Part 6 (1/2)

The newspapers had been a lucky break, he thought. Per horseplayer calculus, that severely diminished the chances of another lucky break, and it was hard to imagine escaping the Dodge, let alone lasting the night, without another half-dozen lucky breaks. As the horseplayers say, 'Luck never gives; she only lends.'

'Go right at Fillmore,' Drummond said. 'I have an idea.'

Charlie took the sharp right from Flatbush onto Fillmore Avenue, requiring that he not turn the wheel so much as wrestle centrifugal force for control of the truck. The axles and tires moaned, and it felt like the Hippo might split in two, with the cargo hold continuing down Flatbush on its own afterward. The whole of the vehicle careened onto Fillmore without harm, save to Charlie's digestion.

Fillmore was a narrow, single lane through shuttered warehouses, or, as Charlie saw it, one big shooting alley. Without the cargo door, all they had to protect them from bullets was the cab's very penetrable rear wall.

What the h.e.l.l was Drummond thinking?

Charlie opened his mouth to ask when the side mirror again filled with a muzzle flash. A bullet pounded through the cargo hold wall and ricocheted around like a hornet.

The Dodge sped to within a half block behind them. The gunman leaned out of the pa.s.senger window for a better shot.

'How's that idea going?' Charlie asked.

'Stop at the red.' Drummond pointed at the traffic light dangling ahead.

'The rule is except when someone is shooting you!'

'Simple tactic. Listen, and we'll lose them.' Drummond sounded intrepid and full of conviction. Like Patton*or at least unlike anything Charlie had ever heard from his father or thought within his range.

And it steadied Charlie. He threw the gears.h.i.+ft into neutral and pressed the brake. The truck slid, tires grating against the street and sending a whiff of rubber into the cab. They came to a halt on the crosswalk at the intersection with busy Utica Avenue.

'Now get ready to turn right when I say so,' Drummond said.

Charlie clocked the steering wheel and tightened his sweaty grip on the gears.h.i.+ft k.n.o.b.

A block to the left, on Utica Avenue, a green light loosed a herd of traffic led by an eighteen-wheel tractor trailer.

The Dodge, meanwhile, glided to a stop five or six car lengths behind the Hippo, close enough that Charlie could see the face of the man in the pa.s.senger seat*so mild mannered in appearance that hope flickered in Charlie that this was all some sort of misunderstanding about to be resolved.

With a grin, the man stuck his pistol out of his window and fired. Now that the vehicles were in idle, the report was earsplitting.

The round blew another hole in the cab's rear wall, buzzed past Charlie's right ear, and, on its way out of the cab, created a small cavity in the ceiling. Heart bouncing around inside his rib cage, he shoved the gears.h.i.+ft into first.

'Not until I say so,' Drummond barked.

'But*'

'Just hold on.'

The Dodge's driver rolled down his window. He was a fair-complexioned young man with hard eyes and thin bloodless lips set too tight to smile. He balanced his pistol atop the lowered gla.s.s. His shot pinged the doorframe by Drummond's head, creating a starburst. Drummond eyed it with an almost mocking indifference.

'Okay, we've held on long enough,' Charlie couldn't help shouting.

'Just a few more seconds.' Drummond pointed to the dense traffic rumbling along Utica from the left, led by the eighteen-wheeler.

The Dodge rolled closer, and another booming shot punched into the rear wall of the cab, creating a hole just inches left of Drummond's chest. The air filled with grainy orange haze that smelled of salt, the remains of a bag of corn chips on top of the dash.

The eighteen-wheeler rumbled to within a half block of the intersection. Any more time and the traffic would be in front of the Hippo, effectively turning Fillmore into a dead end.

'How about now?' Charlie meant the question to be rhetorical.

'Almost,' said Drummond, fixating on the eighteen-wheeler.

Bullets rained against the Hippo. The smoke and the ear-wrecking reports and echoes made it feel like being inside a thunderhead.

'Go!' Drummond shouted through it all.

Charlie released the clutch and crushed the gas. With tires screaming, the Hippo bombed onto Utica. Its back end barely missed the eighteen-wheeler's front fender.

The truck driver reflexively slammed on his brakes, sending his gargantuan vehicle into an abrupt, sliding deceleration. All sound was lost beneath the howl of his eighteen tires.

To avoid rear-ending him, the young woman driving the Honda Accord darted to the right, into a lane that was parking s.p.a.ces by day.

The trailer jackknifed right, filling that lane too. The Accord came to a shrieking stop a foot short of a collision.

The teal Dodge, flying onto Utica, needed to pa.s.s the Accord. To the left was the jackknifed trailer. To the right, the sidewalk. The Dodge leaped onto the sidewalk, a viable byway, if not for the streetlamp the driver had no way of seeing. With a deafening thunk, it stopped the Dodge dead.

In the remains of Drummond's side mirror, Charlie saw the streetlamp protruding from the teal hood like a stake. Much of the car was accordioned. Inside, the gunmen angrily swatted aside swollen air bags.

Exultant, Charlie said, 'I hope that streetlamp is okay.'

Gunning the Hippo away, he watched until the gunmen were specks. Left behind with them was his last shred of doubt about Drummond's claim. In place of it came awe and a thousand questions he was dying to ask.

'So now what?' he said for starters.

'This may have something to do with work,' Drummond said.

Against a new tide of panic, Charlie said, 'I know, I know*you work for the government. Clandestine operations.' He rushed his words to make use of Drummond's last bits of light. 'I need to know where exactly?'

Drummond sat up again. He eyed the bullet hole in the ceiling.

'I hope it doesn't rain,' he said.

Part Two

Secrets of Appliance Sales

1.

Fielding met Alice under strange circ.u.mstances. Alice under strange circ.u.mstances.