"Like a bus station?" She unwrinkled some aluminum foil.
"Good thought, but they've been checked, apparently competently." I sat up.
Val said, "Just let me toss these away so they won't blow, and then we can dig in." She trotted off with some paper toward a trash basket. I noticed that the Dallas Cowboys were headed back toward us. As they approached Valerie, Big Boy made some remark that sounded like, "Hey, hey, school is out, boys." Val shook her head and trotted back to the blanket. The boys whooped a little at her distinctly feminine gait.
"I just so hate people like that," she said as she reached into the cooler.
"Can you think of any type of transportation Stephen might try to use?" I asked.
She cut a hunk of cheese and passed it and some gourmet crackers over to me. I reached over and poured the wine. I had my head down as she answered. "No, not really. Of course, he-Hey!"
I looked up to catch part of a rooster-tail of sand in my wine and all over the cheese.
"Sorry, lovers, but that pass was in the fourth quarter, and we needed it to keep our drive alive," said Big Boy over his shoulder as he loped away from us.
I raised my voice so it would crack. "You fellows ought to have some respect for others, you know."
"Oh, I have lots of respect for Miss Jacobs, pop," he yelled, his pals hooting. I noticed Big Boy was wearing jean cut-offs held up by an old belt. Off to our right, the old man was sputtering again.
Val was looking at me oddly, the way you react when someone you've so far liked shows some weakness or failing, like dropping a racist remark.
"Sorry about the cheese," I said as I brushed it off.
"Oh, that's okay, John," she said uncertainly, dropping her eyes a little and fussing with the crackers.
"By the way," I said, "do you have a hairbrush in that bag of yours?"
She looked up. "A what?"
"A hairbrush."
She turned awkwardly for it without taking her eyes off me. "Yes, yes I do." She dipped into her bag and produced a big blue plastic one with a thick handle and a broad working end.
"Thanks," I said, and slid it between two folds in the blanket. "Now, can you think of any form of transportation Stephen might favor?"
She tried to refocus her thoughts. "No. No."
I heard some thudding behind me and, sure enough, my imitation of the all-American wimp was drawing the all-American schmuck inexorably back toward us. He did a stop-and-go turnaround, which again showered the elderly couple. He then came chugging at us full tilt, following the wobbly arc of the ball, his face turned back over his shoulder.
Val, believing, reasonably, that she had to try to take charge of the situation, rolled up onto her knees and yelled, "Hey, watch out!"
Big Boy did nothing to show that he heard her. He was about twenty feet from us. I figured he would glance once at us to orient himself and then plant his left leg, the one closest to us, just outside our blanket in order to (1) turn sharply to receive the pass and (2) inundate us with another tidal wave of sand. I waited and then did what every schoolyard kid knows how to do.
I stuck out my foot.
Big Boy's left foot landed just before my outstretched calf. As he pivoted on that foot to redirect his momentum, the sand flew all over me. As he stepped off, though, my lower leg was a bar to his left leg, and he toppled. He hit the sand heavily on his left shoulder, with the awkwardness and impact that you see only when an athlete who knows how to fall from combat goes down because of an accidental shot from his teammate. He also missed the pass.
I was standing a count before he was. I hoped that what I'd done would so embarrass him that he'd think only a punch could avenge him. He came up spitting sand and obscenities. He wound up with his right list and let fly at my head. I parried it with my left, slashing the edge of my hand into his forearm. As I slashed, I cocked my right hand, fingers outstretched but slightly cupped to avoid jamming them, and then drove it up and into his solar plexis. There was a noise from his mouth like the sudden flapping of a sail that's lost its wind and purpose. He sank to one knee and started to gag. I dropped to one knee, reached back for the hairbrush, and then yanked him by his hair over my other leg. I spanked him hard and loud with the hairbrush. He had about enough air to go "Emphh!" on each swat and wriggle a little.
After about ten strokes, my palm was beginning to ring, the way it feels if you catch a hardball in the wrong part of the glove. I tossed the hairbrush onto the blanket and looked around for his friends. They were transfixed about twenty feet away. I rolled Big Boy off my leg and stood up. I reached down, gripped his belt dead center at the small of his back, and lifted him like a four-limbed suitcase. It's really pretty easy to do, even with a heavy man, since you are able to lift him at an almost perfect balance point, but it's impressive as hell. I then walked purposefully down into the water until I was at mid-thigh. I yo-yoed him five times into the water to help focus the sting the spanking imparted. He was making little gurgling sounds. I carried him back up the beach and stopped in front of his friends. I dropped him like a sack of battered junk.
"And if you do this again," I said to them, shaking my index finger, "you're all going to bed without any supper."
As I returned to our blanket, the elderly man caught up with me. He was grinning and hopping from one foot to the other. He started pumping my hand.
"Boy, oh boy, son, that's the best show I've seen since the war! That miserable bastard's been terrorizing this beach for years. My name's Graden. Charlie Graden. If you need anybody to stand up for you with the cops or anything, you call me, me and Edna. We're in the book. Boy, oh boy!"
I smiled at him. "Thanks, Mr. Graden. If this were twenty years ago, I'll bet I'd be the one shaking your hand."
"Damn right!" he said, giggling. "Take care of yourself, son." He trotted, only a little uncertainly, back toward his chair.
When I reached the blanket, Val had already packed everything back in the chest and had her tank top on.
I said, "We can stop for lunch…"
She glared up at me with tears in her eyes. "You're just as bad as they are, you know. Only you don't know it. You could have handled that boy easily, any time you wanted. You used that whiny voice to encourage him to come back." Now her voice cracked with emotion. "I thought you were a sincere, caring guy looking for a poor little boy. But all you are is a showoff too, just like those college kids. The only difference is, your shows are a little more clever and a lot more violent." She picked up her cooler with one hand, yanked up her blanket with the other, and strode determinedly off, trying unsuccessfully to gather the sand-trailing blanket into a bundle with just one hand.
As I picked up my keys and shook out my towel, it seemed that her version edged closer to the mark than the old man's and mine did. I spent most of the drive back to Boston trying to persuade myself the other way.
FOURTEENTH
– ¦ I stopped at the apartment to shower. While I was drying off I found the telephone number of one of the two contacts I planned to speak to that afternoon. Dave Waters and I had been first lieutenants together in Saigon in 1968. He absorbed a lot of indirect abuse during his first week until the day that a good ol' boy told him to shag his black ass after some coffee. About ten minutes later Dave began absorbing a lot of direct respect. The good ol' boy told the doctors he'd been hit by a Renault.
The last number I had for Dave was with the Denver P.D. I tried it.
"Lieutenant Waters' line," answered the voice.
"May I speak to him, please? Tell him it's Lieutenant John Cuddy."
"Hold on, sir." A pause.