“That’s a good one.”
“Eat me St. Vincent!” I held the phone away from my face until I was sure the tic was complete. “You’re in danger, Tony. Right now.”
“What do you know about it?”
I wanted to say, Going out of town? What1C;I in the files? Since when do you like horseradish? But I couldn’t let him know I was outside and have him rush into the giant’s arms. “Trust me,” I said. “I really wish you would.”
“Oh, I trust you-to be Bozo the Clown,” he said. “The point is, what can you tell me that’s worth the time to listen?” “That hurts, Tony.”
“For chrissake!” Now he held his receiver away from his mouth and swore. “I got problems, Freakshow, and you’re A-number one.”
“If I were you, I’d worry more about Fujisaki.”
“What do you know about Fujisaki?” He was hissing. “Where are you?”
“I know-undress-a-phone, impress-a-clown-I know a few things.” “You better hide,” he said. “You better hope I don’t catch you.” “Aw, Tony. We’re in the same situation.”
“That’s a laugh, only I’m not laughing. I’m gonna kill you.”
“We’re a family, Tony. Minna brought us together-” I caught myself wanting to quote the Garbage Cop, suggest another moment of silence.
“There’s too long a tail on that kite, Freakshow. I don’t have the time.”
Before I could speak he hung up the phone.
It was after five, and bakery trucks had begun to roll. Soon a van would come and deliver Zeod’s newspapers, with Minna’s obituary notice in them.
I was in a comalike state when Tony came out of L &L and got into the Pontiac. A sentinel part of my brain had kept a watch on the storefront while the rest of me slept, and so I was startled to find that the sun was up, that traffic now filled Bergen Street. I glanced at Minna’s watch: It was twenty minutes to seven. I was chilled through, my head throbbed, and my tongue felt as if it had been bound in horseradish-and-cola-soaked plaster and left out on the moon overnight. I shook my head and my neck crackled. I tried to keep my eyes on the scene even as I worked my jaw sideways to revive the mechanism of my face. Tony steered the Pontiac into Smith Street’s morning flow. The giant poked his compact into the traffic a moment later, first allowing two cars to creep in behind Tony. I turned the Tracer’s ignition key and the engine scuffed into life, and I followed, keeping my own safe distance behind.
Tony led us up Smith, onto Atlantic heading toward the waterfront, into a stream of commuters and delivery trucks. In that stream I lost sight of Tony pretty quickly, but held on to the giant’s pretty red compact.
Tony took the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway at the foot of Atlantic. The giant and I slid onto the ramp behind him in turn. Greenpoint, that was my first guess. I shuddered at recalling the Dumpster behind Harry Brainum’s, off McGuinness Boulevard, where Minna had met his finish. How had the giant contrived to lure Tony out to that spot?
But I was wrong. We passed the Greenpoint exit, heading north. I saw the black Pontiac in the distance ahead as we rounded the expressway’s curve toward the airports and Long Island, but I kept dropped back, at least two cars behind the red compact. I had to trust the giant to track Tony, another exercise in Zen calm. We threaded the various exits and cloverleafs out of Brooklyn, through Queens toward the airport exits. When we turned momentarily toward JFK I generated a new theory: Someone from Fujisaki was disembarking at the Japan Air Lines terminal, some chief of executions, or a courier with a ticking package to deliver. Minna’s death might be the first blow in an international wave of executions. And a flight to meet explained Tony’s long, nervous overnight wait. Even as I settled on this explanation, I watched the red car peel away from the airport option, to the northbound ramp, marked for the Whitestone Bridge. I barely made it across three lanes to stay on their vehicular heels.
Four sandwiches, of course. If I weren’t prone to multiple sandwiches myself I might have made more of this clue. Four sandwiches and a six-pack. We were headed out of town. Fortunately I had rounded up my clone version of Tony’s picnic, so I was outfitted too. I wondered if the giant had anything to eat besides the bag of cherries or olives I’d seen him gobbling. Our little highway formation reminded me of a sandwich, actually, a Minna Man on either side of the giant-we were a goon-on-orphan, with wheels. As we soared over the Whitestone I took another double shot of cola. It would have to stand in for morning coffee. I only had to solve the problem of needing to pee rather badly. Hence I hurried to finish the Coke, figuring I’d go in the bottle.
Half an hour later we’d passed options for the Pelhams, White Plains, Mount Kisco, a few other names I associated with the outer margins of New York City, on into Connecticut, first on the Hutchinson River Parkway, then on something called the Merritt Parkway. I kept the little red car in my sights. The cars were thick enough to keep me easily camouflaged. Every now and again the giant would creep near enough to Tony’s Pontiac that I could see we were still three, bound like secret lovers through the indifferent miles of traffic.
Highway driving was maximally soothing. The steady flow of attention and effort, the nudging of gas pedal and checking of mirrors and blind spots with a twist of the neck subsumed my ticcishness completely. I was still bleary, needing sleep, but the novelty of this odd chase and of being farther out of New York City than I’d ever been worked to keep me awake. I’d seen trees before-so far Connecticut offered nothing I didn’t know from suburban Long Island, or even Staten Island. But the idea of Connecticut was sort of interesting.
The traffic tightened as we skirted a small city called Hartford, and for a moment we were bricked into a five-lane traffic jam. It was just before nine, and we’d caught Hartford’s endearing little version of a rush hour. Tony and the giant were both in view ahead of me, the giant in the lane to my right, and as I cinched forward a wheel-turn at a time, I nearly drew even with him. The red car was a Contour, I saw now. I was a Tracer following a Contour. As though I’d taken a pencil and followed the giant’s route on a road map. Mlane crept forward while his stood still, and soon I’d nearly pulled up even with him. He was chewing something, his jaw and neck pulsing, his hand now moving again to his mouth. I suppose to maintain that size he had to keep it coming. The car was probably brimful with snacks-perhaps Fujisaki paid him for his hits directly in food, so he wouldn’t have to bother converting cash. They should have gotten him a bigger car, though.
I braked to keep him in front of me. Tony’s lane began to slide ahead of the others and the giant merged into it without signaling, as though the Contour conveyed the authority of his brutish body. I was content to let some distance open between us, and before long Hartford’s miniature jam eased. Heartfood handfoot hoofdog horseradish went the tinny song in my brain. I took a cue from the giant’s chewing and rustled in the bag of sandwiches on the passenger seat. I groped for the hero, wanting to taste the wet crush of the Zeod’s marinated peppers mixed with the spicy, leathery pepperoni.
I had the hero half devoured when I spotted Tony’s black Pontiac slowing into a rest area, while the giant’s Contour soared blithely past.
It could mean only one thing. Having reached this point behind Tony, the giant didn’t need to trail him anymore. He knew where Tony was going and in fact preferred to arrive sooner, to be waiting when Tony arrived.