Intelligent but sociopathic criminal Serge Storms meets up with heartless stripper Sharon Rhodes and brainless drug addict Seymore "Coleman" Bunsen, who become his travelling companions and partners in crime.

Before Veale can retrieve the case, he is kidnapped by Serge and Co., who tie him up in a Cape Canaveral motel and kill him with an elaborate Rube Goldberg-type booby trap triggered by the vibrations of the nearby launch of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

A second, more serious subplot follows Sean and David, unaware of the $5 million in the trunk of their car, on their unsuccessful fishing trip to Key West, which includes stopping in Miami to watch the final game of the World Series.

Saffron, believing he has finally found the drug money, follows them on their sight-seeing trip to Fort Jefferson, but all three of them are abducted by the same boater, who turns out to be Max Minimum, the disgraced manager of the retirement community, and secretly a perverted serial killer.

In this novel, Johnny regularly trolls the seaside parties of South Beach in a Cigarette boat whose colors mislead spectators into thinking it belongs to Dan Marino: