Tossing the puppy into the mound of covers on my bed I didn’t even bother changing out of my sweats, football jersey and Converse before climbing in after him and pulling the comforter up and over our heads. I tried to sleep but it was hard when I kept picturing the jewels glowing in my hand and the look in the eyes of my friends when I had called them thieves.
Every so often I poked my head out from beneath the covers, checking the big red numbers on the bedside clock while Howie’s snores from the bed next to me meshed with the snores of the puppy curled up in a perfect ball in my lap. As the numbers rotated they’re way around to 6:38 a.m. I realized that it was no use trying to sleep I had way too many things swirling around in my head to relax.
I knew that Brian and A.J. had plans to meet some guy named Devin before we drove to the next venue so I decided to have some plans of my own. Climbing out of the bed I picked up the puppy and tucked him in bed beside Howie, balling up the covers so he would have a little pillow to lay on. Then walking out of the room and shutting the door behind me I made my way to the barricade at the front door one by one moving everything to the side, checking to make sure I had my keycard in my pocket before walking down the hall to the elevators.
* * *
Walking through the deserted lobby I gave the girl at the front desk a big cheesy grin making her giggle before pushing open the big glass doors and making my way across the street to the little café’ where Kevin liked to get his mocha kappa frappa-gam-chino’s or some equally stupid named drink like that. Why the hell he couldn’t just get a Coke was beyond me.
Sitting at a vacant table I signaled the guy behind the counter for a soft drink keeping a careful eye on the hotel through the big picture window. Over the next hour the bells hanging from the door of the cafe jingled as more people filtered in, laughing and talking all of them ordering food and crowding the tables until it made it hard for me be do any kind of decent stakeout on the hotel. Standing I walked to an ancient video machine in the corner the words DONKEY KONG peeling from the side the big apes smile blackened out as he shook a fist in the air.
Digging in the pockets of my sweats I finally came up with the change necessary to play the game and fed it into the slot. The music keyed up and I tried to stay focused on the window knowing that if I turned my back for a second Brian and A.J. would slip through my fingers but at the same time I really wanted to beat the high score on the machine. It was an obsession I had to be perfect at anything video game related. Jiggling the joystick stupid Mario was supposed to head up the ramp and jump the barrel but all he would do was dance around in place as a big barrel mowed him down.
“Shit.” I groaned smacking the side of the machine as my second guy popped up in the right hand corner.
“It sticks sometimes, you have to push it right to go left.” Glancing to the table beside me a girl with long curly hair the color of cinnamon smiled at me as she spoke.
“Uh huh.” I answered not paying much attention to her as I looked out the window and then back to the game just as another barrel rolled over Mario sending him to heaven.
“Dammit.” I said smacking the side of the machine again as if it would help me win the game.
“I said the joy stick sticks sometimes.” The girl said again.
“Huh?” I turned to her stealing a glance out the window as two guys hailed a cab across the street.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Uh……I don’t speak German sorry.” I said throwing the joystick around as I made sure that it wasn’t Brian and A.J. getting on that bus.
“I’m not speaking German you idiot I’m speaking English.” The girl stood up walking to the machine and laughing as Mario lost his final life.
“Stupid machine.” I kicked it lightly as she slapped down some change on the machine and challenged me to a dual.
“I’ll play you.” She smelled nice, like the strawberry scented tree shaped air freshener in my Mom’s Suburban. Glancing out the window again I figured I could take my eyes off of the street for the few minutes I would need to kick her ass at Donkey Kong and still have time to play detective Nick.
“You’re on. What are we playing for?” I said feeding the change into the machine and selecting two players.
“Winner buys the loser breakfast.” Sliding the scrunchie off of her wrist she pulled her curls up into a messy bun that she secured at the nape of her neck.
“You’re on.” I said hitting start as the music cued up.
* * *
“This freaking sucks.” I moaned. “I swear to God this machine has it out for me. Best three out of five.” I challenged digging around in my pocket for more change.
“But I already beat you five times.” She laughed.
“No way seriously?”
She smiled nodding at me.
“I owe you breakfast huh?” Pushing my hands in my pockets I shifted my weight from one foot to the other trying to look as pathetic as possible, a trick that always worked with my Mom when I wanted to get out of something.
“Yes you owe me breakfast and I want the works.” She called out over her shoulder on her way to the counter. I stood behind her listening as she ordered in German. I wasn’t sure what she said but she went on and on and on. She must have ordered everything they had on the menu.
“There is no way a little thing like you could possibly eat that much.” I poked her in the back. “You should probably just get some toast and maybe a mocha-frappa-thingy to drink.” I pulled a few bills from my pocket and some coins one of which I was pretty sure was Canadian and wouldn’t do me much good in a German café.
“Aren’t you going to have anything?” She asked turning and smiling up at me with all of the innocence of a cat that just swallowed a canary.
“No.” Stepping up to the counter I waited while the guy tallied up her enormous order hoping that maybe she would share some of it with me when I spotted something out of the corner of my eye.
Across the street I saw two guys come out of the hotel. One had sort of shaggy blonde hair down to his shoulders and the other one had curly red hair and both were wearing sunglasses. Squinting I could see that while neither one of them looked familiar to me the backpacks in their hands sure did. Walking out of the line at the counter I pushed my way through a group of women just sitting down at a table and headed for the door of the café.
“Hey where are you going?” The Donkey Kong girl shouted. “What about my breakfast?”
“Sorry.” I called out throwing open the door and bumping into a heavyset guy with a mustache that swore at me in German. “Can’t talk now I gotta run.”
* * *
A.J. and Brian walked casually down the crowded sidewalk looking like a couple of mega morons in their wigs and oversized sunglasses that they must have borrowed from A.J.’s Mom before we left on tour.
Slumping my shoulders I tried not to poke out above the crowd, wishing I had worn my baseball cap to disguise myself although neither one of them seemed particularly interested in what was going on around them.
The longer we walked the more I noticed that they both kept reaching their hands around to their backpacks fumbling for the zippers to make sure the contents inside were safe. I wished I had the guts to run up, strip the backpacks off of their backs and disappear into the crowd but then they would start screaming for the police and my ass would get tossed into a German prison. Then Kevin would lecture me on the pros and cons of prison life while Lou would threaten to toss me out of the band and hire some blonde kid named Skippy that he originally hired to clean his pool.
Glancing to the left at a bakery window filled with foods that I couldn’t pronounce the names of I suddenly realized that I hadn’t had breakfast yet. I briefly considered ducking into the bakery to grab some sweet rolls, wondering if I would be able to still keep an eye on them and buy baked goods at the same time when looking up I suddenly realized that it was too late.
A.J. and Brian were gone.
* * *
“Dammit.” I growled under my breath walking away from the bakery in the direction that A.J. and Brian had last been headed. How could I have been so stupid to let my growling stomach get in the way of the matters at hand?
Standing on my tiptoes I scanned the crowd on the street for any sign of them but there was nothing. Looking around me I realized that I had come to maze of cobblestone alleys stretching up and down between little crumbly groupings of shops and peoples homes and I knew right then that I had definitely lost them.
“Who are you following?” Spinning around I knocked into the Donkey Kong girl grabbing for her hand to help her as she stumbled backwards.
“Geez you scared the shit out of me.”
“Sorry.” She batted her big blue eyes at me and smiled. “I just wanted to see who or what was so important that you couldn’t stay and buy me breakfast.”
Thrusting my hand into my pocket I came up with what money I had left and pushed it into her hand.
“Here take it and go and buy your self something to eat if you’re that hungry.” She pushed the money back at me and it went back and forth until it spilled onto the sidewalk.
“Great.” I moaned dropping to my knees to gather the money up just as a little German boy walking by stooped down scooping change in his hand trying to beat me to it.
“I told you to just take the freaking money.” I said to the girl as the little boy fought me over one of the bills digging his fingernails into the back of my hand. “Hey knock it off.” I swatted at his little chubby hand making him giggle before digging his fingernails deeper into my flesh.
“Ouch. I swear to God he’s drawing blood.”
“Oh he is not, he can’t be hurting you that bad he’s just a little boy.” The Donkey Kong girl dropped to her knees pulling at the little boy’s hand. Leaning down in his face she rattled off some words to him in German before he finally let go blinking up at me with a gap toothed smile.
“Why is he smiling?” I finished gathering up my money shoving it back into my pocket before standing up.
“I told him if he stopped hurting you, you would give him five dollars.” The girl stood up taking the little boy’s hand into hers looking quite proud of herself.
“What are you two some sort of breakfast eating, money stealing scam artists or something?” The little boy held out his hand to me teeth bared like he was going to bite me if I didn’t pay up.
“Okay alright five dollars.” Trying to remember how much German money it took to make five dollars I started to count on my fingers.
“Oh you big boob.” The girl grabbed at my hand taking my money from me and quickly piling the equivalent of five German dollars in the little boy’s hand. “Just give him his stupid money and be done with it.” Satisfied the little boy turned on his patent leather heel and skipped off in the direction of the bakery, probably to buy some nice hot rolls and a sticky sweet bun that I myself had been craving only minutes before.