Perhaps it was because I was not truly alone. Lurking just beneath the water's surface were scores of stingrays, tiger sharks, and jellyfish. I supposed I should be wary of these creatures, but I wasn't. Not once had I been stung, nibbled on, or had my space invaded. Someday I might get my arm chewed off, but until then, I was willing to take my chances.
I swam for an hour, then headed back to shore. I heard a siren coming over the bridge. Dania was God's waiting room, and I assumed it was an ambulance. But then the siren multiplied: two, three, four. Police cruisers, all in a line.
I hit the shore running. Sonny met me halfway, looking panicked.
“I blew it,” he said.
“What happened?”
“I went to piss, and the phone rang. Whitey grabbed it. Some cop asked if you were here. Whitey told them you'd gone swimming.”
My feet took the stairs to my room three at a time. Banging open the door, I called for my faithful companion. Buster jumped off the bed and followed me downstairs. Sonny stood in the bar's entryway.
“Hold my calls,” I said.
Beneath the Sunset was a shady space where the sand and the wood meet that was impossible to see from the beach. I hid there with my dog and peered out through a decorative latticework nailed to the side of the building. Four wailing police cruisers pulled into the lot, and a gang in blue piled out. Russo was with them and looked mad as hell. I guessed he'd already taken his Suburban to the shop.
The cops entered the Sunset, flat feet pounding hard boards.
“Where the hell is Carpenter?” Russo roared.
“Swimming!” Whitey replied.
I listened to Russo walk out of the bar and climb the narrow stairwell. At the top he addressed the uniforms searching my room.
“It's clean,” a cop said loudly.
“You couldn't have searched it that quickly,” Russo said.
“There's nothing in it,” the cop said.
“Search it again,” Russo said. “Tear the place upside down, rip the mattress in half, I don't fucking care. That file has to be here.”
I leaned back in the sand and shut my eyes. I'd forgotten all about the file.
The day I'd left my job with the sheriff 's department, I'd taken Simon Skell's case file with me, intent on poring over clues until I could unravel the mystery of how he'd made his victims vanish without a trace. I hadn't thought the file would be missed. So many things have vanished from the Broward County Sheriff Department's building, like bales of marijuana and thousands of rounds of ammunition, that one stinking file should have gone unnoticed. Stupid me.
Russo padded down the stairs and reentered the bar.
“That Acura parked in the lot. That's Carpenter's, isn't it?” he asked.
“That's his car,” Sonny said.
“You got a key?”
“No, but he leaves it unlocked.”
“I'm going to search it. I don't want any of you to move, understand?”
“No sir,” the Seven Dwarfs replied in a drunken chorus.
“That goes for you, too,” Russo said.
“I'm not going anywhere,” Sonny said.
Russo left the building and shuffled through the sand to the lot. He was twenty feet from where I was hiding, and I could hear him muttering under his breath. He was going to have a stroke someday, I'd make book on it.
Russo searched my car and returned to the Sunset, muttering even louder than before. One of the boys in blue met him at the door.
“Carpenter's room is clean,” the uniform said.
“Fuck, shit, piss,” Russo said, kicking the door. “Get the men out here. I want you to look up and down this stinking beach until you find him. We're not leaving here without that file, understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
An incoming wave broke over me, and I spit out a mouthful of salt water. Russo needed the Skell file to make his case to the district attorney, who was breathing down Russo's throat about the body in Julie Lopez's backyard. Only I wasn't going to give Russo the file. It was my last tie to the case, and I wasn't ready to let go.
The cops hit the beach and spread out. Because the tide was up, the team assigned to search the north end walked around the Sunset instead of coming down to the shoreline. It was the first break I'd caught all day.
Russo stayed behind and searched my car again, giving special attention to the cavity where the spare tire sat. Another wave broke over me. I realized that if I stayed here much longer, I was going to drown.
I slipped into the Sunset with my dog. As Buster raced up stairs I entered the bar. Sonny and the Dwarfs were watching old fight films on ESPN. I put my finger to my lips and shushed them, then took the lone stool at the bar.
My body temperature was dropping and I could not stop shivering. Sonny loaned me a spare T-shirt, one of the Dwarfs floppy fisherman's hat, and I was in business. Taking my beer out of the ice chest, Sonny filled a frosted mug.
“You really think this is going to work?” he asked.
“It beats drowning,” I replied. “How about another round for my mates?”
“Big tab or little tab?”
“Little tab.”
The Dwarfs' collective memory span was about five seconds, and they applauded my generosity. Through the window I saw Russo lift his head from the trunk of my car. His radar told him something wasn't right, and he made a beeline for the building.
I did what any self-respecting drunk would do and buried my face in my suds. Russo barged into the room with flushed cheeks.
“What's with all the racket?” he demanded.
Sonny pointed at the TV. “Ali just knocked out Foreman.”
“That's old news,” Russo said.
“Not to these guys.”
Russo glared at him. If he'd bothered to count heads when he'd come in the first time, he'd notice we'd multiplied. But he didn't, his mind wrapped up in other things. Like how he was going to tell the DA there was no file.
Muttering to himself, Russo went back outside. I continued to buy rounds while the cops conducted their snipe hunt. As the sun set they returned to their cruisers and drove away. Russo was the last to leave, the interior light of his car illuminating a solitary man wrestling with his situation.
Soon everything was back to normal. Sonny served me a bowl of house chili with some crackers. I ate quickly, then caught myself yawning and decided it was time for bed. As I rose from my stool the Dwarfs broke into a rousing rendition of “For He's a Jolly Good Fellow.” It was a fine way to end a lousy day. Returning the clothes I'd borrowed, I bid them all good night.
CHAPTER NINE
Morning came hard and bright.
Lying in bed, I watched a seagull float outside my window while trying to make sense of what had happened last night. The cops had torn apart my room searching for the Skell file, but they'd managed to put everything back in its place. That wasn't normal behavior, and I supposed the special treatment came from having been one of them. Or maybe Russo told them to. I decided the latter was probably what happened, meaning Bobby didn't hate me as much as I thought he did.
An immovable object lay beside me: Buster was positioned so snugly against my body that I could not get out of bed. I grabbed a hind leg and pulled.
“Rise and shine.”
We were both creatures of habit. Buster drank out of the toilet before I used it, then waited by the door. I washed up, threw on shorts and a long-sleeved running shirt, and took my dog outside for a run.
Breakfast awaited us at the bar upon our return. A bowl of table scraps for my dog, a cup of coffee and a copy of the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel for me. It was part of my rent, and I thanked Sonny, who sat on a stool behind the bar, half asleep.