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there and answered technical questions for a few minutes, while jocks and grrls gathered around and
goggled; then I asked my question.
"The Dolls?" A husky roadjock in skin-tight pink leathers stepped from the crowd, everybody moving
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hurriedly out of his way; the Oscar Wilde Motor Corps are easily the most dangerous gang in the state
and their members get the kind of total respect the old Angels used to. "Sure, they're here. Camping
down at the south end of the beach. What do you want withthem? " His plucked eyebrows went up
about an inch. "No accounting fortastes, I suppose. . . ."
* * *
"Camping" was an overstatement; the Dolls, like most of the other groups present, had merely picked
themselves an area and occupied it. A couple of plastic tarps had been set up as sunshades, and a few
sleeping bags and blanket rolls lay scattered about on the sand. Roughly in the middle of the area were
the blackened remains of a big driftwood fire. That was just about it.
I stopped the Suzuki at the edge of the weed-cracked concrete parking lot that bordered on the beach.
Down here, the sand had piled up into a line of low dunes dotted with scrubby bushes.
A few yards away, a line of shiny parked sportbikes gleamed in the sun. I gave them a brief scan, but
there were at least a dozen or so that might have been the one in the photo; evidently purple and black
were the Devil Dolls' club colors.
Out on the beach and among the dunes, roadgrrls wandered about, drinking beer and passing joints and
talking, or lay stretched out on blankets in the sun. Here, on their own staked-out turf, several of them
had felt secure enough to shed their silly plastic protective gear in favor of cutoff shorts and T-shirts, or
bikinis with or without tops or, in a couple of cases, nothing at all.
Believe it or not, though, that wasn't what got my attention.
Nearby, a grrl stood leaning against the half-demolished metal guardrail that separated the parking lot
from the beach. Her back was to me and I couldn't see her face, but everything else set off recognition
signals: long blond hair, purple-and-black armor
Maybe this was going to be easier than I'd expected.
I shut off the engine and said, "Excuse me," and she turned to face me and so much forthat . Nose too
big, mouth too wide, eyebrows too heavy; not even close.
I said, "Sorry, my mistake. I was looking for Rhonda Honda."
"Nah, man." Flat drawn-outa 's, Boston girl a long way from home. "My name's Vonda. That's Rhonda
Honda ovah yondah."
I started to ask her to say that again. Then I was afraid she would. Shaking my own head, feeling a
desire to hit it sharply a couple of times, I looked where Vonda was pointing.
And sure enough, there she was, the grrl from the picture. I wondered why I hadn't spotted her before.
She stood out like a racing greyhound in a pack of mutts, and not just because she was a good six inches
taller than the rest. Easily half of the other roadgrrls on the beach had that same leggy-blonde look, but it
was as if somebody had been practicing and then finally got it right.
She was walking along between a couple of other Dolls, a redhead and another blonde, and swigging a
can of beer. I watched her for a moment, trying to decide on my next move. Truthfully, I hadn't thought
things out beyond this point.
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As it turned out she was the one who saved me from overloading my brain any further. Suddenly she
glanced my way and her face broke into a blinding smile. "Oh, hey," she cried, "check it out!" And came
running across the sand toward me, shoulder guards clacking, while the others turned to stare.
It wasn't, of course, my smoldering good looks that had pushed her button; her eyes were fixed on the
Suzuki. "Wow," she breathed as she stopped beside the front wheel, and hunkered down for a better
look at the engine. "It's beautiful "
The other Dolls were moving in now, bunching up in a semicircle behind her, looking at the bike and
then, with considerably less admiration, at me. "Who's this asshole?" somebody asked, not bothering to
lower her voice.
The one named Vonda said, "He was askin' about Rhonda."
It was a nasty moment. I could feel them all tensing, practically crouching to spring. Various sharp shiny
implements began to appear, amid a clicking and clattering of flick blades and butterfly handles. My
insides felt very loose. For all the superficial fun-in-the-sun look of the scene, this was a bad spot for
anybody particularly male who didn't belong. These were no Girl Scouts; they weren't into sitting
around the campfire singing old songs and roasting wienies but one wrong step and they'd be roasting
mine.
I said to Rhonda, "Can we go somewhere and talk?"
A big, seriously mean-looking brunette said, "No way, man. What the fuck you think "
Rhonda was getting up. "It's all right, Donna." She tilted her head toward the nearby road. "Want to go
for a ride? I'd like to see what that thing will do."
A few minutes later we were roaring off down the old coastal highway, Rhonda in the lead. Right away it
was clear she knew what she was doing. She laid the purple-and-black bike over till her knees almost
scraped the crumbling concrete, and she blasted out of the turns like a rocket. Keeping up with her took
all my concentration; the road had become a very narrow place and the horizon kept tilting at
unreasonable angles.
Not that we were going flat-out by any means; like every other public road in the state, this one was too
gnarled and potholed for real balls-to-the-wall riding. But we were going damn fast, all the same, engines
shrieking like buggered banshees; and then as she led the way into a long blind turn I picked up a change
in the note of her exhaust, and her shoulders hunched as if bracing for something. Without pausing to
think about it I downshifted fast and rolled off the throttle and clamped down hard on the brakes.
Rhonda's Honda was already sliding to a smoking, fishtailing stop. The Suzuki's greater weight took me
on past her and for a sickening moment I thought it was all over, but then the brakes took hold and the
big bike stopped dead.
Just beyond the front tire, the pavement ended in a jagged break, clear across the roadway. Thirty or
forty feet away, the other half of the earthquake-shattered bridge hung over a deep rocky gorge. I could
have spat over the handlebars into the gap.
Rhonda Honda pulled off her helmet and grinned at me. She tossed her head, making that long blonde
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hair flare and bounce for a moment. "Allright ," she said.
I stared at her, momentarily speechless. Had she just tried to kill me? Or was this merely her idea of a
good laugh? Her face gave nothing away; her smile was innocent as an upper-middle-class baby's.
She said, "So why were you looking for me?"
I returned her grin, trying to look much cooler than I felt. "There was a guy asking around about you," I
told her. "Down in the city, a couple weeks ago."
"And you thought you'd get a reward for finding me?" The smile went away very fast.
"Nah." I shrugged. "He didn't say anything about a reward. But he had this picture and, well, you looked
cute, okay? I just wanted to meet you."
It sounded phony as hell to me, and I only tried it because I couldn't think of anything else. But after a
second her face cleared and she said, "Why, that's sweet. I'm flattered."
She laughed. "Only I'm afraid you had a long ride for nothing. See, I've got . . . a girlfriend, you know?
Donna. You kind of met her, back there."
"Oh." I managed to look disappointed. "Sorry." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]