Bonham’s drum intro to “When the Levee Breaks” kicked in, followed by harmonica. I finished my beer, got up from my stool, and walked back into the men’s room.
I rewashed my hands. I was drying them s dtool, awith a towel and looking in the mirror when Charlie Fiora and his buddy walked in behind me. I threw the paper in the trash and turned to face them.
Fiora had removed his cap, making him appear less boyish. In the blinking Christmas lights his tan skin was drawn tight. Veins popped on his biceps below the rolled-up sleeves of his T-shirt. His right fist was balled.
“All right, ace,” he said. “What do you want?”
I glanced quickly at his skinny little partner, who was struggling to look tough, then back at Fiora, whom I addressed.
“Tell your girlfriend to beat it,” I said. “Then we talk.”
The kid took half a step towards me out of pride but stopped short. I thought I saw the beginnings of a grin at the edges of Fiora’s mouth.
“Go on, Robo,” Fiora said.
Robo left after giving me one more hard stare. Fiora and I studied each other for a minute or so. The music was thin and distorted, coming through a cheap speaker hung above the mirror.
“I told you earlier what I wanted. Kim Lazarus is in town with two guys and I want to talk to one of them.”
“You some kind of cop?”
“Private,” I said. Fiora relaxed.
“Then why don’t you just get the fuck out of here?” he said.
“I could make trouble for you, Charlie. I know Kim sold you some shake, and I know you’re dealing it out of this bar.” I shifted my weight to my back foot.
“You want some more?” he said, and pointed his hand very close to my bruised face. I was tired of him and all of it. Most of all, I wouldn’t be touched like that again.
I grabbed his outstretched wrist and twisted down, and at the same time yanked him towards me. Then I kicked him with my back foot, pivoting the heel of my front foot in his direction and aiming two feet behind him, as I connected at the bottom of his rib cage.
The sound of it was like that of a hammer through a carton. He veed forward, coughed once, and opened his eyes in pain and surprise. I stepped behind him, one hand still around his wrist, and with the other pushed down violently on his elbow.
His face hit the floor before the rest of him. A sickening sound, like stone against stone, echoed in the bathroom. When a puddle of blood spread between his face and the floor, I knew he had broken his teeth on the concrete.
“Where are they?” I growled. I had pressure on his arm and held it pointed at the ceiling.
“Beachmark Hotel,” he said, and coughed convulsively, adding more blood and phlegm to the floor.
“Where in the hotel?”
“I don’t know the number,” he nu heigh said, and I believed him. But I pressed harder on his arm. “Last room on the right. Oceanfront.”
“Floor?”
“Second floor.” He made a gurgling sound.
“Repeat it,” I said, and his answer was the same. I let go of him and stepped away without looking back. I pushed the door open and walked quickly across the main room.
Fiora’s friend was shocked to see me emerge first. He moved back from my path and stopped against the wall. I felt numb, and a foot taller at the same time. Robert Plant was shouting the blues.
I walked over to the blonde in the blue sundress, took the bottle of beer out of her hand, and drank deeply. I put my other hand behind her neck and pulled her mouth into mine. When she began to kiss me back, I pushed away.
Then I was out of the bar, out in the cool and wet air. I got into my car and watched my hands shake before I tightened them around the wheel, then laughed for no reason. I pulled out of the lot and screamed down the strip, to pick up McGinnes, and, from there, to get Jimmy Broda.
“ What’s going on, man?” McGinnes said, and looked at me strangely as I entered our room.
“You turn in the room key yet?”
“Yeah.”
“Let’s get going, then.”
We were out on the street quickly. I unintentionally caught rubber pulling out of the lot. I felt McGinnes’ stare.
“I guess you got your information,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“There’s blood on your shirt,” he said.
“I know,” I said, pressing down on the accelerator. “It isn’t mine.”
TWENTY-THREE
The beachmark was a tan, three-story hotel on the ocean near the Wrightsville Holiday Inn. It was highlighted with green awnings and a diagonal green sign with white lettering announcing its name. I parked and looked over at McGinnes.
“You coming?” I said.
“You want me to?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the plan?”
“There isn’t one. Let’s just go in and get him.”
There were few cars in the parking lot, and the area around the hotel was still and quiet. The pool’s green light tinted our clothi nu h'0em' wing as we walked around it and on past a Coke machine and ice dispenser.
We ascended a metal stairwell, then went through a concrete hall and onto a walkway around the second floor. We walked along the northside wall and turned right at the oceanfront, where the temperature immediately dropped, the air became damper, and the sound of the surf more pronounced.
I found the last door on the right and tried the knob. It was locked. To the left of the door was a small rectangular window and, through it, darkness. My first thought was that I had been had by Fiora. But McGinnes whistled and directed me to the next door in the row.
The door of that room was ajar. Out of it fell a bar of light and the sound of a radio playing AOR at a very low volume.
I knocked on the door and shouted “Hello.” No response. My knock opened the door halfway. I finished it with a push and stepped onto the green carpet of the living room. McGinnes followed me in.
We walked slowly past the standard bamboo and plastic beach furnishings and the seaside prints that hung on the wall. There appeared to be two bedrooms. I pointed to one, and McGinnes walked in. I walked into the other.
At first I did not recognize the figure lying on the bed. He did not look much like the defiant kid in the photograph his mother had shown me. In the photograph, Eddie Shultz had been alive.
They had gagged him and tied his hands and feet together behind his back, laying him on his side on a dropcloth. Then they had cut his throat down to the windpipe, from left to right. His shirt and jeans were soaked halfway up in blood. Rope burns marked his wrists and his eyes were open. He looked something like a frog.
I fell back against the door, tasted the bile of my dinner, and swallowed my own puke. I felt the blood drain from my face and I thought I heard Maureen Shultz’s voice on my answering machine. I stumbled into the other bedroom.
McGinnes was on the bed, cradling a woman in his arms. Her eyes were barely open and her lips were moving but there was no sound. He pushed some hair out of her face.
“She was unconscious when I walked in,” he said. “I’ve almost got her around.” He turned his head to look at
