Read Online SS 18: Shark Skin Suite: A Novel by Tim Dorsey - Free Book Online

He kept glancing back at the self-appointed bounty hunter gaining on him. The man’s feet slid in dirt as he tried to round the end of the building, and Serge dove for the tackle.
    “All right, you!” Serge yanked him to his feet and poked the stun gun in his rib. “No funny stuff.”
    They marched back to the Cobra, where Serge popped the trunk. “In you go!” The hood slammed.
    “Serge, you just threw a guy in your trunk in broad daylight.”
    “And normally that would attract attention.” Serge opened the driver’s door. “But look around. The overarching reaction is one of personal relief.”
    Coleman climbed in his side of the car. “Okay, you grabbed a guy who ran away from us. But I don’t see the money part.”
    “Here’s his wallet.” Serge pulled out the driver’s license. “Well, well, Mr. Nicholas Sharp, glad to have you on board . . .”
    An hour later, a ’76 Cobra rolled past the county jail featuring vertical window slits too narrow for a human. Surrounding the detention center was a scattering of squat concrete huts. Each had a phone number painted extra large so it could be read from the window slits.
    Serge pulled up in front of Ricky’s Bail Bonds. Dobermans barked and hurled themselves against the neighboring fence of a hubcap emporium. Next to the painted phone number was a large floating face with a broad smile, presumably Ricky, for the impression of a more upbeat business, like off-brand whole life insurance.
    Coleman grabbed his door handle. “How’d you know to come here?”
    “That phone call I made to Mahoney on the way over,” said Serge. “Had him check around for outstanding warrants. Bondsmen now share Internet databases to cut losses.”
    Bells jingled and a prune-headed man looked up from a desk cluttered with courthouse forms, sandwich wrappers and crumbs. A rotating table fan whirred in the corner.
    “Ricky?” asked Serge.
    “No, Benny.” The man stuffed a last bite of chicken salad in his mouth and hit one of the sandwich wrappers with a flyswatter. “Who the hell are you?”
    Serge turned around to show him the back of his jacket.
    “Bounty hunters?”
    “Not really. We just bought the jackets at one of those police supply stores where police never shop, only weirdos who blog in their skivvies about the feds and black helicopters and go to those stores to buy nunchucks and samurai swords that you never see on a cop’s belt, but then again I’ve never been arrested in Malaysia.”
    The swatter knocked over a bobblehead of a Miami Heat player. “Why are you telling me this?” The man stood up and went on a mission with the insect weapon.
    “Because I’m just about to save you twenty grand.”
    Benny lost interest in the fly. “You got three minutes.”
    Serge took a seat and slowly looked around the single-room office. “This is just like Jackie Brown, the movie based on the classic Elmore Leonard book that was set in my hometown. Can I call you Max Cherry?”
    “Two minutes.”
    “Talk on the street is you’d like to have a word with one Nicky Sharp.”
    Benny put the impatience on hold. “You know where Nicky Sharp is? That shitbag skipped out on twenty G’s!”
    “If I’m not mistaken, the standard fee is ten percent of whatever you stood to lose.” Serge crossed his legs and interlaced fingers behind his head. “I can bring him in if you want.”
    “Can’t do it,” said Benny.
    “Sure I can,” said Serge. “It’ll be easy.”
    “No, I mean it’s against the law. You said you weren’t a real bounty hunter.”
    “So?”
    “So, under Florida statute you can’t apprehend someone unless you have a bail-bond license. I could go to jail if I accept a capture from you.”
    “But I know a bunch of guys who are only bounty hunters.”
    Benny nodded. “A lot of guys get their bondsman license with no intention of opening a bail office, just so they can nab fugitives.”
    “That’s legal?”
    “Tell you what: Nicky’s forfeiture