Then it hit me, or in another way it didn’t. Locker rooms have a fragrance all their own. Somewhere between the sweet tang of sweat and the stench of a decaying body. Usually overlaid by the spicy scent of rubbing oil or Tiger Balm. That clean-but-not-so-clean sense one gets when antiseptic and gym socks frequent the same space. This room had none of that. We could have been the first human life forms to ever step through the doors if the lack of aroma was anything to go by. But I did pick up something on the air, and it took me a moment to recognize it.

  Rubber.

  The entire floor was laid with rubber matting. I realized that the room was designed to be used by big guys wearing ice skates, and the rubber was not only for the protection of the floors, but also to protect the blades on the skates.

  I nodded at Amanda as if to suggest I was very impressed, and she told us that our next stop on the tour would be the greenroom.

  “It’s a lot like this room, to be honest,” she said. “But fewer lockers and with carpet rather than rubber flooring. It’s more for the bands and other artists who perform here.”

  She led us back out into the concrete corridor and headed toward the greenroom. But I stopped. I didn’t want to see a greenroom. I didn’t feel the need to do the fan tour of an arena that had barely seen any fans and housed teams that I could hardly name. What I wanted to see were the bowels of the facility, behind the scenes, the dark parts that even the diehard fans weren’t interested in. I wanted to see where things were going wrong.

  Ron glanced beside him and then slowed when he found I wasn’t there. Amanda must have sensed it because she stopped and looked back at me.

  “Is there a problem?”

  I was about to tell her what I really wanted to look at when the aforementioned golf cart snuck up behind me. A short, stocky guy with a serious face and furrows in his tanned forehead that rivaled my own was sitting in the driver’s seat. He had black hair and the kind of leathery features that suggested he had spent most of his life outdoors. The man nodded at Amanda and touched the brim of a tattered ball cap that bore the orange SF logo of the San Francisco Giants baseball team.

  “Miss Amanda,” said the man.

  She took a step toward the golf cart. “Cisco, I’m just doing a quick tour for our guests here, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Jones.”

  “Aha.”

  “Gentlemen,” said Amanda. “This is Francisco Monaro, our facility manager.”

  “Facility manager?” I said, stepping over to the cart and shaking Francisco’s hand.

  “Hey,” he said. “Nice to meet you, but if you’ll excuse me, I got lots to do.”

  “Of course,” said Amanda. “Don’t let us keep you.”

  He touched the peak of his cap once more and then buzzed away in his little ninja vehicle. We watched him go, then Amanda turned back with a smile.

  “I don’t know how this place would run without him.”

  I was sure she didn’t. I had met people like Francisco Monaro before. Sometimes they looked after ballparks, or gyms, or they were equipment managers or bus drivers or concierges in hotels. They were the people who got things done, the people who did the real work while the CEOs sat in their fancy offices. They were like sergeants in the Marines. My friend and mentor Lenny Cox had always told me that officers won medals, but sergeants won wars.

  I let Amanda finish her tour. We saw the greenroom, which was not much more than a storeroom with nice carpet and a sofa. She asked if we would like to see the room where they operate the video scoreboard.

  “They have all kinds of special effects tools,” she said. “It’s state of the art.”

  I told her that we had enjoyed the tour, but I was sure that we both had more important work to get to. She said she would direct us back to the exit. I told her not to bother, that I had a couple of calls to make before we left.

  “We’ll just take a seat in the stands for a few minutes and get that done,” I said. “We’re happy to show ourselves out.”

  “I don’t mind waiting,” she said, again with the smile. I wasn’t sure if she was flirting with me, just ultrafriendly, or under orders to not let us out of her sight. I suspected that the first option was me having delusions, but the other two felt pretty close to on the money.

  “No, I’m sure you’ve got things to do,” I said. “Don’t worry, we’re from the insurance company.”

  It felt a little bit like telling the folks from Bedford Falls that I was from the bank, but it got the desired result. She slowly retreated, shaking both of our hands before she left and reminding us to hand our visitor tags in to Devon upon exit.

  I led Ron out through an opening in the stands into the arena proper. We were on the floor level and could have walked straight onto the half-finished ice. But we didn’t.

  I turned up an aisle, walked up into the stands, and took a seat about a quarter of the way up the first section. I generally preferred to sit much higher, not only during a game but also during my times of stadium contemplation, but I wasn’t there to watch my team play or to ponder life’s great mysteries. I wasn’t even there to make a phone call. What I wanted was some alone time with someone who really knew what the heck was going on in this place.

  Chapter Five

  Ron and I sat and watched the guys work on the ice. I wasn’t sure if my eyes were deceiving me, because the patch of white seemed to be getting smaller, not larger, as if they were taking the ice away. I watched one man wheel in a movable stand with a stack of what looked like black rubber matting on it. When he got to the edge of where the black floor met the ice he stopped, and he and another guy set about placing the first piece of rubber on top of the ice.

  I had grown up in New England and seen more than my fair share of frozen winters. I’d ice-skated on frozen ponds and even played the odd bit of hockey, just for hits and giggles, nothing serious. But I’d never learned anything about ice rink maintenance. These guys seemed to be covering the ice up, not installing it, as if the blanket of rubber would help keep it frozen or something.

  I saw the golf cart appear from underneath the arena seating. Francisco Monaro jumped out and walked up onto the rubber flooring where he spoke to one of his workers. For a moment I contemplated wandering down to chat with him, but I was conscious of Big Brother up in his fancy suite, watching everything like a hawk.

  When I saw that their conversation was over and Monaro turned to walk back to his golf cart, I dashed down the steps to intercept him.

  He stood in the large breezeway that led from the playing surface into the maintenance concourse, next to what looked like a movable stand of seating that was pushed aside to make it easier for the workers to move in and out of wherever it was they stored all that rubber.

  Monaro was watching the work proceed when I walked up beside him.

  “What’s with the rubber?” I asked. “Does it keep the ice frozen?”

  “No,” he said. “It’s to keep everything else dry.”

  I wasn’t sure what everything else constituted, but I let it go. He didn’t strike me as the most talkative guy, so I looked for an in, some common ground to help establish our relationship, to get him to trust me.

  “You a Giants fan?” I asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Your ball cap.”

  “Oh. No, not really. Don’t really follow baseball.”

  “It just goes with your name, huh?”

  He shrugged his solid shoulders. “Yeah, I guess. I was named after San Francisco. I was born there, but I don’t remember it.”

  “How long you been in Florida?”

  “Couple years.”

  “And before that?”

  “Why? You writing a book or something?”

  I shrugged. “Just curious how a guy from the Bay Area learns how to build an ice rink.”

  “We moved to Michigan. I learned there.”

  “The weather is a good deal better here,” I said.

  “Got that right.” He glanced back at the workers on the arena floor and then looked me up and down. “So what was your name again?”

  “Miami Jones.”

  “And what is it you’re here for, Mr. Jones?”

  “My friends call me Miami. And we’re here on behalf of the insurance company that covers the West Palm Beach Chill. They’re concerned about some of the issues the arena is having.”

  Monaro crossed his arms over his barrel-like chest. For a moment I thought he was going to clam up, as if we would hold him personally responsible for everything that was going on. It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility.

  “What can you tell me about all these freak accidents and so-called teething problems?” I asked.

  One side of his lip curled up in a facsimile of a smile. “Teething problems,” he said. “Is that what they’re calling it?”

  “According to your CEO. Why? You think something different’s going on?”

  “What I think don’t matter,” said Monaro. “But I’ll tell you one thing: it ain’t my fault.”

  “No one’s suggesting it is,” I said.

  “But somebody will,” he said. “Guys in the corporate suites never take the rap for anything.”

  “That’s because the guys in the corporate suites never really know what the hell’s going on. But you do. Don’t you, Francisco?”

  He stood silent for a moment and then slowly nodded. “You really want to know what I think’s going on?”

  “I do.”

  “I think this place is cursed.”

  “You mean like unlucky? Or Curse of the Bambino cursed?”

  “You remember when they first started building this place?” he said. “When all the local dignitaries and whatever had the ground-breaking ceremony?”

  “Vaguely. What of it?”

  “They were all standing out front of the old fronton, celebrating how it was going to get knocked down and rebuilt. Standing there with their shovels so shiny you could comb your hair in the reflection.”

  “So?”

  “An old woman came out of the crowd and laid a voodoo curse on the place.”

  “Seriously? An old woman?”

  “Yep. Even before it was built. She cursed the developers, and the mayor, and the whole damn thing.”

  “And you think that’s got something to do with what’s going on?” I tried to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

  “All I can tell you is this. Just after that, the mayor lost his election. And during construction it was just one problem after another, injuries and whatnot. The power guys and the stonemasons went on strike. And ever since it opened, all this strange stuff just keeps happening. I don’t think the curse is done.”

  “So you’re telling me that gas leaks and ticketing system failures are the result of a curse?”

  “You got a better idea?”

  I did not. But I wasn’t going back to my client with a curse as my only explanation. I decided to change tack. “Who authorized the locks to be changed on the storage unit?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “It was a curse.”

  Monaro shrugged.

  “That isn’t something that you would take care of?”

  “If I had authorized it, my guys wouldn’t have been stuck for hours waiting for the damned door to be opened. They wouldn’t have had to work overtime to get the floor laid.”

  “So you’re saying it wasn’t you, and yet it doesn’t seem to be anyone else. So who then?”

  “Search me,” he said as he glanced up into the rafters toward the executive level.

  I figured at that point he had said all he had to say on it, because he slipped into the seat of his golf cart.

  I bent down and handed him one of my business cards. “You’re right about one thing. It’s guys like you who always get left holding the bag. I don’t like that, and I don’t think it’s fair that you get caught in the middle of something you had nothing to do with. So if you see anything strange happening, give me a call.”

  He took the card, looked at it, then shoved it into his shirt pocket, right behind the arena logo. He didn’t say he’d call, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t. He just flicked the lever to kick his cart into reverse and backed down into the maintenance concourse. Then he flicked it again and sped away.

  Chapter Six

  Ron and I headed back to the office. We parked in the lot between our building and the monolithic county courthouse and eschewed the elevator for the stairs to get some semblance of exercise in.

  Lizzy was sitting at her desk typing at a pace faster than I could speak. She must have reached the end of a sentence as Ron closed the door, because she stopped and looked up at us.

  “So you’ve been working this afternoon?” Her tone suggested she found the concept difficult to believe.

  “We have,” I said. “A new insurance case. Ron has all the details.”

  “You’re working an insurance case?”

  She glanced at Ron, and I saw the grin on his face as he nodded.

  “Did you find out anything?” I asked.

  “I found out plenty,” she said. “Not that it means anything to me.”

  “Why don’t you come in and give us the rundown.”

  I opened the door to my office, and we assumed our regular positions. I sat behind the desk and kicked off my shoes, keeping my feet off the desk. Lizzy took the seat on the other side and wouldn’t take kindly to having my pinkies waved in her face. Ron flopped down on the sofa, opened the bar fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water.

  “So what’s the context?” asked Lizzy.

  She had already made it clear that we were neither hit men nor spies, and if we were, we might have chosen to keep her out of the loop. But we didn’t run our office that way. Generally speaking, the more we all knew, the more value we had as a group. I gave Lizzy a brief rundown on the case, such as it was, and the little we had learned at the arena.

  “Can you fill in any of the gaps?” I asked her.

  She rustled some papers then licked her thumb through vermilion lips and flicked to the page that she wanted.

  “So you’re asking about this guy, Con Gelphert, and how he fits into everything.”

  “Yes,” I said. “We were told the whole thing was some kind of public–private enterprise.”

  “It is. So here’s how it seems to fit together. The facility itself is co-owned by the County of Palm Beach and a private company called Provents. The joint venture then hires Provents to manage the day-to-day running of the arena.”

  “So this Provents owns half the arena and then gets paid to manage it?” I asked.

  “Exactly.”

  “Nice gig.”

  “It gets better,” she said, then sort of wobbled her head. “Or worse, depending on your point of view. See, it seems this management company, Provents, is itself owned by another company called JTX Holdings.”

  “Okay.”

  “JTX Holdings, in turn, is also the owner of another company called Chill Sporting Brands. This company owns the arena’s number one tenant, the West Palm Beach Chill hockey team.”

  “So you’re saying the company that owns half the arena also owns the team?”

  “Once removed, but, yes.”

  Ron sat up from his supine position on the sofa. “And it’s the team that our client is insuring.”

  “But it seems like it’s the arena as much as anything that they’re insuring against,” I said. “Weird.” I looked back to Lizzy. “Is there more?”

  “Oh, there’s more. As owner of the team, this JTX Holdings is a stakeholder in the overall league, the Southern Sunshine Hockey League LLC.”

  “How does that work?”

  “The league is essentially a pass-through entity,” said Lizzy. “It’s not designed to keep any profit. The way it works is, any operating surplus from the league is passed through to the stakeholders, which appear to be each of the teams in equal share. It’s the teams themselves, or their owning companies, that then get taxed on any profits.”

  “And are there any profits?”

  “Not yet.” She flipped to another page. “According to the Palm Beach Post, all three entities are massively leveraged at this point: the league, the team, and the venue. They seem to imply that it’s all expected, but it will take several years to build the fan base to the point of profitability.”

  “So it looks like all roads lead back to this JTX Holdings?” I asked.

  “They do,” said Lizzy. “But it doesn’t stop there. JTX Holdings is itself owned by a company called JTX Systems, which is based in Bermuda.”

  I glanced at Ron, and he raised his eyebrows. “Tax haven,” he said.

  “And then where does the trail go?” I asked.

  “Don’t know,” said Lizzy. “The Bermudian authorities don’t like to share much information about private companies based there.”

  “So that’s the dead end?”

  “More or less. But I did find a common link.” She flipped to another page in her notes. “There’s a common name on most of these company records. Provents, Chill Sporting Brands, even the league. Plus JTX Holdings.”

  “What’s the name?”

  “Trainor. John Trainor. It seems he’s a local Palm Beach boy, grew up here before going to boarding school in the Northeast, and then college in New York. I looked him up on the Palm Beach Post website and found a few bits and bobs. He worked in banking in New York City for a few years before returning to Palm Beach. He’s one of those guys.”

  I didn’t need to ask her what she meant by that. Lizzy had a particular way of looking at the world. She didn’t much care for rich people in general, but particularly bankers and those investment types who moved money around in great quantities and got horrendously wealthy from it but never seemed to produce anything of value.

  “And what about our CEO, Con Gelphert?” I asked.

  “There’s not so much about him,” she said. “But I can tell you this. He reports back to the co-owners of the arena—Provents and the county—but his salary is paid by Provents, as part of their role as manager of the facility. All the other employees I could get info on appear to be paid by the joint venture, the holding company.”