Sand Sharks

“Not that I know of.”

“Are you guys friends? Hang out together?”

“Not really. I only met him last month. We drove out to the beach when I first got here, and we’ve gone for drinks at one of the clubs once or twice with some of the others, but he… well, all he wants to talk about is acting —what shows he’s trying to get on, how they screwed up his tryout, or how people are always doing him dirt. It’s all about him.”

“Think back to Sunday morning,” Edwards said. “Did you get the impression that he didn’t want to admit that he had waited on Judge Jeffreys?” The younger man considered it and then shook his head. “Not really. I don’t think people register on his radar unless they’re connected to the movie or television industry.”

“And the last time you saw him?”

“He got off Sunday afternoon at four. I was supposed to get off then, too, but I told Mandy I’d cover her dinner shift so she could go to a friend’s wedding. I had a half-hour break, though, and Kyle asked me to give him a lift back to his place so that—”

“You gave him a lift? He didn’t have his car?”

“No. He usually rides his bike over unless it’s raining but the front tire had a slow leak and he didn’t want to ride on it until he could fix it. He said he was going to patch it first and then he was going to drive down to Southport to see his cousin.”

“Cousin?”

“Yeah. I think she’s an invalid or something. He made it sound like it was a real drag, but at the same time like he ought to get a pat on the back for doing something nice for her.”

“You really don’t like him very much, do you?”

“He’s okay. Just immature.”

Edwards almost had to smile. Kyle Armstrong was nearly five years older than this serious young man.

“I dropped him at his place on Walnut Street a little after four and that’s the last time I saw him.”

“Who else doesn’t like him here?”

“I don’t think any of us particularly dislike him unless it’s Mel. We all tend to help each other out in a pinch, but Kyle’s pretty lazy unless it’s somebody in television and then he’s right there, Mr. Helpful and ‘Can I get you water and do you want a lemon in it, sir?’ He tried that Saturday night when Stone Hamilton and his friends were here. It was Mel’s table and she almost had to beat him back with a stick to get him to butt out.”

“Yeah,” said Mel Garrett, the waitress who’d worked Stone Hamilton’s table Saturday night. A rising senior at UNCG like Hank, she had jet-black hair streaked with fuchsia and a dirty mouth that she tried to control after apologizing for laying the F-word on him. (“Sam keeps telling me I’ve got to dial it back.”) Like all the others, she knew that Armstrong had waited on the murdered judge and that he was now missing. It seemed to confirm her already negative opinion of him. “The little bastard’s always trying to horn in if you get any of the Screen Gems people. And yeah, he has a temper on him. Sneaky as hell, too. You piss him off and he’ll screw up your order if he can. Shift yours down on the list or mix up the drinks so your tables start complaining about the lousy service and stiff you on the tips.”

“I’ve had to watch him,” said the bartender. Of all the waitstaff, he had worked at Jonah’s the longest. Almost three years now. Kyle had started a month or two after him. The rest came and went with the seasons. “I caught him trying to palm one of my tips and I told him if he ever did it again, I’d beat the crap out of him. But he’ll sneak and mix up the drinks on a waiter’s tray if he’s ticked off at them.”

“No,” said Art Taylor, an English major at George Mason University, who had also worked the porch Saturday night. “I can’t say I noticed that he paid much attention to that judge or any of the others either. Of course, I wasn’t paying much attention to him.”

“Sorry,” said the other waiter, a pre-law student at Wake Forest, who had been on duty during the relevant time. “My tables were all in the bar area Saturday night. If Kyle was upset about anything, I didn’t see it. Actually, I thought he was in a pretty good mood. Excited because a new casting director was here. I think he even got the director’s card. And yeah, I did hit on him a week or two after I started work here. I thought he was going to punch me out. Talk about denial! Just as well though. He doesn’t care about anybody except himself. No room between him and the mirror, if you know what I mean.”

There was one more waitress who had worked the dinner shift Saturday night, but she would not be in till four. Edwards filled the time with questions for the rest of the staff even though they had not been on duty then.

Those who had spoken to Armstrong on Sunday were all under the impression that he had barely noticed Jeffreys.

“Could he be lying?” Edwards asked.

“Well, he is an actor,” one young man said.

“He’s not that good an actor,” said another.

The bouncy little blonde who had been there when he came in that morning said that she had been off all weekend and that she didn’t have much to do with Kyle anyhow. The only thing they ever talked about were their bicycles.

“Bicycles?”

“Yeah.” Her twin blonde ponytails were tied with purple beads that bobbled up and down when she nodded her head. “I brought mine over with me from Charlotte. Thought it would help me stay in shape, y’know?”

And a very nice shape it was, thought Edwards, keeping a perfectly straight face.

“Does Kyle like to ride, too?”

“He thinks it’s good exercise. Builds up his muscles. In fact, his bike is out there on the rack right now.”

“Could you show me?” Edwards asked.