bed and started looking for his other shoe.
FIFTEEN
THIS MONTH it was Initiative .
Last month it had been Concern.
Ben Decovic could chart his ten months with the Magnolia Beach Police Department with the appearance of each bumper sticker the state of South Carolina issued for the blue and whites. He’d started out with Honesty , rode for thirty days with Sharing , and moved on to Responsibility and Duty and then continued with Compassion, Integrity, Faith, and Sacrifice .
The black and white bumper stickers bothered him in a way he could not quite put his finger on, the stickers evoking the same type of ambivalence he felt whenever he encountered another of South Carolina’s favorite practices, that of putting Jesus on the plates of seemingly every other car or truck on the road. The point of it all seemed either too obvious or opaque to make any real sense.
Ben had been working the three-to-eleven and had an hour to go on his shift. He worked his way through the lots of the strip malls and businesses off Atlantic Avenue, most of them closed or about to.
On his way out of the Walgreens lot, he spotted Carl Adkin climbing out of his patrol car at the 7-11 across the street. Ben waved. Adkin looked over at him for a moment, then nodded, pausing near the front doors and flipping open his cell phone.
The Passion Palace was three blocks farther down the street and Ben’s last stop before returning to headquarters. There was nothing particularly palatial about the Palace. It was flat-roofed with no front windows and constructed of cement blocks spruced up with a paint job that vacillated between lavender and pink under the two hooded mercury lights out front. There was a portable billboard street-side that simply read LIVE GIRLS and MEMBERS ONLY, the latter, Ben knew, taken care of by a twenty dollar bill at the door.
There were two Passion Palaces, the other in North Myrtle Beach, a small but lucrative skin kingdom overseen by Sonny Gramm, who also had controlling interests in a half-dozen adult video stores as well as ownership of a supper club and three restaurants popular with tourists who equated gargantuan buffets of all-you-could-eat deep-fried food with a meal.
One of the bouncers at the Palace, Terry, was standing outside the front door smoking a cigarette. Ben stopped and rolled down his window and asked how things were going.
“Other than the fact that my girlfriend has a major-league yeast infection and Sonny pink-slipped me tonight, the world is a fine and wonderful place, Officer.”
“Gramm cut you loose?”
Terry nodded. “Five years, I’ve been working for him. Then bam, he does this.” Terry lifted his head and blew a stream of smoke over the roof of the blue and white. “He’s doing the same thing at the other places. Cutting back to one bouncer and thinning out the ranks of the waitresses. Then kicking up the hours and duties of the ones who are still around.”
Terry looked over and down at Ben. “Money problems. That’s all he talks about now.” He shook his head. “Used to be a nice guy, Sonnwy. You did your job, you got a decent paycheck, a comp on drinks, he had you out for parties at his place, but the last few months, he’s Scrooged-out large-scale. The whole thing sucks, man.”
“What’s that?” Ben asked, leaning his head out the window.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Terry said.
“That,” Ben said. From the rear of the Palace came a mix of sounds, metal on glass, metal on metal, loud voices.
“I told you, I don’t hear anything,” Terry said. “I think something happened to my ears after I got pink-slipped. They’re not working right tonight.”
Ben called in the disturbance and requested backup. On more than one occasion, some of the patrons of the Palace got a little out of hand near closing. Whatever was going on didn’t sound good. Adkin radioed that he was on the way and to wait for him before proceeding.
The sounds continued, the volume rising and
FIFTEEN
THIS MONTH it was Initiative .
Last month it had been Concern.
Ben Decovic could chart his ten months with the Magnolia Beach Police Department with the appearance of each bumper sticker the state of South Carolina issued for the blue and whites. He’d started out with Honesty , rode for thirty days with Sharing , and moved on to Responsibility and Duty and then continued with Compassion, Integrity, Faith, and Sacrifice .
The black and white bumper stickers bothered him in a way he could not quite put his finger on, the stickers evoking the same type of ambivalence he felt whenever he encountered another of South Carolina’s favorite practices, that of putting Jesus on the plates of seemingly every other car or truck on the road. The point of it all seemed either too obvious or opaque to make any real sense.
Ben had been working the three-to-eleven and had an hour to go on his shift. He worked his way through the lots of the strip malls and businesses off Atlantic Avenue, most of them closed or about to.
On his way out of the Walgreens lot, he spotted Carl Adkin climbing out of his patrol car at the 7-11 across the street. Ben waved. Adkin looked over at him for a moment, then nodded, pausing near the front doors and flipping open his cell phone.
The Passion Palace was three blocks farther down the street and Ben’s last stop before returning to headquarters. There was nothing particularly palatial about the Palace. It was flat-roofed with no front windows and constructed of cement blocks spruced up with a paint job that vacillated between lavender and pink under the two hooded mercury lights out front. There was a portable billboard street-side that simply read LIVE GIRLS and MEMBERS ONLY, the latter, Ben knew, taken care of by a twenty dollar bill at the door.
There were two Passion Palaces, the other in North Myrtle Beach, a small but lucrative skin kingdom overseen by Sonny Gramm, who also had controlling interests in a half-dozen adult video stores as well as ownership of a supper club and three restaurants popular with tourists who equated gargantuan buffets of all-you-could-eat deep-fried food with a meal.
One of the bouncers at the Palace, Terry, was standing outside the front door smoking a cigarette. Ben stopped and rolled down his window and asked how things were going.
“Other than the fact that my girlfriend has a major-league yeast infection and Sonny pink-slipped me tonight, the world is a fine and wonderful place, Officer.”
“Gramm cut you loose?”
Terry nodded. “Five years, I’ve been working for him. Then bam, he does this.” Terry lifted his head and blew a stream of smoke over the roof of the blue and white. “He’s doing the same thing at the other places. Cutting back to one bouncer and thinning out the ranks of the waitresses. Then kicking up the hours and duties of the ones who are still around.”
Terry looked over and down at Ben. “Money problems. That’s all he talks about now.” He shook his head. “Used to be a nice guy, Sonnwy. You did your job, you got a decent paycheck, a comp on drinks, he had you out for parties at his place, but the last few months, he’s Scrooged-out large-scale. The whole thing sucks, man.”
“What’s that?” Ben asked, leaning his head out the window.
“I didn’t hear anything,” Terry said.
“That,” Ben said. From the rear of the Palace came a mix of sounds, metal on glass, metal on metal, loud voices.
“I told you, I don’t hear anything,” Terry said. “I think something happened to my ears after I got pink-slipped. They’re not working right tonight.”
Ben called in the disturbance and requested backup. On more than one occasion, some of the patrons of the Palace got a little out of hand near closing. Whatever was going on didn’t sound good. Adkin radioed that he was on the way and to wait for him before proceeding.
The sounds continued, the volume rising and
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