“When?”
“After he stole my old lady.”
“You had a domestic dispute?”
“He came after me with a rusty blade, man! A machete! Said if I didn't back off, he'd go get his gun!”
“Squeegee has a gun?”
“Hell, yeah! How do you think he shot the billionaire on the beach? Don't you guys read the papers?”
“Where does Squeegee live?”
“Same place as me, man. Here, there, everywhere.”
“You're homeless?”
“Ever since the night those brown bastards drove us down.”
“Who?”
“The Dominican death squad, man! They said they'd smoke us out.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. And we had such a groovy thing going. Had the whole hotel to ourselves! You could take ten bedrooms if you didn't mind sharing space with Mother Nature's children … seagulls and shit….”
“Where was this hotel?”
“Up north, man. The Palace! It was like Camelot, and Gladys was my Guinevere!”
“Gladys?”
“My ex. My old lady. It was paradise, man.”
“What happened?”
“Reginald Fucking Hart. He pushed us out, man! The white man pushes out the Red man once again….”
Red is, of course, a Caucasian. The only minority he belongs to is old guys who eat too much ice cream and do too many drugs. While he shakes his head and fumes, he also clinks his spoon against the sides of his sundae glass, trying to scrape up any melted ice cream or cherry juice or chocolate fudge he might have missed on the first pass.
“Squeegee was working for The Man.”
“For Hart?”
“No-the jack-booted thugs. I figured he had some plastic-fantastic deal worked out with Mendez….”
“And who is Mendez?”
“Come on, man-keep up with me, okay?” He does the head-exploding shaking hands thing again. “Mendez was the leader of the pack. El jefe grande. Squeegee cut a deal with Mendez, I know he did. I swear that's why my old lady left me. Thought she could really be princess of The Palace by shacking up with King Squeegee. But whatever he told her? It was totally bogus. Squeegee got squeezed out, too. We all did.”
“What happened?”
“Couple weeks ago? We had to split. Mendez said he'd torch the building and use us for kindling if we didn't vamoose. So we packed our shit and split, hit the beach. I slept under the boardwalk. On the beach. Spent a couple nights on a cot in a church….”
“Have you seen Squeegee since you vacated The Palace Hotel?”
“Here and there. Here and there. I try to avoid him because of the bad vibrations that emanate from his aura. But I'll be honest-we both have substance abuse issues.”
Ceepak does this “really?” expression, pretending like this is some sort of news flash.
“So, sometimes, by sheer necessity, I have to deal with the devil, dig? Squeegee's always got good shit. The best.”
“Where does he procure his merchandise?”
“Where do you think? The Dominicans, dude! They have their fingers in every pot and, like I said, Squeegee worked out some kind of deal because even though he had to leave the hotel, he still has this primo powder, dig? And my old lady? She says they have plans. Big plans. You ever notice, man-chicks dig the dark, dangerous dudes like the Squeege? Even the bikini babes? From the beach?”
“Yeah?” He's got my attention.
“They dig him ’cause he's like this wild sex beast they want to ride and tame. Oh, yeah. I see the young chicks crawling under the boardwalk with ol’ Squeege all the time, promising to unsnap their jeans….”
“Springsteen,” Ceepak says.
“What?”
“‘Chasing the factory girls underneath the boardwalk where they all promise to unsnap their jeans.’ That's from a Springsteen song.”
“No, man. Not factory girls. These are like college co-eds. High-school chicks.”
Ceepak lets it drop.
Apparently Red's head is so fried, it's like an iPod somebody toasted in the microwave and the MP3s have melted together into one huge playlist shuffling randomly through his brain. He has no idea where the songs are coming from or which one's about to cycle into his consciousness.
“You ever see him at the Tilt-A-Whirl?”
“What? Having sex with factory girls?”
“Or doing anything.”
“Sure. He sets up shop there some nights. His own little drug store. I only go see him when I'm desperate, because lately the dude's been extremely cranky-ever since they canned his ass at the car wash on account of his thieving ways. He stole loose change from ashtrays. Groceries out of back seats. Shit, he even stole this little girl's stuffed dog from her car seat and then told everybody it was me who copped it.”
“Why'd he steal so much,” Ceepak asks, “if he had the drug income like you say?”
“Why does the devil keep on keepin’ on? Evil is writ large upon his soul. Squeegee is Beelzebub in disguise, telling dirty lies….”
I have no idea whose lyrics Red's ripping off this time.
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“A week ago. I needed some shit, and he was already lit up and talking about righteous retribution. How the last were going to be first and the first would be last. You know-that Jesus shit. Said judgment day was nigh and all slumlords would soon be summoned forth to pay.”
“Is that what he called Hart? A slumlord?”
“No. Squeegee never called Hart a slumlord. Him he called a ‘fucking slumlord.’ Can I get another one of these?” Red slides his empty ice cream dish across the table.
Ceepak pulls out a ten-dollar bill.
“Get yourself two.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“What's your 10–38?” Ceepak asks the chief.
“I'm at HQ. Ready to roll to Chesterfield's.”
Ceepak tilts the radio microphone to check his Casio G-Shock. It's 10:32.
“I thought the breakfast meet was set for 0-10 hundred?” Ceepak says, releasing the mike button to hear the chief's reply.
“Roger that,” the chief growls back. “But I had to go home and put on a goddamn tie. They want me on TV in an hour. I have to give a statement. Stand up in front of all those goddamn cameras and give a progress report. We got any?”
“Yes, sir. I think so.”
“What?”
“A witness.”
“To the murder?”
“No, sir. An acquaintance of Squeegee's who links him to Mendez. We need to go to Chesterfield's and Mendez needs to be there.”
“He is,” the chief says, sounding excited. “I have Malloy and Santucci stationed out front. They saw him go in. Ms. Stone is registered upstairs. Neither one has come out.”
“Excellent,” Ceepak says. “We'll meet there.”
“Ceepak? The mayor is crawling up my butt. People are packing suitcases and leaving town. You see the beaches this morning? They're goddamn empty. We need to wrap this up quick. Now!”
“Roger that. Just don't let Mendez leave the restaurant.”
“10-4.”
“Our ETA is five.”
“Good. Move it!”
Ceepak clicks off the radio and does one of those Hollywood “Cavalry, Ho!” hand gestures.
I stomp on the gas.
We proceed to haul some ass.
We arrive three minutes later.
Malloy is sitting out front in a cruiser with Tony Santucci. Santucci's behind the wheel, chomping more gum and looking like a total hardass. He wears those mirrored sunglasses like redneck sheriffs do in movies and rolls his short sleeves up so you can see more of his muscles.
Chesterfield's is a big Victorian bed amp; breakfast with gables and peaks and gewgaws. It's the kind of place my mom would love and my dad would only enter with a gun pointed at his head.
Or on Mother's Day.
I double-park the Explorer near the cruiser.
“You puke your breakfast again this morning?” Santucci asks, cracking his Dentyne.