But he couldn’t risk a backward glance.
On the other side of the gate sat Peter’s rental, a light-blue hatchback. He pulled Doctor Lachaux around to the driver’s side, keeping the bulk of the car between them and the action in the pool area. Then he thrust his hand into his pocket.
The key wasn’t there.
They were screwed.
“Where’s your car?” Peter asked.
“I took a cab,” she hissed. “I’m not allowed to drive—I’m epileptic!”
Peter swore and started randomly trying door after door of the cars, checking to see if any of them were unlocked.
No dice.
Finally, he came to the end of the row—and the end of his nerves. It was looking like they were just going to have to make a run for it on foot when the last car in the line proved to be unlocked.
That was the good news. The bad news was that it was a tiny, two-seat vintage Jaguar E-type coupe that was unlike anything else on the road. It would stand out like a sore thumb—and of a make and model that was notoriously finicky about starting.
Well, beggars can’t be choosers…
He yanked open the door and checked around for hiding places. Under the visor. Under the seat. Glove box.
Nothing.
“Check the wheel well,” he whispered.
Doctor Lachaux did what he asked, fumbling around inside the wheel well on the driver’s side of the coupe. While she searched, Peter peered over the roof at the open pool gate.
“Found it!” she said. “Here…”
The big blond guy picked that moment to appear, scanning the lot, gun sweeping back and forth like a bloodhound’s muzzle casting for a scent. Peter ducked down and pulled his companion into a crouch beside him.
Too late. The blond spotted them and fired. His bullet blew the rear tire of a neighboring car with a bang, and Doctor Lachaux let out a terrified yelp, dropping the car key from her shaking fingers. It bounced off the asphalt between her feet and slid under the car.
Shit.
Peter crouched down and felt around to grab the key.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry… I just…”
“Got it,” he said.
He looked up at her and saw that she was crying, her whole body tense and curled in on itself as if she was expecting to die at any moment. An option that was entirely too possible. He felt a twinge of guilt at having thrust her into the middle of all this.
He also saw how wet her blouse was—completely see-through, as he’d predicted. Once he noticed this fact, it was impossible to unnotice.
Another gunshot hit the side window of the car right next to them.
“I thought virologists had to have steady hands,” he said, trying lamely to take her mind off the bullets. “You know, from mixing up all those Ebola daiquiris inside the hot box.”
To his surprise, it worked. She unwound noticeably.
“I guess I’m a little off my game,” she said, flashing a shaky smile. “Nobody shoots anyone in the lab.” She climbed into the car and slid across to the passenger side. Peter got in behind the wheel.
“Well, if you shoot the person holding a vial full of live Ebola,” he replied, jamming the key into the ignition and cranking the engine to life, “They tend to drop it. Then everybody loses.” He glanced back over his shoulder, slammed the little car into reverse, and floored it.
The blond guy was stalking down the row toward them, and had just raised his pistol to shoot again when the sudden appearance of the car forced him to dive out of the way.
There was a thunk as something hit the frame of the coupe somewhere on the left rear side—someone else, presumably one or both of the matching-tie thugs, must’ve squeezed off a couple of shots. But the bullet didn’t appear to have hit anything critical, and Peter hurriedly shifted into first. He floored it and made a sudden squealing left through a one-way entrance, taking out the mechanical arm that was supposed to lift after a ticket was removed.
It didn’t even occur to him that there might have been security spikes—not until he was already pulling a screeching left across the wide parkway.
Luck was with him. No blowouts—nothing to slow him down.
Unfortunately, their pursuers were also unimpeded when they came speeding out of the hotel parking lot right behind the coupe, driving a slick black sedan that might as well have had a vanity plate that read “THUGCAR.”
When Peter hit the intersection, the light was red, so he went to the right and cut through a crowded gas station. He swerved and barely missed a teenage boy with an arm full of junk food, causing the startled kid to send his supersized blue raspberry Slurpee flying across the coupe’s windshield.
Momentarily blinded while he fumbled for the wipers, Peter let up on the gas, but kept the front end pointed in the direction of the exit. Doctor Lachaux reached across the wheel to hit the wipers for him, just in time for Peter to avoid T-boning a white minivan. He still clipped the rear bumper on his way out, losing a side mirror.
The black sedan remained hot on their tail as he floored it again and went screaming down the otherwise quiet suburban streets, shooting past cookie-cutter mini-malls and smoothie shops and big box stores. There was something so wrong about conducting a breakneck car chase through the bland, forgettable ’burbs.
Not that Peter had been in any other car chases, but he’d seen plenty in the movies, and he was pretty sure no action hero had ever crashed his getaway car into a gourmet burrito franchise. He came close to being the first, though, and avoided it only by swerving at the last possible second, sending the little car up over a decorative flower bed and into a neighboring mall lot.
Casting a quick glance over into the passenger seat, he saw that Doctor Lachaux had jammed herself up against the door, one hand braced against the dash and the other gripping the headrest, her knuckles white. Her blue eyes were wide and wild, and her plump lower lip was caught between her teeth.
Before he could stop himself from checking, he confirmed that her blouse was still soaked. Which reminded him that his own clothes were also wet—clinging in a revealing and unforgiving way.
He really needed to concentrate on not killing anyone.
Or dying.
He managed to focus his attention back on the parking lot in front of him, just seconds before he had to avoid taking out an oblivious blond woman in mom jeans and pink sneakers, wandering along the row pointing her key fob aimlessly in an attempt to locate her vehicle.
As he swerved and barreled past her, she shot him a dirty look.
Suddenly he slammed on the brakes, pushing himself back to avoid cracking his head on the steering wheel. Doctor Lachaux gasped.
In front of him an ancient, dandelion-haired senior citizen was tentatively trying to wedge an enormous mint-green seventies-era sedan into a narrow parking slot. He laid on the horn while the flustered old bird backed up, scooched forward, and then backed up again.
Glancing in the rearview mirror, he spotted mom-jeans, stalking toward the Jaguar like a huffy little denim tugboat. Infinitely worse, he saw the black car, careening over the beleaguered flower bed and rolling down the aisle of parked cars, blocking any escape in that direction.
It would arrive in a matter of moments.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Peter muttered through gritted teeth as the old lady inched slowly forward. He was ready to punch the accelerator the second there was enough space behind the massive old car.
Suddenly there was a sharp rapping on the driver’s side window. An instinctive jolt of fear shot through his entire body.
It was the mom-jeans lady, gesturing with her pudgy, pink, manicured hand, demanding that he roll down the window.
Peter complied.
“What the hell do you think you’re—” she began.
“Look, lady,” he said. “You need to get out of here. It’s not safe…”
“You’re damned right it isn’t safe!” she snapped, crossing her arms. “Driving li
ke a maniac—what’s the matter with you? There are children around here!”
“Please,” Peter said, hands up. “Please, just go. You’re gonna get hurt!”
“Are you threatening me?” she asked, raising a pencil-thin eyebrow. “I ought to call the cops. I wrote down your license number, you know.” She frowned, looking him up and down. “Why are you all wet?”
The flat crack of a gunshot echoed through the lot, and the mom jeans lady staggered against the car door clutching at the side of her neck, where a fountain of blood appeared. She turned to Peter with a baffled, almost offended look, as if she couldn’t believe something like this was happening.
And then she dropped to the asphalt.
Doctor Lachaux let out a strangled cry, but Peter didn’t have time even to look.
In front of them, the gunshot startled the old woman into gunning the giant whale of a car. The behemoth lurched forward with a throaty roar and plowed into a sub-compact, allowing Peter just enough space to squeeze the little coupe through the gap without losing too much paint. Not that he cared, since it wasn’t his car. But it seemed a shame to mess up such a classic ride.
Behind him, the bad-guy car tried to follow and slammed into the old woman’s boat. It was a little bit too big to fit through the gap, and lost a headlight. The thug was forced to reverse out of the aisle, giving Peter a narrow but precious lead as he floored the gas and sped toward the nearest exit.
As he hit the street, the area around the mall was so generic that he couldn’t tell if it was one he’d been on before, or if it just seemed familiar because all the streets looked the same. He was hoping to find his way to the highway, or get lost in some residential side streets, but he couldn’t seem to find a clear path. He took several turns at random, yet the black car picked up his trail again, pulling to within barely a half a block of them.
Glancing at the passenger seat, he saw that Doctor Lachaux had gone stiff and glassy-eyed, staring at nothing.
“Hey,” he said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder as his glance flicked up to the thug car in the rearview mirror. “You okay?”
She didn’t respond. He thought he noticed something strange, an inexplicable iridescence flickering in the air just outside her window, but his attention was abruptly diverted as her eyes rolled up and her body was wracked with a short burst of jerky, twitching movement.
A seizure of some sort.
“Aw, man,” he said, looking back up at the pursuers. “No, not now!”
He had no idea what to do to help her, other than a vague notion that maybe he should put something in her mouth so she wouldn’t swallow her tongue. But even if it was the right thing to do, it wasn’t going to happen, given the circumstances.
He needed some kind of clever plan, and he needed it five minutes ago.
At the far end of the block he spotted the giant, anthropomorphic Boston terrier on the roof of a Butchie Burger franchise. Below that familiar black-and-white dog holding its gargantuan hamburger stood something else that was also black-and-white.
A police prowler, pulling into the drive-thru.
He almost missed it as it turned the corner, moving around to the other side of the building, disappearing from view. With any luck, the goons in the bad-guy car hadn’t seen it at all.
Before it could sink in that this was a really terrible plan, Peter swerved into the restaurant parking lot, braking just enough to make sure the thugs were able to catch up.
Beside him, Doctor Lachaux straightened up in her seat, and started looking around like a kid who had fallen asleep on a long road trip.
“What… where are we…?” she started to ask, but the rest of her sentence was lost in a quick, breathless gasp as Peter punched the gas, causing the reluctant coupe to rocket forward into the drive-thru lane.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she gasped. “I’m used to it.”
“Want anything?” Peter said as they squealed around the corner of the building. “Maybe a Butchie shake?”
“Are you insane?” she asked.
“Probably,” he said, sailing past the intercom and flying up behind the prowler at the window. “Hold on.”
To the right of the drive-thru lane was a narrow strip of dirt with some patchy grass, struggling flowers, and a few crumpled burger wrappers. Beyond that stood a cement-block wall. Peter eyeballed the width of the strip, and desperately hoped the little coupe would fit between the wall and the police cruiser.
Only one way to find out…
Scant seconds before rear-ending the police prowler, Peter wrenched the wheel to the right. The wheels rode up along the curb that separated the dirt from the pavement, and there was a terrible grinding sound as the right side of the car struck sparks against the cement-block wall.
Doctor Lachaux curled up in her seat with her arms over her head, as if she was expecting to crash and die at any moment. Peter probably would have been doing the same thing, if he weren’t driving. He fought the urge as he barely squeaked past the prowler’s right front corner, and bumped back into the drive-thru lane ahead of it.
An emo teen with too much eye makeup was handing the cop behind the wheel a black-and-white Butchie shake. The cop dropped it onto the pavement, sending it splashing everywhere, and goosed the siren. Lights pulsed to life across the roof.
The black sedan came screaming around the corner, way too fast. The thug behind the wheel stomped on the breaks, but it wasn’t enough to prevent him from rear-ending the prowler with a loud crunch.
Officer Not-So-Friendly was out of his car in a heartbeat, with his gun drawn.
Peter grinned as he sped away, victorious. He hung a sharp right and slowed down to a reasonable speed, sliding into a residential area. He took a moment to catch his breath before he spoke.
“Okay,” he said, causing Doctor Lachaux to jump nervously at the sound. “It’s time to get a few things straight. You first. Who the hell were those guys?”
Doctor Lachaux slowly uncurled her trembling body, like a reluctant snail coming out of its shell, peering around to make sure the coast was clear. It was a long moment before she spoke.
“Well,” she said. “It’s kind of a long story. You see…”
There was a bang, and a nasty jolt through Peter’s spine as they were rear-ended by a large black pickup truck.
Peter shot a look into the rearview mirror at the pursuing truck. Behind the wheel was the big blond from the hotel. In the crazy chaos of trying to get away from his two buddies, Peter had forgotten all about the guy. He had a smear of something on his forehead, a strange silver liquid that seemed oddly familiar, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on why.
Then the pickup slammed them again from behind, shoving the little coupe forward and pushing all other thoughts out of Peter’s head. It would be no problem for the larger, heavier vehicle to push them off the road, and even to crush the coupe like a tin can. But the driver looked as if he was having fun messing with them.
Peter’s clever-plan reservoir was running on empty. He was tired of the breakneck madness that had taken over his life, turning it into one crazy chase scene after another. Suddenly he had the feeling he knew what an Antarctic explorer might experience, in the moments before he froze to death. The sense that it would be a good idea to lie down for a nap in a comfy snow bank.
How much easier it would be just to give up.
But he didn’t have any such option—he wasn’t alone in the car. In fact, he’d put himself in a situation he’d successfully avoided for years. Peter wasn’t a hero by any stretch of the imagination, but he wasn’t willing to let Doctor Lachaux die just because he was tired of running.
No, he needed to dig deep, and figure a way out.
To buy some time, he swerved into the parking lot of a supermarket. It wasn’t large, and was less than half full.
Thin cover again, among the scattered suburban vehicles.
The pickup stuck right behind them.
Suddenly, he had a decision to make, and quickly.
Option A: he could cut left, try to make it to the far aisle, and back out the way they’d come in, all before the pickup could cut them off. Option B: he could gun it down the side of the building. If he was fast enough, he might make it past the truck, just in time for it to block their pursuer.
Maybe.
Or maybe not. No time to think. He had to commit.
He gunned it toward option B.
“What are you…?” Doctor Lachaux braced herself, eyes wide. “Oh, my God!”
Peter swerved at the last second, squeezing the little coupe through the swiftly closing gap between the loading bay and the rear of the snack cake truck. He was nearly through when the rear corner of the truck smacked into the right rear corner of the coupe, sending the lightweight car skewing off to the side, toward the wall.
The truck driver laid on the horn, waving an angry fist, but Peter barely noticed. He managed to miss the wall by inches, but there was no time to celebrate before he was confronted with another one, directly in his path.
Crap…
It was a cul-de-sac.
A dead end.
Damn! He’d been sure that he’d seen a driveway on the far side of the supermarket, but somehow it had vanished. Wishful thinking, or maybe just sheer stupidity. It didn’t matter now. He had been dead wrong—obviously, since they were now trapped. The only upside to the situation was that the blond thug wasn’t able to get to them—not unless he decided to get out of his pickup and crawl under the delivery truck.
Peter wouldn’t put it past him. So they couldn’t just sit there—they had to keep moving.
Fringe 03 - Sins of the Father Page 9