Sideswipe (27 page)

"You're lucky you have Troy now." Stanley patted her on the shoulder. "I'm sure he didn't mean to hurt your feelings about the ice cream. You saw the way he made James eat his greens. That shows how sensitive he is to your feelings. Next time, you'll know to get ice cream when you fix apple pie."

"I guess I should look on the bright side, huh?" Dale's twisted, toothless smile made Stanley turn his head away. "I like you a lot, Mr. Sinkiewicz, and if you ever want a little action and Troy ain't around, you just let me know. Hear?" She reached amiably for Stanley's crotch, but he backed away before she could touch him.

"I'd better go down to the garage and look for those blades."

Stanley found a metal toolbox beneath the bench, but the box had been left open and the unused tools were rusty from long exposure to the humidity. There were a halfdozen hacksaw blades wrapped in waxed paper, and the rusty saw was usable. The garage was well-lighted with several overhead 150-watt bulbs. One of the shadeless bulbs was directly above James's easel so he could paint at night. Stanley looked at James's paintings until Troy returned, thinking that James was lucky that he didn't need subject matter to paint. The Bajan could paint day or night, or anytime he felt like it, and it wouldn't make any difference. He wondered if they would make James paint objects of some kind when he enrolled in the Art Students League up in New York. If they did, James was going to be in trouble...

Troy returned in the Morris and parked it beside Stanley's Honda. Stanley showed him the blades, and Troy went upstairs to get what he called his "new, but used" shotgun from his suitcase. He came down to the garage again, locked the shotgun in the vise, and sawed off the barrels as close as he could to the forestock. Then he turned the gun around in the vise and sawed off the rear stock. It took him a great deal longer to get through the wood than it had to shorten the metal barrels. When Troy finished it was an odd-looking weapon. He would have to hold it like a pistol to fire it. It looked unwieldy to Stanley.

"Won't that thing kick out of your hand when you shoot it?" Stanley asked. "It won't be accurate, neither, if you go dove hunting."

"I'm not going to -fire- it, Pop. Jesus, there'll be doubleaught shells in it. If I shot it, especially at close range, it would blow great big holes in a man's body. I just sawed off the barrels so it wouldn't look like some kind of sporting gun you see in the Sears catalog, but would look like a sawed-off shotgun, which it is now. It's a psychological ploy, Pop. A person associates long barrels with bird-shooting. But he associates a sawed-off shotgun with gangster movies, and he's afraid of it. This way, you don't have to shoot anyone, all you have to do is show the thing. If I do shoot it, I'll just shoot it up at the ceiling or something, and carry a few extra shells in my jacket pocket."

"It looks wicked that way, and you've sure ruint it for shooting birds."

"It was more accurate, or wicked as you say, with long barrels, Pop, and you just proved my point. But I'd never shoot birds with a shotgun. I think hunting for game of any kind stinks, and I'm against it. The only way to justify hunting is if you're lost in the woods or something, and you have to kill a bird or a rabbit to survive. Otherwise, hunting for sport is cruel. It ought to be outlawed. You don't think so?"

"I like quail, and there was a neighbor of mine up in Hamtramck who--"

"I don't want to hear about it, Pop. If you want to eat quail, Dale can get you some at the supermarket. All you want. They raise 'em for that purpose, and you can buy 'em fresh frozen. You don't hunt, do you?"

"No, not me, but I had this neighbor, and he used to--"

"I said I don't want to hear about it. Where's Dale?"

"After she finished the dishes I think she took a shower. I heard it running awhile ago."

"What do you think of Dale, Pop, now that you've met her and had a chance to talk with her?"

"She seems like a nice enough girl. A little forward, maybe."

"She come on to you while I was gone?"

"Oh, I don't know. A little bit, maybe. She felt bad about you not eating the apple pie."

"That's my fault, not Dale's. I'll have to make a list of the things I like and don't like, so she won't make mistakes like that again. I can't blame Dale for my own oversights. But she'll learn soon enough what I like and don't like. It's her face that makes her so sensitive, Pop. Dale's life's been one rejection after another, so if she offers you head, you'd better accommodate her. Otherwise, she'll think you don't like her."

"I like her fine, Troy, but I haven't done nothing like that in three or four years now, and I guess I don't have the desire anymore. But if there's any leftover pork chops, I wouldn't mind a cold pork chop sandwich before I go to bed."

"Good. I'll tell Dale how you feel, and I know she'll be happy to fix you a sandwich later on. Or, if you want, you can have my piece of apple pie and a glass of warm milk."

"I'd rather have the pork chop sandwich."

The doctored weapon was still in the vise. Troy used a file to smooth the ends of the jaggedly cut barrels, which were not cut off evenly, and then he filed off the splinters from the stock.

James drove a navy blue Chrysler New Yorker into the yard and parked beside the Honda and the Morris Minor. The big Chrysler dwarfed the two foreign cars. James honked the horn once and then jumped out of the vehicle as if it had been set on fire. He walked toward them, wringing his hands.

"Oh, a terrible thing happened, Troy! And I didn't know what to do! I was chased, and if I hadn't cut off a pickup at the Miller exit they'd of caught me for sure!"

"You didn't lead anybody back here, did you?"

"No, I made sure of that. But I didn't mean to take the baby! I didn't see it back there when I got the car. There was this old lady with packages at the curb in Dadcland, and a younger woman was driving--" He was trying to catch his breath. "Then, when the woman got out to help the old lady with the packages, I jumped in and drove off. The keys were in the car and the motor was running. Both those ladies came running after me, and then a taxi chased me down Kendall Drive. I went through the red light and so did he, right on my back, all the way down the Palmetto to Miller--"

"What baby?" Troy said, going over to the New Yorker and opening the back door. "Oh, shit," he said as he looked at the baby strapped in its car-seat in the back.

"I never looked in the back, Troy. There wasn't time. I just took the car 'cause I only had a second or so to get into it and go. He didn't even start crying till I got onto Kendall Drive."

"This is a nice car, James, exactly what I wanted, but it's useless to us now. Everybody in town'll be on the lookout for this vehicle. I try to think of everything, but I didn't tell you not to steal a car with a baby in it. I thought you'd have more sense than that."

"I didn't -see- him," James said. "Then, when the cab started chasing me, I couldn't stop and get out. I had to lose him first."

"What is it," Stanley asked, "a boy or a girl? The way it's bundled up and all..."

"Boy or girl doesn't make a helluva lot of difference, Pop," Troy said. "Whatever it is, they'll want it back, and the cops'll be looking for this New Yorker all over the damned county. Are the keys still in the car, James?"

"Yes, sir."

"I told you before not to say that anymore, James. We're all equals here, so I don't want to hear any more of that no, sir, yes, sir crap. I just asked if the keys were in the car."

James nodded and gulped. The night was hot and humid, and James's shirt was soaked. Water ran down his flushed face as if he had just been doused with a hose.

"All right," Troy said. "I'll get rid of this car and come back with another. You two go on upstairs, but don't tell Dale about the baby. Women get upset over misunderstandings like that. I don't know when I'll be back, but when I do get back, James, I hope you realize that I'll have to punish you for this mistake."

James nodded and wiped his face with his fingers. "It ain't altogether my fault, Troy. These things happen."

"I understand. And I'll take under consideration that you're a foreigner here on a student visa. But if I don't punish you in some way, you might make more mistakes that are even more serious. So go on upstairs now, both of you. And ask Dale to fix your pork chop sandwich, Pop."

"I don't want it right now."

"When you do."

Troy took his shotgun out of the vise, loaded it, and put some extra shells into his -guayabera- pocket. He then got into the Chrysler New Yorker, backed and filled, and drove out of the yard.

James took a shower and put on a clean pair of jeans. His old jeans, which he had worn to Dadeland, were stained from when he had wet his pants during the chase by the taxicab. James rolled the soiled jeans into a ball and took them, together with the garbage bags, down to the trash can in the yard.

Stanley stripped to his underwear and went to bed on the porch. It was too warm to cover himself with a sheet, although a breeze from the bay made the porch a little cooler than the living room. The moon was up, and he could see everything in the yard from his window. The enormous two-story house was an ominous dark mass beyond the circle of light flooding from the bulbs inside the garage. James, apparently exhausted, slept on the couch in the living room, naked except for his jeans. Stanley couldn't sleep. He was worried about Troy driving around in the city with the baby in the back of the car. If they caught him in the car, he would be charged with kidnapping, as well as car theft. Troy should have made James take the car back to Dadeland. But that wasn't Troy's way; he was too responsible for that, despite all his other faults.

Dale, wearing her nightgown, came out to the porch and sat on the edge of the bed. "Do you mind if I lay down here with you, Mr. Sinkiewicz? Just till Troy gets back. I can't sleep all alone. It's scary in the big bedroom all by myself."

"I don't mind. But don't roll up against me. It's too hot for anything like that."

Dale curled into a ball, sighed once, and fell asleep. A moment later, she was snoring through her damaged septum.

It was well after two AM. before Troy drove into the yard and parked a dark blue Lincoln town car beside the back porch of the two-story house. Stanley woke Dale up and told her to go back to the bedroom. Troy came upstairs, woke James, and whispered something to him that Stanley couldn't hear. The two of them went downstairs again. The garage lights were switched off. Without the lights, Stanley could barely see them in the yard as they walked to the Lincoln. He heard the trunk of the car being raised, and then heard it slam down again. For a few minutes, the lights in the big house were on, and then they were switched off again. It was about ten minutes or so before the two men came up the stairs quietly. Stanley pretended to be asleep. James went back to sleep on the couch, and Troy went into the bedroom and closed the door.

Now that Troy was back safely, Stanley got so sleepy he could barely keep his eyes open. But then, why should he keep them open? He wondered, for a moment, what Troy and James had been doing in the big house, but he supposed that Troy had been bawling James out for taking the car with the baby in it. It didn't matter. As Troy said, if he needed to know, he would be told. After all, he was a guest here, and not part of the operation.

CHAPTER 15

Hoke was wearing his swimming trunks under his jumpsuit, but after he let himself in to Helen's apartment, he decided that he didn't want to swim in the pool. His right shoulder throbbed, and he rubbed it briskly. Massaging didn't help it any. He had a touch of bursitis, which came and went periodically and was back now because he had put too much shoulder into popping Skinner in the belly. Hoke had enjoyed hitting Skinner--both times--and he wouldn't mind going back up to the penthouse right now and hitting him again. But he would never hit the millionaire again, and he probably shouldn't have hit him the first time. Skinner was undoubtedly on the phone with his lawyer right now, getting some twenty-five-dollar-a-minute advice.

And what would his lawyer tell him? If Skinner had a good counselor, and there was no doubt that he did, he would be told to count his blessings. That would be the end of it. Hoke wasn't angry, although Skinner had apparently taken him for a fool. Otherwise, he wouldn't have asked Hoke so disingenuously if he had known about the socalled burglaries when he first met him on the beach.

Hoke looked incuriously around Helen's two-hundredthousand-dollar apartment, taking in the beige leather furniture and the Dufy-blue carpet that picked up the tints in the Hockney painting of a swimming pool above the fivecushioned couch. He decided that Skinner was as bored with his life at the Supermare as Helen had been. Like John Maynard Keynes, who had purportedly picked up the phone every morning and made two or three hundred pounds before getting out of bed, Skinner led a dull existence. After checking the market each morning, and then selling and buying stocks, Skinner didn't know what else to do with his spare time. Helen hadn't known what to do with her time either, living in this designer-decorated apartment, so she had moved in with Frank. Helen still slept until noon, but at least now she had started to engage herself in a few social activities, and she and Frank could always discuss which channel to watch at night. The fact that they had never actually gotten around to getting married didn't really matter.