Kathy grinned at him. “Your place.”
“Oh, come on,” Dallas said, but he was talking to nothing. She was gone, skipping across the littered schoolyard like the elf she was, her tidy little ass bouncing firmly inside the slacks of her pants suit.
Dallas walked back into the building, and glanced up as he passed into the doorway. He saw Kingston’s face in the window above the hail, rage-mottled and set. The man would never believe Dallas had nothing to do with the march this morning; it bad fallen apart too easily, while the principal watched.
Climbing the stairs again, Dallas thought that Kingston had seen his authority flouted, and worse-usurped by a subordinate. The man couldn’t take that. He would find some way to strike back, and hard.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After school that day, Dallas didn’t go home right away. He drove over to the building where Solomon Shapiro had an office, and went in to talk to the lawyer.
“They’re holding off,” Shapiro. said. “They’re not going to bring your case to court for some time-if ever. Like man, the guy you banged up worst, turns out he’s a muscle for hire, and he’s got a record himself. Him, they picked to be the complainant down at the courthouse they’re a little pissed off at Harry Sladermann, and in case you don’t know who Harry Sladermann is, he’s the gonn if Craig Collins pays like a detective. And in case you don’t know who he is …”
“I know, already,” Dallas said. “Was this Sladermann one of the guys who jumped me?”
Fingering his beard, Shapiro said, “No, from what I hear. But he’s the guy who pays the other guys, out of his agency. You’re being followed everywhere, you know.”
Dallas nodded. “I’m bugged too-at least my phone and my house. I wouldn’t doubt they’ve got the VW wired by now also. Did you hear about the kids this morning, staging a protest?”
“Didn’t I? But even if you didn’t have anything to do with it, and I’m not saying you did-the parade IS going to make some more parents get uptight about you.”
Shrugging, Dallas said, “I can’t help that. I’m only glad I got to the kids before the cops showed up. That dummy Kingston called them first thing.”
“He’ll call the PTA too.”
“Let him. I’m determined to hang on through the year, at least. Then I might move on to a junior college; I understand some slots are opening.”
Shapiro stroked his moustache, fingered his beads. “Like the nice young slots opening for you around town here?”
Blinking, Dallas said, “What the hell do you mean?”
The lawyer held up both hands. “Look, you’re my buddy. If you’re sticking all that sweet young ass at the school-and I mean all the juicy young goyem-I say, may your strength last forever. But my advice to you is this: don’t get caught baby. Somebody is pushing rumors around town that you’re some kind of pied piper, only by you, it’s young chicks that follow, you to dens of iniquity where the reefer smoke could be cut with a butter knife.” Shapiro shook his head. “You know, I haven’t heard it called that for years and years reefer.”
Leaning forward in his chair, Dallas said, “None of the kids do grass while I’m around, and I took my last hits in Nam, which was one hell, of a long time ago.
But I’ll go so far as to admit to you and to you only-that I’m swinging with some of the girls. The kids aren’t talking, so nobody really knows. It has to be rumor put out by Collins or some of his people.”
“Hoo-hah,” Shapiro said softly, “I should only have such rumors started about me. Some of the young chicks, yet-not one, or even two, but some. Okay, lover-only watch yourself at all times. With all this dreck coming down on you, and still you have to be the cocksman.”
Dallas said, “I know it’s crazy, man. But you don’t know; nobody knows, how those kids ball. It’s the greatest thing ever, so wild and far-out that I get turned on all over again,, just remembering some of the things they did with me and to me.”
The lawyer held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it I’m an officer of the court, like it says, but also because I might get more jealous. Split Dallas-and I’ll call you soon as I hear anything.”
“Just remember, I’m bugged. And it could happen to your phone too.”
“Let ‘em,” Shapiro said. “I’ll have those momsers talking to themselves, and answering back.”
When Dallas parked the bug at the drive-in, the cute carhop came sway-hipping over, right away. “Hi, Mr. Bradburn. Anything special you want?”
The rumors were spreading fast, he thought; this girl bad a certain inflection in her voice, and her offerings were far more obvious. He wondered if all women got fired up when they heard that a certain man was a swinger, if all of them felt some how challenged by that kind of guy. Maybe that was why Casanova scored so much; the chicks just kept coming to him, to see for themselves if all the things they had heard about him were true.
“Just a couple of fishwiches, please, with chips and a vanilla malt. I’ll eat here.”
He thought he could read a disappointed roll in her hips as she flipped away.
He listened to the acid music station for awhile, then turned to a local one.
The news came on, and the announcer was playing down the protest at the school that morning. Only a few kids, the radio said; just some troublemakers looking for any excuse. Easter vacation was coming up, the announcer reminded his audience, and kick would forget “all about demonstrations soon. He never mentioned why the kids had been out in the first place.
“Two fish,” said the cute carhop, “with extra goodies.” She was leaning down, showing him the cleft between her tits, and it all looked very good. If he hadn’t been balling so much lately…
But Dallas thought of another angle, and said, “The-extra goodies look terrific.”
“Oh, do you think so?”
“I’d have to check-closer, to be certain.”
She dimpled. “I get-off at eight.”
Dallas hesitated. “Not tonight, okay? I’d like to, but I’m jammed up to here with work I can’t cop out on. Really. But tomorrow night.”
“Would be groovy,” she smiled, and showed him the intriguing rhythm of her haunches as she strode away on other business.
Maybe he could pull the detectives off the real trail, he thought, realizing that he had been lucky as hell so far in avoiding them. If he took this girl out-and he didn’t even know her name-the people following him might think he was doing his thing with the carhop, and nobody else. He wouldn’t let them box him into some situation where they could squeeze him about it.
He had just finished off the fries and was making noises with the straw in the malted container when the man sauntered over to the VW and put an elbow on its roof.
Dallas said, “I don’t know you. If you stick a hand in here, I’m going to break your arm at the elbow.”
The man grunted and backed off a step, but not hurriedly. He said, “I know you, Bradburn. My name is Sladermann, and I’d like to talk to you. Okay if I come around the other side of the car and sit down with you?”
Dallas put the remains of his dinner on the car tray and tooted his horn. The cute girl came swiftly and he said to her, “Our date is set for tomorrow night at eight, darling. But take a real good look at this man, and be sure you remember his face, and the time he was here. Because if anybody causes our date to be broken, he’ll be the one.”
She pouted rich lips at Sladermann. “Don’t you dare.” Collecting the tray and her tip, she bounced away again.
“Now you can come sit down,” Dallas said.
The VW dipped under the man’s weight, and he turned uncomfortably to face Dallas after he sat down. “So you’re covered, but you won’t need the kid for a witness Bradburn. This is all business.”
Dallas looked the man over, registering the broken nose and the shrewd eyes, the lips that announced scar tissue inside. Sladermann was fortyish, with big shoulders and a pastey skin. There was gold in his mouth; it showed when he talked.