Nate held her backpack while she slipped her arms into the straps. He carried her banjo case, and they walked through the noisy arcade.
Jeremy whirled around, grabbed the railing, and stared out at the beach the instant they stepped out of the arcade. He waited a few seconds, then looked around. He couldn’t spot them at first, and felt a quick flicker of panic. Then a group of bikers strutted out of the way. He saw Nate and the girl walking along the far side of the crowded boardwalk. Their backs were toward him.
He followed, picking up his pace and closing the gap, afraid he might lose them.
If he lost them after all this…
He couldn’t believe how long he’d been forced to wait. Hours and hours. After the call to Tanya, he’d returned to the girl’s audience. Cowboy should’ve been there, but wasn’t. Maybe he’d gone off looking for Jeremy. But time passed, and he didn’t return. Jeremy felt a little miffed at him. What kind of friend goes off and deserts you? He was relieved, though. Keeping an eye on the girl would’ve been difficult if Cowboy had kept hanging around.
Once he realized that Cowboy wasn’t likely to come back, he got away from the girl’s audience. As long as he could hear her, he was doing his job. He spent some time sitting on a bench and watching the people go by. He visited nearby game booths and watched people try to win prizes: tossing basketballs at hoops that looked too small for the balls; hammering little contraptions to send rubber frogs flopping head over heels toward a pool where you won if they happened to land on one of the circling lily pads; shooting squirtguns into the open mouths of plastic clown faces in hopes of being the first to fill and explode the balloons on their hats.
Occasionally he wandered over to the food stands. He bought drinks and swallowed aspirin. He ate nacho chips smothered with melted cheese. Later, an ice-cream sandwich. Later still, a corndog on a stick.
About once an hour the girl took a break. Each time, she packed up her banjo and headed straight for the arcade. She hung around with Nate, sometimes played games, then returned to the boardwalk, but not to the same place. She seemed to have three different locations: in front of the arcade, near the line for the Hurricane, and at the Ferris wheel.
She was playing for the Ferris-wheel crowd when Nate showed up. Jeremy watched her from a distance, and thought: This is it. Somehow, he knew that this was not just another break. Maybe because Nate had come to her. Maybe it was the fact that she handed the money to him. Or it might’ve been a subtle change in the girl—an eagerness about the way she gathered up the money and packed her banjo and walked away with him.
He followed them to the arcade. Entering, he saw them disappear into a back room. Then he took his position at the far side of the boardwalk, near the railing, and waited.
They came out less than ten minutes later, Nate carrying the banjo case, the girl wearing her backpack.
This is it, he thought.
Just don’t lose them now, he told himself, hurrying to narrow their lead.
He followed them past the main ticket booth. From the top of the stairs he watched them step off the sidewalk, cross the road, and angle across the parking lot. He watched them climb into Nate’s red sports car. The car drove slowly out of the lot and headed east.
Jeremy rushed to the pay phone. He dialed Tanya’s number. The phone at her end rang only once. “Hello?”
“Tanya, it’s me. Jeremy.”
“I’ve been waiting. What’s going on?”
“They just left. In Nate’s car. A red sports car?”
“The bitch was with him?”
“Yeah. I don’t know where they’re going, but—”
“I think I know. I’ll make sure, though. You did really good, Duke. Really good. Are you going to be home later?”
“Yeah, sure, I think so.”
“I’ll call you around nine. We’ll get together tonight. Just you and me. Before the trolling.”
“Okay. Great!”
Tanya hung up.
Jeremy hung up. He stared at the phone. His mouth felt as dry as paper; his heart drummed and he panted for breath.
I did it, he thought. Oh, man, oh, man! Just you and me.
Even before they started up the narrow road into the hills, the houses looked big and expensive. Robin knew that higher up—where Nate was taking her—the homes must be fabulous. She didn’t find the notion comforting.
Her family hadn’t been poor. With both her parents working, they’d gotten by just fine. Then there had been the life-insurance money. But they’d never been rich. Not even close to rich.
“Something the matter?” Nate asked.
“I’m feeling…a little bit out of my league.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You live up here in a huge house. You drive a car that must’ve cost more than my Dad made in a whole year.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
Robin shrugged. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you be going with a debutante or something?”
He laughed. “Well, you’ll do until a deb comes along.”
“What happens if your parents find out about you and me?”
“What do you mean, if?”
“What do you mean?”
“They’ll find out Wednesday,” he said. “No if. I’ll introduce you.”
“Great. They should be delighted to find out you’ve taken up with a street musician.”
“We’ll tell them you’re a debutante.”
“Right.”
“You’ll knock them dead, Robin.”
“Yeah. I’m sure I will. Cardiac arrest. Their son and the bum.”
“You’re not a bum. You’re an employee. And you weren’t a bum before you were an employee. You’re an artist, a poet, a musician. They’ll love you.”
“That I doubt.”
Nate swung the car to the side of the road and stopped it. The road was deserted, shadowed by overhanging trees. Ahead on the left was a mailbox and the grated entrance of a driveway, but no homes were in sight.
He switched off the engine and set the emergency brake. He turned to Robin. Reaching out, he curled a hand behind her neck. His hand rubbed her gently while he stared into her eyes. “Just because my family has money,” he said, “it doesn’t mean we’re bad people.”
“I know that, but…”
“Nobody’s going to dump on you. Especially not my parents. All they’ll care about is whether you’re a decent person, and you are. They’ll love you. Same as I do. Well, not exactly the same.”
“I should hope not.”
“We won’t announce that you’ve been staying over. That’d be pushing it. I mean, they’re terrific, but they are my parents. They’d bounce off the ceilings if they found out about that. Even then, I’d be the one to catch hell and they’d figure you were my innocent victim.”
“Yeah?” She smiled. “You know that from experience?”
“Oh, I’ve been caught a couple of times doing what I shouldn’t.”
“Caught with girls in the house?”
“Once or twice. None that ever stayed over, though. You’ll be the first. You’re the first in a lot of ways.”
“How?”
“You’re my first banjo picker.”
“Creep.”
“You’re the first I’ve ever fallen in love with.”
Robin’s throat tightened. “Really?”
“Really.” He drew her toward him by the hand on her neck. She turned on the seat and leaned closer. As they kissed, his hand moved up the back of her head. She felt his fingers slide into her hair. His other hand closed gently over her breast. She moaned into his mouth.
“I love you so much,” she whispered.
“Would you love me more if I were poor?”
“Probably.”
“Now who’s the creep?”
“I wish we’d met a long time ago,” she said, and squirmed as he rubbed her breast.
“Me too. God, I do wish that. It would’ve made…such
a difference.”
“But I almost feel as if I’ve always known you. Does that make sense?”
“No.”
She laughed into his mouth, and kissed him again. “Yes, it does,” she said.
“If you say so. You’re the breakfast expert.”
“What does breakfast have to do with anything?”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Are you making fun of me?” she asked.
“Yeah.” He kissed the tip of her nose. As he stroked her hair, his other hand slipped away from her breast. “Ready to go?”
“Let’s went.”
He started the car and steered it back onto the road. Shortly after they rounded a bend, the road split into a Y. The lane sloping down from the left had a stop sign. A white Triumph was waiting there. The girl in its driver’s seat was a blonde wearing sunglasses. Nate glanced toward the car and suddenly flinched as if he’d been poked in the back. He gunned the engine, swung the wheel, and they sped up the road’s right-hand branch.
“Uh-oh,” Robin said.
Nate grimaced at her and shook his head. He checked the rearview mirror.
“Who was that, your girlfriend?”
“Former.”
“Does she know that?”
“Yeah. We broke up. It’s all over.” He looked again at the rearview.
Robin twisted around and peered out the back window. The road behind them was empty. “It’s over but it isn’t, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
“If you’re afraid she might come after us…”
“You never know with her. She does crazy things sometimes.”
“A jilted woman with tendencies toward craziness. Great. I should’ve ducked.”
“Don’t worry.”
“Why not? You’re worried.”
Nate glanced at the rearview mirror again, then swept the car across the downhill lane and gunned it up a driveway. He downshifted. The engine thundered as the car climbed the steep slope. The narrow, curving driveway was bordered by trees that kept out all but spots and patches of sunlight. Robin couldn’t see any house.
“Did you dump her because of me?” she asked.
“There were other things, but…yeah, I guess you entered into it.”
“Does she know that?”
“She does now, I suppose.”
“Wonderful.”
They roared over the crest of the slope. Straight ahead, beyond a lawn shadowed by several trees, stood a dark wood house that reminded Robin of ski lodges she’d seen during her travels. Not quite as huge as a ski lodge, but big, with steeply slanted roofs, a covered porch, and high balconies.
“Neat,” she said. “Makes me want to yodel.”
“Feel free.”
“I don’t want to ruin your ears for you.”
The driveway turned, and they followed it alongside the lawn. Nate fumbled with a remote device clipped to the sun visor. Ahead of them, a garage door began to rise. It was one of three, and nearest to the adjoining house. The engine noise swelled as the car entered the garage. Then it sputtered to silence.
Nate pulled the key from the ignition and faced Robin. “Here we are,” he said in a hushed voice. He managed a smile, but it looked awfully nervous.
Robin realized she was suddenly trembling. Her heart was thumping hard, and her chest felt tight.
“Guess we might as well go in,” Nate said.
“Guess so.” She climbed out. Her legs felt weak and shaky. She closed her door and stared over the roof of the car. Nate gave her that nervous smile again, then ducked out of sight to retrieve her banjo and pack. Robin stepped around the rear of the car. “Do you feel right about this?” she asked.
“You mean coming here?” He backed away from the door with his hands full, and kneed it shut. “I’m a little jittery, I guess.”
“About your girlfriend seeing us?”
“Former girlfriend. And no, it isn’t really that.” He set down the banjo case and pushed a button on the wall. As the garage door rumbled shut, he unlocked and opened a door into the house.
Robin picked up the banjo. She followed him inside, and saw that they had entered a large kitchen. He shut the door and set her pack on the red tile floor. She put her banjo down beside it.
She slipped her arms around him. Head back, she gazed into his eyes.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
“You too. So what have you got to be so jittery about?”
“It’s just being here with you, I guess.”
“Afraid we’ll get caught?”
“No. It’s you.”
“I make you nervous?” Robin asked.
“Yeah.”
“Good. You make me nervous too. That doesn’t make sense, does it? I mean, after the motel…”
“Maybe we’re both afraid of blowing it.”
“I think you may be right.”
“I care so much about you, Robin. It’s like…there’s so much at stake. If I screw up, somehow, and lose you…”
“I love you. If you screw up, I’ll still love you. Unless you burn the steaks.”
Thirty-five
“What do you think?” Joan asked.
Debbie, sitting at the kitchen table, looked up from half-eaten pizza that Joan had brought home for her supper. She stopped chewing. Her eyes widened.
Joan stepped closer, paused, and turned, posing like a model walking the ramp at a fashion show.
She’d spent the past half-hour in her bedroom preparing the attire: dingy sneakers with holes in the toes that she kept only for working in the garden, faded baggy blue sweatpants, a loose gray sweatshirt, and an old green stocking cap that she’d last worn a year ago when she went deep-sea fishing on a charter boat.
Even before checking herself in the bedroom mirror, she’d known the clothes didn’t look scruffy enough. The mirror confirmed it. So she used scissors to start a hole just above the left knee of her sweatpants, dug her fingers into the hole and stretched it wide, ripping the fabric until it gaped like a slack mouth. She made a similar tear in the sweatshirt a few inches below her right breast. Then she touched up the outfit with brown shoe polish, lightly brushing the polish here and there, creating a nice illusion of mottled filth. For no good reason other than that she liked the idea, she knotted a red bandanna around her right knee. Finally she wrapped herself in the tattered brown blanket that used to go along on family outings when she was a kid. She swept a side of it over her head, held it there like a hood, and once again inspected herself in the mirror. Her face was all wrong—too clean and smooth, the eyes too sharp. No wens or whiskers, she thought, and made a grim smile. But the costume itself looked just fine, so she went into the kitchen to show Debbie.
“What’s going on?” Debbie asked, her voice muffled by pizza. “Somebody having a masquerade party?”
“Am I fetching?”
“Fetching barf. You look like a troll.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re not seriously going out looking like that?”
“Don’t you think Dave will find me alluring?”
“Gimme a break. What’re you doing?”
“Going trolling.” She draped the blanket over the back of a kitchen chair, plucked off the stocking cap, and went to the cupboard where she kept her liquor. “I’ll be playing the role of bait.”
“Are you nuts? What do you mean?” Debbie sounded upset.
Joan crouched and opened the cupboard door. She took out a bottle of bourbon. “It’s all right,” she said. “Dave will be with me. We’ll be heading over to the boardwalk after Funland closes.”
“Why?”
“We’re going to bust some trollers. We hope.” She unscrewed the bottle cap, poured bourbon into her cupped hand, and splashed it onto the front of her sweatshirt. Adding more, she said, “Do you know who Gloria Weston is?”
“No.”
“She wrote for the Standard. She did that piece on the trollers a few days ago.” Joan too
k a sip of the bourbon, then capped the bottle, put it away, and stood up. “Gloria went undercover as a troll last night to get herself a scoop, and she disappeared.”
“Oh, Christ.” Debbie looked shocked and sick, as if she’d just spotted half a worm on the pizza slice poised near her mouth.
“We think the trollers got her.”
“So you’re going out to…”
“To see if they’ll try for me.”
“Joany, you can’t!”
Joany. Debbie hadn’t called her that in years.
“Hey, it’ll be all right.” Joan went to her. She stroked the back of Debbie’s head. The girl gazed up at her, face red and anguished. “Nothing will happen to me, honey. I promise.”
“Sure, you promise. I bet Mom didn’t think anything would happen to her either.”
Joan sighed. She shouldn’t have told Debbie of her plans.
“Dave will be there. If we can’t take care of a handful of teenage hoodlums—”
“What about the trolls?” she blurted. “What if it wasn’t the kids that did something to that reporter? What if it was the trolls, and they come after you? That place is crawling with them. What if they get you and…?”
“First, I don’t think trolls are the problem.”
“They got Mom!”
“You just think they did. We don’t know what happened to Mom. We’ll probably never know. But no trolls are going to get their hands on me. I wouldn’t let one get close enough.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Dave and I will both be armed. I don’t care who—kids, trolls—nobody gets funny with a gun in his face.”
“What if you don’t have enough bullets?”
“You worry too much.” She mussed Debbie’s hair. “Hey, we run out of ammo, it’s choppy-socky time. I’m deadly weapons from head to toe.”
“It’s not funny.”
Debbie began to cry.
Joan crouched down and caressed her sister’s cheek. “Hey, come on, no tears.”
“You’re all I have.”
“I’ll be very careful. I can’t promise nothing will go wrong. Hell, an airplane could crash into the house right now and wipe us both out. You can’t control everything. You just be as careful as you can, but you do what has to be done. I have to go out there tonight.”