Coolman walked back to the Buick and called the man he was supposed to meet in Key West. "I'll be a few minutes late. You're not gonna believe what just happened," he said on the man's voicemail, leaving it at that.
The cops arrived and wrote up the red-haired pube shaver for careless driving. Naturally, she had no collision insurance; that would be Avis's problem, not Lane Coolman's. A tow truck hauled away the Firebird, which needed a new front end including a radiator. The woman approached Coolman and asked for a ride.
"Tell your 'date' to come get you," he said. One of the police officers had pried the damaged bumper from the Buick, and Coolman was trying to fit it into the back seat.
"He doesn't have a car," said the woman, who'd buttoned her jeans. She was attractive in a loose and scattered way. Coolman had a weakness for redheads.
"See, I work for an escort service. We go where the client's at," she said.
"Yes, I understand the concept."
The woman's fleece was unzipped and beneath it she wore a black sequined top. Her toes must be freezing in those flip flops, Coolman thought; the temperature was 55 degrees with a biting north wind, arctic conditions for the Florida Keys.
"My name's Merry," she said, "spelled like Merry Christmas."
