Leaving the alley, Lockington had cut south, away from Belmont Avenue, then west to Pulaski Road, south again some half-dozen miles to the Eisenhower Expressway, and west on the final leg of his run to Route 294. Chicago’s rush hour had reached its saturation point and the Eisenhower Expressway hadn’t been dubbed the world’s longest parking lot for nothing. The sun was lowering in the west, blindingly bright, the traffic was bumper to bumper, moving at tortoise speed, and before Lockington reached Route 294, his decrepit Pontiac was running in the red.
He slid into 294’s southbound torrent and with the return of circulating air the engine heat dropped back to normal. Within forty-five minutes he was plucking his ticket from the slot of the gadget at the Indiana Tollway gates and at that point he reckoned that he was slightly under four hundred miles from Youngstown, Ohio. He herded the Pontiac into the righthand lane, wound it to sixty, held it there, and leaned back to watch dusk begin to stain the western Indiana countryside purple.
A nondescript eastbound dump truck rumbled ahead of him from an entrance to his right, its tailgate sporting two bumper stickers. The sticker to the left was white on blue—YES, JESUS LOVES ME! The sticker to the right was red on white—GOD’S WILL BE DONE. Lockington pondered the right-hand sticker. As a wide-eyed, highly impressionable youngster, he’d been given to understand that God’s will is always done, that the sun wouldn’t come up if God didn’t will it to come up, that the family car wouldn’t start it God didn’t will it to do so. Every hurricane, every earthquake, every flood was willed by God, as was the budding of every rose, the daybreak song of every bird, the twilight rustle of every leaf. Which brought Lockington to the core of one of his countless doubts. If God indeed willed all, then it followed that a man’s ascent to the glories of Paradise, his descent to the horrors of Hell, had been ordained long prior to his first stirrings in his mother’s womb. The blind acceptance of the theory that God’s will is always done led invariably to God having willed the Hitlers and Stalins to slaughter millions of innocents, and if God had willed these crimes, why should he punish their perpetrators? If we are God-controlled, God-destined to be what we are, to do what we do, a truly just God wouldn’t be sitting in judgment on anybody.
Such thoughts had blurred the Indiana miles and Lockington found himself paying his toll, crossing the line to the Ohio Turnpike entrance, getting Youngstown directions from a woman in a booth at the gates. Ohio Exit 15, she told him, then pick up Route 11 South. He was down to less than a quarter-tank of fuel, probably enough to get him into the vicinity of Toledo, he figured. He’d stop there, fill ’er up, grab a sandwich and a cup of black coffee, and he’d be rolling into Youngstown about three o’clock on Saturday morning, having lost an hour to Eastern Time.
Darkness had set in and in his rearview mirror Lockington could see headlights closing rapidly. He was holding at a steady sixty and he estimated the speed of the vehicle at upwards of eighty. The headlights pulled close behind the Pontiac, then dropped back, turning onto the shoulder to stop and fade from view. Probably an unmarked state police car, he thought—Ohio was noted for its unmarked state police cars. Then, five minutes later, here came fast headlights again, nothing behind them, nothing between them and Lockington’s car. Fifty yards behind the Pontiac they swung into passing position, pulled alongside, then slowed, keeping pace. The car was a Cadillac, it was white, and Lockington felt a cool spray sting his cheeks—glass, and he knew its meaning. He jammed the accelerator to the floorboard, spinning the Catalina in the direction of the Cadillac, watching it give ground, swerving onto the north shoulder, gaining speed to draw clear of the threat, its JESUS SAVES bumper sticker bright in the glare of Lockington’s headlights.
He’d righted the Pontiac, the crisis was behind him, the Cadillac’s taillights were twin red pinpoints in the distance, and bullet holes, three of them, were clustered in the window glass inches to the rear of Lockington’s head. Not bad marksmanship considering that it’d hailed from a moving vehicle—if it’d been any better, he’d never had known what hit him. He’d heard no shots—a silencer. Major league equipment for the killing of a minor league private detective.
Lockington backhanded sudden cold sweat from his forehead, drawing a raspy deep breath. He was alive, wondering why Billy Mac Davis had opened fire on him, concluding that it’d been God’s will.