– Fucking car is for getting out of, fuck-face.
Bolo’s hand is hooked in the bag’s strap and we juggle the bag a little over Roman’s back as he starts to rise with the key. Bud gets pinched and lashes out with the claws of his right paw, catching Bolo on the thumb.
– Fuck!
I take hold of the bag as he jerks back his arm to stick the thumb in his mouth and his elbow clips Roman hard on the back of the neck.
– Fucking cat!
– Fuck-face, out!
Roman is knocked down, almost doubled over. He pulls himself quickly upright and something is jarred from his coat pocket and drops to the ground with a sound somewhere between a clank and a thump. We both stand there, staring down at the brass knuckles as if they were the ace of spades fallen from the sleeve of a gambler just as he was pushing away from the table with his winnings.
Those bruises on her neck.
Behind me, a balloon pops.
We all watch as Whitey walks back toward us still holding the bottle, but no longer carrying the gun. With his right hand, he points at a dark splotch on the collar of his shiny white Nike jacket. We are frozen. He reaches us, and we see that the finger is not pointing but is jammed up to the second knuckle in the hole Russ shot in his neck with the.22 I left for him on the cracked foam rubber front seat of the Celica.
Nobody moves except Whitey, who walks slowly to Roman’s car and climbs in the backseat. He sits there, plugging the hole in his neck with his finger, takes a long slug of vodka, and weeps silently.
Roman reaches inside his jacket for his gun. Bolo does the same with his free hand, keeping his injured thumb in his mouth. I turn back toward the Celica as Russ rises from the driver’s seat with the little chrome pistol in his right hand and Whitey’s machine pistol in his left. I am ten yards from the car. I start running, Bud clutched to my chest.
Russ pulls the trigger on the machine gun. He’s unprepared for the force of the blow-back and the gun leaps upward, dragging his hand in a high arc and spraying the sky with bullets. Behind me, I hear two scrambling thumps as Roman and Bolo hit the dirt. I’ve gone two yards.
Something explodes behind me and a mini shock wave hums past my right hip. A hole appears in the Celica’s left fender. Izig hard to the right, trying to clear Russ’s firing line as he brings the machine gun back to shoulder level. He pulls the trigger again. He’s ready this time and bullets rip up the tarmac just behind me. He fires a short burst and re-aims. I’m accelerating. Six yards covered.
I’m approaching the car from the driver’s side and Russ is blocking the door. Russ fires again and I can’t keep from looking back. Roman and Bolo are frozen, facedown on the road. A patch of chewed-up tarmac appears a few feet from them and stretches toward them and stops just short of their heads as the gun’s clip goes empty. Russ drops the machine pistol and takes aim with the.22.Ten yards.
I try to stop, and instead I skid on the gravel scattered over the road. I plow into Russ just as he squeezes off all five rounds left in the.22. He’s thrown sideways by my impact and the bullets fly into some bushes by the side of the road. There’s no time to circle the car. I start shoving him in through the driver’s-side door, pushing him all the way over to the passenger’s seat. I’m piling in behind him, trying to get Bud’s bag into his lap as I settle into the driver’s seat, reach to turn the key, and grab a handful of loose wires.
– FUCK, RUSS!
– What?
– THE CAR, HOW DO I START THE FUCKING CAR?
Out on the road, Roman and Bolo are peeking out from behind their hands, which are covering their faces. Russ reaches over to the steering column, grabs the two wires he exposed before and starts scraping them together. Roman and Bolo get to their feet. The Celica is making sounds like it wants to start, but it won’t turn over.
Roman looks around at his feet, bends over and picks up his gun from where he dropped it when Russ started shooting. Bolo walks slowly toward us, his left thumb in his mouth and a 9 mm dangling casually from his right hand. Behind him Roman is trying to aim at us, but Bolo is in his way.
The Celica goes WAH-WAH-WAH!
Bolo walks up to the front of the car and starts to raise his pistol. Roman is moving a few steps to his right, looking for a clean shot. The engine catches, but the clutch is out.
The Celica leaps forward in little hops and slams Bolo in the knees, folding him over the hood. I stomp on the floor, trying to find the clutch. Russ holds Bud, pressed tightly against his neck. Roman gets off a shot, but our motion spoils it and he takes out the side window behind me. I get my foot on the clutch pedal. The engine coughs andrecatches. Bolo is on the hood.
I let the clutch out and hammer down on the gas. Gravel spits out behind us and the rear end fishtails and Bolo slides off the hood. The tires catch traction and we jet forward. I cram it into second and aim for Roman, ten yards away. He doesn’t bother with another shot but dives out of the way as I crash through the bushes and around his car. I jump us back onto the access road and put it in third as we race down the road toward the pier and the FDR on-ramp.
I spare a glance to check Russ. He’s sideways in the seat and getting himself straightened out, all the while holding Bud close. I look back at the road.
– Russ.
– Yeah?
– Put on your seat belt.
– Sure.
In the rearview, I see Roman getting his car turned around to come after us.
Driving, itseems, is like riding a bike: you never forget. The wheel feels good in my hands, my feet find the pedals with ease and I flip the shift knob from gear to gear until it’s in fourth. I cannot deny my true nature. I am a Californian. And just like every true Californian, I like to drive. Christ, I love to drive.
The Celica is a beige hatchback about fifteen or twenty years old. It has some problems. The wheel has an inch of play in either direction, the alignment pulls slightly to the right, it has no power or acceleration, the tires are bald and the brakes are mushy. Still, it should be much quicker in the corners than Roman’s big-block cop sedan. That would help if there were any corners here. The access road is just one long straightaway back to the gate and Roman is already right behind me, trying to stick his car’s nose up my ass and nudge me off the road.
The kids on the diamond are lining up at the chain link to watch as we blow past. Most of the pedestrians are along the water side of the park, but a few are scattered on the road. I shift my right hand toward the center of thewheel, jam my thumb down on the horn. My high beams are on and ahead of me it looks like clear sailing. The car lurches as Roman slams into the rear bumper.
The wheel jumps a bit in my hand and we swerve to the left. We glance off a park bench and bounce back to the center of the road. I get control and slam the gas pedal back to the floor. Roman drops back for a second to see what will happen,then he’s right back on us. Next to me, Russ has his legs jacked out straight in from of him like he’s trying to hit an imaginary brake pedal. His right hand is frozen around the “Oh, my God!” strap and he’s holding Bud with his left.
– Hank?
I keep my eyes on the road.
– Yeah?
– I don’t want to be a backseat driver, butya know this thing does, like, have a fifth gear.
Shit!
I hit fifth and we pull away smoothly. It won’t last. Just ahead the Williamsburg Bridge cuts the sky above us. Below it, running parallel to the big bridge, the DelanceyStreet footbridge crosses the FDR and drops its ramp smack into the middle of the access road. There’s space to go around on either side, but it looks a lot smaller going out at seventy than it did coming in at fifteen.
Roman taps us again and I veer slightly left. He guns it and pushes up alongside us on the right. I edge farther to the left, trying to line up with the thin space between the foot ramp and the row of lampposts along the road there. I’d like to spare a look for Roman, but the play in the wheel is giving me fits. Never fear. He reminds me of his presence by giving us another shove before peeling off right to line up with the gap on that side of the ramp.
