Mermaid Confidential

Book 25: Serge Storms

by Tim Dorsey

Genres: Vigilante Thrillers

Synopsis

Serge A. Storms gives condo living a try in this latest acid-splashed Florida crime caper from the “insanely funny” (New York Times Book Review) Tim Dorsey.

Serge A. Storms and his permanently baked sidekick, Coleman, have decided to pump the brakes and live on island time. After years of manic road tripping across their beloved Sunshine State, the irrepressible anti-heroes drop anchor in the Florida Keys. They settle down in Pelican Bay, a thriving condo complex with scenic views and friendly neighbors. But the community is at war with investors who are buying up units and leasing them to young vacationers who party at all hours. With their little slice of heaven on the line, Serge takes it upon himself to convince the tourists to move on and quickly becomes a local favorite.

Meanwhile, the island chain’s long and rich smuggling heritage is causing mayhem—a gang war erupts when a local drug lord passes the family business to his young, enterprising son, and the sun-loving residents are suddenly dodging bullets.

Luckily, Florida’s most lovable serial killer is there to help!

Release date: January 25, 2022

Publisher: William Morrow

Print pages: 336

Sample

Prologue

The Florida Keys

Mile Marker 112.5

The tourists crashed through the sheriff’s blockade so they wouldn’t miss the rumrunner special at a popular tiki bar.

Obviously it was Florida. But sometimes even that needs to be explained.

“Let me explain,” Serge told Coleman. “Remember the hurricane last week? . . .”

. . . Earlier that day, precisely two hours before the deputies would see their white-and-orange barricades explode in splinters and land in the mangroves on the approach to the Overseas Highway. Fifty miles north, an aqua 1973 Ford Galaxie sat at a curb in the Little Haiti section of Miami, featuring block after block of sun-scorched strip malls that were all boarded up except for the jujitsu studios, immigration law offices, and wholesale outlets for all your discount voodoo needs.

Coleman pointed out the window. “There’s a naked guy running down the sidewalk with a sword.”

“I’m sure he has his reasons,” said Serge. “Try to stay focused.”

“What were we talking about?”

“The hurricane last week,” said Serge. “After each storm blows through, the authorities set up checkpoints between the mainland and the Keys to keep out looters, looky-loos and others with unwelcome manners. The blockades only allow in emergency workers and bona fide residents. The beach bars are the first to open because they’re more essential to the locals than electric service. A while later, after the lights come back on and the streets are cleared of coconuts, the sheriff removes the barricades for the tourists to stampede back in like herds of wildebeest on the plains of Mozambique after spotting the cheetahs.”

“But Serge, how do the cops tell the residents from the tourists?”

“By that.” Serge aimed a finger at a yellow decal in the corner of his windshield. “It’s an official Monroe County hurricane re-entry sticker.”

“But we don’t live down there.”

“I know,” said Serge. “It’s not an official sticker. It’s counterfeit.”

“Counterfeit stickers?”

Serge grinned large and rubbed his palms in delight. “This next fact is so nectar-of-Florida that I grooved on it a whole day when I first heard. You see, the Keys are like crack, and the addictive high is so powerful that tourists can’t handle the withdrawal after a storm. They’ll do almost anything to get in early and hit the watering holes on the shore. So a couple years back, some cats in Miami began cranking out counterfeit decals and selling them in alleys for twenty bucks.”

“No way,” said Coleman. “You’re shitting me again.”

“Look it up. Just type the search term ‘Florida Keys counterfeit sticker,’ and it will fill pages.”

“Typing sounds like work,” said Coleman. “I’ll just agree with you.”

“Anyway, that’s why we’re here.”

“Where’s here?”

Serge swept an arm at the view out the windshield: a vacant lot next to an abandoned British double-decker bus. An unusual concentration of sports cars sat parked in the dirt.

“There’s a line of people waiting in that field,” said Coleman. “What’s going on?”

“The Miami shadow economy,” said Serge. “I need to buy a counterfeit sticker.”

“But you already have one.”

Serge shook his head. “Here’s another totally true Florida factoid that spins my propeller: The Miami Herald just reported that deputies at the checkpoints discovered the scam and, at last count, have confiscated more than two hundred bogus decals. The TV stations showed a huge pile of the crumpled little yellow suckers on a table at a press conference.”

At the far end of the field, a Jamaican man in a green-and-yellow knit cap conducted fleet commerce. He stuck another Andrew Jackson in his fanny pack. “. . . And here’s your decal—”

“Chiz!”

The Jamaican looked up. “Oh, hey, Serge. How’s it hanging?”

“I need another sticker.”

“Different car?”

Serge pointed back. “No, same one, but I wanted to see if you’d upgraded your decals. The cops are onto the old stickers like mine.”

“Jesus! Keep your voice down.” Chiz pulled him aside by the arm and whispered: “These tourists just got here and haven’t heard the news. I’m trying to dump my supply and relocate to Little Nicaragua.”

“Then Godspeed.” Serge gave Chiz a complicated handshake and headed back to his car.

Coleman pointed across the street at a cloud of white feathers. “Two dudes are wrestling over a live chicken.”

“Coleman, we’ve been here a million times, and you still haven’t learned to filter,” said Serge. “On the streets of Miami, there’s more noise than signal.”

 

An hour later, the Galaxie took the final exit off the Florida Turnpike and rolled into Florida City, the last trace of civilization on the southern tip of the mainland.

Coleman rolled a fatty in his lap. “How are we getting back into the Keys if your sticker’s counterfeit?”

“That’s what Walmart’s for.”

“Walmart?”

“One of their supercenters,” said Serge. “Strategically located in the strip of chain motels, fast-food joints and gas stations before society gives way to eighteen miles of treacherous mangrove jungle between the mainland and the bridge to Key Largo. The last chance to stock up at bargain rates and wide selection before you’re trapped by the sea all around and forced to purchase overpriced lamps made of seashells.”

The muscle car pulled into the monster shopping center. Coleman pointed behind them. “The Walmart’s back there.”

“We’re not going to Walmart,” said Serge. “All the real action is in the parking lot.”

Coleman stared out the window as they drove down rows of vehicles. “There’s a bunch of people just wandering around and not getting in cars.”

“Another of Florida’s shadow economies,” said Serge. “If you couldn’t score a counterfeit sticker in Miami, this is the other way back into the Keys during the current lockdown.”

“Why are so many of them wearing backpacks?”

“Stealth camping.”

“What’s that?”

“A huge under-the-radar phenomenon,” said Serge, turning a corner and scanning the scene with keen eyes. “A tight-knit community that utilizes websites, bulletin boards and Internet videos to share the safest places to illegally sleep in your car or in the woods, which is no small trick in this state with all the ‘No Overnight Parking’ signs. This section of Florida City is the most popular spot before jumping off to the Keys, because the supercenter is open twenty-four hours, which gives cover to the unauthorized vehicles. You’ll never notice the stealth campers until you hear about them, and then you realize they’re everywhere in plain sight. See those people spilling out of that van rubbing their eyes?”

Coleman looked the other way. “Why are the campers going car to car, looking at windshields?”

“Trying to find hurricane re-entry stickers for Keys residents who drove up here to shop after taking a baseball bat to all their seashell lamps.”

“What good does that do?”

“The shadow economy I mentioned,” said Serge. “They wait for the car’s owner to return from the store, and the haggling begins like an open-air seafood market in Morocco. Most of the campers offer money for rides or even for the sticker itself, because residents can always show their driver’s license if they don’t have a decal.”

“You said ‘most’?”

“The rest get ugly.”

“I’m seeing a deal right now,” said Coleman. “Those two dudes are handing over cash and throwing backpacks in a trunk.”

“Re-entry stickers are recession-proof.”

“So this is how we’re getting back to the Keys?”

“Yes and no. I prefer trying to pinch pennies first—” Serge cut himself off and slowed to a crawl down the next row of cars.

“What is it?”

“Those two guys checking windshields up on the left.”

“I don’t see them.”

“Because they just crouched down next to that Camaro,” said Serge. “The car’s owner is returning.”

“She’s placing shopping bags in the back seat,” said Coleman. “Now she’s— Holy shit! One of them just grabbed her! He’s forcing her into the passenger seat, and the other got behind the wheel! Jesus! They’re kidnapping her just to get to the Keys?”

“That’s the ugly part,” said Serge. “It’s been done before. Just check any search—”

“I know,” said Coleman. “Typing.”

The Camaro screeched backward out of its spot and took off.

Serge hit the gas. “Let’s have fun.”

 

The Galaxie followed at an unsuspicious distance through the rest of Florida City, then down into the mangroves and the causeways to Key Largo.

“Serge,” said Coleman, “I hate to bring this up, but you never got a new sticker back at the parking lot. You still just have the old counterfeit one.”

“Remember I mentioned pinching pennies? Everything’s falling into place.”

The Galaxie maintained a steady separation behind the Camaro. Five miles passed without incident, then ten, twelve . . . traffic began slowing until Serge was right on the Camaro’s bumper.

Mile marker 112.5.

Traffic inched forward toward the cluster of sheriff’s cars and wooden barricades. Deputies leaned to check for stickers. A few cars were allowed through, but the lion’s share made pissed-off U-turns and headed back to the mainland.

Finally, it was the Camaro’s turn. A deputy examined the decal. All was in order.

“Serge, what’s taking so long? Why aren’t they moving?”

“My guess is the deputy picked up a vibe from the female passenger,” said Serge. “Hard to hide that kind of stress.”

The deputy walked back to a portable tent that served as the checkpoint’s command post. He talked to his colleagues, pointing back at the car. One of them got on a radio, and three other deputies headed toward the vehicle.

“Wait for it . . .” said Serge. “Wait for it . . . Now!”

Suddenly, the Camaro’s tires squealed with a plume of smoke, and the barricades shattered. The deputies reversed course, sprinting back to their cruisers and taking off after the vehicle with the full ceremony of lights and sirens.

When the checkpoint was finally empty, Serge casually applied the gas and rolled through unmolested, counterfeit sticker and all.

Coleman cracked a beer. “You planned this, didn’t you?”

“Me?”

The Galaxie eventually crossed the bridge to Key Largo at mile marker 107. Serge looked off to his right and slammed the brakes with both feet until the Galaxie squiggled to a stop on the shoulder. Coleman stuck out his tongue to catch the spilled beer dripping down his face. “Why’d you do that?”

Serge threw the Ford in reverse and backed up in the breakdown lane. “I saw a sleeping bag at the edge of the brush.”

“You tired?”

“No, one of the kidnappers had it on his backpack.” Serge stopped the car and jumped out. “There it is.”

“Pinching pennies again?” asked Coleman.

“I don’t want the sleeping bag,” said Serge. “These guys must have had a rare flash of logic and let the woman go because they knew there’d be another roadblock around the bend organized especially for them after the deputies radioed ahead. The kidnappers headed out on foot into the mangroves and might actually get away. After what they did to that poor woman, I must deputize myself.”

“The bat light went on for you again?”

“Coleman, I’ll need you to drive the car and meet me three miles up the road. How much drinking have you done today?”

“That was just my first beer because I’ve been working on my pot responsibilities.”

“I guess that’s a little better.” Serge headed toward a break in the mangroves. “Just drive slow.”

“Slow is the only way to drive on weed,” said Coleman. “Sometimes eight miles an hour feels like eighty. Sometimes it feels like I’m driving backwards.”

“I’ll need to forget I heard that.” Serge took a couple steps toward the brush, stopped and closed his eyes. “I can’t forget I heard that . . . Coleman, you’re benched. Throw me the keys.”

“You got it.”

Serge caught them on the fly and disappeared into the dense shore vegetation . . .

. . . An hour later, Coleman was out cold in the passenger seat, bubbles forming on his lips with each breath. He was dreaming. It was a pleasant dream about sleeping in a car on the side of the road. Then he woke up: “Ahhhh! Now I’m confused.” He looked out the window. “Why is the car moving?” He looked the other way at Serge behind the wheel. “You’re back?”

“That’s why the car’s moving,” said Serge. “Any other scenario with the car in gear would be less good.”

Coleman yawned and cracked a wake-up beer. “So how did it go out there?”

“Can’t complain.”

They rounded the western bend, and U.S. Highway 1 straightened out on Key Largo proper. Two minutes later, they approached an empty lot next to the historic Caribbean Club, where deputies with guns drawn pulled a wiggling tarp off of two hogtied backpackers.

Coleman chugged the dregs of a beer and rested his head back with a smile. “People aren’t kidding when they brag about the Keys.”

“What more could you ask for?” said Serge. “Island life and fighting crime.”

 

A Few Weeks Later

The toilet seat was painted a Day-Glo orange.

It hung vertically from a tall PVC pole. The lettering on the seat celebrated some people named Katie and Jared, who apparently were married in 2014. The pole rose from salt water.

The water went down four feet, which was the depth of the tide at this hour in Toilet Seat Cut, a convenient but shallow channel along the north side of Plantation Key that allowed boaters to avoid the longer route up to Cowpens Cut while traversing Florida Bay one island down from Key Largo.

Near the wedding toilet seat was another, marking a graduation, then one for a birthday: 50 SHITTY YEARS. The white poles and their rainbow-painted seats marked the channel to prevent boaters from running aground in the seagrass and marl. More and more poles had been added over the years until it was practically a picket fence. Most had pithy bathroom-themed slogans: SITTING PRETTY; POTTYING IN THE KEYS; EAU DE TOILETTE; SOME SINK, SOME FLOAT; AINT TAKIN NO MO CRAP. One green seat had teeth and eyes to look like an alligator.

It was a Keys thing. It was also a mystery. Nobody seemed to know how the tradition had begun, only that it was the logical thing to do at this latitude. Finally, a few years back, some longtime residents came forward with a rumor: In 1960 Hurricane Donna had raked the Keys, airmailing debris throughout the mangroves. A broken-off toilet seat finished its flight by landing on a nail sticking out of a channel marker, and a man named Vernon Lamp got out his paintbrush. Sure, why not?

Today, nearly three hundred toilet seats form an almost solid row along the channel. It is a source of local pride. It can be seen from space.

Another spark of regional esteem are the giant charter fishing boats, with their tall gleaming metal towers, that sail out of sight into the Gulf Stream for tournament-size game fish. The boats are like the hood ornaments of the Upper Keys.

But there is another less gaudy kind of fishing in these islands: back country. Small, shallow-drafting skiffs head out the other way, into the labyrinth of mangrove flats in Florida Bay, where purists stalk silently to finesse some of the smaller but most elusive fish that constitute the “grand slam.”

“I’ve almost completed my grand slam!” barked a customer’s voice as his special deck-gripping sneakers stomped down the dock on Plantation Key.

The fishing guide looked up from where he was kneeling next to the livewells, pouring a pail of bait. “You must be A.J.”

“All my life.” The fisherman climbed aboard with the smile of perpetual hope. “I’ve already caught bonefish and permit on my last trips. Just need a silver king now to finish the slam.”

The fishing guide, by the name of Slick, felt it was best for business if he didn’t mention that an official slam needed to be accomplished within twenty-four hours. “I’m sure I can put you on a tarpon. Then you’ll have an official slam.”

The guide sized A.J. up as a big tipper, since he was a walking billboard for all-new, top-shelf purchases stocked at the World Wide Sportsman megastore up the street, from the designer shorts to the ventilated angler’s shirt, long-brim hat with neck cover for the sun, and thousand-dollar spinning reel outfit. He also chose not to mention that the fly-casting shirt didn’t match his gear. “Where you from?”

“South America. But I have a seasonal place off the Old Road on the ocean side.”

Damn, the guide thought, those were the most expensive properties on the island. No wonder he could afford all the new gear. Slick untied the line to the dock, and off they went. “Ever been to our cut?”

“I usually fish Upper Matecumbe.”

“Then it’ll be a surprise.” Slick throttled up onto a plane across the bay.

Fifteen minutes later, A.J. scratched his head as it rotated in bewilderment. “What’s with all the toilet seats on the channel markers?”

“Surprise,” said the guide. “That’s our cut.”

Soon after, the motor was still, and Slick stood on a small platform over the engine. He was holding a long pole that silently pushed its way along the bottom so the fish wouldn’t be spooked. They neared the edge of an unnamed mangrove island on the falling tide.

“We’re here,” said Slick. “You mentioned tarpon on the phone, so I filled the livewells with silver-dollar blue crabs. Just hook them through the edge of the top shell. Also, attach a bobber a foot or two up the line.”

“Why?”

“So they’ll stay suspended in the fish’s line of sight. Otherwise, they’ll drop right to the bottom.” From his elevated platform, Slick scanned the shallow water with polarized glasses, which allowed his eyes to penetrate the brightly reflecting surface like X-ray vision. “There’s one now. That fin on direct bearing off the bow. Lead him to the left.”

A.J. cast, and it went just about as Slick had expected. Way off target, and too high, with a clumsy, loud plunk that sent the tarpon for deeper water.

“That was a perfect cast,” said Slick. “You can’t figure fish. Give it another try . . .”

. . . And so went the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, until the mangrove roots were tall in the water and the tide was all wrong.

A.J. reeled in another small bait crab that had died on a fool’s errand. “Are you sure this is the best spot?”

“The tide’s perfect here,” said Slick, digging the end of his pole into the seagrass.

The sun continued tracking west, and the diligent, tedious pursuit of success became simply tedious. White heron, ibis and egrets stood erect on patches of exposed sand, as if enjoying the spectacle of futility. A.J. pulled off his cap and wiped sweat. He reached into a cooler of melting ice for a Sprite.

Nearby, someone else swept perspiration off his forehead. He was standing close to the shore of an upcoming island, concealed in the mangroves with binoculars and a cell phone.

“What am I doing wrong?” asked A.J.

“You’re doing great,” said Slick. “The tide’s down, so slide that bobber closer to the hook.”

The fun had drained out of the day, and now A.J. cast with the enthusiasm of a chore.

But as they say, even a blind pig finds the occasional acorn. Suddenly, A.J.’s rod almost jerked out of his hands. The line zipped through the water, spraying droplets, and a majestic silver fish launched into the air. “I hooked one! I can’t believe it!”

Slick was even more surprised. “Less drag!” yelled the guide. “Give him line or he’ll snap it.”

A.J. did as told, and the show continued, the tarpon splashing and leaping over and over with its trademark airborne twists, trying to throw the hook.

“He’s tiring,” said the guide, poling closer. “Be patient on the reel.”

It took a full half hour, but the respectable eighty-pounder eventually lay still and spent in the water next to the boat, its gills gasping. A.J. grabbed the gloves and tools to raise the fish for a photo before the release.

“Easy, so you don’t drop him.” Slick grabbed a cheap camera and climbed back up the platform over the Mercury engine.

A.J. strained to raise the tarpon next to his side, then turned and posed with his biggest smile of the day. “Take my picture!”

Instead, the guide quickly glanced toward shore and dove off the platform behind the skiff.

“What the hell are you doing?” A.J. unthinkingly dropped his arm, and the fish was back in the water.

Behind a canopy of mangroves, a ruddy finger pressed a button on a cell phone. Back on the boat, a radio receiver picked up a signal. It was attached to the fuel tank. A small explosive charge did its thing, and the tank’s gasoline vapor did the rest.

The blast blew the motor clean off the stern and sent A.J. spinning skyward, unnaturally, like a rigid mannequin, engulfed in the fireball. The skiff had already begun burning down to the water line as A.J. splashed back into the flats. Then, anticlimactically, slivers of flaming wreckage fluttered down and sizzled themselves out in the water surrounding the charred corpse.

The emancipated tarpon swam away, thinking, What the fuck was that about?

Chapter 1

The Month Before

Somewhere over the Atlantic

Down below, a puffy blanket of bright sugar-white clouds stretched to the horizon.

The Learjet continued due north on its three-hour journey. It was the kind of private jet favored by corporate boards for business travel, but this one had been converted into an expensive toy. The regular seating was replaced by a wet bar, big-screen TV, lounge chairs and a spacious couch that was often used as a bed, and not for sleeping.

The jet dropped through the clouds, revealing an emerald ocean. Ahead in the distance, a long ribbon of archipelago extended west to east across the horizon.

The lone passenger stared down from his window at the tiny charter boats, as he did on all these trips. He subconsciously thought: What kind of fish are they catching? Should I take up the sport? What type of shoes are required?From habit, upon approach to shore, he got up and poured himself two fingers of Diplomatico Venezuelan rum from a green sea-glass bottle. Then he joined the pilots up front for the view out the cockpit windows.

He was the kind of man who didn’t require many words. You entered his proximity and automatically became alert. It was nothing he did. No soulless gaze in his eyes. Not even an expression. You just knew.

The pilot on the left glanced over his shoulder. “I was wondering when you were going to join us, Mr. Benz. You come up here every time.”

“I like the view.”

Mr. Benz had jagged facial features but soft skin, which left people uncertain upon first meeting and not knowing why. His perfectly-in-place coal-black hair matched his black Parisian suit with a maroon necktie cinched all the way up. It somewhat hid his fit frame. He didn’t need for people to know he was muscular because everyone already knew he had more than enough such people on his payroll. The pilots wondered why he never loosened his tie on these flights and got comfortable, but they didn’t ask. It was the Benz way, like how Frank Sinatra never sat down after dressing for a performance, because it might wrinkle his pants.

Through the cockpit’s windows, the previously indistinct ribbon on the distant horizon began to take shape in two distinct categories: bridges and land. To the east, the ancient Long Key Viaduct; to the west, the unmistakable Seven Mile Bridge over Moser Channel. And on the far ends of those spans, barely discernible at this range, the islands of the Upper and Lower Florida Keys. Straight ahead in the middle were, well, the Middle Keys: a collection of isles, separated by creeks, that fit together like jigsaw pieces. Grassy Key, Fat Deer Key, Crawl Key, Vaca Key and the other lesser cays. Most visitors don’t know these names, just that the city of Marathon encompasses most of them at this halfway point on the hundred-plus-mile Overseas Highway to Key West.

Mr. Benz leaned over the pilots’ shoulders as the control tower came into view. It was a decent-sized runway of eight thousand smooth feet. Time and again, there were some regularly scheduled commercial flights: short-haul passenger planes called puddle jumpers. But demand was dependably undependable, and now it was just these private customers in Lears.

As the plane dropped below a thousand feet, the pilots and Mr. Benz glanced down at a solitary residence, alone at sea on its private island—a circular piece of land barely bigger than the house—surrounded by an equally circular breakwater of large boulders that created a kind of moat. There was a helicopter pad. Another stray thought in Benz’s head: I need one of those.

The plane touched down without incident and taxied across the runway, past rows of other small jets, empty, moored with taut lines along the edge of the tarmac. The Lear rolled to a stop, and a staircase flipped down from its side onto the pavement. U.S. Customs officials came out to meet the plane. It was a perfunctory inspection. They knew the owner well and, given the nature of his work, there was no chance anything would be out of order. The brief bureaucracy ended, and Benz trotted away from the plane. The back door of a stretch limo was already held open by an assistant. Others on the Benz team were waiting inside the vehicle. The chauffeur pulled out of the airport’s gates and turned east onto the Overseas Highway.

Nobody would speak until Benz did, and they knew he wouldn’t speak soon because his face was at the side window, just like every other time when he first arrived on one of these visits, watching this other world go by.

He loved Marathon.

The name came from the “marathon” of night-and-day labor of the workers constructing Henry Flagler’s railroad to Key West at the beginning of the twentieth century. Today, Marathon was about as urban as the Keys got. Besides the airport, there was a smattering of chain supermarkets, drug and hardware stores, Hampton and Holiday Inns. As the limo continued on, the density became less so. Benz’s face drew closer to the window as they passed a stretch of old mom-and-pop-style motels. Whitewashed and trimmed in yellow, tangerine, pink, pale blue. Roadside signs with words like Lime Tree, Seashell, Siesta, Bay, Rainbow Bend,some in neon, some just painted, some with no signs at all. They sat on the ocean. The beaches were full of light and space, dotted with coconut palms. Lying around the patches of washed-ashore seaweed were a few plastic pails, Frisbees, badminton rackets, volleyball nets, inflatable rafts, swim noodles and a single dubious rowboat that was just left on the sand because who was going to take it?

They came to what Benz had been awaiting. The bridges. Longer and longer as they headed east, past the tiny span connecting Duck Key to the highway. Unobstructed views of water so vibrant, across a palette from jade to aquamarine, that even if you had never done drugs you began getting high.

Benz slipped under a wave of calm euphoria as he watched a fly-fisher cast from the bow of his skiff toward the shadow of a bonefish.

Screeeeeeech!

Benz tumbled violently onto the floor of the limo.

“What the hell!”

Everyone else in the rear of the limo swung into a frenzy of terrified motion. “Let me help you up!” “Are you all right?” “We don’t know what happened!” “Must have been that asshole chauffeur!”

“Get your hands off me! Jesus! I’m not a child!” Benz brushed off the sleeves of his jacket as he retook his seat. He glared toward the chauffeur. “What on earth’s going on up there?”

“I don’t know . . .” The chauffeur gestured out the windshield at the taillights of a Dodge Ram towing a pop-up camper. “All the traffic just suddenly stopped. ...