Like many dealers, however, Gil had sampled his own product a little too freely. He started a downhill slide after he fried a few too many brain cells. Mike explained that Gil kept getting busted and eventually lost everything, but he avoided any serious jail time by pleading that he was a psych case. The really big guys in New York never bothered to get rid of him, because, even with all the time he spent in jail, he never talked about their business. Mike said that just proves he’s not as crazy as everybody thinks.
“Today, though, a lot of that has changed,” Mike said as we passed the cruise liners and freighters in Port Everglades. “Several of the detectives have been using him as a snitch. Most of the people Gil hangs around think he’s just another waterfront derelict. They say stuff around him, thinking he won’t understand much. But as long as he keeps taking his meds, he can hold it together, and he’s pretty smart. Well, crafty anyway. I don’t even know if Gil’s gonna remember anything from when those pictures were taken, but if he does, he’ll probably tell you everything he knows for about twenty bucks.”
Mike had heard that Gil hung out at one of the marinas along Ravenswood Road, so we headed south past the entrance to the harbor.
After traveling about a mile up the Dania Cut-off Canal, we pulled into Pattie’s Marina and tied up to the fuel dock. The only other boat tied to the dock was a twelve-foot wooden punt covered with multihued paint splatters. It was obvious that this year’s most popular boat colors were yellow and green. Pattie’s had a small travel lift and boatyard, and the big outboard on the ugly punt meant they used it as a mini boatyard tug as well as the waterline paint boat. Painting a boat while in the water was heavily frowned on by OSHA, but one got the idea that Pattie’s Marina broke more than a few regs.
Several locals were sitting around a table under a thatched Seminole Indian chickee hut, drinking from beer cans and watching us. Mike looped our line over the cleat on top of the marina dinghy’s line, then he ran a cable and padlock around the piling. The group under the hut included two men wearing baseball caps, T-shirts, and jeans. The only distinguishing characteristic between them was that one had long straight hair hanging both in front and back of his big jug ears. Of the three women, two wore halter tops and the third, an older woman, wore a faded Pattie’s Marina T-shirt that stretched tight around her ample bosom and hips. It was hard to tell if the couples lived in Pattie’s Trailer Court or if they lived aboard some of the barely floating homes in the marina. Laundry hung from lifelines, bikes rusted away on decks, barnacles grew along the waterlines, and rotten lines, fenders, toolboxes, and garbage bags littered the decks of Pattie’s live-aboard community. I guessed that the older woman sitting with the group was probably Pattie herself. Though Pattie’s was only five miles or so from the glittering marinas of Bahia Mar and Pier Sixty-six, in other forms of measurement the distance was incalculable.
Mike lifted his hat when he ducked into the shade under the chickee. “Afternoon, folks.”
One of the men murmured something that sounded like “good afternoon,” but the others just stared at Mike’s artificial leg, the stainless-steel knee and ankle joints, and the smooth pink “flesh-colored” plastic calf that protruded below his cut-off jeans. He ignored the stares and pushed on.
“We’re looking for a fellow by the name of Gil Lynch. I understand he lives round here.”
The older woman had been lifting her beer can to her lips, but she stopped, left the beer hanging in midair. “Who’s asking?”
I dropped my business card on the table in front of her. “I’m Seychelle Sullivan. I own the tug Gorda. My business is Sullivan Towing and Salvage.” I didn’t think Mike’s credentials as a former FLPD officer would go over big with this crowd.
The gray-haired woman drank from her beer and then slid my card into the front pocket of her T-shirt. “I seen your boat around.” She reached for a pack of cigarettes on the table and shook one out. With the cigarette dangling from her lips, she asked, “Red’s your pa?”
“Yeah. He died a couple of years ago. I’m running the boat now.”
“Sorry to hear that,” she said, struck a match, and inhaled long and deep.
I nodded. “I understand Gil used to know Red, and I just wanted to ask him some questions about my dad.”
She took the cigarette from her mouth with two cracked, callused fingers, then she thrust her other hand out to me. “I’m Pattie Dolan.” I tried to shake her hand with the same strength and assertiveness that Wonder Woman had used on me, but Pattie’s grip turned mine to putty. She turned from me and spoke to the man with the jug ears. “Go git the truck.” He slid back his chair and started for the once white Ford Ranger parked in the dirt lot opposite the trailer that served as an office.
I rested my hand on Mike’s shoulder. “Pattie, this is my friend, Mike Beesting.” They, too, shook hands. Pattie made no attempt to introduce the others at the table.
“Odds are Gil’s down at Flossie’s this time of day. Jack’ll run you down there. It’s only ’bout a quarter-mile down the road.”
“I know where it is. Thanks.”
The truck pulled up, and out the open window Jack jerked his thumb toward the back. Mike pulled down the tailgate, and we slid into the truck bed. After a short drive down Ravenswood Road, the truck pulled into a parking lot that stretched along the side of a drab-looking two-story cinder-block building. Downstairs was the dirty glass entrance to Flossie’s Bar and Grill. Upstairs, an outdoor corridor ran the length of the building where the late Flossie had sometimes rented rooms out to her patrons. The parking lot was halffilled with older pickups and a handful of bikes, mostly Harleys. Leaning against the wall of the building was a rusty old beach cruiser bicycle with high, wide handlebars and a plastic milk crate tied behind the seat with a sun-faded polypropylene line.
We slid out of Jack’s truck and waved our thanks as he headed back to Pattie’s. “I’m sure glad I locked up the dink and outboard. I don’t think any of them back there would be above helping themselves.”
“I’m sure you’re right about that,” I said as I pushed open the door and nearly gagged on the cigarette smoke. My ears were assaulted by the sound of Garth Brooks singing about how much papa loved mama. The bar was so much darker than the bright sunlight outside that I stood in the doorway a few seconds, waiting for my eyes to adjust. Mike came in behind me, hooked his arm in mine, and led me past the couple of pool tables to a pair of empty stools on the far side of the bar.
I’d driven by Flossie’s probably a hundred times in my life, but I’d never been inside. I knew about the place because it had been a landmark for thirty-some years, and both my brothers had boasted to me when we were in high school that the bar’s owner, Flossie, never checked IDs. They often came over here to drink and practice being men. The dominant decorating themes went from Nascar to Budweiser, from neon signs to inflatable oil cans to a full-size picture of Dale Earnhardt on the storeroom door. The place was very crowded, although I counted only two women other than the bartender.
I didn’t spot Gil as I surveyed the crowd, but I wasn’t surprised to see Perry Greene sitting at one of the bar-height tables by the door. He was wearing a white mesh baseball cap stuck backward on his head, the straggly ends of his long hair curling around from the back of his neck. Smoking a filterless cigarette no more than an inch long, he squinted across the bar and sucked on the butt, and I was surprised the red glow didn’t bum his fingers.
After Mike secured us a couple of beers, I pointed Perry out to him.