“And what kind of place is that?” I said.
“Someplace with a couple of dumb kids with lots of money who aren’t any of your business.”
“Shit,” I said, “you know what another big coincidence is?”
“What’s that?” the big guy said.
“We’re in the same business,” I said.
“Are we?” he said.
“Sounds like it. We too are looking for two sweet kids with lots of money that could be a port in the storm, and we think of them as our business, all the way.”
“Huh,” he said. “Well, we wouldn’t want to cross up, would we?”
“It could happen, though, couldn’t it?” Jim Bob said. “I mean, us both looking for two sweet kids and some money and a nice place to ride out the storm.”
“Storm like the one that’s coming,” the big guy said, “it could blow your little port flat out of existence.”
“We’ve ridden a lot of storms,” Jim Bob said.
“Hell,” Leonard said, “we’re like storm chasers. We’re like
“I think you’re a bunch of amateurs,” the big guy said. “I think a good wind comes along, might just blow you completely out of the ball game.”
“You know,” Jim Bob said, “you were going pretty good there with the storm analogies, and then you got to go and screw it up with the ball game thing. That doesn’t scan.”
The big guy looked at Tonto, said, “What about the Indian? He talk?”
“Just smoke signals,” Jim Bob said. “And you know what, none of your buddies are talking, so I don’t think that’s fair to ask.”
“My buddies aren’t my buddies, and they say what I tell them to say and when I say it,” the big guy said. “And before I go, just so we stay with the storm analogy, you best not go out without your slickers and your hip boots, and maybe an umbrella.”
“We got umbrellas out the ass,” Jim Bob said.
Big Guy studied us for a moment, said to his boys, “Wrap this shit up, and let’s go.”
The big guy and his bunch wrapped their chicken and links, put them back in the sacks, and carried them out.
I watched them through the glass as they walked toward the Ford. I said, “Just so I’m certain, when he said slickers, boots, and umbrellas, he was talking about guns, right?”
“Yep,” Leonard said. “That was my take.”
“And they’re the storm?”
“Bingo.”
Tonto, who had just taken a bite of a link wrapped in bread, said, “This would be a lot better with hot sauce, some of that fancy mustard that’s got a tang.”
36
Full as ticks, we drove to another store near the lake where they sold fishing supplies and rented boats, and parked in front of it and sat in the van. Out front was a rack with T-shirts on it with Lake O’ the Pines logos. The wind moved them about.
The place was doing pretty brisk business for the time of the year. There were cars parked to the left and the right of us and people got out and went in and came out carrying fishing supplies, coolers, snacks, and items like caps and bait. One of the people who parked and got out was a blond woman in jogging pants with a tight top and a baseball cap with her long hair tied up in a ponytail hanging over the stretch band at the back of her cap. The jogging pants were tight and I worried a little about her circulation and watched her out of biological interest until she went into the store. I didn’t see her face, but she had the kind of body, hair, and walk that assured you she looked good and knew it.
Over the top of the joint the sky was losing its blue and turning the color of polished silver and there were starting to be dark puffs of clouds. The lake could be seen on either side of the building and the water was growing choppy; little white waves like nightcaps rose up and fell down. Jim Bob opened up the flooring and got out some handguns. I took a .38 automatic with a clip holster and put it on under my coat. I preferred revolvers—more dependable—but, alas, the times were a-changin’ and nearly everyone these days carried an automatic for more firepower. Leonard took a nine with clip holster and Jim Bob clipped on a .38 automatic similar to mine under his coat. Tonto had never stopped being armed. He still had his twin .45s.
“What makes me nervous,” I said, “is the fact we weren’t armed back there, unless you count a chicken leg and a link sausage.”
“I was,” Tonto said.
“Yeah, but what about the rest of us?” I said.
“You had my best wishes,” Tonto said.
Leonard said, “Here’s my question. They’re so goddamn sneaky, how come they decided to come to us like that?”
“Way we were wandering around,” Jim Bob said, “my figure is they thought we knew they were following us. They didn’t know we didn’t know what the hell we were doing, so they thought we were giving them a hard time, being clever. And I think they thought they’d be all scary and we’d tell them what they wanted to know, then they’d run us off and they’d find the boy and the girl and all that money.”
