As She Rides By (Vic Daniel Series)

by David Pierce

  During all this, the mute remained silent. His associate did not. His associate seemed to be annoyed at something. He used vile language. He blustered and ranted. When I stood up to chuck their stuff into the Mercedes, he shouted, "Shit, man, not my Rolex, too, it's worth four grand, easy!"

  "Bet the reward's five," I said. I left them sitting there while I went to check out their car; where could they go, even if they wanted to see how accurate I was with a handgun from, say, thirty feet? It was me or the sea or a bare-ass scramble up one of the cliffs on either side. As it happened, they stayed put. I didn't find any artillery in the Ford (I'd found none on them, either), but I found a set of golf clubs in the back seat—no law against that, and slightly more plausible than baseball bats for boys of their age. I broke three of them bashing up all what I could bash of that nice powerful V-8 engine I found under their car's hood. Worked up quite a glow, too. And Louis the Lip's genuine bone-handled hunting knife sure sliced through those radials like butter! When I was done, I pocketed the Ford's keys and strolled back to them.

  "Got the time?" I asked. The mute almost smiled. "Oh, god, I forgot," I said, checking my own watch, which was not a Rolex Oyster, by the way, but a Miss Piggy timepiece Santa had left in my stocking the previous Noel. "Already? How time flies, eh guys? What time's your appointment? Noon, isn't it? Let's see. It's ten-thirty now. Wonder how long it'll take you city types to walk three and a half miles over hot gravel? Then of course, you got that lane to go down a couple more miles before hitting the first house. Bet the little woman is going to be mighty surprised when two naked men knock on her front door and ask if they can please use her telephone. I bet she'd call the cops in a minute. Hell, she'd probably call in the National Guard, too, one look at you two."

  "Have your fun, fucker," said guess who.

  "Do not worry about me," I said. "I'm having the time of my young life. 'Course, you could try swimming, it's only a couple of miles to the nearest neighbors, and as far as I know there aren't any man-eating sharks in these waters this time of year, but I'm no expert, of course."

  "What you are is dead," said the driver.

  "Smell that sea air!" I said, inhaling deeply. "Listen to those seagulls. Look on the bright side of things. Think positive, boys. Your boss—and I wonder who he is, by the way?" No answer this time. "He is not going to be pleased when you two miss your court appearance, because there is no way in hell you are going to make it in time, not even with an hour's grace that some judges allow. So there goes your bail money, boys, or, more likely your boss's. Wonder how much it was, ten grand, fifteen, each? Then what do you do? Either go back to Pittsburgh, where you'll be just in time for the playoffs, or maybe have your mouthpiece produce a letter in court mañana maybe from your mother saying her little boy was too sick to go to school yesterday, or how about a letter from a bona-fide doctor attesting to some medical reason for your no-show? That might be acceptable by the court. And that we are going to take care of right now." I dug the day's newspaper out of my bag, rolled it up, and tossed it to the silent one. Then I dug out my Canon Prima auto zoom, which was already primed for action, and said, "Say cheese! And I do not mean Gruyère."

  When I was done, I put the camera away. "What I have," I said, "is several lovely candid snaps of both of you reading today's paper and basking in the sun. See that window frame right above you? You will note that it is casting a shadow on the gravel in front of you, in other words, amigos, it is acting like a sundial. If anyone ever wanted to check the exact time those adorable pictures were taken, all they would have to do is come back out here and wait till the shadow on the gravel matched the one in the photos. So, to put it another way," I said, "what I have is proof positive that on the 29th of August, at roughly eleven in the a.m., you two were not in the children's ward of some hospital with German measles, but soaking up some rays just past Las Tunas Beach. All in all," I concluded, "I'd try Pittsburgh. Oh. Could I have my paper back, please? For all I know one of you might be an origami master and be able to make a three-piece suit plus a hat out of it. And by the way, there's nothing left in your car to fashion a casual wardrobe out of, unless you want to try tearing up the car seats with your teeth. Any comments?"

  There were comments, which I will not bother to repeat here. Then I said, "Adios, gents. Enjoy your stroll," and eased myself into the Mercedes.

  "You'll get yours, fuck-face," the driver called in parting.

  "Anytime," I called back out the window. "I'm in the book."

  Leaving a spatter of hot, sharp gravel behind me, I made tracks out of there, a smile on my lips and a song in my heart. That is what I call a smooth operation, Daniel, I said to myself as I swung easily into the first turn. Smooth—just like you, baby. A hundred yards later the car veered suddenly to the left, then to the right, then came to a gradual stop. Smoothly. I couldn't be out of gas; I checked the gauge, it said I wasn't. And I couldn't remember seriously scraping anything under the car on the way in, although the gravel had been washed away in a couple of places. And Phil and Ted hadn't been anywhere near the goddamn heap that I knew, so what the hell?

  I hopped out and saw what the hell. No wonder the mute had appeared relatively unconcerned and his pal more full of hot air than murderous fury. What had stopped the car was three flat tires. I don't know what those things are called that caused the flats, but they were dreamed up I believe by some boffin in WW 2 and they consist of a series of needle-sharp spikes so set into a central, round core that whatever way up they are at least a couple of the spikes are placed to do the maximum damage. Remember the game of jacks? Sort of like a large jack, but sharp. I'd used a handful of them once, just as effectively as they'd been used on me, too. The one left over I'd used as a paperweight until it disappeared mysteriously one afternoon only to reappear two days later dangling from Sara the twerp's left ear.

  A further look around informed me that one of the boys had neatly laid out three lines of them, maybe some thirty in all, and staggered them unevenly to make sure there was no way through them. Well, at least I now knew why they were those couple of minutes late showing up for our beach party.

  I straightened up, thinking OK, now what, smoothy? From somewhere too close for comfort a cannon went off—well, a Colt Magnum, at least. The car's windshield exploded into tiny fragments, as did the rear window. I ducked down, or was it fell. Lucky for me the car had come to a stop more or less canted across the road, so I had some protection. Ahead of me the road ran for a good hundred yards without one bend, also slightly uphill. No way out there, at least not one I wanted to try with Big Bertha well sighted in. The hill on one side of the road looked impossible, the rock fall on the other only almost impossible. I eased open the door on my side, grabbed my bag and their junk, fumbled my gun out, stuck it around the front of the car, let off a couple of shots to keep their heads down, duck-walked to the rear of the car, then went mountain climbing for the first and last time. One-handed, too, remember, as the other was carrying a bag, a bundle, and a gun, none of which I wanted to sacrifice.

  I was halfway up to the cluster of boulders I had one eye on before they opened up again. A rock splinter from a ricochet opened up a gash on one cheek, but that's as close as they came; you have to be Clint Eastwood to hit a moving target, let alone a frantically scrambling one, at more than twenty feet with one of those .475s, unless you're shooting from a mount. Or get lucky. Or grow up with guns. Or were a marksman in the army . . .

  Anyway, I made it. I squeezed in behind the largest of the boulders, dragged my luggage in behind me, and tried to get my breathing back to normal. My thoughts were not pretty. Smooth old Daniel hadn't given them credit for any brains at all. Hadn't given one thought to the idea that they might have some insurance, just in case. Hadn't even bothered to check out the Ford properly; shit, they could have had a bazooka hidden in there for all I would have noticed. Maybe they had a few hand grenades tucked away in the side paneling, that'd be fun. Evonne should've hit me a little ha
rder with that trowel, it might've shaken a few brains to the surface.

  After a minute I stuck one eye out, didn't see anything, so stuck it in again. After another minute I got out a little round mirror from my toilet kit—and it is none of your business what it was doing there—and perched it on a little ledge so I could see the car below and thus if anyone was trying to sneak up to it. No one was.

  A few more minutes went by. Then a few more. I wondered what Phil and Ted were up to, once they got done laughing. Maybe wondering what I was up to. After a moment's reflection I decided they were up to the same thing I was—nothing. They might have had me, but I had them. Did I want to go on crouching behind a boulder for another nine hours or so until it got dark, then sneak down and go for a long, long walk?

  Not all that much, frankly. At least I was in the shade, but what I figured the boys would do is take turns watching the road while the other found some shade somewhere. Hmm. A Mexican standoff, I believe it's called; in fact, I know it is. I wonder why . . . remind me to ask a Mexican sometime. Anyway, thus it was that, after another minute or two of absolutely nothing happening. I called out, "Yoo-hoo, anyone home?"

  "You better believe it," the chatterbox called back.

  "Want to deal, or do you want to wait till you're fried to a crisp?"

  "So talk, asshole."

  "I'll chuck down your clothes and a few bucks, then all you got to do is walk on out of here. I'll give you an hour head start."

  "What do you get out of it?"

  "I get you gone," I said. "I also get me living to see another day dawn."

  A lengthy pause ensued. I winked at a lizard who poked his head out from a hole in the rocks. He pretended he didn't see me. Then the driver called out, "How do we know you won't get cute?"

  "Cute how?" I called back. "I already got what I want, remember? I got my pal in court and you guys stuck out here in the boonies. What do I want a shootout at the OK corral for?"

  Another pause. Then he called out, "OK, faggot. So throw our stuff down."

  "Look out below," I said. I took a minute to empty their wallets of everything but a ten-spot, separated their shoes from the bundle, stuck them in my bag, fastened the gunmetal Rolex around my wrist beside Miss Piggy, refastened the bundle, then lofted it up and over my favorite boulder. It landed on the road a few yards from the car, the little mirror, mirror on the rock told me.

  Another minute or two went by. Suddenly the driver scuttled into view, grabbed the bundle, then vanished again.

  Yet another 120 seconds or so ticked by, never to return, like my boyhood golden curls. Then the driver shouted up, "Hey, mother, where's our fuckin' shoes?"

  "Oh, shoot," I said. "I meant to tell you, I lost them on the way up here."

  "Any my fuckin' watch?"

  "Got smashed all to hell," I said, looking at it admiringly in the bright noonday sun and wondering if its depth gauge would work in my shower.

  "Bet your shit's green, too," came the impolite answer.

  After a final, brief hiatus, Phil and Ted appeared, fully clothed, and, keeping as far over to my side of the road as possible—to give me less sight of them but more chance of dropping a rock on their heads, which they didn't think of—they made their way cautiously up to the Mercedes, then past it.

  When the driver, the one with the cannon, paused and then turned back for a moment, I called out hastily, just in case, "No good taking it out on the car, it's only a lease." I did have my fingers crossed at the time, so it wasn't really a lie, kids.

  The second, the very second, they disappeared out of sight around the next bend, I was out of my hidey-hole and slithering as quietly as possible back down to ground level. I reasoned as follows: If they had any brains at all, and it had already been conclusively demonstrated that at least one of them did, I reasoned that they would reason as follows:

  One: Now we got him trapped without him having us trapped, because he's stoopid.

  Two: So what we do is what he just did—find a place out of sight and wait till he pokes his dumb head around the corner and then, whammo!

  Three: That way not only does he get what he's got coming, but we get back all our bread and the Rollie and any bread he's got plus his peashooter plus our fuckin' shoes and, if not ours, bet that faggot packed a dozen pairs at least; also maybe the Merc'll take us out to the main road, fuck driving on the rims.

  Four: Remember, the fuck's gotta come out sometime, he's got nowhere else to go.

  Ah, but V. (for Victor) Daniel did have somewhere else to go is what they didn't know. In fact, he had two choices—he could either go riding on a bicycle exerciser, or go surfboarding on the briney.

  Which did he choose?

  Well, the surf was up, beach bunnies. So . . .

  Cowabunga!

  Chapter Eight

  He'd bought himself a truck or two and he'd found himself a Cherokee girl—

  I know he'll send the dinero the very day he gets the word.

  ONE JIFF LATER I had the surfboard unfastened from the roof rack and was hotfooting it seaward, taking a handful of those stretchy elastic things along, also Phineas's expensive-looking carbon tennis racket in its plastic half-case. Although I hadn't said anything at the time, I had wondered why he'd bothered to pack a tennis racket for a sea cruise but figured perhaps he knew something about sea cruises I didn't; now it seemed like a brilliant idea.

  I paused for a breath in front of the shell of the Lewellens' manse, then clambered down the concrete steps to the small dock. Once there, I cocked an ear—nothing but the gentle sound of rippling water and breaking swells could I hear, which was fine by me. Then I zipped open my bag, consigned Phil and Ted's footwear to the deep, dumped my toilet articles out of their supposedly waterproof plastic case, replaced them with the camera, the weapon, and my wallet, then zipped up everything again, then lashed the bag to the board with stretchy elastic things. Then I lowered the board the few feet into the water, grasped the tennis racket firmly, then took a deep breath, pulled my sagging trousers back up over the knees as far as they would go, then began to lower myself onto the board. Something caught my eye—my shoes and socks. I released my hold on the tennis racket. I pulled the board back up on the slippery dock, undid the stretchy elastic things, opened the bag, stuffed shoes and socks inside, closed bag, lashed bag, relaunched board, regrasped racket, then launched myself down onto board. Uggghhh! Cold! Then, using the racket, off I paddled toward some distant, unknown horizon . . .

  Not so distant, nor so unknown, I must confess at this time to all you surfers and surf bunnies out there. What I didn't bother telling those hodads Phil and Ted was, the main reason the Lew Lewellens had picked the site they did was because their best friends had a place two coves over that they loved and used all the time. And, having been through the same house-building process, they knew all the local bylaws and builders and regulations and what-have-you. Two coves . . . how far away could that be? I paddled, sneaking a look over my shoulder from time to time. Paddling was not easy; all that goddamned board wanted to do was go around in circles so I had to change hands with the paddle every couple of strokes. Also, it is not particularly easy to paddle at all when one's shoulders and back are all tensed up with the nervous anticipation of having a large hole blown through one's anatomy at any second. Which, however, did not happen; after some five minutes of energetic toil I made it around the headland out of sight of the Lewellens' dock, and began to relax somewhat. One cove down, one to go, Daniel. Not such a bad day after all for a paddle. Thrust. Stroke. Recover. Thrust again. Scan the horizon for whitecaps, squalls, huge rollers carrying all before them, blue whales, cutlass-wielding pirates—ha ha! Not a one in sight. Nothing at all in sight, actually, but a sailboat or two and, way off, on the horizon, a trail of smoke left by some passing freighter. Where bound, shipmates? Panama, the Windwards, the Leewards, Sumatra, Java? Ha ha!

  Around then I noticed the water was getting a little choppier. My legs were freezing; so was
my butt from the water that kept splashing over the board, and both my arms and legs were starting to tire—the arms from paddling, the legs from holding on. What cared I—only one more cove to go and the spit of land between me and the friendly tinkle of ice in a tall glass chez the Lewellens' best friends was only fifty yards or so away. I switched hands again and paddled. I comforted myself with comforting thoughts, such as Evonne Louise Shirley after three drinks, and such as Phil and Ted opening up all Phineas's fancy matched luggage desperately seeking footwear and finding them all empty, because why bother packing real clothes for a make-believe cruise?

  Around then, as I headed seaward slightly to maneuver my way past the last remaining obstacle between me and a long, hot bath, I noticed the current stiffening significantly, due to what caprice of tidal motion I did not know. Stiffening against me, too. I began paddling like a madman against it, and had just about turned the corner when something nibbled one of my toes, I swear it did. I screamed, and of course dropped the *!!%?!! tennis racket, which sank like a bowling ball before I could even make a grab for it. Next thing I knew the current had taken me a good two hundred yards straight out to sea, and it wasn't done yet. From where I was I could see the Lewellens' friends' house clearly, if distantly. I could even see a girl in a bikini on the front veranda. I waved frantically to her. She gave me one languid wave in return, then disappeared into the house, no doubt to make a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich on diet bread or do something equally vital. She did not reappear.

  Five minutes later I drowned for the first time. The bag of goodies that was tied on in front of me began slipping. I sat up too quickly and the board flipped over and headfirst into the chilly drink I went, mouth wide open, of course. When I powered my way back up, eyes tightly closed, of course, I gave my head a sharp whack on the downside of the surfboard, but that I didn't mind so much because at least I knew where it was. When I was done coughing up seawater, I righted the board and inched my way onto it again. I stretched out cautiously, readjusted the bag, looked around for a handy island, saw none, and began paddling with my hands again as best I could.