’t seen Serge and the doctor come in the room. Serge pressed the intercom, and two large guards arrived.

The guards were suspicious anyway. “Hey, you look familiar!”

Just then the Austrian started running around the room making British ambulance sounds before perching on top of a desk like a gibbon and chattering his teeth.

Serge shook his head sadly and made notations in a patient file.

The guards wrote off their doubts and grabbed the psychiatrist and dragged him back to Serge’s cell, where he listened to Sergeant Pepper’s twenty-two times.

Serge flushed his medicine down the toilet and walked out the front door of Chattahoochee, disappearing into the general population of the state of Florida.

A t daybreak, Serge opened the door of room one at Hammerhead Ranch and took a deep, satisfied breath of salt air.

“Another day of life. Thank you, God.”

He went jogging up Gulf Boulevard, not for exercise but from impatience. He ran across the drawbridge, waving at the cars and the fishermen. The tide was just coming in and the shorebirds scurried on the shoals in the pass. A deep-sea fishing boat motored back from an overnight cruise, loaded down with mackerel, tuna and sharks. Serge waved from the bridge, and the captain sounded his air horn. The more Serge saw, the more he wanted to see, and he ran faster.

He was in a full sprint when he came off the bridge, and he ran up to the row of news boxes in front of a breakfast diner shaped like an Airstream. A fat man wearing a baseball cap that said “Old Fart” came out of the restaurant, working a toothpick in his mouth like he was picking a lock. Serge smiled and pulled a quarter from his pocket as he bent down to a green newspaper box.

Serge suddenly jumped back and made a startled yip. There it was again, his face on the front page, third day in a row. “Manhunt Widens for Keys Killer.” Can’t they give it a rest? You go and do a little spree killing and they never let you forget about it.

Serge ran back to Hammerhead Ranch double-time, looking over his shoulder. He locked the door, watched Florida fishing programs all day on TV and took a nap.

He awoke after dark and poured himself a tall glass of orange juice. He sat up at the head of his bed and leaned back against the wall. He grabbed the remote control and turned on the TV.

Serge’s picture immediately filled the screen, and Serge spilled juice in his lap. Florida Cable News correspondent Blaine Crease said the suspect, Serge A. Storms, had been sighted in the Tampa Bay area and a team of FBI agents was en route from Quantico, Virginia.

“That’s the problem with the media today,” Serge complained out loud. “Too much bad news-always focusing on the negative.” He clicked the TV off and made a mental note to write a letter to the station, requesting more upbeat stories.

“I gotta get out of this room.”

Serge jumped in the scorched Chrysler and headed for the Howard Frankland Bridge. As he started over the bridge, he took in the sparkling lights of Tampa across the bay, the rivulet of cars cresting the bridge’s hump, and the jets landing at Tampa International. He was in his zone. He turned on the radio, to add a soundtrack.

“…We interrupt this program to bring you an update on the manhunt for the spree killer from the Florida Keys. Authorities are now certain he’s trapped in the Tampa Bay area. They’re setting up roadblocks on all major highways out of town and posting agents at bus stations, train depots and the airports…”

This is getting ridiculous, Serge thought. Time to hit the eject button. He hated to do it, but he would have to leave Florida, at least for a little while, until things cooled down.

After the bridge, Serge got in the exit lane for the airport. As he approached the terminal, three police cars raced by. I’ll have to hurry, he thought, but I still have a chance if I can get through before they establish a perimeter.

Serge skidded into long-term parking and took the Tony Janus Shuttle to the terminal. Serge held on to the subway-style pole in the shuttle and involuntarily recited from memory. “Tony Janus: Aviator who began the world’s first regularly scheduled airline route, St. Petersburg to Tampa, 1914.”

Serge walked calmly through the concourse. Every couple of minutes, officers ran by. Serge checked gate after gate, concourse after concourse, but each time police were set up before he got there. He turned and headed back toward the exits, but now the cops were there too. More trotted through the terminal. “Shit,” Serge muttered and put his head down and walked into the cafeteria.

He grabbed a tray and stood in the chow line, looking up at the menu board of food priced like jewelry. “I’d rather do time!” he said, and walked out without a purchase. More cops. He ducked in the newsstand and nonchalantly rifled a glossy magazine that delved into the courage of John Travolta and tastier pound cake.

He held the magazine up to his nose and peeked over the top of Travolta’s head, looking for an angle.

He studied arriving travelers. Businesspeople with jet lag, middle-class vacationers back from middle-America, glassy-eyed relatives arriving for a funeral, skiers back from Aspen, golfers back from Pebble Beach, nuns, and four illegal Asian immigrants slipping past customs posing as Chinese nuclear spies. Everyone rolling suitcases with wheels, moving with purpose.

A distinguished businessman rolled his suitcase into the bar across from the newsstand, and Serge kept an eye on him. The man had touches of gray at the temples that made him look senatorial, but he was in fact the front for a Pacific conglomerate selling counterfeit gold-crown car air fresheners. The man took a seat in the airport bar, ordered a Harvey Wallbanger and wolfed Spanish peanuts from a sterling service bowl. Two seats down was an elegant, tall brunette of obvious sophistication, who initiated conversation.

After five minutes of small talk the salesman was discreetly propositioned by the call girl. The pair left together for the airport hotel. Serge’s eyes swung across the concourse. No cops at the elevator to the airport hotel-they were expecting a fugitive to flee, not put up for the night.

Serge put down the magazine and began following the businessman forty feet back. He looked around. Off to his right, a cop was moving toward the hotel elevator. Serge picked up his pace.

The businessman and call girl were in the elevator, smiling at each other, waiting for the doors to close. The cop was talking in his walkie-talkie, just arriving at the elevator. Serge was fifteen feet back. The doors started closing.

Serge called out toward the elevator and began running: “Mr. Johnson, wait up! The office has been trying to reach you all day!” He jumped through the closing elevator doors as the cop turned to say something.

“I’m not Mr. Johnson,” said the businessman.

“I know,” Serge said, and smiled and then looked up at the ascending floor numbers over the door.

The businessman made an unheard joke to the call girl, and they both laughed at Serge’s expense. Serge turned to them and nodded and grinned.

The doors opened at seven. The businessman got out a magnetic plastic card and opened a room across from the elevators. Serge headed down the hallway, looking for the stairwell.