He pulls the trigger, shooting wildly, punching hole after hole in the fenders. Aware of screams, only a few, from up and down the street, and fleeing people dart through his peripheral vision, but he keeps yanking on the trigger.
Suddenly a wall of flame erupts from the rear of the car, knocking him off his feet and searing him with a blast of heat, peppering him with flying glass.
Half-dazed, he struggles to his knees, blinking, coughing, then to his feet. Notices that the dark hair on his arms is singed into tight, tiny pale curls and the skin is scorched and blackened. His shirt is torn and he's bleeding from a couple of spots on his already scarred chest. Shakes his head to clear the buzzing from his ears.
Across the street the Beamer is toast. Dead. Not merely dead, but clearly and sincerely dead, or however that goes. An evil devil witch car burning at the stake.
A weight in his hand. Carrot Top's gun—some sort of Tokarev clone. Barely remembers how he got it. Stares at the pistol. The slide is back, the empty chamber exposed. Spare clip's got to be in the car, which means this thing's no good to him anymore. Tosses it into the burning heap and looks around.
Where is he? Some sort of high-rise apartment building canyon. Oh, yeah. Mid-fifties—near Gia's. He spots a taxi stopped down the slope from the burning Beamer. Driver is twisted around. Seems to be trying to back up but the cars stacked behind him are preventing it.
Jack starts walking toward the cab. Driver turns and sees him. Eyes widen in his dark face and he tries to wave Jack off.
A cab, in my city, not wanting to give me a ride? What's happening around here? Has everyone gone crazy?
Keeps walking toward the cab. Driver has stopped waving. Doesn't appear to be the kind who believes in crosses, but from the look on his face if he had one he'd probably be holding it up to ward off this burnt-up and torn-up guy walking his way. Seems about to put the car in gear—Don't even think about it—then changes his mind. Jumps out and runs back toward First Avenue.
Jack stops and watches him go. Now doesn't that beat all. What's wrong with people today? First furious impulse is to run after the little bastard and teach him some manners, but the cab is before him, engine idling, driver door standing open almost like an invitation.
Looks like I'll have to drive myself.
But when he gets in he has second thoughts. Front section of the cab looks like a landfill—empty twenty-ounce Diet Pepsi and Mountain Dew bottles roll, Snickers and Dove Bar and peanut butter cracker wrappers flutter, and scattered all across the floor is a good half-inch layer of empty pistachio shells. Radio's playing some awful song in a foreign language—Farsi?—but at least the radio's still there. Can't say the same about the air bag; its compartment in the steering wheel is a gaping toothless mouth—either somebody stole it or it deployed sometime in the dim dark past and the driver never replaced it.
This is not, repeat, not suitable transportation for someone of Dr. Jack Moreau's stature but it's all he's got at the moment. Grabs the sticky gearshift, rams it into drive, and starts to move.
Wait. Move where?
Out of the city, zips through his brain. Out of the city—fast.
Doesn't remember why he should want to leave the city, but the idea is there, and it's insistent. But where out of the city?
Rage blooms anew as Jack passes the burning Beamer. He knows who owns it. Dragovic. That Serb bastard sent those two gooney boys to kidnap him and bring him—where? To his place in the Hamptons, of course, the place Jack trashed.
Now Jack knows where he's going.
"You want a face-to-face, Dragovic?" he shouts to the streaked windshield as he heads for the Fifty-ninth Street Bridge. "You got it!"
Rearview mirror is angled toward him and he starts when he sees a stranger in it. Face in the mirror is blackened with soot, eyebrows and hairline singed. And then he realizes the face is his own.
"Damn you, Dragovic!" he shouts, pounding the steering wheel. "You're gonna pay for this!"
Soon as Jack hits the bridge he puts his foot in the tank and cranks up the speed. Taxi doesn't exactly leap ahead, but it moves. Sunlight seems extra bright, but the birds fly more lazily than usual, and the other cars around him seem slow and ponderous, as if time is passing at a different rate for them.
Then it comes to him. He's not Moreau. He's gone beyond Moreau. His reflexes are superhuman now. He may have a crummy ride, but his newfound powers can more than compensate. He is a new deity.
King of the Road.
Traffic's not so heavy in this direction—most of it's heading into his city—but still pretty thick. The King begins weaving in and out, darting into openings where mere mortals would not dare, earning angry honks and gestures as he cuts across lanes and threads narrow divides.
Screw 'em.
Sees daylight ahead, a nice long stretch of open left lane, and the only thing blocking him from that direct line to infinity is a dark blue Volvo. Jack pulls up behind, riding its bumper. Sees the driver, a woman, idly twirling her hair with a finger as she dallies along in the lane, oblivious to him.
"Lay-deeee!" he shouts, honking. "King of the Road to lay-deeee! Listen to Joan Hamburg in another lane!"
But she makes no move to get over, gives no sign that she's even aware of the King's presence, and this only ups his rage.
He's boxed in, can't go around her, so he leans on the horn.
"Lay-deeeeeeeeeee!" He feels like he's gonna explode now and he's shouting through clenched teeth. "Stop twirling your goddamn hair and get outta the King's way!"
But still no move to the side, let alone acknowledgement of his existence.
That does it. Jack stomps the gas pedal and it feels good, it feels so good when he rams her rear fender.
That gets her attention. The woman jumps as her car swerves left, then right. She glances quickly over her shoulder. Got both hands on the wheel now and she knows, goddamn does she know, that the King is on her tail.
"Move! Move!" he's shouting as he waves his arm to the right.
But still she hangs in the lane, no blinker, no nothing. Jack leans on the horn and hits the gas again. She must see him coming because this time she swerves right just in time.
"Finally!"
As he pulls parallel he wants to sideswipe her, wants to slam into her lousy Volvo and send it careening all the way across the lanes—bam!—into and over the guardrail. And he should; he really should. As King of the Road he owes it to the other drivers on the bridge, owes it to other drivers everywhere in his asphalt domain to send her into screaming free fall, let her drink a little eau du East River, but he can't spare the time. For there's a larger blot on his world, a dark festering sore on the eastern horizon, a foul smudge named Dragovic, and it's Jack's divinely ordained mission to journey to East Hampton and clean it up.
So instead of ramming her he scoots by. You are spared, lady—this time. In his rearview he sees she's got a cell phone to her ear.
That's right, lady; call the cops. Call the fire department. Call anyone you want. Tell them the King of the Road moved you out of the left lane but spared your life. They'll just tell you how lucky you are. So learn from this, lady: the King catches you squatting in the left lane again, no more Mr. Nice Guy.
Makes good time from there and even does well on Queens Boulevard for a while, but he's still seething—at the woman, at the men who tried to kidnap him, at Dragovic, at all the damn cars on the road. Hates them all with equal intensity, which he's dimly aware shouldn't be, but somehow is.
But he's OK. Got it all under control. Saving it for Dragovic.
Then comes a traffic tie-up. Construction on Queens Boulevard, just before the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. At least the sign says construction but Jack can't see a single soul working. No matter, the barriers are up, and all traffic has to funnel down to one lane.