The Naked Detective(43)

I idled, traced out scallops of the coastline, and at length became certain that I'd reached the place. A tongue of sand led to a shadowed scrap of beach. I ran the Jet Ski onto it, thinking: another day, another trespass, another crime scene violated. Yet I felt oddly calm, calmer than when my thoughts had still been stuck on Maggie. I climbed off the Ski and walked the foreshore till it rose up steeply in a kind of terrace. There, squeezed right up against the fence, were a pair of palms bent parallel as dancers.

Between them, there was a slight depression in the sand. Unreasonably but firmly, I became convinced that this had to be the hole that Kenny Lukens was digging when he died. The depression was very shallow, practically filled in already, and it made me very sad. We all know that everything passes. All human effort gets erased. But on a beach it happens with dizzy and humiliating speed. Wind and tide flatten and sculpt. Crabs and ants launch tiny avalanches of tumbling grains. Past configurations count for nothing; the people who were there yesterday might never have been born.

I squatted down next to the disappearing hole. I don't know why, but it seemed important to me to touch the sand. I dug my hands in.

The sand still held late sunshine, was much warmer than the evening air. It was powdery on top, but underneath it caked around palm roots that were as hard as collarbones. I kneaded the sand, sifted it, turned it over. Then my fingers found something that wasn't beach. It was slender and smooth but had at one end a jagged, splintered point. I dug it out, examined it in the dying light. It seemed to be a broken plastic swizzle stick. Of course—there always had to be a matchbook and there always had to be a swizzle stick. This one had two flat squares at the top, overlapping each other on the diagonal.

I put it in the pocket of my life vest, then like a terrier I flicked some sand back onto the secret place I'd messed with. As I did so, I came abruptly to the end of my fragile and probably phony calm. I ran back to the Jet Ski, pushed it out into the water, and got the hell out of there.

———

"Did ya love it?" asked the goofy kid with the lanyard around his neck.

I slid off the Jet Ski and onto the dock. "Fabulous," I said. "Terrific."

I fished the swizzle stick out of my pocket and examined it under the humming lights. It was translucent red, and the flat squares turned out to be dice. A three and a four. Tiny depressions had been stamped in; they still held faint flecks of white paint, the rest having been scoured by the sand. I showed it to the kid. "Any idea where this is from?"

He studied it like it was an artifact from Troy. At last he said, "Looks like one of ours. Want a discount coupon?"

"Excuse me?"

"Discount coupon for the gambling boat. The Lucky Duck. I'm not supposed to give a coupon if you already got the sunset special, but what the hell."

Everybody loves a bargain, right? "Sure," I said. "I'll take a coupon."

I gave him back the life vest and we went up to the kiosk where he'd done the paperwork. He handed me a fake ten-dollar bill. It took a moment before I realized that in the oval where U. S. Grant should have been, there was a picture of a guy who looked a lot like Nero. Slick curly hair surmounted a broad and loose and sensual face, which rested in turn on a bed of rippling chins. He smiled like a rich cheese was tickling his gums. He looked familiar; and after a moment I remembered him from Lefty's funeral. The man with the Japanese fan.

"Mickey Veale?" I guessed.

"You know Mickey?" asked the kid.

"Only heard of him. What's he like?"

"He's a pisser. Good boss. First-name kind of guy. Not a suit, ya know?"

I looked again at the satyr who'd put himself on money. I could see him in a toga way easier than I could see him in a suit. "I heard he came from Vegas."

"Yup. Vegas got too wholesome for him. 'Least that's what he says. They put in kiddie rides, he was out of there."

I thought: Gee, if it turns out that he's not a murderer; chances are I could have a few laughs with this guy. "He go out on the boat?"

"Keeps an office on it," said the kid. "Some nights he goes out, some nights he doesn't."

"I need a reservation?"

"Just show up at a quarter of eleven. North Haven Marina. It's over—"

"Next to Redmond's," I put in. "Toxic Triangle."

The kid looked at me a little funny. "You're not really from New Jersey, are you?"

I took it as a compliment but insisted that I was. I said good night and went to fetch my bike.





22


And then I actually got to spend a couple hours at home.

Frankly, this was heaven—a heaven of the simplest things. A hot shower. A plate of scrambled eggs. A glass of young and cedary Côtes-du-Rhône and some music on the stereo. Bill Evans playing live stuff from the fifties, early sixties. Getting amazing precision out of crappy road pianos, with no chance for a second take. No one's ever done it better.