Traffic was one fact of South Florida life the tourism people never got around to mentioning. This ride between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale got more aggravating every time he made the drive, and he did it only when it couldn’t be helped. The state started a highway improvement program a decade ago, and Martinson couldn’t remember the last time all the lanes on the interstate were open. He drove past coned-off quarter mile sections. Long stretches of road he swore were finished the last time he came this way had somebody in florescent orange flagging traffic to a virtual standstill. What used to be a forty-minute trip could sometimes take an hour and a half if you weren’t lucky. Highway improvement. He got off on Sunrise Boulevard.
Sailor Randy’s was in a strip of yahoo-joints that catered to a young crowd, go-go bars and indoor-outdoor booze shrines roping them in with goofball promotions. A sandwich board at the entrance to the parking lot said TUE: DRESS TO KILL WED: LADIES DRINK 2-4-1 ETC. Arnie wondered what you got for that ETC.
The club featured two outside bars and a cinderblock building that looked like a warehouse standing behind them. Inside, the concrete and cement trapped the stink of stale beer. Two Latin teenagers were dealing with a delivery, restacking cases of Heineken on a handtruck that was as tall as either of them. They wheeled it into a storage room, one kid pushing, the other bracing the load so it didn’t wind up on the floor. The deserted space had a weird feel.
Martinson knocked on a half-opened door and pushed it in. A man was sitting at a desk. He looked to be in his late thirties, with a rock star haircut and a beard flecked with grey. He looked up, saw Martinson, and said, “Hi.”
Martinson badged him.
The man introduced himself as Bryce Peyton, and stood up to shake hands. He was about 6’2” and he had huge hands, his right covering Arnie’s like a catcher’s mitt. He said he owned Sailor Randy’s.
“I’m investigating a homicide that occurred on March fifth,” Martinson said. “We got a tip from the Sheriff’s Office that this guy might be working in your place.” Arnie showed him Healy’s mugs.
Peyton pulled a variety of faces, squinting, bringing his eyebrows together, pursing his lips and pushing them out. No question in Martinson’s mind he knew the suspect, but he might’ve been debating whether to give him up.
Peyton said, “Healy, huh? He told me his name was Harry James.” He handed back the photos. “Am I gonna need a lawyer? Because if I’m gonna need a lawyer, you’re supposed to tell me. That is, if I’m not mistaken and I don’t think I am.”
Where was this guy coming from? Martinson said, “What would you need a lawyer for?”
“In case I was under arrest.” Peyton lit a Chesterfield. Now there was a brand you didn’t see every day. He took a sip from a glass on his desk.
“I’m just trying to run a business here,” he said. “Make a living and pay my taxes. Trouble with the law? I don’t need it.”
Martinson thought, pretty shaky. Maybe he was worried about the illegals he had stocking his beer.
The first two fingers on his smoking hand were stained to the second knuckle, from sucking those lung-busting Chesterfields right down to the nub, probably a good forty or fifty a day. Martinson wanted to tell him, There’s a reason people quit smoking.
“Listen,” Martinson said, “whatever you got going here, I don’t give a shit about it. I’m asking you what you know about Harry Healy.”
“He was this drifter type looking for work.” Peyton picked up his glass and drained it. It wasn’t water, it was vodka. “I felt sorry for him, but to tell the truth, I needed the help. By the time March rolls around, I get a thousand heads a night in here. Somebody’s gotta control ’em. Harry seemed like a nice guy, and he did a good job.”
Martinson said, “Where is he now?”
“I haven’t seen him in a week. He took Tuesday off, and he was supposed to work Wednesday, but he never showed up. He said he had experience and he worked like he had experience. He’s from New York, you know. He dropped the right name, so I hired him.”
“What name?” Martinson said. He had his notebook out.
“Frankie Yin.” Peyton inhaled a chestful of smoke and blew it toward the ceiling. “You ever hear of Frankie Yin?”
“Why would I have heard of Frankie Yin?”
Peyton’s irises shined with a reverential gleam. His hands gestured loosely, as if words wouldn’t do justice to the admiration he had to express. “Why would you have heard of Toots Shor? Or Josephine Baker? They’re legends of this industry.”
Martinson didn’t know who the other two were, either. He said, “Is that right?”
“Legends of the time-honored profession of showing people a good time. Frankie Yin is a legend.”
“And Healy worked for him, is that it?”
“Detective Martinson,” Peyton said, switching gears, “May I offer you a cocktail?”
“Can’t do it,” Martinson said.
“Beer or something?”
“Thank you, no.” This Peyton was a prize.
“Then if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to help myself. You don’t mind, do you?” Not really expecting an answer.
“This’ll only take a minute,” Martinson said, “if you’ll bear with me.”
“No problem,” Peyton said. “I’ll be right back.”
His boots clopped across the concrete, and then Arnie heard the sound of bottles clinking. He checked out the photographs Peyton had mounted on a wall, pictures of himself with members of the Dolphins, the Marlins, the Miami Heat. He couldn’t get over how tall the basketball players were, like they had to duck down to fit in the frame. The seven-footers dwarfed Peyton, a paw here or there on his shoulder, like he was a little kid.
“Would you believe,” Peyton said, re-entering his office, “that Frankie Yin started out as a busboy?”
“I’m here to find out about Harry Healy, who I’m investigating on suspicion of murder. Frankie Yin does not concern me. What more can you tell me?”
“Not much,” Peyton said, less enthusiastic now. “He seemed decent enough.” He swallowed some vodka and looked through it to the bottom of the glass. “Likeable. He was a likeable guy.”
“So he must’ve made some friends here.”
“I don’t know. He was polite, but he pulled up a bit short of being friendly.”
“Nobody he was particularly close with?”
“He might’ve had something going with one of my bartenders,” Peyton said. “Aggie St. Denis.”
Martinson wrote down her name. “What was she, his girlfriend?”
“One night, he swapped shifts with another guy so he could leave with her. Occasionally, I’d notice them coming into work together. Does that make her his girlfriend?”
“Did you ask her, this bartender girl, what happened to her pal Harry?”
“As a matter of fact,” Peyton said, “I did. She told me she hadn’t seen him, and I took her at her word. She’s not responsible for his behavior.”
“I didn’t say she was. But I’d like to get an address and a phone number for her.”
Peyton said, “Sure.” He opened a desk drawer and rummaged through a mishmash of catalogues and brochures and order forms. “I gotta have it around here somewhere.” He unjammed another drawer overflowing with the same kind of mess.
A green metal filing cabinet sat between the desk and a wall. On the side that was facing out, somebody had taped a list of names and corresponding phone numbers. In black marker across the top it said STAFF PHONE LIST. Healy’s name wasn’t on it.