“They’re still on us,” says Candy.
There’s no way they think I’m Saint James. The first attack might have been a mistake but this is a straight-up hit.
I try to charge back over the way we came but we’re trapped between a lunch truck and a chop shop Camaro, the body covered in primer and all the doors different colors.
The pickup accelerates and rams us. I can’t hold the wheel. I sideswipe the lunch truck. We bounce off and tag the Camaro before I get control again. I floor the Porsche and we shoot ahead to an open spot in the traffic.
“Still there,” says Candy.
I aim the Porsche all over the road, changing lanes like I’m drunk, seasick, and snow-blind. The goddamn pickup stays on our tail.
I cut back to the slow lane and slide in between two sixteen-wheelers, drafting off the first. Bad idea. The pickup pulls alongside us and the front and rear windows roll down. I know what’s coming and don’t want to see it.
I jerk the wheel right, completely blind. Aiming for the shoulder of the road. Lucky for us there’s no one there. It’s shit news for the truckers though. The shooters in the pickup truck start firing their modified rifles. They miss us and hit the side of the rear truck. Rear and front tires blow. Shots hit the cab. I can’t tell if the driver is hit or not. The truck starts drifting into the pickup’s lane while its trailer slides in the opposite direction, pulling the rear of the truck around on the bad tires. It jackknifes, cutting off five of the six lanes. I hit the accelerator, trying to get ahead of the chaos. I do, but so does the pickup. It rams us again. And again. The little Porsche isn’t made for this kind of abuse. There’s a metallic grinding from the back like the rear axle is about to go.
There’s an overpass ahead. I look at Candy.
“Do you trust me?”
“I hate that question.”
“Do you trust me?”
“Yes.”
“Then undo your seat belt and put your head down on your knees.”
“I hate how this sounds.”
“Don’t worry. It gets worse.”
The pickup moves up to ram us again. I stay ahead until just before the overpass. And stomp the brakes, pulling up on the handbrake at the same time. The pickup can’t slow and hits us at full speed, driving up the rear of the car and over the top like we’re a ramp. I throw myself on top of Candy. Wrap my arms around her. The car roof smashes down on my back but stops when it hits the armor. The weight of the truck is suddenly gone and we start to slow. From below I hear the sound of crashing metal and exploding glass. The Porsche slows and comes to a stop, grinding against the guardrail.>“What?”
“ ‘You’re not one of his.’ ”
“Do you know what it means?”
“Not a clue. Maybe Saint James? Maybe Blackburn?”
“Maybe Colonel Sanders.”
“Yeah. There’s an annoying number of possibilities.”
Mike is on his feet when I look back at him, the vodka cradled in his arms like a newborn baby.
“Let me get this straight. All you can tell me about Saint James is that he’s someplace you don’t know about and that you don’t know how to get to. A dead girl tried to kill him but you don’t know why or who the girl is or where she’s from. Does that sum things up?”
“That’s everything, man. I swear. Can I have my soul back now?”
“That’s not even a postcard, Mike. That’s not even a phone number scrawled on a cocktail napkin. Do you really think that’s worth a soul?”
Mike shifts his weight from foot to foot like he has to go to the bathroom. By now he probably does.
“Yes?” he says.
“Wrong,” says Candy.
“Wrong. It’s worth shit. The closest thing you can get to nothing without being nothing.”