of shit. Even after you screwed my wife, I let you live. But you gotta go fucking around with the Indians and the geologists. You stupid fuck, I would have dealt with you. You didn’t have to go public.”
“It was the only way to stop you,” I said softly from the backseat.
“Once you knew about the oil, you could have come to me. I would have cut you in.”
“I didn’t want a piece of your action. I wanted you.”
“Fine. You got me, pal. You got me good. Fifteen years of work down the drain. A lifetime of plans. Now what the fuck am I going to do with you?”
“Turn me over to Socolow,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll do that,” he said. In the rearview mirror, I saw him smile, or at least bare his teeth. “In pieces.”
“After what I’ve been through, you think you can scare me, Nicky?”
“Who gives a shit about scaring you when I can kill you?”
He swung the Bentley onto a gravel road. Diaz kept the gun leveled at me. The muddy bank of a canal rose above us on our left. Stalks of sugarcane towered over the car on our right. I had the claustrophobic sense of being in a tunnel. The sky was filled with black smoke, portions of the cane fields being scorched prior to harvesting. The fire burns off the undergrowth and much of the unwanted leaves, leaving the hard-husked cane intact. The air smelled sweet, like summer corn on the grill.
“Your face is going to be on the evening news,” I said. I imitated his voice. “‘You sneaky bird-dogging son of a bitch, I’m gonna kill you.’ How would it look if I turn up dead?”
“Maybe you won’t turn up at all. Maybe you get buried under twenty tons of dirt.” He looked toward the bank of the canal. “Hey, Guillermo, we got any shovels in the trunk?”
“No, boss, just a tire jack.”
“Shit!”
Florio was quiet a moment as the car crunched along on the gravel road. He seemed to be thinking of what to do with me. Killing was easy. Disposing of the body was hard.
“We got a camera back there?” Florio asked.
“Don’t think so, boss.”
“Shit! Jake here likes to take pictures, don’t you, lover boy? Wouldn’t mind taking one home to Gina, maybe Jake’s dick stuffed in his mouth like a cigar.”
“Or a salami,” I said.
“You think this is funny, asshole? I’m gonna watch you die.”
“Nicky, think it over. It’s too late. You can’t kill me now. I was seen leaving the gym with your hired hand here. You just threatened me on videotape. Abe Socolow’s figured out you’re a scumbag and would love to bust you. Face it, Nicky. The game’s over. Why make it tougher on yourself?”
“Because I owe you, big time, and because I can’t have you testifying about Rick Gondolier. Face it, I can’t afford to let you live, even if I wanted to, and guess what, pal, I don’t want to…”
I heard it then, the roar of the engine. At first, I thought it was a piece of equipment in the cane field, a harvester maybe.
“…So what are your odds, Lassiter, six-to-five against?”
Then I saw it, above us, dipping down for a closer look. The helicopter with Hank Scourby at the controls. Florio saw it, too, and instinctively hit the brakes. “What the hell!”
“Even money,” I said.
The copter hovered in front of us, dropping to just a few feet above our roof.
“This guy a friend of yours, Lassiter?” Florio yelled, jamming the accelerator to the floor. We bounced through puddles and potholes, my head hitting the ceiling. The copter hung there in front of us.
Over the noise of the copter and the racing car engine, I barely heard it. Not as much pop as a firecracker, the first gunshot missed. The second one pinged off the hood, and Florio nearly lost control, swerving toward the canal bank, then across the road toward the cane field, before straightening the wheel. I looked up, and there was Hank Scourby, door open, leaning out with his. 44 Magnum, blasting away.
The next shot missed, then another ricocheted off the trunk. Finally, one squarely hit the front windshield, splintering it into a spider’s web of fissures. Again, the Bentley swerved, but Florio kept driving, and the copter stayed with us.
Diaz lowered his window, stuck the. 38 out, and fired two rounds toward the copter. He didn’t appear to hit anything. He took a look at me, poked the gun out the window again, and I turned toward him. In a flash, the gun was in my face, the barrel pushing at my cheekbone.
“You want to try something, abogado?”
I shook my head, no.
Florio slowed down as the black smoke became thicker. The burning leaves now saturated the air, black papery cinders swirling in the breeze. Inside the car, the smell of the cordite combined with the sickly sweetness of the fire. Suddenly, Florio hit the brakes and slid to a stop. The copter wasn’t visible. We were engulfed by clouds of smoke. Waves of heat from the blazing fields poured over us.
“If we can’t see him, he can’t see us,” Florio said. “But we gotta get off this road.”
We sat a minute, maybe more. Then I heard it again, growing louder. As it drew closer, the smoke was beaten away by the rotor. Suddenly, a clang from above. Scourby had set the copter down on top of the car. Now he was bashing our roof in.
Up, down, bam, bang. Twice more.
I slumped lower in the seat. Again, Florio hit the gas and took off, the copter in pursuit.
“There, boss.” Diaz was pointing at what looked like a dirt path coming out of the cane field. It connected with the gravel road at a right angle.
Florio swung the wheel to the right and slid onto the path. It was narrower than the Bentley. We careened through the burning field, the car knocking down cane stalks with a whackety-whack, the wheels spinning in the soft earth. Singed leaves were plastered to our splintered windshield, smoke curling around us. The helicopter was nowhere to be seen, or heard.
Florio slowed as we entered a canebrake. In a moment, we were in an adjacent field. Here there was no fire, and the earth was soggy. Twice, our rear wheels spun helplessly, whining in the mud, but Florio kept the car moving, fishtailing his way onto firmer ground. Now, I saw them, a legion of cutters in tattered khaki work clothes and bandannas, wiry, dark-skinned men swinging machetes at the base of the stalks, cutting and gathering the cane. They wore shin protectors and thick Kevlar gloves like a platoon of hockey goalies. Hanging from their belts were flasks of energy-laced “petrol,” a high-calorie brew of beer, sugar, and eggs. As we approached, they stopped and stared in wonder as our battered English sedan invaded their territory.
Again, we emerged into a clearing, and still we drove on. This time I saw the copter before I heard it.
Straight ahead.
Half a mile in front of us.
No more than ten feet off the ground, and aimed straight for us.
Hank Scourby was playing chicken with Nicky Florio. I didn’t know who was crazier.
“Son of a bitch!” Florio cried out.
The copter dropped a couple of feet lower. On this path, its struts would come right through our windshield. Florio floored it, and we bounced through the mud on a collision course. At the last moment, with the roar of the car’s engine lost in the drone of the copter, Florio swung it hard right, toward one of the burning cane fields, and we skidded and bounced over a muddy incline, the car flipping onto its side, tumbling me into Guillermo Diaz. The car continued its slide through the flaming brush, mowing down a row of cane, finally rolling onto its dented roof and slowing to a clunking, thudding halt.
I was upside down. My neck was twisted sideways, my head pressed against the ceiling, and my ears ringing. I hadn’t felt like this since an offensive lineman grabbed my face mask and twisted my head around like Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist. Now my shoulder was squeezed against the door, and the backseat was a jumble of arms and legs: Diaz’s and mine. I untangled my legs from his, and he screamed in pain. Then he moaned softly, “Mis piernas tienen fracturas, mis piernas estan rotas.” I groped for his gun, but I couldn’t find it.
In the front seat, Florio was cursing. I heard glass tinkling. Florio was hanging on to the steering wheel but was upside down. He scrunched his neck and turned to face me. His face was studded with glass, rivulets of blood
