Authors: Tom Piccirilli
Flynn ran to the Dodge, got in, keyed it and felt the rush of power as the engine kicked over with a silky throaty growl. The car was in his blood, and his blood was in the car. He realized with only a touch of muted regret and surprise that he loved the Charger more than he had loved anyone in his life since Danny.
He eased it into reverse and hauled out of the parking spot, aiming for where the black blur had slid away. He wasn’t worried or anxious. His pulse remained steady, his head clear. He pressed on the gas and bolted through the blizzard, aware of every element around him.
A couple of kids were playing in the yard diagonal from the parking lot exit. Behind him, his front door remained open. Emma Waltz was no longer on the floor. Her blue ’89 Capri blew out a cloud of burning oil smoke as she started it up. He thought, There she goes, I’ll never see her again.
He had questions but they were in the background, quietly whispering. How’d Emma become involved? How had she been talked into handing Flynn the note? Why would she bother, what was she expecting? She had said something to him that might’ve been his name but he couldn’t be certain.
Flynn hit the street and saw a black, souped ’67 GTO hauling ass west, heading parallel to the service road of the Southern State Parkway. Flynn couldn’t make out much in the whirling snow but he could hear it had a quadrijet four-barrel carburetor, 389 Ran Air engine, much quieter than the ’66 Tri-power with its distinctive sound and fury. The enemy was showing Flynn that he had a car with muscle but was smart enough to park in the distance and come in almost silently. Sharp enough to weave his way into Flynn’s past and trick Emma Waltz. The shadow in the blizzard had heard her voice and Flynn still hadn’t.
He was chasing himself, another version of himself. A guy who had put a lot of time and money and love into a muscle car to prove he could be gentle with something carrying a lot of action and style. The car was covered in ice but Flynn could clearly see it had been well waxed. It shone. It burned black. Hours of elbow grease and ten chamoises had gone into it. So much love.
They tore along the streets in tandem, Flynn following at a nice easy pace, pouring it on when the Goat tried to make a break for it, twining along.
The roads, slick with ice and snow, tried to shake them both loose. Flynn skidded and slid whenever he had to hit the brake and ease into a turn as they jockeyed to the parkway. There was so little traffic out that it seemed the world had folded up and hitched back to the sidelines, everyone standing there in the wings waving little American flags as the Charger and Goat sped by, clocking another lap.
Zero leaped into the passenger seat, stood on his hind legs and perched himself on the dash, staring out as the wipers whipped to clear the snow.
He said, “You’ll never catch him.”
“He’s already caught.”
“You sound like an idiot when you say things like that.”
“You’re an irritating little shit, you know that?”
“Yes,” the dead French bulldog admitted.
The Goat roared up to the entrance of the parkway. Flynn wondered if he wanted to try for it and got up to within two car lengths, struggling to see the driver. In the back window he thought he could make out the barrel of a rifle. The Goat swerved as if to hit the parkway ramp, started to pull out and then dug back in, slewing slush across the Dodge’s hood. Flynn had a fair idea what kind of stunt was coming next as the Goat tried to shake him.
The bad boy was a runner. He didn’t have the chops for serious driving. He was trying to make up for in nerve what he lacked in skill. Flynn put it together and could see what kind of stupid move the driver was going to make next even before he did it.
“Here we go,” Flynn said.
Zero went, “I’m still dead, it doesn’t matter to me.”
“Glad to fuckin’ hear it.”
“You’re still dead too, don’t forget.”
“Hey, Little Mr. Ray of Sunshine, you ever have anything nice to say?”
“I hear the Jets are only two games out, that’s pretty good.”
The Goat peeled away from the ramp, crossed the ice-choked curb and barreled across the broad expanse of deep snow piled on the median, churning west along the eastbound shoulder of the Southern State. Flynn shook his head and gave a disgusted smile. He pulled hard on the steering wheel and followed, the Charger jouncing wildly as the tires slammed across the brittle layers of ice-covered grass bordered by mountainous snow piled up by the plows.
All the traffic that had been held at bay on the side streets swarmed the parkway. Rush-hour traffic, everyone heading back from the city. Behind the shattered, dirty peaks and buttes Flynn saw cars whipping by in the opposite direction. In less than a mile the Goat would come to the first bridge and have nowhere to go except crash through the piled snow and hit the parkway straight into oncoming traffic.
The other driver knew it. Flynn could feel him worrying up there but enjoying the chance to go out head-on. Flynn sort of liked the idea too. Zero showed his fangs and said, “I always knew it would come to this. He didn’t have to take you out. You were bound to do it to yourself sooner or later.”
“What do we care, right?”
“Right.”
The blizzard grew worse Flynn stomped the gas, the tires sliding and the back end wagging and fishtailing. He had to hold the wheel tightly to keep from flipping over. The channel tightened and the midnight road loomed ahead.
Fuck it. Back into the freeze.
TWENTY-THREE
You had to give the enemy some credit, he had balls. Just because he was insane and a killer didn’t mean he was suicidal, so it took a lot of guts to twist the wheel and pancake out onto the parkway, crossing two lanes thick with traffic. The bridge loomed above them.
The Goat hit his horn and blasted through the three-foot-high wall of packed snow and ice, caromed off the back corner of a Ford pickup, and wriggled toward the median. Cars slammed into one another with heavy metal crunches and thunks. Horns blared but only few panicked enough to dare hit their brakes at such high speeds. There were a couple of fishtails but most cars just coasted and bumped one another, thumping along.
The GTO hopped up over the opposite curb, bottomed out on the cement median but managed to shake loose.
Traffic in the westbound side saw him coming and slowed up, skidding and sliding and also doing a little banging and bouncing but able to make a hole for the Goat to clamber into. It was some very nifty driving by everyone involved.
Flynn wasn’t so lucky.
He couldn’t loop the Charger through the same hole in the wall of plowed snow because the traffic had slowed down and backed up, covering his outlet. He had to floor it or he wouldn’t be able to bust through the ice.
Zero said, “You know, I think you ask for it.”
“I don’t believe I do.”
“You just want to be dead.”
“Not so. Any suggestions?”
“Did you pray last time?”
“No.”
“Then don’t do it now either.”
“Sounds good to me.”
He jammed the gas, got up some speed, then slammed on the brakes. He saw an old Buick and aimed for it. There was a lot of Detroit steel in that baby. The Charger ripped through the snow and ice and the front end slammed hard into the side of the Buick, both vehicles pushing over onto the median. Flynn couldn’t even see the driver through all the snow built up on the passenger window of the car.
The whole day seemed very muffled. Nobody was screaming. It felt like this had been rehearsed many times before until now the moment had come to do it for real. Traffic had stopped for him. He backed up and saw he hadn’t damaged the Buick that much. The rear passenger door was severely dented but Buicks were built like tanks and could take a little smashing. The driver was out, his face twisted in an expression of disbelief. Flynn rolled his window down and said, “You all right?”
“Yeah.”
“You alone in there?”
“Yes! I need your insurance. The hell is going on? Who are you people?”
“CPS!”
“What’s CPS? That a delivery service?”
Flynn backed up but was stuck on the median. The opposite lanes of traffic were rubbernecking, watching him. He couldn’t tell where the Goat was, but he still had time, he knew he could still make it, if only he could get off the cement.
“Get out of the way,” Flynn told the other driver.
“What?”
“Move!”
“I need your insurance!”
“Get the fuck out of the way!”
“I’m suing CPS!”
Flynn threw the Charger into drive and jammed the gas, the back tires wheezing and the Dodge scuttling for purchase on the ice. He pushed the Buick a couple inches farther up onto the divider. He wasn’t going to make it. What a ridiculous situation to be in, wiped out in the middle of the parkway with maybe a thousand people staring at him, having no idea what was going on and not caring, hardly bothered at all. But nobody moving.
Even the guy getting his car fucked up didn’t seem to give that much of a damn. He just stood there watching, his hands in tiny fists. What the hell had happened to New Yorkers?
Furious, Flynn kept grinding gears into reverse, into first, third, fourth, trying to rock himself free. All that bodywork and he’d messed the Charger up again. The front end mangled, one headlight smashed, the hood twisted. That was all right, he’d fix it. The back left tire started to catch. He reversed and spun, threw it into second, caught a little more, reversed and spun. He flipped the steering wheel hard and to the left, finally got enough ground under him to move, swung around the Buick and floored it across the iced divider.
Rubberneckers had been watching him, curious and amazed. Only a few cars were still moving with any speed. Flynn slid into traffic among them, barely avoiding getting wrecked by an SUV riding up hard on him. That was all right, he was in control. Nothing could stop him now. He sat there with his face blank but smiling a little madly on the inside.
“He’s heading for the Robert Moses Causeway,” Zero said.
“Yeah,” Flynn said. “The beach.”
The water, everyone always had to run to the water. Maybe we all still had some lemming DNA tucked away in our double helices.
Zero lay there with his nose nuzzled between his front paws, staring at Flynn the same way he had the night they’d drowned. Flynn felt it again, the water rising over the dog’s nose, the eyes on him, the cold clenching his heart.
Zero said, “You’re going to lose him.”
“I’m not going to lose him.”
“Yes, you are. You want to.”
“No fuckin’ way.”
“You want him to come at you again and finish the job.”
“If I die, what happens to you?”
“We’re both already dead, I just happen to be wise enough to know it.”
“No kibbles for you tonight, Fido.”
“There’s only hell. No purgatory. No paradise. Only hell.”
“I’m wise enough to know that.”
He hit the southbound exit and slid over the curb, heading back into the snow but compensating, coming off the loop doing nearly sixty as he tore for the Robert Moses Bridge. He wondered if the shadow in the blizzard was really going to do it, go to the beach, or whether he’d try to make it to the Ocean Parkway and head west, try to shake Flynn and gun for the Wantagh or the Meadow-brook.
Flynn saw the lights of the Goat up ahead and stamped the pedal even harder. The GTO had slowed because of the miserable driving conditions. Things were even worse here on the water. The snow swung in off the ocean winds and pounded down, relentless and diamond-needle-tipped.
They made the bridge with hardly any visibility at all. The Goat’s brake lights burned red. He was slowing. He was scared. Flynn was ecstatic.
Zero said, “Wouldn’t it be ironic if you went off the bridge and hit the water again and died pretty much like your own brother did, like you did, in the same car—”
“No, it wouldn’t be.”
“He’s trying for the Ocean Parkway.”
“He won’t get the chance.”
The Charger roared up behind the Goat and Flynn bucked the rear bumper. He closed in on the passenger side, trying to block the driver’s escape onto the next exit. They were going too fast to make it anyway. From here on out it was nothing but off-roading and family beaches and frozen inlets where the old men liked to go ice fishing.
The Goat blasted off the road toward one of the parking fields for Robert Moses beach. He hit the toll and smashed the semaphore arm. Flynn was riding his tail but the shattered wood came up off the back of the GTO, landed on the Charger’s hood and bounced into the windshield. Heavy cracks appeared, and the windshield wipers got stuck in the down position, hung up on the thick wood splinters.
In seconds Flynn couldn’t see much of anything at all and he veered left toward the bathrooms and snack bar area on the far side of the lot, hoping he could find some cover. He rolled down the driver’s window and stuck his head out, knowing he’d already made a mistake by slowing down, giving the other driver the opportunity to pull over and get the rifle out.