The truck shot out into the street, and Kismet whipped the steering wheel hard to the right. Irene slid across the seat, colliding with him as she fought to get a handhold on her own side. The back end of the truck fish-tailed and Kismet fought to regain control, slamming into parked cars, and causing two pedestrians to drop their parcels and dive for safety. He wrestled the steering wheel back and bore down on the accelerator once more. The forward movement pulled the truck out of its thrashing and at last, control was restored.
Despite her earlier terror, Irene now seemed almost to be enjoying the wild ride. Kismet flashed her a grin, then saw in the side view mirror Grimes' thugs pouring into the street and crossing over to the cars his exit had damaged.
"I don't think we're in the clear yet."
Irene craned her head around to look, but the mirror on her side had been knocked askew during their escape. She began rolling down her window, but Kismet forestalled her with a restraining hand and a shake of his head. She frowned in mock disappointment. "So what now?"
"I'll try to lose them. Outrun them or something. This truck sticks out like a sore thumb." He glanced in the mirror, noting the caravan of Buick Skylark sedans that was closing the distance between them. "Better keep your head down in case they start shooting."
Though he lived in New York and walked its streets often, Kismet neither owned a car nor had occasion to drive around the city. He knew approximately where he was, but lacked the familiarity needed to elude the ruthless men pursuing them. He was going to have to equalize the situation; it was time to slow them down.
The street they were on eventually began crossing the main avenues, and Kismet swung the behemoth onto the first one that afforded easy access, driving north through the heart of Greenwich Village. Traffic was light, but this advantage did not compensate for the truck's lack of maneuverability. Rather than dodge in and out of the flow, he picked the center lane and stayed there, shifting the truck into a higher gear and flooring the accelerator. Cars in his lane hastened to flee before the imposing juggernaut that rolled unstoppably through red lights while blasting its horn like a herald of doom.
Even in this, Kismet realized, they were gaining nothing. The traffic that parted grudgingly to allow them past left a wide-open trail for their pursuers to follow. In the mirror he could see the train of lights racing toward them, and several blocks behind them, the flashing beacons of a police car that had joined the chase.
One of the sedans disappeared into Kismet's blind spot, but before he could act on his sudden inspiration to hit the brakes, forcing a collision, the car reappeared in his mirror, sidling alongside the truck's left flank. A dark silhouette leaned out the passenger side, carefully aiming a pistol up at Kismet.
"Fool," Kismet rasped to no one in particular. If the gunman shot him, the truck would veer out of control, probably killing the inhabitants of the sedan as well as countless innocent pedestrians. Either the man with the gun was too dense to realize that, or too callous to care. With a shake of his head, Kismet took a preemptive measure.
Jerking the steering wheel to the left he crossed several feet into the path of the Buick. The other driver reacted without thinking, braking and swerving reflexively away from the truck. His impulsive response proved disastrous. The sedan slammed into a parked car, jackknifing both vehicles, then plowed onto the sidewalk, stopping only when its front end wrapped around a sturdy light pole. The man with the pistol was catapulted from his window perch, and Kismet caught a brief glimpse of his body rolling like a tumbleweed, into the path of the other pursuing vehicles.
In the mirror he saw the aftermath of the encounter. The array of headlights broke apart, losing symmetry as the various cars swerved to avoid the fallen man, or stopped to render assistance. The maneuver had yielded a few seconds of lead-time — no great margin to be sure, but enough to begin formulating his next move.
"Irene, do you drive?"
"Of course…" She looked at his face, then at the elaborate system of controls on the dashboard. "Oh, you're not serious."
"It's easier than it looks," he lied. "Come on. Slide over here and do exactly as I tell you."
She hesitated, then reached out to him and let herself be pulled close. He liked the feeling of her body pressed against his, and had to force himself to shake off the distracting sensation. "It's simple. It drives just like a car. You don't need to crank the wheel very far to get results. It will resist if you aren't going fast enough, but if you're going too fast you'll roll it over."
"I'm going to have to turn this thing?" she groaned.
"Yes, but if everything goes as planned, you'll only have to do it once.”
"And where will you be?"
"I'm going to try to slow them down." He quickly described the foot pedals and gave her a rough idea of how to downshift. "Think you can do it?"
"No," she replied in all sincerity.
"Sure you can." Before moving out from behind the wheel, he located the control box for the lift mechanism and experimentally pushed one of the green buttons. The hydraulic lift lurched, sending a vibration through the body of the truck, and the dumpster rose up, briefly blocking their view as it passed in front of the windshield. There was a deep rumble behind them as the contents of the bin emptied into the large holding canister. Kismet released the button, leaving the lift in the fully elevated position.
"That should do the trick. Okay, your turn." He unlocked the door and worked the lever, careful not to let it fly open. With his other hand he kept the steering wheel steady and scooted to the extreme edge of the bench seat. His right foot was stretched as far as he dared to keep the accelerator depressed.
"Grab the wheel," he instructed. "Get ready to put your foot on the pedal. Now!"
He slid out of the way and she did exactly as told, muttering pessimistically in Russian. Kismet retained his hold on the wheel, but was now standing outside the truck, on the running board. He felt an immediate decrease in power. "Push down a little harder!" he yelled over the sound of road and engine noise. She did, and the speedometer needle registered the acceleration.
"You're doing great!"
"When do I turn?"
"I‘ll tell you when," he replied. Irene's confidence was already starting to overshadow her inexperience and Kismet felt certain that she was capable of executing his plan. "Okay, you're on your own!"
He eased away from the door, slamming it closed when he was out of the way. Utilizing the door handle and the extended mirror frame like ladder steps, he ascended to the roof of the cab, staying close against the side of the truck in case one of the Grimes' men thought he made a nice target. Once atop the cab, he was blasted by the wind of their passage through the streets. He risked raising his head just high enough to look over the inverted dumpster at the thoroughfare behind them, and saw two sets of headlights racing toward the truck, with a third, the police car, not far behind.
He had been fortunate that the controls for the hydraulic lift were fairly intuitive; the next part of his strategy would require only brute strength. Keeping his arms spread wide for stability, he braced his back against the roof of the cab, extended his feet against the side of the dumpster and began pushing.
The mechanism of the lift was designed to raise the load evenly until, at the last moment, it would be turned almost completely upside down, allowing the refuse inside to fall into the cavernous interior of the garbage truck. Kismet now saw that the lifting forks were not parallel to ground as he had hoped, but angled upward to prevent the dumpster from sliding off — which, unfortunately, was exactly what Kismet wanted it to do.