“Can I interest you in discount events at Candlestick Park?” says the cab.
“Cancel,” I tell it, but the voice drones on, BOGO deals and spa retreats for the women in my life, cycling through its litany of offers. I scan out the rear window and spot the police cruiser, a lane over and two cars behind. We turn the corner onto Oakdale Avenue, an open stretch of smooth concrete glaring in the harsh sun. Wide lanes lined by pastel houses and apartment buildings on either side, like art deco dyed for Easter. Trees dot each block, leafy puffs on thin trunks. The police cruiser’s immediately behind us, now, drawing closer. A siren squawk. It flashes its lights.
“Don’t pull over, for Christ’s sake, keep going,” but the cab says, “You are instructed to prepare your driver’s license and valid state ID. You are instructed to place your hands on the headrest in front of you—”
I try the door but the safety locks are engaged. Fuck, fuck. Squealing breaks as the cab pulls over through the bike lane to the curb.
“Cab, what’s the badge number and name of the officer who’s pulled us over?”
“Working… Working… Your patience is appreciated…”
“Cab, call 911. There’s an emergency. Call 911—”
“Great news!” says the cab. “The police are already on the scene!”
“Son of a bitch—”
The cruiser pulls behind us, about two car lengths away. There’s still only one officer, the one I saw at the pumps.
Call Albion—but she’s not answering.
“No, no, no—”
Oakdale Avenue’s streaming with traffic, cars flashing past too fast to flag someone down from the backseat of the cab, although I try—but even cars that rubberneck are just blurs of color sweeping past. He could shoot me here—locked in the cab, he could shoot my brains all over the backseat. The officer waits for a slight gap in traffic before he steps from the cruiser. He makes his way toward me along the edge of the street.
“Call 911. Unlock the fucking doors. I want to talk to a fucking human. I want to speak with my account representative—”
“Holding…”
The cab’s front windows slide down. The officer leans in the driver’s side. Moussed strands of hair have come undone from the rest of his slick. He’s pale. His lips are bloodless. He’s chewing, or maybe just grinding his teeth, and for a moment I let myself wonder if he’s as nervous as I am.
“Are you John Blaxton?” he says, his voice silky with a southern accent, a little higher than I would have guessed.
“What do you want?”
“I think you and I have some things to discuss, don’t you?”
He’s not nervous at all—all that chewing must be some sort of restraint, or the anticipation of shredding me with his teeth.
“I don’t have anything to discuss with you,” I tell him, my life dwindling to a series of limited moves before an endgame. “I was working for a man named Timothy Reynolds,” I tell him. “If you need to discuss me or my work, you can talk with him—”
“Get out of the car, John,” he says, reaching inside the cab to override the locks. I know I’ll die, but even so I obey him, simply obey him—shifting my bulk across the backseat, conjuring enough nerve to spring from the opposite side of the cab, to put the car between us and break for the pastel houses, but I’m already jelly-kneed and know I couldn’t run. He could instruct me to fall to my knees so execution would be easier and I would obey, I would obey him—every clench of self-preservation already gone craven, paralyzed. Out of the car, I realize how tall he is—taller than me—wiry and athletic. He rests one hand on the handle of his nightstick.
“What do you want from me?” I ask him.
“Walk with me to the car,” he says. “Ride in back. I’ll be your chauffeur—”
The man’s hands are white, white like they’ve never felt the sun, with long fingers and distorted knuckles that look more like bony protuberances than proper knuckles—one hand rests on the nightstick, but he’s holding the other to his chest, drumming little rhythms against the smooth metal of his badge.
“What’s your name?” I ask him.
Along the edge of the street, not on the sidewalk. An intersection’s up ahead, but the traffic streaming past is heedless, the posted limit’s forty-five but these cars are blowing past that. I can smell the man’s aftershave or cologne—despite the breeze I can smell him and I wonder if this is what Mook smelled when he died.
“Did you kill Hannah Massey?” I ask him.
This draws a reaction—a puckish sneer like he’d cracked the vault of something sacred and defiled what he’d found. A little over 280 the last I weighed myself, but that was years ago when I was slimmer—I must outweigh him by a hundred pounds or more. Almost without thinking, certainly without considering many outcomes, I step into him—pushing with both hands and shouldering, leveraging my weight into a headlong thrust. He keeps his balance, but stumbles several feet into the nearest lane. I can’t tell the make of the car—but I’m sure the driver never sees this man suddenly in the street. Driving into the glare of the sun. There isn’t a shriek of breaks or even tires squealing away in a tight swerve, only the plastic crunch of the car striking him, the fender cutting him at the knees and plowing through his leg and hip. The man pinwheels onto the hood, back bouncing against the front windshield and buckling the safety glass. His body flips away from the car and straddles the center lane. The car slides to a stop. Other cars stop. Distant horns. Someone screams. The man isn’t dead—I can’t tell how injured he is, but he isn’t dead. He’s already on his hands and knees, spitting blood and vomiting. I run.
Across four lanes, through the intersection—between houses, cutting across lawns, odd artificial patches of neon grass. I slip to my knees. I collapse. Facedown in the cool grass. What have I done? God, I killed him, I tried to kill him. Sirens, approaching sirens. Fear paralyzed, winded: the man’s body buckling the windshield, all that blood splashing from his mouth. Fuck, fuck. One knee at a time. I stand. I stand and run. Onto another street, a cross street. Sides stitched, cramping, so I walk as fast as I can, stitches of pain coursing through my chest, my arms. A bus approaching. Is this a heart attack? I lift my arm at the corner and the bus pulls over, the door folds open.
“Hey, mister—Are you okay?”
I collapse into a front seat, searching my pockets for bills to pay the fare—the bus already pulling away from the stop, turning a corner. The air-conditioning’s like a frigid suffocation. I can’t catch my breath. I don’t know where I am, where I’m going—focal points on my Adware disoriented, useless. Two bills to pay the meter. A police car screams past in the opposite direction. A woman across from me holds her groceries to her chest like she thinks I’ll steal them. I’m trying to catch my breath.
“Are you all right?” says the driver. “Do you need a doctor or something?”
“I’m good,” I tell him. “Just a few blocks. I’m okay—”
They must think I’m having an aneurysm—fat drops of sweat roll off my face. I settle in, slump, I tried to kill him, headlines scroll but I’m too agitated to read, TMZ’s going viral with a vid of a girl who’s lit herself on fire—suicide-dare.com. The girl douses herself with lighter fluid like she’s at a wet T-shirt contest; she lights a match. The video’s playing out, millions of hits—she ignites in a blue flash, then runs screaming around her bedroom, bouncing against the walls, burning alive. Someone’s overlaid 8-bit Nintendo music over the vid and it’s like she’s writhing to the music. #SuicideDare trends in the global feeds. Coupons for Dunkin’ Donuts, coupons for McDonald’s. I try to call Albion again, but she’s still not answering.