King Tide

by A. J. Stewart

  “I’ll give you a hand,” Ron said.

  “And Detective, perhaps I can assist you,” said Neville .

  We wandered off in our opposite directions. Ron and I trailed wet footprints across the lobby and past the check-in desk. The marble underfoot was slippery and I wondered who would dry it. Not the maid, that was for damned sure. Past the desk we entered a corridor that was carpeted in that design style that only hotels use, the stuff that’s way too busy but hides a multitude of sins. There were a couple of unmarked doors, and then another door on our right marked as the fire stairs. Beyond that on the left was a frosted glass door that didn’t say it was the gym but didn’t need to.

  Gyms have a scent, even the ones in fancy hotels. Throughout college and my modest professional sports career I had spent more than my share of time in gyms. Some smelled like sweat and hard work and determination, and some smelled like cleaning solution. This one was the latter. I slipped the key card through the slot and pushed the glass door open. The gym wasn’t large but hotel gyms rarely are. The space was lit with unappealing fluorescent tubes and had coarse gray carpet. There was a rack of fresh towels to the side of the door, and a water cooler. The equipment looked in good condition. Knowing what I did about the average guest for The Mornington I suspected it didn’t suffer from overuse. There was a treadmill and a stair climber and a stationary bicycle, all vacant. Then there was an elliptical machine. There was a guy loping around on the elliptical. He was tall and lean, but not skinny. Muscular but not heavily built. His skin was the color of polished mahogany. His movements were both fluid and economical, and although his back was to me his bald head wasn’t offering a drop of sweat.

  On the other side of the aerobic equipment was a weight bench with an empty barbell in a contraption that looked like a steel four-poster bed. It was a large cubic frame with holes throughout it. All white-coated steel with two black bars running through either side parallel to the bench. I recalled it was called a power rack. It seemed a touch of overkill for The Mornington. A collection of weights lay on the floor nearby. Along the wall from the bench was a collection of dumbbells of various weights, backed by a mirror. Gym junkies liked to watch their muscles flex when they lifted. I never really saw the point. But I looked in the mirror as we crossed the floor. I didn’t look good. My damp shirt clung to me, and my sandy blond hair sat matted across my furrowed brow.

  In the corner of the room sat a machine that was designed to allow the user to lift weights attached by pulleys. Chest press, flys, lat pulls. All the standards. There was a guy working his quads on it. He didn’t look right on the machine. It was like it was a couple sizes too small for him. He was stacked. He wore tight shorts and a tank top that wouldn’t have passed as a napkin in a lobster restaurant in Maine. His arms had muscles on muscles. He clearly put in serious gym time. And then some more. He eyed me as I passed and I failed to see any trace of humanity in his eyes. His pupils were small and dark. I knew the look. I knew the type. I had played baseball for a lot of years, and I’d seen some guys do things to make it big that they should have left well alone. I’d done one or two of those things myself, for a time. I knew a steroid stare when I saw it.

  I walked past the beefcake to the wall near the dumbbells. Neville the Englishman had said they liked to leave the hurricane shutters off as long as possible, and I could see why. Floor-to-ceiling windows ran from the wall right around in front of the treadmill, the bicycle and the elliptical. The view was a killer. Straight out the glass door from where I stood I saw a paved deck and a moderately sized resort pool. It would normally be bathed in sunshine and surrounded by lounge chairs. The loungers were packed away so the pool looked lonely and a forbidding gray rather than sparkling azure. The view out to the east looked onto the seawall and beach below. The guy on the elliptical was looking at the outer rim of a hurricane and didn’t seemed disturbed by the fact that the only thing between him and the debris being flung about at ninety miles an hour was dual panes of glass.

  I checked that the glass door out to the pool was open and then Ron took one end of a long storm panel and I took the other. The wind was driving the rain sideways across the paved pool deck. The air felt heavy, like swimming near the bottom of a pool. We stayed close to the glass and kept the metal panel between the window and us. Large metal panels and high winds really don’t mix and I cursed the hotel’s groundsman, whoever he was, for not doing his job earlier.

  The windows were floor to ceiling around the gym, and held a track at the bottom and an h-header at the top to slide the panel into. It took some doing. The panel was keen to take flight, and we had to fight to keep it from doing so. Too late we realized that we needed a ladder to fix in the bolts at the top of the panel, so Ron ended up on my shoulders. We looked like a circus act at an old folks’ home. I was wobbling around as if on a unicycle, the winds buffeting me into the corrugated metal hurricane panel time and again as Ron fixed the panel in place. I thanked genetics that Ron was a naturally thin guy, because with his diet and our tendency to spend a little too much time leaning on the bar at Longboard Kelly’s he really shouldn’t have been.

  We got the first panel fixed in place and went back inside for the second. I was technically wetter than I had been five minutes earlier, but I wasn’t sure how anyone could tell. Ron wiped his brow and picked up his end of the next panel and I held the door open with my foot.

  “Hey, man, you’re letting the rain in,” said the muscle-bound guy on the weight machine. He had some kind of accent. European of some sort, but it was hard to discern against the howling of the wind and the rain beating on the windows.

  I left the big jerk to his pec routine and stepped back out into the weather. It was still afternoon but the clouds were giving us a glimpse of what a nuclear winter must look like. We edged back around and repeated our circus act and got the panel in place. We got back inside and took a drink from the cooler in the water. It felt incongruous that I could be thirsty while being so wet. I was slamming down a second small cup when the big guy on the weight machine spoke.

  “You gonna clean that up?” he said.

  I got a bit more of the accent and landed in France. I’m not one to throw a blanket of judgment over an entire nation, but arrogance dripped from this guy’s speech, and it just felt so French. I glanced down and noticed that I was dripping all over a workout bench.

  “Tell you what sport, if this building is still here tomorrow, I’ll be in here with a towel.”

  He snorted. The clichés kept coming.

  “You scared of a little wind?” He said little so it rhymed with beetle , and it made me smile.

  “I’m not scared of a little wind. I’m scared of a lot of wind. And if you’re not, you either don’t know what a hurricane can do, or you’re a fool.”

  “What do you call me?” he said, jutting out his chin.

  Ron slapped my shoulder and smiled and wandered past the French guy to grab another hurricane panel. Ron’s a smart guy, so I followed his lead. The Frenchman watched us cross before him without moving his head. We picked up the next panel and headed back into the weather. We placed three more panels, and the view was gone. The gym suddenly looked like Alcatraz. The only part left open was the door we were going through. I grabbed a couple of rolled-up towels and wandered out of the gym and into the corridor, and then down to the end of the building, where there was an emergency exit. It was solid and heavy and a match for any hurricane. Except pushing it open was a real chore against the wind. I had to dig my heels into the carpet and really put my shoulder into it, and it occurred to me that the big Frenchman in the gym would have been useful for the task.

  I stuck the towels in the jamb as the door slammed home and walked around to the gym door as if it were a sunny day. A person can only get so wet, and I was there. I stepped back into the gym and heard the Frenchman grunting as he did seated leg extensions. He glanced up and scowled at me for letting the rain in again.

  “You know doing
extensions like that is bad for your knees,” I said. I wasn’t trying to get him wound up. I had hated the exercise when I played ball, and a trainer at Oakland had told me about it. He said it was an unnatural position for the knee. He said regular squats with free weights on a barbell were better. Which made me wonder why such a built guy was using the machines at all. The bodybuilder types always went for the free weights over machines.

  “What the hell do you know?” he said.

  I shrugged. “I know real men don’t bother with the play equipment. They use free weights.”

  Now I was trying to wind him up. Perhaps I shouldn’t have because he unhooked his legs from the contraption he was in and he stood. He wasn’t tall but he was big in every other way, and he looked quick to temper like a lot of guys on steroids.

  “I don’t use free weights because I lift heavy. Heavier than you can dream.”

  I wasn’t sure how heavy I could dream, but I was sure that thought was going to stick around in my head for a while. Do dreams have mass?

  “When you lift what I do,” he continued, “you always use a spotter. You want to spot me, little man?”

  “You want to help us finish out here?” I asked, nodding at the last hurricane panel.

  “Do I look like I work in a hotel?”

  “Do I?”

  I didn’t wait for his answer. Neither of us looked like we worked in a hotel. To be fair, neither of us really looked like we worked, period. He looked like he lived in a gym, and I looked like a drowned beach bum. I glanced at the guy in the elliptical as I turned. He was done, and was rolling up his earphones.

  “How ‘bout you, wanna do your good deed for the day?”

  The guy frowned and nodded. He was a good-looking guy, strong in an athletic way. His reaction made me question if he spoke English, but then he stepped down off the elliptical and ran his towel across his bald head.

  “I need a soak in the hot tub,” he said in a mid-Atlantic accent.

  I said nothing.

  The big Frenchman said, “You do that,” and gave the guy a glare, clearly his preferred facial expression.

  The black guy strode out of the gym.

  Ron shrugged as if to say kids , and we picked up the last panel and carried it outside. We fitted it in place, covering over the door and the last access to the gym. By the time we wandered back toward the emergency exit the sky was a shade darker and the rain was coming in a shade harder. I pulled the door open and Ron picked up the towels that dropped and we headed back toward the lobby, leaving behind the grunting coming from the gym.

  Chapter Six

  We met Ronzoni in the lobby. He was every bit as wet as we were. The manager, Neville, was also drenched to the bone, but somehow his suit still looked good. The benefits of bespoke tailoring. The only thing amiss was a single wet hair that had fallen across his forehead. It made him look more human.

  “All locked up tight?” asked Ronzoni.

  “Tighter than a drum,” I said. “Now what?”

  “I just called the desk sergeant. The National Weather Service has upgraded Beth to a category two hurricane. The island’s officially closed. So we’re all here for the duration.”

  The young woman who had checked Ron back into his room appeared at Neville’s hip. Neville must have sensed her more than seen her because his eyes darted in her direction despite her standing slightly behind. Perhaps the guy had a great nose for perfume.

  Ronzoni continued. “The weather service is saying the hurricane is likely to make landfall somewhere near Jacksonville. That means maximum winds here in the early hours of tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s gonna hit south of Jacksonville,” I said, recalling Mick’s prognostication. “More likely on the Treasure Coast.”

  “You know better than the weather service, do you, Jones? ”

  “I have good sources. But it just means it will be a little earlier and a little harder.”

  “Well, either way I think it would be best to move the guests away from the ocean side of the hotel.” Ronzoni looked at Neville. “Can we get everyone into rooms on the other side?”

  Neville gave his wrinkle-less frown like he was considering the overtime implications of cleaning two sets of used rooms.

  “Of course, Detective,” he finally said. “Miss Taylor, please assign rooms for our guests on the leeward side of the building and create key cards as necessary.”

  “Yes, Mr. Neville.”

  “I will inform the guests in the lounge of the arrangements,” Neville said, turning on his heel and striding away.

  “I’ll go tell Cassandra we’re out again,” said Ron. “Catch you in the bar shortly, I’m sure.”

  I was left standing in a pool of water with Ronzoni and the girl from the desk. She smiled, which was the brightest thing I’d seen that day. She looked young and alive and a little out of place in what was a pretty old-school hotel. Her immaculate suit barely contained the energy pulsing from her.

  “So, Detective and Mr. Jones.”

  I had no idea how she had acquired my name but I figured that’s what five-star hotel service was like.

  “My name is Emery Taylor, and I’m the assistant general manager here at The Mornington. If you would like to follow me I’ll get you both rooms so you can dry off and change.” She smiled again.

  “Your boss there offered me a deal on a room already, but I’m okay staying down here,” I said.

  She gave a stifled laugh. “Yes, I’m sure Mr. Neville offered you the best rate available. He’s a bit of a stickler for that sort of thing. But I think in the circumstances we can comp the rooms.”

  “Will that get you in trouble?”

  She put her hand on my bicep.

  “I find it easiest to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, don’t you?”

  “Let the girl do her work, Jones,” said Ronzoni.

  I did. She gave me the smile one more time and I wondered how anyone would deny her forgiveness, and then she dropped her hand and led us away.

  Emery slipped in behind the front desk, created three key cards and handed one each to Ronzoni and me. She kept the third.

  “I misplaced mine,” she said with an embarrassed grin. “I’m keeping everyone on the second floor, as low as possible. Would that be the right idea, Detective?”

  I caught Ronzoni gazing at young Emery, and it took him a moment to snap back to planet Earth.

  “Yes, yes. Lower is better. Less wind speed, and easier to evacuate if we have to.”

  “Well, if you gentlemen would like to change, I’ll fix up rooms for the other guests.”

  I looked at Ronzoni and he looked at me and neither of us moved. Emery clicked away on her keyboard for a moment and then looked up.

  “I’m sorry. You don’t have anything to change into, do you?”

  We both shook our heads. Neville, the general manager, snuck up from behind us and coughed to announce his presence.

  “Miss Taylor, you have assigned the rooms?”

  “Just finishing that now, sir.” She tapped at her computer and then passed Neville a handful of key cards in little paper jackets.

  “Thank you, Miss Taylor. ”

  “Of course. And sir, it appears that Detective Ronzoni and Mr. Jones don’t have anything dry to change into.”

  Neville looked us up and down with what was rapidly becoming his trademark disapproval, despite the fact he was almost as wet as we were.

  “Of course. The boutique is closed for the storm, but perhaps you could let them in to select some new attire?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Neville strode away again and Emery stepped out from behind the desk and took off across the lobby.

  “Gentlemen,” she said, and we followed like a couple of well-trained but mischievous puppies.

  At the north end of the lobby was another corridor. On one side looked to be a series of meeting rooms, with doors the same color as the walls so as to appear not there at all. On the other side we
re glass-fronted retail spaces. The first room looked like a general store-type place where guests could pick up some suntan lotion or a pack of gum or a new gold-plated pen. The store was closed and dark inside. The second store had human-shaped cutouts in the window that were wearing summer dresses and tropical shirts. Emery produced a ring of keys, selected one and crouched down to unlock the glass door at its base. She pulled the door and strode into the dark space, and then with a flick of a switch canned lights illuminated the store.

  There were round racks of dresses and t-shirts and swimming apparel. One wall held a collection of hats out of a Bogart movie. There was a rotating rack of sunglasses designed for movie stars. At the rear of the room was a glass cabinet holding watches that looked worth more than my car.

  Ronzoni wandered over to a rack that held a range of summer suits, which made me wonder if he ever wore anything else. I scoped a rack of shirts not dissimilar from the wet one I was wearing. I selected one that had stylized blue palm fronds all over it. It was a shirt that my late, great mentor and friend Lenny Cox would have called a going out shirt. I held it up and flipped out the tag on the sleeve and checked the price. It was possible to get a return flight to Westchester County, New York, from Palm Beach out of season for about half the price of the shirt I was looking at. I had to run my hand over the fabric to feel what such an exquisite price felt like, but I found to the touch it was just like regular cotton. I glanced across at Ronzoni. He had pulled a suit from the rack and was as pale as a ghost. Clearly he had also seen the price. I wasn’t quite sure what made these fabrics so costly but I suspected it had something to do with the real estate we were in. Ronzoni looked up at me, mouth agape. He looked like a boy who had made his Christmas list, behaved himself and then received nothing more than coal in his stocking as reward.

  “Miss Taylor, I wonder if there is a facility to dry our clothes out? This store is perhaps a bit too boutique for a cop and a PI.”

  Emery glanced at Ronzoni and back at me and gave a knowing grin.