Burnin' Down the Trailer Park (Part I)

A Detective Florida Man Weird Tale

Part I

The semi-retired prostitute wasn’t the worst looking aged hooker I had ever seen but she wasn’t going to win any current beauty contests.

“I was told yous a real honest to goodness PI.” She squinted at me as she slurred her statement of fact, while sucking on her vape pen.

I knew she was a prostitute because as a lover of sordid beach bars, I witnessed her plying her trade in the past, meeting tourists and business men every once in a while, at my favorite tiki bar, flirting over drinks before moving off to a more intimate setting.

Some of these older Florida whores are like middle-aged MMA fighters who just can’t let go of the steel cage.

She was still thin and her large fake boobs kept her upright, probably a stunning beach babe back in 1990 but with her leathery skin and smoker’s croak, she had gone to seed. The wall comes for us all, eventually.

I noticed her accent had a Baltimore flavor to it, having spent some time in Fell’s Point when I worked in DC back in the day.

“I’ve been known to peep on a perp or two,” I shot back at her. She either didn’t get my quip or wasn’t a fan of the great pulp detective writers, such as Raymond Chandler or John D. MacDonald. She blew smoke from her black vape pen out of the side of her mouth.

“Sure, so are you or aren’t you?” She glared with slightly bloodshot eyes.

“I am.” I decided to be more plain and simple for this cognitively unencumbered hustler.

Although, I neglected to mention that the PI business was very slow at the moment. I spent most of my week nights working armed security over at the Seminole casino, mainly safeguarding money transfers and escorting belligerent drunks out of the bar.

My PI work had slowly turned into a side gig. Still better than delivering for DoorDash, I suppose.

But I felt like this was more of a need to know piece of intel.

“I think someone is stalking me,” she blurted out.

“Okay.”

“And maybe wants ta kill me.” She laconically added.

“That maybe is doing a lot of heavy lifting, lady.”

“Look, can we just talk somewhere more private?”

I really didn’t want to, but I have a penchant for damsels in distress, even the ones with hard mileage on them. So I directed her to a back booth at the beachside tiki bar.

“I’m Gus and you are…”

“Magdalena Kowalski but everybody just calls me Mag.”

“Okay, Mag…so what’s up, what is with all this drama about stalking and murder?”

“I wasn’t always like this, ya know? I grew up between here and Maryland. My father owned a string of successful polish delicatessens, he started out as a butcher, like his father who came here from the old country. Over the years he became a successful businessman.”

“I love a good pierogi but about this stalker…”

“I’m getting to it but let me tell MY STORY in my own time, I don’t like asking for help, never have.” She snapped at me.

“Fair enough, Mag…I am all ears.” I made a placating gesture to soothe her Polish temper.

“Anyway, my dad was successful with his shops and my mom stayed at home and raised my older brother ‘n me. She had been a teacher before she married dad, she homeschooled us before it was even popular. We lived outside of Baltimore in summer and fall and lived in a beach cottage in Largo, in the winter and spring. Life was good, real good.”

“Sounds nice.” I offered noncommittedly. She had been looking at the wood pressed table but then her head shot up and she stared me down with hard blue eyes that only a streetwalker can develop.

“They’re all dead.” I was going to offer my condolences but she waved them away.

“Our family is cursed, been cursed for several generations. I think my dziadzio left Poland with his young pregnant bride to try and escape it. But he didn’t, they both died way too young. It eventually came for my brother and then my parents. I tried to escape it through the bottle…and other stuff.” She decided to let that hang in the air, I didn’t pursue it, wanting her to keep some dignity, since she was the teller of this tale.

“Anyway, when I was a kid, I loved walking on the beach. I’d walk the beach for hours, staring at the gulf.” She snapped out of her past echo and took another drag from the vape.

“Every year, near our cottage, down Harborwood Drive, another seasonal visitor would rent a beach cottage several houses down from us. I never saw ‘em but I could..I don’t know…feel his presence, ya know?”

“I don’t think so, Mag. Explain it to me.”

“It’s like…when you walk outside and the sky is sunny and a deep blue, but you know, you just know the rain storm is coming off the bay and in a few hours, there is going to be thunder, lightning and a downpour. I ain’t sayin’ I’m psychic or nothing but my family, well, always been good at what ya call it…”

“Premonition,” I added.

“Yeah, that’s it. Family legend has it that my ancestors, they worked for the Catholic Church in the old world, they hunted things that the church didn’t want the local peasants ta know about. Strange, huh? Who knows if it was true or not. Anyway, whenever I saw that black Cadillac El Dorado with its tinted windows, my head would ache. It always showed up as the sun was going down, a few days after we arrived at our own cottage.” Mag stopped her tale briefly to reload another charge into her vape.

“You think the owner of the El Dorado was following your family? Lots of snowbirds from up north move down here around the same time.”

“I know that!” She shot back. “But this guy, not long after showing up, bad things happened to our family. My parents each started having health issues. Some days, my mom didn’t even leave the house. Whenever we went back to Maryland, they always got better. Eventually, both of them died from rare metabolic disorders. How do two different people die from the same extremely rare disease?”

I had no response for her grief, other than a shoulder shrug. Terrible things happen to people all the time, sometimes, bad luck just comes in spades for certain families.

“But before my parents died, my younger brother Jan disappeared when he was seventeen. I was eighteen at the time and full of myself. I no longer spent much time with my family and I started running with a wild crowd in Clearwater. I had gotten a job as a waitress at Hooters and didn’t tell my parents.”

“Yeah, the original Hooters in Clearwater is still around, crazy how long it’s been there.” I added to lighten the mood a bit. Mag nodded and took a drag.

“I wasn’t around much and Jan was a bit of a loner who mostly hung around the beach and read comic books. When he disappeared, the cops thought he had hooked up with some juvenile delinquents. My brother wasn’t like that, unlike me, he was a good kid, curious and bookish. I used to call him a nerd, I’d give anything to take that back.” Mag teared up a bit.

Missy, the tiki bar owner, surreptitiously placed a vodka soda in front of Mag. She gulped it down before continuing her bizarre tale.

“They never found Jan. No trace whatsoever, as if the Gulf had just swallowed him up. But that damn Caddy, it was there the whole time. It arrived the day before he disappeared. I know that bastard took Jan and…”

She let it hang in the air. I understood. Who would want to contemplate what might have happened to their kidnapped teenage sibling?

“Mom and dad died within a year of each other. Three years after Jan’s disappearance, they were both dead. My parents, they just got weaker and weaker. My dad hired a PI but he never found nothing.”

“What about the beach cottage, Mag?” I asked gently. She shrugged.

“My parents’ medical expenses took all of the family money. The banks took possession of both my parents’ houses. I just lost myself in the lifestyle. I became a dancer at Gentleman’s Secret and eventually drifted into the profession. I moved to Florida full-time and tried to forget everything. I did for a long time, until now.”

Before she even said it, I knew what had brought back all her trauma.

“There is a unit on the other end of my street. For years, it was abandoned by the previous owner. A few nights ago, I saw a black Cadillac El Dorado with tinted windows sittin’ in the carport. I swear to you it is the same model, hell even the same year: 1980. I never saw the original license plate clearly but I know it had Jersey plates, just like the one by me, right now.”

“That is strange but it may be a fluke, doesn’t mean the Caddy owner is stalking you, Mag.” I took a long pull of my iced coffee, letting the cream and sugar coat my dry throat. We both knew I didn’t sound very convincing.

“I just need someone to look into this for me, find out who the owner is, maybe investigate his history, make sure he understands there is a man with a gun keeping an eye on me.” It actually sounded pretty reasonable, from a professional standpoint.

I quickly made up my mind. “I can do that. This is something I have experience in.”

“I suppose you be wanting to be paid.” She narrowed her eyes at me like paying for PI work was more unsavory than plying the world’s oldest trade.

“Well, I don’t work for tiki cocktails…anymore,” I joked.

Just then Missy materialized with my ice coffee. I was working the night shift at the casino later so I needed to be fully sober to manage the drunks. She placed a slip of paper next to my coffee. I took a sip of the strong java.

Mag’s phone started buzzing and she looked down to answer a text. I took the opportunity to scan Missy’s message, it simply read: Help her, I will pay your fee. I slipped the note in my jean’s pocket. Missy always has a soft spot for the local hookers and stray cats.

Mag put her phone away and looked up.

“I have to go see a client, we can talk about your fee tomorrow, if you are willing to meet me.” I shrugged my shoulders.

“I’m free tomorrow morning, I can swing by your place at 11 am. Where am I headed?”

“I’ve been living in the same place for years. I’m at lot 173, in EZ BreeZy in Pasco County, know it?” She cocked a pencil thin eyebrow eye at me.

“EZ BreeZy retirement trailer park? Yeah, I heard of it.”

“It’s a 55 plus Mobile Home Community! I paid a lot of money for my double wide unit and we don’t allow any trailer trash there.” She corrected me harshly.

“Sure, sure. I also live in a Mobile Home Community. I’ll meet you there tomorrow.”

I didn’t add that maybe EZ BreeZy didn’t allow trailer trash but it allowed floozies.

She merely nodded and left to meet her anxiously horny client.

I paid my bill. Missy, ever the business professional, told me that she expected daily reports and expense receipts. I went home to change my clothes and go play casino enforcer. I didn’t realize it at the time but my life was about to get very weird again.

If I had known, I would’ve started drinking at a different beach bar.