Waltz of Shadows Read Free Page B

dressed, went over to the North Street Doughnut Shop, got a couple doughnuts and coffee. We’re sitting there eating the doughnuts, drinking the coffee, and she says to me, “I’m expecting somebody. Several somebodies,” and not long after that, these two guys and a girl come in and they came over to our table.
    Guys were about her age, nice enough looking, blond, dressed to the nines, well built, athletic. Could have been brothers. Kind of guys you see and think they got it made. Money. Everything handed to them on a platter.
    The girl with them was maybe a couple years older, I don’t know. Pale. Black hair. Gorgeous. Lean. All muscle. Had on those real tight, white, workout pants.
    And Sharon, remember I didn’t know her name then, because we hadn’t bothered with introductions, said to me, “This is Dave and Bob K Da"0e and Carrie.” Then she looked at me and smiled, and I told her my name, and she got around to telling me hers, and that’s how I met Sharon and her friends and heard about the Disaster Club.
    Turned out they were all rich kids, just like they looked.
    We fell in with one another, Uncle Hank. I don’t know why. Maybe there was something there I needed.
    Dumb as it may sound, I was Mr. Well Adjusted around this bunch. Maybe that’s another thing led me in with them. Being the one whose bread is most done in the middle for a change.
    What motivated these people was the adrenaline rush. They didn’t have that, they crashed, like they were on the end of a drug high or something. They told me these things they’d done together. Said they started out doing what you might call pranks. Cheap thrills.
    They put some green dye in the big fountain up by the University library. They put a sack of dog shit on the porch of the college president one night and put lighter fluid on it and set it on fire and rang the doorbell and the president came out stomping flames, throwing shit all over the porch and himself. They got some dead armadillos off the highway and put them in mailboxes around town. Egged some cars and houses. That kind of stuff.
    After a bit, that business wasn’t getting them where they wanted to go. They decided what they had to do to get the rush they needed, was something dangerous.
    First thing they did like that was go over to the highway at night, hide behind some shrubs, wait until the traffic started coming, then dart in front of cars. Letting the cars get close enough to be scary, but not so close there was no chance of making it across. By the time some motorist dodged all over the place and cussed and got collected enough to call the cops, they were gone.
    Week later, they upped the ante. Took turns blindfolding one another, and the one that was blindfolded elected one of the others as his or her Indian Spirit Guide. Meaning the Spirit Guide was supposed to wait until the cars were close and say when their blindfolded partner should run. The runner had to depend completely on the guide this way. A bigger thrill. And after they’d gone across a couple of times, they upped the ante again.
    They started wearing tennis shoes with strings. Tying the blindfolded runner’s shoe strings together so he or she had to short step and hop across. Sharon said they all looked like constipated ducks trying to run like that. Said too that Carrie called a car so close to her once, she felt the wind from it lift her hair up.
    The blindfolded part got picked up by the news. Motorists reporting and all, and the cops got so they were hanging out there by the highway a lot, looking for the culprits. So the Disaster Club, as they began calling themselves, had to back off that idea. Which was okay with them. They were bored by it.
    That’s about the time I came in, and I wish now I’d stayed home from the library the night I met Sharon, watched a little TV and took care of my urges with the old nimble fingers, because, to hear the Disaster Club talk about the thrill they got, the blindfolds and the cars