door. The interior was spotless, also as requested. He slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and cranked the air-conditioning.
Asthe A/C began to drive the unbearable humidity from the car, he pulled out the street map he’d brought with him and studied the route that he’d marked with a yellow highlighter. He’d been here before, just a couple of weeks ago, but with Miami traffic being what it was, it couldn’t hurt to refresh his memory. When he was satisfied that he knew where he was going, Louis maneuvered the little car out of airport parking and into a sea of slow-moving traffic. He still hadn’t gotten used to how flat Florida was. He’d grown up in the mountains of Vermont, and all this flatness seemed foreign to him. Not to mention the congestion, block after block of small, flat-roofed houses on tiny lots crammed hip to hip to allow room for more and more snowbirds to land.
Ahead of him, a white-haired granny in a 1970s-era Oldsmobile Toronado drove like death had already come and claimed her. She stopped for a red light, and Louis tapped his fingertips impatiently against the steering wheel. The light took forever. When it turned green, he raced the engine of the little rental car, hoping that Granny would take the hint. But she pulled away from the intersection with all the haste of a hearse at the head of a funeral procession.
Louis loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt. Impatience would get him nowhere. He had to keep a cool head. Haste would only lead to mistakes, and he couldn’t afford a mistake. He was a professional, and Brogan was expecting him to act like one.
It was just this damn heat. It was enough to drive a man crazy.
After a series of red lights, he finally lost Granny and her Toronado. A few blocks later, he saw the motel ahead, the same place he’d stayed the first time he’d come down here. Inexpensive, but clean. No cockroaches hiding in the bathroom, no recent knifings in the parking lot. Long and low, the two-story building was fashioned of white stucco, with a smallpool encircled by a chain-link fence sitting out front, next to a narrow strip of lawn decorated with pink flamingos. Southern Florida at its tacky best.
The desk clerk’s name was Rosalita. Louis paid for two nights and carried his bag to a room on the second floor. Outside the door, an orange plastic deck chair perched on the balcony, giving him a bird’s-eye view of the pool area, just in case he wanted to ogle the sweet young things in their bikinis. Except that there weren’t any sweet young things to ogle. Right now, the only bodies he saw around the pool were a five-year-old kid playing with a pair of blow-up water wings and a pudgy middle-aged woman—probably the kid’s grandmother—who’d tried unsuccessfully to hide her crepey thighs beneath the ruffled skirt of her flowered one-piece bathing suit.
Like everything else in southern Florida, the motel room was air-conditioned. Louis stripped out of his limp traveling clothes, took a tepid shower, and changed into the tan Bermudas and tropical-print shirt he’d bought in the airport gift shop. Flip-flops, a white cotton sun hat, and mirrored sunglasses completed the ensemble. Louis studied his reflection in the bathroom mirror and decided he looked like an idiot. But Florida was overrun with idiots dressed just like him. Nobody would give him a second look.
When he went back out, the woman and the kid were gone. Nobody stayed out in this kind of heat for long, not if they had a choice about it. He got back into the rental car and drove to the condominium complex that Bill Wyatt called home. It looked just like every other senior-citizen complex he’d seen down here. The damn things were everywhere. This one was painted a soft shade of pink. Why did it seem as though everything in Miami that wasn’t white was pink? It was one of life’s little mysteries, one he’d probably never solve.
Louis squeezed the rental car
Asthe A/C began to drive the unbearable humidity from the car, he pulled out the street map he’d brought with him and studied the route that he’d marked with a yellow highlighter. He’d been here before, just a couple of weeks ago, but with Miami traffic being what it was, it couldn’t hurt to refresh his memory. When he was satisfied that he knew where he was going, Louis maneuvered the little car out of airport parking and into a sea of slow-moving traffic. He still hadn’t gotten used to how flat Florida was. He’d grown up in the mountains of Vermont, and all this flatness seemed foreign to him. Not to mention the congestion, block after block of small, flat-roofed houses on tiny lots crammed hip to hip to allow room for more and more snowbirds to land.
Ahead of him, a white-haired granny in a 1970s-era Oldsmobile Toronado drove like death had already come and claimed her. She stopped for a red light, and Louis tapped his fingertips impatiently against the steering wheel. The light took forever. When it turned green, he raced the engine of the little rental car, hoping that Granny would take the hint. But she pulled away from the intersection with all the haste of a hearse at the head of a funeral procession.
Louis loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt. Impatience would get him nowhere. He had to keep a cool head. Haste would only lead to mistakes, and he couldn’t afford a mistake. He was a professional, and Brogan was expecting him to act like one.
It was just this damn heat. It was enough to drive a man crazy.
After a series of red lights, he finally lost Granny and her Toronado. A few blocks later, he saw the motel ahead, the same place he’d stayed the first time he’d come down here. Inexpensive, but clean. No cockroaches hiding in the bathroom, no recent knifings in the parking lot. Long and low, the two-story building was fashioned of white stucco, with a smallpool encircled by a chain-link fence sitting out front, next to a narrow strip of lawn decorated with pink flamingos. Southern Florida at its tacky best.
The desk clerk’s name was Rosalita. Louis paid for two nights and carried his bag to a room on the second floor. Outside the door, an orange plastic deck chair perched on the balcony, giving him a bird’s-eye view of the pool area, just in case he wanted to ogle the sweet young things in their bikinis. Except that there weren’t any sweet young things to ogle. Right now, the only bodies he saw around the pool were a five-year-old kid playing with a pair of blow-up water wings and a pudgy middle-aged woman—probably the kid’s grandmother—who’d tried unsuccessfully to hide her crepey thighs beneath the ruffled skirt of her flowered one-piece bathing suit.
Like everything else in southern Florida, the motel room was air-conditioned. Louis stripped out of his limp traveling clothes, took a tepid shower, and changed into the tan Bermudas and tropical-print shirt he’d bought in the airport gift shop. Flip-flops, a white cotton sun hat, and mirrored sunglasses completed the ensemble. Louis studied his reflection in the bathroom mirror and decided he looked like an idiot. But Florida was overrun with idiots dressed just like him. Nobody would give him a second look.
When he went back out, the woman and the kid were gone. Nobody stayed out in this kind of heat for long, not if they had a choice about it. He got back into the rental car and drove to the condominium complex that Bill Wyatt called home. It looked just like every other senior-citizen complex he’d seen down here. The damn things were everywhere. This one was painted a soft shade of pink. Why did it seem as though everything in Miami that wasn’t white was pink? It was one of life’s little mysteries, one he’d probably never solve.
Louis squeezed the rental car
Similar Books
