Dark Homecoming by Eric van Lustbader

Author:Eric van Lustbader [Lustbader, Eric van]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Thriller, Adventure, Mystery, Crime
ISBN: 0671003291
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1995-12-31T13:00:00+00:00

DAY FOUR

1

I he spine of South Beach consisted of three main north-south thoroughfares—Ocean Drive, Washington and Collins Avenue—as they ran from First to Eighteenth Streets. But those boundaries were, of necessity, fluid; each week, it seemed, South Beach was expanding northward and westward.

South Beach had been in a state of decline for so long, residents still seemed shinned by its recent revival. Built in the Art Deco and Moderne styles in the 1930s and 1940s, it had been through the Great Depression when you could get a room at a near-deserted hotel for five dollars a week. Through the 1950s and 1960s it was part of the safe haven for retirees, mainly Jews from New York's garment and dry goods unions shops.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, the run-down historic buildings attracted speculators with more money than expertise, and again, many people lost money. But only a few crucial years later, by the end of the decade, an influx of European designers, models, and photographers took quick advantage of the bargain-basement prices. They were intrigued by the kitschy architecture and wild Deco colors, but, Croaker suspected, their interest had more to do with resurrecting old-time Hollywood glamour than it did with a renascence of a bygone period of history.

It was just past midnight when Croaker parked the T-bird near the Madonna Club. Less than twenty-four hours until Juan Garcia Barbacena landed in South Florida and became Croaker's prey.

Photos of the lap dancers to be hired inside the club were sheened with colored neon, lending them an unreal edge. The retouched glamour of the photos—artificial and flavorless—served to remind him of Vonda's empty life. Like Sonia, all she'd needed was a chance at life she was not now going to get. Passing a cigar store with salsa music, raw and sweaty, blaring from its interior, his thoughts strayed to Bennie, and then the sick feeling in his stomach surfaced all over again.

He found the Lightning Tube without difficulty. This was the place Gideon's band ManMan was playing. Who was Gideon? Rachel's boyfriend. Her drug connection. All too likely both.

The Lightning Tube had blacked-out windows just like the Margate Gun & Racquet Club. He went around the corner, saw that the club extended all the way back to a narrow alley filled with green Dumpsters and a thin tabby cat that stared at him with eyes like marbles. Above the back door was a security light that buzzed like a nest of angry hornets. In the dirty stucco wall were two filthy windows. He looked in one, saw a urinal and a sink. On the opposite side of the alley was a metal security door bolted and padlocked. There were no windows in this building. He turned around and went back to the front entrance.

Inside, it looked like a garage—concrete floor and walls, a trio of old gasoline pumps from the 1950s. Blowups of pin-up calendar pages from that decade were projected on the ceiling. Steel catwalks crisscrossed the bilevel space. A bar, constructed out of iron and aqua-tinted fused glass, was the current center of activity.

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