“ Cross there,” she said, and Broxton followed her pointed finger, spinning the wheel to the left. They charged across the wide center strip. Then they had the two lanes all to themselves as they sped toward the city and away from the danger behind.
“ Lookout!” she screamed. Broxton stomped on the brakes and swerved to avoid an old four wheel drive Toyota Land Cruiser that turned onto the highway going the wrong direction. They started to slide toward the car and all Broxton could see was the flashing blue light on top of the Toyota.
The policeman’s reaction was faster than his and the Land Cruiser swerved and jerked out of the way as Broxton clung to the wheel. They slid sideways past the police cruiser and Maria screamed, jerking Broxton’s gaze off of the whites of the policeman’s eyes and back onto the road. He pulled himself back together and pulled the wheel into the direction of the slide as he pulled his foot off the brakes, attempting to bring the car back under control.
But the car resisted and Broxton panicked and jammed his foot back on the brakes, sending the car into a three hundred and sixty degree spin. The outside circled by and he saw lightning glimpses of houses, highway and hills as Maria’s scream mingled with the sound of the squealing tires.
Most cars would have rolled, but the stable BMW came to a jerky stop in the center of the road and Broxton quickly shifted into neutral.
“ Son of a bitch, you sure know how to scare the shit out of someone,” Maria said, as Broxton leaned back and sighed.
“ I lost it for a second,” he said, ashamed. Then he added, “It’s been a few years since I’ve done any driving on the left.”
“ But we made it,” she said.
He turned to look at her and laughed.
“ What’s so funny?” she asked.
“ You should see yourself.” Her blouse and slacks were torn and covered with the drying mud and muck from the river. The stuff was already turning hard on her skin. Her shoes looked like she’d been walking through a cow pasture. She raised a hand to her face, then her hair, and she laughed, too.
“ We’re a mess,” she said.
The police car, small in the distance, turned around, blue light still flashing.
Broxton glanced into the rearview mirror. “He’s coming back.”
Maria turned around. “But the accident is back there.”
“ I thing it’s time to make ourselves scarce.”
“ Why? We haven’t done anything wrong.”
Broxton put the car back into gear. “I don’t think they know that,” he said. Then he shoved in the clutch and for a few seconds he was a kid again, reliving his high school nights on Cherry Avenue, drag racing all comers, in his souped up ’56 Chevy Nomad, on the mile stretch of road that lay straight between the two cemeteries. The never ending everybody cemetery on the right and the perfectly manicured Catholic cemetery on the left.
He felt Maria next to him as she was pushed back into the seat, but he kept his eyes on the road and reveled in the sound of the squealing tires. Then the tires dug into the pavement. Broxton popped the clutch and shoved it into second, grinning as the tires chirped, then he was in third and sneaking a glance in the rearview. The police cruiser was turning into a speck in the distance.
“ Another one,” she said, her voice calm, like a copilot’s, but tense like the plane was going down.
“ I see it,” he said. The second cruiser was coming head on, driving on the wrong side of the street as the two lanes leaving Port of Spain were backed up because of the accident.
“ What are you going to do?” she said, voice still calm, tense.
“ See who’s chicken,” he said, shifting into fourth. He stole a look at the speedometer and he wondered how fast two hundred kilometers an hour was. He didn’t have time to do the math, but he knew he was flying. And he was still acting the teenager on Cherry Avenue. Playing chicken with a fast car was no new game to him, but he was gambling that it was to the driver of the blue Land Cruiser that was looming larger in his windscreen with each heartbeat.
“ He’s not going to turn,” Maria said, still calm, but he heard the coffin-like stiffness in her voice as he tightened his hands on the wheel. Any sane man would pull aside, pull over, and pull out his wallet and hope that his California driver’s license would identify him as enough of a tourist to be let off with a stern warning, but the memory of the men back at the bridge was still sending shivers up his spine that turned into sparks at the base of his neck.
“ Oh my God. This is it,” she said. The edge was gone from her voice and he admired her for not screaming and not panicking. Then, at the last possible instant, he pulled the wheel a few inches to the right and the police car flew by, close enough to touch.
“ Do you ever know how to get a girl’s blood pumping,” she said.
He saw a turn-off ahead and he stomped on the brakes, sending the car into a slide, laying rubber all over the road as he flew through a long circular exit behind a soccer stadium. He worked the gears through the turn and he was down to second as they shot out of the exit and into the evening traffic. After a few blocks he turned onto a side road, making several turns until he was confused and lost. Finally he pulled up to the curb and parked in front of a small white house covered with frilly gingerbread lattice work.
“ We’re here,” he said.
“ Where?” she said.
“ I don’t know,” he said, opening his door and stepping out of the car.
“ What are you doing? Where are you going?” she asked.
“ This looks like a nice house.” He leaned back into the car. “And I’ll bet nice folks live here. I’m going to ask them for directions to the Hilton.”
She started to say something, but he turned away from her and started up a flower-lined walkway toward a shaded front porch. A black woman of indeterminate age was swaying in a porch swing, sipping something tall that looked cold, and she was eyeing Broxton coming up her walk like a hen eyeing the fox.
“ Evening, ma’am,” Broxton said, slipping on his father’s Irish smile and his mother’s southern accent.
“ Good night, son,” she said and Broxton stopped, frowned and turned back to the car. “Where you going, boy?”
Broxton turned back toward her, confused.
“ I wasn’t dismissing you. ‘Good night’ is a greeting here. You know like, ‘good morning’ and ‘good afternoon’. You say ‘good evening’, we say ‘good night’.” Her eyes were smiling at him. “Now tell me why you’re covered in filth on such a fine, clean evening and why you’re driving George Chandee’s car.”
“ George Chandee, the attorney general?” Broxton said.
“ The very one. That’s his slick car that your lady is sliding out of right now.”
“ I didn’t know that,” Broxton said. Why had Chandee been following him? Maybe he didn’t believe Broxton’s story. Maybe he wasn’t following him at all. Maybe it was only coincidence that he’d been in the same place at the same time, but whatever the reason, it was a good thing he’d been behind him and that he’d left the car open with the keys in it when he did.
“ How’s that?” she said.
“ He stole it,” Maria said, coming up the walkway.
“ Stole it?” the woman said. “You stole Chandee’s car? The chief law enforcement officer in Trinidad?”
Broxton saw the smile splitting her face and grinned. “I guess so,” he said.
“ Well, la de da, here I’m sitting on my porch swing and a man with brass balls comes a walking right up to me. Lord I wish I was twenty years younger.”
“ I do too,” Broxton said.
“ You’re in trouble boy, Mr. Chandee is not a forgiving man.”
“ We’ve met,” Broxton said. “I don’t think he likes me.”
“ You stole his car. I can tell you right now he hates your guts, pardon my French. And I’ll tell you something else. You need help and you need it now, right now.”