“It's awesome to finally meet you. Danny talks about you all the time….”
“It's good to meet you too.”
Ceepak does a cheek-dimpling smile, shakes Becca's hand, and she falls in love. Big John doesn't notice.
“Is Mr. Mendez awake?” he asks.
“Yep.”
“How do you know?” I ask, wiggling my eyebrows suggestively. This is a motel, after all.
“Because, you skeeve, I just took some towels out to the pool and Mendez is up on the sundeck doing these freaky exercises.” She demonstrates in slow motion.
“Tai-Chi,” Ceepak says.
“Could be. Or maybe Tae-Bo? Like that guy on TV?”
“Sure. That'll work.”
“We'd like to talk to him,” I say.
“Fine by me. You guys want some coffee? Pastry? I'm putting out the breakfast buffet.”
She's also putting out the Sunday papers. Ceepak sees the screaming headlines and knows he has no time to waste on danish.
“No, thanks,” he says. “Danny?”
We head for the sundeck.
“Nice to meet you, Officer Ceepak.”
He smiles back, and Becca almost drops her Raspberry Crumble Cake.
The deck is out back, overlooking the beach. You have to go around the pool and climb up some stairs to reach it. On one side of the deck, there's a row of Wal-Mart white vinyl chairs. The other side faces the ocean.
Mendez is wearing boxer shorts and a white nylon doo-rag that makes the top of his head look like a nurse's kneecap. His eyes are closed as he stretches and toasts his brown body in the early morning sunshine.
I can see the Blessed Virgin's face stretching up on his shoulder every time he flexes those particular muscles. The guy is a regular tattoo gallery, but there's no dragon up on his neck. I looked. He has a flaming heart with a knife jabbed through it.
Ceepak clears his throat to let the guy know we're here.
“Mr. Mendez?”
Mendez stops in mid-leg-lift and opens his eyes just enough to see we're cops. He doesn't care.
“Yo. Wazzup?”
“Sorry to disturb you, sir. We need to ask a few questions.”
“Now? Damn, son—I'm in the middle of my moves. Tryin’ to start the day right, you know what I'm sayin’?”
“Yes, sir. Again, I apologize for any inconvenience. If this is a bad time….”
“What if I said it was?”
“We could arrange to meet at a more convenient hour.”
“Nah-uh, nah-uh. What you need to know?”
“We'd like to talk to you about Mr. Reginald Hart.”
“Now deceased?”
“That's correct. Have you ever done business with Mr. Hart?”
“Shit, son. You got that ass-backwards, you know what I'm sayin’? Mr. Hart? He do business with me. See what I'm sayin’?”
“Yes. Thank you for the clarification. You're an independent contractor?”
“That's right.”
Ceepak rubs his eraser around in his notebook, like he's correcting some faulty information someone gave him.
“What type of business activities did Mr. Hart hire you to perform?”
“He, you know, he hired my firm to perform what you might call real-estate consultation-type activities.”
“Your firm?”
“That's what I said, isn't it?”
“Very well,” Ceepak says. “So … your firm? What sort of real-estate services do you provide?”
“You know—little this, little that.”
“Groundskeeping? Sprinkler maintenance?”
Mendez looks hurt.
“Nah-uh, man. Tenant relations.”
“I see. In his new buildings?”
Mendez smiles, and I can see the glint of bling-bling: he has a small gold cross implanted in his upper left incisor. This guy is seriously Catholic.
“Nah-uh—we worked mainly in the old buildings. The ones Hart was fixing up but, you know, he couldn't get started without a little spring cleaning. That was back in the day. Now we be, you know, branching out.”
“Diversifying?”
“Yeah. Diversifying. I'll show you something you might be interested in….”
He goes to a pile of clothes in front of one of the vinyl chairs and pulls a slick brochure out his jeans.
“Project we be working on.”
He hands Ceepak the brochure.
“The Sea Palace?”
“Yeah. Old hotel up on the North Shore we be renovating. Gonna turn the rooms into condos, vacation-type time-share units and all.”
Ceepak flips the brochure over and studies its back.
“Awesome location. Nice beach.”
“Yeah, yeah. Check it out.”
I can't believe this guy. He's talking about a disaster zone. There's nothing up at the north end of the island except an abandoned lighthouse and a rundown resort hotel no one (except rodents and sea gulls) has stayed in for sixty years.
Now, once upon a time, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and railroads hauled bathing beauties in wool swim trunks over from the mainland, The Palace was a hot spot because the North Shore was where the train tracks terminated. The Palace was one of those huge hotels built around 1912, when people spent a month or two at the shore because the cities were sweltering and air conditioning hadn't been invented. William Howard Taft was president. I only remember this stuff because Taft was the fattest president ever elected, weighing in at 350 pounds, and he stayed at The Palace when it first opened. In fact, you can still buy black-and-white post cards of Taft squeezed into his bathing suit, one of those numbers with a top and a bottom and lots of horizontal stripes. The guy might've been president, but he sure looked like a fully inflated beach ball.
There's nothing left of The Palace Hotel now but three hundred ratty rooms nobody's known what to do with since 1942. The last I heard….
“Hart bought The Palace.”
“Come again?” Ceepak says.
“It was in The Sandpaper,” I say. “Couple years back. Front-page story. Reggie Hart was going to turn the old hotel into a luxury condo complex….”
Ceepak casually flips the brochure over and studies a small logo near the bottom of the back panel.
“Hart Enterprises….”
“Yo—them's the former brochures. Old man Hart couldn't cut it, you know what I'm saying? He sold that sucker to me. Ten cents on the dollar. I'm the one be putting in jacuzzis, whirlpools, fitness center, sushi bar….”
“All that's what Hart was going to do,” I say.
Mendez glowers at me.
Ceepak tucks the brochure into his back pocket.
“You know,” he says, “I once toured a time-share unit in North Carolina.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Your project intrigues me.”
“Smart man.”
“So when will your condos be offered for sale?”
“We be working out the final details and all right now. Soon.”
“Good. Ms. Stone certainly knows her way around a real estate deal.”
“Yeah. She's worth the big bucks I'm paying her.”
Ceepak is good. He just linked Mendez to Ms. Stone in two seconds flat.
“Well, we don't mean to delay you any further, but”—Ceepak unfolds his sketch of Squeegee—“can I ask you one more question?” Mendez waits.
“We're asking all the leading businessmen in town the same thing….”
“Yeah,” Mendez nods, happy to be included.
“Do you recognize this man?”
“Nah-uh.”
“You’re certain?”
“Don't know him.”
“Perhaps he's applied for a position with your firm?”
“Nah-uh.”
“Maybe he's done some day labor for you or your associates?”
“Nah-uh.”
“Have you ever seen him around town?” This could take hours.
“Car wash.”
> “The car wash?”
“Yeah.”
“Which one?”
“Off Ocean Avenue there. Cap'n Crunch's?”
“Cap'n Scrubby's?” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you,” Ceepak says and folds up the sketch.
Mendez checks his watch. It looks like a huge chrome-rimmed hubcap.
“Damn. Got me a breakfast meeting with my lawyer….”
“Chesterfield's?” I say, employing the ol’ Ceepak “slip it in” move.
“Yeah—you ever eat breakfast there, son?”
“No.”
“Didn't figure you did.” He goes to his clothes pile and reaches for his shirt and his jeans.
That's when we see them.
Buried under everything else.
His Timberland boots.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“You saw those boots, right?”
“Affirmative,” Ceepak says. “Remember, Timberland is a very popular brand.”
We're sitting in the Ford out front of The Mussel Beach Motel, sipping coffee Becca was kind enough to pour in go-cups for us when we said our good-byes.
“Do you think?”
“That Virgilio Mendez killed Reginald Hart to get his hands on the Palace Hotel and who knows what other real-estate assets?”
I nod.
“It's a possibility.”
“But Ashley described Squeegee. Maybe Mendez and Squeegee worked together….”
“Another possibility.”
“So how do we dump some of these goddamn possibilities?” I usually don't swear in front of Ceepak, but my brain was hurting trying to make sense of all this stuff.
“We keep working the puzzle. Picking up pieces, fitting them into place.”
“Okay—Ms. Stone. What's she up to? Double-crossing her boss? It sure looked like she and Hart might have been, you know, romantic. So how come she's suddenly got Mendez as a client?”
Ceepak doesn't answer.
“What time does the car wash open?”
“Ten. Maybe eleven.”
“Drat.” Now even Ceepak's swearing—or as close as he ever gets. It's not even nine A.M. yet. The puzzle pieces aren't cooperating. “We need to talk to people at Captain Bubbles. ASAP.”
“Cap'n Scrubby's.”
He nods.
The car wash is where two people place Squeegee. First, Officer Adam Kiger. Now, respected real-estate tycoon Virgilio Mendez.
“Some of the other employees, particularly the other transients, these towel men, they might know where Squeegee lives or where he goes when he means to disappear….”
“We could grab some breakfast or something … kill a half an hour.”
Ceepak looks at me like I'm crazy. Breakfast? What's that? I don't think we'll be eating again until Ashley Hart is safe.
Our radio squelches.
“Ceepak? Goddammit, Ceepak?” It's the chief.
Ceepak picks up the mike.
“Yes, sir?”
“We just heard from the State Ballistics Team.”
“And?”
“They made a match.”
“Nine-millimeter?”
“Yeah.”
Ceepak nods. It's what he figured.
“So now we know what we're looking for?”
“Yeah,” the chief grumbles. “Goddamn Smith & Wesson. Semiautomatic. One of ours.”
“Come again?”
“It's one of ours! Goddammit—it's Gus's goddamn gun. Get your asses over here! Now. Move it!” Cap'n Scrubby will have to wait.
“He lost it,” the chief says.
“He lost it?” Ceepak's jaw is halfway down his neck.
We're in the chief's office. Gus is outside in the hall, waiting. When we passed him, he looked whiter than a fish belly, like he'd just seen his own ghost—probably because he knows the chief is about to kill him.
I always thought they took Gus's gun away from him when he went on desk duty. Now it looks like he went on desk duty because he was careless with his sidearm. They demoted him for being a fuckup.
“How does an officer lose his lethal weapon?” Ceepak refuses to believe such things are possible.
“Last winter? Gus was sitting in his squad car and his belt was hanging so loose on his bony butt, the gun kept sliding up, pinching him in the side….”
Ceepak closes his eyes. I don't think he wants to live in a world where cops take off their pistols because they rub them the wrong way.
“Gus?” The chief screams at the door. “Get your ass in here!”
Gus sort of shuffles into the room, afraid to look the chief, Ceepak, or even lowly me in the eye.
“Yes, sir?” I've never heard Gus sound so meek, like a kid in the principal's office. Usually he's ready to bust your chops the minute you waltz through the front doors.
“Tell Ceepak.”
“You mean—about my gun?”
“No—about how good the goddamn stripers are running this morning. Jesus! Give us the fucking fishing report, why don't you?” Gus turns to Ceepak.
“It was back in March. One of those days when it sort of feels like spring even though it's winter, you know?”
Ceepak nods.
“It was freaking hot, too. Muggy. Unseasonably warm, like they say on the radio. And I'm half-Greek, so I always feel kind of hot and sweaty, you know?”
Gus smiles.
Ceepak?
God bless him, he smiles back.
He's ready to move on. I guess he figures he's wasted enough time being disappointed. Now he wants to see if there is something he can do, some positive action he can take.
Gus feels better. I can tell by the way all the air trapped in his chest seeps out when his neck muscles finally relax.
“Anyhow, the freaking gun kept riding up on me. Every time I'd sit, it'd slide up some and pinch me. It cut into me … right here. And was I having a day? This call, that call. Go here, get out, get back in, go somewheres else. So I put the gun in the glove compartment.”
“The glove compartment?”
“Yeah. I'm not so stupid I'm gonna leave it lying out on the freaking seat there….”
It seems even Gus has his limits.
“You were alone?” Ceepak asks.
“Yeah. It was late winter—we always cut back some on personnel, pull solo patrols. It's mostly basic stuff that time of the year— swinging by the bank when the Brinks truck comes to town, writing up fender-benders, helping out with the school zones. Don't really need two-man patrols in March….”
“So where'd you go? After you put the gun away?”
“I'm not really sure….”
“Focus. Do the best you can.”
“Yeah. Okay. I went by The Pancake Palace. Had an early lunch. Went by the Surf City Shopping Center on account of they were having some trouble with their freaking alarm system. Remember, chief? It was your day off and you were looking in the window of that jewelry place?”
“Yes.”
“Gonna buy your wife a present, remember? I said go with the earrings ? The ones shaped like sandals with diamonds in the toes? I said she'd get a kick out of those—”
“Gus?” The chief is impatient, big time.
“Right. After that, I'm back in the car. Make a few more stops. Here and there. Piddling little stuff, but duty calls, you know? I walked up and down Ocean Avenue, wrote up some parking tickets at expired meters … this one had gum jammed in the slot … damn freaking kids, you know?”
“When did you realize your gun was missing?” Ceepak asked.
“Second time I ran into the chief.”
“When was that?”
“I was parked outside Driftwood Floral. Our anniversary was coming so I was thinking about maybe picking up some flowers or something. My wife doesn't need any more earrings. She's got a million of those. Anyhow, the chief is picking up some cold cuts or whatever from the deli next door and he sees me coming out the flower shop….”
“It w
as a Tuesday,” the chief remembers.
“Yeah.” Gus agrees. “Your regular day off, right?”
“Right.” The way the chief says it I get the feeling he'll never take one again.
“Anyhow, the chief here says, ‘Where the hell's your goddamn weapon?’ He's looking at my holster and it's freaking empty, you know? So I say, ‘Oh, shit’ because, at first, when I put it in the glove compartment, I'd put it back in my holster every time I got out of the car. Only this time I guess I forgot. Might've forgot some other times, too. So I say to the chief, ‘It's in the car.’ The chief says, ‘Where?’ I go to show him, pop open the glove compartment, no gun. It's gone.”
Ceepak turns to the chief.
“Did you report the missing weapon to the proper authorities?” The chief sort of looks from side to side—like it's his turn to tell us what he did wrong.
“No. I did not.”
He rubs his nose with the back of his big hand. Then he pushes both hands back through what little hair he has left on the top of his head.
“Why not?”
“Because I'm a goddamn big-hearted idiot, okay?”
Ceepak's eyebrows do that quizzical puppy dog thing: Hunh?
The chief sniffs in enough air to explain.
“Here's Gus—what? Six, seven months from retirement. I don't have it in me to blow his whole goddamn pension. To write him up. Losing your gun? You don't just get a slap on the wrist for that one. So I yank him off the street, stick him behind the desk where he can't lose anything else. Then I have a quiet word with the guys. Ever since, we've all been nosing around town, keeping an eye and ear out for Gus's goddamn gun….”
“But you never found it?”
“No. We never did.”
Until today, I want to say, because I'm the resident wise-ass. But I don't.
“Why didn't you tell me, chief?” Ceepak says. “I could've helped look for it.”
The chief doesn't answer right away.
I know what he'd say if he were being totally honest: He didn't tell him because Ceepak would have turned them all in. Ceepak won't lie, cheat, or steal, and he won't tolerate those who do. Even the ones who do it to save an old cop's pension. The chief knows all about Ceepak's Code.
“Hey, you were new,” the chief says. “Just back from that other shitbox. The war. I didn't want to drag you into this, load you down with our old crap. You needed a fresh start. I figured me and the other guys … I figured we'd find it sooner or later….”