I rolled down my window. “Sergeant Gibson.”
“Officer Drunk.”
I hated it when he called me that. It was almost as if he was rubbing it in my face that I’d been a cop in the States but that amounted to nothing on his island. “Really, Sarge, just Drunk is fine. So, to what do I owe this fine pleasure?”
Standing with his feet spread shoulder-width apart, he had his hands propped up on his hip—one hand dangerously close to his piece. Even though I maintained eye contact with him, I kept a close watch on that hand. “Is this your vehicle?”
“It is. I just got it. What do you think? Do you approve?”
He looked it over and then turned his coal eyes back on me. “Does this mean that you are staying on my island?”
I lifted my brows. “Well. I have a job here. My own place. I’ve made some friends. And now I have a car. So, yeah. I think I’ll stay. I kinda like island living.” I smiled at him. “You wanna hang out sometime? I just got Bloodborne on the PS4. You’re welcome to come over and check it out if you haven’t already. I’m personally kinda digging it.”
“If you are planning to stay on my island, then I think we need to get a few things straightened out now, before you create too much of a problem.”
I frowned. “Problem? What kind of problem?”
“I have had some complaints about you recently.”
My head jerked back. “About me? From who?”
“On several different occasions, I have had business owners in the community call me to tell me that you have been harassing them in their places of business.”
“Is that right? Like who?”
“Steve Dillon was the most recent call. He said he almost had to get security to toss you out.”
My eyes bulged. “He said that?”
Sergeant Gibson’s head moved up and down slowly. “He did.”
I couldn’t believe he’d tattled on me. What an asshole. “Look, Sarge, I just went over there to speak to him because I felt like I got overcharged for my new vehicle. I didn’t cause any trouble, and he certainly didn’t have to get security.”
“I am just telling you what he said. This would not have been an issue, but I also got a call the other day from a well-regarded photographer on the island. He said that you showed up to a wedding he was shooting and harassed him as well. I told him I had not had any other reports of you causing problems, so there was little that I could do. But now, hearing similar complaints from Mr. Dillon, I felt I should say something.”
I shook my head. Fucking pussies. Couldn’t handle me getting too close to the fire, so they had to tell on me? “Look, Gibson. I had legitimate reasons for speaking with both of them. I certainly didn’t harass either one of them, and I left when the conversation was over. They’re obviously exaggerating.”
“I am not here to debate that fact with you, Officer Drunk. I am merely here to tell you that you are starting off residency on this island on a bad foot.”
“Bad foot?! I’ve nabbed several criminals while I’ve been on the island. That’s hardly starting off on a bad foot, if you ask me.”
“Exactly. Criminals seem to follow you wherever you go. Why is that, Officer Drunk?”
My face burned. I was getting heated. “I don’t know, Sergeant Gibson. As a member of law enforcement, the same could be said about you. Now couldn’t it?”
Sergeant Gibson’s eyes narrowed. He leaned forward. “I am warning you. Stay away from island business owners. It is in everyone’s best interest. Otherwise, you shall get yourself in over your head.”
“I appreciate your concern, Sergeant Gibson. I do. But I haven’t done anything wrong, and I certainly am not afraid of your island business owners.”
“Officer Drunk, have you heard the saying ‘A wise man follows the customs of the land in which his feet reside’?”
I quirked a brow. “Hmm. Is that Tolstoy?”
He frowned at me. “Suit yourself. But do not say that you had not been warned.”
I threw my hands up, palms flat. “Hey. You did your job. No shame there. Thanks for the chat, SG.”
He pivoted on his heel.
I stuck my head out the window and watched as he walked back to his car. “Don’t forget we’re gonna hang out sometime. Have a few brewskis. Play some cards or something. I’ll put it on my calendar.”
His door slammed shut.
I pulled my head back in and sighed as he drove away. I grinned to myself. Somebody out there was shaking in his boots. We were getting closer to the big boss, and he didn’t like it one little bit.
26
After my impromptu meeting on the side of the road with Sergeant Gibson, I returned to the Seacoast Majestic surer than ever that we were on the right path to bringing down the head of the underage prostitution ring. All we had to do was figure out who this Harvey character was, find his lair, and then turn in the evidence and show Gibson just what kind of a bad foot I’d really gotten off on.
I’d no sooner returned my Jeep to my cottage, gone inside and cracked open a refreshing bottle of Dr Pepper than my phone rang. “Drunk here.”
“Drunk, it’s Al. I’m down at the clubhouse playing cards with the fellas. What time are you headed back to the resort?”
“I just got back. I was just gonna make myself a sandwich. Why?”
“I was just talking to the guys, and Big Eddie and Ralph thought they could help us out with identifying the people in that picture you took. Why don’t you come on down? You can grab something to eat at the snack bar.”
“Yeah, alright. I gotta stop in my office and see if I have any messages, and then I’ll be down in a few.”
* * *
The line to the snack bar was about eight guests and a dozen or so seagulls long, so instead of waiting it out there, I swung by the swim-up bar to say hey to Manny the bartender, a good friend of mine.
“’Sup, Manny? What’s shakin’?”
“Your choice, Drunk. I got a mai tai, a martini, and a beachcomber.”
I smiled at him. Though I hadn’t really been in the market for a drink while I waited, I’d been offered. And what had Sergeant Gibson said to me just a short hour ago? Something similar to “when in Rome”? “You don’t put coconut in a beachcomber, do you?”
Manny chuckled. “I forgot about your irrational disdain for our national fruit. No, man, you’re safe. No coconut in those.”
I pounded my fist on his bar top agreeably. “Sold!”
“One beachcomber coming up.”
As Manny set about making my drink, I slid my butt onto a barstool. “Busy today?”
“Surprisingly, yes.”
I nodded. The line to the snack bar had been a dead giveaway. “Occupancy is up right now.”
“Yeah. That’s what one of the cleaning girls said this morning. That’s gotta put a smile on Artie’s face.”
“Oh, for sure.”
Done pouring the rum, triple sec and fruit juices into the shaker, Manny put the lid on and began to shake. “I haven’t seen much of you the last few days. What’s going on with you?”
“Oh. Kind of a long story.”
Manny leaned forward kind of conspiratorially then. “Hey, man, you got something going on with Giselle?”
My eyes widened. “You mean Mari’s daughter?”
Manny had a wide smile on his face. “Yeah.”
“Dude. She’s seventeen years old!”
Manny shrugged. “One of the girls said they saw her sneaking over to your place the other day. And I was sure I saw you down here talking to her all secret like not that long ago.”
My shoulders crumpled inward and I let my head fall to the bar. The last thing I needed was this horrific rumor making its way back to Mariposa’s overly judgmental ears. She’d have my nuts in a sling. I lifted my head. “No, man. I’m just helping her out with something.”
Manny nodded his head like he knew what I was helping her out with.
“Ugh. Not like that, Manny. I sw
ear. It’s just something she can’t go to her mom about. I told her I’d help her out. Like an uncle or something.” I held up two flattened palms. “Completely innocent, I swear.” I nodded towards the clubhouse. “Al’s in on it too. He’s helping me out.”
“Yeah?”
I nodded. “I’m on my way over there now. Big Eddie and the Weaz are gonna help us with our project.”
“Anything you can share?”
I took the drink he slid me. “Nah. Not yet. Gotta keep things on the DL until we know a little more. I promised Giselle.” I took a big swig of the mildly fruity concoction. It hit the spot on the beautifully warm day, with the sound of the surf breaking at my back, the palm trees swaying overhead, and the dry, gritty feel of sand gathered between my toes. With the exception of the case I was working on, living in Paradise was—well, for lack of a better word, paradise.
“Yeah, yeah. No problem.”
“But hey, do me a favor, Manny?”
“Anything for you, Drunk.”
“Shut down any more rumors you hear about me and Giselle. Alright? That shit is so far from the truth it’s almost laughable.”
“Oh yeah. No problemo.”
“Thanks, Manny.” I stood up then. The line to the snack bar had gone down. “I’m gonna go get some lunch. I’ll talk to ya later, man.”
“Hasta luego, Drunk.”
* * *
As usual, Al’s posse was seated out back of the clubhouse, playing cards. A warm ocean breeze blew through the back porch, bringing enough air movement to keep the shaded area from being stiflingly hot but not enough to disrupt the cards on the table.
“Hey, guys,” I said, coming through the main dining room carrying a cheeseburger and fries basket.
Big Eddie was seated to Al’s right, Gary the Gunslinger to his left, and the rest of the guys rounded out the table. Everyone turned to look at me when I came in.
“Drunk!” cheered Tony, a big guy wearing a blue bucket hat. He was seated in a motorized scooter driven all the way up to the table.
“Hey, Tone-Lōc, what’s happening?”
“We were just talking about you,” said Gary.
“Yeah?” I quirked a brow at Al. I hoped he hadn’t been shooting his mouth off about this case. I really wanted to keep it under wraps as long as possible.
Gary nodded. “Yeah. Al said you guys got yourself another doozy of a case.”
“Did he?” I sent a scathing look in Al’s direction.
He waved his hand in the air and scooted his chair back. “Oh, don’t go getting your knickers in a knot, kid. I didn’t tell them anything good.”
“That’s because we don’t know anything good.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Whatever.” He had to rock back and forth in his chair to give himself enough momentum to get out of it. When he was on his feet, he looked down at Eddie. “You and Ralph wanna follow me and the kid?”
The Weaz stood up and motioned for me to follow him. “Let’s go to the computer room, Drunk. I think Eddie and I can help you out with your picture problem.”
Word around the resort was that in a former life, Ralph the Weasel had been a coconspirator of a mob hit on a couple jewelry stores on the East Coast. In some kind of plea deal, he’d become an FBI informant and had ratted out his bosses for a string of murders. Some breach in the government’s computer system had resulted in the inadvertent release of Ralph’s personal records, leading to a not-so-subtle attempt on his and his wife’s lives. Because of that breach, he’d sued the government and walked away with a hefty twenty-six-million-dollar settlement. Once he’d pocketed the funds, he and his wife had changed their names, left the US, and gone to hide out on Paradise Isle, where they planned to spend the rest of their days safe from the fear of having their throats slit in their sleep.
Apparently, he’d shared the story with one of the guys when he’d first gotten to the island, and they’d jokingly given him the nickname of Ralph the Weasel as a result. Considering he didn’t look much like any Ralphs I’d ever known, I preferred referring to him as simply the Weaz. I found it more fitting.
“So Al didn’t tell you any of the good stuff, but he told you about the picture?”
Ralph looked back at me as he walked into the clubhouse. “He didn’t say what the picture was about. I work on a need-to-know basis. I’ve learned it’s better that way. He just said you had a photograph and you needed the guys in the photo ID’d.”
I sighed. “Okay, fine. So you think you can help us with that?”
“We can sure try.”
Al and Big Eddie followed Ralph and me back to the resort’s public computer room. Big Eddie pointed at a scanner in the corner of the room. “You can just put the picture on there.”
I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “It’s on here.” I scrolled until I found the picture I’d taken. I showed it to Eddie. “It’s actually a photo of a photo.”
Eddie frowned. “Ohhh.”
“Is that bad?” I looked over at Ralph.
“It’s not good. That’s for sure. You couldn’t get your hands on the original?”
Al crossed his arms and looked up at me.
“Not without getting caught,” I said, locking eyes with him.
Ralph nodded and held up his palms. “Say no more. We’ll make this work. You got your charging cable so we can hook it up to the computer?”
“I don’t.”
Al pointed at Ralph. “Tony might have one. He always carries that stuff in his bag.”
Ralph nodded. “I’ll be right back.”
He disappeared.
Big Eddie looked down at my phone. “You need to know who all these guys are?”
I pointed at the faces of the guys I didn’t know. One was a forty-something white guy with a receding hairline and perfect teeth, and the other was a young, good-looking olive-skinned fellow with long dreadlocks and aviator glasses. The third guy was seated at the table with his back to the camera, the only thing I could tell about him was that his arm was black. “Just those two.” I pointed at the third guy. “And it would be nice to know who that is, but you can’t see his face. I doubt there’s anything you can do about that.”
Eddie smiled at me. “I certainly can’t make him stand up and turn around, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
I chuckled. “You’ve been hanging around Al too long.”
Ralph reappeared with a phone charger in hand. “Will this one fit your phone?”
I looked down at the end of it. “Yup. Same as mine.”
“Good deal,” said Al.
Ralph and Eddie took the phone and the charger over to a computer and sat down. They set to work, hooking my phone up to it with the USB cord and downloading the photo to the computer’s hard drive. Then they set about trying to use Google’s facial recognition software on the picture first.
While they worked, Al and I pulled up chairs. “Is it gonna work?” I finally asked after they were quiet for a while.
“It’s too early to tell,” said Ralph.
Eddie nodded. “And if this doesn’t work, I have a friend in the States that I can send it to. He’s got some better software available to him.”
I nodded and sat back to eat my burger. With a mouthful of food, I looked over at Al. “You’re never gonna guess what happened to me on the way back here.”
“You got pulled over?”
I nearly choked on my bite of burger as I sat up, coughing. When I could breathe again normally, I looked over at Al, my eyes watering. “How’d you know?”
“What else is gonna happen to you while you’re driving, kid? It’s called logic.”
“I could’ve had an accident.”
Al shook his head. “If you’d had an accident on the way home with no insurance on your vehicle, I’m pretty sure I would’ve heard about it already.”
I shoved a couple fries in my mouth. He had a point. “Okay, fine. So you’re a good guesser. You know, I think my vehicle might be a little
too flashy, Al. Maybe next time I buy a new car, I’ll go for something a little more subtle.”
“Subtle, huh? Wow. I’m proud of you, kid.”
I frowned at him. “You ever gonna stop calling me kid, Al?”
Al tapped a crooked finger on his chin. “I tell you what. I’ll stop calling you kid when the difference in our ages changes. How’s that?”
I rolled my eyes and stuck another fry in my mouth. “Care to guess who pulled me over?”
Al sat quietly for a moment, his face expressionless. Finally he shrugged. “Gibson?”
“Shit, Al. What the fuck? Are you a mind reader or something?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Or do you have an in at the police department?”
“You know exactly two of the people at the station. Officer Cruz and Sergeant Gibson. You just left your meeting with Cruz, so process of elimination tells me it was Gibson.”
“Well, shit. You just blew my mind.”
“And let me tell you, fellas, it was the easiest thing I’ve ever done, too,” said Al, patting Eddie on the shoulder. He looked over at me. “So. What did he want?”
“How’d you know he wanted something?”
“I have a feeling Sergeant Gibson isn’t exactly pulling people over for speeding these days. That’s a little below his pay grade.”
“No,” I sighed. “You’re right. He wanted to have a talk with me.”
“About what?”
“You mean you don’t have a guess?”
“I’m not in the mood for twenty questions, kid, just tell me what he wanted.”
I glanced over at Eddie and the Weaz.
Al swiped his hand across the air. “Oh, don’t worry about these two. They aren’t gonna say anything to anybody.”
I stared at Ralph the Weasel. I wasn’t particularly worried about Eddie; he was scared of his own shadow. But Ralph, he had a reputation for snitching.
Ralph looked over at me. “What? Who am I gonna tell?”
“I don’t know. The guys. The bartenders. The snack bar girl. Your wife? Take your pick.”
“Look, I don’t have a dog in this fight. I got no reason to open my mouth, Drunk.”
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