Free Sideswipe by Charles Willeford Page A

on the Atlantic side of Ocean Road. There was direct access to the public beach through a wooden gate to the left of the lobby entrance. There were reserved parking spaces for each apartment, and a special parking place for the manager--a marked slot next to the lobby entrance. There were no visitor spaces, but visitors could usually, except on weekends, find parking in the Ocean Mall lot.
     
    The Singer Island beach, an important asset of the Riviera Beach municipality, was one of the widest beaches in Florida. In most respects, it was the best public beach in the state. The Gulf Stream was closer to shore here than anywhere else, making the water warm enough to swim all year round. During January, the cool month, the ocean was always warmer than the air, which made the water easier to get into than it was to get out. Now, toward the end of June, the water temperature was eighty-five degrees, the same as the humid air.
     
    Across from the El Pelicano, in the older business section of Singer Island, there was a row of one- and two-story office buildings and shops, and a three-story hotel. Several shops sold T-shirts and other resort clothing, and there was a discount drugstore. Back in the 1970s, one of these stores had been the office of -Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine-, but the magazine had moved to New York, and now there was a realtor occupying the spot. Most of the space between these older buildings and the new Ocean Mall was taken up with a macadam parking lot that had no meters.
     
    The mall had three restaurants, a dozen or more stores, a game room, and several small offices above the stores at the northern end of the mall. The Ocean Mall was "new," as far as Hoke was concerned, because the mall hadn't been there during the 1960s, when he grew up on Singer Island. There had only been one building then beside the municipal beach, a drive-in hamburger restaurant with girls on roller skates who waited on the parked cars that encircled the building. It had been a favorite place for the younger people in Palm Beach County to hang out, day and night. Sometimes the cars had been parked three deep, which meant that there was a constant movement, backing and filling, as people sought to get out or get in, and there was considerable visiting between cars.
     
    The new mall was still a favorite place for young people. In bikinis and trunks they slouched and ran up and down the sidewalks on both sides of the mall, or cut through passageways and through the stores. There were also a great many tourists, and hundreds of middle-aged and elderly condominium residents stumbled and tottered about the mall.
     
    There were a dozen motels and more than thirty highrise condominiums along the single island highway, with more condos under construction. There was a narrow bridge exit at the northern end of the island, which led into North Palm Beach, as well as the Blue Heron bridge at the southern end, which took people into downtown Riviera Beach. The traffic on Blue Heron Road was always heavy.
     
    In recent years, especially during the summer, Miami's Latins had discovered Singer Island, thanks to the Sunday -Miami Herald- travel section, where motel ads announced cheap weekend rates. It was possible for a couple (with children under twelve free) to get a motel room on the ocean, a free piña colada, two free breakfasts, and a threeday, two-night stay for as low as fifty-eight dollars a room (tax not included). A few motels, anxious for summer business, offered even lower rates if the room was rented during the week and if the couple vacated it before the weekend. Miami's Cubans, who had a long-standing tradition of going to Veradera Beach in Cuba for holidays, now flocked to Singer Island on weekends, bringing their parents, their aunts, and from three to five children per family. There were plenty of trash barrels on the beach, but the weekenders usually disdained them.
     
    When Hoke picked his way among the sunbathers to