The Riptide Ultra-Glide Read Free Page A

the kills, and most were from southern states where they did a lot of hunting.”
    â€œWhat’s that got to do with it?”
    â€œThey learned to lead their targets,” said Serge. “But you’re inexperienced. So stand ten yards on the far side of me, and when you see me throw, you let her rip. Your marijuana reflexes will build in the necessary time lag.”
    The pinging sounds grew louder.
    Serge stretched his right shoulder in a circular motion. “People in the Keys don’t hunt, so even if you’re not at the front of the rock line, they usually still leave you the prize.”
    â€œWhich is what?”
    â€œThe driver’s window.”
    â€œHere he comes!”
    â€œReadddddddyyyyy . . .” Serge wound up. “Now!”
    Serge let fly.
    Coleman did, too.
    Smash .
    â€œYou got the window,” said Coleman.
    â€œAnd I think your shot went through the opening I created. Good teamwork.”
    â€œHe’s fishtailing,” said Coleman. “He’s losing control.”
    â€œAnd now the other rock people are scattering to make room for him sliding sideways into that mailbox.”
    â€œThe police are slowing down,” said Coleman. “But they don’t seem to know why.”
    â€œHere’s where they pull him out through the window by his hair. Let’s listen . . .”
    â€œOw! Ow! I’m not resisting . . . Someone hit me with poo. Who throws poo?”
    â€œWelcome to the Keys,” said Serge.
    â€œIt’s hot,” said Coleman. “Let’s go back inside.”
    MEANWHILE . . .
    A blistering afternoon on U.S. 1.
    People fanned themselves under the shade of a bus-stop shelter. Several had inexplicably massive amounts of worthless possessions in a variety of unsturdy containers that symbolized the earth’s history of evolutionary dead ends. The bus finally came, and the driver wouldn’t let someone on because he had a George Foreman Grill, even though it wasn’t lit. Alongside the bus, someone else in a safari hat drove a riding lawn mower through a thin strip of grass in front of an outreach ministry. The bus pulled away. A man stayed behind on the bench and considered the downside of being able to suddenly barbecue with little warning.
    But it was best not to think too hard about this strip of hot tar below Deerfield and Pompano. Which put it in Broward County, between Palm Beach and Miami-Dade. Shop after shop in endless miles of scrambled economy: ceiling fans, patio furniture, Oriental rugs, barbers, psychics, Pilates, a massage parlor on the up-and-up, herbs for the pretentious, used car lots for customers with radioactive credit, carpet remnants for people who didn’t give a shit anymore, a karate studio run by a prick, and one business that simply said L ASER .
    The traffic was typically heavy and frequently slowed by countless school zones. People in orange vests escorted children across the street. A school bus drove by. A man in a gorilla suit stood on the corner, twirling a sign advertising divorce representation.
    More school buses. Regular ones, short ones, public, parochial. And one that looked like the others, except upon closer inspection. All males, all adults. The license plate read: T HE B LUEGRASS S TATE . The bus cleared a school zone and accelerated a few more blocks before pulling into a shopping center that was busier than the others. A lot busier, cars everywhere, no parking at all on the south end. A psychic came out of her shop and wondered what was going on. The bus pulled around back.
    Inside, a waiting room spilled into another waiting room, every chair taken, overflowing outside onto the front patio, where people fiddled with cheap radios and cell phones. Except the wait was surprisingly short, and people moved chair to chair like they were turnstiles. A platoon of nurses called names from manila folders and continuously funneled the clientele into