Gin Palace 01 - The Poisoned Rose

tossed them in, too. I took a quick shower, scrubbing the blood off my hands and from under my nails. Then I dried off and put on clean jeans, another T-shirt, and my work boots.
    It wasn’t even eleven o’clock and the Hansom House was already in full swing. People were coming, some going. I waited till it was as clear out front as it would get and left with my garbage bag. I walked to where I had parked my car far down Elm Street, in a patch untouched by streetlights.
    I got in behind the wheel, cranked the ignition, and headed west on Sunrise Highway. I rode out of town, over the Shinnecock Canal and past Hampton Bays, into the pine barrens of Quogue. On a long stretch of deserted highway I pulled over and got out with the garbage bag. I walked into the pines, to where the dirt was soft, and dug a hole deep enough to take the bag. I covered it with dirt and pine needles and ran back to the edge of the woods. There I took a good look around. The highway was a long stretch of emptiness and dark. I was sweating from the heat. I ran back to my car and got in and took off for home.
    Back in my apartment again, I was too riled to sleep. My heart was racing. It was only midnight. I had eight hours to wait till I would see Frank and maybe get some answers about the bald-headed guy and the brother he kept mentioning, not to mention the shooter in the woods, whose arrival at the cottage, so close to mine, seemed just a little too coincidental. I could hear the lazy reggae rhythm rising up from the bar two floors below, the steady thumping of the drums and the bass. I didn’t feel their call now, though. What I needed I couldn’t find in a bar.
    I was still awake at closing time and listened as everyone left. I heard voices rise up from the street. I heard car doors shut and engines start. I was awake, too, at dawn, when night drained into morning. At seven I left my apartment and drove down Halsey Neck Lane to the lot and waited there by the hissing waves and bickering gulls for Frank, just like we had arranged.
    I waited almost an hour but he didn’t show. I went home through town but couldn’t spot his Seville anywhere. I called his pager from a pay phone outside the camera shop on Cameron Street and waited for a call back. None ever came.
    I decided that maybe it would be better for me to get off the streets. Something was going on I didn’t understand. I needed to lay low. It was, after all, what I did best. I drove back to my apartment and sat at my window and waited. I ran through everything in my head, over and over. Everything Frank had said, everything the guy with the shaved head had said. But I was getting nowhere.
    I realized that today was July Fourth. I checked my watch. It was after four. Southampton Village would be crowded now as summer people came in off the beaches to eat and shop. Elm Street itself was quiet, except for when a train from the city would pull in and late-arriving guests would be met by their hosts and driven off to some waiting party.
    Around five I thought about calling Augie, but I resisted. He had problems of his own. And he didn’t know that Frank had called in his favor. Evening was coming, and I wasn’t any closer to any answers than I was this morning. I smelled charcoal burning somewhere down Elm. I heard the voices of excited children as they played. I heard the whistle and pop of a few early bottle rockets.
    At 6:55 another train from the city pulled in. Six people got off and met waiting friends and hurried into cars. Eddie’s cab was there. He drove away with two passengers. The station was empty even before the train had pulled out again.
    The next thing I knew it was dark outside. I must have dozed off. Fireworks were whistling and snapping somewhere out in the distant night. I sat up and listened and knew it was probably the big display over Lake Agawam, in the park off Job’s Lane, not too far from the library.
    The bursts sounded a little like gunfire. I looked toward the sounds but couldn’t see anything in the black sky above the dark trees.
    It was somewhere around this time, during the fireworks, that my phone rang. I answered it on the second ring.
    “Yeah.”
    I expected Augie or maybe Frank on the other end, but the voice I heard wasn’t immediately familiar.
    “MacManus?” It was a man’s voice.
    “Who is this?”
    “This is MacManus, right?”
    “Who is this?”
    “I have a friend who wants to meet with you.”
    “Who is this?” I