When Hobbs had asked how he’d recognize the kid, Cleary asked him, “Did ye ever find Waldo?”
Hobbs shook his head.
“Nothing? You’ve never read Where’s Waldo?”
Hobbs had just looked at him.
“Ye’ve no children, or grandchildren or nieces or nephews?”
Hobbs hadn’t changed his expression.
“Well it’s a fine idea of livin’ you’ve got for yourself if you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I don’t like kids.”
“How do you expect your memory will be preserved for posterity?”
“I don’t. Now how will I know him?”
“Believe me, you’ll know him, he’s a regular fashion plate, this one. Besides, I’ll tell him to find you. Just look for the dour old man who looks as out of place as a child molester.”
“I don’t like kids.”
“Well, you’ve picked a hell of a place for it, then.”
Hobbs had told Cleary he’d meet the kid on a bench in front of the entrance to the Wild One, the gigantic wooden roller coaster that cut right through the middle of Six Flags. Cleary had had a good laugh at that: “Amusement park. I said he was young, I didn’t mean he was a kid kid.”
So now Hobbs sat on a bench at Six Flags, surrounded by a never-ending stream of children. Their shrieks of delight and terror and their tantrums echoed from throughout the park. And he sat through all of it. In his gray work pants and white shirt, he was out of place, as if he had been left there from a time when the park ran in black and white. Every so often he mopped at the sweat on his neck and forehead.
He spotted the kid immediately. A punk, and a rich punk at that. Skinny jeans that looked like leggings, hat on sideways, a knit cap even though it was ninety goddamn degrees out here, and horizontally red-and-white-striped shirt. Freak show. Hobbs almost got up and walked away right then and there. But there was something about the way the kid walked. As if he was in on a secret that nobody else knew. Hobbs stayed put.
The kid sat next to him. He nodded hello, and then looked away as if he were waiting for someone else. Then he dug in his messenger bag and asked no one in particular, “Is your smart-phone encrypted?”
“I don’t have a phone. Wrong end of the leash,” said Hobbs.
Alan looked up sharply, losing his cool for a moment. Didn’t have a phone! But he reeled it back in quickly.
“I go see people. I talk to them. They call people. Then I talk to them to see how the call went,” said Hobbs.
“But for, like, friends, don’t you ever call friends? Or Facebook, like Facebook friends?”
“A friend is somebody who comes by to visit every once in a while; everybody else is just an asshole who wastes your time,” said Hobbs.
Alan let this sink in. “Well, good,” he blustered, trying to get to his original point. “’Cause that tower over there”—he nodded his chin to the cell tower silhouetted against the sky behind the Wild One—“it’s a fake. NSA or somebody dummied it up to practice cracking phones.”
He held up his phone. On the screen it read, “Unencrypted connection. Caution: The mobile network’s standard encryption has been turned off, possibly by a rogue base station (‘unknown’).” Alan continued smugly, “Anybody in this park, well, let’s just say all their nudie pictures belong to somebody else now.”
“Let’s ride the ride,” said Hobbs.
“You like roller coasters?” asked Alan with a snicker.
“No,” said Hobbs.
As they shuffled through the endless line, Alan tried to start a serious conversation, about the job. About what he could do for Hobbs.
“Save it,” was all Hobbs said.
By the luck of the draw, they were placed in the first car on the roller coaster. As the padded bar dropped over them, Hobbs said, “Let me see your phone.” Alan handed it over, confident that no force on earth could defeat its encryption. Hobbs called out to the guy working the ride. “Hey!” As soon as the guy looked, Hobbs tossed him the phone. The attendant bobbled it twice, then got it under control. “Hang on to that,” Hobbs said as the ride started.
“What the fuck? That’s my phone.”
“I don’t like being recorded. And I don’t like taking chances.”
As the roller coaster picked up speed, Alan was forced to yell into the wind, “My phone is secure from all that shit.”
“Yeah, but I don’t trust you.”
“Why should you?” asked Alan.
Hobbs smiled as the roller coaster chugged up the big hill at the start. As the first car went over the edge, and the coaster picked up speed, Hobbs said, “Give it to me.”
Alan did, as quickly as possible, pausing only when the coaster swung them around one of the sharper curves. An armored car full of cash, benefit payments, still made in cash to poor folks along the Florida Panhandle. The rest, cash paid to contractors working in and around Eglin Air Force Base.
When they got off the ride, Hobbs asked, “You sellin’ or you want in?”
“I want in.”
Hobbs opened his mouth to say something and closed it again, afraid that what was going to come out wouldn’t be words. Goddamned roller coasters.
“Are you OK?” asked Alan.
“No,” said Hobbs.
“You look a little green.”
He leaned heavily on Alan, putting an arm around his shoulders. Then he held Alan in place as he threw up on the kid’s five-hundred-dollar sneakers. When he recovered himself he said, “I’m gonna look into it. If it checks out, I’ll be in Saint Louis in a week. Chase Park Plaza Hotel. I’ll be there as Ronald Caspar. Meet me.”
“Don’t you have a cell phone, or an e-mail address or something? I mean, what if it doesn’t check out? What if you change your mind? I mean, what is in Saint Louis? I would have wasted a trip.”
“Get a new pair of shoes,” said Hobbs. Then he walked away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
Neither of them stopped to look at the pictures of the last run of the roller coaster. A crowd gathered to laugh at the faces twisted in horror and delight as they flashed up on the screen. As the coaster had passed over the biggest drop on the run, the camera had captured Hobbs and Alan locked in conversation. While everyone else behind them was wide eyed and/or screaming, their eyes were locked on each other’s. It looked as if they were preparing to fight to the death in the middle of a plane crash.