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sight of the car as it turned right a few blocks ahead. I went much faster
than I should have and saw him turn left toward U.S. 1. I closed the gap and
sped up, frantic to catch him before he got lost in the rush-hour traffic.
I was only a block or so back when he turned north on U.S. 1 and I followed,
ignoring the squealing brakes and the deafening chord of horn music from the
other motorists. The Avalon was about ten cars ahead of me now, and I used all
my Miami driving skills to get closer, concentrating only on the road and
ignoring the lines that separated the lanes, even failing to enjoy the
wonderful creativity of the language that followed me from the surrounding
cars. The worm had turned, and although it might not have all its teeth, it
was ready for battle, however it was that worms fought. I was angry-another
novelty for me. I had been drained of all my darkness and pushed into a bright
drab corner where all the walls were closing in, but enough was enough. It was
time for Dexter to fight back. And although I did not really know what I
planned to do when I caught up with the other car, I was absolutely going to
do it.
I was half a block back when the Avalon's driver became aware of me and sped
up immediately, slipping into the far left lane into a space so tight that the
car behind him slammed on its brakes and spun sideways. The two cars behind it
smashed into its exposed side and a great roar of horns and brakes hammered at
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my ears. I found just enough room to my right to squeak through around the
crash and then over to the left again in the now-open far lane. The Avalon was
a block ahead and picking up speed, but I put the pedal down and followed.
For several blocks the gap between us stayed about the same. Then the Avalon
caught up with the traffic that was ahead of the accident and I got a bit
closer, until I was only two cars behind, close enough to see a pair of large
sunglasses looking back at me in the side mirror. And as I surged up to within
one car length of his bumper, he suddenly yanked his steering wheel hard to
the left, bouncing his car up onto the median strip and sliding sideways down
into traffic on the other side. I was past him before I could even react. I
could almost hear mocking laughter drifting back at me as he trundled off
toward Homestead.
But I refused to let him go. It was not that catching the other car might
give me some answers, although that was probably true. And I was not thinking
of justice or any other abstract concept. No, this was pure indignant anger,
rising from some unused interior corner and flowing straight out of my lizard
brain and down to my knuckles. What I really wanted to do was pull this guy
out of his rotten little car and smack him in the face. It was an entirely new
sensation, this idea of inflicting bodily harm in the heat of anger, and it
was intoxicating, strong enough to shut down any logical impulses that might
be left in me and it sent me across the median in pursuit.
My car made a terrible crunching noise as it bounced up onto the median and
then down on the other side, and a large cement truck missed flattening me by
only about four inches, but I was off again, heading after the Avalon in the
lighter southbound traffic.
Far ahead of me there were several spots of moving white color, any one of
which might have been my target. I stomped down on the gas and followed.
The gods of traffic were kind to me, and I zipped through the steadily moving
cars for almost half a mile before I hit my first red light. There were
several cars in each lane halted obediently at the intersection and no way
around them-except to repeat my car-crunching trick of banging up onto the
median strip. I did. I came down off the narrow end of the median and into the
intersection just in time to cause severe inconvenience to a bright yellow
Hummer that was foolishly trying to use the roads in a rational way. It gave a
manic lurch to avoid me, and very nearly succeeded; there was only the
lightest of thuds as I bounced neatly off its front bumper, through the
intersection, and onward, followed by yet another blast of horn music and
yelling.
The Avalon would be a quarter of a mile ahead if it was still on U.S. 1, and
I did not wait for the distance to grow. I chugged on in my trusty, banged-up
little car, and after only half a minute I was in sight of two white cars
directly ahead of me-one of them a Chevy SUV and the other a minivan. My
Avalon was nowhere to be seen.
I slowed just for a moment-and out of the corner of my eye I saw it again,
edging around behind a grocery store in a strip mall parking lot off to the
right. I slammed my foot down onto the gas pedal and slewed across two lanes
of traffic and into the parking lot. The driver of the other car saw me
coming; he sped up and pulled out onto the street running perpendicular to
U.S. 1, racing away to the east as fast as he could go. I hurried through the
parking lot and followed.
He led me through a residential area for a mile or so, then around another
corner and past a park where a day-care program was in full swing. I got a
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little closer-just in time to see a woman holding a baby and leading two other
children step into the road in front of us.
The Avalon accelerated up and onto the sidewalk and the woman continued to
move slowly across the road looking at me as if I was a billboard she couldn't
read. I swerved to go behind her, but one of her children suddenly darted
backward right in front of me and I stood on the brake. My car went into a
skid, and for a moment it looked as if I would slide right into the whole
slow, stupid cluster of them as they stood there in the road, watching me with
no sign of interest. But my tires bit at last, and I managed to spin the
wheel, give it a little bit of gas, and skid through a quick circle on the
lawn of a house across the street from the park. Then I was back onto the road
in a cloud of crabgrass, and after the Avalon, now farther ahead.
The distance stayed about the same for several more blocks before I got my
lucky break. Ahead of me the Avalon roared through another stop sign, but this
time a police cruiser pulled out after it, turned on the siren, and gave
chase. I wasn't sure if I should be glad of the company or jealous of the
competition, but in any case it was much easier to follow the flashing lights
and siren, so I continued to slog along in the rear.
The two other cars went through a quick series of turns, and I thought I
might be getting a little closer, when suddenly the Avalon disappeared and the
cop car slid to a halt. In just a few seconds I was up beside the cruiser and
getting out of my car.
In front of me the cop was running across a close-cropped lawn marked with
tire tracks that led around behind a house and into a canal. The Avalon was
settling down into the water by the far side and, as I watched, a man climbed
out of the car through the window and swam the few yards to the opposite bank
of the canal. The cop hesitated on our side and then jumped in and swam to the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
