Frances removed one arm from around Pete’s neck and anchored her skirts.
Long before they caught a glimpse of the sea, they heard the stupendous sound from the amusement park together with the shouting, screaming and laughing of the people like themselves who were stealing a day on the beach.
“I never know where all the people come from,” Frances cried above the noise of the car engine. “It doesn’t matter when you come here, it’s always crowded.”
Pete was about to say something when he happened to glance in the little circular mirror on the off-wing of the car. In its reflection he saw the battered outlines of the Packard and caught a glimpse of Moe’s sandy-coloured hair as he sat at the driving-wheel.
Pete felt himself turn hot, then cold. He realized, with a feeling of bewilderment mixed with fear, that for the past ten minutes he had completely forgotten Moe and had forgotten the orders Seigel had given him.
Buster drove into a packed parking lot, edged in between two cars and cut the engine. Cars were arriving at the rate of ten a minute, and as the four walked from the car towards the beach, they were immediately hemmed in by the noisy, jostling, perspiring crowd.
Frances held on to Pete’s arm. He moved forward a step ahead of her, his shoulder turned slightly sideways to form a buffer against the swirling tide of people coming towards him. Buster led the way, cutting a path with his big shoulders for Bunty who walked immediately behind him, hanging on to his shirt tail.
They crawled past the low wooden buildings that housed fortune tellers, photographers with their comic animals and still more comic backgrounds, the freak shows and the hamburger stalls, being jostled, coming to a standstill, then moving on again.
From time to time Pete looked over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see any sign of Moe, and he hoped feverishly that they had lost him in this crowd.
Finally they reached the rails at the outer edge of the sea front. Not far away was the snake-like structure of a roller coaster whose cars roared and clattered up and down the steep inclines, carrying a screaming, shouting cargo of people, determined to enjoy themselves and determined to scream or shout louder than his or her neighbour.