The Enemy Inside

FOURTEEN

A pimp and his ride,” says Herman. He is glaring at the shiny new black sports car that Ben and her boyfriend slip into out in the parking lot as we get ready to leave the motel.

It grinds on Herman as we settle into the worn seats of my beat-up Wrangler to lead them to the office. I have called ahead. Brenda, who was working late, is waiting for us so she can type up the affidavit. It is best that we get this done now, without any delay. The longer the girl thinks about it, the greater the danger that Ben may come down with a case of second thoughts and disappear. That or Midas her manager may get greedy and up the price. We need to strike while we still have the scent of money to hold their interest.

“First the bank,” I tell Herman.

He is driving my car, leaving his Buick parked back by the club. We can pick it up later. Herman hasn’t had anything to drink. Besides, I’d rather not make it a parade to the office.

We loop around and head east on Narragansett, back toward the airport and I-5. Herman glances in the rearview mirror every few seconds to make sure they are following us.

“You think you can find this guy Becket?” he asks.

“I am hoping that maybe we won’t have to.”

“Told you,” says Herman.

I am starting to fall under the sway of his original notion, that if we give the police a strongly worded affidavit and then lead them quickly to the witness, that she may go to pieces in front of them, enough to convince them she is telling the truth. If that happens, the entire case may disappear. They will dump the charges on Ives and we can go back to afternoon naps in the office.

“What do you think a car like that runs?”

I look over and catch Herman checking out the sleek black luxury sports car in the mirror. There is a look of lust in his eye and it is not for the woman in the front seat.

“I don’t have a clue,” I tell him. “Never shopped for one. As you might have guessed, I’m not into cars.”

“I’d like to be,” says Herman. “That one, the series, the wheel package, leather interior, navigation. . think it comes in a convertible hardtop?”

“Beats me.”

“I think that one’s a convertible hardtop.” Herman convinces himself. “Fully tricked out, trip the meter, I’m guessing six figures. You’re talkin’ a hundred, maybe a hundred and ten thousand you get the little brass cup holders. We’re definitely in the wrong business.”

“You don’t have to convince me,” I tell him.

“I wonder if he pays any taxes.”

I don’t say anything.

“You know, that’s not a bad idea.”

“What?”

“You know he’s takin’ all the money from the girl, don’t you? Probably got a stable of ’em to boot. He can afford a car like that, she’s gotta be givin’ him beaucoup bucks.”

“And your point is?”

“Say we feed him to the IRS?” Herman looks over at me with a gleam in his eye. “No. No, listen,” he says. “They tell me you get ten percent of whatever the wolf man gets in back taxes and penalties. That’s probably more than you make in a year. More than I make in a decade. Besides, what’s he gonna do with a car like that, they ship him to Terminal Island. What I hear, they don’t let you drive there. He ain’t gonna need that car,” says Herman. “Pick it up for chump change. And besides, you be doin’ her a favor.”

“You know, Herman, that’s what I like about you the most.”

“What’s that?”

“You’ve got such a big heart, always looking out for orphans and defenseless women,” I tell him.

He laughs.

“Let’s not forget the bank.” If he blows past that stop there is going to be a lot of gnashing of teeth and noisy disappointment from the car behind us.

We work our way toward Harbor Drive, swing onto it and head toward downtown. As we approach the airport, we pick up speed. By now the rush hour is ebbing. We roll along in front of the airport doing forty, catching all the lights. Herman has them timed.

“Where’d they go?” He’s looking in the mirror.

“What?”

“They’re gone.”

I turn and look. “No, they’re not. They’re in the inside lane.” They are just behind us in the lane to our right, the hood of the dark sports car moving up on us, sitting in Herman’s blind spot, in the gap between the rearview and passenger-side mirrors. Herman keeps stealing glances into the glass but he still can’t see them. “What’re they doin’ out there? Why don’t they stay behind us?”

As he says it, the car pulls forward until it is even with us. Herman is gaining speed. I glance at our speedometer. He is doing fifty.

“Slow down!”

I look over at the other car and the hulk behind the wheel is looking down trying to do something with one of the controls on the dash while he steers with the other hand. Suddenly he turns and looks directly at me through the driver’s-side window. There is a quizzical expression on his face, something between surprise and panic. He yells at me, but I can’t make out what he’s saying.

The girl in the passenger seat is terrified. She looks at me, her eyes two huge ovals as she struggles for a handhold on the leather seat. The roar of the accelerating engine as it’s jammed into passing gear sounds like a jet heading down the runway. The girl’s hair streams back around the headrest, her body thrust deep in the seat by the sudden force of the acceleration. The last vision I get of either of them. They rocket past the entire line of cars in our lane.

“What the hell?” says Herman. “Is he crazy?”

“Stay with them,” I tell him.

“Are you kidding? He’s gotta be doin’ ninety.”

“Follow him!”

Herman jerks his head to check the blind spot and gooses the Jeep into the right lane. He picks up speed, weaves in and out of a few cars.

I watch the black car as its taillights fade into two dim red specks in the distance. Herman is getting up on seventy by the time I see the traffic light up on the Pacific Highway maybe a quarter of a mile away. The light is red. There is a growing line of cars stopped in both lanes. I can’t tell if Ben and her boyfriend are there.

Suddenly a huge flash erupts off to our left, a billowing ball of orange and yellow flame. It lasts for a few seconds and is quickly engulfed in dark black smoke. I can’t tell where it’s coming from, somewhere off in the distance.

“Airport runway,” says Herman.

It’s the right location. It appears to be in the area of the blast deflectors at the end of the runway where the jets turn up their engines for takeoff. But as we approach the area I can see a large passenger jet sitting there waiting for clearance. No problem.

The smoldering flames, the smoke that is now several hundred feet in the air, are beyond the airport, just to the other side.

Herman takes a left on Laurel and races toward the smoke. Another left on Pacific Highway and there it is. The flaming remains of a fuel tanker truck, both trailers ablaze.

Herman brings the Jeep to a stop in the middle of the road. Traffic is shutting down. People are running frantically away from the gas station where the truck is parked. A fueling hose already on fire snakes from the front trailer into a hole in the blazing concrete apron of the station fed like a burning fuse into one of its underground tanks.

Under the center section of the truck’s rear trailer, its crumpled nose embedded and flaming, almost unrecognizable, is what is left of the black sports car. Herman was right. Its hard convertible top has been opened and peeled back either by the force of the collision or the blast that followed. The searing heat generates its own wind. In the dancing flames, two figures still strapped in their seats, little more than bobbing skeletons, seem to dance in the heat waves that rise up from the blistering asphalt pavement under the car.

Without warning, the blast hits us, a gust of searing heat so intense that I don’t even hear the sound of the explosion as the shock wave passes through us. I shield my face with one hand and turn away as Herman and I try to huddle, taking what cover we can below the dashboard of the Jeep. The concussion rocks the car and leaves us momentarily stunned. I can hear nothing but the pounding of my own heart, as if I have been immersed in a sea of instant silence.

As I raise my head above the dash I see that most of the truck is gone. Only the frame of the tractor with its engine block and dual rear axle remain, the melted rubber from its tires still flaming as black smoke rises from the wreck. There is no sign of the car or its two occupants, only a massive molten hole in the ground where moments before I had seen it.