“Fin’s twenty dollars?”
“Fin ain’t here. I’m in charge. Like Fin said.”
“Then be in charge.”
“I am,” grinned Michael Wilson. “All that’s holding me up is one whiny little bitch.”
The seal of the golden doors broke again as a pair of ancient women staggered in from outside, gasping, “Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness!” Then the revolving lights outside found their way in too, announcing it, some new, bright kind of trouble.
—
Outside, under the canopy three cars wide, things were sudden and sharp. Every sound, every fidget of the lights was back in focus; every sound had a maker. An engine whined. A woman was shrieking. The palm leaves shivering in an invisible breeze.
The yellow light was spinning off a big white tow truck, and somewhere East heard Walter’s hollering, a muffled squawk.
Michael Wilson: “Where’s the van?”
East pointed; then he ran.
The tow truck was bulky, a wide silver bed tipped back like a scoop, and a steel cable ran taut down under the little van’s nose, reeling it in. East’s stomach slid. High on the wall he glimpsed the sign now: RESERVED PARKING/TOW ZONE. Of course.
East headed to Walter’s window. Walter was pop-eyed and frantic in the driver’s seat. Nobody was paying him any mind.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m in the car,” Walter ranted. “They can’t tow it. It’s a rule. Tell him!”
“Tell who what?”
“Him!”
East saw then. Down low on the wrecker’s left flank, a burly guy with a beard was working the levers, making the winch squeal and spool the thick line. But it was running the wrong way: he was turning them loose.
“He’s letting us go?”
“Uh-huh,” Walter hyperventilated.
“How come?”
A quiver passed down Walter’s face. “Your brother.”
Again East looked. Ty was poised high on the running board, staring down like a wildcat. Below him, the tow truck guy hurried, one-armed, shielding his head.
Michael Wilson stepped right up to the tow guy, bellowing: “Man, get my car the fuck off this thing.”
Pushing a lever, the wrecker man stopped the winch. He stood and winced and spat something red on the pavement. “I am,” he said, and East saw it: Something had made a mess of his mouth. Beard full of blood. Plainly afraid, the wrecker man nodded quickly at Michael Wilson and got away, rolling himself under the van’s front bumper, out of sight.
Everything seemed to sizzle in the battling, shifting lights. Like they were caught in a camera flash that went on and on. Off to the left, by a concrete pillar, two security guys were watching everything.
East still could not comprehend. “Letting us go, right?” he asked Walter, and the fat boy said, “I think.”
“Fuck it, then.” East stepped off and whistled, beckoned Michael and Ty. Back in the van. Because the security twins, they were getting ready. Bow ties, shiny patent leather shoes, but he could tell by the necks—all muscle. “Come on,” East warned.
Michael Wilson cursed down at the wrecker man’s legs as he scampered by. Ty hopped down off the tow truck. “Oh, God,” said the shrieking woman, “look what you done!”
Only a minute, East thought. A minute ago they were making time. Rolling. He knelt and watched the wrecker man work. He’d watched tows before, broken-down cars or repossessions. But never like this, peering up under the fender and counting seconds. The grips and chains came off the left wheel, and the guy shimmied over to work the right.
“Start it up,” East barked to Walter.
“It is started,” Walter replied over the noise. A third security man arrived, triplet to the other two.
East tasted bile, spun around the back of the van, and climbed in shotgun. Michael and Ty huddled wide-eyed in the back. “You gotta wait for him,” he instructed Walter, “but when he comes up, get us the fuck out.”
They listened to the sounds, the wrestling going on below.
Then the tow driver’s legs flailed out and spun, and he was lifting himself upright. He uttered something inaudible, his mouth wet again with blood. What was it? Did it matter? Walter was already crawling the van back. Two more bow ties came bursting out the golden doors. Walter was clear: he found Drive, and swung the van out around the big wrecker.
“Steady,” East urged. The tow guy stood on the now-empty flatbed, cursing them. “Don’t give them a reason.”
“They got a motherfuckin reason,” moaned Walter. “They got one.”
“Just be cool,” East said. “Just get us out of here.”
Walter muttered and steered. East glanced back at the security crew spreading out across the pavement where they’d been. “They’re deciding do they want a piece of us.”
“Got our plates. Got our pictures. Everything,” mourned Walter.
“Drive, man,” East said wearily. To nobody in particular he added, “Who was the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The girl that kept screaming.”