In less than fifteen minutes they were back at the first motel: the Westview Shores. Not new, not fancy, and definitely not on the shore. A quarter mile of side road and several other pieces of property separated it from the beach, but it looked clean.
Chris had a story ready for the desk clerk, an explanation for why he and Pat were staying there by themselves. An aunt and uncle had been delayed in meeting them in town and taking them to their place in the country. Sudden illness—nothing real serious, though. They should be able to get there in a couple of days.
But the woman behind the counter didn’t ask. “Thirty-two dollars,” was all she said when Chris told her they wanted a room. That was more than Chris had figured this place would cost—quite a bit more—but at least she was willing to take their money, and he doubted that any of the other places would be cheaper. She handed him a registration card. “Payable in advance,” she added, and returned her attention to a small television set. The TV blared loudly over the noise of the air conditioner, which didn’t seem to be working; the cramped room was hot and stuffy. An orange cat jumped up on the woman’s lap, stretched, and plopped down, its eyes on Chris. The woman absentmindedly stroked its chin and chest.
Chris and Pat each put a twenty on the counter. The woman wiped some sweat from the base of her fat neck and made change for them while Chris filled out the registration. “Fred Barnes,” he wrote. “Green Bay, Wisconsin.” Barely glancing at it, she filed the registration in a drawer under the counter.
“Room eight,” she said, handing Chris a key with a green plastic tag attached. The gold number was worn to a shadow. She turned back to the television, her face a mask of indifference.
“Any places around here to get ice cream?” Pat asked.
Good, Chris thought. The direct approach. Only this woman didn’t really seem like the helpful type. She kept staring at the flickering screen. Chris wondered if she’d even heard the question, but then she turned to face Pat.
“Ice cream?” she said, as if waking from a trance.
Chris guessed that they’d just needed to come up with a topic that would get her interested.
“There’s the restaurants between here and uptown,” she continued. “Did you boys get here on the bus?”
Pat nodded, and Chris let the peculiar sound of her words register. They were different—chewed on and softened and drawn out.
“Then you must’ve seen some of ‘em on the way here from the bus stop. Drive-ins, you know. Handouts, I call ‘em. Then there’s some more on the other side of the bus stop, in with the shops. Regular restaurants. Some of ‘em have milkshakes, sundaes, stuff like that. Good stuff. You might try Murdock’s.”
Chris watched her swallow. Her mouth is actually watering, he thought. “Any shops that just sell ice cream?” he asked. “You know, like ice cream cones and dishes of ice cream?”
“Not yet,” she said dreamily, a little grin lifting up the corners of her mouth. “But there’s one opening up soon, I hear.” The word “hear” came out “he-uh.”
“When? Where?” Chris asked, hoping he didn’t sound anxious.
She didn’t seem to notice. “A few more days, I think, probably after you boys leave. How long are you staying, anyway?”
“Just a couple of days,” Chris said. “Until my aunt and uncle get here.” At least he’d gotten to use part of his story.
“Where?” Pat said.
The woman looked at him with a blank expression.
“Where…is…the…ice…cream…shop?” he asked slowly, dragging out each word.
Chris could see him losing his patience.
“It ain’t open yet,” she said.
Pat looked over at Chris for some help.
“Can you tell us where it will be when it opens?” Chris asked. “Just in case we’re still here?”
“Sure,” she said, as if wondering why they hadn’t asked earlier. “It’s about two blocks past the bus stop—the T-shirt shop—but on the water side of the street. The same side as the post office and Murdock’s. Next to the toy shop—you can’t miss it. The name’s already up. Kinda cute,” she said, looking past Chris at the window behind him, as if the name were painted there. “The Cloverbud,” she said, but it came out “Cuhlovuhbud.” She shook her head slowly. “Not sure what it has to do with ice cream, but it’s kinda pretty.”
Chris had stopped listening to her after “Cloverbud.” Having her say the name triggered an instant replay of everything that had happened in the last few days. The knot in his stomach tightened, and he could feel the sweat forming in his pores. He glanced at Pat, who looked nervous and excited at the same time. “Let’s go, Rocky,” he said.
“Thanks,” Pat said to the woman.
They were halfway across the office when she yelled, “Hey!”
Chris froze, then cautiously turned around, watching Pat do the same. The woman looked at them without blinking, her eyes glistening in the sunlight coming in through the half-open window blinds. Then a faint grin lifted the corners of her mouth. “Go, Packers!” she shouted, smiling broadly and raising her fist in the air. Chris watched cat hairs drop from her hand and drift slowly down in the dusty light, while his heartbeat gradually returned to normal.
“Go, Packers,” Pat said, forcing a smile.
Chris couldn’t even do that. “Yeah,” he said, and turned back for the door.
They found their room easily. With three others, it formed the bottom of the motel’s “U” shape, its window and door facing the street. A small swimming pool surrounded by short green shrubbery and white gravel took up most of the courtyard in front of it.
Inside, the room was dark and hot and smelled faintly of mildew and pesticide. Pat turned on the air conditioning unit under the window while Chris opened the drapes and looked around. On the wall to his left, a low dresser supported a lamp and television. On the opposite wall, two double beds were separated by a nightstand, table lamp, and phone. Doors opened to a closet and bathroom at the far end of the small room.
They dropped their backpacks on the little circular table near the window and sat down in two straight-backed chairs. Outside, the sun had dropped low enough behind the motel that half of the courtyard was shaded. Chris looked at his watch—6:05. At home it was 5:05. Their parents wouldn’t be missing them yet. His mom was usually the first one home, at about five-thirty. In a half-hour she’d be reading the note. Pat’s parents would find theirs about fifteen minutes later, but Chris suspected that his mom would be waiting for Pat’s parents with some bad news when they got home.
“So far, so good,” Pat said.
“We’re here, anyway,” Chris said.
“And we already know where the shop is,” said Pat. “Now to find the house.”
“The sooner the better.” He realized that now he was ready to get this over with, one way or another. He walked to the phone, got an outside line, and dialed information. The number the operator gave him matched the one they already had. When he asked for the address she referred him to another number, which he wrote down on the small pad of paper on the nightstand and quickly dialed. He asked for the address to be repeated twice, carefully writing it on the notepad.
“Four-seventeen East Orchard,” he said, hanging up the phone. “Now all we have to—”
“Chris!” Pat shouted, his nose pressed to the window.
Chris started toward him and then stalled halfway there, unable to move. Lumbering out of the bend in the highway and heading for town on the straight section of road in front of the motel was a big white van with a giant ice cream cone painted on the side. Chris didn’t have to read the words below it. He knew what they said.
Sunlight glinting off the driver’s window made it difficult to see who was behind the wheel. But Chris picked out the shape of his head—big and blocky, like the rest of him.
“It’s Bud!” Pat said, his voice now a fierce whisper.
The van disappeared, cut off from view by the front of the motel.
“Come on!” Chris said, yanking open the door. In a moment they were carefully peering around the wall of the motel office, down the road toward town, watching the white van get smaller in the distance, watching it slow, its right turn signal flashing. Watching it turn a quarter mile away and head east, disappearing from view once more.
“He didn’t go to the shop,” Chris said. “It’s farther down on the other side of the street.”
“The house?” Pat wondered out loud.
“Could be,” Chris said, grabbing Pat by the shirt sleeve and starting back toward the room. His heart was thumping in his chest, and it wasn’t from the short sprint to the front of the courtyard. “Or maybe he’s already making his ice cream rounds in the neighborhoods. “
“It looked like he was heading somewhere definite,” Pat said.
“I hope you’re right,” Chris said. “Let’s find out.”
They headed for town, stopping at a gas station a block away, where the attendant confirmed that Orchard Street was three more blocks straight ahead. And the East Orchard address would be reached by turning right off the main road, which he called Palm Avenue. They each got a can of soda pop from an old machine in front of the station and continued toward town.
They turned right on Orchard and walked a nervous first block. The neighborhood of small frame houses was quiet. Two small boys were playing in the dirt in front of one of the houses; they didn’t even look up. There were no adults in sight and no cars traveling the narrow street.
“Get ready to run for it or hide behind something if anyone comes,” Chris said. He knew the sunglasses wouldn’t save them if Bud or Clover were suddenly to drive down the street.
“What kind of car do they have?” Pat asked as they crossed the street to the next block.
“A big pickup. Green, I think,” Chris replied. “With a camper on the back.” He could feel sweat trickling down his back. His legs felt heavy and stiff, and he wondered how fast he’d be able to run. There weren’t many places to hide. Pat’s big body wasn’t going to fit behind one of the skinny trees lining the street.
They got past the second block—still no people, no cars on the road. The addresses were in the 200s and getting higher.
The third block was even quieter. The houses were bigger and set back farther from the street. Their numbers were in the 300s. Chris was glad to see more cars parked along the curb here. They’d provide hiding places if necessary.
They came to the end of the block; what Chris saw made the hair on the back of his neck tingle: In the middle of the next block, the big white van sat on the side of the street.
He pushed Pat toward the curb, where an old blue station wagon squatted halfway up on the sidewalk. They ducked down behind it. Chris looked over at Pat, who was blinking the sweat out of his eyes.
“See it?” Chris whispered.
Chris glanced around to see if anybody was watching them; they weren’t acting exactly normal. But he didn’t see anyone. Pat crab-crawled around toward the front of the station wagon, while Chris raised up to get a better look at the ice cream truck. Its back doors were open, and from inside came the sounds of hammering. A shadowy figure was moving around in the dim light of the van’s interior.
Pat scrabbled back, a nervous grin on his shiny face. “Bingo,” he said.
“Yeah,” Chris said. Now what? he wondered. They’d accomplished a lot in a short time, but what next? He thought for a moment, listening to his heart race and his stomach churn. “I think we need to come back after dark,” he said finally. “We can’t get any closer now.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. This place is giving me the creeps.”
They hurried back up the street, trying to stay low and out of sight, looking over their shoulders to make sure they hadn’t been spotted, trying not to appear too suspicious in case people were looking out their front windows. But the hammering from the van continued until it faded to a faint tap-tap-tap in the distance. And no curious faces spied out at them from behind closed draperies. They slowed and walked the rest of the way to Palm Avenue.
“Should we see what’s happening at the Cloverbud?” Pat asked when they got back to the main road.
“I guess so,” Chris said. “But we need to keep an eye out for Clover. It looks like Bud’s going to be busy for a while, but there’s no telling where she is.”
“My guess is she’s in their house somewhere, taking care of a little kid.”
“Or a sick mother.” But it was good to hear Pat say it. Chris was thinking, hoping the same thing, but he was afraid to say it out loud. For some reason, even though they were in Florida and they’d already found the new Cloverbud and Bud and Clover’s house and the ice cream truck, and they’d actually seen Bud, the next step—finding Molly—was still hard to imagine. He had to concentrate on where they were and what they were doing.
Chris looked at his watch—6:45. By now his mom and maybe his dad and probably Pat’s parents would know. How was it affecting them? “You think they’ve called out the National Guard yet?” he asked. “Our parents, I mean?”
“Probably just the FBI,” Pat said. He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and shrugged, as if trying to shed any thoughts of home. “Let’s go,” he said.
They started toward town, nervously watching the passing cars and pedestrians, checking behind them every few steps to make sure the ice cream truck wasn’t back on the road. Chris felt as if they were walking down the middle of the street carrying neon signs that said RUNAWAY.
They passed two drive-in restaurants. The smells of hamburgers and french fries drifted out to the sidewalk, reminding Chris of how hungry he was. He could imagine what Pat was thinking about, but didn’t ask. Not yet. He just had to get to The Cloverbud.
The T-shirt shop was closed when they walked past it. They crossed the street and continued north past other shops, some of which were still open. At Murdock’s they paused. The aroma of cooking coming out the open door of the little restaurant was overwhelming and stopped them in their tracks. They looked at the menu posted by the door and stared in through the big front window. The place was crowded. People sharing a meal, couples and families, talking and laughing. Suddenly Chris wanted to see his family—all of them.
“On the way back,” Pat said, pulling him away from the window. “Let’s eat here on the way back.”
The Cloverbud was on the next block. They approached it cautiously, but it was empty and locked. From the outside it looked much like the original Cloverbud except for the signs of ongoing remodeling. Boards and sawhorses and tools and a ladder were visible through the front window. Debris was scattered around on the wood floor.
But it looked mostly complete. Cabinets and a big sign listing the varieties of ice cream were hung on the far wall. Everything was freshly painted, and stretching across the back of the room was a large freezer display case and counter.
They peered into the dim interior of the shop, looking for something, some sign that things weren’t quite right here: a piece of child’s clothing, a toy, a doll. But would they have even brought her down here? Chris didn’t think so.
“I don’t see anything weird,” Pat said.
Chris looked up and down the street, checking the cars and pedestrians. “Me, neither,” he said. “I think we need to look around back.”
A narrow sidewalk between shops led them to an alley that ran behind all the buildings on the west side of Palm. There was nothing but more building scraps and garbage in back of The Cloverbud. The door was locked.
They got back to the street just as a dark blue police car cruised slowly by. The driver’s head turned mechanically from side to side, as if he were looking for something—or someone. He glanced in their direction, and then—without missing a beat—away, toward the other side of the street. Chris wondered if this was just a routine patrol for this guy. Probably, he decided, but his skin felt crawly under the layer of sweat.
“Don’t look,” Pat said, heading up the sidewalk with Chris at his side.
Chris didn’t look. He pretended to be interested in the shops as they walked past, gazing into the windows of The Cloverbud and then of a toy store next to it. Finally, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the cruiser pick up speed. He watched it continue on down the street. “Phew!” he said, breathing again. “I wonder what he was so interested in.”
“You,” Pat said. “It’s your criminal appearance. It’s bound to make people suspicious.”
“Ha, ha,” Chris said. “Very funny.”