No Right Turn

by A. J. Stewart

  “When was this?”

  “About thirty-five years ago.”

  I said nothing.

  “I’ll give him a call. His name’s Danny, Danny Rucci.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “You look like you got something else on your mind.”

  “You’re like an X-ray machine for thoughts, Sal.”

  “I read faces, is all. You seen as many faces as I seen, you learn to read ’em.”

  “You ever heard of the F-88?”

  Sal pouted his lips. “What is it? Top Gun?”

  “No, it’s a car. Like one of those concept cars from a car show. Only this one is from the fifties.”

  “Okay.”

  “There was only thought to be one of them in existence. Then a second turned up. The history is a bit fuzzy on it.”

  “Provenance.”

  “Right. So maybe it’s hot, or maybe it’s not. Maybe someone else might try to lay claim to it.”

  “Could happen.”

  “How do you sell something like that?”

  “Quietly.”

  “Right. My client was approached. He’s known to collect cars like this one. He buys it, and the day it’s delivered, or maybe the day after—during the hurricane in any case—it gets stolen.”

  “Inside job.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.”

  “Your client did it for the insurance money, or someone close to him did it for the money, or the seller stole it back.”

  “It wasn’t insured, because he’d have had to declare its existence to the insurance company. And he says he doesn’t know who the seller was, that he was approached by an intermediary.”

  “And he won’t say who that is.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I know some guys, move stuff like that. They like to keep a low profile. I’ll put some feelers out.”

  “Thanks, Sal.”

  “So you gonna tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “Where you woke up this morning?”

  “PGA National.”

  “Like on the fairway? What are you, back at college?”

  “Not on the course, Sal. In a condo. You remember Lucas.”

  “I do. He’s a serious individual.”

  “He is. Turns out he has an investment property at PGA National.”

  “See, I keep telling you. Buy some real estate, kid. They ain’t making no more land. But why did you sleep at PGA National?”

  “Someone from the county put a no habitation order on my house.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “No, it’s not. And then when Danielle and I got back there last night and just went in, someone called the sheriff’s office to rat us out.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. But I know this. Some well-dressed Latino guy has dropped by twice now to offer to buy my house.”

  “What’s he offering?”

  “Not the point, Sal. I don’t want to leave. I like it there. And I’ll never afford to get anything like it again.”

  “Depends on his price.”

  “Lowball.”

  “Typical. You see it after every big blow. Lowlifes swoop in to take people’s houses while they’re at their lowest point. But here’s a question. Why call the sheriff? Why not the local PD?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll tell you why. Because someone is connected to the sheriff but not the Riviera Beach PD. Your guy isn’t local. Maybe from Palm Beach, or further away, but not local to you.”

  “Good point.”

  “And how did they know you were home? You see any cars or vans watching your place.”

  “No. I went for a run just before. The street was empty of vehicles.”

  “And yet someone called the sheriff. Someone’s watching your house.”

  I thought on that.

  “Thanks, Sal. You’ve got wisdom beyond your years.”

  “I’ve got years beyond all knowledge of mankind, that’s what I got.”

  I thanked him and went to leave, then I remembered something.

  “Hey, Sal—you like music?”

  “That’s like asking if I like food. I like Deano, I don’t like rap.”

  “Yeah, Deano. The crooners. Sammy Davis, Jr., Nat King Cole, that sort of thing.”

  “That’s the stuff, kid.”

  “Buzz Weeks and his crew are doing a benefit show at Ted’s in Lauderhill. Help some folks who lost their homes. Danielle and I were planning to go. I think you’d enjoy it.”

  “I don’t go to clubs at my age.”

  “Don’t get old on me, Sal.”

  “All right, kid. I haven’t seen Buzz in too long. Thanks.”

  “No, thank you.”

  I left before he could get all terse about thanking him. He didn’t take thanks well. Some folks are like that. I got back in my car. The restaurant was still going gangbusters, and I now had a hankering for egg rolls and fried rice. But I suppressed it. I had someone I wanted to see. Someone just back along Okeechobee Boulevard. Someone who might shed some light on who it was trying to weasel me out of my house.

  Chapter Twelve

  The Planning, Zoning and Building Department for Palm Beach County sat on Jog Road just off Okeechobee, on Sally’s side of the turnpike. It was in one of those ubiquitous Florida government buildings that were built to look like some grand pantheon from Europe but on a more budget-friendly scale and looked so new and polished it was less old Europe than new Disney World.

  Inside it was old-fashioned bureaucracy. I found a woman at a desk whose sole purpose appeared to be to ignore customers at all costs. She focused hard on a computer screen in a way that suggested she was reading the same word over and over. Perhaps it was a tough word.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said.

  I got nothing in return. It must have been a really tough word.

  “Excuse me, ma’am,” I repeated.

  “Take a number,” she said without taking her eyes from the screen.

  “Actually I don’t need a number.”

  “You want to speak to anyone, you need a number.”

  “I just need to know if Peter Malloy is here.”

  “Not if you don’t have a number.”

  “I can’t take a number. The machine’s broken.”

  This was a lie. We both knew it, but it put her in a difficult position. She dragged her eyes from the screen and gave a look of absolute and intense boredom, like she’d heard it all before.

  “Just press the button.”

  “Did that.”

  “Do it again.”

  “That would be insanity.”

  “What?”

  “Doing the same thing and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.”

  I had no idea if that was true. I’d heard it somewhere, an urban legend. It certainly wasn’t a clever way of going about things, but I wasn’t sure it qualified as fully-fledged insanity.

  The woman was a millisecond short of an eye roll. She hefted herself out of her chair and wandered away toward a door that separated them from us. She wandered out into the foyer with all the joy of a funeral march and headed for the ticket machine that dispensed the numbers that delineated who got to speak to whom and in what order.

  She got to the machine ahead of a guy in paint-splattered bib and brace overalls. He waited without comment. I got the impression it wasn’t his first time at this particular rodeo, and he knew pushing the bureaucracy was pointless. The woman made eye contact with me and then in slow motion punched the button on the machine. It gave a quiet hum as it printed a ticket and then it slowly ejected the square of paper. She left the ticket hanging from the machine like a tongue poking out of a mouth.

  “I just need to know if Peter Malloy is here.”

  The woman didn’t answer. She just ambled back to her post staring at the screen, ignoring all comers. The guy in the overalls hesitated. He wanted to take a number but my ti
cket still hung from the machine.

  “It’s all yours,” I told him.

  He nodded and pulled the paper out. “You looking for Malloy?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  “We’ve crossed swords. But you won’t find him here. He’ll be in the field.” He put air quotes around in the field. “If I wanted to find him, I’d look at Bar Playa, west of PBI. You know it?”

  “I know it.”

  “Look for the book guy.”

  I didn’t know what that meant, but I figured I would when I needed to. I thanked the guy, got back in my SUV and headed down toward the airport. Just west of the airport was a run of strip malls—fast-food franchises, vehicle repair outlets and donut shops—that serviced the local community rather than the traveler that tended to congregate east of the airport, nearer the beach. At the rear of a strip mall sat a small Cuban bar that was popular with taxi drivers. There was a small indoor restaurant, but the main business was in the plastic picnic tables and chairs and the bar that sat under corrugated plastic roofing outside. The Buena Vista Social Club blared out of a tall black speaker and the scent of carnitas wafted on the air. A large sign above the bar said that rideshare drivers were not welcome.

  The guy in the paint-splattered overalls had been on the money. All the men at the bar looked like tradesmen, enjoying a beer or a taco plate before heading home, and all the people sitting at the tables looked like taxi drivers, waiting on a fare or taking a break from a long shift. Except one guy. He was at a table alone, closer to the airport than the bar, sitting on a bottle of Modelo and chomping on a Cuban sandwich. He was small-framed and balding and wore thin glasses and a button-up shirt with no tie. He could have played a librarian on television.

  I grabbed a cold beer from the young woman at the bar and wandered over and sat down opposite Malloy. He frowned and then looked around and then looked back at me. I could see him wondering who I was and why I had sat at his table when there were vacant tables available. I sipped my beer and glanced out at the taxis parked on the other side of the railing. Then I glanced back at Malloy. He squirmed in his seat.

  “Hard day?” I asked.

  “About normal,” he said. He spoke quietly like a librarian, too.

  “You normally inspect buildings from the comfort of a Cuban bar?”

  “What?” His eyes tightened. “Who are you?”

  “Me? Just a guy. Wondering how it is that a building inspector is able to slap a no habitation order on a house on Singer Island when he’s got his bony backside in a chair in West Palm.”

  The penny dropped. Malloy sat back and crossed his arms over his chest. “You can’t be here.”

  “Why? It’s a bar.”

  “You got a problem, you need to go to the department offices.”

  “Did that. Got asked to take a number. I don’t like to wait.”

  “You can’t harass me in my private time. Union says so.” He grinned like this was the last word on it.

  “First, Pete, this isn’t private time. It’s still office hours. So you really shouldn’t be drinking on the county’s time. And second, it isn’t harassment. After I’ve followed you for a month and taken video of every time you’ve taken a drink on the county dime, every time you’ve written an order on a building you haven’t inspected to the letter of the law, maybe then you can call it harassment. And I’ll call the State Attorney’s office. Again.”

  “You can’t intimidate me, whoever you are.”

  “How do you even inspect a house that you haven’t been inside?”

  “I know what I’m doing. I’ve been doing it for a long time.”

  “I can see that,” I said, nodding at his beer bottle. “Did you even look inside?”

  “Of course.”

  “How? The front door was locked and the front blinds were down.”

  “Rear windows. I can see what I need to see. And before you try to say trespass, I can go onto a property if I believe it is in a dangerous or derelict condition.”

  “How did you even see past all the sandbags?”

  “I can step over sandbags.”

  We both knew he was lying. Danielle and Ron and I had removed the sandbags from the rear of the house and lined them up along the side of the backyard. Malloy could have stepped in through the plastic where the sliding door had been if he had really gone around the back of my house. But he didn’t. I knew it and he knew it.

  “And I don’t need to explain myself to you,” he continued.

  “On the contrary. I pay your salary. I’m exactly the person you need to explain yourself to.”

  “If you don’t leave, I will call the police.”

  “I’m sure that will make you very popular here.” I stood and took a final swing of my beer. “Who paid you?” I asked.

  Malloy snarled. “Get lost.”

  “Don’t get comfortable,” I said, and I strode away before I ran out of clever things to say.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I stopped at a store and grabbed a six-pack. Then I headed south and west and parked my vehicle next to the beat-up truck near the entrance to the South Florida National Cemetery. It had been a new facility the first time I had visited, ten years earlier, and now there were too many headstones to count. I took my six-pack and walked in. The cemetery looked as orderly as it always did. The VA had wasted no time in getting the grounds cleaned up, and coordinating the veterans who had descended on the place to help get it shipshape after the hurricane.

  Lucas was wiping down Lenny’s headstone as I walked over to him. I stopped and looked at it for a moment. It was simple. His name, Lenny Cox, and dates of birth and death. No inscription. No fuss. Just like Lenny.

  “Am I late?” I asked Lucas.

  “Nah, mate. Just got here.”

  Lucas took a seat on the moist grass on one side of Lenny and I sat on the other. I opened three beers and passed two to Lucas. He held them out and I clinked mine to them in a toast. I waited to take a sip as Lucas turned one of the bottles upside down and poured it into the grass over Lenny’s plot. Then we each took a sip.

  “You clean up okay in Miami?” I asked.

  “No problems. We were up and running as soon the swell dropped. Not that many people are taking their yachts out right now.”

  “Slow?”

  “Yeah. The boys have got it all under control. How about you? You sort the house thing out?”

  I told him about my visit with the building inspector.

  “Mongrel,” he said.

  “If you need your condo back, just let me know.”

  “It’s no sweat, mate. Use it as long as you need.” He took a sip and looked around the manicured lawns of the cemetery. I watched him. His skin was tanned and ageless, his hair cut short and dirty golden. He had to be north of sixty, but he was lean and wiry and looked like he might be immortal. Lenny hadn’t been quite so wiry, but he had that same look about him, timeless like he might live forever. But he didn’t live forever. I knew that for a fact.

  “You workin’?” Lucas asked.

  “Yeah. For a race car driver, would you believe?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Dale Beadman.”

  Lucas spun around. “Dale Beadman?”

  “Yeah, you know him?”

  “The NASCAR driver? Yeah, the man’s a legend.”

  “I didn’t realize you were into car racing.”

  “Sure. I grew up watching racing.”

  “NASCAR?”

  “Nah. We call them touring cars in Australia, but it’s the same idea. They used to be stock models but over the years became something that wore the same body shape as a regular car but had nothing in common underneath.”

  “Sounds like NASCAR.”

  “Yeah. Plus we had more Indy-style road courses than the super speedway tracks.” Lucas took a sip of his beer. “I even drove a drag racer when I was a younger man.”

  “That right? The quarter mile?”

  “Yep. Peda
l to the metal. Hell of a thing, that much power under you. You ever done that?”

  “No. Fastest I’ve been is Danielle driving on the turnpike.”

  Lucas smiled. “So what are you doing for old Dale Beadman?”

  “He had a car collection stolen.”

  “No way.”

  “Yep. Actually thinking I might have to go up to Daytona and chat to some folks about it.”

  “Daytona? Isn’t Beadman Racing in Charlotte?”

  “Does everyone know that but me? Yeah, it is. Might have to go there, too. It’s a bit of a drive.”

  Lucas sipped his beer again and nodded like a long drive was his idea of a good time. Not me. Driving was a means of getting from point A to point B. I didn’t get the romance of it. Especially in Florida. There were miles and miles of nothing to look at on freeways in Florida. When I was a kid growing up in Connecticut, we used to drive along Merritt Parkway and see the fall foliage raining down on the road like embers. That was something to see. There’s not much fall foliage in Florida. Then I got an idea.

  “You want to come?”

  He belched and then looked into middle distance like he was thinking about it. “Daytona and Charlotte?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Never been to Charlotte.”

  “No?”

  “Always wanted to go. See the speedway, maybe visit a workshop.”

  “I’m sure we can get the guided tour.”

  “Yeah?” He nodded and sipped his beer. “All right, why not? Things are slow at the marina, anyway.”

  I nodded and finished my drink and opened three more. “What do you know about Dale Beadman?” I asked.

  “He won it all, or almost all of it. Multiple NASCAR trophies, he won the Daytona 500 three times, he won at the Brickyard, he won at Talladega. He became crew chief and won it all over again.”

  “You sound like a fan.”

  “Of 29? Sure, I’m a fan.”

  “29?”

  “Dale’s car number. In NASCAR you support the number as much as the driver. I guess it’s a way of saying that only a great combination of driver and car can win. It’s more of a team sport than people realize. A great driver makes all the difference, but without a great car there are no great drivers.”