“Yeah, pizza place over on the Trail. My mom took me there last night. You know, family bonding, that kind of shit. She really just wants to keep an eye on me Friday and Saturday nights. Goes down with me. I get to keep an eye on her. She’s a long time crack free.”
“You saw them?” Lew repeated.
“Yeah, man. I told you,” Darrell said with irritation. “Place on the Trail, right where all those motels are, used to be ho heaven. Now it’s full of Canadians and Germans and whatever.”
“Hand of God,” said Ames.
“Coincidence,” said Lew. “Sarasota’s not all that big.”
“Whatever it is,” said Ames, “let’s do it before they head for the park.”
Darrell bounced out of the chair, smiling.
They went in Lew’s rental car. The first stop was the Texas Bar amp; Grille where Ames went in and came out again in less than three minutes wearing his slicker. The second stop was DeAngelo’s Pizza and Subs on Tamiami Trail. DeAngelo’s didn’t open till five on Saturday.
There were motels on both sides of Tamiami Trail.
It was twenty minutes after nine.
“Split up?” asked Ames.
“Right,” said Lew.
“I’ll go across,” said Ames.
“I’ll go with you,” said Darrell.
“You stay with me,” said Lew.
“Cowboy’s got the gun under that coat,” said Darrell. “He’s the action.”
“Come on,” said Lew.
“Whatever,” said Darrell.
Traffic was Saturday morning light, but it was still the Trail, which stretched north for a few dozen miles and south for a few hundred miles right into Miami.
Lew and Darrell tried their third motel clerk, showing the photograph and Lew coming up with another ten- dollar bill, which he fully intended to get reimbursed for from Earl Borg.
As they had come out of the motel, Lew looked across the four lanes of the Trail. Between the traffic he saw Ames in front of the Blue Gulf Motel, his right hand up. He had found them.
It was time to go.
Lilla was dressed in jeans and the clean Abercrombie green shirt they had bought yesterday at Goodwill for fifty cents. Her hair was tied back.
Matt and Chet said they were going to Disney World this morning, and then back home. She didn’t believe them. They were terrible liars and sometimes like on television they walked across the room from her and talked, thinking she couldn’t hear them.
What she did know was that she had more than enough of the two of them, thank you. She wanted to go home. She also knew they were nervous. They had kept smiling at her all through pizza the night before. They had the same smiles today. They had a real one that was lopsided, all on one side of the face. She hadn’t seen that one for a long time. Then they had the one they had used last night and this morning, when they remembered it, straight across, cheeks up, line of teeth screaming out for a dentist.
She knew that they were going to meet someone in a park. She knew Chet and Matt were both carrying guns in their pockets. The guns weren’t unusual for them. Far as Lilla knew, they hadn’t shot anyone with them. But maybe she was wrong. What they did do in and around Kane were very odd jobs and beating people up for the Wikiup Men’s Club, where girls from as far as Gainesville, college girls, came to wiggle nude for truckers and old guys.
“Let’s go,” said Chet.
Chet was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and a dirty white cowboy hat. Matt was wearing jeans, a blue T-shirt and a dirty blue cowboy hat. Both of them wore boots. They were in their hog-dog costumes. There hadn’t been a hog-dog or a dog-dog for a long time, at least a year and it had been a lot longer since the man, Earl Borg, had stopped coming. The brothers had run the fights by themselves, but people didn’t like them and they didn’t take care of the animals. Dogs and hogs died. Dogs and hogs cost money.
Lilla took the handles of her bag, which had also been purchased at Goodwill for two dollars, and stood up.
“Simple,” Chet in white whispered to Matt in blue, “We check the parked cars. We know there’s no place in the park to hide, but you stay in the car with Lilla. I go to the trash can. Somebody’ll be there. If he pulls a gun, you put your gun to Lilla’s head.”
“I know, Chet,” Matt said wearily.
“Does it hurt to go over it again?”
“A little.”
“Well then, just you suffer for a while,” said Chet. “Everything goes right, I get the bag with the money and wave to you. You let her get out of the car. Whoever’s there will look at her. That’s when I shoot him. You see him go down, you shoot Lilla.”
“I’d rather not kill Lilla, Chet.”
Chet sighed.
“Lilla and whoever’s gonna be there never did us harm,” Matt went on.
“They will if we don’t shoot ’em.”
“What’re you two talkin’ about?” Lilla asked.
“Business,” said Chet. “Let’s go.”
Matt opened the door and walked out, Lilla behind him, Chet behind her. When Chet closed the door, Ames stood up, shotgun in hand, behind the blue Kia parked in front of their door.
“Hands where I can see ’em,” Ames said calmly.
“What’s this?” asked Lilla, shaking her head, getting angry. “This the gunfight at the all right corral or something? You, Wyatt Earp. We got no money.”
“About twenty bucks,” said Chet. “It’s all yours.”
He started to reach down.
“Hands where I can see them,” Ames repeated. “This isn’t about the money in your pocket. Child, come over here and get behind me.”
“No,” said Lilla.
Then she saw a man get out of a car parked in a space behind the yellow-slickered gunfighter. The man with a baseball cap pulled down on his head came slowly. Through the rear window of his car she could see the face of a black boy about her age. He was smiling.
“What you want?” asked Matt.
“Two things,” said the man with the cap. “Lilla comes with us.”
“No,” she said.
“Young lady,” said Ames. “These two plan to kill you.”
“No. Why would they…?”
“Money,” said Lew.
“My father wants me dead?”
“No,” said Lew. “These two want him to pay forty thousand dollars to get you back alive.”
“Back? I’ve never been with him in the first place,” she said. Then she looked from Matt to Chet and said, “Forty thousand dollars. You told me about this, we could have asked for a hundred thousand and you wouldn’t have to be thinking about killing me. I give up on you two.”
“Someone’s going to see us,” said Lew. “Lilla, walk over to my car now and get in.”
“I don’t-”
“My friend will shoot,” said Lew.
Ames nodded and aimed the gun at Chet’s head.
Lilla sighed and bag in hand brushed between Lew and Ames. Ames’s arm moved and Matt started to reach back.
