‘I wouldn’t want to be your father,’ he said, sidestepping the question.
Randy laughed and began to eat a doughnut.
‘While we are talking about dolls,’ he said with his mouth full, I’ll give you the photo about Nina.
Harry glanced into the wing mirror. The headlights of the car behind him remained at its half-mile distance.
‘Nina?’
‘Yes... Solo’s daughter. Maybe I should tell you about Solo first. Twenty years back, Solo was the best peterman in the business. There wasn’t a safe he couldn’t open if he wanted to. The Cops finally caught up with him and he went away for fifteen years. While he was doing his time Nina was born and Mrs. Solo died. When he came out he decided to retire from the racket and he set up this restaurant in Paradise City. He is still considered the best peterman in the game and from time to time he gets propositioned to come out of retirement, but nothing will shift him. He has a good business: he makes a decent profit, and he has Nina.’ Randy paused while he rummaged in the depleted parcel and found the second doughnut. ‘You must treat Solo carefully.
Although he’s over fifty, he’s real tough, mean and rough when he’s in the mood. He acts as his own bouncer, and if a drunk looks for trouble. Solo handles him. I’ve seen Solo handle three punks who got too close to Nina and those three punks landed in the hospital. But Solo is broad minded. He doesn’t mind the staff playing the dolls so long as the dolls are pleased too, but no one and that includes you and me, tries to get close to Nina.’ Randy paused to bite into the doughnut. He munched for a moment, then went on, ‘I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to run into trouble. Nina is something pretty special. You have to see her to understand just how special she is. When I first saw her, I didn’t sleep for a couple of nights. I guess I couldn’t keep my eyes off her and Manuel — he’s the Captain of Waiters — warned me. He said Nina was strictly for the birds. If I started something with her, Solo would finish it for me, and when I say finish, I mean just that.’
Harry moved impatiently.
‘Look, Randy,’ he said, ‘I appreciate what you are telling me, but another thing the Army taught me was not to do it on my own doorstep. If I work for Solo, then his daughter will be just another sun umbrella to me.’
Randy wiped the sugar off his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘Don’t be that sure. You haven’t seen her yet.’
‘That’s right: I haven’t seen her, but I’m about four years older than you and that makes a difference. When I need a woman I find one without complications. I’m old enough not to get involved with a woman who could make complications.’
‘Boy! You sound worse than my old man who was always talking like that,’ Randy said. ‘Anyway, I thought it had better come from me than from Manuel You mightn’t like him. He isn’t your type. He isn’t my type either. If he can make trouble for a guy, he makes it. But you don’t have to worry about him. You’ll be an outside man, directly under Solo. It’s my bet Manuel will take one look at you and leave you alone.’
‘What does the daughter do?’ Harry asked.
‘She handles the office, the reservations and the accounts. In the evening she circulates in the bar and the restaurant. Solo does the marketing and the cooking. It’s one of the three top restaurants in the City and that’s saying something. The competition is fierce, but it doesn’t faze Solo. He really knows his job.’
Ahead, Harry saw a big flashing sign that spelt out in red and yellow lettering:
‘This is the place,’ Randy said. ‘Best coffee this side of Paradise City.’
‘We’ll stop then,’ Harry said. ‘Then you can drive and I’ll eat.’
‘Sure. Think we should wake the doll?’
‘Let her be.’
Harry slowed the Mustang as they approached the brightly lit café. In the lay-by were four big trucks and several dusty cars.
Harry found room and manoeuvred the Mustang and the caravan into a space between two trucks.
‘Don’t let’s waste time,’ he said and slid out of the car. He paused for a moment to look back along the highway. The headlights of the car that had been behind them were rapidly approaching.
Randy was already at the door of the café and Harry joined him They entered the big room where four burly truckers were sitting up at the counter, eating and drinking coffee. A few men, obviously from the cars, were at the tables scattered around the room: most of them looked like tired salesmen. Some of them were checking through papers while they drank coffee: a few were eating the night special which Harry saw was a sticky looking goulash.
He and Randy went to the bar and ordered coffee. Harry offered his Camels and they lit up. The truckers eyed Randy. Harry could tell by their expressions none of them had time for a guy who wore his hair that long.
Harry heard a car arrive and stop. He glanced out of the window near him. He could see a white Mercedes SL 180 and he wondered if it was the car that had been behind him. He stepped closer to the window, but the car was already on the move again.
He just had time to see the man at the wheel was wearing a slouch hat, but it was too dark to see his features. With a powerful purr of the engine, the Mercedes went shooting off into the darkness.
‘How’s this for coffee?’ Randy asked.
Harry sipped from his cup and nodded. Any coffee tasted fine after Army coffee. He bought two packs of Camels and asked the counter hand if he could let him have a pint carton of coffee to take on the road.
Five minutes later, they were back in the Mustang with Randy at the wheel.
Still puzzled about the girl driver, Harry opened the glove compartment and examined for himself the Hertz rental contract. As Randy had told him the car was rented to Joel Blach of Cleveland. The contract had been issued at Vero Beach, dated two days ago. Again he checked the mileage... a mere 240 miles. Why had the girl told him she had been driving for eighteen hours? Harry considered this a blatant lie. The only reason he could think of was that it offered an excuse to turn the driving over to him. But why? Had she some reason to keep out of sight? Was the car stolen? He thought that was unlikely since she was travelling with them and if the police stopped him, she too would be in trouble.
‘Are you still doing a Marlow act?’ Randy asked, glancing at Harry’s thoughtful expression, lit by the map lamp.
Harry shrugged and put the Hertz papers back in the glove compartment.
‘I don’t like anything that puzzles me,’ he said. ‘And this setup puzzles me.’
‘Why not ask her to explain when she wakes up? Why batter your brains when she can tell you?’
‘Yeah.’ Harry began opening the parcel Morelli had given him. The coffee had made him hungry.
‘If you don’t want the second doughnut, I’ll help out,’ Randy said hopefully.
‘I do want it. You’ve had enough already.’
‘My pal!’ Randy said with mock bitterness. ‘You’re not planning to eat all that chicken, are you?’
‘I’m going to have a damn good try!’
Randy shook his head incredulously.
‘Didn’t the army teach you among other things to share and share alike?’
‘Why should you care? Harry said and bit into a chicken leg.
‘Hey, wake up!’
Harry stirred, yawned and opened his eyes. He stared through the dusty windshield at the yellow, red and pearl grey sky and at the palm trees that flashed by as the Mustang swept along the highway.
‘We’ve just gone through Fort Lauderdale,’ Randy told him. ‘We’ll be in Miami in twenty minutes.’