I headed back for my apartment, about a 20-minute drive. If you’re in the business I’m in, you automatically check for tails. Automatic. Second nature. So I checked, and I picked up a set of headlights behind me that stayed right where they were. I noticed them right away because one light was pointed slightly higher than the other. Once they were behind me, they never got closer, never farther back. Sometimes cars would get between us, but they didn’t have any effect on how far back those headlights were.
I doubted it was Jim. He’d have had no way to find me, but, even knowing that, why should I take a chance? Just as automatic as my checking for tails was, so was the urge to lose any I detected. By then we were driving down a main drag, Rochester, a four-lane busy street, two lanes going each direction. I switched to the left-hand lane and took my time, driving along and watching ahead. The lights behind me also moved to the left lane and stayed the same distance back. There were two cars between us now.
I watched and waited as I drove till I saw just what I wanted. The oncoming traffic had been fairly heavy, but coming up I could see a gap in the line. And more critically, there was again a solid row of oncoming headlights behind the gap. I moved as far right as I could while staying in the left lane.
I waited till the last second, then turned quickly left into the oncoming traffic and accelerated. The car coming toward me braked and honked, but I completed my uey and then was going back the way I’d just come, and the tailing car had no way to make the same move till he found his own gap. I knew that by then, I’d be long gone. I glanced over as I passed the car that had been tailing me.
“What was all that?” Dustin asked.
“Just making sure no one was following us,” I said. “I’m a private detective. Doing stuff like that is part of the job.”
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I kept checking, but I’d lost my tail and no one else behind us showed any interest in us at all. Dustin had his head down and eyes closed, probably the exhaustion taking over. I had to get him some food, too. I thought I’d stop at a fast-food place nearer my apartment, and we could take the food back with us and eat it there. The less time we spent out in public, the better.
My apartment was in the direction opposite of where we were now headed, but I didn’t want to merely turn around on Rochester and drive back. So I cut south to the next major street, Cantwell, and used it instead. It wasn’t as busy and we were making good time when I got a funny feeling. I checked my rear view mirror, which I’d been doing right along, and there, the same distance back as before, were those same headlights: same offset beam angle, same bluish color, same brightness. I didn’t see how it could be Jim, I figured I had to be simply getting paranoid about this, and so moved over into the lane nearest the curb and slowed down to let him pass by, or to know for sure he was on my tail.
The lights followed me. And stayed back. Shit! How in the world . . . ?
It had to be Jim. No one else had any reason to follow me. He did. He didn’t want to lose Dustin. I’d certainly made some enemies over the years, but no one recently, and the coincidence would be too high for someone from the past to be following me now. No, it was Jim. When I’d glanced back after making my uey into traffic, the car I’d caught just a glance at had been a Lexus the same color as Jim’s, but I’d written it off as coincidence because there was no way Jim could have found us. Now, I was fairly sure I’d been wrong about that.
Must be luck. Had to be. He must have been driving around, guessing a direction, been really fortunate enough to have guessed right, spotted me. Well, we were in a part of town I knew like the back of my hand; that was my good luck. A street was coming up that led to a bridge that crossed the Marrowside River, which bisected the city. I turned into the street and sped up. The lights turned into it, too. I got to the bridge which went steeply up about 100 yards, then steeply down the other side the same distance. I went slowly up the rise. The car behind me slowed down to maintain its distance. When I was near the top, the trailing lights were at the bottom. When I went over the rise and could no longer be seen, I floored it.
The Camry I was driving had a four-cylinder engine, about equivalent to a sewing machine in power. Flooring it sounds more dramatic than what it was. We did speed up. Not nearly as much as I would have liked, though.
We got to the bottom before he got to the top, which was what I needed. I made a sharp right onto a short street that led immediately to a narrow road which bordered the river and allowed me to drive back underneath the bridge. I cut my lights and took the turn into the road as fast as I could. I could see the splash of his lights coming down the bridge. There was no way he could see me. When he reached the bottom, he had five different ways to go, straight ahead, right or left, or down to the river road and then right or left again. He had to choose one. The odds were tilted heavily in my direction that he’d guess wrong.
I kept my foot down hard. The river ran straight for awhile, and so did the road. It was dark, but there were streetlights and I could see well enough as long as some idiot bicyclist wearing dark clothing wasn’t riding down the middle of the road.
There was a cross street a ways up ahead. I figured when we got there, I could cut my lights back on and turn left onto another bridge and cross the river again. I should be home free.
In my rearview mirror, I saw headlights coming up behind me fast. When he caught a reflection off the chrome pieces on the back of my car, he quickly slowed down, and then was sitting the same distance behind me where the lights had been before.
Shit! It was him. How had he done that? He had to be the luckiest guy alive. I turned my lights back on. Once he was behind me, there was no longer any purpose in driving without them. He probably felt I knew he was following me, but he couldn’t be sure of it. The fact he didn’t try to do anything but stay with us meant he probably was going to follow us to see where I was taking the boy. He probably planned to get him back. Or something worse so he wouldn’t talk.
I looked over at Dustin, who had his eyes still closed, oblivious.
“Dustin,” I said.
He opened his eyes and looked at me.
“Dustin, do you trust me?”
A pause, then, “Yes.”
“Okay. You won’t like this, but you have to hear me. The guy who had you, Jim, is behind us. I need you to take off all your clothes. We have to get rid of them.”
His eyes got a little wider. I could see his fear come back.
“Please, Dustin. We don’t have time to talk about this. Just do it. You were thinking you’d have to do a lot worse than undress. This is easy. But it has to be fast. Right now. Hurry.”
I was surprised. He hesitated, he didn’t move fast, but after turning and seeing the headlights, he did what I’d asked. He began undressing. He was wearing a tee shirt, shorts, white socks and sneakers. When he had the shorts off, I saw he had underwear on, too. He looked at me, and I nodded. He dropped his eyes, not looking at me, and slipped his underpants off. He kept his head down afterwards.
I was explaining while he was doing it. “The only way I can figure this is, he put a homing device somewhere in your clothes, probably your shoes but we don’t have the time to throw things out individually. We really don’t have any time at all. But he has to have planted something on you. That’s the only way he could have found us like he did. He didn’t make you stay naked just so you’d get used to it. He probably did it so if one of the johns didn’t bring you right back, he could go find you. He didn’t want you getting away from him because if somehow you were ever able to tell your story to the cops, he’d be in deep shit. Right now, I’m worried he probably thinks I know he’s back there tailing us. He can’t be sure, however. Maybe I just wanted to drive along the river with you. Maybe I wanted my headlights off to make it more romantic or sexy. He probably thinks I’m a john, and he wants his money. He can’t be sure I know he’s following us. And if he thinks that’s all we’re doing, taking a romantic drive, he’s willing to see this through. But once we jettison those clothes, he’ll know I’ve made him, and he’ll have no reason to stay that far behind. In fact, he’ll most likely want to catch us, either to take you away from me or silence us both so we can’t rat him out, and this deserted road is a the perfect place for that. His car is bigger than mine. More powerful. He’ll catch us and ram us. That’s why you had to ditch the clothes. I’m sorry I had to scare you, but we needed to get rid of them and I didn’t have time to talk it out first.
“But there’s no reason to be clever about this. Just open your window and toss everything out. If he sees it, so what? His homing device will be telling him you stopped moving, he’ll know you haven’t because he can see our car, so he’ll know either way that he’s been made. Toss the clothes, everything, then tighten your seatbelt.”
Without any discussion, Dustin did what I asked. The boy might not be too talkative, but he was obedient, I had to give him that. I was thinking how to lose Jim, knowing his car was faster than mine and that he had no reason not to be aggressive. He had something else that gave him an advantage. Normally, as a last course of action, I could have driven to a police station. Now, that wasn’t in the cards. I didn’t want to have to explain why I was driving around at night with a naked teenager I didn’t know in my car sitting next to me. No, that option was definitely out. My only course of action was to lose him.
We were rapidly approaching the cross street. I didn’t want to cross the next bridge it led to now. It rose steeply, too, and his car could gain on me quickly there, being more powerful. I came up on the corner fast, then made as wide a turn as I could, hoping no car was coming.
The tires squealed, the car rose on its suspension, but we made it around the corned without tipping over. I put my foot back to the floor and switched off my lights again, and we shot down the road. He would be about five seconds behind. Another cross street was coming up. I turned right onto it, hoping he hadn’t seen me. I hadn’t seen his lights. I drove fast, looking for a place to hide, not seeing one. I was coming up to another cross street when I saw headlights turning onto our road far behind us. Even with my lights off I knew he’d see my tail lights when I used my brakes to make the turn.
I didn’t hit the brakes. Instead, I pulled hard on the emergency brake, hard enough where I hoped I could make the turn, yanked the wheel to the right and stepped on the gas, knowing any acceleration at that point would pull the car lower and help its stability.
We were coming to a T-intersection where I’d have to turn onto the riverside road again. Not where I wanted to be because of its loneliness, but it was what it was. I turned left, taking us back the way we’d come. I’d thought of a plan. Not a good one, but something that might work.
Of course, he could have missed seeing me and just have been guessing to turn where we did. He might have missed seeing me make the last turn, too.
I had the pedal on the floor again and was cursing the Camry’s torpor. I’d gone a couple of hundred yards when his headlights illuminated my rear-view mirror again.
“Shit,” I said. “Dustin, can you get in the back seat? Go over or through, but get in the back. Get behind me and fasten the seatbelt. Do it now.”
He heard something in my voice because he scooted. When he was locked in, Jim’s car was fast approaching from behind. I moved over so I was in the middle of the road without enough room for a car to pass on either side. The river was below us on my right, thick bushes on a rising bank on my left with houses behind them.
Jim had caught up with me, but he didn’t have me. He ran along behind me, and a couple of times bumped me, but doing that hard enough to do any harm would damage his front end and do more to cripple his car than it would mine.
I began weaving, right and left and right. He did the opposite, trying to find room to pass. I got a little wider on my weaves, and he got a little more aggressive, trying to find room to get beside me. I didn’t think he’d try to pass all the way and get in front of me. He’d probably just try to shoot me. I had to assume he had a gun. Pimps usually carried something, and Jim hadn’t seemed the knife type to me. I did think he’d like to end us. Having us dead would be convenient for him. Jim didn’t want either Dustin or me alive to talk to the cops about him.
He came up on my left, and I waited till his front wheels were opposite the rear seat before jerking my car to the left. He braked quickly and my rear bumper just brushed him rather than sending him into a skid.
Dustin suddenly yelled from the back seat, “He’s got a gun. I saw it. He was aiming at you!”
Jim’s car fell back a little. I pulled into the middle of the road. Jim gunned it and started moving up quickly, using the space between us to get a head start. I pulled left, like I was fearing he’d do what he’d done last time—sneak up along my left side—and maybe more successfully this try. I left a little too much space on the right, and, moving fast, he slipped into it instead of coming up on the left side. He came up alongside me, almost touching the right side of my car, accelerating fast.
I yelled to Dustin, “Duck down,” then waited till Jim’s front wheels were beside the middle of my car and then just eased to the right. I didn’t want him braking.
The cars came together, and I quickly pulled hard right, fighting the weight of his car. He realized what I was doing and tried to fight against it, then braked, but it was too late. His right front tire was off the road and onto the short, steep bank down to the river.
We were going fast, and he couldn’t slow down soon enough. In only a couple of seconds, Jim’s car flew off the road, down the bank, and hit the river hard enough that water sprayed like a peacock’s tail. The car sank fast. I stopped and backed up, watching. I could see Jim through holes which had appeared in the partially broken side window in his door. He was fighting to get the door open. Evidently when we’d bumped sides, his doorframe had been bent as well as his window breaking. He couldn’t get the door open. By the time he thought to try the other side, it was under water, and then the entire car was. I saw water rush in through his broken window.
The current caught it, and the car began slowly moving in the river, sliding downstream. I turned my car around and followed. I could see the Lexus all the way to the next bridge. It was under water, there were no more bubbles, and Jim was still inside.
I stopped the car and told Dustin he could get back in front. He looked scared again. I didn’t blame him. I’d been a little scared, too. When he was next to me, I pulled off my hoodie and gave it to him, leaving me in the tee shirt I’d had on under it. I didn’t want to drive back and try to find his clothes. I didn’t have any idea if or when the cops would show up or if anyone in any of the houses had seen or heard anything and called it in. But I did know I didn’t want to be within ten miles of here if they came.