Finding the Devil Dolls was simple enough. From the minute I put the sidestand down, the old Suzuki began collecting a fascinated little crowd; as I'd hoped, riding in on a classic bike was enough to get me at least temporary acceptance, even though a blind man could have spotted me for an outsider. I sat there and answered technical questions for a few minutes, while jocks and grrls gathered around and goggled; then I asked my question.

"The Dolls?" A husky roadjock in skin-tight pink leathers stepped from the crowd, everybody moving hurriedly out of his way; the Oscar Wilde Motor Corps are easily the most dangerous gang in the state and their members get the kind of total respect the old Angels used to. "Sure, they're here. Camping down at the south end of the beach. What do you want with them?" His plucked eyebrows went up about an inch. "No accounting for tastes, I suppose…"

"Camping" was an overstatement; the Dolls, like most of the other groups present, had merely picked themselves an area and occupied it. A couple of plastic tarps had been set up as sunshades, and a few sleeping bags and blanket rolls lay scattered about on the sand. Roughly in the middle of the area were the blackened remains of a big driftwood fire. That was just about it.

I stopped the Suzuki at the edge of the weed-cracked concrete parking lot that bordered on the beach. Down here, the sand had piled up into a line of low dunes dotted with scrubby bushes.

A few yards away, a line of shiny parked sportbikes gleamed in the sun. I gave them a brief scan, but there were at least a dozen or so that might have been the one in the photo; evidently purple and black were the Devil Dolls' club colors.

Out on the beach and among the dunes, roadgrrls wandered about, drinking beer and passing joints and talking, or lay stretched out on blankets in the sun. Here, on their own staked-out turf, several of them had felt secure enough to shed their silly plastic protective gear in favor of cutoff shorts and T-shirts, or bikinis-with or without tops-or, in a couple of cases, nothing at all.

Believe it or not, though, that wasn't what got my attention.

Nearby, a grrl stood leaning against the half-demolished metal guardrail that separated the parking lot from the beach. Her back was to me and I couldn't see her face, but everything else set off recognition signals: long blond hair, purple-and-black armor-

Maybe this was going to be easier than I'd expected.

I shut off the engine and said, "Excuse me," and she turned to face me and so much for that. Nose too big, mouth too wide, eyebrows too heavy; not even close.

I said, "Sorry, my mistake. I was looking for Rhonda Honda."

"Nah, man." Flat drawn-out a's, Boston girl a long way from home. "My name's Vonda. That's Rhonda Honda ovah yondah."

I started to ask her to say that again. Then I was afraid she would. Shaking my own head, feeling a desire to hit it sharply a couple of times, I looked where Vonda was pointing.

And sure enough, there she was, the grrl from the picture. I wondered why I hadn't spotted her before. She stood out like a racing greyhound in a pack of mutts, and not just because she was a good six inches taller than the rest. Easily half of the other roadgrrls on the beach had that same leggy-blonde look, but it was as if somebody had been practicing and then finally got it right.

She was walking along between a couple of other Dolls, a redhead and another blonde, and swigging a can of beer. I watched her for a moment, trying to decide on my next move. Truthfully, I hadn't thought things out beyond this point.

As it turned out she was the one who saved me from overloading my brain any further. Suddenly she glanced my way and her face broke into a blinding smile. "Oh, hey," she cried, "check it out!" And came running across the sand toward me, shoulder guards clacking, while the others turned to stare.

It wasn't, of course, my smoldering good looks that had pushed her button; her eyes were fixed on the Suzuki. "Wow," she breathed as she stopped beside the front wheel, and hunkered down for a better look at the engine. "It's beautiful-"

The other Dolls were moving in now, bunching up in a semicircle behind her, looking at the bike and then, with considerably less admiration, at me. "Who's this asshole?" somebody asked, not bothering to lower her voice.

The one named Vonda said, "He was askin' about Rhonda."

It was a nasty moment. I could feel them all tensing, practically crouching to spring. Various sharp shiny implements began to appear, amid a clicking and clattering of flick blades and butterfly handles. My insides felt very loose. For all the superficial fun-in-the-sun look of the scene, this was a bad spot for anybody-particularly male-who didn't belong. These were no Girl Scouts; they weren't into sitting around the campfire singing old songs and roasting wienies-but one wrong step and they'd be roasting mine.

I said to Rhonda, "Can we go somewhere and talk?"

A big, seriously mean-looking brunette said, "No way, man. What the fuck you think-"

Rhonda was getting up. "It's all right, Donna." She tilted her head toward the nearby road. "Want to go for a ride? I'd like to see what that thing will do."

A few minutes later we were roaring off down the old coastal highway, Rhonda in the lead. Right away it was clear she knew what she was doing. She laid the purple-and-black bike over till her knees almost scraped the crumbling concrete, and she blasted out of the turns like a rocket. Keeping up with her took all my concentration; the road had become a very narrow place and the horizon kept tilting at unreasonable angles.

Not that we were going flat-out by any means; like every other public road in the state, this one was too gnarled and potholed for real balls-to-the-wall riding. But we were going damn fast, all the same, engines shrieking like buggered banshees; and then as she led the way into a long blind turn I picked up a change in the note of her exhaust, and her shoulders hunched as if bracing for something. Without pausing to think about it I downshifted fast and rolled off the throttle and clamped down hard on the brakes.

Rhonda's Honda was already sliding to a smoking, fishtailing stop. The Suzuki's greater weight took me on past her and for a sickening moment I thought it was all over, but then the brakes took hold and the big bike stopped dead.

Just beyond the front tire, the pavement ended in a jagged break, clear across the roadway. Thirty or forty feet away, the other half of the earthquake-shattered bridge hung over a deep rocky gorge. I could have spat over the handlebars into the gap.

Rhonda Honda pulled off her helmet and grinned at me. She tossed her head, making that long blonde hair flare and bounce for a moment. "All right," she said.

I stared at her, momentarily speechless. Had she just tried to kill me? Or was this merely her idea of a good laugh? Her face gave nothing away; her smile was innocent as an upper-middle-class baby's.

She said, "So why were you looking for me?"

I returned her grin, trying to look much cooler than I felt. "There was a guy asking around about you," I told her. "Down in the city, a couple weeks ago."

"And you thought you'd get a reward for finding me?" The smile went away very fast.

"Nah." I shrugged. "He didn't say anything about a reward. But he had this picture and, well, you looked cute, okay? I just wanted to meet you."

It sounded phony as hell to me, and I only tried it because I couldn't think of anything else. But after a second her face cleared and she said, "Why, that's sweet. I'm flattered."

She laughed. "Only I'm afraid you had a long ride for nothing. See, I've got… a girlfriend, you know? Donna. You kind of met her, back there."