my anger wasn’t actually directed at the apparent object of antagonism, but rather an expression of my manifold disappointments and thwarted expectations.
While I was congratulating myself for evolving to a higher level of self-awareness, the Mustang driver stood on his brakes and slammed a hard left, gunning the rear wheels into an impressive power spin that had him flying past me in the opposite direction before I half realized what he was doing.
That’s when I thought this might not be an ordinary asshole. And probably not that ineffectual.
“Aw, shit,” I said out loud. I gripped Eddie’s collar and pushed him down into the foot well of the front passenger seat, downshifted into second and stuck the accelerator to the floor. The ten-ton hunk of Detroit iron leaped forward like a cat, the nearly bottomless torque suddenly awake and engaged.
I didn’t know the handling characteristics of the new Mustang, but I guessed they were better than what I had available. The Grand Prix wasn’t what you’d call a European touring car. All it knew how to do was accelerate rapidly in a straight line. I figured it would take a few seconds for the Mustang to pull another 180 to get back in pursuit. So I tightened my grip on the ugly plastic steering wheel and held on hard as I experimented with the limits of the big car’s suspension system.
I’d done what I could with beefy after-market shocks and modern tires, though you can’t do much about the ballistic energy of all that unbalanced weight being flung through hairpin turns.
I was mostly worried about Eddie. I hoped he didn’t think this was a cool new game and jump back on the seat to take it all in. As I held a death grip on the steering wheel I reached through the centrifugal force to stroke his head and ask him to stay where he was like a good boy.
The Mustang was back on my rear bumper in less than five minutes. I could hear the throaty roar of the fuel- injected V8 above the wind noise, and the solid scream of tires over macadam, sticky and secure to the road.
Then I heard a strange little metallic pop, and saw a spider web blossom across my windshield. At first I thought, great, what a time to get hit by a rock. But when the second web opened up I knew what it was.
I hung the next right, hurtling down a primitive sand road toward the Little Peconic Bay. I knew the neighborhood well, having jogged through there a hundred times in the last few years. The Mustang was still hard on my tail, but he was holding his fire. The headlights bouncing in my rearview told why—the closer we got to the bay the more the road resembled an amusement park ride. I tightened my seat belt, slouched as low as I could into the leather-covered bucket seat and fought to control the steering wheel.
Somehow I started to open up some air between me and the Mustang. Though sprung like a drunken goose, the sheer mass of the old Pontiac held it closer to the earth than the new Mustang. As long as the struts, springs and tie-rod ends could withstand the punishment. To say nothing of the driver.
The curves were getting tighter, and as the gap opened up I could see the chaotic dance of the Mustang’s headlights lighting up the woods. It gave me an idea.
After careening like a psychotic porpoise through a particularly tight turn, I shut off the lights, eased up on the accelerator, jammed the transmission into first and stepped hard on the emergency break. The rear wheels locked up, sending the front end into a barely controllable frenzy, which actually helped to slow and eventually stop the big car. I checked again to make sure Eddie was wedged down in the passenger seat foot well, banged the shifter into reverse and floored it.
The concussion knocked the breath out of me, as if a fist the size of a Volkswagen had hit me in the back. Or more like a new Ford Mustang as it exploded into the vast, heavy-metal trunk of the Grand Prix.
The sound was more startling than the impact—a subterranean thud mixed with the wet spray of glass and the scream of rending sheet metal.
It was a jarring moment for me and Eddie, but a lot worse for the guys in the Mustang.
From the crouched position I took before the crash I reached for Eddie, feeling around for injuries. His ears were back, and when he jumped up on the seat his tail was down, but otherwise he seemed okay. He barked out a single, emphatic bark, which I knew meant, “What the fuck was that about?”
I dug a small flashlight out of the glove compartment and pushed open my door, shutting it quickly behind me to keep Eddie in the car. I stayed low and tried to adjust my eyes to the darkness—the Mustang’s headlights having followed the rest of the front end into oblivion. Its windshield was also blown out, so I could clearly see the driver sitting behind the wheel. His head was resting on the top of the deflating airbag, his face hidden behind a mask of blood. Another guy was more out than in, his body flopped across the mangled hood, twisted into a shape that could only be comfortable if you were past feeling it.
Panning around with the flashlight, I saw an automatic nestled in the accordion folds of the Grand Prix’s freshly compressed trunk. I picked up a stick, slipped it in the barrel and plucked it free of the mangled metal. I dropped it into my jacket pocket and went to take a closer look at the driver.
My entire rib cage, front to back, felt worked over, but the adrenaline kept me alert. I opened the door of the Mustang and shot the flashlight in the driver’s face. His eyes blinked open.
While I kept him in the light, I fumbled around my jacket for the cell phone to call 911. I told the dispatcher to call Joe Sullivan, who was probably only halfway to Hampton Bays by then. I could only give a rough description of the location, but when I asked if anyone had reported a loud explosion in the area, she had our exact position.
“Please don’t leave the scene of the accident before the officers arrive,” she said.
“No danger of that.”
I heard a faint sound from the driver. I reached in and gently pulled away the empty airbag. Tiny crystals of glass rained down, pattering against the dashboard and steering wheel. Some remained, glimmering like jeweled studs on the guy’s brown sport coat and black turtleneck.
“Don’t move,” I said to him.
His eyes stretched open so that the whites encircled the pupils, made even more stark by the blood streaming down his face. I moved in closer to look for the gusher, which I found—a deep slice an inch below his receding hairline. I pulled a crumpled paper towel out of my back pocket and stuck it on the wound.
“Who you working for?” I asked conversationally, like I was asking who he bet on to win the Eastern Conference playoffs.
The injured man closed his eyes, then opened them again, and seemed to smile.
“
“Cerberus? You’re kidding.”
Do dead men joke?
“Why try to kill me? What the hell did I do?” I asked.
He leaned his head back on the seat and smiled again. I smelled the sticky sweet smell of alcohol in the car, though I assumed the man’s tranquility had more to do with shock.
I went back to the Grand Prix and got a roll of duct tape out of the glove compartment. I used it to tape some more paper towel to the guy’s head. Then I walked around the other side of his car for a closer look at his buddy. What I found wasn’t the kind of thing you’d want to study too closely. Likely he was doing the shooting, while leaning out the window, which is why he’d unsnapped his seat belt. Proves there’s never a good reason to neglect proper safety procedures.
I went back to the driver, who was now staring out of the destroyed windshield and looking a little less comfortable.
“How you doing?” I asked him.
“Just a little headache. I stop drinking coffee last week. Doctor say it’s bad for my heart. It’s bad for my head when I stop, I want to tell him.”
“So, this Cerberus. Who’s he?”
He turned his head toward me.
“Is that how you say in English? You know who he is. I’m declaring the fifth amendment.”
He spent the next few minutes coughing up globs of oily blood.
“Good command of the U.S. Constitution,” I told him.
He nodded.
“The fifth is a good amendment. In Venezuela the only right you plead for is your life. You think the ambulance is coming? I’m not feeling too good.”
“It’s coming. They’ll get here as soon as they can.”
He nodded again.
