She said, 'We'll just have to go to a cyber cafe--when Melissa's phone was out of order, her mommy used to go to the cyber cafe for her email.'
'Oh, did she?'
* * * Cybercino was a coffee shop with croissants, doughnuts, and sandwiches, with the addition of office dividers to create small cubicles. In each was a PC, with a little table for food and drink. Pinned on the dividers were notices about session times, how to log on, and little business cards advertising various sites.
I bought coffee, doughnuts, and a Coke and tried to log on.
In the end I handed the controls to a more skilled pilot. Kelly zoomed off into cyberspace as if it were her own backyard.
'Is he on AOL, MSN, CompuServe, or what?' she demanded.
I didn't have a clue.
She shrugged.
'We'll use a search engine.'
Less than a minute later we were visiting a site called Info-Space. Kelly hit the e-mail icon and a dialogue box appeared.
'Last name?'
I spelled out De Niro.
'First name?'
'Al.'
'City?'
'Better leave that blank. Just put Florida. He might have moved.'
She hit Search, and moments later, up came his e-mail address.
I couldn't believe it. There was even a Send Mail icon, which she hit.
I sent a message saying I wanted to contact Al De Niro-or anyone who was a Pacino/De Niro fan and knew 'Nicky Two' from the UK.. That was the nickname de Sabatino had given me. There were three Nicks on the team. I was the second one he'd come in contact with. When we met he would do his Godfather thing, holding out his arms, saying, 'Heyyy, Nicky Two' as he gave me a kiss and a hug. Thankfully, he did that to everyone.
The cafe would open the next day at 10 a.m. Our session fee included the use of the Cybercino address, so I signed off by saying that I would log on at 10:15 tomorrow morning to retrieve any messages. The risk that his e- mail was being monitored and somebody could make a connection with 'Nicky Two' was minimal.
By now I was hungry for more than doughnuts, and so was Kelly. We walked back toward the main strip and stopped at our favorite restaurant. We ordered to go and ate our Big Macs on the walk back. The temperature was still in the seventies, even at this time of the evening.
'Can't we play miniature golf?' Kelly said. She pointed to what looked like a cross between Disneyland and St. Andrews with trees, waterfalls, a pirate ship, all made to look like a floodlit Treasure Island.
I actually enjoyed it. There was no danger, and the pressure release was tremendous, even though Kelly was cheating.
She started to putt on the eleventh hole. A dragon behind us was blowing out water rather than fire from its cave.
'Nick?'
'What?' I was busy working out how to negotiate the ninety-degree angle I needed to hole the ball.
'Can we see your friend, what's his name David?'
'Maybe some day.' I swung, and it didn't work. I was stuck on the water obstacle.
'Do you have any sisters or brothers?'
Where was this going?
'Yes, I have.'
'How many?'
I marked my card after six attempts on a par three hole.
'Three brothers.' I decided to cut the interrogation.
'They are called... John, Joe, and Jim.'
'Oh. How old are they?'
She got me on that one. I didn't even know where they lived, let alone how old they were.
'I don't know really.'
'Why not?'
I found it hard to explain because I really didn't know the answer.
'Because.' I positioned the ball for her to putt.
'Come on or we'll hold everyone up.'
On the way back I felt strangely close to her, and that worried me. She seemed to have latched on to me as a stand-in parent and we'd been together only six days. I couldn't take the place of Kev and Marsha, even if I wanted to. The prospect was too scary.
Next day. It was ice cream for breakfast, then we logged on at ten-fifteen. There was a message waiting for us, telling us to visit a certain chat room. Kelly hit a few keys and there we were. De Sabatino was waiting for us, or at least someone called Big Al was. A dialogue box invited us to a private room for a one-on-one; thank goodness Kelly was there to do the navigating.
I got right down to it. Kelly typed with two fingers: I need your help.
What do you want?
I've got something here that I need you to decode or translate--I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I know you'll be able to do it, What is it? Work?
I needed to get him hooked. For him, half the point of stealing all that money had been the sheer kick of doing it-'the juice.' Thinking about it now, Pat had probably got the term from Big Al in the first place. This guy enjoyed putting one over on the big boys; he needed to be involved, to be part of something, and I knew that if I used the right bait, he'd come and see me.
I spoke and she typed: I'm not going to tell you! Believe me, it's good. If you want to look, you'll have to see me. I'm in Daytona. And then I started to lie. Other people say it's impossible.
I thought of you.
He came back at once: What format? I'd got him.
I told him all the details.
He said. Can't see you until 9 tonight. Outside Boot Hill Saloon, Main Street.
I'll be there.
Big Al came back: Yeehaa! Yeehaa!
There was nothing changed about him, then. Kelly logged off, and we paid the twelve dollars. About a hundredth of what a private eye would have cost me.
Now we had hours to kill. We bought sunglasses, and I also got Kelly a fashionable pair of shorts, a T-shirt, and sandals. I had to stay as I was, wearing my shirt over my pants to cover my pistol. The only addition was a bandanna to cover the cut on my forehead. Chrome aviators covered the lower one.
With the wind on our faces, we sauntered along the beach.
It was that time of day when the restaurants were starting to fill up with people wanting early lunches.
Back at the hotel I made some calls to check flights out of the country. If the stuff Big Al decrypted for me seemed to be what Simmonds needed, Kelly and I were out of here. I knew Big Al would have the contacts and resources to get passports for our exit, even money.
We had lunch, followed by eighteen holes with the pirates I let her win and then it was time to start getting ready for the meet.
At about 7:30 the sun started to go down and the street neon came on. Suddenly it was another world, with music pumping out of the stores and the kids now driving up and down the strip faster than the legal ten miles an hour.
I didn't know what it was, the weather maybe, but I felt detached from the situation I was in. It was just the two of us, we were having fun, eating ice cream and walking around looking in shops. Kelly was doing usual kid things, even to the point of spotting something in a store window and doing the 'Look at that!' act as in. Hint, hint, are you going to buy it for me? I found myself acting the parent, saying, 'No, I think we've had enough for
