The wedge of Mal’s headlights cut through the black void, leading him on while concealing everything outside its reach. In a way it was like stage lights. You couldn’t see beyond them either, unless you put your mind to it.
It used to make him nervous. But he’d learned every inch of road, every farm, and he found the dark and quiet relaxing after the adrenaline rush of performing.
Tonight he carried emeralds and gold coins in the compartment under his chassis, accessible through the floorboard if you knew it was there and how to open it.
Good luck finding it if you didn’t.
This booty would join the growing stash of jewelry and gold bits under his barn. Last night he’d added a strange little statue of an angel pulling a Roman chariot. Only instead of an ancient soldier, the chariot held an egg.
The thing reminded him of dust collectors littering his grandmother’s house. But diamonds and sapphires smothered the little chariot, and Pete said it once belonged to Russian royalty. Mal supposed if you were that rich, you didn’t need taste.
It had been an excellent night, both shows flawless. He’d sent Rose a wink when he caught her gaping at him with the puppy dog eyes that irritated Esme so much. Her mouth made an “O” when he removed the scarf draped over a bottle of champagne to reveal an army boot. He wondered how it would feel to press his mouth against those astonished lips.
Rose was just a kid, easily impressed. Pete’s crowd saw shows in Manhattan and Paris. They were always looking for new thrills, and he needed new tricks.
Houdini did his escapes. That wasn’t Mal’s bag, but maybe he could set Esme up for an escape and turn it into something else, say tie her up and handcuff her and lock her in a chest, then Esme shows up on the other side of the club, still tied up. He’d have her cuss him out for laughs. She’d like that.
He was still smiling when two trucks roared out of a stand of trees, blinding him with their lights as they blocked the road. Mal whipped his eyes up to his rear-view mirror. Two more cars cut onto the road behind him. No way through the woods on his right. With a mental apology to McMurtry and his cows, Mal whipped the steering wheel hard to the left and plowed through a split-rail fence.
Shouts from the trucks. He slowed before he hit a cow and killed his hearse. Cross the field or cut back to the pavement? They’d see him coming and their cars were faster than his. He might get out in front of them, but they had the horsepower to catch up. Now that all bets were off, they’d just run him into a ditch. The field, then.
His passing disturbed the sleeping cows, who obliged by milling in his wake, mooing distress as he worked his way through the herd. Two trucks drove through the hole he’d made in the fence, stopping when faced with the cows. If he was fast and agile, he’d make the road on the far side of the field while the herd stalled Dalitz’s men.
Kill the lights? He’d be safer in the dark, unless he drove into a cow and wrecked the hearse. Or drove over a rock and punctured a tire. Lights on then, even if meant the goons knew exactly where he was.
Could he use that? Get a bit further ahead, leave the car with the lights on and take off on foot? It would be hell to find him in the dark, but he wouldn’t have time to retrieve Pete’s package. Too big a risk they’d catch up to him before he got the goods and got gone.
Unless he lucked on a dirt track, it was a mile over rough ground to the next road. Mal shoved away all thoughts of the men chasing him and the chaos in his wake, keeping his eyes on the narrow slice of light. It didn’t matter who they were or how they knew what he was carrying. He’d worry about that after he lost them.
Ahead, silhouettes of McMurtry’s barn, outbuildings, house. The road would be a few hundred feet beyond. His lights struck the hoped-for dirt track. He cut his lights, drove fifty feet, then made a hard right, chancing a glance in his mirror as he wheeled onto the track.
A truck emerged from the throng of cows, picking up speed. A shotgun blast. Someone standing in the truck bed, aiming over the top. Purely for show. He was too far ahead for them to hit him. That would change if they caught up. He gauged the distance to the house. A minute, ninety seconds. If luck held, he’d make it.
The mooing cows, the gun blast. Lights should be coming on in the farmhouse. Alarm prickling his senses, he goosed the accelerator, roared around the house.
A tractor loomed, blocking his path. He braked hard. A thump on the running board. A figure clung to the top of the passenger window, a revolver aimed at Mal’s head.
In a more nimble car, Mal might have swerved to throw the goon off, dodged the tractor and escaped. But the man had his arm inside the window, and the Caddy’s running board made a sturdy platform.
Mal dove for the passenger door and shoved it open, into the goon’s gut.
Mal found himself stripped to his shorts and hogtied on the floor of McMurtry’s barn. Goons swarmed his beloved hearse by the light of oil lamps. He ached where he’d been manhandled, but surrender saved him the broken ribs and worse resistance would have bought him. Goons loved pounding flesh and breaking bones. They needed little provocation.
Hot breath in his face, stinking of bad rye, the light too dim to see the goon’s face. A voice, angry and hoarse.
“Where is it?”
“Where’s what?”
“Whaddya take us for? Where did you hide it?”
Mal mustered indignation. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can’t a fellow drive down the road without getting waylaid?”
A boot in the ribs, searing agony.
Mal forced words past the pain. “Moe Dalitz can’t just rob trucks, he has to terrify staff? Some boss he’ll make if he gets his hands on the BH.”
Snorts all around. He’d said something funny. What? The sound of a knife, ripping into his leather seats.
“Hey, hey, stop that!”
Agony exploded in his head.