Sideswipe (8 page)

Troy smiled and patted the old man on the knee. "What did you get out of it, Pop? Tell me."

"Maybe I missed something, I don't know. All I got out of it was that a man held up a liquor store in Biloxi, Mississippi, and then beat the owner unconscious because there wasn't enough money in the cash register to suit him."

"What's the dateline? Up at the top?"

"Biloxi, Mississippi."

"Right. That shows that the item was printed somewhere else. If something happens here in West Palm Beach, they don't put the name of the city down, but if something happens up in Jacksonville, and they run an item here, they put Jacksonville in the dateline, you see. Anyway, all you're supposed to get out of it is the story."

"This wasn't you, was it, son?"

"Of course not."

"Then why... I mean, what--?"

"You don't have to keep asking me questions, Pop. I'll tell you what I want you to do for me. First, put the clip ping away--in your shirt pocket."

Stanley refolded the clipping and put it away. Troy rubbed his nose for a moment, then looked intently at the old man. "It's really simple, Pop. When they turn you loose, later tonight or tomorrow morning, look in the phone book and find out where Henry Collins lives. As a truck driver, he's bound to have a phone, but if he doesn't, check the city register for his address."

Stanley nodded. "I can do that easy enough."

"Fine. Then go to his house and see him for me. Hand him that clipping, and tell him to read it."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite. After he's read the clipping, tell him to drop the charges against me or I'll kill him. But tell him I won't kill him until after I've killed his wife and child first."

"I can't do that!"

"Of course you can, Pop. I wouldn't hurt a fly, any more than you would. But Collins doesn't know that. Just tell him what I said. Then he can tell the desk sergeant he was dazed by the accident and only thought I had a pistol, and now that his memory's come back he wants to rectify his mistake and withdraw the charges."

"But you really did have a pistol--"

"That's right, a thirty-eight Smith and Wesson."

"And Mr. Collins knows you had the pistol."

"That's right."

"I don't think he'd do it."

"I do."

"Well..." Stanley thought for a minute. "I don't think I could do nothing like that. You've been mighty nice to me and all, telling me about things and cheering me up, but that's a lot to ask--even if I do get out."

"You'll get out, don't worry."

"You really think so?"

"I know so. And what I asked you to do, a small favor for me, won't take much of your time. You're retired, so what else have you got to do with your time?"

"It ain't the time, son. I'm afraid. If I went to Mr. Collins with a message like that one, he might think I'm in on it and call the police. Then I'd be back in here with you."

"I see what you mean. There's a way around that. Write out the message. Print it on a plain piece of paper, and keep it short. Then put the message and the clipping in an envelope, and print Mr. Collins's address on the outside."

"I don't know his address."

"You can look it up, like I already told you, in the phone book. Then you can take it to Collins, and tell him you found the letter on the street, and it didn't have any stamp on it, so you thought you'd bring it to his house because it might be important. In fact, you might even ask him for a reward, or a tip. That might be even better. And if he or his wife aren't home, just drop it in his mailbox."

"I could put a stamp on it and mail it instead."

"No, that would take too long, and mailing it could get you into trouble with the Post Office--if they found out about it. I haven't got that kind of time."

"I guess I could do that much all right."

"Sure you could. And this way, you'll just be a good Samaritan delivering a letter you found on the street, the way any good citizen returns a lost wallet to someone who's lost it."

"All right. If I get out, I'll do it."

"Thanks, Pop. I really appreciate it. Now you better let me tell you some more questions the shrink'll ask you, in case you get a psychological examination. Suppose you're playing baseball, and you knock your ball into a circular field surrounded by a ten-foot wall. How do you find the ball?"

An hour later, Stanley was out on the street again. They had given him back his wallet, his belt and shoelaces, an unused Kleenex tissue, and eighty-four cents in change. John Sneider, Pammi's father, was waiting outside the jail in his tow truck to drive Stanley back to his empty house in Ocean Pines Terraces.

CHAPTER 5

The El Pelicano Arms apartment house was a hundred yards north of the public tennis courts, about sixty yards south of the Ocean Mall, and on the Atlantic side of Ocean Road. There was direct access to the public beach through a wooden gate to the left of the lobby entrance. There were reserved parking spaces for each apartment, and a special parking place for the manager--a marked slot next to the lobby entrance. There were no visitor spaces, but visitors could usually, except on weekends, find parking in the Ocean Mall lot.

The Singer Island beach, an important asset of the Riviera Beach municipality, was one of the widest beaches in Florida. In most respects, it was the best public beach in the state. The Gulf Stream was closer to shore here than anywhere else, making the water warm enough to swim all year round. During January, the cool month, the ocean was always warmer than the air, which made the water easier to get into than it was to get out. Now, toward the end of June, the water temperature was eighty-five degrees, the same as the humid air.

Across from the El Pelicano, in the older business section of Singer Island, there was a row of one- and two-story office buildings and shops, and a three-story hotel. Several shops sold T-shirts and other resort clothing, and there was a discount drugstore. Back in the 1970s, one of these stores had been the office of -Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine-, but the magazine had moved to New York, and now there was a realtor occupying the spot. Most of the space between these older buildings and the new Ocean Mall was taken up with a macadam parking lot that had no meters.

The mall had three restaurants, a dozen or more stores, a game room, and several small offices above the stores at the northern end of the mall. The Ocean Mall was "new," as far as Hoke was concerned, because the mall hadn't been there during the 1960s, when he grew up on Singer Island. There had only been one building then beside the municipal beach, a drive-in hamburger restaurant with girls on roller skates who waited on the parked cars that encircled the building. It had been a favorite place for the younger people in Palm Beach County to hang out, day and night. Sometimes the cars had been parked three deep, which meant that there was a constant movement, backing and filling, as people sought to get out or get in, and there was considerable visiting between cars.

The new mall was still a favorite place for young people. In bikinis and trunks they slouched and ran up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the mall, or cut through passageways and through the stores. There were also a great many tourists, and hundreds of middle-aged and elderly condominium residents stumbled and tottered about the mall.

There were a dozen motels and more than thirty highrise condominiums along the single island highway, with more condos under construction. There was a narrow bridge exit at the northern end of the island, which led into North Palm Beach, as well as the Blue Heron bridge at the southern end, which took people into downtown Riviera Beach. The traffic on Blue Heron Road was always heavy.

In recent years, especially during the summer, Miami's Latins had discovered Singer Island, thanks to the Sunday -Miami Herald- travel section, where motel ads announced cheap weekend rates. It was possible for a couple (with children under twelve free) to get a motel room on the ocean, a free piña colada, two free breakfasts, and a threeday, two-night stay for as low as fifty-eight dollars a room (tax not included). A few motels, anxious for summer business, offered even lower rates if the room was rented during the week and if the couple vacated it before the weekend. Miami's Cubans, who had a long-standing tradition of going to Veradera Beach in Cuba for holidays, now flocked to Singer Island on weekends, bringing their parents, their aunts, and from three to five children per family. There were plenty of trash barrels on the beach, but the weekenders usually disdained them.

When Hoke picked his way among the sunbathers to take his first morning swim, he stepped on a discarded sanitary napkin with his bare left foot. Bacjdng away from that and saying "Shit," he stepped into a pile of the very thing with his bare right foot. No dogs were allowed on the beach (a rule that was strictly enforced), so Hoke was worried that he had stepped in human shit. He scraped it off with an empty beer can and decided, then and there, that he would not rent out any of his El Pelicano apartments to Latins.

Hoke swam beyond the surf for almost an hour, then walked up the beach, staying close to the hard-packed sand of the littoral. By the time he reached the third condo, the beach was almost deserted. The condos, especially the older ones, were sold out completely, but only about thirty percent of the owners lived in their apartments full time. The majority came down at Christmas and at Easter, or spent three or four winter months there; most of the year their apartments were unoccupied. At least, Hoke thought, they aren't all year-round residents, like the condo owners in Miami and Miami Beach. If all of the apartments and motel rooms on Singer lsland were occupied at the same time, there probably wouldn't be enough room on the island to hold all of their cars. The island population would triple overnight. He wondered if the people buying into those condos under construction were aware of the population glut that was coming if they kept putting up these twentyand thirty-story buildings. The condos all had heated pools on the ocean side of their buildings, explaining why very few condo residents took advantage of the warm Atlantic. Hoke decided that from now on he would walk down here and swim in front of one of these condos instead of swimming at the public beach.

As Hoke started back toward the public beach, he noticed a man seated in a webbed chair beneath a striped beach umbrella behind the Supermare, a twenty-story condo with a penthouse on top. The man had a blanket, an open briefcase, and was talking on a white portable telephone. As Hoke stopped to look at him, the man put the phone on the blanket and made a notation with a gold pen on a yellow legal pad.

Hoke crossed over to the blanket and looked down at the man. He was balding in front, but he wore a thick gray moustache, and there was a thick cluster of curly silver hair at the back of his head. He wore a rose-colored cabana set with maroon piping on the shirt and on the hems of the swimming shorts.

"Good morning," he said, not unpleasantly, taking off his sunglasses.

"Morning. D'you mind if I use your phone?"

"Local or long distance?"

"Long distance. Miami. But I'll call collect."

"No need to do that." The older man shrugged as he handed Hoke the phone. "I've got a WATS line. Don't worry about it."

Hoke dialed Ellita Sanchez in Green Lakes, and she picked up the phone on the third ring.

"Ellita? Hoke."

"How are you, Hoke? I've called your father a couple of times, and--"

"I'm fine. You won't have to call him again. I'm living in a new place. You got a pencil?"

"Right here."

"It's the El Pelicano Arms. Apartment number 201, upstairs, here on Singer Island."

"What's the phone number?"

"No phone. The address is 506 Mall Road, Singer Island, Riviera Beach. I'm going to need a few things. My checkbook, bankbook, and probably my car. I bought some surfer trunks yesterday, but the legs are too long, so pack my swimming trunks when you send someone up with the car."

"What other clothes will you nerd?"

"None. I've got a new plan. I've still got my gun, badge, and cuffs, and I won't need them either. Maybe you can turn them in at the department for me?"

"-Espera-, Hoke! Let's wait awhile on that. You've got thirty days of leave, and Bill Henderson's covering for you just fine. Don't rush into any rash decisions. Your dad told me you were going to stay for a while, but you might change your-- What's that roaring sound?"

"Roaring sound? Oh. I guess that must be the surf you hear coming in. I've borrowed a portable phone from a guy on the beach."

The owner of the phone laughed. Hoke moved twenty feet away from the blanket to keep him from listening in on their conversation. "I guess that's about it, Ellita."

"There must be a few other things you need."

"I don't want to tie up this man's phone, Ellita. He's working."

"On the beach?"

"Yeah. We're on the beach side of the Supermare condo--or in the back. I thought Frank already told you, I'm going to manage the El Pelicano for him, so I won't be coming back to Miami."

"What? What about the girls--and the house?"

"You can have the house. I'll send you my half of the rent from my savings until you can get someone else to share it with you. The girls will have to go out to California and live with their mother."