He held out his palm. “Got a buck?”
“Oh yeah, sure.” I started to reach for my wallet and then decided that this was not the best scenario in which to do such a thing. The guy didn’t look homeless. He still looked pretty darn sinister.
I dug through the change next to the drink holder. “I’ve got, uh, twenty-five, fifty, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-one, seventy-two, seventy-three cents. Is that enough?”
“It’ll do.”
I tried to give him the change, but I was so nervous that I moved my hand too fast and I forgot that the window was halfway up and my hand smacked into the glass and coins flew everywhere.
Why was the light still red? This was the longest red light in the history of traffic.
“You gonna pick it up?” the guy asked.
The light turned green.
And then the gun came out.
I guess he had it in the back of his underwear, which is not where I would choose to keep a gun. Half of my brain shrieked, Drive! Drive! Drive! while the other half politely suggested that because the barrel of the gun was about twelve inches from my face, I should not make any sudden moves.
I froze.
Kelley froze.
I didn’t dare take my eyes off the gun to peek in the rearview mirror, but I’m pretty sure that Adam froze too. Or fainted.
Time stood still, because time loves to make moments like this last as long as possible.
You’re probably familiar with the concept of the unreliable narrator. When I read Catcher in the Rye in English class, we discussed how Holden Caulfield may not be telling us the truth about everything that happened. However, I can assure you that I am being one hundred percent accurate and honest when I tell you that the first thing I was able to say was, “Argh-ugh!”
I said, “Argh-ugh!” again to make sure my message was clear.
“Your phones,” he said. “Drop your phones on the floor.”
I quickly took my cell phone out of my pocket and tossed it on the floor. Fine. No problem. Happy to do it. If I wasn’t willing to slam my foot on the accelerator, I certainly wasn’t going to take the time to dial 911 with a gun in my face.
I heard the thumps as Kelley and Adam tossed their phones on the floor as well. (So if Adam had fainted, it was only briefly.)
“Now get out of the car,” he said.
Aw, crap.
“Get out!” he repeated, kicking the door.
For a fraction of a second I thought the wisest thing to do would be to duck down, floor the accelerator, and hope for the best. But that essentially meant that I’d be ducking out of the way so that Kelley could get shot. I’ve admitted to a lot of dumb and/or selfish and/or cowardly things so far (see pretty much this entire book), but I wasn’t going to let my girlfriend get shot.
Granted, if we both could have ducked at the same time, that would have been pretty awesome. Unfortunately, I couldn’t think of any way to communicate to her that she should duck except for shouting, “Duck!” which probably would have given our plan away.
So I opened the door and got out of the car.
The carjacker kept the gun pointed at me. He was one twitchy guy. “Just stay calm,” I told him, as if that piece of homespun advice might change his behavior.
“Both of you! Out!” he shouted, pointing the gun at Kelley and then at Adam. They both got out and put their hands in the air, even though the hands part hadn’t been specifically requested.
Where were the other cars? Where were the helpful pedestrians? If I survived the night, I was definitely leaving a one-star review for that brand of GPS.
“Sir, I really need to get something out of the trunk,” I said.
“No, you need to step out of the way before I put a bullet in your mouth.”
“Please, it has no value. I just need—”
The guy pushed me out of the way. He got into the car, slammed the door shut, and sped off.
“Quick! Get the license plate!” Adam shouted.
“License plate? It’s my car!”
This was beyond insane. My parents were going to absolutely freak. And the doll.what was going to happen to the doll? I didn’t know much about the carjacking business, but I was pretty sure my mom’s beloved automobile was headed for a chop shop. They could have a car taken apart in minutes.
Or what if he drove it into a lake? Would I drown?
What was I supposed to do? Find a pay phone, call the cops, and hope that nobody took an interest in the box with the weird symbols in the trunk?
And of course, I had oh- so-cleverly let the guy know that there was something important in there.
I had no choice. If I didn’t want to, y’know, die, I had to get that doll back, no matter what.
“Come on!” I said as I began to chase after the car on foot.
CHAPTER 8
“What are you doing?” Kelley called after me.
“I have to catch him!”
“Are you crazy?”
I was probably at least a little. But I simply couldn’t see a scenario in which the authorities handled this situation before somebody messed with the doll. I could just hear the carjacker: “My, what an interesting doll. Let me see if its legs can touch its head.”
I guess there was also the possibility that he’d say, “Oh, look, a present for my darling daughter, who treats all of her possessions with the utmost of care,” but I was leaning more toward the idea that really bad stuff would happen to the doll if I let it out of my sight.
The car turned the corner, leaving my sight.
I picked up my pace.
“Tyler!” Kelley shouted, running behind me. “For God’s sake, stop it!”
“Don’t come with me!” I shouted back. If the guy decided to point the gun out the window and start shooting, I didn’t want either of them to get hit. (I was more concerned about Kelley’s safety than Adam’s.)
I was a good runner. I could catch it.
I could totally delude myself too.
No, no, just because he was a morally bankrupt carjacker didn’t mean he wouldn’t obey traffic laws. A really long red light, and I’d catch him.
I didn’t have any specific plans for what I’d do if I actually caught up with him. Maybe he’d be so impressed with my dedication that he’d change his mind and give me the car back. “You’re a feisty one! I like that. Here, have the keys. Sorry about the inconvenience.”
At the end of the second block, I had a sudden moment of clarity, where the mysteries of the world were revealed to me, and my role in the universe was explained to me with six simple words: You can’t outrun a car, dumbass.
I stopped.
I cursed. (S-word, f-word, s-word, d-word, s-word times three, f-word, and a z-word that I made up on the spot.)
I kicked a brick wall.
I said the z-word again in response to the pain that came from kicking a brick wall.
Kelley and Adam caught up to me. “What’s the matter with you?” Kelley demanded. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
“I’m trying to make myself not get killed!”
“By chasing a man with a gun?”
“He’s got the doll!”
“I know that! It doesn’t mean you should go chasing after him like a lunatic!”
“What if they decide to torture the doll?”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know! He could give it to one of those rotten kids who wreck their dolls like in Toy Story! He could start burning off fingers!” I was starting to hyperventilate, so I forced myself to take slow, deep breaths to calm down. I tried to think of happy images that did not involve each of my fingers blistering, blackening, and falling off.