I stripped the blue coveralls off of my street clothes and marched out of the mechanic’s glare into the briny night.
ED WAS STANDING on the corner, waiting for a ride I supposed. He was a good kid. Talked a little too much. But whenever he did Gator came out and set him straight without embarrassment. If anybody was going to let something drop, it would be Eddie.
I wanted to go home, to sleep on my sofa. But Saul was a friend and I had made a promise. So I went to the corner thinking this would be my last stab at getting information on the robbery.
“Hey, Ed.”
“Mr. Burdon.”
“Goin’ home?”
“Yeah. My mom’s coming to get me. I won’t get my license for three more months. Then I can drive myself. You need a ride?”
“Yeah, which way you goin’?”
“Up to Sea Breeze, but my mom can give you a ride anywhere around here.”
I had no idea where Sea Breeze was and I had my own car. I just wanted to hang around Ed until he answered a question or two.
“They say the guy I’m replacing broke old Tilly’s nose,” I ventured.
“Sure did,” Ed said. “Ross is a good guy and that Tilly’s just mean. He don’t like black people too much, you know. He’s from the South.”
“So’s Gator,” I said. “You got a little twang there yourself.”
“Ah yeah, but Gator’s great. He’s my dad.”
No one had mentioned this during the day. But it made sense once Ed said it. I thought Gator was looking out for him because he was the only kid at the place. But thinking about it, Gator wasn’t just being a boss, he was being paternal in a cold sort of way; like the lizard he emulated.
A white Cadillac pulled up to the curb.
“That’s my mom,” Ed said.
The car door opened and a woman said, “Come on now, Eddie. I got to—”
She didn’t finish her sentence because I turned and she saw my face. She was looking straight at me but her face still seemed to be in profile. That grin still thrilled my heart.
“Hey, mom,” Ed said. “This is Larry Burdon, the new mechanic. He needs a ride.”
“Easy?”
“No, it’s Larry,” Ed corrected.
“Oh.”
Amiee came around the side of the car to shake my hand. She grabbed onto two fingers, squeezed, and pulled.
“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Burdon. You look familiar.”
“That’s funny,” I said. “So did your son when I met him.”
“Mr. Burdon did the best of anybody on dad’s test,” Ed was saying.
We were looking into each other’s eyes. I was ready dive to in, right there.
“You don’t have a car, Larry?” Amiee asked.
“I took the bus, Mrs. Oliphant,” I said. “I live a ways up, near Sepulveda.”
“I’d be happy to give you a ride.”
As I climbed into the car I looked over at the garage. The lights went out just as I turned and so I couldn’t be sure that I glimpsed Gator standing in the glass door, staring in our direction.
We dropped Ed off at the Oliphant’s front door on Sea Breeze Lane. Then Amiee drove off in the opposite direction from my fictitious home.
“I was surprised to see you,” we both said at the same time.
“Twice,” she added.
“You mean when I came up on you in the clenches with Ross?”
“No,” she said. “When I saw your handsome face come in that room.”
I was a full-grown man, forty-four at that moment. I had been on three different continents and seen everything from birth to death many times over. With all that experience one would think that a slip of a girl with an uneven face would hardly even make an impression. But Amiee had my heart fluttering and my mouth watering to the point where I had to swallow.
She smiled at my discomfort.
“What’s goin’ on, Amiee?”
My question had extra meaning as we were pulling into a parking lot that bordered the Pacific Ocean. The low- slung three-quarter moon sent a corridor of light rippling from the horizon to the shore, not twenty feet from our car
