Chaingang

32

WATERTON

If Royce's fears alone had been ruling him, it might have ended differently, but he was bone-weary. He just couldn't go through the long hassle of driving all the way out Market to the back road, taking another twenty minutes of driving to get to Whitetail Pond, especially tonight, with the headlight glare as blinding as he could remember seeing it. Maybe he needed glasses for night driving—or perhaps he was just more tired than he had realized.

He decided to take Cotton to W.W. south, and that was how they picked him up. The car must have come fishtailing all over W.W. when it pulled out, which in fact is how he happened to notice it, headlights all over the highway in his rearview, coming like a bat out of hell, one second two little dots of fishtailing lights, the next second some fool with his high beams right in Royce's eyes.

Then the lights disappeared, but the inside of his ride lit up. They were on top of Royce's car! He swore just as they cracked him hard, reaching out with his right hand to catch Mary, slamming his foot to the gas, swerving left to right as the car stayed with him, dangerously close.

“Get that safety belt on!"

“Who is—"

“Do it!” he screamed, catching a glimpse of the car enough to see what it was as the cars shot past a bright yard light. Not that there was any doubt who was behind them.

“Shit,” he said, his foot to the floorboard, “it's Happy.” Happy Ruiz, and, for all he knew, a load of bikers. The black LTD. Happy with his foot in the carburetor, both of them with the pedals mashed, Royce's needle crawling in the direction of 110. Then 115 mph as they rocketed down the long, straight stretch of W.W. southbound.

He took the curve before he got to Industrial and careened around the curving road in the direction of Ecoworld, trying his best to shake them. Royce's weird car, a 1970 Ranchero junker, was painted in a charming shade of murrey primer and mismatched paint. A brownish, purple-black sort of rotten mulberry color, with tints of mauve, lilac, purple, and violet were all visible along with the rust. But that was on the outside.

He had one of the last models made with a 351 Cleveland high-performance engine. Once in a rare while a ‘69 or ‘70 would surface in a junkyard; an old Ranchero with that original big-block Cleveland in there. Compression ratio like a damn diesel. Four-barrel-carb gas-sucker—and in this case, Royce'd had a guy bore it and cut a high-lift cam to make it step out and pony. They dropped a four-eleven rear end in the lady, and she could flat out strut to the party!

The first shot hit the tailgate as they were almost on the next straightaway, inching toward 120, and you take a round moving that fast, it's like somebody bounced a concrete block off one of the fenders.

There was another bark, and the back window spider-tracked. Whoever was doing the shooting was damn good—too damn good!

“We're going off."

“Jesus!"

“Hold on!"

“You're going too fast! We won't make it!"

“Hang tough!” he shouted, as much for his own courage as anything, praying to God—with both hands clenching the wheel in a death grip—getting ready to reach down and yank the taillight wire.

He'd had it rigged so he could jerk the wire if somebody was right behind him, and in theory you could tap the brake and the car in pursuit would be denied that extra half-second warning before it had to duplicate your sharp, high-speed turn.

All that's well and good in theory, but in actual practice, doing 120 miles per fucking hour down some dark road, in a 1970 Ranchero, with Happy Ruiz on your case—you reach down and jerk something, it's likely to be the ignition wiring or your dick!

It was a two-handed job, just to keep it from rolling as they went fishtailing like a bandit, swerving down onto a stretch of service road leading into Ecoworld, those brights still in his eyes as he zoomed past crop stubble and onto concrete—miraculously, rubber side down.