Thirteen Million Dollar Pop

44

Behr kept his eyes focused on the rear of Susan’s Jeep Liberty-she’d gotten it recently when the size of her belly and the coming need for a rear-facing child’s seat made continuing to drive her beloved Miata fairly difficult and pointless-but things were getting slippy in his head. He was taking in both too much information and not enough by a long shot at the same time, and he was having trouble processing where it all stood. He’d heard about professional golfers blowing up on the last hole of a major, turning a three-stroke lead into a two-stroke loss as they found the water, the trees, the gallery, and a bunker in succession after avoiding them successfully for the prior seventy-one holes. When they came off the course, they all commented how “things happened so fast.” Golf and fast didn’t go together-these guys took a good five minutes between shots-but still, Behr understood the sensation.

They were almost back home, where Behr was going to peel off and continue on his way, when he caught a flash of a silver Lincoln Town Car in his side view mirror and felt like he’d seen it before that day. It was way back there and not the most exotic car on the street but he noticed it, and that was almost never nothing. The thought was only half formed and went out of his head as the car dropped away out of sight, and before he could call Susan and tell her to drive somewhere else with a dead end where he’d know if it was a tail, they were turning onto their street and pulling up to their place. Susan had turned into the driveway and was already on the steps, and he had parked on the street since he was going out again but hadn’t moved from behind the wheel when the Lincoln came driving up the street. He froze behind the wheel as the car drove past without slowing, the driver’s eyes forward on the road. He waited a beat as it continued on, then swung his door open and leaned over, dropping his head below the edge to license plate level. He caught the first three letters, D-U-F, but couldn’t grab any numbers. He also saw that the car bore an Illinois plate. He straightened in his seat.

Halfway up the steps, Susan paused and looked to him. He gave her a wave, put his car in gear, and drove away. The Lincoln was long gone, but he had other places to go.