Vigilante

fucking manual.

I tried to gather my wits. After a few more minutes, I pinned down what was familiar about this particular location. It had a bloody ten-year history.

The railroad intersection with San Fernando and Buena Vista Street in Burbank had produced a number of fatal collisions with the Metrolink. The cops called it the Death Crossing. In the past few years, there’d been twelve train hits on cars at this spot. The intersection was formed like a Y, which made it hard to see up the tracks when you merge from the left. The crossing was equipped with the normal array of warning lights and crossing guards, but the lights face south and are not easily seen by cars crossing the tracks from San Fernando Boulevard on the east. According to half a dozen lawsuits filed against the City of Burbank and the Metrolink, it’s possible to make a turn onto the tracks before the metallic crossing guard drops and you can see the flashing lights that warn you a train is coming. Because of this flaw, cars have become trapped on the tracks, unable to get off. Several deaths have resulted from train hits at this spot in the last three years. Because the crossing meets all of the NTSB technical and safety requirements, to date the Metrolink and the city have won each lawsuit. As a result, the intersection has yet to be redesigned.

It didn’t take much deduction for me to realize that Marcia and I were about to become the next fatalities.

There would be no prolonged investigation into our deaths. Probably no autopsy, as Nix had suggested. It would be assumed that we were just the next two unfortunate motorists to die here.

We would be victims of a tragic mistake in engineering. It would be covered by the news but dispatched with quickly.

CHAPTER 47

Lee Bob looked at his watch, then got out of the car, opened the back door, and lifted Marcia out. He put her in the passenger seat, then came around to get me. He lifted me up with almost no effort and carried me to the driver’s side of the Cad, shoving me behind the wheel beside Marcia.

It’s hard on a man’s self-image to be lifted, then carried around and dumped like so much garbage.

“Da gran reve pesant, cher,” he said, looking at Marcia. “Da loup- garot, ca arrive.”

Then Lee Bob pulled out a vial of clear fluid and poured it on a rag.

He grabbed me by the neck and pulled me toward him, covering my nose and mouth with the cloth for the second time. He held it there until I began to lose consciousness, then pulled the rag quickly back. I was still awake but totally paralyzed. He reached across me and did the same to Marcia.

We were still parked in the dirt lot on a slight rise when I saw the headlight from the approaching Metro train. It rounded into view a mile away, coming toward us at over sixty miles an hour.

Lee Bob shoved me over, then crowded behind the wheel and started the car. I could see the train barreling down the tracks toward us. At sixty miles an hour, that would put it at the intersection in about a minute. Lee Bob had the car moving and was heading toward the track. It wasn’t even going to be close. He was going to beat the train by at least twenty seconds.

He pulled the Cad around the corner on San Fernando and drove it up onto the tracks just as the signal lights started flashing and the guard arm dropped both in front and behind us. Then he scrambled out of the front seat, pulled a thin curved knife from a scabbard on his belt, and slashed the fishing line holding my hands and feet. He did the same with Marcia.

“Bonne chance,” he said, then slammed the door and sprinted off the track. I could feel the car shuddering with the vibrations of the approaching train. The red lights across the street from us were clanging, the bar arm lights flashing. I was unable to move.

Marcia was staring dumbly up the tracks at the approaching train. We were both trying to claw at the door handles to get out but had no strength to accomplish it.

Then the headlights swept around the last bend in the track and the train was bearing down on us from less than a block away. The engineer saw us and started leaning on the horn. He was going way too fast. The train whistle kept blaring as the white headlamp on the lead car wigwagged back and forth, strobing the car as the train thundered toward us.

We sat there, staring helplessly, watching the end of our lives approach at breakneck speed.

CHAPTER 48

I’ve heard that at the moment of death your life will sometimes pass before your eyes as a series of living tableaus. As I stared in terror at the approaching train, I had no retrospective vision-no precious insights. I was just sitting there, unable to move, locked in full panic. The only thing that kept running through my brain was, This can’t be happening.

The train whistle blared relentlessly now less than a hundred yards away as a hundred and fifty tons of metal and glass bore down on us. The brakes were shrieking as they locked up on the track, throwing out sparks on both sides. Metal squealed against metal. We were seconds from impact.

First I heard the crossing guard arm behind us shatter. Then our car was hit from behind. As Marcia and I were thrown forward the airbags deployed. Next we were being pushed violently across the intersection and off the tracks. The nose of the Cad hit the crossing arm on the opposite side of the intersection, broke through it, and kept going.

Once the Cadillac broke through the guard arm, the tires cramped and it brodied right, spinning sideways. For a second I could see out the driver’s side window. A gray Navigator with smoked windows was behind us, powering us off the tracks. As we skidded sideways, the big SUV turned sharply with us and both vehicles barely cleared the rails. Seconds later the Metrolink flashed past.

The door to the Navigator opened and Lester Madrid climbed out. Leaving his cane behind, he limped quickly over to us and opened the car door. He pulled me from the front seat and laid me on the ground. Next he limped around to the passenger side to free Marcia. As he pulled her out, the train was still screeching by, trying to stop, but it was going so fast it would keep going for almost two more blocks. All I could see was the taillight as it finally came to a halt almost a quarter mile away.

I struggled to sit up. My head was spinning. Lester came back around the car and looked at me with disgust.

“I can’t believe I’m down to rescuing ass-wipe pussies like you,” he growled.

“Help me up,” I said.

He pulled me to my feet, and as soon as he did I started teetering. I felt a mile tall and six inches wide. I swayed and finally leaned against the Cad, trying to keep from falling down.

Marcia was lying on the grass on the far side of the road. She was beginning to regain some coordination and was struggling to get to her feet. She couldn’t make it but managed to prop herself up in a sitting position with her arms out behind her.

“Who parked you up there?” Lester asked. I couldn’t answer, so he went on. “I’ve been following you for two fucking days, Scully. How did you miss me? You should work on getting your head out of your ass.”

“Lee Bob Batiste. We need to get him, Les. He killed Lita.”

“Come on,” he said. “I saw where he went.”

Lester helped me into the front seat of the Navigator and then pulled Marcia to her feet and helped her into the seat behind.

I heard some train crewmen running toward us, their footsteps crunching the gravel beside the tracks as they approached. Lester got behind the wheel, slammed the door, and swung a U.

“Hey!” somebody yelled. “Come back! Where you going?!”

But Lester already had the Navigator in a smoking turn and squealed it back up and across the tracks.