The Dead Caller from Chicago

Fifty-one

He followed my every turn, not caring if he was noticed. Even tipped into crazy, his head a wet mess oozing red into a towel, he was Superman. He survived fire and, somehow, an alley full of guns. Now he wanted only me. He wanted revenge.

I made more turns, and so did he. I pulled onto a main highway, three lanes running north, and so did he. He had to be thinking about a big move. So was I.

We came to a forest preserve. Thick old trees lined the shoulders on both sides of the divided highway. Traffic had thinned. Timed right, he could charge up now, if I got slowed by another vehicle, and cut me into a crash. Or perhaps he was simply looking for a clear line of sight for his gun.

His green minivan still filled the same two inches in my rearview. He must have been familiar with the road and known there was a better place, farther up.

I was looking for a good place, too, a spot to do a quick U-turn, but there was too much deep slush in the median. Even in four-wheel drive, I’d sink to the tops of my wheels.

There’d been more colors; the thought slapped into my mind. I checked the rearview again. Sure enough, the green of the minivan had not been the only constant since Rivertown. Two more colors had been there as well, hanging back as precisely from the minivan as Robinson was staying behind me. That’s why he’d been hanging back. He knew they were there. No bigger in the mirror than pencil erasers, one was red, the other was dark, perhaps black. Black, like that Impala I’d noticed the day Jarobi first came around.

I could evade the minivan with a U-turn, or at least swerve back into him if he tried to run me off the road. Three cars was a different deal. They were using cell phones to coordinate their moves, waiting for the right time to box me in, one car in front, one in back, to slow me enough for the third man to pull up alongside to shoot. Zigs, zags, and U-turns would buy me nothing. I could not outrun three vehicles.

Too late, I passed by an access road into the forest preserve. There might have been a chance to go off-road in there, between the trees, but not for long. The woods were too thick.

A traffic signal appeared ahead, its light green. I dropped down a gear, to slow the Jeep and to pick up the torque I’d need. The few cars behind me began catching up, but not the green minivan, and farther back, not the small shapes of red and black.

The light turned yellow. If I stopped, they’d come up behind, on foot.

I blew into the intersection just as the light turned red. The intersecting road was much narrower, only one lane in each direction. Nothing was coming from the left, but a white convertible was starting up on the right. I swung left, barely missing the ragtop. A blond woman was driving. She hit the brakes, and then she hit the horn. I didn’t look back, but I supposed she got a finger up as well.

The road ahead of me was empty. Except for a couple of driveways, there was nothing. Then I saw why. In the distance, orange striped barricades dead-ended the road. There was construction. The road was closed.

I needed to ditch the Jeep and run. I looked behind me. The white convertible was turning into one of the driveways. There was no one behind her. No one had followed.

I made a U-turn and stopped, looking at the way I’d come. The traffic light remained green, stopping the northbound traffic, stopping them. Escape lay southbound on that same multilaner, if they remained stuck in the tangle of northbound cars stopped by the light.

If I was fast.

I sped back to the intersection, glancing at the congestion to my left only after I’d turned onto the wide multilane highway heading south.

They’d disappeared. All three vehicles were gone.

I didn’t dare slow, but I didn’t dare believe. Yet I was sure: There was no one back at the traffic light. It was like they’d been sucked into space.

I pressed down on the accelerator, watching ahead, watching behind. They had to show up somewhere.

Fifteen minutes later, I turned east, passed Crystal Waters, and got on the Tollway.

I called Jarobi. “I think Robinson’s been tailing me for the last hour. I think I lost him.”

“Green Chrysler minivan?”

“Yes.”

“I imagined he’d be out of state by now.”

“I imagined him dead,” I said. “No reports of gunshot victims on the West Side?”

“There are always gunshot victims on the West Side, but no young adults like you described. No trashed burgundy Escalade, either.”

“Robinson had two friends along today, in red and black cars.”

“That black Impala you keep asking about?”

“I couldn’t tell.”

“I’ll pass all this on to your county sheriff. Tell you what, Elstrom: I’ll put out a bulletin, saying Robinson is wanted for questioning in an art theft.”

“Think any of it will work?”

“To find a green Chrysler minivan, accompanied by two cars of unknown make and model, one red, one black?” He laughed. “Nah,” he said.