The traffic has diminished somewhat, and they have entered the town of Auburndale, bumped across the railroad tracks that pass through the center of town, driven past the rows of citrus warehouses, on to the outskirts, where the narrow side streets are faced by small, shabby bungalows with low porches, where the streets are dusty and cluttered, yards are packed dirt, slash pine and locust trees are scrawny and tired-looking, and where all the people on the sidewalks and sitting on porch steps and driving home in their cars are black.
Unexpectedly, Marguerite turns left off Polk City Road, and just as the car between her Duster and Bob’s station wagon reaches the intersection, the light turns red, and Bob has to stop. He cranes his neck and watches her reach the end of the block, cross and drive on. Then, about halfway down the second block, her car pulls off the street into a driveway by a small brick house with metal awnings over the windows. He draws his shirt out of his pants and covers the gun handle, and when the light changes, turns left.
By the time he reaches the driveway where Marguerite parked her car, the kid has left. Marguerite is on the cinder-block steps unlocking the door, while behind her, George hugs a grocery bag. Bob peers down the sidewalk past Marguerite’s house and spots the kid jogging along about a block away. Slowing his car in front of Marguerite’s, Bob turns to his right and catches a glimpse of her surprised gaze. Then he passes her and accelerates. She watches after him, one hand shielding her eyes from the dusty yellow glare of the low sun, then shaking her head as if disbelieving her eyes, goes inside.
At the corner, Bob catches up to the kid, who, when the car draws abreast of him, turns, and for the first time, Bob sees the boy’s face up close, and yes, it is the same one, it’s Cornrow, only he’s older than Bob thought, in his twenties, maybe his late twenties, or at least he looks older now, out here on the streets, than he did cowering in the stockroom three months ago. Bob knows it’s the same person. There’s no way he could be mistaken. He recognizes the hair, of course, but also the skin color, the high cheekbones and almost Oriental eyes, the wide, loose mouth and receding chin, and the way he wears his shirt unbuttoned to expose his brown, hairless chest, and his bony frame and the jumpy lope of his stride. He knows this person. He’s had his image burned into his memory, and there’s no way on earth he would not recognize him instantly.
Bob leans over to the passenger’s side and calls out the open window. “
Cornrow stoops a little and peers inside, sees Bob’s twisted face and breaks into a run. He streaks down the sidewalk, passes a market and a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet and darts to the right into a bar.
Dropping the car into first gear, Bob guns the motor and jumps it into the traffic, yanks the wheel and pulls over in front of the same bar. A few people passing by on the sidewalk, startled, stop and watch the white man leap from his car and rush through the door to the bar.
Inside, it’s suddenly dark, and Bob sees only a long counter on the right with human shapes leaning against it and a line of narrow booths along the other side. A small crowd of people is gathered at the rear, and somewhere back there the blat of a television set cuts across the thick noise of a half-dozen male conversations.
Bob stands at the end of the bar, still by the door, next to a pair of middle-aged men silently studying their bottles of beer, and looks down the length of the bar, searching the unknown faces for the known one. But they’re all strangers, old men and young men, a few fat women, all of them ignoring him, going on with their quiet conversations as if they hadn’t noticed the sudden appearance of a breathless white man.
The bartender, a gaunt, extremely tall man with an Afro and wearing a yellow short-sleeved shirt, tan Bermuda shorts and red jogging shoes, strolls slowly toward Bob. The customers follow the bartender with their eyes and watch Bob by watching the other man, who leans across the counter and says, as if he knows Bob from somewhere else, “How’re you doin’
Bob tries to see around the bartender and over the heads of the customers near the bar to the crowd standing at the back. “I’m looking for a kid, he just ran in here.” His eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and he can make out the faces in the rear now. None of them is the face he’s looking for; all of them, the dozen expressionless black and brown male faces looking back at him, are interchangeable.
The bartender puts a toothpick into his mouth. “Ain’t no kid jus’ run in here. No so’s I’d notice. You sure?”
“Yeah, I saw him. I followed him. He came in a few seconds ahead of me. He’s here,” Bob declares.
The man looks silently down at Bob. Then he says, “You a cop, mister? I gotta see some ID.”
“A cop?”
