Notorious Nineteen

said. “Just in case.”
    “The towels aren’t that big. I can’t carry everything. It’s not like I have pockets.”
    “You could hide it in your you-know-what,” Lula said. “It’s just a little canister.”
    “Are you serious?”
    “Just thinkin’,” Lula said.
    “Well, stop thinking. I have enough problems without you thinking.”
    “Boy, you get cranky when you take your clothes off. I’m not sure I want to go out there with you and have you ruin my good experience.”
    “We’re working,” I said. “We’re not here to have a good experience.”
    I took a deep breath and stepped out of the locker room onto the beach. It was a beautiful blue-sky day and the surf was up. The beach was dotted with people sitting in beach chairs and stretched out on blankets.
    “We must be at least thirty years younger than everyone out here,” I said to Lula.
    “Yeah,” she said, “it’s like someone sprinkled the beach with a bunch of raisins and a couple prunes. I never saw so much shriveled skin. This group makes Grandma Mazur look like a teenager.”
    The sand was hot under my bare feet and the sun felt warm on my skin. “You’re right,” I said to Lula. “It does sort of feel good to be out in the fresh air.”
    “Yeah, I love the shore. I wouldn’t mind having a house here someday. I could look at the ocean all day long and listen to the waves.”
    I shielded my eyes from the sun and looked down the beach. “Where’s the bar?”
    “It’s over at the far end, under that thatched roof. You have to fight your way through the crowd to get to it. Old people like to booze it up.”
    “Is Beasley naked?” I asked her.
    “Sure he’s naked. Everyone’s naked here.”
    We walked closer and I eyed the bar and the people milling around it. “We need a plan. Do you want to be the distractor or the cuffer?”
    “I gotta be the distractor,” Lula said. “He already knows what I’m up to and he’ll be on guard if I try to sneak behind him. I figure I’ll walk right up to him and he’ll keep his eye on me. It’s hard to miss all my big brownness.”
    Lula set off, plowing through the sand, and I circled around, hugging the perimeter. I was inside the bar area and directly behind Beasley when Lula elbowed her way up to the bar and got his full attention. I opened a bracelet and click it was on him. I went for the second wrist, he yelped, and threw a drink in my face. I blinked and swiped at my eyes. I felt him shove me aside and by the time I recovered he was outside the bar and running.
    I sprinted after him, both of us having a hard time in the deep sand. He was distracted by the metal bracelet attached to his wrist, I took a flying leap, and snagged him by the ankle. We both went down face-first. I was holding tight to his foot, and I heard Lula yell “ INCOMING! ” I let go and scooted awayjust in time to see Lula hurtle over me, casting a massive shadow, and land on Beasley. “WOOF!” Beasley exclaimed on an explosion of air. And then he was completely still with Lula on top of him.
    Lula climbed off, I cuffed him, and we rolled him over. His eyes were open, but I wasn’t sure he was breathing.
    “Sometimes it takes them a while to get air after I pounce,” Lula said. She looked down at Beasley. “Are you okay?”
    “Unh,” Beasely said.
    “He’s okay, folks,” Lula said to the crowd that had gathered. “You could go back to your sunnin’ and drinkin’. Bar’s open. Self-serve.”
    Beasley wasn’t looking like he was going to get up anytime soon, so Lula and I each took a foot and dragged him to the locker room.
    “This is the ladies’ locker room,” the attendant said. “You can’t bring him in here.”
    “Wait here,” I said to Lula.
    I went to our locker and got dressed in record time. I took twenty dollars out of my purse, gave it to the attendant, and she happened to be looking the other way when we dragged Beasley into the locker room.
    Lula got dressed, and we stood there looking at Beasley. We couldn’t take him out onto the boardwalk or through the casino naked, and we didn’t want to go into the men’s locker room to get his clothes.
    “Only thing we got here is towels,” Lula said. “We could make him a diaper but I don’t know how to hold it together.”
    “Garbage bag,” I said. “Have the attendant open the broom closet and give you a big green trash bag.”
    Lula came back with the garbage bag, we tore a hole in the top, got Beasley up on