The Artful Dodge was waiting at the curb. I jumped in. I peeled away into the traffic with an explosion of black exhaust. I turned the corner, leaving rubber on the road behind me. I ran the lights until I hit Madison Avenue, going uptown.

The avenue stretched away before me in the clear blue day. The buses crowded the right lane, coughing their way from stop to stop. Cars and taxis wove up the left lane. Not many. Just the first of the morning’s Christmas shoppers.

I set my palm at the center of the car’s wheel, ready to lean on the horn. I hit the gas. The Artful Dodge roared and groaned its way up to forty. Cars—cabs mostly—bunched around me, then fell away. More bunched around me. We raced and swerved together in a little clot for about a block or so. I swung the wheel this way and that, going for the daylight between the yellow cabs. I spat ahead of the pack again. Cars dropped back on either side of me. The office towers and shops with their wreaths and lights and trees all melded in a colorful blur.

Intersections came and went. I leaned on the horn. I made it wail as I rocketed under red lights and in front of oncoming cars. I left a trail of screeching brakes and shrieked curses behind me.

All that time, I waited for the sound of a siren. I kept glancing in my rearview mirror, hoping for the sight of a flasher. Hoping for some enterprising patrolman to come after me for reckless driving. I saw the green street signs rushing past me. I saw the numbers on them rise into the sixties, into the seventies. Not a patrol car in sight. Not even a traffic agent to pull me over. This is a very dangerous city.

The posh shops of the eighties streamed by. The traffic seemed to dissipate. Eighty-fifth Street. The Artful Dodge shot forward like a bullet, her old engine straining. Eighty-seventh, Eighty-eighth. I had my eyes glued to the black and battered Manhattan pavement. Ninetieth.

I wrenched the wheel.

It was a one-way street in the wrong direction. I didn’t even look. I hauled the wheel over like I was turning a great schooner in the middle of an empty sea. The world spun at the windows. The old car turned so fast under me it seemed to lift into the air. For a moment I was certain the spinning world would roll and I’d be spilled out into a roaring, tumbling, shattering explosion.

But she held the road, the old Dart. She held the road for dear life. Her rear tires flew wide. I fought with the wheel, muscled them straight. The Dodge righted herself onto Ninetieth as a little red BMW swung around the corner of Fifth Avenue and headed toward me. The BMW screeched. It lurched toward the line of parked cars to the left. It halted. I kept barreling toward it. I had a quick glimpse of a young executive type sitting behind the windshield. I saw him scream like the girl in a Dracula movie and throw his arms up in front of his face.

I hit the brake. The Dodge didn’t even slow down. It skated over the road toward the BMW. About ten yards from the screaming exec, my faithful jalopy touched down with a sound like an elephant sliding over a chalkboard. I threw the wheel and slid just past the BMW to the right. Came to a stop right beside it, in the center of the road.

I looked at my watch. It was 11:17. I had forty-three minutes. And then that son of a bitch down on Crosby Street would start killing in his not-very-pretty way.

I snapped the Dodge’s door open. It slammed into the side of the BMW, chipping the paint. I slid out fast.

Young Mr. Executive started to come out after me.

“What the fuck’s the matter …”

I slammed his door, forcing him back inside.

“Shut up,” I said.

I went around the Dodge, leapt onto the sidewalk, and headed up the steps to Wexler’s town house.