The Big Dirt Nap

way if I had to throw a punch, it would do more damage. I'd read that in a women's magazine somewhere and hoped it was true.

'The big bottle of water is on sale, wouldn't you like that one instead?' Ravi asked.

'Sure, why not?' I said, watching him leave his perch to get the water. Every item was rotated twice, to find the bar code. It was an excruciatingly slow process.

'When you spend over twenty dollars, you get a free lotto ticket,' he said, finishing up the sale. 'Would you like to pick some numbers?'

Here I was, trying to get the hell out of there, and this guy was bucking for employee of the month.

'It's okay, I'm not much of a gambler and I'm in a bit of a hurry.'

'Are you sure?'

'Positive,' I snapped, taking out my wallet and clumsily nudging out my credit card with my left thumb.

Ravi flipped the card over. 'Please, miss, you haven't signed your card.'

'There's a picture of me on the front of the card, what else do you need?' I was instantly sorry for being rude.

'Not much of a gambler?' Michelin Man said. 'That's too bad. I, myself, am a big believer in luck.' I hoped he didn't think he was going to get lucky with me. What was with these guys? Was I sending out horny, lonely signals? First Nick, then Bernie, and now this manatee.

I couldn't manage a signature with my left hand, so I reluctantly let go of my keys to finish the transaction.

'Thank you very much, Miss Holliday,' Ravi said, handing me my receipt.

Excellent. Now the Michelin Man knew my name. Luckily it was a fairly common one. If he was a crazed stalker, there'd be three or four other victims named Holliday before he got down to the Ps in the phone book. Surely the cops would find him before he got to me.

He still hadn't moved, and now I was grateful that the clerk was taking so long, double-bagging my purchases for the mad dash to my car. I redid the key arrangement in my pocket and planted my feet in case I had to land a punch and make a run for it.

Just then, the cavalry arrived. We heard them first. It sounded as if a helicopter was landing outside, then the sputtering died down. The doormat shrieked again and five guys who could have been the defensive line for the Hell's Angels' football team came in. The Michelin Man's face dropped; so did poor Ravi's. I was the only one grinning like a happy idiot.

One guy camped out in the doorway oblivious to the fact that standing there kept the doormat buzzer going. The other four scoped out the dining options. The biggest walked over to the shelves near the coffee machine. He picked up a cellophane-wrapped Danish and dropped it as if it was radioactive.

'Hey, man. I can't eat this crap. This stuff'll kill you.'

Ravi looked hurt. 'I have the PowerBars,' he offered weakly.

'I know a great diner!' I said, a little too loudly. 'I do.' I quieted down and tried to sound seductive instead of like a basket case. What the hell, three other guys thought I looked hot that day, even if they didn't have the most discriminating taste. 'It's only ten minutes from here,' I lied. 'My girlfriend owns it. I'll take you.' I flirted with the big one closest to my nemesis, who looked a lot less threatening now.

That was how I got my Harley escort out of the service station, away from the Michelin Man, and all the way to Babe's Paradise Diner.

Ten

I was channeling Cher and mumbling the words to 'Believe' under my breath. Five beefy guys on four bikes followed me to my car. Whatever it was the Michelin Man had in mind, he was no match for my new best friends, and we left him and Ravi, and whoever was in that second car, scratching their heads in the service station minimarket.

Charlie seemed to be the big dog. The biggest physically, he had the biggest bike, two-thirds as wide as the Jeep and encrusted with pipes and grilles that did who-the-hell-knew-what but made the bike look like a small spaceship. He stayed on my left, tossing me the occasional smile or thumbs-up, and the others trailed us, playing leapfrog until we got to the diner.

By the time we'd pulled into the Paradise parking lot, I'd convinced myself that Charlie and his friends had saved me from worse than death, and as they dismounted, I gave them bear hugs and back slaps as if we'd just ridden cross-country together instead of twenty minutes on a tree-lined suburban road.

'Party of two . . . three . . . six?' Babe asked, as we tumbled into the near-empty diner. Charlie's arm was still around my shoulders. 'Any more coming?' She craned her neck to look into the parking lot.

Wanda 'Babe' Chinnery owned the Paradise. Although she is one, I hesitate to call her a retired rocker because she still rocks, she just doesn't do it onstage anymore alongside a metal band and in front of thousands of screaming kids. She waved the guys over to the corner booth in the back and pointed to some menus stacked by the window.

'How old is that decaf?' I asked, joining her at the counter.

'Not that old,' she said, pouring me a cup. 'You know, I'm the last to throw stones, but when I said you should get out more,' she whispered, 'this wasn't exactly what I had in mind.' Babe had been playing matchmaker for me for the last year, with zero results, so she was surprised to see me come to the diner with five guys in tow.

'So who are your friends, and why are you sitting over here? This isn't some weird initiation rite, is it?'

'I couldn't decide between them. I brought them all here so you could help me choose.' She squinted at the unlikely assortment of suitors. For a minute I think she believed me.

'I'm joking. They got me out of a sticky situation on the Merritt,' I said.

'Did they?'

I told her what had happened, or nearly happened, at the gas station.

'So you thought two guys were following you and decided it was better to have five guys following you? That makes sense.'

Put that way, I wondered if I'd made a huge mistake and whether tomorrow's Bulletin headline would read 'Local Business-woman and Customer Found Raped and Murdered.'

I looked back at my escorts. Charlie was well over six feet tall, with one earring, no weird insignia on his leathers. I wasn't up on my bandanna symbolism but his was black and partly covered thick snowy hair. He smiled at us through his close-cropped beard and revealed a puckish gap between his front teeth. Santa, or his evil twin? The others were all permutations of the same guy . . . a little thinner, a little taller, two mustaches, one soul patch. They all wore black leather chaps, like hundreds of helmetless bikers you can find on the Merritt any day of the week, but especially on Sundays, when they all seemed to converge on Norwalk, just south of the service station where I'd met these guys.

'Safety in numbers?' I wondered aloud. The bikers called Babe over.

Watching Babe walk, when she's working it, is a thing of beauty. I can only imagine what she was like twenty years ago, shaking her tambourine and just about everything else for the Jimmy Collins Band. They'd traveled all over the United States and Europe and Babe had the stories and the scars to prove it.

She wore sleeveless tops twelve months out of the year to show off her well-defined arms and sported a collection of tats that would have impressed an NBA player. Her black apron was tied low and tight around her narrow hips, and she employed her no-fail Yeah, I'm sexy, and I know where to kick you if you mess with me walk. It had its usual intended effect. Two were in love, two were in lust, all were in awe. Including me.

She took their orders and I tried not to stare. Instead I sucked up my coffee and absentmindedly gazed out the window, looking for the two clowns we'd left at the service station and profoundly happy they were nowhere in sight.

The Paradise was across the road from a typical suburban retail strip—liquor store, karate school, nail salon,