today.'
I did worry about her. I felt she should be more upset, shouldn't really be taking it so well. Maybe she hadn't under stood what I'd said to her about her family; maybe her sub conscious was putting a lid on it. At the moment, however, that was exactly what I needed: a child looking and behaving normally.
We stopped outside a toy store. She asked for a ring in the window that glowed in the dark. I lied and said I had no money left.
'Couldn't you steal it for me?' she said.
She was getting into this on-the-run thing too much. We had a serious talk about right and wrong.
It was about a quarter of nine by now; we'd had a pizza, and at that time of night on vacation, the next thing you should always have is a Haagen Dazs. Afterward, we started to wander to the RV with Big Al. We squeezed past ranks of parked motorcycles and jostling crowds, most wearing T-shirts with bike slogans.
I got us into a position from which I could see both approaches to the Boot Hill Saloon from the old graveyard on the other side of the street. It was all that remained of the original town, the only thing that couldn't be ripped apart and have a hotel built on it. As bikers parked and opened the doors, loud rock and roll thundered from the bar. It collided head-on with the Latin and rap that were blaring from the vehicles cruising up and down; it was that body-fluid time of night, and groups of breakers were hanging out of Jeeps and pickups with banks of six or seven speakers in the back.
Some even had electric blue lights fitted under the car; as they drove past, they looked like hovering spaceships playing music from Mars. I thought about our friends in the Cherokee. I wondered if they'd gotten home yet.
Kelly and I just waited, eating our ice cream and sitting on a bank next to Mrs. J. Mostyn, who went to Our Savior on July 16, 1924, God rest her soul. Main Street wasn't in fact the main drag but a road that led from the sea to a bridge over the inland waterway. Daytona has a bike week each year, and this was the street on which the thousands of bikers descended. It was a one-theme street, and that theme was Harleys. If it wasn't a bike bar, it was a store selling spare parts, helmets, or leather goods. And even when the convention wasn't on, bikes with helmets on the seats were lined up by the dozen outside bars with names like Dirty Harry's or Froggie's, where there was even a bike made of dusty bones in the window.
I could spot Big Al a mile away as he shambled toward us from the direction of the bridge. He was wearing a blue, white, and yellow Hawaiian shirt and pale pink pants, both straining against a body that was even fatter than I remembered;
his outfit was set off by white shoes and the same shaggy hairstyle. He looked like an out-of-work extra from Miami Vice. In his left hand he carried a briefcase, which was a good sign; he'd brought the tools of his trade with him. He ducked into the Main Street Cigar Store and emerged chomping on a huge corona.
He stopped outside the Boot Hill Saloon, Harleys all around him. He put his briefcase down between his feet and stood there sucking his cigar as if he owned the place. Behind him was an enormous mural of a biker on the beach, covering an entire wall of the saloon. A board announced no colors,
CLUB PATCHES, OR LNSIGNIAS.
I nudged Kelly: 'See that man over there?'
'Which one?'
'The one with that really big flowery shirt on, the big fat man.'
'You mean the geekazoid?'
'What?'
'It's like a double geek.'
'Whatever.' I grinned.
'He's the man we're going to see.'
She said, 'Why didn't we wait over there for him?'
'No, no--what you do is 'stand off' and watch. See what I'm doing? I'm looking up and down the road, just to make sure there's no bad guys following him. Then I know we're safe. What do you think? Think it's
OK?'
All of a sudden she'd become very important. She looked up and down and said, 'All clear.' She didn't have a clue what she was looking for.
'Come on then, give me your hand. We've got to be careful with these cars driving so fast.'
We left Mrs. Mostyn and stopped at the curb. I said, 'When we go and meet him, I might have to do something that looks funny, but actually it's not--we do it all the time.
He understands it.'
As we dodged through the traffic she said, 'OK.' After what she had seen lately this would be kindergarten stuff.
We got closer; he was certainly looking older. He recognized me from twenty yards away and was suddenly starring in The Godfather again. Cigar in his right hand, arms thrown out wide, head cocked to one side, he growled, 'Aaaggghh!
It's Nicky Two!' He had a smile on his face the size of half a watermelon. It was probably shit living in hiding; at last he had somebody from the past he could talk freely with.
He jammed the cigar back into his mouth, picked up his briefcase in his right hand, and walked toward us, his fat thighs rubbing together.
'Hey! Nicky! How's it going!' He beamed and started pumping my hand, at the same time studying Kelly. He stank of flowery aftershave.
'And who's this pretty little lady, then?' He bent down to greet her and I felt a slight twinge of wariness. Maybe the charm was genuine, but for some reason it made me feel a bit revolted.
I said, 'This is Kelly, one of my friend's daughters. I'm looking after her for a while.'
I very much doubted he knew what had been going on up north. He certainly didn't know Kev.
Still bending down and shaking her hand for a bit too long, he said, 'Welcome to the Sunshine State! It's great here we've got Seaworld, Disney World, everything to make a little lady happy!'
He stood up and said, slightly out of breath, 'Where are we going?' He pointed hopefully and said, 'Main Street Pier?
Shrimp?'
I shook my head.
'No, we'll go back to our hotel. I've got all the gear there I want you to have a look at. Follow me.'
I held Kelly's hand in my left and got him on the right. As we walked we made small talk about how wonderful it was to see each other again, but he knew very well that this meeting wasn't casual and he liked it. He got off on this sort of stuff, just like Al and Bob.
We turned right and then took the first left, which was into a parking area behind the shops. I looked at Kelly and nodded to show everything was fine, then let go other hand. Big Al was still jabbering away. I grabbed his left arm with both hands and used his own momentum to turn him against the wall. He hit it with quite a bounce. I pushed him into the doorway of a restaurant's fire exit.
'It's cool, I'm cool.' Big Al was keeping a low voice. He knew the score.
Just looking at him, it was obvious he couldn't conceal as much as a playing card under his clothes, let alone a weapon, the material was stretched so tight against his skin. However, I ran my hand down the back of his spine in case he had some thing concealed in the lumbar region; the natural curve makes it a wonderful place to hide odds and ends, and Big Al's was curvier than most. I continued frisking him.
He looked down at Kelly, who was watching everything.
He winked.
'I suppose you've seen him do this all the time?'
'My daddy does it, too, in heaven.'
His answer was quick.
'Ah, OK, yeah, smart kid, smart kid.' He looked at her and tried to work that one out.
Then came the bit that he probably enjoyed most, me running my hand up his pant legs. I checked thoroughly at the top. I said, 'You know I need to look in your briefcase now, don't you?'
'Yeah, sure.' He opened it up; I found two cigars in tubes, and all his work tools floppy disks, a backup drive and disks, cables, wires, all sorts of shit. I had a quick feel around to make sure there wasn't a secret panel.
