Page 74 of Slow Burn

She said it like it was something everyone learned in grade school, like multiplication tables. Her face went blank as he shook his head.

“I thought everybody in Texas knew how to shoot. Never mind, here’s the safety, I’ve already loaded a round in the chamber. Just take it off of safety, point and shoot. And try not to shoot me, if you can help it.”

It was a minor miracle that the cab driver had missed the whole exchange; he was busy squinting at street signs and muttering again. Martin gently pushed the gun away with two fingers and shook his head.

“I’d just blow my foot off.” She was going to protest, he could see it; to stop her he leaned forward and tapped on the glass separating them from the driver. “Hey! Buddy! Take a left up here.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Giving him directions to my office. We can pick up my car there. It’ll save us a few hours of driving around while this guy figures out street signs.”

She didn’t seem to approve, but didn’t protest, either; she sat silently, eyes narrowed, while the cab darted down one street after another. From time to time she took a hand mirror out of her purse and checked the cab behind them, which seemed a little too much cloak-and-dagger for his taste. Six blocks before he told the driver the last turn, the other cab turned off and disappeared.

“Free and clear,” he sighed, and slumped back against the worn leatherette upholstery. The cab driver lit up a cigarette and rolled down the window to let in a blast of chilling air. “Up ahead on the right. Turn in to the parking garage, I’ll use my card to let you in.”

Carling did not seem to have relaxed much. As they descended into the dark tunnel, she looked back over her shoulder, the first overt sign of nervousness he’d seen from her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked. She shook her head.

The fluorescent-striped swing-arm of the gate swung up like an ax, and let the cab clatter through. Martin leaned forward and told the driver to go down three levels.

Nobody else was moving. What cars were left in the structure sat mute and dark, like modern sculpture. The patches of lights looked weak and watery, the dark as thick as oil.

The cab eased to a stop at the third level, crept forward toward the plain white Lincoln Martin indicated. He passed over too much money in cab fare, since Carling didn’t jump to volunteer. The cabbie grinned and demonstrated perfect dentures, then left them standing in a cloud of stinking exhaust.

As his tires squealed into the turn, Carling did a slow circle to survey the garage. Fluorescent tube lights buzzed like colonies of flies, and somewhere metal squeaked in the wind.

“Let’s go,” Martin suggested, and fumbled his keys out of his coat pocket. She grabbed his wrist and held up one finger; she bent and looked in his car window, shifted right, then left. After a long shivering silence, she shrugged.

“Go ahead.” She waited until he’d put the key in the lock and opened the door before going around to the passenger side. He reached over and flipped up the lock.

As she slid in, he said, “Did you think they’d put a bomb in it?”

She shut her door and clicked her seatbelt shut, and smiled.

Tires squealed somewhere up above, moving fast. They both froze, staring at each other, and Martin swallowed hard and started the car. It took two coughing tries and shuddered when he threw it into reverse, a plowhorse forced to race.

Carling’s hand came out of her coat pocket with the gun she’d tried to hand him. She laid it in her lap, casually; he was relieved that the barrel was pointing away.

As he shifted into drive, lights exploded out of the darkness behind them. He floored the Lincoln, felt it hesitate and then lunge forward. Slow. Too slow.

At first he thought the tire had blown out, but the wheel stayed steady in his hands, and the booms continued, and he realized somebody was shooting. Not Carling; she had turned to face backward, but was only starting to raise her gun.

Jesus, she’d been right, she’d been right all the time. He wondered if he’d ever have a chance to apologize.

He took the uphill turn too fast, skidded, felt the back end of the car slide and bounce off a concrete stanchion. Carling steadied her right hand with her left, sighted, and fired straight through his back window. It exploded in a network of stars. The noise was like a slap, a physical sting on his skin and a punch to his ears; he gagged on gunpowder. She fired again, two shots he thought, or three. His ears rang too much to be certain.

They picked up speed in the straightaway and he touched the brake for the curve, not too much, just enough; the tires screamed and shimmied, but held. He couldn’t see the car behind them through the cracks in the rear window, but he heard them hit something with a thick metal crunch.

“Did they stop?” he yelled. The wind cut through the shattered window and blew Carling’s hair back like a wind sock, revealing the stark pallor of her face, the fixed wide eyes.

“Drive!” she shouted back. He hit the gas hard and saw the EXIT light ahead, a beacon in the dark. The fluorescent gate was down.

He fumbled for his card, dropped it, fished frantically.What are you doing?he thought. In the middle of a car chase, he was trying to pay his toll.

He put his foot all the way to the floor. The Lincoln growled and hissed forward over the concrete.

The barrier had a core of metal; he heard the squeal as it bent and slashed a screaming cut down the side of his car. More booms. He pulled his head in toward his shoulders like a turtle, and the Lincoln slammed down the short ramp. The front end hit the street in a shower of sparks, but then the tires grabbed and the building fell away behind them, the dark mouth of the parking garage closing in the distance.

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