Trey scratched at his armpit, frowning as he was overtaken by a sudden worry. “Nah. It just said there was a double homicide at a motel and that a cop was gunned down by the side of the highway.”
As I restarted the Kwak’s motor he hopped onto the pillion seat, grabbing on round my waist. He leaned forwards. “That means they know it was Mr Whitmarsh and Chris, yeah?” he said in my ear, and there was a painfully hopeful note in his voice. “That means we’re, like, in the clear, right?”
Now would have been a good time to stop being so truthful with the kid, I recognised, but it seemed a shame to break the habit.
“No, sorry,” I said, grim. “It means now we’re in the shit twice as deep . . .”
***
It was late in the evening by the time we arrived in Daytona Beach. The whole place was bright and brash and lit up with neon like Blackpool sea front on steroids. Lots of steroids.
We crossed over the inland waterway and came in on South Atlantic Avenue, past block after block of high-rise luxury flats that were perched on the narrow ribbon of land between the road and the beach. The motels and hotels lined both sides, mostly with signs out welcoming the Spring Breakers. The bars and surf shops all seemed to still be open, bright and brash and loud. They were doing a roaring trade if the number of teenagers thronging the pavements was anything to go by.
I stopped before we got too far into the thick of things. The sight of numerous police cruisers pulling teenage drivers over in the centre turning lane for traffic and drink driving offences was enough to make me want to get us and our stolen motorbike off the road, and fast.
I turned into the first reasonable-looking motel that had a vacancies sign lit up and tucked the Kawasaki away behind a massive pickup truck.
“I’ll stay with the bike,” Trey offered as I cut the engine and we climbed off.
I nodded and walked into the reception. There were a crowd already in there, including a family of harassed and sunburned Brits who were complaining about the noise.
“I’m real sorry, sir,” the thin youth behind the desk was saying, “but you have to understand that this is Spring Break.”
The man kept grumbling until the duty manageress was wheeled out to discount his bill. He accepted the reduction with poor grace and stalked out, his crotchety-looking wife and family trailing after him. His plastic sandals squeaked annoyingly on the tiled floor as he went. As they passed me I noticed that the backs of their collective necks were scorched to the colour of a red brick house.
A group of American teens were next in line, all good tans and gum and braces. I busied myself leafing through a rack of local attractions by the main desk, mainly so I could avoid eye contact with people. I didn’t want to stick in their memory if I could help it.
I quietly checked out my reflection in the mirrored glass panel behind the reception desk, but to my surprise I didn’t show any signs of having just lived through a car crash and a bloody shoot-out. My nose looked a little puffy, sure, but if you didn’t know what it looked like normally, you wouldn’t notice. And the reddened patches on my face from the airbag would pass for too much exposure to the Florida sun.
It was at this point I noticed the sign on the corner of the desk. The one that said, ‘It is the policy of the management to request valid ID with check-in during Spring Break weekend. Thank you for your cooperation.’
I thought about that one for a moment, then turned and headed for the door.
“Excuse me, ma’am, can I help you?”
I half-turned, smiled and waved the leaflet for the Daytona Motor Speedway that I was still clutching. “No thanks,” I said, smiling. “Just wanted one of these.”
Trey was leaning nonchalantly on the Kawasaki when I got back outside. Too nonchalantly. I wondered briefly what he’d been up to while I’d been gone.
“They have a room?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t get that far,” I said. “They’ve a sign up asking for ID and in view of the fact that I showed my driver’s licence when we checked into the motel in Fort Lauderdale, I didn’t think that was a good idea.”
Trey didn’t have to ask me to explain my reasoning. OK, so we were in a different county and I had it in my head that the US police were a lot more territorial than back at home. Even so, when the murder of one of their own was concerned, I’d bet they wouldn’t have much trouble getting assistance from other departments.
Besides, the cop who’d stopped us had known we were the ones he was after. That much was obvious as soon as he’d got out of his car. They must have discovered we’d disappeared from the motel after the shooting and decided that running away from a crime scene made us instant suspects. What had happened afterwards would have put us right at the top of the list.
Either that or the young cop was in league with Oakley man and had simply wanted us dead. In which case, whose side were the men in the Buick on?
I shook my head, setting the fading headache off again. I was too tired to think straight tonight.
There were a couple of pay phones on the wall outside the reception door. I looked at Trey and nodded towards them. “Any chance you can get in touch with your mates tonight and see if we can cadge a bed from them?”
“I called already but they weren’t home,” he said. “I left a message that we’d meet up tomorrow, down at the Ocean Center.”
“What’s going on there?”
“It’s the Spring Break Nationals,” he said, as though I should know straight away what he was on about. “It’s, like, y’know, the biggest car audio competition in Florida. In the whole of the States, probably. It’s just awesome.”
A car audio competition. Only in America, I thought. As if to prove the point a car went past us with its stereo system cranked so high the spot welds holding the roof panel together were buzzing loose. All four windows were down but I still couldn’t name that tune.
“I can’t wait,” I muttered. “So, what do we do tonight?”
Trey shrugged. “This is Spring Break,” he said. “We do what everyone else does if they can’t get a room – we sleep on the beach.”
Eight
The amount of police cars cruising about in Daytona Beach soon convinced me the Kawasaki was going to have to go. Trey and I rode back down the strip until we came across a big hotel with an underground car park and ducked into there.
I found a quiet corner next to the laundry room and that’s where we left it. I retrieved my Swiss Army knife from the ruined ignition and gave the bike a last pat on its battered tank. It had served us well and I was sorry to see the back of it.
As an extra precaution, I unscrewed the rear numberplate and took that away with us, just to slow down the identification a little. I dropped the pressed ali plate down the first storm drain at the side of the road we came to. It must rain like hell in Florida, because they had openings in the gutter that would have been big enough to lose a medium-sized dog into.
***
The prospect of sleeping on a beach, in March, without any camping equipment or a sleeping bag was not one that filled me with excited anticipation.
Still, at least it was Florida. The last time I’d been forced to rough it like that had been doing Escape and Evasion exercises in the army. The Brecon Beacons at the same time of year is a whole different ballgame.
On foot now, we crossed over the highway and walked along the strip until we came to one of the big surf shops that was still open.
“What do we want from here?” Trey asked.
“Beach towels,” I said. “They may not be quite up to blanket level, but at least they’ll keep the sand out.”