Michael’s smile. “I’m twenty, ma’am.”
“Yes, but, sir,” the woman said. Patient, undeterred. “Are these gentlemen with you? Do they have ID?”
East watched Michael’s eyes: one flash. Then his smile hooked itself back on. “They aren’t gambling,” he said. “So, what? They can’t even watch? Can’t see me?” He laughed. “How I’m gonna leave my babies in the car?”
The woman took a step back out of Michael’s breathing room. She had decided. Michael saw it too.
Walter spoke first. “Mike. Let’s step out, man. We don’t want any trouble down here.”
East caught a movement from the direction of the card tables. A big blue suit with a headset was bearing down. A security guard, the size of a football player. “Now look out,” he warned.
At last something made Michael quit smiling. Now his strut became a hurry as he herded the three boys back. They skittered between the ringing machines, dodging players who careened, drugged, from stool to stool. But where had the door gone? Ty broke off ahead, scouting; East had lost his sense of direction entirely. Walter was lagging behind, and East waited up.
“Go, man,” he snapped.
“I’m going. I’m going.”
Something made him cruel, made him jab at Walter. “This is your fault,” he said. “First one out the van.”
“I said I’m going,” Walter panted.
The players saw them coming now, and they got out of Walter’s way, tokens rattling like chains in their plastic cups. East glanced back: the security man was cutting them room. But still he trailed, talking into a cupped hand.
A short whistle from ahead. They’d located the exits.
Past the first set of doors, they spilled out into the vestibule, piano music raining down. But now Michael Wilson had stopped, knelt to tie his shoe. East fished his keys out and slipped them to Walter: “Start the van.” The doors sucked air as the seals broke, and East caught a slice of the night outside, the heat and sound of motors. The guard trailing them had stopped near the doors. They’d done what he wanted them to do.
Except Michael switched feet, began reknotting his second shoe.
East couldn’t watch. “Quit stalling, man.”
“Ain’t the most family-friendly establishment you could ask for, is it, E?” Michael finished the knot and admired it before he stood. Cheery now.
“Mike, I’m gonna tell you something,” East began.
“East, man.”
The grin on him. It didn’t matter what you said. It just came back.
East faced Michael Wilson up. “How long you gonna take in there? And how much money you gonna spend?”
“East,” Michael Wilson purred. “Just a taste.” He sized his thumb and finger a half inch apart. Like a U in the yard — he wasn’t even seeing East. He was staring back through the inner doors. “Slots, man — you put twenty dollars on a card, you can play it in a minute. Might even win. I’ll let you play, man. You gonna like it.”
“Fin’s twenty dollars?”
“Fin ain’t here. I’m in charge. Like Fin said.”
“Then be in charge.”
“I am,” grinned Michael Wilson. “All that’s holding me up is one whiny little bitch.”
The seal of the golden doors broke again as a pair of ancient women staggered in from outside, gasping, “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness!” Then the revolving lights outside found their way in too, announcing it, some new, bright kind of trouble.
—
Outside, under the canopy three cars wide, things were sudden and sharp. Every sound, every fidget of the lights was back in focus; every sound had a maker. An engine whined. A woman was shrieking. The palm leaves shivering in an invisible breeze.
The yellow light was spinning off a big white tow truck, and somewhere East heard Walter’s hollering, a muffled squawk.
Michael Wilson: “Where’s the van?”
East pointed; then he ran.
The tow truck was bulky, a wide silver bed tipped back like a scoop, and a steel cable ran taut down under the little van’s nose, reeling it in. East’s stomach slid. High on the wall he glimpsed the sign now: RESERVED PARKING/TOW ZONE. Of course.
East headed to Walter’s window. Walter was pop-eyed and frantic in the driver’s seat. Nobody was paying him any mind.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m in the car,” Walter ranted. “They can’t tow it. It’s a rule. Tell him!”
“Tell who what?”
“Him!”
East saw then. Down low on the wrecker’s left flank, a burly guy with a beard was working the levers, making the winch squeal and spool the thick line. But it was running the wrong way: he was turning them loose.
“He’s letting us go?”
“Uh-huh,” Walter hyperventilated.
“How come?”
A quiver passed down Walter’s face. “Your brother.”
Again East looked. Ty was poised high on the running board, staring down like a wildcat. Below him, the tow truck guy hurried, one-armed, shielding his head.
Michael Wilson stepped right up to the tow guy, bellowing: “Man, get my car the fuck off this thing.”
Pushing a lever, the wrecker man stopped the winch. He stood and winced and spat something red on the pavement. “I am,” he said, and East saw it: Something had made a mess of his mouth. Beard full of blood. Plainly afraid, the wrecker man nodded quickly at Michael Wilson and got away, rolling himself under the van’s front bumper, out of sight.
Everything seemed to sizzle in the battling, shifting lights. Like they were caught in a camera flash that went on and on. Off to the left, by a concrete pillar, two security guys were watching everything.
East still could not comprehend. “Letting us go, right?” he asked Walter, and the fat boy said, “I think.”
“Fuck it, then.” East stepped off and whistled, beckoned Michael and Ty. Back in the van. Because the security twins, they were getting ready. Bow ties, shiny patent leather shoes, but he could tell by the necks — all muscle. “Come on,” East warned.
Michael Wilson cursed down at the wrecker man’s legs as he scampered by. Ty hopped down off the tow truck. “Oh, God,” said the shrieking woman, “look what you done!”
Only a minute, East thought. A minute ago they were making time. Rolling. He knelt and watched the wrecker man work. He’d watched tows before, broken-down cars or repossessions. But never like this, peering up under the fender and counting seconds. The grips and chains came off the left wheel, and the guy shimmied over to work the right.
“Start it up,” East barked to Walter.
“It is started,” Walter replied over the noise. A third security man arrived, triplet to the other two.
East tasted bile, spun around the back of the van, and climbed in shotgun. Michael and Ty huddled wide-eyed in the back. “You gotta wait for him,” he instructed Walter, “but when he comes up, get us the fuck out.”
They listened to the sounds, the wrestling going on below.
Then the tow driver’s legs flailed out and spun, and he was lifting himself upright. He uttered something inaudible, his mouth wet again with blood. What was it? Did it matter? Walter was already crawling the van back. Two more bow ties came bursting out the golden doors. Walter was clear: he found Drive, and swung the van out around the big wrecker.
“Steady,” East urged. The tow guy stood on the now-empty flatbed, cursing them. “Don’t give them a reason.”