information,” he said.
“That’s right.”
“There’s blood on your shirt,” he said.
“I know,” I said, pressing down on the accelerator. “It isn’t mine.”
TWENTY-THREE
THE BEACHMARK WAS a tan, three-story hotel on the ocean near the Wrightsville Holiday Inn. It was highlighted with green awnings and a diagonal green sign with white lettering announcing its name. I parked and looked over at McGinnes.
“You coming?” I said.
“You want me to?”
“Yeah.”
“What’s the plan?”
“There isn’t one. Let’s just go in and get him.”
There were few cars in the parking lot, and the area around the hotel was still and quiet. The pool’s green light tinted our clothing as we walked around it and on past a Coke machine and ice dispenser.
We ascended a metal stairwell, then went through a concrete hall and onto a walkway around the second floor. We walked along the northside wall and turned right at the oceanfront, where the temperature immediately dropped, the air became damper, and the sound of the surf more pronounced.
I found the last door on the right and tried the knob. It was locked. To the left of the door was a small rectangular window and, through it, darkness. My first thought was that I had been had by Fiora. But McGinnes whistled and directed me to the next door in the row.
The door of that room was ajar. Out of it fell a bar of light and the sound of a radio playing AOR at a very low volume.
I knocked on the door and shouted “Hello.” No response. My knock opened the door halfway. I finished it with a push and stepped onto the green carpet of the living room. McGinnes followed me in.
We walked slowly past the standard bamboo and plastic beach furnishings and the seaside prints that hung on the wall. There appeared to be two bedrooms. I pointed to one, and McGinnes walked in. I walked into the other.
At first I did not recognize the figure lying on the bed. He did not look much like the defiant kid in the photograph his mother had shown me. In the photograph, Eddie Shultz had been alive.
They had gagged him and tied his hands and feet together behind his back, laying him on his side on a dropcloth. Then they had cut his throat down to the windpipe, from left to right. His shirt and jeans were soaked halfway up in blood. Rope burns marked his wrists and his eyes were open. He looked something like a frog.
I fell back against the door, tasted the bile of my dinner, and swallowed my own puke. I felt the blood drain from my face and I thought I heard Maureen Shultz’s voice on my answering machine. I stumbled into the other bedroom.
McGinnes was on the bed, cradling a woman in his arms. Her eyes were barely open and her lips were moving but there was no sound. He pushed some hair out of her face.
“She was unconscious when I walked in,” he said. “I’ve almost got her around.” He turned his head to look at me and dropped open his mouth. “What the fuck…?”
“Eddie Shultz is dead, man. Murdered in the other room.”
“Hold her,” he said, and I absently put my arms around the woman as he rushed out. I heard him say, “Jesus Christ,” then walk around the apartment until he came back, pasty-faced, into the bedroom.
“Is Jimmy Broda…?”
“Nobody else in the apartment,” he said.
“We’ve got to…. ”
“We don’t have to do shit,” he said, his voice shaking. He reached out and grabbed a handful of the front of my shirt. “Now listen. Did you touch anything besides the front door?”
“I don’t know. I mean I don’t remember. Probably.”
“You walk downstairs, now, and bring the car around to the stairwell we came up. I’m going to wipe this place down and get her walking. I’ll be down in a few minutes. Understand?”
“Yes,” I nodded.
“Do it,” he said, and released my shirt.
I let the woman down gently on the bed, forcing her hand off my back. I walked out of the apartment, around to the north side of the hotel and down the stairwell.
I moved the car past the pool and into the spot nearest the stairwell. I kept the windows rolled up, listened to the tick of my watch, and wiped sweat off my forehead.
McGinnes came down the stairs ten minutes later with the woman. She was walking, supported by his arm. In his other hand was a suitcase. He put her in the back seat, where she