Marty Ambrose - Mango Bay 04 - Killer Kool (8 page)

“Maybe so.” I raised my voice and enunciated each
word with exaggerated deliberateness.

“I guess since I’m here, I could clean the front windows on your Airstream-“

“No need.” I grabbed the Windex bottle from him
and tossed it into the back of his golf cart. The last thing
I wanted was for Pop Pop to stand on a ladder balancing
his cane and a bottle of Windex on those shaky, skinny
legs, trying to clean my large Airstream windows.

A recipe for a broken hip if I’d ever heard one.

“Okay, if you insist.” I could hear the relief in his voice.

He leaned forward, both hands on his cane. “You
look mighty nice, Miss Mallie.”

“Thanks, Pop Pop.” I set the chocolates on my picnic
table with a sigh.

He looked over at Cole’s buttoned-up van. “Did your
boyfriend back out on the date?”

“Sort of.” No point in trying to explain-Pop Pop
wouldn’t hear me anyway. I picked up the wildflowers
and set them next to the chocolates. “And I was going to
write a review of the restaurant where we were having
dinner, so I guess I’ll be eating alone.”

“A pretty girl like you? Naha” He shook his head, but
the motion seemed to loosen his dentures, and he had to
shift his jaw to move them back into place. “I’d be proud
to go with you.”

Huh?

“I know it’s not a real date or anything, ‘cause I’m a
little old for you, but we could share dinner.”

Little old? He was ancient, almost a mummy.

Still, the hopeful kindness in his sagging face tugged
at my heart. “I don’t know if your offer will stand if you
hear where I have to eat-Le Sink.”

“I love it there,” he enthused, which led to a cackle,
which led to a cough and my slapping him on the back
so he could catch his breath.

He finally straightened.

“Okay-it’s a date,” I said, realizing Madame Geri
had been right. This was my karma for being deceitful:
sharing dinner with a geriatric RV park handyman with
bad dentures. It couldn’t get much worse.

“You’ll have to drive, Mallie, and I’ll need to pick up my medication on the way there,” he pronounced. “If I
don’t take my pills, dinner goes right through me, and I
can’t even make it home in time.”

Okay, it just got worse.

Twenty minutes later, I had loaded Pop Pop, his newly
purchased pills, his cane, and his oxygen tank (just in
case) into my truck, and we headed out to Le Sink.

Luckily, Rusty’s air conditioner had kicked in, and
we had a few puffs of coolness coming from the vents.
Pop Pop took ten minutes to fasten his seat belt and then
leaned his head back on the headrest to recover from his
efforts. At least I had a few minutes of quiet as I drove
to Le Sink.

This was turning out to be one heck of day: Madame
Geri’s ominous predictions about an island killer, watching a man die, and then hurting the two men in my life.

When would I finally get my act together?

Pop Pop coughed a few more times, and my attention
swung back to my date. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah … just some phlegm.” He cleared his throat,
opened the window, and spit.

I just kept my eyes on the road, almost clapping when
I saw the sign for Le Sink.

“Here we are!” I turned into the parking lot, and Rusty
lurched over the potholes into a spot near a Porta Potti,
which I assumed served as the public toilet for the
restaurant-as per Sandy’s warning.

I vowed not to drink any liquids.

We climbed out of the truck and ambled toward the open-air restaurant that appeared just like the image on
the Web site: a trailer with a serving window, a dozen or
so paint-chipped picnic tables, and ceramic sinks littered
around as yard ornaments.

A middle-aged couple sat at one of the tables; they
both wore that resigned, desperate look of people who’d
long given up ever expecting any food-or service, for
that matter.

As we headed for a table, I realized that, in fact, the
Web site didn’t quite do it justice. The picnic tables had a
layer of grime not apparent in the picture, and the sinks
seemed to emanate a moldy smell that couldn’t quite be
captured in a visual image.

Charming.

I settled Pop Pop at one of the tables and signaled the
waitress to come over. She looked at us and commented
to the guy at the grill, “Crap … more customers.”

Grabbing a couple of paper menus, she sauntered over
and slapped them onto our table. “You want some water?”
she asked in a bored tone.

“I’d like an iced tea,” Pop Pop said.

“All we have is water,” she answered, a hand on her
hip; the other hand shoved back her stringy Goth-black
hair.

“Sounds good to me.” Pop Pop smiled but received
no reaction in response.

I glanced over at the Porta Potti briefly. “Nothing for
me, thanks.” I sneaked my notepad out of my hobo bag,
ready to start taking notes for my review.

As she stomped off, the middle-aged couple waved
their arms overhead for attention like a ground crew trying to land an aircraft. She ignored them, and the man
shouted: “We still don’t have our burgers, and it’s been
almost two hours!”

“Order up,” the cook said from the trailer grill. She
grabbed the plastic baskets containing burgers and fries
and took them over to the couple. The man stared down
at his meal and then looked up in disbelief.

“This is burned to a crisp,” he said, nudging it as if it
were contagious.

“You said you wanted yours well done,” she said. “So?”

“Mine is raw; I asked for medium,” the woman with
him complained.

The waitress muttered something under her breath,
turned her back on them, and strode back to our table.
“What do you want?”

I scanned the menu. Two items were typed on the paper: Burger and Cheeseburger. “I guess I’ll have the
cheeseburger-medium well.” I figured that I might luck
out and get something in between raw and burned.

“I’ll have a fish sandwich.” Of course, Pop Pop couldn’t
read the menu.

“You’ll have the burger,” our waitress said, ordering
for him, and left.

Pop Pop turned to me with a smile. “Isn’t this place
great? I’d come here every week if I could get Wanda
Sue to give me more time off.”

“But you don’t drive,” I pointed out, not to mention that his job at the Twin Palms wasn’t exactly twenty-four/
seven-if you didn’t count his nap time. Still, you
couldn’t fault his upbeat attitude-even on the threshold of dining hell.

“Wanda Sue drops me off,” he explained, moving
around his dentures with his tongue. “She always says
she’d rather be hog-tied than eat here.”

At that moment, the waitress returned with a glass of
water; the liquid looked yellowish. Ick.

“Okay, enough!” I stood up, marched past the waitress, and poked my head inside the trailer’s serving counter. “Hey, you!”

A young guy, with a grease-encrusted spatula in
hand, looked up from the grill. “What?”

“My friend’s water is yel-low,” I stated, emphasizing
the last syllable.

“It’s well water.” He slapped a mound of hamburger
onto the grill; it flared in a mini cloud of grease and
smoke.

“It’s dirty water.”

“Says you.” He shrugged and slapped another mound
of hamburger onto the grill, which sizzled in an even
larger sooty cloud.

“Look, just so you know, I’m Mallie Monroe from the
Observer, and I’m doing a review of your … uh, restaurant for the paper’s blog.” I rapped my hand on the counter. “And you’re not earning too many stars by treating
my dining companion like he’s some kind of pathetic old
derelict.”

I gestured at Pop Pop, who had removed his dentures
and dropped them into the glass of water.

“Looks like he found a use for the water,” Grill Guy
commented as he focused on charring our burgers.

“A bad review could close you down,” I warned.

“Good luck!” The middle-aged couple both gave me
a thumbs-up.

“Fat chance,” Grill Guy muttered.

“Fine,” I said. “We’ll eat that garbage you’re cooking,
and I’ll make certain everyone on the island knows-“

“Kyle!” a man shouted from behind me.

Grill Guy halted and peered out the counter opening. “Guido, what the hell are you doing here? I thought I
told you not to come back here-“

“Silenzio!” Guido threw open the trailer door, shouting words in Italian.

Kyle the Grill Guy appeared at the door with the
spatula, and Guido lunged at him hollering:

“Killer! You killed Mr. Santini!”

The two young men tussled for a few minutes as
Guido aimed several weak punches at Kyle’s face. Kyle
slapped Guido repeatedly with the plastic spatula. Neither of them would exactly qualify for a heavyweight
title. Or even a lightweight one.

“Killer!” Guido shouted as he yanked Kyle out of the
trailer.

Kyle stumbled but never let go of the spatula. “You’re
crazy.” He thumped his assailant on the ear with his
plastic weapon.

Guido torpedoed into Kyle, grabbing him around
the waist and wrestling him to the ground. “I am not!
Bastardo! You will pay for what you did to Mr. Santini
and Beatrice.”

They rolled around on the sand and gravel, grunting
and pummeling each other.

I stood there, transfixed-not sure if I should call the
police or get Guido his own spatula. Then they rolled in
my direction, and I jumped back.

“Stop it!” I clapped my hands to get their attention.

Neither responded. Kyle grabbed a fistful of sand and
threw it into Guido’s face. He spat it out and grabbed some
broken shells, which he rubbed into Kyle’s stringy hair.
They stuck in the black strands, causing a salt-and-pepper
effect.

“Hey, can someone assist me here?” I turned to the
waitress.

“Not my problem.” She strolled past me with two
small food baskets in hand. I caught a whiff of charred
burger and almost gagged. But Pop Pop retrieved his
teeth from the glass, snapped them into place, and smiled
eagerly as the bored Goth girl served him.

“Thank you kindly, miss,” he said, picking up a French
fry. “Yum.”

“Damn it,” said Kyle, trying to shake the shells out of
his hair as he kept up the spatula attack. “Let go of me “

“Never!” said Guido, jerking his head from side to
side to avoid the blows.

“Help!” I appealed to no one in particular.

“Whaddya say?” Pop Pop tapped his hearing aid.

“The guys are fighting over here, and they won’t
stop.” I pointed down at the rolling, scuffling duo.

Pop Pop sprang into action: he grabbed the edge of
the picnic table and inched to an upright stance, peering
over at the trailer. When he realized what was going
on, he thumped his hand on the tabletop. “Cut that out,
youngsters!”

His burger basket flipped upward, and the meat patty
fell to the ground.

“Oh no.” His face fell in disappointment.

“You can have my burger, Pop Pop … I need some
assistance here.” I tried to catch Guido’s shirt, but they
rolled in the other direction right at the moment I had
almost grasped the collar.

“I’ll get my oxygen tank,” he suggested, making for
the truck with the speed of a turtle. “One whiff, and I
can take on both of them.”

Huh? I looked around in desperation. If this fight didn’t
stop, they were going to end up hurting each other-by
accident. I’ve got to do something. I scanned the outside
part of the trailer and saw nothing but an old wooden
broom. I paused, weighing its possible effect versus Pop
Pop’s potential oxygen-tank rejuvenation. Then I spied
Kyle reaching for a large rock as the guys rolled in the
direction of a palm tree. Instantly, I snatched the broom
and began to rap Guido and Kyle on their backs.

“Enough already!” I whacked them a couple more
times, inadvertently hitting Guido in the face. He gave a
little yelp and let go of Kyle, who scrambled away from
him, dropping the rock and shaking the sand out of his
hair.

“What’s the hell is the matter with you, dude?” Kyle
exclaimed as he drew in a ragged breath.

Panting, Guido wiped the sweat from his brow. “I know
what you did. Mr. Santini is dead, and you killed him.”

“You’re crazy.” Kyle picked sand out of his ear.

“I should’ve jammed it down your throat.”

Kyle glared at him. “Just try it.”

“Take it easy.” I clutched the broom, ready to strike if
the boys started up again.

“I’m coming.” Pop Pop wheeled his oxygen tank in
between the two boys, cranking it on and taking a deep
whiff.

Guido’s dark eyes widened, taking in the menacing
Pop Pop persona with his shriveled body hidden in a
loose-fitting sports shirt, knee-length plaid shorts, and
orthopedic wingtips.

Scary, all right.

Pop Pop straightened his skinny shoulders and shook
a bony finger in Guido’s direction. “Now you’ve gotta
deal with me, and I don’t take any guff, let me tell you.”
He turned to Kyle. “And not from you either.”