The Road To Ruin

19

“HERE IT COMES,” Mark said.

Os was driving today, even though Mark considered Os a bit too volatile to be a completely reliable driver in a tight spot. On the other hand, the little two-seater Porsche they were in, hiding behind its gleaming whiteness, actually belonged to Os, so Mark had only limited control over who would drive the beast.

At least they’d discussed strategy ahead of time, so that Os knew, the instant Mark said, in re the green Subaru station wagon, “Here it comes,” that he should drive forward away from the compound entrance, in the direction the Subaru always took, already moving off when the Subaru made its turn onto the road behind them.

This had been Mark’s idea; start out in front of the Subaru and then, at the first passing zone some three miles down the road, permit it to pass, so that the driver of that car would have no reason to suspect they were following him, not if he’d first seen them out in front. Mark was very pleased with himself for this clever bit of misdirection.

Looking over his shoulder, he saw the Subaru grow larger as it overtook them. But it seemed to him it was growing larger more slowly than it should. Their earlier sightings of the Subaru had suggested its driver liked to go fast, and so he did, but at the moment so did the Porsche, which was not the plan.

“Os,” Mark said, “we’re not in a race. You want him to pass, remember?”

“He’ll pass. We’re not there yet.”

Nevertheless, here came the passing zone, and Mark could see just how hard it was for Os to ease his foot on the accelerator, lose momentum, permit another human being to go on by him without a fight. Os’s teeth were clenched, his eyes fixed on the road so he wouldn’t even see that overtaking hunk of Japanese green, and it was Mark who watched the Subaru bustle by, its lantern-jawed driver just as intent as Os.

“That’s fine, then,” Mark said, and at the very end of the passing zone, with in fact a big brown United Parcel truck thundering toward them the other way, a second car rushed past them, crowding Os to get itself back into lane before it would become a hood ornament on the United Parcel truck. The United Parcel truck bawled its outrage, the second car weaved but then got control of itself, and off it hurried after the Subaru.

Mark stared at that second car, now receding. That mud-colored Taurus. “Os!” he cried, as outraged as the United Parcel driver. “It’s the union!”

“Well, goddamn them,” Os said. “Almost put me in the ditch.”

“Os, they had the same idea we had!”

“Looks that way.”

“But they didn’t tell us!”

Os, crowding up closer to the Taurus, said, “We didn’t tell them either, Mark.”

“It’s not the same thing. Os, don’t get so close.”

“I can’t see the Subaru.”

“Forget the Subaru,” Mark told him. “The union doesn’t know about this car, so they won’t recognize us. They’re following the Subaru. You follow them. That way, you can stay farther back, and nobody’s going to know we’re here.”

“Not bad,” Os agreed, and slacked off.

For the next twenty minutes, their little caravan roamed rural Pennsylvania, farmland, woods, the occasional dorp, the green Subaru to lead the way, the mud-colored Taurus not far behind, the gleaming white Porsche some considerable way to the rear. It was all beginning to get boring when the Taurus’s brake lights all of a sudden went on.

Mark sat up: “Something’s happening.”

“About time.”

The Taurus had slowed. Behind it, the Porsche slowed. Then, after a minute, the Taurus accelerated again, so the Porsche hurried to catch up.

Mark said, “What was that all about?”

“False alarm.”

Another fifteen minutes on the road, and they approached a town, and this time it was the right turn signal the Taurus began to flash. Os obediently slowed, slowed even more, and they watched the Taurus turn in at a diner’s parking lot, stop in a slot, and the three start to get out. The Subaru was nowhere in sight.

There was other traffic around them, light but insistent, so they had no choice but to drive on, Mark glaring furiously back at the diner parking lot, the three chunky men moving toward the entrance, gabbing together, obviously following nobody.

Mark turned his glare to the front. “What happened?” he demanded. “What happened?”

“We fucked up,” Os said, grimly looking at the road. They were deeper into the town now, with side streets, so Os took one.

Mark said, “We? We fucked up? How? All we did was follow them.”

“Wrong them,” Os said, and pulled to the curb. There was no traffic on this little residential street “We were following the union guys. What we were supposed to follow was the Subaru.”

“They were following the Subaru.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? Os, they almost cut you off in that passing zone, almost got themselves creamed by that truck. They were trying to catch up with the Subaru.”

“Maybe,” Os said.

“Stop saying maybe,” Mark told him. “They were following the Subaru. So what went wrong?”

Os didn’t have an answer for that, any more than Mark did, so they sat in broody silence a few minutes, and then Os said, “Brake lights.”

“Yes?”

“Their brake lights went on, back there somewhere,” Os said, and waved a hand generally at the world.

“You’re right, they did.”

“So that’s,” Os said, “when the Subaru turned off.”

“But they didn’t follow it.”

“Because it was going home.”

“Oh, my God,” Mark said. “You’re right! They see where he turns off, they mark the place, they keep going, we sail right on by.”

“Because,” Os said, with his infuriating doggedness, “we were following the wrong car.”

Mark, choosing to ignore the implied criticism, said, “Could we find that spot again?”

“Where they hit their brakes?”

“Of course. Could we backtrack, find it?”

“God knows,” Os said.

“I’m not doing anything else today,” Mark said, “so let’s try it.”

•

“By God, there it is.”

They’d driven, and driven, trying to stay on their back-trail even though all roads look different when traveled in the opposite direction, and trying to look at every house and drive and side road they passed, until Os declared they’d overshot somehow, they had to go back. So they did, discovering that they had in fact gotten briefly onto the wrong road, but then found the right road again, and there, on the left, in the blacktop area in front of what looked like a pretty large apartment house, very large for this backcountry neck of the woods, there was the Subaru. The same one, definitely, in front of a faux-Tudor building with a large sign on the weedy patch of lawn between parking lot and road: CARING ARMS ASSISTED LIVING.

Mark said, “A nursing home? What the hell is he doing in a nursing home?”

“Let’s see if it’s the same car,” Os said, and turned in at the parking area. But as he did so, out of the building came the guy himself, bouncing along like a windup doll, a big gray canvas ditty bag thrown over his shoulder. So Os kept driving in a circle, back out to the road, as Mark twisted around to watch the guy’s progress. Throw the ditty bag into the back of the Subaru, get behind the wheel.

“Os,” he said, “this time we follow him.”

“A much better plan.” Os looked in the rearview mirror, “Here he comes, and here’s a gas station.”

So Os pulled in at the gas station, rolled very slowly past the people refueling there, and regained the road after the Subaru had already gone by. “Now,” he said, “we follow the right car, at last.”

“Not too close,” Mark said. “This little white Porsche is a bit noticeable.”

“I know what I’m doing,” Os said, which might have been yet another implied criticism.

If it was, Mark ignored it, saying, “I don’t get it. Maybe three times a week, he goes and spends about an hour at Monroe Hall’s place. Then from there he goes to a nursing home? What for?”

“They’re customers,” Os suggested. “It’s some kind of in-home service. He’s a… what? Religious adviser? Psychotherapist? Hairdresser?”

“Physical therapist?” Mark said. “You saw the bag he carried, you saw how he’s built, like every personal trainer you’ve ever seen in your life. Too muscular, and too short.”

“My mother,” Os said darkly, “probably knows him.”

Mark said, “I doubt he makes house calls in Boca Raton, but I know what you mean. And you know what I mean.”

Os said, as the unmindful Subaru scampered ahead of them across the rolling landscapes of Pennsylvania, “You mean, we join him today on his rounds.”

“Sooner or later,” Mark said, “this guy’s day of kneebends and shoulder thumps must come to an end. Then he goes home. And we’ll be there.”

“Leave it to the union,” Os said, “to give up after one little try.”