Lifeguard

My stomach almost came up into my throat.

Flashing cop lights everywhere. Just like before. I couldn’t believe my eyes. People were crowded all over the front lawns – in tank tops and muscle shirts, looking down the street. What the hell was going on?

Mickey’s block was barricaded off. Cops everywhere. Lights ?ashing like it was a war zone.

A stab of dread. The cops had found us. At ?rst it was just fear. This whole mess was going to be exposed. I deserved it. To have gotten involved in something so stupid.

Then it wasn’t just fear. It was more like revulsion. Some of the ?ashing lights were EMS vans.

And they were right in front of Mickey’s house.

Chapter 16

I JUMPED OUT of the Bonneville and pushed my way to the front of the crowd. No way this could be happening again. No way, no way.

I edged up to some old black guy in a janitor’s uniform. Never even had to get the words out of my mouth.

“Some kind of mass-a-cree in that house over there.” He was shaking his head. “Bunch a white folk. Woman, too.”

Everybody was staring at Mickey’s house.

Now it was as if I were having a full-out heart attack. Everything in my chest was so tight that I couldn’t breathe. I stood in the semidarkness with my lips quivering and tears sliding down my cheeks. They had been alive. Dee had told me to come back. Mickey and Barney and Bobby and Dee. How could they be dead now? It was like some terrifying dream that you wake up from, and it isn’t real.

But this was real. I was staring at the yellow house and all those police and EMS people. Tell me this isn’t real!

I pushed forward, just in time to see the front door open. Medical techs appeared. The crowd started to murmur. They were wheeling out the gurneys.

One of the body covers was open. “White boy,” somebody said.

I saw the curly red hair. Mickey.

Watching him being wheeled toward the morgue van, I ?ashed back twenty years. Mickey always used to punch me in the back at school. His twisted way of saying hello. I never saw it coming. I’d just be walking in the hall, between class, and wham! And he hit like a sonuvabitch! Then he started making me pay him a quarter not to get punched. He’d just raise his ?st with his eyes wide. “Scared?” One day, I just couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t care what happened. I charged him and slammed him back against a radiator. Left a welt on his back that I think stayed with him through high school. He got up, picked up his books, and put out a hand to me. In it was about four dollars. In quarters. Everything I had given him. He just grinned at me. “Been waiting for you to do that, Neddie-boy.”

That’s what ?ashed through my mind, the whole crazy scene in an instant. Then there were more gurneys. I counted four. My best friends in the world.

I backed away in the crowd. Felt boxed in, trapped. My chest was cramping. I pushed against the tide of people pressing closer for a better look.

And I was blasted with the thought: What good is a lifeguard who can’t save lives?

Chapter 17

I DON’T REMEMBER MUCH about what happened next. All I know is that I staggered back to my car – fast – and drove – much faster.

I went through my options. What choices did I have? Turn myself in? C’mon, Ned, you participated in a robbery. Your friends are dead. Someone’s bound to connect you with Tess. They’ll pin a murder charge on you. I wasn’t thinking straight, but one thing became shining clear: My life here is over now.

I ?ipped on the radio to a local news channel. Reporters were already at the scenes of the murders. A young beauty at Palm Beach ’s posh Brazilian Court. Four unidenti?ed people murdered execution-style in Lake Worth … And other news. A daring art heist on the beach. Sixty million in art reported stolen! So there was a theft. But no mention if the police thought any of this was connected. And, thank God, nothing about me!

It was after eleven when I ?nally crossed the Flagler Bridge back into Palm Beach. Two police cars were parked in the middle of Poinciana, lights ?ashing, blocking the road. I was sure they were looking for a Bonneville.

“Game’s over, Ned!” I said, almost resigned. But I passed right by without a hitch.

The town was quiet up there, considering everything going on. The Palm Beach Grill was still busy. And Cucina. Some tunes coming out of Cucina. But the streets were generally quiet. It reminded me of a joke: there are more lights in downtown Baghdad during an air raid than in Palm Beach after ten o’clock. I hung a right on County and drove down to Seaspray, then hung a left to the beach. I cautiously pulled into number 150, automatically opening the gates. I was praying for no cops. Please, God, not now. Sollie’s house was dark, the courtyard empty. My prayers were answered. For a little while.

Sollie was either watching TV or asleep. Winnie, the housekeeper, too. I parked in the courtyard and headed up the stairs to my room above the garage. Like I said, my life there was over now.

Here’s what I’d learned in Palm Beach. There’re thousand-dollar millionaires, the guys who pretend they’re rich but really aren’t. There are the old rich, and then there are the new rich. Old rich tend to have much better manners, are more attuned to having help around. New rich, which Sollie was, could be trouble – demanding, insulting, their insecurities about their windfall money coming out in abusive ways toward the help. But Sollie was a prince. Turned out he needed me to keep his pool clean, drive his big yellow Lab to the vet, chauffeur him around when he had an occasional date, and keep his cars polished. That turned out to be a joy. Sollie traded in collectible cars at Ragtops in West Palm as frequently as I switched out DVDs at Blockbuster. Right now he had a 1970 six- door Mercedes Pullman limo that used to belong to Prince Rainier; a ’65 Mustang convertible; a Porsche Carrera for a runaround; and a chocolate Bentley for big events… your typical Palm Beach garage stable.

I pulled out two canvas duffels from under the bed and started to throw clothes in them. T-shirts, jeans, a few sweatshirts. The hockey stick signed by Ray Bourque that I’d had since the tenth grade. A couple of paperbacks I always liked. Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises. Great Expectations. (I guess I always had a thing for the outsider bucking the ruling class.)

I scribbled out a quick note to Sollie. An explanation that I had to leave suddenly, and why. I hated to go like this. Sol was like an uncle to me. A really great uncle. He let me live in this great house and all I had to do was keep the pool in order, clean a few of his cars, and do a couple of errands. I felt like a real heel, sneaking away in the dark. But what choice did I have?

I grabbed everything and headed downstairs. I popped the trunk on the Bonneville and tossed in the duffels. I was just taking a last look and saying good-bye to where I’d lived these past three years when the lights went on.

I spun around, my heart in my throat. Sollie was standing in his bathrobe and slippers, holding a glass of milk. “Jesus, you scared me, Sol.”

He glanced at the open trunk and the bags. He had a look of disappointment on his face, putting it together. “So I guess you don’t have time for a good-bye game of rummy.”

“I left a note,” I said a little ashamedly. To have him ?nd me sneaking away like this, and more, for what he was bound to ?nd out in the morning. “Look, Sol, some terrible things have happened. You may hear some stuff…I just want you to know, they’re not true. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do any of it.”

He bunched his lips. “It must be bad. C’mon in, kid. Maybe I can help. A man doesn’t run off in the middle of the night.”