“So Gelphert answers to this Trainor guy?”

  “I haven’t seen an organizational chart or anything, but you could make that assumption, at least on the management company side.”

  “And on the county side?”

  “The county side of the arena is handled by a unit called Palm Beach Events, based out of the county office downtown. They seem to be tasked with bringing events to the area—you know, concerts, conferences, that sort of thing. The unit is run by a general manager called Jessica Prior.”

  “What do we know about Ms. Prior?”

  “At this point, nothing,” said Lizzy. “I was focused more on the corporate side. You want me to make a file on her?”

  I looked at my watch then at Ron, who gave me an almost imperceptible nod.

  “No, don’t bother. She’s in the neighborhood. Why don’t we just pay her a visit.”

  Chapter Seven

  Palm Beach Events was housed in the Palm Beach County Robert Weisman Governmental Center, a laboriously named building right around the corner from our office. I could have chipped a pitching wedge out my window and landed it through a window there. At least I would have made that shot in my dreams.

  Ron and I took to the streets and walked along Olive Avenue into the main foyer. An information board pointed us in the direction we needed to go.

  The home of Palm Beach Events was nothing elaborate. Displayed in the window was a small sign with a logo that looked as if it had been printed by an inkjet machine. I opened the door and stuck my head in. Like at the arena, there was an empty reception desk, no computer either. We moved inside, and I glanced around, looking for signs of life.

  There was a small open-plan area beyond reception, so I wandered until I found a human being. A guy in a crisp white button-up shirt with a Palm Beach Events logo sat staring at a computer screen. I made a mental note to talk to Lizzy about whether we needed polo shirts with our logo. I made a further note to talk to Lizzy about whether we needed a logo.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  “Huh?” The guy looked up like I had just woken him.

  “We’re here to see Jessica Prior.”

  He looked toward the reception desk as if perplexed how someone had breached their security, then fumbled his reply: “I, um, do you have, um, an appointment?”

  “No, I don’t need one. I’m from the insurance company.” I said it with my most serious tone of voice, all the gravitas that I could muster. I was well aware such gravitas was limited while I was wearing a tollbooth worker’s shirt.

  “I don’t think she’s here.”

  “Let’s hope you’re wrong about that,” I said. “I’d hate for the new arena to have to be shut down because of safety violations, and then have the insurance company sue the county for losses. Not sure the taxpayers will be happy about that.”

  The guy frowned and then glanced at a closed door nearby. I wouldn’t have minded playing poker against him. It was as big a tell as you’re ever likely to see outside of Vegas.

  “Um, just wait here,” he said.

  “Sure thing.”

  He almost tripped out of his chair as it rolled away from him. He stumbled toward the door, knocked softly, and stepped inside, closing it behind him.

  We waited about sixty seconds. Then he reappeared and ushered us into a different office. It was set up like one of those corporate boardrooms, with a long table ringed by high-backed chairs and a large screen on the wall. But the room was far too small for the purpose, and we had to edge around chairs just to get in through the door.

  The guy offered us water, which we declined, and told us that Ms. Prior would be with us momentarily.

  Momentarily turned out to be about five minutes, the lower end of what I had expected. When the door finally opened, two women came in who couldn’t have been more different if they had agreed on their look beforehand. The second woman, dressed in a plain gray skirt and jacket, entered with a bowed head, almost in deference to the first. She carried a notepad, a large binder, and two cell phones. I couldn’t see any makeup around her eyes or on her brown skin.

  The other woman was the polar opposite. She had the kind of skin that burned like paper under a magnifying glass in the Florida sun. She compensated for her alabaster tone by plastering herself in makeup. It was all well applied and designed to accentuate her cheekbones and eyes, but it was certainly on the heavy side. Her jacket and skirt were the color of a fire engine, the kind of outfit you could wear out to sea in case you capsized and needed to be spotted from the air. This woman carried nothing in her hands.

  “I’m Jessica Prior,” said the woman in red. “I’m the general manager of Palm Beach Events. What is this about safety violations?”

  “We’re working on behalf of Stone Strong Insurance,” I said. “We’ve come from the arena. There are a lot of unusual things happening there.”

  Prior looked at me for a moment—not up and down, the way some people do, but right into my eyes as if she had read a book on ESP and was trying it out. She glanced at Ron, then pulled out a chair and sat.

  “I haven’t heard of anything strange going on,” she said. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But why don’t you tell me about it?”

  The woman in gray took a seat on the same side as Prior but was not introduced.

  I went over the issues that Peter Parker had outlined to us. I didn’t mention the curse. The response I got was more or less the same story we had received from Con Gelphert: teething problems. But Prior added a disclaimer.

  “It’s not the county’s fault. Even new NFL stadiums have these issues.”

  “How many NFL stadiums have you operated?” I asked.

  She closed her eyelids very slowly and opened them again, seemingly brushing away the stupidity of my question.

  “Look, Mr. . . .”

  “Jones. Miami Jones.”

  “Mr. Jones. I’m aware of everything you’ve mentioned, but nothing you’ve said is out of the ordinary. As I’m sure Mr. Gelphert explained to you, new facilities like this take time to bed down. Everyone is working very hard to make the arena the success I know it will be. Having people like you go around town casting aspersions on our team only serves to hurt the good people of Palm Beach County.”

  I wondered how often she had practiced that little speech in the bathroom mirror at home.

  “All I can tell you, Mr. Jones, is that Stone Strong Insurance is not a partner in this facility, nor are we or the management company a client of theirs. If they have written a policy on behalf of the team regarding the use of a brand-new arena, they should’ve known the potential pitfalls before they did so. If they didn’t, they are incompetent and shouldn’t be in that business.”

  Prior stood up, pushing her chair back into the wall. Her unnamed assistant followed suit slowly, without the furniture hitting anything.

  “Now if you will excuse me, I have an event to attend.” Prior turned to leave but found her way obstructed by her assistant, who for a moment didn’t appear to know what to do. Her instinct seemed to be to step aside and allow Prior to leave the room first, but the tight squeeze made that impossible, unless one of them was prepared to climb up onto the boardroom table. Prior jinked her head with a wide-eyed look to the woman in gray, who gathered up her files and folder and phones and stumbled out of the room, followed by a flash of red.

  Once they were gone, I turned to Ron: “That was different.”

  “Your tax dollars at work,” he said.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  “I think they all have good reason to play down any funny stuff. But beyond the curse, I don’t see any evidence of anything untoward.”

  “You want to go down to Rosemary Square, talk to Parker?”

  Ron shook his head. “It’s five o’clock. He won’t be there. Let’s drop by in the morning.”

  “Okay. So what do we do now?”

  “Are you driving back to Miami tonight?”

  “Not if we’re planning on visiting Parker first thing. Danielle is working late anyway.”

  “Then you’ll stay with me,” he said. “Cassandra and I have a dinner thing, so you’ve got the place to yourself.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I feel like I should be paying rent or something.”

  “I’ll have none of that crazy talk. You’re just a little like driftwood on the ocean right now. You’re trying to find the right current. And you will. Then that current will bring you back to shore.”

  I looked at him, all silvery-gray hair and blotchy sun-speckled skin. There wasn’t anything that I wouldn’t do for him, but I still felt uneasy when the shoe was on the other foot.

  “You’re starting to sound like Lenny,” I said.

  Ron stood up, easing his chair back slowly. He laid his hand on my shoulder and winked. “I should be so lucky.”

  We looked at each other for a moment, knowing exactly what the other was feeling. Even after all these years, we both shared a Lenny Cox-shaped void in our souls. Lenny had been more a father to me than to Ron, but he had saved us both in different ways. Since he had died, we had both come to realize that we needed to be there for each other, even if we rarely put that sentiment into words.

  “Come on,” said Ron. “If we leave now, we’ll have time for a quick one at Longboard’s.”

  I said nothing. I just stood up and followed his lead.

  Chapter Eight

  I woke up the next morning feeling more refreshed than I had in a long time. Perhaps it was the lack of alcohol in my body, or maybe just the benefit of an early night. Ron and Cassandra had gotten dolled up and headed out to some mansion or other for a charity dinner, leaving me alone in their apartment overlooking the water on South Ocean Boulevard.

  I had become restless, so I took a walk along Australian Avenue looking for something to eat or drink but found nothing that suited my mood. I felt like I needed to be wearing wedding attire to even wander into most of the places I passed by. I got as far as Cocoanut Row then wandered back up Worth Avenue toward the ocean.

  Worth Avenue was one of those places that had the power to make you feel worthless, unable to afford any of the designer goods displayed in the storefront windows. I ended up walking back to the apartment and making myself a grilled cheese, which I drowned with a can of Coke, sitting on the beach beneath the old clock tower at the end of Worth.

  After a coffee breakfast, Ron drove us back to the parking lot by our office, and we walked over to Rosemary Square. This time we waited a few minutes for Peter Parker to arrive. He got out of the elevator with a takeout coffee in his hand but didn’t seem overly surprised to see us sitting in reception. He told us to follow him back to his office.

  “So what’s the report?” he asked. His face was serious, but not overly so, as if being in the insurance business put a guy in a perpetual state of moderate concern.

  I told him about our visit to the arena, and our meeting with the CEO, and our chat with the facility manager, and finally our brief interlude with the general manager of Palm Beach Events, Jessica Prior. I told him that yes, it did seem that strange things were happening but that we had uncovered no sense that it was anything more than typical operational issues.

  “I can tell you that everyone we spoke to seemed pretty intent on protecting their backside,” I said, “but I’m afraid no one seemed to be particularly incompetent.”

  Parker absorbed this information without any change in his expression.

  “There was one thing that I found odd,” I said. “But it wasn’t specific to the arena itself.”

  “That being?” Parker asked.

  “The whole ownership situation. It all felt very incestuous. I mean, the county being in bed with a private enterprise—that bit I can see. But the management company seems to be owned by the guy who also owns the team. And because he owns the team, that guy is one of the main stakeholders of the league.”

  “John Trainor, you mean?”

  “You know him?”

  “Of course, he’s our client. Or more specifically, it’s the corporate entity that owns the team who is our client. Chill Sporting Brands. But Mr. Trainor is the chairman of both the company and the team.”

  “And yet it’s his company that runs the arena,” I said. “Doesn’t that seem a little strange to you?”

  Parker shook his head. “Not really. Lots of professional sports teams own stakes in their home arenas or stadia through various corporate structures. The Bruins, Philly, Denver—it’s not that unusual.”

  “And that’s your problem,” I said. “If the insurance policy you wrote covers the team, and the same guy who owns the team owns the private share of the arena, then there’s no logic to allowing the arena management to intentionally or unintentionally sabotage the arena’s operation.”

  “I’m not sure unintentional sabotage is a thing, but I see your point.”

  “So, correct me if I’m mistaken, but if something in the arena goes wrong and you have to pay out to the team, your payment would only cover any actual losses, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “In the example you gave us yesterday, about ticket sales at an alternative venue, you wouldn’t just take their word for it that they could achieve a full house every game at the arena?”

  “No.”

  “They would have to prove past ticket sales to claim future losses. Am I right?”

  “Of course.”

  “So at this point, everyone is suggesting that these issues are teething problems because everything—the arena, the team, and even the league, for that matter—are all so new. Which means they couldn’t have established any decent level of ticket sales to claim against.”

  “I suppose not. What’s your point?”

  “My point is, this doesn’t seem to be anyone’s first rodeo. So having these incidents continue, if they are freak occurrences, seems unlikely. And if they’re being done intentionally, I can see no gain in that. It seems like a zero-sum game.”

  “It may be a zero-sum game for those making a claim,” said Parker, “but not for us. My concern is the likelihood of losses on our policy.”

  Ron gave me his I have nothing further to add face, and we both turned back to Parker. I wasn’t sure there was a whole lot more we could do for him, other than go through the motions to pad our invoice. And even with an insurance company, that kind of thing never sat right with me.

  Parker opened his mouth to say something, but his phone rang. He stuck a finger in the air to put a pin in the conversation while he took the call.

  It sounded like a one-way conversation—lots of information from the other end and lots of ums and ahs and okays from Parker. For the first time, I saw the creases in his forehead deepen, as if his normal sedimentary layer of worry had been overlaid by something new and closer to the surface. He finished the call, put his phone back in its cradle, and then steepled his fingers on his desk.

  “So much for your zero-sum game,” said Parker.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “That was my man at the arena. Apparently they’ve just lost all power.”

  Chapter Nine

  When we arrived back at the arena, the place reminded me of a kicker looking to boot the winning field goal in a Super Bowl. On the outside it was all calm and business as usual, but the inside was utter mayhem.

  We wandered up to the security door and found Devon standing sentry. When I asked him what was going on, he vigorously shook his head.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “But nothing good.”

  Ron stepped over to the small table to log us back into the facility as I peered inside. It didn’t immediately look chaotic—there were no people around—and the only sound I heard was the soft whisper of breeze slowly channeling its way around the concourse.

  Then Amanda Swaggert came running down the concourse. She wasn’t sprinting—she looked like she could have taken it up another notch if she needed to—but she was moving quicker than the average PR professional usually did. I noticed she was wearing running shoes with her skirt. I wasn’t sure if that was how she arrived at work, before changing into something less practical, or whether she’d been wearing them the previous day and I’d simply failed to notice.

  She saw me standing by the door and slowed her gait but didn’t stop.

  “Mr. Jones,” she said, not seeming to be out of breath at all. “What are you doing here?”

  “We heard something’s gone wrong?”

  She jogged past me. “Not at all. But Mr. Gelphert’s off-site right now.”

  She left it at that, then turned away from me and picked up her pace, bouncing down the concourse, her running shoes squeaking on concrete.

  I turned back toward the sunshine to find Devon looking over my shoulder.

  “Does that look like nothing do you?” I asked.

  He just shrugged his ample shoulders. Then his radio squawked, and he pulled it from his hip. This time I was close enough to understand the message.

  “Secure all exits,” said the voice.

  Devon rolled his eyes at the radio. “I did a full sweep about an hour ago. Everything was locked down.”

  “Do it again,” said the voice. “Right now.”

  This time Devon scanned the parking lot and the arena forecourt, then came back to the radio. “I’m on entrance duty.”

  “Then close the damn door, and get it done.”

  “What happens if someone comes—”

  “Get it done. Out.”

  For a moment Devon stared at the silent radio. Then he hooked it back onto his belt. He looked like a man in turmoil—like the guy who guards the gate at Fort Knox but has been called away to put out a fire in the basement.

  “You sure all the other doors are locked?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “I did the rounds not even an hour ago. I always check everything is locked, and everything was, unless it was unlocked from the inside.”