Maria spun around the corner, took one look at the cars ringing the Savannah, saw a gap between the traffic and stomped on the accelerator, shooting between three lanes of cars. “Hold on,” she said, and Broxton threw his good arm against the dash, bracing himself. The protesting sound of squealing brakes shot through to his soul, but nobody came close to her as she flew between bumpers and fenders. “Going to cut across,” she said, and she gunned the rented Toyota and jumped the curb.
“ Look out,” Broxton said, and Maria spun the wheel, barely avoiding a pair of evening joggers. Then she was past the jogging path and churning up dust as she steered the car across the vast park.
“ Are you going around the cricket game?” Broxton asked.
“ Going right through,” she said. She was charging toward the game without a thought about the brakes. Broxton saw one of the players point. The bowler turned to look. He yelled and the players started to scatter as the Toyota ripped through the field, kicking dust and throwing rocks from the rear wheels as the players shouted at them when they flew through.
Seeing the players in their white uniforms reminded Broxton of the attorney general, George Chandee, and that niggling thought that if something happened to Ramsingh, Chandee would be the next prime minister. He remembered Chandee’s hard look on the plane, his flash of temper, and the look in his eyes when Ramsingh called him on it. He hadn’t liked Chandee from the get go and he wondered why the man was so popular.
Maria slammed the car into low and slid into a left turn.
“ What are you doing?”
“ I just remembered the road around the Savannah is one way. If I cut straight across we’ll be facing the wrong direction, we’d have to go all the way back around.” She stopped talking and gripped the wheel, hands tense as she sat rigid in the seat. She was approaching another cricket game in progress. This time the players were children and they weren’t bedecked in white uniforms. Maria laid on the horn, and some of the kids turned to look, but unlike the adults, they didn’t scatter. She jerked to the right to avoid a grungy kid with a defiant look on his young face, and then she was shooting, like a well batted ball, headed straight for the bowler, a wide eyed youth too frightened to move.
She turned the wheel a fraction, and they sped by the young bowler, showering him with dust. “Hey,” the batsman yelled as the car gobbled ground in his direction, and he swung the bat as he dodged the rampaging car, connecting with the front window as he was jumping back. Spider webs flashed across Broxton’s sight, but the safety glass didn’t break. Then the Toyota bowled over the stump and the sound of the bumper colliding with the wood was like an explosion inside the car, but Maria kept her foot on the floor as she headed for the stands.
They were empty now, but Broxton could imagine them full and wondered what they were for.
“ Carnival bands go through here. Hundred thousand people, big laughing party. Only ghosts in the stands now,” she said as she threaded the car through the bleachers toward the ramp. Broxton tried to imagine the stands full of gaily dressed people as Carnival marchers paraded before them in their scanty, bright costumes. He’d heard so much about the ultimate party, but he never imagined he’d be taking the revelers’ route in a speeding car, witnessed only by phantoms.
Then the Toyota was climbing the giant concrete ramp between the stands, putting on a show for no one, as the speed steadily climbed, till they topped the incline and they were speeding over the long stage built to handle over a thousand marching, romping, stomping people at a time.
“ The ramp at the end is gone,” she said.
“ That’s not good,” Broxton said as he realized what she was saying. The cement stage was about five feet high and as long as a football field, but they’d cut away the ramp on the end, probably to enlarge it, but the why didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered now was that the end ramp was gone.
“ Don’t stop,” he said.
“ Right,” she said, and she kept her foot to the floor as they sailed over the end.
“ Hail Mary!” he screamed.
“ Yeah!” she screamed back. They were airborne and the engine was howling in protest, then they slammed into the ground, front tires first, then the spinning rear tires. The car bounced and jerked left, but she whipped it back to the right and kept it pointed toward the Savannah ring road.
“ Good driving,” he said.
“ Miracle the tires didn’t blow,” she said.
“ Almost there,” he said.
“ Hold on!” she shouted, spinning the car to the left as they slid across the jogging path and then over the curb. She aimed between two cars on the ring road and for an instant Broxton thought she was going to make it into the traffic okay, but the driver of a beige pickup saw the car about to cut him off and accelerated. Broxton braced himself for the crunch as the Toyota’s rear end smashed into the front fender of the pickup, sending it spinning into an accident in the adjacent lane. Horns honked and people shouted from both the jogging path and moving cars, but Maria didn’t stop. Instead she stepped on the gas and took the first exit off the ring road and headed for downtown Port of Spain.
“ Ten till five,” he said.
“ We’ll make it,” she said, but the traffic was heavy and they were already slowing down.
He was afraid that she was wrong.
Dani slipped long fingers through the blinds and eased the window up about six inches. There was a touch of a breeze and they rippled slightly, but not enough for anybody below to notice. She lifted a hand to the dangling cord to bring them up, but decided to wait. She could raise them, sight in on Ram and pull the trigger all in less than fifteen seconds. She’d wait till after his opening and his customary few jokes. Usually he spent as much as five or ten minutes trying to warm up his audience, and lately, because of his sinking popularity, sometimes longer.
She watched as he raised his hands, asking the crowd to quiet down enough so he could be heard. The applause was for Chandee, but Ramsingh was basking in it like it belonged to him, while Chandee stood just behind the prime minister and to his right, gently clapping, as if he was leading the ovation.
“ Ladies and gentlemen, Trinidadian’s all,” Ramsingh tried to start, but even with the mike he wasn’t able to project himself above the din. He smiled, looked from left to right and lowered his hands. There was nothing he could do but ride it out. He wasn’t a big man, but standing at the podium, with the breeze rippling through his silver hair, and the sun at his back casting long shadows, he looked larger than life.
Chandee stopped his applause, apparently realizing that he was keeping the crowd going, but they didn’t stop with him. He started shifting from side to side. Ram was bathing the crowed with confidence, while the hero, the cricketeer, squirmed like a five-year-old in church.
George, she thought, always so confident on stage. The perfect snake oil salesmen, slick enough to sell taxes to the poor. Calm down, you’re giving yourself away. But Chandee couldn’t read her thoughts. She watched as he clasped his hands together in front of himself, almost like he was praying. She smiled as she looked down on him. He was afraid she’d shoot him. She liked thinking about it, but she wouldn’t do it. There was too much money riding on this, and it was all about the money. She’d be richer than her wildest dreams.
Part of her said, shoot now, get it over with, but another part enjoyed seeing the sweat around Chandee’s hairline. He’d wanted to push her into shooting early, wanted to play a little power game with her. She looked at her watch. Eight minutes till five. She’d wait. Let George shiver in the fear of his own making. If it looked like Ram was going to announce the drug treaty she’d do him early, but if not, she wouldn’t pull the trigger till five.