When I reached the other end of the line I found Trey hovering, hands shoved into his pockets and shivering like he was cold.
“Will this one do?” he asked. I gritted my teeth but said nothing as I quickly checked it over.
The bike was a Kawasaki GPz 900 Ninja, not in the first flush of youth and much abused if the dirt-engrained scars in the fairing were anything to go by. The counterweight on the end of the clutch lever was missing and one indicator dangled by its wiring. Not exactly somebody’s pride and joy, then. Well, that was good.
Better still, there were no extra locks or chains and no warning stickers for an alarm system. Just the steering lock, which held the handlebars cocked hard over to the left.
“Yes, it will,” I said at last, trying to force my lips into an encouraging smile towards the boy. “Well done.”
I straightened up, put one hand on the pillion seat, reared back and kicked the scuffed bar end with as much force as I could put into it, given the angle. The bike lurched on its side stand like it was shying away from the blow. As soon as I could be sure it wasn’t going to go down, I hit it again.
This time the whole of the front end bucked as the steering lock sheared. The bars rebounded off the far side of the fairing as they broke free. I had to grab the body of the bike to stop it diving forward off the stand. My muscles cramped as I took the full weight of it, straining to keep it upright. It was like slapping a particularly nervous racehorse round the muzzle and then having to stop it bolting afterwards.
Trey stood mute, looking puzzled, not making any attempt to help as I wheeled the Kawasaki out of the line. I cast him a single vicious glance as I set the bike back onto its stand, then flipped the fuel tap on and fumbled in my pocket for my Swiss Army knife. I folded out the slot-head screwdriver bit and rammed it into the ignition, using the leverage of the handle to break up the inside of the lock and twist it to the run position.
“OK,” I said to Trey, “get on the back. If this works we might have to get out of here fast.”
He climbed onto the pillion seat without a word. I closed my eyes briefly, then hit the starter.
The Kwak, good reliable old hack that it was, fluttered and caught. The neglected engine was rattling like a bag of old spanners and the exhaust can was in dire need of replacement, but at least it ran.
No-one came rushing out of the bar to rescue their trusty steed.
I toed the bike into gear, feeling weird to be riding without a helmet for the first time in my life. Trey wrapped his arms round my waist and clamped himself to my back like a monkey as we trundled across the uneven car park.
When I got to the highway I checked both ways carefully before I pulled out. The cluster of cop cars was about a third of a mile further back down the road. As I turned in the opposite direction I tried not to look too hard, and I made sure I went up through the Kwak’s gearbox slowly and smoothly enough not to attract their attention.
As I rode north into the subtropical night I could see the visual disco of their lights behind me for a couple of miles before they finally disappeared from view.
Seven
I managed to get us forty miles away from the scene of the shoot-out, across two county lines and almost into West Palm Beach, before I had to stop.
There was a wooden shack by the side of the road, with a faded sign by the side of it to tempt passers by with the offer of homegrown citrus fruit for sale. The shack looked as though it hadn’t had anything fresh inside it for years. A thick coating of weed was the only thing holding the rotting timbers upright. I slowed and rode carefully in through the open doorway, paddling the Kawasaki round with both feet down, clumsy.
As I pulled the clutch in and we finally came to a halt, I muttered over my shoulder to Trey, “OK, now I’m going to hurl.”
He almost tripped in his effort to be off the bike faster than me. I staggered to the doorway and stood bent over with my hands braced on my knees. There was a roaring growing louder in my ears like I was standing in the shallows waiting for the surf to wash over me. I didn’t have to wait long.
The teriyaki beef jerky tasted no better on the way up than it had done on the way down.
Trey stood by the bike inside the shack, watching me throw up with irritating intensity. I could feel his distaste, but sensed it wasn’t so much at the fact that I was vomiting, as at my need to do so. He despised my weakness without sympathy. I wasn’t so keen on it myself.
When I was finally on empty I came upright slowly, buffeted by dizziness and fresh nausea. Considering I was relatively uninjured I felt like hell. My eyes were gritty from squinting unprotected into the hot wind that had blasted up over the bike’s fairing. I seemed to have been hit in the face by every living species of insect in Florida. It reminded me why I never even rode with my visor open at home, never mind with no helmet at all.
I put a hand up to wipe the bug splats off my face. I swear my nose was at least twice its normal size. I prodded gently at the bridge with my fingers but I didn’t think it was broken.
The moonlight was clear and startling by the doorway and it seeped inside the shack. I noticed for the first time that Trey had acquired a small cut over his eyebrow when the airbag had gone off in his face. A little blood had trickled down past the side of his eye. Apart from that he looked OK. More or less. He was staying further back in the gloom and it was difficult to tell.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
“Yeah, ‘course,” he said, with a defiant edge to him. Reminding him at this point of his tears and listless shock as we’d run from the cops would not, I thought, be a way to gain his friendship and trust. I let it ride. Besides, I soon found out that he had other things on his mind.
“Was that—?” he broke off, took a breath and tried again, his voice detached. “Was that the first time you’ve like, y’know, killed someone?”
Again, I was tempted to lie. Again I didn’t see the point. “No.” I said.
Trey gulped. “Did it . . . did you throw up then, too? Afterwards, I mean.”
I cocked my head, as though giving the question serious thought. “Probably. I don’t remember.” I said, trying to be truthful. “I didn’t exactly come out of it in the best of health myself and the paramedics were giving me a lot of painkillers. Things were a little hazy.”
I didn’t explain any further than that, but Trey nodded seriously, as though what I’d just told him made perfect sense. “Can I see it – the gun?”
I eyed him doubtfully. There was a kind of fearful eagerness about him now. He’d got over the shock of watching me shoot the men in the Buick and all the ghoulishness of your average schoolboy had returned. Nevertheless, there was no good reason to refuse him.
I sighed and pulled the SIG out of my belt again. He moved forwards, his gaze locked on the gun. I deliberately dropped the magazine out and removed the chambered round before I handed it over to him. His contained excitement outweighed the offence he took at having his judgement so obviously mistrusted.
“Awesome,” he said. Even knowing the gun was unloaded, he handled it with exaggerated care, surreptitiously reading the maker’s name off the side of the barrel, but not wanting to let me see him do it in order to recognise what it was. “SIG Sauer, huh? Where d’ya get it?”
“From the house,” I said. “It’s Sean’s.” I couldn’t quite bring myself to talk about him in the past tense. Not yet.
“Where d’you learn to shoot like that?” His stance had altered, I noted. He was holding the SIG in a showy double-handed grip now, posing almost, with both elbows bent sharply in best movie tough-guy tradition. So the camera can pan in good and tight on the hero’s face and still get the gun in the same shot.