Forced Out (18 page)

Johnny took a deep breath. He'd just have to live with the consequences. Or not.

19

T
HE FASTEST WAY home was the interstate. It would have taken Jack less than twenty minutes using I-75, but then he'd run the risk of hitting a sobriety checkpoint, which the cops in the area were setting up more and more often. The number of fatal automobile accidents had skyrocketed in the county over the past year, and local politicians had demanded action. So Jack was taking the back way home to the coffin. Three times as long, but infinitely safer.

It wasn't like he was having a problem driving. Five drinks was no big deal, but that alcohol level would undoubtedly put him over the legal limit. Then he'd have only two choices when they pulled him over: take a chance and blow, or refuse and lose his license anyway. He'd bribed a Long Island cop a long time ago when he'd been pulled over late one night. Bribed him with cash and Yankee seats right behind the dugout for a twi-night doubleheader. But bribing wasn't an option now. He couldn't get Yankee tickets anymore--let alone box seats right behind the dugout--and he had only forty-two cents to his name.

Not even that, really. He still owed the Dugout fifteen bucks from tonight because he hadn't been able to pay the entire bill. So actually he had a negative net worth, exaggerated by the housing market going to hell over the past year. Thanks to that, his and Cheryl's equity in the house had disappeared. At this point they couldn't even sell the place for what they'd paid. Add on a Realtor's commission and they were way underwater.

Fortunately, the bartender at the Dugout had been decent about extending credit, probably because he figured Jack would be back again soon looking for Mikey Clemant, and he'd be able to collect then. Collect or take a lot of satisfaction booting him out of the place when the fifteen bucks went unpaid.

The fuel gauge needle was riding on "E." Maybe even a little left of "E" if Jack put on his reading glasses. Thank God Cheryl had let him carry her cell phone tonight. Well,

"let him" wasn't exactly accurate.
Made
him was more like it. She'd pressed the phone into his hand late this afternoon before Bobby showed up, given him Bobby's numbers, and told him to call if he had any problems. Told him she'd be at Bobby's apartment and she'd make sure Bobby answered.

Jack let out a frustrated breath. He'd seen those red marks on her neck this morning, but she wouldn't explain them. Damn it, he'd kill Bobby Griffin if there was any rough stuff going on.

Jack squinted against the headlights of an oncoming car. It was the first car he'd seen in five minutes. It was lonely out here in the barrens. Just an unbroken wall of pine trees on either side of the road fifty feet back across a sandy area covered with scruffy crabgrass. This would be a bad place to run out of gas. He just hoped there was cell coverage. Hoped Cheryl would come rescue him if he needed help. Hoped she'd be
able
to come rescue him if he needed help. Bobby seemed nice, but sometimes it was the nice ones you had to watch out for. Sometimes the clean-cut ones had more demons running around inside their skulls than the bikers with the long hair and tattoos. He glanced into the rearview mirror as a car raced up behind him. The car was swerving from side to side right off his bumper, bright lights beaming into the back of the Citation and off the rear and side mirrors like the sun had beamed into his bedroom this morning after Cheryl raised the blinds. "Watch out!" he shouted, shading his eyes with one hand, praying it wasn't a trooper. Suddenly he realized he wasn't as sober as he'd thought. And the state boys down here could be mean as hell. You couldn't negotiate with them like you could in New York. "Hey, give me a break!"

He didn't have to wait long to find out if it was the cops. Seconds later the car blew past him. It turned out to be just a battered old rusty sedan. Then he realized there were two cars. Right behind the old sedan was a souped-up Mustang. Very quickly both sets of taillights disappeared around a bend up ahead.

Jack's shoulders slumped. He could feel perspiration seeping out of pores all over his body. He'd been certain that something horrible was about to happen, that he was going to jail or something. It had been such a strange and strong premonition. Thank God it had turned out to be a false alarm.

When he rounded another bend a few minutes later, he noticed a pair of taillights ahead. It looked as though they were stopped on the side of the road, in the sandy area between the asphalt and the wall of pine trees. He slowed down as he approached, slamming on his brakes when the same souped-up Mustang suddenly darted out into the road ahead. Then his heart skipped a beat. The sedan was flipped over on its roof. He leaned forward over the steering wheel, his eyes narrowing as he saw how badly the old car was mangled.

"Oh Jesus," he whispered.

20

J
OHNNY LAY ON his back on the bed. Karen's head was resting on his shoulder, her hand on his chest. She was fast asleep, breathing deeply and regularly. They'd made love twice, and it had been better than he'd even imagined it could be. She was incredible, and she claimed he was the best she'd ever had. Claimed she never enjoyed it with Treviso. That he was a klutz in bed. Didn't have a clue what he was doing and didn't give a damn about her--which sounded about right. And now that she knew what it could be like, how good it could be, she was going to want Johnny all the time. Suddenly he had a problem. A big problem. Because he was going to want her all the time, too. He slid off the mattress slowly, doing his best not to wake her, letting her head settle gently to the pillow. He pulled the covers up over her slim shoulders when he was sure she was still asleep, still breathing regularly. Then he stowed her black lace teddy in a bureau drawer, put her high heels back in the closet, and got dressed. He checked his watch after he'd slipped into his loafers. His cell phone had gone off ten minutes ago, alerting him to the text message warning him that Treviso had left the Bronx. He still had time to search the apartment.

He glanced back at Karen when he reached the bedroom door.

She looked like an angel lying there. Christ, he was starting to fall in love.
Wrong
. He already was in love. She was the one who could save him. There was no doubt about it.

The question now was: How far would he go? A shiver raced up his spine. He already knew the answer. All the way.

21

J
ACK SKIDDED TO a slippery stop on the dewy grass so his headlights were shining directly through the disintegrated rear window of the battered sedan. He threw the Citation into park, then frantically punched 911 on Cheryl's cell phone. "Come on, come on! Answer!" The phone shook crazily against his ear as he gazed wide-eyed at the wreckage. Why had the Mustang driven off without helping? There could be only one logical answer: whoever was driving it wanted whoever was in the sedan to crash. At the very least didn't care that they had, which was another reason to get people out here fast. Whoever was driving the Mustang might be back soon, might not appreciate someone stopping to help. Might have actually wanted whoever was in the sedan to get hurt, maybe even die. "Answer, damn it!"

"This is 911," a woman's voice crackled through the phone. "What is your emergency?"

"I just came up on an accident out here on Old Seacrest Road. I'm about five miles past that corner with the 7-Eleven and the Burger King," Jack explained, speaking fast, still trying to make certain the person at the other end could understand him. "It's bad, real bad. You gotta get people out here now."

"How many cars involved?"

"One. It's flipped over on its roof and smashed up real bad."

"Any injuries?"

"Yeah. I mean, didn't you just hear me? The car's flipped over and smashed up. I'm sure whoever's in there is hurt. I'm right behind what's left of it. I haven't gone up and looked yet, but I don't see anybody moving. Hell, they might be dead."

"Please go check and see if--"

"Get people out here, you idiot!" Jack roared.

"What is your name, sir?"

"Jack."

"Last name?"

He was involved, but he wasn't going to get
that
involved. If they wanted to track him down, they'd have to do it using Cheryl's cell number. "Are you gonna get people out here or what?"

"Is there a fire?"

"Get people out here and get 'em out here now!"
he shouted, ending the call. He climbed out and slid the phone in his pocket, hesitating as he gazed in dread at the tangled hulk of twisted metal lying on the ground before him. Unable to fathom anyone surviving. Not sure he wanted to go up there and find out. He could take the blood and guts as long as it was a man down. But not a woman. Or worse, a child. He glanced back the way he'd been coming, then into the darkness ahead, hoping to see another pair of headlights--as long as it wasn't the Mustang's. But no luck.

The phone rang, startling him. He pulled it out and checked the tiny screen. The 911

operator was calling back. He was about to answer and start yelling at her when he thought he heard someone calling faintly from the wreck. He froze and listened hard. There it was again. He tossed the still-ringing phone on the Citation's seat. He'd barely heard the voice the second time, too. In fact, he still wasn't sure he really had. It might just be panic playing tricks on him. Maybe he wouldn't have reacted to real bombs and bullets as well as he'd hoped. He put a hand to his head. This was one hell of a time for self-doubt.

"Help me. Please."

No doubt this time. And judging by the tone, whoever was calling out was in terrible pain. No taking the easy way out and waiting for the emergency people to get here. It might be too late by then.

He hobbled toward the wreck, groaning as he dropped to his hands and knees onto the wet grass beside the smashed back window on the driver's side. He hunched down, searching the ruined interior. "Oh Christ," he muttered. It was his nightmare scenario. A young woman lay on the dashboard, wedged between the steering wheel and the windshield. As he crawled ahead, he could see that one of her legs was crushed, that she was bleeding profusely from it, and that blood was pooling on the ceiling of the car. One of her wrists was clamped tightly in the mangled steering wheel at a strange angle, too, obviously broken. And there was blood dripping from her nose and several cuts on her face, one of which appeared very deep. But her pleading eyes were open and she was sobbing weakly. She wasn't dead yet. There was still a chance.

"Can you hear me?" Jack asked loudly, aware of a faint siren wailing in the distance.

"Yes," she whispered in a Hispanic accent. "I can." She moaned something more, something in Spanish he didn't understand. "What,
what
did you say
?" A baby screamed, almost in Jack's ear, and he tumbled face-first into the grass.
"Damn!"
He scrambled quickly back up onto his knees and scanned the backseat, now aware of a strong gasoline scent. He spotted the baby when it screamed again. The infant was upside down in a car seat in the back on the passenger side.

"Help my little girl," the young woman said, moaning. "Don't worry about me. Just get Rosario out."

"I will, I will." Incredibly, the baby seemed unharmed. The little girl was screaming like mad, still terrified by the violent impact and from being upside down. But Jack couldn't see blood or any other signs of physical distress on her. "I promise you, I will." He lifted up to wipe off his palms--and saw the flames. Flickering orange snake tongues licking their way up through the bottom of the engine. His heart sank. "Oh, no." Frantically, he tried prying open what was left of the door, but it was jammed too tightly into the frame and wouldn't budge. He limped as fast as he could to the other side of the car and tried that door--the one next to the baby--pulling like a wild man on the handle. It was jammed shut, too. And more bad luck. Somehow this window hadn't been shattered in the crash. If it had, he could have reached into the car and plucked the little girl out. "Damn it!" The sirens were growing louder--but the flames were getting higher.

He rushed back to the driver's side, dropped down again, and crawled carefully through the back window, trying not to rip his legs on the jagged pieces of broken glass rising from around the window frame like shark's teeth. "Ouch! Goddamn it!" A shard sliced his palm as he put it down on the roof. He stopped long enough to suck it from his skin and spit it toward the back, away from the baby, then kept moving. Now he felt a trickle of warm blood oozing from his hand each time he put it down.

When he reached the little girl, he held her in place with one hand and wrestled desperately at the buckles on the car seat with the other. But like the doors of the car, the buckles were jammed. "Come on, come on," he said, hissing. He could smell smoke now. A nasty, burning-rubber odor. "Easy, little one," he said, trying to calm her down. She was still screaming at the top of her tiny lungs.

"Hurry!" the young woman yelled from the front. "Please!"

"I am, lady, I am." He could feel the panic starting to sink in, getting in the way of his ability to think and act clearly. "Believe me."

Finally he was able to pop the belt holding the car seat in place. The car seat and the baby tumbled onto the roof in front of him just as flames started shooting out of the steering column. He grabbed the car seat and yanked it along as the young woman began screaming hysterically.

"!Fuego, fuego!"
she yelled. "Don't let me burn!" The survival instinct had kicked in. Fire was such a bad way to go, Jack thought grimly.

"Please, God, don't let me burn!"

He dragged the baby quickly along the roof as he slid back through the window, slashing his pants, shins, and thighs on the glass around the frame. But he barely noticed the pain this time. A moment later he and the little girl were outside on the wet grass. He rose and carried her away from the burning sedan.

When he looked back, flames had fully engulfed the front of the car, and the young woman was shrieking pitifully. He stumbled back toward the fire, gasping for breath as an ambulance and a state police cruiser skidded to a stop on the side of the road. He dropped to his knees again, holding one hand to his face to shield his eyes from the intense heat. Then he took a deep breath, let out a guttural yell, and willed himself through the flames.