Nolen Tyner continued to stare at Moran. He nodded. “Okay. How about if I sit out by the pool and drink my beer and I don’t take a room? How much is that?”
“That’s also thirty dollars,” Moran said. “For the ambience and the music.”
“I don’t hear any music.”
“I haven’t turned it on yet,” Moran said. “I’ll tell you what though. You can take your six-pack up the road, you might find something more to your liking. Maybe even less expensive.”
Nolen Tyner was looking at Moran’s beard, his white T-shirt and cutoff jeans. “You work here or own the place?”
“Both,” Moran said. “My desk clerk’d stand here and chat with you all afternoon, but he’s off today.”
“Being courteous to people who come in off the street,” Nolen Tyner said, smiling a little, “I imagine that can be a pain in the ass at times, huh?”
“It can if you let it,” Moran said.
Moran looked at the reservation card.
Nolen Tyner, 201 Alhambra Circle, Coral Gables, Fla. 33134. Make of car: ’76 Porsche. No license number.
Written in an arty back-leaning style, half-printed. Give him an “A” for neatness but an “F” for lying about his home address, since 201 Alhambra Circle was a big glass building, the Ponce de Leon Plaza, where his former wife’s lawyer had his offices. It wasn’t more than a mile from where Moran had lived during the seven years of the marriage.
If Nolen Tyner did live in Coral Gables or had an office there and he liked to sit outside in the afternoon and drink beer, why didn’t he go to Bayfront Park? Why come all the way up to Pompano, an hour’s drive, pay thirty bucks for a room and then sit outside? Which the guy was doing now. Lying in a lounge chair on the afternoon shadyside of the pool. Holding a can of beer on his chest, moving it almost in slow motion when he’d take a sip. Wearing his sporty safari shirt, but also wearing, Moran noticed, very unsporty black socks with his open-toed sandals. If he wasn’t meeting a woman here-and after about an hour and three cans of beer it didn’t look like it-then he was either hiding or looking for action.