Tilt-a-Whirl

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I'm starting to think our friend Squeegee has fried one too many brain cells. He's not being too savvy about this whole ransom demand deal.

The Sea Spray Hotel is like only six blocks up the street from police headquarters-right on Beach Lane.

And doesn't he know every fax machine in the world prints the sender's phone number up on the top of the page in what they call a header, unless you program it not to?

Guess they didn't have in-room fax machines at The Palace Hotel when he and Red were squatting there. Hope Mr. Mendez remedies that when he takes over.

We're racing up Beach Lane. I'm doing about 60 m.p.h. on a road that's mostly used for bike riding, jogging, and pulling kids around in little red wagons.

Ceepak slips a fresh clip of ammo into his Smith amp; Wesson, the same pistol Squeegee's probably packing. Chances are slim Squeegee will bump into Ceepak in the lobby of the Sea Spray. After all, the fax came in about a half-hour ago, while we were all down at Chesterfield's. But Ceepak wants to Be Prepared, just in case he sees Squeegee running down the beach and has a chance to pop him in the leg and slow him down.

We're one of four cop cars that simultaneously scream up to the canopied entranceway of the Sea Spray.

“Room 162!” the chief says. “Now! Move! Go! Move!”

Ceepak takes the lead, and seven cops follow. Pistols come out of holsters. Radios burble with static.

The Sea Spray is one of our biggest hotels-probably five hundred rooms. This is where businesspeople come for conventions and seminars so they can sit in conference rooms and stare out at the ocean when the PowerPoint presentations get boring.

The lobby is wide and extremely green, like a carpeted football field.

“Room 162?” Ceepak says to the lady behind the concierge desk.

She gapes and gawks. I think she's sort of in shock. Usually, she helps people book restaurant reservations and deep-sea fishing expeditions. Her typical day doesn't involve many heavily armed SWAT teams asking for directions.

“Room 1-6-2?” Ceepak says again.

Other people in the lobby have started to notice our weapons. I suspect panic is soon to follow.

The concierge points to her left.

“First floor,” she says. “Go to the elevators, turn right.”

“Danny?” Ceepak says over his shoulder, as we run past a stand of potted palms.

“Yes sir?”

“Bring up the rear. You're the last one in, understand?”

My partner's looking out for me, the guy without a gun.

“Yes, sir.”

We make the turn and head down a long hall. There are trays sitting on the floor outside doors, the remnants of room service, half-eaten breakfasts hidden under warming lids and pink napkins.

“Stand back!” We're in front of 162.

I take Ceepak's advice. I'll let him and Malloy kick down the door.

They both have good steel-toed shoes and, even better, they both have guns.

The door doesn't budge with their first whack. It's steel. Deadbolted.

Santucci's lugging this one-man battering ram that must weigh about fifty pounds.

“Do it!” the chief says.

Santucci grabs both handles and swings the cement-filled pipe with everything he's got plus a grunt.

The door pops open.

Ceepak's first in, gun held forward in front of him.

“Clear,” he yells.

That's when it's okay for me to enter. I see curtains blowing near the sliding glass door that leads out to a small beachfront patio.

Ceepak checks it out. The patio's empty.

“Nothing,” he says.

The State CSI guy moves to the fax machine sitting on a desk.

“Inn-Fax,” he says, recognizing the make and model of the beige box.

He pulls on his latex gloves and punches a button.

“Log,” he says. The guy is such a pro, he doesn't waste time speaking in complete sentences. “Printing now.”

The machine whirs and groans and spits out a sheet of curling thermal paper.

“What's the story?” the chief asks.

“Auto-Send.”

“Come again?”

“The machine's time delay function.”

“So we got the fax a half an hour ago,” Ceepak says, “but when did he load it in?”

“10 A.M.”

Maybe Squeegee has more unbaked brain cells that I gave him credit for.

“Damn,” the chief says. “Dust the keypad for prints. Search the room.”

“Watch where you step, gentlemen,” Ceepak says. “Could be evidence underfoot-”

“May I be of any assistance, officers?”

“Stay where you are!” Santucci shouts, training his weapon on this old guy in the door.

It's the hotel's security chief. I can tell because he's wearing gray polyester pants and a blue blazer with an embroidered patch on the pocket. He holds up his hands so nobody in the room will shoot him. The radio clipped to his belt squawks and he thinks twice before lowering one hand to twist any knobs. When the squelch is silenced, his hand goes back up.

“Who was in this room?” the chief asks.

“Nobody,” the security guy answers.

“Nobody?”

“It's been empty for weeks. Fly infestation.”

Now that he mentions it, I notice dozens of little black specks scattered across the bedspread and the pillowcases and the carpet. Guess they aren't raisins.

“We've been fumigating, letting the room air out.”

“Did you purposely leave the patio door unlocked?” Ceepak asks.

“No,” the security guy says. “But unless you throw the safety latch up top there, you can pop it open from the outside with a screwdriver. I told maintenance we should change that.”

“Yeah,” Ceepak says, examining the u-bolt latch. “So our guy can come in off the beach … if he has a screwdriver….”

“Or a Popsicle stick,” the chief says, shaking his head.

“Hey, like I said….”

“We're not mad at you, sir,” Ceepak says. “We're mad at the situation.”

The security guy nods. “This have to do with that missing kid?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Ceepak says, adding, “You don't have to hold your hands over your head like that.”

The guy lowers his arms.

“Are there security cameras? Outside?”

“No. I told management we should put in a system. They gave me their standard answer-costs too much.”

“Yeah.”

“You want I should block off the hallway here? Reroute foot traffic?”

“It'd be much appreciated.” Once again, Ceepak stays calm while the angry storm swirls around him.

“Watch it near that door,” the State guy now says, indicating that Ceepak should step away from the patio. “High potential for footprints in that quadrant.”

Ceepak moves back and looks down at the tight weave in the industrial-strength carpet. “Boot print impression near threshold.”

“Timberland?” the state guy asks.

“Affirmative.”

“Malloy?” This from the chief. “You and Santucci go out the exit at the end of the corridor and circle back to the beach outside this patio. See if you can pick up any trace of our guy. See if he dropped anything, left any more boot prints….”

“We're on it.”

They bolt.

“Jesus.” It's the state guy. He just slid open the drawer in the desk under the fax machine. I have a hunch he isn't reacting to the free Sea Spray Hotel post cards he has just found in there.

“What is it?” Ceepak asks. We all move a little closer, watching where we step.

He dips into the drawer with his tweezers and pulls out a sheet of Sea Spray stationery. I can see there's a Polaroid taped to it.

It's a photo of Ashley Hart.

Squeegee must have forced her to put on makeup: lipstick, rouge, mascara-the works. Then he had her tease up her hair so it looks all slutty. In the bleached-out Polaroid, Harriet Ashley Hart looks like something off an Internet porno site. She's wearing a beaded tank top with skinny spaghetti straps that hugs her chest and shows us she's definitely reached puberty.

You can read the fear in her eyes.

Below her small breasts and bare midriff, she holds this morning's newspaper. The one with the big photograph of her mom crying on the front page.

The Polaroid proves Ashley was alive this morning when the paper came out.

What's scribbled beneath the picture proves Squeegee is totally twisted:

BRING ME MY MONEY OR

I'LL MAKE HER PAY

IN SOME OTHER WAY.

XXXOOO

“SQUEEGEE”

P.S.

SEND THE MONEY WITH CEEPAK

ASHLEY SAYS I CAN TRUST CEEPAK