Notorious Nineteen

EIGHTEEN

THE NUDIE BEACH was at the end of the strip and attached to a casino that looked like it used to be a Walmart. I parked in the two-story garage, left Tiki in the car, and Lula and I walked through the casino to get to the boardwalk and the beach. A chunk of the beach had been screened off so as not to offend the modest people who weren’t crazy about seeing eighty-year-old naked guys. There was a concession stand and a changing room that opened onto the beach. Admission was twenty dollars. I tried to badge my way through but the woman at the door wasn’t seeing it.

“No one gets through without a ticket,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re a cop, the tooth fairy, or Jesus Christ.”

“That’s blasphemy,” Lula said to her. “You better watch what you say or you’re going straight to hell. God don’t like people implying he needs a ticket.”

We went to the concession stand and bought hotdogs, French fries, fried dough for dessert, and two tickets. We gave our tickets to the woman at the door and were allowed into the women’s locker room. We were stopped when we tried to get onto the beach.

“This is an all nude beach,” we were told by a large woman in a casino uniform. “You can’t go out with clothes on.”

“I’ll only be a minute,” I said. “I’m looking for Arthur Beasley.”

“He’s the bartender at the Surf Bar,” she said, “but you still have to take your clothes off.”

I showed her my credentials. “He’s in violation of his bond. I need to return him to the court.”

“That’s all well and good,” she said, “but you’re gonna have to do it naked.”

Lula and I retreated back into the locker room.

“I’m not going out there naked,” I said.

“Yeah, I see the problem. It’s sort of awkward trying to arrest someone with your hoo-ha showing. Kind of takes away the dignity of the apprehension procedure.”

I looked at my watch. “We’ll have to wait until he goes off his shift. We can catch him when he leaves.”

“That might not be until five o’clock,” Lula said. “I can’t wait here that long. I got a big date tonight. I need to get ready. I don’t even know what I’m gonna wear.” Lula kicked her shoes off. “I’m going out there. I haven’t got time to mess around with this.”

She peeled her tank top off and shimmied out of her spandex skirt. She stuck her thumb into the waistband of her thong, and I clapped my hands over my eyes.

“What the heck are you doing?” she asked.

“Giving you some privacy.”

“Girl, I’m taking my bare ass out onto that beach. I don’t think you gotta worry about my privacy.”

I uncovered my eyes but I looked down at the floor. I wasn’t ready to see Lula naked.

“Uh-oh,” Lula said. “I got a problem. Where am I gonna hide my handcuffs and stun gun?”

“You can’t take your stun gun out there. Stun guns are illegal. You’ll get arrested if you use it out in the open. You can hide the cuffs in a towel. They have a stack of towels by the door.”

“Okay, here I go,” Lula said. “I’ll be right back with the little runt.”

I sat on a bench and waited for Lula. Ten minutes went by. Fifteen minutes. Finally the door opened and Lula walked in all by herself.

“I couldn’t get him,” Lula said. “He didn’t want to cooperate.”

“What took you so long?”

“Well, first he was making drinks for everybody so I had to wait in line. And then it was hot out there, and I got thirsty, so I had a mojito. And what it comes down to is you gotta help catch him. He kept dancing away from me. I figure if one of us distracts him, the other one can sneak up from behind and cuff him.”

“No way.”

“It’s not so bad. Once you get used to being naked you get to like it. It’s real liberating. And there’s parts of you feeling the ocean breeze that never felt the ocean breeze before. I might come back here on my own someday except I’m not sure it’s worth twenty dollars. I might come back if they have a discount day.”

“Someone will take my picture with their cellphone, and I’ll be on YouTube.”

“They don’t let you take a cellphone out there. Anyways if you want this loser you’re gonna have to get your clothes off.”

I squinched my eyes shut and grunted. “Great. Fine. No big deal.” I kicked my shoes off, ripped my T-shirt over my head, and shoved my jeans down to my ankles. I took the rest of my clothes off and rammed them into a locker along with our purses. I turned the key in the lock and slipped the rubber bracelet with the key onto my wrist. Lula and I each had cuffs.

“Maybe you should take your pepper spray,” Lula said. “Just in case.”

“The towels aren’t that big. I can’t carry everything. It’s not like I have pockets.”

“You could hide it in your you-know-what,” Lula said. “It’s just a little canister.”

“Are you serious?”

“Just thinkin’,” Lula said.

“Well, stop thinking. I have enough problems without you thinking.”

“Boy, you get cranky when you take your clothes off. I’m not sure I want to go out there with you and have you ruin my good experience.”

“We’re working,” I said. “We’re not here to have a good experience.”

I took a deep breath and stepped out of the locker room onto the beach. It was a beautiful blue-sky day and the surf was up. The beach was dotted with people sitting in beach chairs and stretched out on blankets.

“We must be at least thirty years younger than everyone out here,” I said to Lula.

“Yeah,” she said, “it’s like someone sprinkled the beach with a bunch of raisins and a couple prunes. I never saw so much shriveled skin. This group makes Grandma Mazur look like a teenager.”

The sand was hot under my bare feet and the sun felt warm on my skin. “You’re right,” I said to Lula. “It does sort of feel good to be out in the fresh air.”

“Yeah, I love the shore. I wouldn’t mind having a house here someday. I could look at the ocean all day long and listen to the waves.”

I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down the beach. “Where’s the bar?”

“It’s over at the far end, under that thatched roof. You have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. Old people like to booze it up.”

“Is Beasley naked?” I asked her.

“Sure he’s naked. Everyone’s naked here.”

We walked closer and I eyed the bar and the people milling around it. “We need a plan. Do you want to be the distractor or the cuffer?”

“I gotta be the distractor,” Lula said. “He already knows what I’m up to and he’ll be on guard if I try to sneak behind him. I figure I’ll walk right up to him and he’ll keep his eye on me. It’s hard to miss all my big brownness.”

Lula set off, plowing through the sand, and I circled around, hugging the perimeter. I was inside the bar area and directly behind Beasley when Lula elbowed her way up to the bar and got his full attention. I opened a bracelet and click it was on him. I went for the second wrist, he yelped, and threw a drink in my face. I blinked and swiped at my eyes. I felt him shove me aside and by the time I recovered he was outside the bar and running.

I sprinted after him, both of us having a hard time in the deep sand. He was distracted by the metal bracelet attached to his wrist, I took a flying leap, and snagged him by the ankle. We both went down face-first. I was holding tight to his foot, and I heard Lula yell “INCOMING!” I let go and scooted away just in time to see Lula hurtle over me, casting a massive shadow, and land on Beasley. “WOOF!” Beasley exclaimed on an explosion of air. And then he was completely still with Lula on top of him.

Lula climbed off, I cuffed him, and we rolled him over. His eyes were open, but I wasn’t sure he was breathing.

“Sometimes it takes them a while to get air after I pounce,” Lula said. She looked down at Beasley. “Are you okay?”

“Unh,” Beasely said.

“He’s okay, folks,” Lula said to the crowd that had gathered. “You could go back to your sunnin’ and drinkin’. Bar’s open. Self-serve.”

Beasley wasn’t looking like he was going to get up anytime soon, so Lula and I each took a foot and dragged him to the locker room.

“This is the ladies’ locker room,” the attendant said. “You can’t bring him in here.”

“Wait here,” I said to Lula.

I went to our locker and got dressed in record time. I took twenty dollars out of my purse, gave it to the attendant, and she happened to be looking the other way when we dragged Beasley into the locker room.

Lula got dressed, and we stood there looking at Beasley. We couldn’t take him out onto the boardwalk or through the casino naked, and we didn’t want to go into the men’s locker room to get his clothes.

“Only thing we got here is towels,” Lula said. “We could make him a diaper but I don’t know how to hold it together.”

“Garbage bag,” I said. “Have the attendant open the broom closet and give you a big green trash bag.”

Lula came back with the garbage bag, we tore a hole in the top, got Beasley up on his feet, and pulled the bag over his head. It came to about two inches below his privates.

“Lucky for us he’s not hung like some of the old folks out there,” Lula said. “Some of them would need a bag that comes to their knees.”

We walked Beasley to the car and strapped him in next to Tiki.

“I got sand in my lady parts,” Lula said. “Whoever thought a naked beach was a good idea never sat in one.”