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Goodman’s calendar came on the screen. This week he was in Chicago. Last week…
I brought my face closer to the monitor to make sure I read the calendar correctly.
Last week Goodman was in Key West, Florida. And last week Marissa Albert arrived in Key West and disappeared.
I knew what to do next. I was going to Chicago.
Chapter
17
I made airline reservations for Chicago, but as I hate layovers, the earliest direct flight wouldn’t leave until the next morning. Still, it beat driving. I decided to use the time to check out the hotel and resort grounds.
I put my contacts back on and visited the pro shop. It resembled the showroom of a BMW dealership, only swankier. After sca
While still parked outside the pro shop, I fiddled with the cart’s stereo receiver and sca
With rockabilly tunes twanging from the stereo speakers, I drove past the first tee and began my reco
The front nine holes were north and west of the hotel. Stands of pine and oak, and sloughs with alligators basking on the muddy banks, separated the guest grounds while disguising the less picturesque support buildings. I paused where a narrow road passed behind a green wooden fence. The gate opened to a parking lot. On the left stood a large maintenance shed. Two men in the resort uniform-teal polo shirt over khaki cargo shorts-pushed a riding mower into one of the bays. On the right, a couple of panel trucks-May River Commercial Laundry-backed up to the service entrance on the side of the hotel. Men guided the trucks and shouted commands in Spanish.
The gate closed by remote control, creaking on steel wheels, moving like a curtain drawn shut to hide family secrets.
I kept on the cart path to an open area beside the closest fairway. A Bell Long Ranger executive helicopter in bright colors sat on a concrete pad. In the calm air, the orange windsock hung limp as an empty condom.
Condos bounded the north side of the resort grounds. I turned around and drove the cart to the nine holes south of the hotel. I passed te
I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. This place seemed too perfectly neat, except for the big wrinkle that Goodman worked here.
A narrow asphalt road followed close to the back of the hotel. I couldn’t tell where the road came from but it headed into a break in the junipers to my far left, the entrance to the enclosed area. To the right, pampas grass and sea oats atop sand dunes marked the boundary with the beach.
I stopped, got out of the cart, and walked until I found a path across the dunes. The beach was a wide, flat stretch of sand. At low tide, the Atlantic surf splashed a hundred meters away. Pelicans dove into the ocean and dolphins broke the surface in graceful arcs. A breeze cooled the air enough that the few people strolling the beach wore long pants and windbreakers. From back here, the resort blended into the clumps of palms and pink buildings stretching along the beach.
The loud thumping of rotor blades a
I returned to my golf cart, walking unhurriedly, like just another casual tourist. The arrival of the military Blackhawk stoked my suspicions about Goodman and the hotel. When I got to the cart, the helicopter rose straight up from behind the junipers. The dense stands of trees muffled the roar of the turbines and rotor blades. The Blackhawk rotated to the south and accelerated, leaving tree branches and palm fronds quivering in its wake.
The junipers obscured my line of sight and prevented me from seeing anything but the flat roofline of a three-story building, its stucco painted to match the hotel. I’d already seen the maintenance shed. With its forest of ante
Thorny rosebushes grew parallel to the path. I found a gap and rumbled through.
Immediately, my GPS display flashed: OFF COURSE. TURN AROUND.
Loud beeps shouted from the stereo speakers. I turned the volume down on the speakers but the beeping continued. I mashed the GPS off button but the GPS kept resetting itself. I reached under the dash, found a bundle of wires, and yanked. The beeping stopped and the display went black.
I steered the cart closer to the junipers so I could study the rear of this building. The few windows on the wall were squinting, horizontal slits. The roof was a jungle of spindly radio whips, clusters of dishes pointed up, and ladderlike masts festooned with pods. Definitely high-grade communications equipment, not the sort of getup you’d need just for HBO. Why all these ante
A small green John Deere Gator truck appeared around the far end of the junipers and turned toward me. I took my contacts out, stored them in their plastic case, and put my sunglasses back on.
The Gator was a utility vehicle, not much wider than my cart and with an aluminum bed on the back. It halted by my cart.
The tiny cab of the Gator had no doors. Radio traffic cackled from a speaker. A man in the resort uniform swung his lanky, hairy legs out and stood to face me. The resort logo decorated the shirt and his ball cap. Unlike other employees, he had a special ID tag swinging from a cloth lanyard looped around his neck. The ID tag bore iridescent hologram markings, the resort logo, and his photo and last name: Lewis.
Coming close, Lewis rested an arm against the roof of my cart. He moved with the confident swagger of an ex-cop.
“Good afternoon, sir.” He forced the polite tone. Blue eyes contrasted with his bronzed complexion. “Is there a problem?”
Lewis expected a dumb-ass executive, so I gave him one.
“Problem? Damn right there’s a problem. It’s my friggin’ game. Sliced my hook.”
He gri
“Yeah,” I replied i
Lewis glanced from the distant fairway to the grass around my cart as if doubting that I could have hit the ball this far. “Don’t see it.” He tilted his head and examined my dash panel. “Why isn’t your GPS on?”
“Is that what this is? Goddamn thing started beeping like crazy.” I pounded the dash panel. One of the buttons popped loose and fell to the floor. “I think it’s broken.”
Lewis reached and pulled my hand away from the dash. “I’ll take care of it, sir.” He looked over his shoulder back to the ruts I had crushed through the roses.
“Did I do that? Didn’t see them. Sorry.”
Lewis set his cap on the back of his head. His jaw muscles tightened.
“What about my ball?” I lowered my voice and pretended that I was sharing a secret. “Listen, I got money riding on this game and right now I ain’t doing too good.”