“Mendoza thinks so.”

She smiled again.

“Is that a joke? You made a joke.”

Pike once more clocked their surroundings. He hadn’t been making a joke, but if she wanted to laugh, he was pleased.

“What Button said, does it bother you?”

“No. I like being with you. I feel safe. Is that weird?”

Pike changed the subject when her hamburger came.

“What about you? Will you go back to New Orleans?”

Dru stared at the ocean for a moment, and seemed thoughtful. She had some of the burger and sipped the beer.

“Pretty here. I’ve moved around so much since the storm, but nowhere like this. I was in Jackson, then Little Rock with my sister and her husband. My mom went to Atlanta. Everyone was everywhere—Wilson was in Houston for a while, then Dallas, then he went back to New Orleans, but, I don’t know, it was just too hard.”

She trailed off and shrugged.

“Did you go back?”

“For a while, but I had no one to go back to. I didn’t have a boyfriend, and my family was scattered. I didn’t own anything, so I left again—stayed with my mom for a while, then my sister. Then Wilson came here, and he liked it, so I thought I’d give it a try. I like it here. I’d like to stay.”

Pike enjoyed the play of thought on her face as she spoke.

The robot men called it quits. The smaller man gathered their earnings, closed the briefcase, then lined up behind the larger, both taking the same exaggerated pose. They marched away in lock-jointed unison. No one watched them go except maybe for Dru. Pike couldn’t tell if she was watching the robot men or something behind them—maybe the lowering sun.

She said, “It’s beautiful here.”

She stretched, and spread her hands to the sky, as she smiled again.

“I love the breeze we get. Everyone makes fun of the smog, but most of the time it’s clear. Don’t you love it? Don’t you love that fabulous ocean breeze?”

Pike said, “Yes.”

That’s when Pike saw a man outside the surf shop a few doors down from the restaurant. A life-sized statue of a surfer with a shark’s head stood outside the shop. The man was behind the statue. He moved when Pike turned. A small move like a buoy rocking on a wave, just enough to disappear behind the shark’s surfboard.

The man was lean, dark, and probably Latin, though Pike couldn’t see him well enough with the bad angle to tell. With the quick glimpse, Pike made the man for his early forties, with a shaved scalp and furry arms.

Dru smiled lazily.

“This is nice, being here like this.”

Pike said, “Yes.”

She couldn’t see Pike’s eyes behind the dark glasses, and didn’t know he was watching the man.