A girl in a mini skirt and a boy with beads around his neck came out of the café. They stopped to stare at what I was doing.
‘Hi!’ The boy said weakly. ‘Leave those bikes alone!’
I ignored him. Stepping away, I lit a cigarette.
The girl let out a scream like the bleat of a sheep. The boy bolted into the café.
I moved back, then flicked the lighted cigarette into the pool of gasoline.
There was a bang, a blinding flash and then flames. The heat forced me to retreat across the road to the far sidewalk.
Seven youths in their dirty yellow shirts and their cat’s fur pants came spilling out of the café, but the heat brought them to a standstill. I watched. None of them had the guts to pull even one of the bikes out of the now roaring furnace. They just stood there, watching the Hondas, which were probably their only love, melt in the flames.
I waited, both hands gripping the pick-axe handle, willing them to come at me so I could smash them, but they didn’t. Like the stupid stinking sheep that they were, they stood, watching the destruction of the toys that had made them feel like men, and did nothing about it.
After five minutes I got bored and walked away.
Although Jenny in her bed of pain didn’t know it, I felt I had made the score even.
I slept dreamlessly until 08.10 when the telephone bell woke me.
I picked up the receiver.
‘Mr. Carr... there’s a police officer asking for you,’ the reception clerk said, reproach in his voice.
‘I’ll be down,’ I said. ‘Ask him to wait.’
I didn’t hurry. I shaved and showered and put on one of my expensive sports shirts and a pair of whipcord slacks, then I went down in the creaky elevator.
Sergeant O’Halloran, massive, in shirt sleeves with his cap at the back of his head, filled one of the bamboo chairs. He was smoking a cigar and reading the local newspaper.
I went over and sat by his side.
‘Morning, Sergeant,’ I said. ‘Have a coffee with me?’
He put down his newspaper and, folding it carefully, placed it on the floors.
‘I’m on duty in half an hour,’ he said in his husky worn-out voice, ‘but I thought I’d drop by. Never mind the coffee.’ He stared at me with his pig eyes that were ice cold and diamond hard. ‘There was a hell of a fire on 10th Street last night.’
‘Is that right?’ I stared back at him. ‘I haven’t seen the papers yet.’
‘Seven valuable motorbikes were destroyed.’
‘Someone put in a complaint?’
He crossed one thick leg over the other.
‘Not yet, but they could.’
‘Then of course you will have to investigate.’
He leaned forward and there was a touch of red in his pig eyes.
‘I’m getting worried about you, Carr. You are the coldest, most ruthless sonofabitch that has arrived in this town. Off the record, I’m telling you something: you pull one more trick like this and you’re in trouble. You nearly set the whole goddamn street on fire. It’s got to stop.’
I wasn’t intimidated.
‘Produce your witnesses, Sergeant, and I will then accept trouble, but not before. I’m not admitting anything, but it seems to me the police in this town can’t cope with bastards like Spooky Jinx and his kind, so I don’t see why you should set up a bleat when someone does.’ I got to my feet. ‘If you want a cup of coffee, join me. I do.’
He sat there, turning his half-smoked cigar around in his thick fingers as he stared at me.
‘I’m telling you... lay off. Just one more trick from you and you’re in the tank. You’re lucky I dig for Miss Baxter. She’s doing a swell job in this town. Maybe you think you’re levelling the score, but enough’s enough. I went along with what you did with Spooky. He had it coming, but this job last night I don’t dig for.’ He heaved himself to his feet and faced me. ‘I’m getting a feeling about you. I’m getting the idea you could be more tricky than this gang of stupid bastard kids. If I’m right, then you could be heading for trouble.’
‘You said that before,’ I said politely. ‘Did you say this was off the record?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Then still off the record, Sergeant, go get screwed.’
I walked across the dreary lobby into the even more dreary breakfast room. I drank a cup of bad coffee, smoked and read the local rag. The picture of the seven moronic looking youths, wet-eyed and mourning their vanished Hondas, gave me a feeling of intense satisfaction.
Around 10.00 I left the hotel and walked to the only florist in the town. I bought a bunch of red roses, then walked to the city hospital. On the way, I met people who smiled at me and I smiled back.
Eventually, after a long wait, I arrived at Jenny’s bedside. She was looking pale and her long hair was done in plaits and lay either side of her shoulders.
A nurse fussed around with a vase for the flowers and then went away. While she was fussing I looked down at Jenny, feeling ten feet tall. She wasn’t to know that I had evened the score. I had not only fixed Spooky but I had now dismounted his seven moronic buddies: dismounting them, destroying their Hondas was, to them, having their genitals cut off.
‘Hi, Jenny, how goes it?’ I asked.
She smiled ruefully.
‘I didn’t expect to see you. After the way I talked to you I thought we were through.’
I pulled up a chair and sat down.
‘You don’t get rid of me that easily. Forget it. How do you feel?’
‘I can’t forget it. I’m sorry I said you didn’t know kindness. I was angry, and I guess some women, when they are angry, say things they don’t always mean. Thank you for the roses... they’re lovely.’
I wondered what she would think when she heard about the seven destroyed Hondas.
‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘You haven’t told me how you feel.’
She made a little grimace.
‘Oh, all right. The doctor says I’ll be around again in three or four weeks.’
‘They fixed that trip wire for me. I’m sorry you had to walk into it.’
There was a long pause as we looked at each other.
‘Larry... if you feel you can, you could be helpful,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to worry about the office: that’s been taken care of. The City Hall has sent a replacement, but there is a special case... would you handle it for me?’
A special case.
I should have told her I was through with this welfare racket. I should have told her the racket was strictly for suckers, but my destiny nudged me.
‘Sure. What is it?’
‘Tomorrow, at eleven o’clock, a woman is being released from prison. I’ve been visiting her. I made her a promise.’ Jenny paused to look at me. ‘I hope you will understand, Larry, that to people in prison, a promise means a lot. I promised her I would meet her when she came out and I would drive her home. She has been in prison for four years. This will be her first experience of liberty, and I just don’t want to let her down. If I’m not there... if nobody is there, it could undo all the work I’ve done on her so would you meet her, tell her what’s happened to me and why I couldn’t keep my promise, be nice to her and take her to her home?’
Jesus! I thought, how can anyone be so simple minded! A woman who has been locked up in a tough prison for four years just had to be tougher than steel. Like all the other women who scrounged on Jenny, this woman was taking her for a ride, but because it was due to me that Jenny had a broken ankle, a broken wrist and a fractured collarbone, I decided I would go along with her.
‘That’s no problem, Jenny. Of course I’ll be there.’
I got her warm, friendly smile.
‘Thank you, Larry... you’ll be doing a real kindness.’