Homemade Sin (9 page)

“Why are we stopping at this shithole?” Dee Dee said as Roland pulled into the parking lot of the Blue Flamingo Hotel and Lounge. The moon cast a pallid glow on the shabby, peeling, cement structure.

“Uh … this is it.” Roland was more ashamed of the appearance of his hotel than he ever was before. “The Blue Flamingo.” He tried to interject a modicum of pride into his voice. “Soon to be the Santeria Hotel and Fugu Lounge.”

Renaming the restaurant the Fugu Lounge was Dee Dee's idea. She had read recently in some restaurant magazine, the newest thing in sushi was fugu, also called blowfish or puffer fish. Customers were flocking to Japanese restaurants across the country to cheat death by sampling the potentially deadly delicacies. She'd suggested serving fugu as they were passing through Miami. Roland had warmed to the ‘cheating death with food' theme, and by the time they had reached Vero Beach, they had come up with a complete menu of potentially lethal entrees and libations.

Dee Dee had been excited at the prospect of the restaurant renovation, chatting away as they drove north through Naples and Fort Meyers. She envisioned serving rare delicacies from all corners of the world; from California newts to Midwestern Bufo toads to Blue-ringed octopus from Australia. Her restaurant would serve only the most exotic, the most chic and the most expensive morsels to the most discriminating and the most well-heeled.

“You can't be serious,” Dee Dee said. She opened her door, stepped on to the parking lot, and stared at the ramshackle hotel.

Stinky slinked out between her feet and set off on a tour of the hotel and grounds. He circled the entire building, taking in the beach and the pool area. On the way back to the parking lot, he crept into the alley behind the lounge and stopped in his tracks. Before him was a large green dumpster situated behind the kitchen door to the restaurant. He bounded to the top of the dumpster and, with regal demeanor, surveyed his new domain.

Dee Dee folded her arms over her chest and made a face as if she had smelled something horrible. She beheld the sagging roof and the two floors of faded magenta doors and knew they led to tacky rooms containing gold-veined mirrors on the ceilings and oceans of baby-blue shag carpeting.

“Does it look better in the daylight?” she said.

”Uh … no, actually, it's not as pretty in the daylight, but it's not as bad inside as outside,” Roland tried to give Dee Dee some hope. “Besides we're going to fix it up, right?”

“I had pictured a cotton-candy-palace, a pink poodle of a hotel, set amid mint green palms overlooking turquoise water the color of salt water taffy, bathed in butterscotch sunshine.” Dee Dee was now pacing up and down in the parking lot. “A hotel like the Paradise Hotel with a real, live alligator swimming in a fountain in the lobby, Bell Captains in stuffy uniforms, snooty concierges and a dining room with tables set with crystal and linen. This shabby, concrete cockroach trap is beyond hope.”

“Would you like to take the grand tour?”

Dee sniffed. “I seriously doubt there will be anything ‘grand' about it, but lead on Mister Slumlord.”

While Roland gave her the less-than-grand tour, he sensed Dee Dee reevaluating her life. Skirting the pool on the way to the front desk, he could almost hear her deciding the first thing she would have to do was cool down this relationship thing. The last thing she needed was a poor guy with a flea-bag hotel. As Roland led her through one of the rooms, he saw her shake her head at the predictable gold-veined mirrors and baby-blue shag carpeting. It was very obvious she hadn't counted on the orange plastic chairs arranged on the three foot square balconies overlooking the beach.

“Look at the beach,” said Roland. He stepped out onto the balcony and pointed to the long strip of white sand and the moon shimmering like diamonds on the dark water of the Gulf. “Isn't the beach beautiful?”

Dee Dee leaned on the rail of the balcony and took in the view of the beach. “Yes, the beach is nice,” she conceded, “but looking at the beach from one of these rooms is like looking at the French Riviera through a hole in your live-in, cardboard refrigerator box.”

The last stop of the tour was the Blue Flamingo Lounge. Roland crossed to behind the bar and poured himself a beer. He knew the hotel was a dump, but he couldn't listen to any more of Dee Dee's snipes while sober. “Drink?”

Dee Dee managed to choke out “Tequila,” as she wandered around the lounge, tsk-tsking everything she saw. She made a motion like sticking her finger down her throat as she gazed at the fishnets with big cork floats strung on the walls, the ship in a bottle in the window overlooking the beach, and the assorted shells lining the shelves behind the bar.  “You have to be kidding,” she said as she stood back to take in the full measure of a huge stuffed swordfish hanging over the door. The fish had oversized sunglasses perched on its nose and multi-colored, plastic leis hung around its neck.

“So?” Roland said. “Is it beyond hope?”

“It's awful.” Dee Dee tossed back her shot of tequila. “But we'll do what we can with it. Get a sheet of paper and a pen and we'll start drawing out a plan.”

From his perch atop the green dumpster Stinky spied an air duct extending from a hole in the cinderblock wall above the dumpster. He bounded toward it from the top of the dumpster, eased into the hole and followed the small, square, galvanized tunnel through a series of twists and turns that led him farther and farther toward the center of the motel. The tunnel dead-ended at a loose grate above the bar giving him a bird's-eye view of the entire lounge area. He settled in and looked down on the two people below huddled over large pad of paper, making sketches of the renovations they would make.

He purred with satisfaction as Dee Dee and Roland planned the conversion of the Blue Flamingo into the Fugu Lounge.

Cutter Andrews was standing at the rail, smoking a cigar, watching a pack of racing greyhounds chase an electric rabbit around a dirt track. “What the hell is that dog doing?” Cutter stared in disbelief, as Moreover, the greyhound on which he had bet two dollars, leapt from the track onto the wooden rail that separated the track from the infield.

The dog stood up on his hind legs and began prancing up and down the rail. He pirouetted, flipped on to his front paws and performed a perfect front-paw-stand. Flipping back on his hind legs the dog placed his front paws on his hips and began dancing the Can-Can. In his head, the dog was Tiny Dancer, King of the Circus. In his mind, he saw himself as a teacup Chihuahua in a pink tutu with little pink ballet shoes on his hind paws. A sequined conical hat perched jauntily on his head and he held a petite umbrella in his mouth. When he saw the electric rabbit running along the rail toward him he leapt into the air, doing a back-flip as the rabbit passed under him and landed on the dirt track. Catching a burning baton in his teeth in mid-flip he landed on his hind paws to the cheers of the adoring crowd.

His head cleared. Moreover realized he was a greyhound again and the crowd was booing and cursing him. His mouth felt like it was on fire and he yelped in pain.

Cutter, who had tossed the lit cigar at the dog's mouth, was laughing. When the cigar burned his tongue, Moreover let out a small, mournful yip, lowered his head and his tail and sulked back toward the kennel through a barrage of half-eaten hot dogs and beer cups.

“Crazy ass dog. That's two bucks I'll never see again. Thanks you mangy mutt!” Cutter tore his ticket in half, tossed it over his shoulder and stormed off toward the exit. As he looked toward the kennels he saw the dog being locked into his cage. He waited for the dog's trainer to leave and approached. “Stupid dog!” Cutter grunted at the dog and kicked his cage. The dog cowered into a corner of the cage and stared at stared at Cutter, running his burned tongue around his mouth and fixing Cutter's image in his mind.

Cutter cursed as he checked his watch. “Oh shit, I'm late. Hussey is going to have my ass.”

When Cutter pulled up in front of the admissions office at the University of South Florida, College of Medicine, Hussey was standing by the entrance, arms folded across her chest, tapping her foot. Cutter looked at his watch again. “Oh, shit, I'm almost an hour late.”

“How did it go?” Cutter smiled broadly, trying to sidestep her wrath.

“You're late!” Hussey climbed into the van. “Where have you been?”

“I've been looking for an apartment for us,” Cutter said, giving her his best sheepish look.

“Did you find an apartment near campus?”

“Not yet. I didn't see anything you'd like, so I'll look again tomorrow. How do you think you'll like the school?” Cutter said, eager to change the subject, as he pulled into traffic.

“It's going to be pretty cool.” Hussey was still icy but starting to melt. “I got a tour of the campus, filled out all the forms, got my list of books. I have to be back tomorrow with the tuition check. Did you go to the bank and deposit the check my dad gave me?”

“Yep, I opened a joint account and deposited the whole thirty thousand. I also put all my savings in there too. We can write checks on that.”

“Your entire savings was what … fifty dollars?”

“Almost two hundred!” Cutter said.

“Fine, I'll take the checkbook.”

“Don't you trust me?”

“Sure I trust you, but like my father always said, ‘trust everybody, but cut the cards.'”

Cutter handed over the checkbook. As Hussey checked the deposit receipt Cutter patted the ATM card in his pocket and smiled to himself.

Satisfied the deposit money was actually in the account, Hussey said, “Did you at least find us a hotel at the beach until classes start?”

“Not yet, I had some other things to do,” said Cutter.

Hussey turned to him and raised an eyebrow.

“Well, I went to St. Pete Beach and drove around.” Cutter knew what her raised eyebrow method all too well. “But I stopped into this little beach bar and the next thing I knew it was time to pick you up.”

“God, you truly are a screw up” said Hussey. “See why I don't trust you? Now we don't have a place to stay tonight.”

“Let's drive up the beach,” said Cutter, easing toward the exit to St. Pete Beach, “see what we can find. I saw a place that looks like it was recently renovated; they were hanging the sign up when I drove by. It's called the Santeria Hotel. Isn't ‘santeria' another word for voodoo?”

It was early evening when Roland announced, “That's all of it,” as he straightened the picture of Marie Laveau on the wall by the door between the bar and the hotel lobby. He stepped back and scanned the room.

Dee Dee had just finished cleaning fresh fish for tomorrow's opening day, on the new sushi bar she had picked up from a cheap restaurant supply house in Sarasota. They had worked straight through the night since pulling into the parking lot towing the U-Haul with all the voodoo paraphernalia from Key West. Behind the bar Roland had removed the shells and rearranged some of the liquor bottles to leave the top shelf open for the assortment of bottles and vials containing voodoo powders and elixirs. Statues of voodoo gods and goddesses were arranged around the room; voodoo dolls hung from the ceiling in prominent locations from fishing line.

The room had acquired an eerie feel.

Roland stepped behind the bar, “Want a celebratory drink?” He poured himself a beer from one of the taps.

“Fucking tequila,” said Dee Dee. She wiped her hands on her apron and bellied up to the bar. What sounded like an air-horn blasted from the pier a few hundred yards down the beach from the hotel. Through the window she saw a large white paddle wheeler docking.

“Must be around six,” said Roland, pouring tequila. “That's what time the casino boat docks and blows the horn. It'll dock there for about an hour while it takes on new passengers and then it heads out toward Tampa. All suckers if you ask me. Take a look at that beautifully renovated paddleboat. Gorgeous, right? The bar is teak; oil paintings on the walls. Do you think they bought all that stuff with their losings? People think they can win big, but the house always wins. Some people are dumber than dirt.”