Tilt-a-Whirl

“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 amp; 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.