Stranger in Paradise

“I hope you hurry,” Amber said. “You’re the only person I can trust.”

“Absolutely,” Crow said. “Couple days.”

“Okay.”

Crow closed the cell phone and put it away. He sat and looked around. It was a two-lane road. Traffic was slow. At the mainland end the road curved right, away from the ocean, shortly after it left the causeway, and vanished among the middle-market homes of East Paradise. At the point where the road reached Paradise Neck, at the other end of the causeway, it turned left and disappeared among the trees and shingled estates. Crow looked behind him. The seawall at this point dropped about five feet to a strip of rocky beach, maybe two feet wide, which dwindled from the full-fledged beach on the mainland side to nothing, maybe a hundred feet beyond him toward the Neck. It was high tide. Crow had already checked the tides. Crow stood and walked across the roadway. On this side the water of the harbor lapped against the base of the causeway. He would check it again at low tide. But he was pretty sure that the ocean side was better for his purposes. He went back and sat on the wall again on the ocean side. He looked to his right, toward the Neck.

They’d come from there. This wasn’t a smart group of people, but nobody was stupid enough to do a drive-by shooting and keep going into a dead end. So they’d linger up around the bend on Paradise Neck until he appeared and took his place, and then they would drive down along the causeway, presumably at a moderate pace, like everyone else on the causeway, and when they got opposite, someone would open up at him, probably from the back window, probably with at least a semiautomatic weapon. One issue, if there was any traffic, would be for him to distinguish which car was carrying the shooter.

Meanwhile, if they could pull this off, Francisco and friends would be coming from the mainland end. They would have scouted the location, and would know that going toward Paradise Neck was a road to nowhere. But they had no reason to worry about escape. They would simply drive out on the causeway from the mainland end, planning to pick up the daughter in the middle, and follow the circular road around the Neck and back.

The crucial moment would come when Francisco saw no daughter, and people shooting at Crow. If they could get the timing to come out right, it might work. But it seemed to Crow that it needed tweaking. It would work better if Francisco could see people shooting at his daughter. But that would be tricky. He knew Stone would never let the kid be used as a decoy. And since a lot of this was about protecting the kid, Stone was probably right. But it wasn’t all about protecting the kid. For Stone there was a case to close, maybe even some justice thing he cared about. For Crow there was the fun of it. Cops and robbers. Cowboys and Indians. With real guns and real bullets…Crow’s excellent adventure.

It would go better if there were a decoy. Dressed properly, from a moving car, over a short span, with a kid he hadn’t seen in several years, maybe a stand-in would work with Francisco. He looked slowly along the causeway, first toward the mainland, then toward the Neck. It wasn’t a long causeway. The reaction time would be pretty brief. This could get him killed. Or not. The uncertainty made the game.

Alone on the seawall, with the wind still steady on his back, Crow smiled happily. Hard to be a warrior if death wasn’t one of the options.

64.

In the back of Daisy’s Restaurant, there was a bedroom with a single bed, and a bathroom with a shower.

“I lived here when I first opened the restaurant,” Daisy said. “I was still single.”

“And how is the lovely Mrs. Dyke,” Jesse said.

“She’s great. And she’s starting to sell her paintings.”

“Good for her,” Jesse said.

“Makes her happy,” Daisy said. “Which makes me happy.”

“I got a kid,” Jesse said. “A runaway, fourteen, I think. Mother’s dead. Father’s a gangster. She doesn’t want to live with him. At the moment we’re taking care of her at my place.”

“We?”

“Jenn and me.”

“Congratulations,” Daisy said.

“It’s temporary,” Jesse said. “Molly can’t work twenty-four hours a day, and I can’t keep her there myself.”

“That would be your style,” Daisy said. “Sex with fourteen-year-old girls.”

“They’re so fun to talk with after,” Jesse said. “How about you?”

Daisy grinned. She was a big blonde woman with a round, red face and when she smiled like that it was as if a strong light went on.

“I’m an age-appropriate girl, myself,” she said.

“And the wife?” I said.

“Angela likes me,” Daisy said.

“Okay,” Jesse said. “If I can make it work, I’m going to keep her from her father, and I’m looking for someplace to put her.”

“To raise?” Daisy said.

“No, to give her an option.”

“And you think Daisy Dyke is going to play Mother Courage?”

“She can work in the restaurant, sleep in the back. I’ll be responsible for her. Get her registered for school, take her to the doctor, whatever.”

Daisy stared at him.

“She old enough to get a work permit?”

“I think so,” Jesse said.