Shit, that would be nice. “Full-time? At this resort?”
Al nodded.
“You hit the lotto?”
He shook his head. “I did alright over the years.” Then he thought about it for a second and decided I must look safe enough to tell his secret to. “Plus I bought Bitcoin at a quarter. Cashed out at just under twenty in December.”
“Dollars?”
“Thousand.”
I blinked. “Total?”
“Each.”
“Fuck.”
He nodded.
“So you’re doing alright, then?” I said, finding it difficult to swallow my drink now.
“Warren Buffet said there’s no future in cryptocurrency. See what he knows,” chuckled Al. “He’s from Omaha, you know. Warren. I sold a 185 Lo-Boy to his sister Bertie once. She’s a cutie, that one.”
I shook my head. This sounded too far-fetched to believe. “Right, so you and Mrs. Al are just going to live out your days in a hotel room here on the island?”
He hooked a thumb over his shoulders. “They’ve got some resort cottages down the road. We’ve got a kitchen and a living room. The whole shebang.”
“You walk all that way?” I asked, thinking of the dozen miles of stairs I’d walked to get from my room to the beach.
“Walk?” he repeated with a half-smile, exposing his weathered old teeth.
I nodded.
He glanced up at the bartender, who was drying a glass with a bar rag. They both smiled like they were sharing a joke on me. I looked from the bartender to Al and then from Al to the bartender again.
“There’s a golf cart over there that picks you up and drops you off anywhere on the resort property. There’s a new one every fifteen minutes until nine o’clock. Then it’s every half hour,” explained the bartender.
“No one uses the stairs?” I asked, feeling like an idiot.
He lifted a shoulder. “You did.”
Right.
“What’s your name?” I said to the bartender, extending a hand.
“Manny.” He shook my hand.
“Manny, I’m Drunk.”
“What’s your name?” asked Al, holding out his own hand. Apparently he hadn’t caught it on the ride to the resort when I’d caught his name.
I shook his hand. “It’s Drunk.”
“Eh? Drunk?” He said it like he’d heard me wrong. I was sure he did that a lot.
“Drunk!”
Al looked at Manny.
Manny stopped working and put both palms on the counter. “Your name’s Drunk?”
I nodded.
“That your first name or your last name?” said Al, still in disbelief.
“Last.”
“Huh.” He smirked. “I never met a Drunk before.”
I laughed. “Really? I’ve met plenty.”
11
Several drinks, several stories, and no women later, Al agreed to show me where the resort golf cart picked people up and dropped them off down at the beach. It was time for him to check on his wife, and time for me to put something in my stomach.
I’d learned quite a lot about Al over drinks. Al’s parents had immigrated to the US from Germany before he was born. He was a staunch Democrat in a sea of Republicans. He knew the stock market and mutual funds like the back of his hand, and he considered Warren Buffett to be a well-regarded friend even though they’d never actually met. He and Mrs. Al had had six children, one of whom had turned out to be a homosexual, and the other five had given him a combined total of twelve grandchildren, two of whom were adopted, and he had a litter of great-grandchildren that he said were too many to count. He drove a Buick back in the States, but he’d given it to his oldest great-grandson before moving to the island. Al’s mouth dribbled alcohol when he spoke, and by the looks of his stained shirt, I surmised he dribbled food when he ate too. He still thought his wife was hot, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take occasional glimpses of other women, because “That’s how God intended it.”
I rubbed my stomach. “I sure hope they’re still serving dinner,” I said loudly. I’d spent enough time with Al to know to speak loudly or we’d play the “What?” game until I lost my marbles.
“They’re not gonna let you in without a shirt on,” he promised. “You have to have a shirt.”
“I’ll pick one up at the clothing store in the lobby.” My stomach growled like crazy. I clapped a hand over it and groaned. Drinking all evening on an empty stomach had probably not been the wisest idea. I’d been waiting for the chicks to show up, but they never had.
He pointed at my stomach. “Your stomach bothering you or something?”
I shrugged. “I got pretty wasted last night. Woke up with a massive hangover. Been drinking on an empty stomach since.”
“You take probiotics?”
“Probiotics?” I repeated with a smile. There was an old guy for you. Once upon a time in a man’s life, the hot topics of conversation revolved around hot women and fast cars. In the golden years, those things were replaced by discussions of medication lists, medical conditions, and which restaurants had the earliest buffet line. “No. I don’t take probiotics.”
He pointed at me sternly. “You should. They’re good for hangovers.”
With one foot resting on the front seat headrest and the other foot casually dangling out the side of the cart, I sipped the last of my drink. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. Plus they’ll make your balls bigger.”
Lime margarita spewed out of my mouth. I looked over at Al with a smile. “Shut up. You’re fucking pulling my chain, right?”
He smiled at me. “No, I’m not pulling your chain. Look it up. Probiotics increase your testosterone and give you bigger balls.”
“Sorry, Al, but if my balls get any bigger I’m gonna have to buy all new pants.”
The approaching sound of sirens wailing behind us drowned out our easy laughter. The cart pulled off to the side of the road as an island cop wailed by, its lights flashing. Following close behind was an ambulance.
“What the hell…?” I said, following both vehicles with my eyes.
“Oh man. Looks like something happened. I sure hope it’s not Evie.” He began a mad pat-down of his pockets in search of his phone. “I better give her a call.”
“Do you know what happened?” I asked the driver, who had been chuckling along with us only seconds ago.
“I have no idea.”
Al fumbled with his small flip phone.
I sat up straight. “Well, can you step on it? Al’s got a wife up there somewhere.”
The golf cart pulled up to the porte cochere, where several resort workers were gathered outside, staring at the mess of lights further down the block.
“What’s going on?” asked the driver.
The resort employee, a tall black, gap-toothed man with short dreads and broad shoulders, pointed towards the lobby. “They found a dead body in one of the rooms down there. Brains splattered all over the place. Ozzy was the one to find the body. He said he’d never seen anything like it.” The employee held a fisted hand up to his mouth, like he was going to throw up just thinking about it.
The cop in me, which had slept on the entire flight to Paradise Isle, was now wide awake. I looked over at Al, who had managed to get his wife on the phone. “She okay?”
He nodded, holding a finger in the air. “Stay in the house and lock the door. Something happened over here. I’ll be there in a little while.” There was a pause. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. Just stay put.” He hung up the phone.
I looked at the driver. “Can you get us any closer?”
The driver stepped on the gas. “I’ll get you as close as they’ll let us go.”
Seconds later, we were stopped by a crowd gathered in the darkness around the outer perimeter of a police cordon. Lights had been brought in to illuminate the scene. Island law enforcement and medical personnel were coming and going from a motel room on the main floor. I made a face. The ar
ea looked familiar. I scratched my head for a second. What was my room number? What was my room number?
“Two seventy-seven,” I said aloud as the number hit me. My eyes scanned the doors that I could readily see. Two seventy-three. Two seventy-four. A crowd in front of the next couple doors. “Is that two seventy-seven?” I asked the driver.
He nodded. “Two seventy-seven, yes.”
“Shit! That’s my room! What the hell?” I launched myself out of the golf cart and rushed through the crowd, ducking under the tape.
“Drunk,” shouted Al. “Don’t do that!”
I waved at him as I yelled back. “No worries.” After all, I was a cop. I knew what I was doing. Sort of.
“Drunk!” I could hear him still shouting after me, but I was already approaching a uniformed officer who looked like he was running the show.
Another officer stopped me before I could get to the man in charge. “You! Behind the tape,” he ordered.
I pointed at the open door. “But that’s my room!” The alcohol in my system gave my eyes a crazed, glassy stare that in retrospect was probably a bit suspect.
His head tilted approximately ten degrees to the left. “Your room?”
I nodded.
He held a flattened palm out as he backed up to mumble something to his superior. The superior looked up at me. His cold black eyes were stony and his expression hard. Before he could reach me, Al was next to me.
“Drunk. This isn’t a good idea. Police around here aren’t real fond of Americans.”
“I got this Al, don’t worry.”
The superior officer strolled over to me. He was a stocky man, maybe stood all of five feet eight inches tall, with skin that matched his black uniform. “This is your room?” His voice was so deep, commanding and articulate that I swear he grew two inches.
I nodded. “Yeah, what’s going on?”
The superior narrowed his eyes at me. “What is your name?”
“Daniel Drunk,” I said, extending a hand. I would hold off mentioning to him that I was a cop. I was well aware that other countries’ police departments weren’t entirely fond of American cops. Having Al reiterate to me that these guys didn’t like Americans, whether they were cops or not, was enough for me to bite my tongue.
The man’s serious face seemed to grow more serious if that were possible. “Drunk, you say?”
My hand hung in the air. “Yes. And you are?”
“Sergeant Gibson.” He snuffed at my hand. “You are American?”
“Yeah, I just flew in a few hours ago. What’s going on in my room?” For the most part, I was known as being a pretty easy-going guy. In fact, there wasn’t much that ruffled my feathers, but seeing my room swarming with island cops and realizing that there might be a dead body inside had me feeling jumpy.
“Gunshots were reported in your room. Resort security discovered a body inside.”
I shook my head to clear any alcohol induced cobwebs. “That’s impossible. I was literally in there just a couple of hours ago and there was no one in there then.”
“A couple of hours ago?” he repeated as if he were already suspicious of me.
“Yeah. I flew in, took a shower in my room, and then headed down to the bar. I’ve been hanging out with Al and the bartender ever since.” I wanted to be clear about my whereabouts. I didn’t want anyone thinking that I was responsible for the dead body in my room. “You’re welcome to double-check with Manny, the bartender. I’m sure he’ll corroborate.”
“I was with him as well, Sergeant,” chimed in Al.
“And you are?”
“This is Al Becker. He’s a little hard of hearing,” I answered for Al. I didn’t want the hassle of the sergeant having to play the “What?” game with Al. “He’s staying here at the resort too. We met down at the bar. I’ve been sitting with him for the last couple of hours. There’s got to be some security cameras at this resort,” I added, glancing up and around at the motel’s soffits for any signs of surveillance equipment.
“We will take care of that,” he assured me.
“Who heard the gunshots?” I asked. “Have they been interviewed? Maybe they saw something.”
“I’m told a maid was heading home for the night when she heard the shots. She reported the event to resort security. I’m told that she witnessed two men fleeing the scene.”
Relief flooded over me. Surely at the very least, she’d be able to tell the officers that it hadn’t been me she’d seen. “Great, has she been interviewed?”
“Mr. Drunk, I understand you are anxious to get some answers, but my agency will handle this investigation. Right now, I’d like you to come take a look in your room. See if anything’s missing. Possibly ID the body.”
My brows lifted in surprise. “ID the body? Sergeant, I’m sure I can’t help you with that. I don’t know anyone on the island. This is my first time here. And I flew in alone.”
That’s when it hit me.
My eyes widened as her name trickled out of my mouth. “Pamela.”
Had she flown in to try and fix things? Had someone broken into our room? Had she been attacked before being killed by an intruder? Despite my feelings about her, I couldn’t help but still care if she were alive or dead. My heart hammered inside my chest. I sucked in my breath and rushed to the open door of my motel room, pushing aside law enforcement agents and medical personnel that stood in my way.
A body lay on the floor covered with a tarp. Blood pooled on the tile floor the same way water had pooled there at the foot of the bed earlier, and blood spatter stained the white duvet crimson red.
My heart sank.
Oh my God, Pam!
An officer kept me from entering by clenching my arm at the elbow, shoving a hand into my chest, and pushing me back. “You can’t be in here,” he said gruffly.
I struggled to get past. “But that’s my fiancée!”
One of the police photographers who had been kneeling next to the body spun his head and shoulders my way, and that was when I noticed the arm sticking out from under the tarp. The fingers were thick and fat and the arm was hairy.
Not Pamela.
I stopped struggling against the officer as an immediate sense of relief washed over me. Though the panic and fear had gone, I was left with the bottom end of an adrenaline spike that made my legs feel shaky and weak. My brain kicked in then. No time for weakness, Drunk, I told myself. I held myself up against the doorjamb and forced my cop training to take over. I noticed that, aside from the fat fingers and hairy arms, the only other discernible feature about the arm was that it had a silver-and-black watch on the wrist. Rolex.
I stared at that watch. I recognized it almost immediately. My intoxicated and adrenaline-filled brain clicked through the pictures in my mind. Where had I seen that watch? It was as if the combination numbers dialed into place and the lock clicked open. Jimmie!
12
My eyes widened. I stumbled as I instinctively took a step backwards. I’d created quite a scene when I thought it was Pamela. But now that I knew it wasn’t her, I felt like I’d just raised my own red flag in this country of people who apparently didn’t care for American tourists.
“You know that man?” asked Sergeant Gibson.
I shook my head and tried my best to put space between me and my room. “I thought it was my ex-fiancée.”
“Your ex-fiancée? She is on the island?”
“No. This was supposed to be our honeymoon, but we broke up and I came alone. I thought for a second that maybe she’d followed me here and gotten attacked inside my room or something.”
“How do you know that it is not her under that tarp, Mr. Drunk?”
I looked at the sergeant like he was insane. “Because it’s a man under that tarp!”
“And how exactly do you know that?”
“I saw an arm sticking out! It had hairy knuckles and a men’s watch. I just about married a cheating slut, Sergeant, but she was a cheating slut with hairless knuckles.
” I was working hard to calm myself down. If I showed my agitation with the situation, it was only going to make me look guiltier than I already did.
“Mr. Drunk, I am going to need you to take a look at the body with me and see if you recognize the man in your room.”
I shook my head. “But I don’t know the guy! I don’t know anyone on the island, I told you.”
Sergeant Gibson shrugged while beckoning me to follow him. “Indulge me.”
I let out a heavy breath. I didn’t want to get within fifty feet of that body. I didn’t want my shoes to touch a single drop of Jimmie’s blood, lest they try and pin the crime on me in some way. So I shook my head. “I’ll look at a photograph, or I’ll look at him down at your morgue, but I can assure you, I am not going back into that room.”
Sergeant Gibson didn’t look happy, but he turned stiffly and strode towards the motel room without a word.
I walked back over to Al, who was talking on the phone again. I assumed it was his wife.
“Go check on her,” I said.
He shook his head and hung up the phone. “She was just checking on me. She’s fine. You know who’s in there?”
I shook my head. “I thought it was my ex.” I hadn’t told Al about my honeymoon or about Pamela when we’d visited down at the bar. Mostly I’d just let him do the talking, and he hadn’t seemed to notice that I was being tight-lipped. “I thought maybe she followed me here.”
“Oh,” he said, his eyes widening. “I take it it’s not her?”
I shook my head again.
Sergeant Gibson emerged from the room again with a Polaroid in hand. He handed it to me, but I just looked at it from his hand. I didn’t want my prints on anything associated with the crime scene. Even the Polaroid photograph.
I fought back a grimace, careful not to let recognition color the expression on my face. It was Jimmie alright. With a small hole right between his eyes. He’d been shot at close range, that much was clear. “Nope. Don’t know him.”
“No idea what he was doing in your motel room?”
Drunk on a Plane Page 5