The Sixth Station(49)

Something, a hunch, a feeling, a whatever, made me glance over my shoulder just as the German walked toward me.

Son of a bitch!

But he didn’t make me, and instead glanced all over, looking past the seriously unattractive tourist with the aging rocker-chick hair, pink hoodie, and mock mocs. He turned and walked to an area that faced the women’s bathroom, and watched every woman who came out.

The guy was good. Normally an act like that would get him pinched as a pervert, but he was totally unobtrusive.

I took my shot at the same time and walked outside with my head down and headed for the bus pickup area. Five minutes, four.

The seniors were already lined up outside in front of a sign that said CASINO DAY TOURS. I didn’t exactly blend in as I’d hoped I would have, although some of those dames were as done up as I was in pastel rhinestone tracksuits. I kept looking around nervously until one old gent asked me if I was waiting for my husband.

“Don’t worry, honey. We guys never miss the Wednesday bus.”

“Oh.”

“Texas Hold’em tourney day.”

I nodded knowingly and looked around again. I was sweating.

The big tourist bus with a smiling Seneca Indian holding a hatchet finally pulled up. Happy Trails was the bus operator. Right.

I wanted to knock those seniors down and rush aboard, but I couldn’t and I was at the end of the line. Slowly, ever more slowly, they boarded. Without warning, the bus driver suddenly shut the door before I and a few other stragglers could even board. He walked to the back and lowered the electric ramp to allow a parade of walker- and wheelchair-bound senior gamblers to wheel onto the bus.

Damn it! I’m standing out here and the freaking German is going to come out and blow us all away.

Why the driver had to shut the door and keep the rest of us outside as he let the invalids board I couldn’t even begin to understand. Like we were going to try to steal a ride when we were all trapped on the same damned bus!

I headed to the back ramp, where a morbidly obese man with an oxygen thing attached to his wheelchair and a tube up his nose tossed his cigarette on the ground and wheeled onto the drop-down ramp.

“Excuse me, sir?” I called to the driver, who was moving different levers as the asthmatic smoker grunted his way inside.

The driver looked annoyed. “I’m helping people board here, ma’am.”

“Yes, I know, but I, um … need to use the restroom. Right away,” I said, pointing to my stomach. “It’s serious.”

Even more annoyed that I was going to stink up the restroom before we even left the curb, he nonetheless had no choice but to let me step on the wheelchair ramp, cutting in front of a lady waiting to wheel on.

“Come on,” he said. “But I could get in trouble for this.”

I handed him my ticket and raced aboard and straight into the lav. When I heard the bus doors finally close and the hissing sound of the hydraulics signaling we were set to take off, I came out, put my carry-on bag up on the rack, and plopped down hard in an empty row in the back.

I was watching out the window, scanning the area for the German bastard. As the bus began to pull away, I saw him, cigarette dangling out of his mouth, standing, scanning the cars, right on the curb. So close.

As the bus passed him, he instinctively looked up and saw me. For the briefest moment, our eyes met. I turned around to stare out the window, trying to follow my tormentor’s progress or lack thereof. He started heading at a swift pace back toward the parking lot.

As the bus pulled around and passed the row where the Caddy was parked, the German stopped dead in his tracks, close to the car. He saw me again through the glass. Our eyes locked. I pressed my lips against one of the back windows and planted a kiss obscenely on the glass and then waved at him, like a forlorn lover, with a tiny wiggle of my fingers. He was standing there alone—I hoped—at least as far as I could tell with the limited sight range I had out the window.

As the bus swept past him, I reached frantically into my red bag, pulled out the Caddy’s keyless remote, pointed it out the window, and hit “unlock.”

The explosion from Sadowski’s car shook the ground and rocked the bus. Flames shot ten feet in the air. Damn! It was nearly as terrific an explosion as the one that had blown out the lobby of my honeymoon hotel.

Auf Wiedersehen, Fritz.





17





The seniors all screamed and ducked as best as they were able to when the Caddy blew. The driver, who had seen it all (or thought he had), didn’t stop the bus to look back. He just immediately sped his bus safely out of harm’s way and then came on the PA to assure the passengers that everything was OK.

“Car fire, folks. Lucky we were far enough away from it.”