Crisis (43 page)

The next thing Jack knew, something crashed into his car's rear, causing his head to bounce off his headrest. The moment he had recovered enough, he twisted in his seat to look out the water-streaked back window. He couldn't see much other than a large black vehicle pressed up against the rear of his. It was at this point that Jack realized his car was moving forward despite his foot continuing to compress the brake pedal.

Twisting back around to face forward, Jack's heart skipped a beat. He was being pushed through the red light! Outside, he could hear the horrid grating noise of his locked wheels against the pebble-strewn macadam as well as the growl of the powerful engine propelling him. The next thing Jack was aware of was a headlight bearing down on him from his left and a car horn blaring a dire warning. Then came a harrowing, screeching sound of rubber against pavement, followed by the glaring headlights being diverted ahead.

Reflexively Jack's eyes closed, expecting an impact into his car's left side. When it came, it was more of a brush than a crash, and Jack became aware of the water-blurred image of a car pressed sideways against his Hyundai alongside his driver's-side door. There was a scraping of metal against metal.

Jack lifted his foot from the brake, thinking the brake was not working and needed to be pumped. The second he did so, his car shot forward toward the press of racing cars on the turnpike. Jack jammed his foot back down on the brake pedal. He could feel his wheels lock and the grating sound of his tires against the road's surface reoccurred, but his forward speed did not lessen. Jack glanced behind him again. The large black car was ineluctably pushing him toward the dangerous toll road that was less than fifty feet away. Just before spinning his head around to face forward yet again, he caught sight of the pushing car's hood ornament. Although the fleeting image was indistinct in the fog and drizzle, Jack saw that it consisted of two crescent-shaped sprigs bordering a coat of arms. He instantly made the association. It was the hood ornament of a Cadillac, and in Jack's mind, a black Cadillac meant Franco until proven otherwise.

Since the brake was useless against the Cadillac's excessive horsepower, Jack released it and stomped on the accelerator instead. The Accent responded nimbly. There was another agonizing sound of metal against metal, and with a perceptible pop, the Hyundai managed to detach itself from its bullying fellow automobile.

Gripping the steering wheel in desperation, Jack merged into the four lanes of speeding highway traffic like he'd never merged before. At the last second, he actually closed his eyes, since there was no shoulder on that part of the road, so there was no choice but to join the stream of cars in the far right-hand lane. Although the Boston drivers had seemed overly aggressive to Jack during his previous driving experiences, he had to give them credit for being alert and for having rapid reflexes. Despite a cacophony of horn blowing and screeching tires, Jack's car managed to merge into the traffic. When he blinked his eyes open, he found himself compressed between two vehicles with no more than six feet in front and seemingly inches behind. Unfortunately, the car behind was an intimidating Hummer, and it stayed where it was, suggesting the driver was venomously angry.

Jack tried to adjust his speed exactly equal to the car in front, despite feeling it was much too fast for the weather. He felt he had little choice. He was reluctant to slow down for fear the Hummer would ram him in a similar fashion as the black Cadillac had. Meanwhile, he frantically tried to search for the Cadillac in his side and rearview mirrors, but it wasn't easy. It required taking his eyes off the car in front, which was nothing but a hazy blur despite the windshield wipers working at top speed. Jack didn't see the Cadillac, but he did catch glimpses of the Hummer driver alternately shaking his fist and giving him the finger when he sensed Jack was looking in his direction.

The need to concentrate on driving was not the only handicap in the search for his vehicular assailant. Whirling eddies of fog and water vapor were whipped up into a frenzy by the rushing vehicles, particularly the trucks whose eighteen wheels, each almost the size of Jack's car, flailed against the wet pavement, sending billows of mist into the air around the edges of their mud flaps.

Suddenly, to Jack's right a short stretch of shoulder appeared as a turnout for disabled vehicles. He had to make a snap decision, since the length of the turnout was not long, and at the speed his car and the others were traveling, the opportunity would soon be lost. Impulsively, Jack veered to the right out of the line of traffic, jammed on the brake, then fought against the car's tendency to skid first one way, then the other.

With great relief, Jack was able to bring the car to a stop, but he didn't get a moment to rest. In the rearview mirror, he caught sight of the black Cadillac pulling out of the lines of traffic exactly as he had.

Jack sucked in a chestful of air, gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles, and stomped the accelerator to the floor. The acceleration wasn't neck-snapping, but it was still impressive. Ahead, the fenced end of the pullout rapidly loomed, forcing Jack again to merge abruptly into the traffic. This time it wasn't blind, but it caused the same fury in the driver behind. Yet with the Cadillac obviously still in pursuit, Jack didn't concern himself. In fact, there was a good side. The man continued to express his anger by riding Jack's tail. Under normal circumstances, Jack would have considered such a situation dangerous and irritating. But now it meant that there was no room for the Cadillac, which would have been far worse than a mere irate driver.

Jack knew that coming ahead some miles down the road was his turnoff that surprisingly forked from the far left lane. Not too far beyond that were tollbooths marking the end of the toll road. Jack tried to reason which was better. The tollbooths meant staff and maybe even State Troopers, which was good, but it also meant long lines, which was bad. Although David Thomas had relieved Franco of his gun, Jack knew the man undoubtedly had access to others. If Franco was crazy enough to ram him in an attempt to push him out into traffic, Jack felt he'd have little qualms about shooting at him. The exit road had less staff and no troopers, which was bad, but no lines, particularly in two fast lanes, which was good.

As Jack was weighing these possibilities, he'd been vaguely aware that some distance beyond the buildings spanning the toll road, a true shoulder appeared. He'd not thought much about it since he had no intention of pulling out of the traffic for a second time. What he'd not considered was the Cadillac using the breakdown lane to catch up.

It wasn't until the Cadillac pulled alongside that Jack caught sight of it. And when he did, he saw that its driver's-side window was down. More important, Franco was driving with one hand. In his other hand was a gun, which he proceeded to stick out the window. Jack touched his brakes and simultaneously his passengerside window shattered into a million pieces and a bullet hole appeared in the plastic cover over the windshield support to Jack's immediate left.

The man behind Jack was back to blowing his horn continuously in utter exasperation. Jack could fully understand his agitation. He was also impressed the man had been able to avoid a collision, making Jack vow never to complain about Boston drivers ever again.

The next instant after Jack had touched his brake, he pressed the accelerator to the floor and used his newly developed merging technique to move laterally across several lanes of traffic. Now everybody around him was beeping to beat the band. Jack couldn't rest on his laurels since Franco had pulled an even greater merging feat and was now in the same lane as Jack with only one vehicle between them. Ahead, Jack saw the sign for his turnoff, Allston-Cambridge Left Lane, rapidly approach and then whip by. Impulsively, he made a snap decision that depended on his agile, compact Accent being able to make a tighter, high-speed turn than Franco's boat-like vintage Cadillac. Franco cooperated by remaining in lane, presumably avoiding using the relatively empty far-left lane to overtake Jack for fear of being forced off the road by the swiftly approaching exit.

Jack's entire body tensed as he fixed his eyes on his goal. What he wanted to do was execute a left turn as sharp as he could into the exit without rolling the car and clear a triangle of barrel-sized yellow plastic containers placed to cushion any vehicles destined to hit the concrete exit abutment. What he hoped was that Franco would have to sail on past.

At what he hoped was the proper instant, Jack whipped the steering wheel counterclockwise. He heard the tires screech in protest and felt the powerful centrifugal force attempting to fish-tail the car or cause it to flip. Tentatively, he touched the brake, not knowing if it helped or hindered. For a second it felt as if the car was on two wheels, but it straightened itself and agilely missed the protective canisters with several feet to spare.

Rapidly throwing the steering wheel in the opposite direction, Jack straightened the car on the exit, heading for the line of toll-booths directly ahead. He began to brake. At that point, he glanced into the mirror just in time to see Franco slam sideways into the apex of yellow barrels. What was most impressive was that the Cadillac was already upside down, ostensibly having immediately rolled when Franco tried to follow Jack.

Jack winced at the force of the impact, which threw tires and other debris into the air. He found himself marveling at the degree of Franco's anger, which had obviously trumped any rationality.

As Jack approached the line of tollbooths, the two attendants leapt out from their stations, abandoning the drivers waiting to pay their tolls. One of the attendants was carrying a fire extinguisher. Jack checked his rearview mirror. He now saw tendrils of fire licking up the side of the upended vehicle.

With the reassurance that there was little he could do, Jack drove off. As he put some distance between himself and the whole episode beginning with Franco slamming into the back of his car, he got progressively more anxious, to the point that he was noticeably shaking. In some respects, such a response surprised him more than the experience itself had. It hadn't been that many years ago that he would have relished such a happening. Now he felt more responsible. Laurie was depending on him to stay alive and be at Riverside Church at one thirty the very next day.

When Jack pulled into the Langley-Peerson Funeral Home twenty minutes later, he'd recovered enough to recognize he had a responsibility to report what he knew about Franco's accident, although he didn't want to take time to go to the Boston police. Remaining in the car, he got out his phone and Liam Flanagan's business card, which had his cell number. Jack placed the call. When Liam answered, Jack could hear a babble of voices in the background.

"Am I calling at a bad time?" Jack asked.

"Hell, no. I'm in line in Starbucks to get my mocha latte. What's up."

Jack told the story of his latest run-in with Franco from its beginning to its dramatic and decisive conclusion.

"I've got one question," Liam said. "Did you return fire with my gun?"

"Of course not," Jack said. It was hardly the question he expected. "To tell the truth, the idea never even occurred to me."

Liam told Jack he'd relay the information to the State Troopers who patrol the turnpike, and if there were any questions, he'd have them call Jack directly.

Pleased that the reporting job was as easy as it had been, Jack leaned forward and examined the bullet hole in the car's plastic interior trim, knowing Hertz was not going to be happy. It was relatively neatly punched out, as he'd frequently seen with entrance wounds in victims' skulls. Jack inwardly shuddered at the thought of how close it had been to being his skull, which made him wonder if Franco's attacking him with his vehicle had been plan B. Plan A could have been either waiting for Jack to come out of the Bowmans' house or, worse yet, breaking into the house during the night. Maybe the police surveillance had been the deterrent, making Jack shudder anew at how sure he'd felt the previous night that there would be no intruders. Ignorance was bliss.

Making a conscious decision not to dwell on "what ifs," Jack got the umbrella from the backseat and went into the funeral home. With no services apparently scheduled, the establishment was back to its silent, sepulchral serenity, save for the barely audible Gregorian chants. Jack had to find his own way back to Harold's heavily curtained office.

"Dr. Stapleton," Harold said, seeing Jack in his doorway. "I'm afraid I have bad news."

"Please!" Jack urged. "Don't say that. I've already had a bumpy difficult morning."

"I got a call from Percy Gallaudet, the backhoe operator. The cemetery has him on another job, then he's going off-site to dig out someone's sewer line. He said he won't be able to get to your job until tomorrow."

Jack took a breath and looked away for a moment to calm himself. Harold's unctuous manner made this new hurdle that much more difficult to bear. "Okay," Jack said slowly. "How about we get another backhoe. There must be more than one in the area."

"There are a lot, but only one is currently acceptable to Walter Strasser, the superintendent of the Park Meadow Cemetery."

"Are there kickbacks involved?" Jack said, more as a statement than a question. Only one backhoe operator smelled suspiciously like small-town graft.

"Heaven knows, but the reality is that we are stuck with Percy Gallaudet."

"Shit!" Jack exclaimed. There wasn't any way he could do the autopsy in the morning and still be at the Riverside Church at one thirty in the afternoon.