James Patterson - Lifeguard

“SO WHO ARE WE meeting here?” Geoff pulled the bike into the parking lot across the street from St. Edward’s Church and cut the ignition.

Green’s was a luncheonette/pharmacy situated on North County, a sleepy throwback to a bygone time. When JFK was president and Palm Beach held the Winter White House, Kennedy and Washington staffers would party all night, attend early mass at St. Ed’s, then spill into Green’s for a jolt of joe and some waitress sass while still in their tuxes.

The man we were meeting was sitting in his corner booth, under the window, wearing a powder blue V-necked sweater and golf shirt, a Kangol hat next to him, his thinning white hair plastered tight against his scalp. He had the Wall Street Journal open and wore a pair of reading glasses.

He looked more like some retired accountant checking his stocks than the man who was going to save my life.

“So, you got some kind of ringer, mate?” Champ elbowed me, sweeping the room for whom we were going to meet. “That’s why you’re holed up with me. Someone really on the inside.”

“I told you, Champ, trust me.”

I shuffled over to the table. The man seated there took a sip of coffee and folded the Journal into an even square.

“So you never turned me in,” I said with a grateful smile.

“Why would I want to do that?” He looked up. “You still owe me two hundred dollars from gin.”

I grinned broadly. He did, too. I put out my hand.

“It’s good to see you, son,” Sol said, shaking my hand and cocking his head a bit at how I’d changed. “Seems you went to an awful lot of trouble just to cut your hair.”

“Time for a change,” I said.

“You want to sit down?” He moved his hat and looked at Geoff. “This is the fellow you were speaking about?” He squinted a bit uncomfortably at Champ’s striking orange hair.

“Either of you mind cutting me in?” Champ stared blankly, wondering what the hell was going on.

I grinned. “The pit just got a little more crowded, Champ. Say hello to Sollie Roth.”

“SOL ROTH!” Geoff did a double take, eyes wide. “Like in the Palm Beach Downs Sollie Roth? And the dog track? And that hundred-foot Gulf Craft docked at the marina over there?”

“Hundred and forty,” Sol said, “if you’re counting. And the Polo Club and the City Square Mall and American Reinsurance, if you need the entire résumé. Who are you, son, my new biographer?”

“Geoff Hunter.” Champ stuck out his hand and sat across from Sol. “Of the single-lap, 1000cc superpole speed record. Two hundred fifteen miles per hour. Two twenty-two, if they could ever fix on the blur. Face to the metal, ass to the air, as they say.”

“As who says that, son?” Sollie took Geoff’s hand a little tepidly.

A waitress wearing a Simpsons T-shirt came up. “What can I get you boys? Mr. Roth?”

I did my best to hide my face. Two other tables were calling for her. She rolled her eyes at Sollie. “Now you know why I drink, Mr. Roth.”

I ordered scrambled eggs with a little cheddar thrown in. Champ ordered some kind of elaborate omelet with peppers, salsa, Jack cheese, and tortilla chips sprinkled in. A short stack of pancakes, home fries. Sollie, a soft-boiled egg on whole-wheat toast.

We chatted for a few minutes in soft voices. About how I’d made the right move by calling him. He asked how I’d been holding up and said he was really sorry to hear about my brother. “You’re dealing with very bad people, Ned. I guess you know that now.”

Our breakfast arrived. Sollie watched as Champ dug into his thick omelet. “Been coming here thirty years, never saw anyone order that before. That any good?”

“Here” – Champ pushed the plate across – “it would be an honor. Try some, Mr. Roth.”

“No, thanks,” Sol said. “I’m trying to live past noon.”

I put down my fork and huddled close to him “So, you make any progress, Sol?”

“Some,” he said with a shrug. He mopped his toast in the goopy egg. “Though some of what you hear is going to hurt you, kid. I know you were keen on that girl. I did a little checking around with my own sources. I’m afraid it’s not quite what you think, Neddie. Dennis Stratton wasn’t using Tess. It was the other way around.”

“The other way around,” I said. Liz was setting him up. “What do you mean?”

Sol took a sip of coffee. “Liz Stratton was actually behind her husband’s affair with this girl. More than behind it, Ned-die, she orchestrated it. Set him up. She had the girl on a retainer.”

I blinked back, confused. “Why would she be doing that?”

“To discredit him,” Sol replied, spooning another packet of Cremora into his mug. “Everyone knows this Stratton marriage isn’t exactly what it seems. Liz has wanted out for a long time. But he’s got a stranglehold on her. Most of the money’s in his name. She was going to set him up and walk away with everything he’s got.”

“You know I heard about these tarts who…” Geoff gobbled a forkful of omelet.

I held him back. “So, what are you saying, Sollie? Tess was hired? Like some kind of actress…Or scam artist?”

“A little more than that, kid.” Sol pulled out a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his sweater. “I’m afraid she was a professional.”

It was a faxed copy of a police rap sheet. From Sydney, Australia. I was staring at Tess’s face. Her hair was pulled back, her eyes downcast. A different girl. The name on the rap sheet was Marty Miller. She’d been arrested several times, for selling prescription drugs and for prostitution in King’s Cross.

“Jesus Christ.” I blinked, and sank back in the booth.

“She was a high-class call girl, Ned. She was from Australia. That’s why there was nothing on her around here.”

“ New South Wales,” I muttered, recalling our first day on the beach.

“Hmmph,” Geoff snorted, taking the sheet from my hand. “An Aussie. Not surprised…”

A call girl . Paid to screw Dennis Stratton. Hired to do a job. My blood started to simmer. All that time I’d been thinking there was no way I deserved her – and it had all been just a sham.

“So, he found out about her,” I said, clenching my jaw, “and had her killed.”

“Stratton’s got people who work for him who would do just about anything, Ned,” Sol said.

I nodded. I thought of Ellie’s doubts about the local cop, Lawson. The one who always seemed to be around Stratton. “That’s why the police are dragging their heels. They knew there was a connection between them. He owns them, right?”

“If you want to catch him, Neddie,” Sol said, looking at me earnestly, “I own a few things, too.”

I smiled gratefully at Sollie. Then I stared at the rap sheet again. Poor Tess. Such a beautiful face. She probably thought this was the payday of her life, too. That shimmering, hopeful look came back to me, the one I couldn’t understand. How she felt that her luck was about to change as well.

I’m going to get him, Tess , I vowed, looking at her face. Then I dropped the rap sheet onto the table. “Marty Miller,” I said, smiling at Sol. “I didn’t even know her name.”

DENNIS STRATTON left his office in one of the financial buildings along Royal Palm Way a little after five.

His Bentley Azure pulled out of the garage and I started up my dingy Impala.

I’m not entirely sure why I had the urge to follow him, but what Sollie had told me really pissed me off. I had seen Stratton in action on the terrace with Ellie. I guess I just wanted to see firsthand what this asshole was about.