At the far end, a brown-and-gold vehicle emblazoned SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT was parked by a fence, nose forward, with what I presumed was an off-duty deputy sitting there to provide security. His windows were down and he was smoking—the amber eye of his cigarette and his vague shape were all I could make out. His presence didn’t alarm me—I’d have been surprised if some off-duty law enforcement rep hadn’t been so employed here—but neither did it mean the master of the Paddlewheel castle was safe from becoming the victim of a hit-and-run in his own parking lot. Only after its closing around dawn, with the target leaving the building to head for his own parked car in an otherwise empty lot, security deputy long gone, would Monahan practice his vehicular artistry. I backed my Sunbird into a space in a row parallel to the river, leaving a little room to get around to the trunk, where the blond kid was sound asleep, the little angel. After folding it inside a road map, I tucked the nine millimeter in the glove compartment, having no intention of walking into the place armed.
