"Rain, Anthony Vincent - Three Palms" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rain Anthony Vincent)

= Three Palms
by Anthony Vincent Rain


I had been driving north on A1A for two hours. The stretch of beach to my right flashed into view from behind car dealerships, thickets of palms and the occasional boat slip. At the stoplight, I looked over and saw surfboards with tanned riders come flying over the tops of the waves.

I had the urge to leave my car right there on the blacktop and borrow one of those boards. Let the water and the sun and salt wash away the frustration of the past few days.

I had been working a bail jumping case. Gary DePalma was a one-time loser up on grand larceny charges. He had evaded his bondsman in New York, got into his Firebird and pointed the car south.

I was sent to round him up. Tell him he was a bad boy, slap a pair of cuffs on him and bring him back to Gotham.

But DePalma was smart. He had taken his passport with him. He snaked his way through the Carolinas and on into Florida. Once in the land of the gator and the manatee, he headed straight to Miami International Airport and hopped a plane to Colombia.

I had missed him by a half-hour. End of story.

I called my client, Harry Mack, DePalma's bondsman, and gave him the update. I would have liked to continue on after DePalma. Have my secretary FedEx my passport to me, put my car in long-term parking, buy a Spanish phrasebook in the airport bookstore. What the heck. I had never been to South America. And I was pissed.

Mack made sucking sounds over the phone, puffing on a cigar, thinking.

"I'll even throw in my frequent flyer miles, Mack." It was getting personal for me now. I'd come all this way for what? Bupkes.

"No, no plane trips. Head home," he said and hung up. Mack was a man of few words.

So I'd turned the car around. I'd decided to take A1A for a stretch to catch the scenery, which is how I'd ended up at this stoplight watching the teenagers rip the waves.

It was already four o'clock on a Friday afternoon, and my eyes and hands were going numb from all the driving anyway. After the light changed, I did a U-turn and pulled into a motel across from Canova Beach called Three Palms.

It wasn't much of a place, about a step up from the Bates Motel. The rates were good, though, and I was on Mack's time. Even he couldn't expect me to drive straight through.

"Room seven," said the desk clerk, returning my credit card and handing me a key. He was a man about fifty years old wearing a Buccaneers tee shirt and plaid shorts.

After I checked in, I drove to a nearby 7-Eleven, picked up a six-pack of Corona and a bag of peanut M&Ms, then settled back at the motel.

I opened two beers and lay on the bed. While I drank, I watched the sun flare flamingo pink, then turn over to blood orange. By the time the sun had burned past the tops of the trees, I'd fallen asleep.

I woke up when I heard the Corona empties crash to the floor and break. I turned and pulled the sheets over my head and heard the empties crash two more times.

That's when I realized it wasn't glass breaking. That's when my brain kicked in and told me it was the multiple report of a gun.

I rolled off the bed and moved to the window. The only light came from the Christmas lights on a pineapple palm in the front court. Christmas was four months ago.

I saw nothing else.

I opened my room door, looked out for a few seconds, and went downstairs. The humidity slapped me across the face with a wet hand. Off in the distance I could hear the ocean.

I cut to the parking lot behind the motel. It was a veritable rain forest back there, with thick grass and vegetation. A chorus of crickets replaced the sound of the waves.

The parking lot was a swath cut into the trees and grass. I moved between the parked cars and saw a man lying face down behind a Taurus. His crumpled body had a sense of permanence to the ground, as though he had been lying there for a million years. The fresh pool of blood, though, said he hadn't been there quite that long.