“Why didn’t Ayers fit in?” I asked. “This seems like it’d be his kind of crowd. Well-heeled.”

“‘Square peg, round hole’ situation. The old-schoolers out there like it slow and quiet. Ayers burned his candle like it had three ends instead of two.” He cocked a thumb behind him. “I got a stack of noise complaints over there halfway to the ceiling with his name on’em. Parties went on down there on the regular, grungy visitors popping in and out at all hours. Typical rich kid, always out for a good time.”

“He was ill,” I said. “Dying.” Cap’s face registered slight surprise, but little else. “You didn’t know?”

“No reason I would. Like I said, I steer clear. Explains a lot, though. Guess he was trying to cram it all in before he kicked it. That wouldn’t have mattered to these marshmallows, though. They want what they want and they wanted him gone by hook or by crook, and with what they pay to anchor up here, they figure that gives them the right to say what goes.”

“So why didn’t they kick him out?”

Cap sniffed. “Because his last name was Ayers, that’s why.”

I thought for a moment, looking for an angle. “Anyone want him gone so badly they’d do something besides gripe about it?”

Cap’s eyebrows flicked up. “That’s what you think happened? That one of those Cartier cream puffs offed him?” He let out a gurgled roar of a laugh as dry as leaves. It sounded like it started way down at the balls of his feet and bubbled up through a constricted esophagus caked by years of nicotine and whiskey gunk. The raspy report crawled under my skin and burrowed deep.

When he was done, he said, “Look, PI, believe me, nobody out there’s got the stones to kill a guy, even if it was Ayers.”

I eyed the Navy tats peeking out from under the sleeves of his shirt. He worked at a marina. He served on the water. “You could easily have taken his boat out.”

“Me?” The laughing started up again. I waited for him to stop, though patience wasn’t my strong suit. “You come right out and accuse me of tossing him over? You got some balls.” He shook his head. “Look, maybe you could’ve gotten me to go along with the crazy idea somebody killed him, if I didn’t know for a fact that Ayers was off his rocker. You trying to prove different, well, that’s just a waste of your time and somebody else’s money. End of story.”

“‘Off his rocker’?”

“And that’s from a reliable source.”

I had a good idea, but asked, anyway. “What reliable source?”

Cap shook his head, tapped the jar. “Typical peeper. You don’t want to give any information, but you sure want to get it.”