Crusader (13 page)

I thought Kristin was going to break down and cry. She took the credit card back from the woman and just stared at it. Nobody said anything until Nina finally broke the spell. She snapped at the woman, "She's not doing either one. She's gonna go someplace else where the credit card machine works."

Nina led Kristin out by the elbow, and I followed. We were all the way back in the mallway when Nina asked, "So where do you want to go now? How about Saks?"

Kristin still had her head down. She muttered, "No, I'd better not. I can't charge four hundred dollars on this card, and I don't have anything else." She looked up at Nina. "This is crazy, anyway. I don't want to spend that much money on an outfit that I'll wear one time. That's crazy."

Nina said, "I agree. I don't want to do that, either."

I said, "But you just did. You spent twice that much."

Nina waved her hand in dismissal. "Nah. I didn't spend anything. It's a loaner."

Kristin demanded, "A what?"

"A loaner. I'm bringing the thing back tomorrow afternoon."

Kristin shook her head. She was as confused as I was. "How are you going to return it? What are you going to say is wrong with it?"

"Wrong with it? I don't know. 'It didn't match my lipstick.' 'It made my Lhasa sneeze.' Whatever."

Kristin was outraged. "That's dishonest!"

"Oh, please."

"No. No, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to find a hundred-dollar dress, and I'm going to wear it tomorrow, and then I'm going to keep it."

"Hey, whatever. You do whatever you want."

We started down the mallway. Nina turned to me. "Okay, reporter girl, I guess you think she's right and I'm wrong. Huh?"

"Yeah."

"That figures. But I want you to listen to me, and I want to read this part in your newsletter story." Nina held up her $850 dress in its garment bag. "I am doing this store a favor, and I am doing this designer a favor, by wearing this dress tomorrow. Girls, and young women, and even older women who keep themselves in shape, will come to this store and buy their overpriced dresses. But they will not return those dresses, because theirs will not be loaners. And that will all be because of me." Nina reached over and tapped her finger against my head. "This is what you call thinking like a supermodel. You don't think Alek Wek buys her own clothes. Do you? Or Rebecca Romijn-Stamos? Designers are lined up, begging them to wear their clothes."

Kristin made a sudden, sharp right into Petite Sophisticate. Within five minutes she found a black dress for $100. To me, it was just as nice as Nina's, and I told her so. But when Kristin went to pay for it at the cash register, it happened again. The girl behind the register said, "Sorry, it won't take your credit card. Do you have another one?"

Kristin was humiliated. Her neck and face turned pink. Nina came over and rubbed her arm gently, like she was a little kid. She said, "Hey, girlfriend, don't worry about it. I'll put it on my card, and you can pay me back." Nina handed over a
gold credit card, and the transaction was quickly completed. Kristin took the dress and walked, with her head even lower than before, back out into the mallway.

Nina tried to reassure her. "Don't worry about it. It's probably some kind of technical difficulties, like they get on cable TV. Those green cards get all messed up. I think it's because too many people have them. The wires get overloaded or something."

Kristin said, "I'm going to pay you back tonight."

"Don't worry about it."

"I am worried about it. I'm going to pay you back tonight."

We stopped at an ice-cream stall in the middle of the mallway, called Gelato. Nina got us all free samples, and then we left.

I was eager to get home. But as we turned out of the parking garage a big white convertible pulled up even with us. It had three guys inside. One guy riding in the front seat looked over and yelled, "Nina! Hey, Nina!"

Nina answered, "Yo! What's up?"

I looked over at them. The guy who'd yelled to Nina, and the driver next to him, looked scary to me. Like guys who start fights. The third one, in the backseat, was a smaller guy with blond hair in a bowl cut.

The first guy said, "Nina, I've been thinking about you lately."

"Yeah? Then you've been dreaming lately."

"Come on, I'm serious. I want to talk to you."

"Yeah? So talk."

"How about taking a ride with us. Just for fun. We're cruising the Strip tonight."

Nina didn't check with Kristin or me. She just said, "Okay."

The driver peeled out in front of us and turned east. We followed, speeding right behind them toward A1A.

Kristin asked Nina, "Who are they?"

"I don't know."

"Then why are we following them?"

"I know the one in the front seat. He's on the football team. He was dating that Theresa girl from algebra class, the one with the big nose. You know who I mean?"

"Yeah. But I don't remember him."

"She really ought to have that thing fixed."

"What about the rest of them?"

"I've seen the driver around. I think he's on the football team, too."

After we had raced all the way to A1A, we followed them on a slow cruise up the Strip. The Strip is a stretch of hotels, restaurants, and other tourist businesses that runs along A1A. It's a weird mix of sunburnt tourist families on the one hand, and street kids, prostitutes, and drug dealers on the other.

Seven years ago my mom, dad, and I owned an arcade on the Strip. That was back in the days of Mario Brothers and Street Fighter. It was before there was virtual reality. We did a good business in the daytime with the tourist families. We did an even better business in the nighttime with the teenagers, and the bikers, and all sorts of weirdos. We were open seven days a week. I always got to go in with Mom on Saturday and Sunday. I used to make change for the tourist families.

But that was a long time ago. As we sped along the Strip in the Corvette, I couldn't recognize anything from those days. The further we went, the harder I strained to catch a memory. I remembered that our business, which was called the Family Arcade, was just south of Ocean Boulevard. I yelled up to Nina, "Where's Ocean Boulevard?"

"Ocean? It's the next light."

I looked closely at every business, trying to pick out our old spot. I saw the Greek Isles Family Restaurant, and a T-shirt shop,
and a tattoo and piercing parlor. I didn't remember any of them. I didn't remember anything at all, until I saw the 7-Eleven.

Nina slowed down and turned left into the 7-Eleven parking lot, following the guys' car. All at once I remembered everything about the place.

I remembered the row of telephones across the front. And the surveillance camera bolted over the front door. And the Slurpee machine inside the window. My mom used to let me walk next door to the 7-Eleven to get a Slurpee, a cherry Slurpee, every Saturday and Sunday.

So I looked back one space to the left, at the tattoo and piercing parlor. That had to be it. That had to be our arcade.

The guys parked in front of the telephones, so we parked in the space to the right of them. Kristin said, "What are we doing here, Nina? I don't like this."

Nina told her, "I don't know. I guess they're going to the store."

We sat there for an uncomfortable minute or two, looking at some creepy guys who were hanging around the telephones. The parking lot on either side of us seemed to be filled with kids just wandering around. Street kids. Kristin said, "I don't see anybody going in the store. Let's get out of here."

Nina called over to the guy in the front seat, "Hey, what's going on?"

The blond one from the backseat got out and walked up to the telephone bank. The guy in the front seat said, "He needs to make a phone call. So, Nina, you want to join the party tonight?"

"I don't know. Where's the party?"

"I guess it's right here."

"In the parking lot?"

"No, no. Maybe out on the beach."

Nina switched off the car. Kristin hissed at her, "What are you doing?"

"I'm saving some gas. Chill out."

The guy said, "You are really looking fine, Nina."

It sounded like we were going to be there for a while, so I hopped up and vaulted out of the car. Kristin shouted at me, "Roberta! What do you think you're doing?"

I pointed toward the tattoo parlor. "I think that was our arcade. The one we owned before Arcane."

"Yeah? So what? Get back in the car."

"I haven't seen it in seven years. I want to take a quick look."

"No way! Get back in here."

Nina said, "Chill out, girlfriend. Everything's cool. We got all these big, strong guys to protect us."

Kristin and I both looked over at the telephones. The blond from the backseat was talking to some little guy with a metal chain around his neck. He was real creepy looking. So was his partner, a tall guy with long arms and longer hair. When he saw us looking at him, he put a can of beer on top of the pay phone and took a step forward, into the light. All he had on was a tight pair of cutoffs and some thongs. I could see that he had tattoos on both arms. His partner said something to him, so he turned back.

I told Kristin, "I just want to take a quick look, Kristin. Really, just thirty seconds."

Kristin shook her head back and forth, like she couldn't believe any of this. She said, "Yeah, why not. Whatever."

As I walked behind the guys' car, I saw the big creepy guy step forward again. He said to Kristin, "Hey, are you ladies here for spring break?"

Kristin answered, "It's August, you moron."

I walked toward a pair of dirty-looking kids—a skinny boy with a shaved head and a chubby girl with long curly hair. They looked like they were about twelve years old. They also looked
sickly, really pale, like they had just donated three gallons of blood. The girl stepped in front of me. I looked into her eyes for a moment. She asked me, "You got some change?"

I shook my head no. I wanted to say something to her, but nothing came to mind, so I continued on toward the wide front window of the tattoo parlor. The window had the words
THIRD EYE TATTOO AND BODY PIERCING PARLOR
painted on it in gold. Beneath the name was the image of a golden globe, with a big eyeball in the middle of it.

I pressed my face up against the glass and stared in. A woman was sitting behind a card table, reading a paperback in the dim light. She took no notice of me. I scanned the whole place, remembering everything that I could. I saw where the pinball tables used to be, and the air hockey, and the cash register.

Then, I don't know why, I spun around to look at the Corvette. That creepy guy was now standing right over Kristin. What happened next was unbelievable. The guy reached down and grabbed her. Then Kristin's right arm shot upward, like a rocket. The heel of her hand caught the guy under his chin and snapped his head back. And then he kept going back, like a falling tree, until his head smacked onto the asphalt.

Nina screamed and cranked the ignition key. The Corvette roared, squealed backward, then shot toward the exit. Nina was all the way out on A1A when Kristin grabbed her arm and shouted, "Roberta!"

Nina slammed on the brakes as Kristin waved at me frantically. "Roberta, run! Get in the car!"

I took off and ran past the chubby girl and the skinny boy. I ran as fast as I could. The big creepy guy was already back up on his feet, stumbling over to his partner and shouting, "Give me the piece! I'm wastin' her. Give me the piece!"

When I was close enough to the car, I dived over the side and crashed in the back. Nina floored it and we peeled away.
We hit Ocean Boulevard at about sixty miles per hour. Somehow Nina managed to make the turn.

We continued to accelerate all the way down Ocean Boulevard. Nina was scared, and her driving showed it, but Kristin was freaking out. She yelled, "He grabbed me! That disgusting pig! He grabbed me!"

Nina yelled back, over the wind and the revving engine, "What do you mean? Who grabbed you?"

"You saw him! That creep! He was standing right over me, drooling."

"Oh, that scary dude?"

"That beer-breath scumbag! You didn't know he was there?"

"I was talking to the guys. I didn't know what he was doing."

"He was standing there looking down my blouse the whole time. You knew I wanted to get out of there!"

"I didn't know. I was talking to the guys."

I leaned forward, as best I could, and yelled, "What did he do?"

Kristin pulled her lips back, baring her teeth. "He said, 'Are those real?' and he reached down and grabbed me."

Nina shouted, "He grabbed you how? Like he choked you?"

"No! He grabbed my breasts! Aren't you listening?" Kristin unbuttoned her blouse and folded down the side of her bra. "Oh, my god! I have red marks from his hand on me. Oh, my god!" She rolled her head back, like she was going to pass out from disgust.

Nina finally slowed down. I have no idea if we had been running traffic lights, but if we did, we got away with it. She asked, "So do you need to go to the hospital?"

"No."

"How about the cops. Do you want to call the cops?"

"What for?"

"To report that guy?"

Kristin said, "No, what I want to do is kill him. I want to go back there and kill him with my bare hands."

I spoke up. "I heard him say he was going to kill you."

"What?"

"When I was running for the car, I heard him. He was asking for a piece. That's a gun. He said he was going to waste you."

Kristin sat back and rebuttoned her blouse. When she finally spoke, she was calm. "Perfect. The perfect ending to a perfect night. I'll go back and get in my karate stance, and he'll shoot me."

Nina said, "That's a real bad idea."

Kristin sneered at her. "It's called sarcasm. The real bad idea was to follow those guys."

"Oh yeah. Right. Like I knew something like this was going to happen."

Kristin leaned toward her. "No? Okay, tell us. What did you think was going to happen?"

"I don't know." Kristin didn't say anything else, just stared at her, until Nina added, "Maybe I thought they'd get some beer and we'd all go out on the beach."