He strolled up the beach and onto the broad promenade that flanked A1A. As was his custom, he sat down on the seawall and watched the early joggers and the power walkers and the roller bladers. They went by in their lime-green shorts, their headbands that made them look like Indians, their humming skates or fancy shoes with waffle bottoms and reflecting tape. Some of them carried little dumbbells; some had tiny radios strapped around their arms like blood-pressure cuffs. Many of them smiled at Bert or waved. They didn't know his name; he didn't know theirs. But for them he was part of the scenery: the old man with the wild shirts and the ancient stiff-legged dog. In his stillness, his predictability, he'd become a feature along their path, like a mailbox or an odd-shaped tree; he took a quiet pleasure from believing that if he was no longer there, some of them would notice, a few would wonder where he was.
He sat there watching, and then one skater caught his eye from perhaps a hundred yards away. He studied her as she approached. She wore a shocking-pink leotard over shiny black bike shorts; she had big boobs that jiggled a bit as she swooped and jerked for balance. Hockey player's knee pads gave an elephantine aspect to her skinny legs; fingerless gloves let her long red nails poke through. Her ankles turned in like the tires of a car with a broken axle, her eyes were fixed on the hard and lacerating pavement, ferocious concentration made her tongue stick out the corner of her mouth.
She was quite close before he realized it was Debbi.
He yelled out a greeting, but she had headphones on and didn't hear. What made her stop was that she recognized Don Giovanni, who was doing an aimless little dance in the shadow of the seawall. She grated to a halt, flapping her arms like a landing pelican, swept the headset off, and said hello. Twin suns shone in her big sunglasses, sweat glistened on her freckled chest.
"Gorgeous morning," said Bert. It was a treat to have someone to chat with, but he didn't want her to feel obligated. He tried to understand younger people, keep up with what seemed to them important. He made a gesture like urging a baby bird to fly. "Hey," he said, "don't let me mess up your workout."
Debbi made a snorting noise. "You call this a workout? I call it a public humiliation."
She didn't seem very eager to press on, so Bert said, "How long you skated?"
Debbi shielded her eyes. "What time's it now? Never done it before. These are Sandra's skates."
"Sandra, I didn't know she skated."
Debbi mopped her forehead, did a little two-step to keep her footing. "Never used, these skates. She bought two pairs, for her and Joey. Joey wouldn't try, said he'd look ridiculous."
Bert thought that in this instance Joey was right, but he kept the opinion to himself. Instead, he said, "Well, first time, you're doin' very good."
Debbi surprised herself by not deflecting the compliment. She smiled, then, very gingerly, she spun halfway around so her back was to the ocean. She put a hand on Bert's shoulder and was lowering herself to sit, when her skates started spinning and she had to kick like a roadrunner to stay even with herself. When she was settled, she heaved a sigh and said, "Ain't easy, Bert. Day one of the clean-out-and-shape-up program."
Bert indulged himself in a prerogative of age. "Your shape looks pretty good ta me," he said.
She shook her head. "Awful truth? I got a mushy behind, my arms are so puny I can hardly open a jelly jar, and if I don't get serious about my pecs, by the time I'm forty I'm gonna be carryin' my chest around in a wheel barrel."
Out of delicacy, Bert looked away. The runners tramped by, the walkers pumped their little dumbbells; morning traffic grew gradually thicker on the road. After a moment he said, "Debbi, how come you're alla time so tough on yourself?"
She reached down and scratched Don Giovanni behind his outsized ears; the dog whimpered softly in appreciation. She didn't seem to want to answer, and Bert thought maybe he'd gotten a little personal for seven-thirty in the morning. He looked for a way to change the subject, then remembered something that allowed him to. "Hey, I thought youse were leavin' already."
As an attempt to lighten things up, the comment failed. Debbi scissored her feet, let her skates scratch on the rough pavement. "We did," she said to the sidewalk. "I'm back."
The sun was getting white by now, it toasted Bert's shoulders through the teal-blue silk. "And Gino?"
Debbi fiddled with her knee pad. "Gino ... I don't really know where Gino is."
This didn't sound quite right, and Bert pondered it a moment. He was interrupted in his pondering by two short toots on a car horn, followed by a shouting of his name.
He looked up to see Ben Hawkins making his daily rounds, driving by very slowly in his Bureau car with tinted glass, sunlight fracturing into starbursts on the lenses of his Ray Bans. The agent gave a delicate little finger-wiggling wave, an insinuating Remember me? sort of gesture. Bert waved back in a way that said Drop dead. Mark Sutton, crouching on the backseat near the small vent window, balanced his motor-driven camera on a bean bag and, undetected, fired off half a dozen frames of the old mobster sitting there with Debbi.