towards comparative safety and hoped that, if the guys in the Buick were as dodgy as I feared, they wouldn’t mistake the old guy as one of my allies and go after him as well.
I needn’t have worried on Brown’s account. As soon as I put the car into gear I had their full attention. I tried not to make direct eye-contact as I passed within a few feet of the other car but it was impossible not to let my eyes slide sideways, just a little.
The two men were craning to see into the Mercury, lifting up in their seats as they did so, making no bones about it. It was immediately obvious that I wasn’t the one who interested them. They were checking to see the kid wasn’t hiding in the back. When they saw he wasn’t they swung the Buick in a tyre-squealing circle and hooked it onto my tail.
It wasn’t subtle but they knew, just as I did, that I couldn’t leave Trey where he was indefinitely. Sooner or later I was going to have to make a move to collect him.
And when I did, the game was going to be over.
***
It had to go on record as one of the slowest car chases ever. Instinct made me turn left at the top of the street, trying to slow down my pursuers by making them follow me across four lanes of traffic to copy the manoeuvre. Fat chance. They pulled out smoothly with only two cars between us.
Damn, but driving on the right was taking some getting my head round.
I trundled through the next two sets of lights sticking bang on the speed limit. Bearing in mind Oakley man’s profession, I didn’t want to risk getting pulled by the cops.
The only experience I had of American traffic stops came through reality TV shows and the movies. If they were anything to go by, even if the officers involved were on the level I was likely to get hauled out of the car and subjected to a pat-down search. I’d no idea if the gun I was carrying wedged into the small of my back was officially registered, but even if it was, it certainly wasn’t in my name.
Mind you, it always seemed to be the State Troopers of the Highway Patrol who engaged in that kind of gung-ho behaviour, rather than the city police or Sheriff’s department. I vaguely recalled that Oakley man had been with the city police. Just how interconnected were the various departments? Was he working on his own, or was someone else lurking in the shadows pulling his strings? I didn’t have a clue.
I kept driving, the area taking a step down with each passing block. My brain was frantically concocting and dumping solutions to my current situation. The beige Buick had moved up to one car behind me, keeping station. Checking in my mirrors, I could see the guy in the passenger seat talking on a mobile phone. If they were calling in reinforcements I couldn’t afford to delay much longer.
I had to do something, but what?
Then something caught my eye up ahead on my left. Every little roadside shop and store, it seemed, stated their business on a sign about twenty feet up in the air, like all their customers were incredibly tall.
It struck a chord. I was a dedicated biker myself and had been so for far longer than I’d held a licence to drive a car. If bikers in the US were anything like they were in the UK then I might have found an ally.
I took a flyer, diving across the road and into the parking area without bothering to indicate as I did so. A driver coming the other way blared his horn and shook a desultory fist, but it was more force of habit than passion. The Buick pulled up a little further along on the other side of the road. The two men twisted in their seats and calmly waited to see what I was up to.
The business I’d picked looked run-down and slightly seedy, which was exactly what I’d been hoping for. There was no showroom as such, just a grubby workshop with a huge roller-shutter door to one side, halfway open. Stacks of rusting exhaust pipes decorated the entrance and all the windows had bars on them.
I jumped out of the Mercury and hurried into the workshop. The floor felt sticky underfoot and a hard rock station was playing on a slightly off-tune radio somewhere in the back. Two of the biggest guys I’ve ever seen were working on a stripped-down Electra-Glide with severe front-end damage, while three more blokes of equal size stood around and watched and drank beer.
They were discussing something that involved use of the word “fuck” at least twice every time they opened their mouths, and some of them were being monosyllabic. When they spotted me they shut up fast.
“Oh my God, do you have a phone?” I cried, racking an edge of hysteria into my voice as I rushed forward. “I need to call the cops. Oh God!”
“Yeah, we got a phone,” one of them said slowly, although his manner clearly said that fact didn’t mean I was going to get to use it. The others exchanged nervous glances at any mention of the law. “What’s the trouble?”
“They hit him and just never stopped!” I said, pressing my hands to my face. “I didn’t know what to do, and now I think they’re following me!”
“Who hit who?” asked the biggest guy of the bunch with mild interest, as though any fight he wasn’t personally involved in wasn’t high on his list.
“Two guys in a beige Buick,” I said. “They ran a red light and took out some poor guy on a Harley, just wiped him clean out. And they never even slowed down! I need to call the cops.”
The big guy forgot all about the next mouthful of beer he’d been just about to take from his long-neck bottle of Budweiser. Suddenly I had their utter and complete attention.
“A Harley?” he demanded. “What kinda Harley?”
“I don’t know,” I said, wringing my hands in a suitably girlie way. “It was just one of those big gorgeous bikes, you know?”
“It wasn’t kinda purple was it?” another of the group asked.
I made a show of deep thought, frowning. “Erm, yeah, it might have been.”
“Fuck,” the same man said, taking a step back and shaking his head like a dog coming out of water. “Must be Brad. He left here no more’n five minutes ago.”
“Is that the two sons of bitches over there?” growled the first guy, pointing to the car across the street.
“Oh my God, yes,” I said, feigning terror. “That’s them! They must know I saw the whole thing and I’m going to report them.”
“Don’t you worry none about the cops, lady,” said the big guy, carefully putting his Bud down and picking up a tyre iron. “You just leave ‘em to us.”
The five of them walked out of the workshop and headed straight for the two men in the Buick, uncaring of the traffic that squealed and swerved to avoid them. My pursuers took one look at the grim intent and the makeshift weaponry that was bearing down on them, and took off.
The gang ran back to the workshop and jumped onto the grubby assortment of bitsa bikes that were parked up outside, leaving me standing alone next to the Mercury. I watched them give chase until the Buick made a frantic right turn at the next signal and the convoy disappeared from view.
“There’s one thing you can say about us bikers,” I murmured to myself. “When the shit hits the fan we certainly stick together.”
Then I got back into my car, pulled out in the opposite direction and headed sedately back to the diner.
***
I found Trey elevated to a stool at the counter, recounting a frankly ludicrous story about the fantastic exploits of his recently deceased mythical dog. He had Joyce, another of the waitresses, and two of the other customers as his audience. I walked in on the tail end of it and had to suppress a wince at the sheer lack of believability.
Joyce’s expression when she caught sight of me showed she clearly knew something was amiss with the whole setup, even if her younger workmate was proving more gullible. When he realised I was standing behind him Trey bounced out of his seat and shut up, looking more than a little guilty.
I slipped Joyce a tip out of all proportion to the cost of the food Trey had managed to consume in the time I’d been away. She tucked the folded bill away into the pocket of her apron so fast it was almost sleight of hand, but her face stayed cool.
“So, what’s up?” Trey demanded as we walked out of the diner. “You went home, yeah? Is Dad OK?”
I didn’t trust myself to answer him until I’d unlocked the car and we were back inside, then my temper
