I don't think everybody involved is going to live happily ever after.
I don't think some of them will be allowed to live at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Ithought we'd swing by Cap'n Scrubby's first. Maybe have another chat with Red and draw up a map of The Palace Hotel, get the lay of the land before we launch our reconnaissance mission.
Instead, we drive straight north.
I guess Ceepak doesn't want word getting back to Squeegee that The Man's coming after him.
About the only thing we did back at headquarters before hopping in the car was check the cargo bay of the Ford.
Ceepak wanted to make sure his Sniper Weapon System was locked and loaded, ready to go. He raised the tailgate and used it to hide what he was doing while he twisted all the pieces together, snapped the telescopic sight into place, screwed on the silencer.
We take the back streets. Ceepak wants to avoid the reporters, the vigil crowds outside Playland, the traffic streaming off the island in fear.
It takes about twenty minutes to reach the tip of the island.
We pass the Ship John Lighthouse with its white-red-white striping that makes it look like a stubby candy cane. Ceepak wants the Explorer on stealth mode. I try to avoid potholes, skirt around gravel patches.
I see the profile of what's left of the old Palace silhouetted on the horizon. As the sun sets, the faded red turrets, all six of them, look like Santa Claus caps on top of sugar-cube towers.
“Coast.”
I jam the transmission into neutral, shut down the engine, and drift downhill across the rutted asphalt field that used to be the hotel's parking lot.
“There.” Ceepak is pointing.
There's still some remnant of a covered entryway, a crumbling canopy hanging off the second story. If we park under what's left of that, fewer folks upstairs will be able to see us.
Stopping the car takes my whole leg-the power brakes went out when I cut the engine. I practically pull a thigh muscle.
It's about 7:30. The setting sun makes the craggy stucco walls look kind of pinkish, like an Easter egg somebody already tapped and cracked.
I remember years ago when some local ladies in a club, The Very Rich Daughters of the American Revolution or something, formed a Preservation Society to save The Palace, what they called “The Dowager Queen” of seaside hotels. They made the governor declare this dump a Cherished State Landmark, and that means nobody can tear it down without jumping through all sorts of hoops and red tape.
There are hundreds of rooms, but only about a dozen look like they still have windows with any glass. I can see water stains and mold on the peeling wallpaper in the lobby. I suspect anything worth money-all the fixtures and oriental rugs and stained glass and carved furniture-was hauled out years ago.
“Let's take a little walk,” Ceepak says and points to a dilapidated dock out back behind the sagging hotel.
We march through the lobby. I can hear water dripping somewhere. Must be why the whole place reeks of mildew.
We reach the doorjambs on the far end of the lobby. No doors. Just some rusty hinges where, I guess, doors used to hang.
We head toward The Palace's private pier.
“You see it?” Ceepak whispers.
Finally I do.
There's a small aluminum fishing boat tied up to an ancient piling.
The dock creaks as we walk.
“Watch where you step.”
“Right.”
This time, I don't think Ceepak's worried about me stepping on evidence. I think there's a good chance one or both of us will step right through this rotting wood. I can see jagged holes where others already have.
We reach the post where the boat is tied up.
Ceepak lies down on his stomach on the deck.
“Danny? Grab my ankles.”
“Sure.”
I hold his socks, like I'm spotting him for a quick set of upside-down situps.
Ceepak leans down into the bobbing fishing boat. While he's hanging, he unsnaps a pocket, pulls out the Canon Sure Shot, and somehow snaps a digital photograph.
“Danny?”
He reaches back with the camera and I take it, using my knee to hold an ankle and temporarily free up a hand.
Meanwhile, his hand feels around his cargo flaps, snaps open a different pocket, digs inside, and fishes out the tweezers.
He lowers himself farther off the edge. If I let go now, he'll be head-banging the boat bottom and flipping into the drink for a dip.
“Got it!” he says. “Rotating.”
I have no idea what “rotating” means until I feel his very strong legs move around inside my grip so he's upside down and backwards and able to do this incredible abdominal crunch thing that brings him up to a sitting position on the dock.
In his tweezers, he's snared another surfer bracelet.
Another breadcrumb.
We move along the back of the hotel, under what must have been the grand verandah back when William Howard Taft was here putting on the feedbag.
We reach the remains of an in-ground pool. The water's all green and slimy and filled with crap. Stinks too, like it's been a bird toilet too long. Poolside, there's nothing but flaky chunks of concrete, bleached dry by the sun that used to shine so bright back here.
It's like that Springsteen song about Atlantic City:
“Everything dies
Baby that's a fact
But maybe everything that dies
Some day comes back.”
Then again, maybe not. Springsteen probably never saw The Palace Hotel's scummy pool.
Man-I can't wait until I see what even-more-depressing stuff we find inside. I think knowing Ceepak's sniper rifle is in the cargo bay of our cop car has put me in some kind of glum, gloomy mood.
I'm too young to think about death and dying. But I guess pretty much everybody thinks that way, no matter how old they happen to be.
“Looks like a restaurant,” Ceepak says. “Or a nightclub.”
We're standing in a big half-circle room surrounded by three tiered terraces for tables. I imagine this was the dance floor.
“Hungry?” Ceepak asks.
“Kind of.”
Good. He wants to eat, not dance.
Ceepak pulls two Power Bars out of his left pants leg.
There are a couple of cocktail tables and rusting café chairs. We sit down to our foil-wrapped suppers.
