The squeaking wipers struggled to keep the windshield clear. Dashboard fans roared out a steady stream of warm air. There were few opportunities to pass on Highway 18, but Simon knew there was a passing lane in a few miles. He’d driven this road so many times, every pothole and mile marker was burned in his memory. He’d wait a few minutes, give the guy a chance to cool down. He really wanted to get to that poker game — he was already imagining the rush of tossing in his first ante — but he didn’t want to get into some kind of stupid road game. In these conditions, one of them could end up dead in a ditch.
As his heart slowed, he felt a pang of remorse. What if he had died out here? Tomorrow — Saturday — was Jana’s second birthday. He could just imagine the look on her face as she sat on their crappy lima-bean couch in their mousetrap apartment — an apartment that should have been packed with children laughing and making noises with party favors, but instead would be empty and deathly quiet as her mother explained why Daddy wasn’t coming home.
She was so young... In a few years would she even remember him?
Guilt — it was the worst kind of feeling, a feeling Simon had come to dread because he knew it always lurked somewhere around the corner. The worst part, the absolute worst part, was that Tracy would know, if he died on this stretch of road at this time of night (when he was supposed to be hanging out at Steve’s watching horror flicks) that he had broken his word.
Promising to give up gambling forever was the only way he had been able to keep her from leaving him.
But what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. After all, he wasn’t playing like last year when his losses forced them to file for bankruptcy. No, it was nothing like that. Just an occasional game here and there. For fun, really. Spare change he earned from his tips, money Tracy never saw. He’d never dip into his bank account again. He was in control now.
His radio, turned low, was losing its Rexton signal to static, and Simon clicked it off. When he did, he noticed his hand was shaking. Apparently the incident had gotten to him more than he thought it had. The biker went on puttering at thirty, the spray from his back tire misting in the beams from Simon’s headlights. Not a single car passed from the other direction, but Simon knew the road was way too popular, even on nights like this, to chance passing with a double yellow.
Jana’s birthday, he kept telling himself. Jana’s birthday.
He honked his horn a few times, but the guy didn’t react. A few minutes later, they crested a rise and rounded a bend, entering a brief downhill straight stretch. Ah, now here was the passing lane. The road opened up, the dotted white line appearing. Accelerating, Simon moved to the left. The biker stayed on the right and in a few seconds Simon was alongside him.
For just a moment, no more than a few seconds, Simon eased off the accelerator to look at the biker.
From the side, it was easier to get a good look. He was a big guy, not tall but broad, wide across the shoulders, thick in the middle. If he had a neck, Simon couldn’t see it — his helmet sat right on his linebacker shoulders. His pants tucked snuggly into his boots, pulling tight around his bulging calves. His hands, covered with black leather gloves, were also huge. Clenching the handlebars, they made the bike seem undersized beneath him, like a toy.
Simon realized this guy didn’t seem like a guy at all. He seemed more like the creature on the back of his jacket — a bear. He suddenly wished he could see the guy’s face. Would he look like Grizzly Adams, hair all over the place? He chuckled at the thought.
As if sensing he was being mocked, the biker turned and looked. It was then that Simon realized he had made a terrible mistake, lingering like this; imagining the eyes staring at him from behind the face shield sent a chill up his spine. He did not know this man, had no idea where he was going or why, but he sensed that this was not somebody to mess with. This was not a man you stared at, not for five seconds, not even for one. He wasn’t threatening in a Hell’s Angel sort of way, all bravado and bullying. Most bikers acted tough because they didn’t want to fight, hoping their image of toughness would be enough to scare you away. No, Simon got the feeling this guy didn’t care about projecting an image of toughness.
He didn’t need to act tough because he was.
As if he had just come face-to-face with a rattlesnake, Simon turned slowly toward the road, applying gentle pressure to the accelerator.
But as he accelerated, the biker also increased his speed. Forty-five miles an hour... Fifty... Fifty-five...
The end of the passing lane was coming up in a hurry. The guy stayed right there, across from his window. Simon didn’t dare look, but he saw well enough with his peripheral vision that the guy was still looking at him.
A yellow sign warned of the end of the passing lane. Sixty... Sixty-five... Seventy... For Christ’s sake, the guy would not back off. The dotted white line vanished, the two lanes merging into one. His heart racing, Simon punched the accelerator and his Miata jerked forward.
He hoped one last burst of speed would propel him past the biker, but the guy stayed neck and neck. Worse, the road brought them together like two canoes in a narrowing river, and soon the guy was so close to his passenger-side window that Simon couldn’t help but look. There, beyond the rain-streaked glass, lost in all that black leather, was the shiny faceplate still looking straight at him.
Cursing, Simon hit his brakes.
The biker sped past. Immediately the guy started to slow down — dropping, dropping some more, forcing Simon to keep tapping the brakes, until they were all the way back down to thirty again.
“I don’t believe this,” Simon said aloud.
He honked his horn a few more times. Again, the guy puttered along, not once turning to look back at his follower. There wasn’t another passing lane for at least ten miles. At this pace, the poker games would be shut down for the night by the time he got there.
Simon thought about taking his chances across the double yellow line, but as if in response to his thought, a pair of headlights emerged from the gloom and a van whipped past, rocking his car and spraying his windshield.
He laid on his horn, then gave the guy’s back a double bird. Still nothing. Maybe the guy was deaf. He drummed his fingers on his steering wheel. He’d just have to bide his time. There was a place to pass in a few minutes, and if he had even a hint of open road, he’d go for it. Show this punk what real speed was all about.
But when he reached the area to pass, and started to make his move, the guy sped up again.
Totally unbelievable. The guy was determined to be an absolute prick. This went on for another ten minutes — slowing in the double yellows, speeding up in the passing areas — until finally Simon couldn’t take it anymore. He was going to pass and damn the consequences. The jerk was on a motorcycle, for Christ’s sake. He would have to back off or he’d end up flying over his handlebars.
The nachos and cheese he’d had an hour earlier now came back to haunt him; his stomach churned and gurgled. He’d need a bathroom before too long. He was halfway to the coast now, in one of the darker stretches; the dense forest on both sides crowded the twisting road, the branches reaching overhead, creating a canopy. They passed a wooden sign indicating they were in the Van Duzen National Forest. Simon knew that except for a rest stop and a campground, there wouldn’t be any other sign of people for twenty miles.
At least the rain had lessened to a light drizzle, allowing him to turn down his wipers. He passed up a couple of opportunities to pass until he hit the spot he wanted — another downhill slope with a passing lane. Then he bore down on the gas. His quick move got him alongside his companion, but as expected, the biker matched him.