The Firm

At nine, Mitch called Tammy, collect. She had the new IDs and passports. He instructed her to Federal Express them to Sam Fortune, front desk, Sea Gull’s Rest Motel, 16694 Highway 98, West Panama City Beach, Florida. She read to him the front-page story about himself and his small gang. No composites.

He told her to ship the passports, then leave Nashville. Drive four hours to Knoxville, check into a big motel and call him at Room 39, Sea Gull’s Rest. He gave her the number.

* * *

Two FBI agents knocked on the door of the old ragged trailer at 486 San Luis. Mr. Ainsworth came to the door in his underwear. They flashed their badges.

"So whatta you want with me?" he growled.

An agent handed him the morning paper. "Do you know those two men?"

He studied the paper. "I guess they’re my wife’s boys. Never met them."

"And your wife’s name is?"

"Eva Ainsworth."

"Where is she?"

Mr. Ainsworth was scanning the paper. "At work. At the Waffle Hut. Say they’re around here, huh?"

"Yes, sir. You haven’t seen them?"

"Hell no. But I’ll get my gun."

"Has your wife seen them?"

"Not to my knowledge."

"Thanks, Mr. Ainsworth. We’ve got orders to set up watch here in the street, but we won’t bother you."

"Good. These boys are crazy. I’ve always said that."

A mile away, another pair of agents parked discreetly next to a Waffle Hut and set up watch.

By noon, all highways and county roads into the coast around Panama City Beach were blocked. Along the Strip, cops stopped traffic every four miles. They walked from one T-shirt shop to the next, handing out composites. They posted them on the bulletin boards in Shoney’s, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and a dozen more fast-food places. They told the cashiers and waitresses to keep their eyes open for the McDeeres. Very dangerous people.

* * *

Lazarov and his men camped at the Best Western, two miles west of the Sea Gull’s Rest. He rented a large conference room and set up command. Four of his troops were dispatched to raid a T-shirt shop, and they returned with all sorts of tourist clothes and straw hats and caps. He rented two Ford Escorts and equipped them with police scanners. They patrolled the Strip and listened to the endless squawking. They immediately caught the search for the U-Haul and joined in. DeVasher strategically spread the rented vans along the Strip. They sat innocently in large parking lots and waited with their radios.

Around two, Lazarov received an emergency call from an employee on the fifth floor of the Bendini Building. Two things. First, an employee snooping around the Caymans had found an old locksmith who, after being paid, recalled making eleven keys around midnight of April 1. Eleven keys, on two rings. Said the woman, a very attractive American, a brunette with nice legs, had paid cash and was in a hurry. Said the keys had been easy, except for the Mercedes key. He wasn’t sure about that one. Second, a banker from Grand Cayman called. Thursday at 9:33 A.M., ten million dollars had been wired from the Royal Bank of Montreal to the Southeastern Bank in Nashville.

Between four and four-thirty, the police scanners went wild. The squawking was nonstop. A clerk at the Holiday Inn made a probable ID of Abby, as the woman who paid cash for two rooms at 4:17 A.M., Thursday. She paid for three nights, but had not been seen since the rooms were cleaned around one on Thursday. Evidently, neither room had been slept in Thursday night. She had not checked out, and the rooms were paid for through noon Saturday. The clerk saw no sign of a male accomplice. The Holiday Inn was swamped with cops and FBI agents and Morolto thugs for an hour. Tarrance himself interrogated the clerk.

They were there! Somewhere in Panama City Beach. Ray and Abby were confirmed. It was suspected Mitch was with them, but it was unconfirmed. Until 4:58, Friday afternoon.

The bombshell. A county deputy pulled into a cheap motel and noticed the gray-and-white hood of a truck. He walked between two buildings and smiled at the small U-Haul truck hidden neatly between a row of two-story rooms and a large garbage Dumpster. He wrote down all the numbers on the truck and called it in.

It hit! In five minutes the motel was surrounded. The owner charged from the front office and demanded an explanation. He looked at the composites and shook his head. Five FBI badges napped in his face, and he became cooperative.

Accompanied by a dozen agents, he took the keys and went door to door. Forty-eight doors.

Only seven were occupied. The owner explained as he unlocked doors that it was a slow time of the year at the Beachcomber Inn. All of the smaller motels struggle until Memorial Day, he explained.

Even the Sea Gull’s Rest, four miles to the west, was struggling.

* * *

Andy Patrick received his first felony conviction at the age of nineteen and served four months for bad checks. Branded as a felon, he found honest work impossible, and for the next twenty years worked unsuccessfully as a small-time criminal. He drifted across the country shoplifting, writing bad checks and breaking into houses here and there. A small, frail nonviolent man, he was severely beaten by a fat, arrogant county deputy in Texas when he was twenty-seven. He lost an eye and lost all respect for the law.

Six months earlier, he landed in Panama City Beach and found an honest job paying four bucks an hour working the night shift at the front and only desk of the Sea Gull’s Rest Motel. Around nine, Friday night, he was watching TV when a fat, arrogant county deputy swaggered through the door.

"Got a manhunt going on," he announced, and laid copies of the composites and mug shot on the dirty counter. "Looking for these folks. We think they’re around here."

Andy studied the composites. The one of Mitchell Y. McDeere looked pretty familiar. The wheels in his smalltime felonious brain began to churn.

With his one good eye, he looked at the fat, arrogant county deputy and said, "Ain’t seen them. But I’ll keep an eye out."

"They’re dangerous," the deputy said.

You’re the dangerous one, Andy thought.

"Post these up on the wall there," the deputy instructed.

Do you own this damned place? Andy thought. "I’m sorry, but I’m not authorized to post anything on the walls."

The deputy froze, cocked his head sideways and glared at Andy through thick sunglasses. "Listen, Peewee, I authorized it."

"I’m sorry, sir, but I can’t post anything on the walls unless my boss tells me to."

"And where is your boss?"

"I don’t know. Probably in a bar somewhere."

The deputy carefully picked up the composites, walked behind the counter and tacked them on the bulletin board. When he finished, he glared down at Andy and said, "I’ll come back in a coupla hours. If you remove these, I’ll arrest you for obstruction of justice."

Andy did not flinch. "Won’t stick. They got me for that one time in Kansas, so I know all about it."

The deputy’s fat cheeks turned red and he gritted his teeth. "You’re a little smart-ass, aren’t you?"

"Yes, sir."

"You take these down and I promise you you’ll go to jail for something."

"I’ve been there before, and it ain’t no big deal."

* * *

Red lights and sirens screamed by the Strip a few feet away, and the deputy turned and watched the excitement. He mumbled something and swaggered out the door. Andy threw the composites in the garbage. He watched the squad cars dodge each other on the Strip for a few minutes, then walked through the parking lot to the rear building. He knocked on the door of Room 38.

He waited and knocked again.