At last he sighed and said, “Do you know how to drive?”
“Well, sure.”
“Do you have a license?”
“Sure, but …”
“Would you please drive?”
“If you want me to, sure.”
“I’d appreciate it,” Michael said.
“I’ll come around,” Crandall said.
Both men got out of the car and walked around the front of it, through the snow, changing places. Behind the wheel now, Crandall familiarized himself with the dashboard instrumentation …
“Is this the headlight switch?”
“No, the one above it.”
… and the gear-shift lever …
“Automatic transmission, huh?”
“Yes.”
… and the brake and accelerator pedals.
“Shall I give it a whirl?” he asked.
“I’m ready when you are.”
“I’ll take it real slow,” Crandall said, “make sure we don’t get into any accidents.”
He eased the car out of its space and into the street. The digital dashboard clock read 8:01, still early for a big-city night. But this was Christmas Eve, and there was not much traffic in the streets. Besides, news of the impending storm had probably driven everyone home even earlier than usual.
“How does the road feel?” Michael asked.
“Not too bad.”
Crandall drove knowledgeably through the narrow twisting streets of downtown Manhattan, a mysterious maze to Michael, inching the car along until finally they came to Canal Street, where Crandall waited out a red light and then made a left turn.
“They usually clear the main thoroughfares first,” he said. “Here comes a snowplow now. We should have pretty clear sailing over to Varick. Why don’t you put on the radio, see if we can get a forecast?”
Michael fiddled with the radio dial.
“Ten-ten is all news, all the time,” Crandall said.
He was still driving slowly, although the road ahead was clear of snow. Wet but clear.
“… Arab leaders maintaining that the proposed oil hikes were more than adequately …”
“Pain in the ass, the Arab leaders,” Crandall said.
“… justified by recent …”
“What the hell is that?” Crandall said.
“… developments in the Persian Gulf. Should OPEC decide …”
“Turn that off,” Crandall said.
Michael turned off the radio.
“Did you feel that?” Crandall said.
“No. Feel what?”
“Listen.”
Michael listened.
“I think we’ve got a flat,” Crandall said.
“You’re kidding.”
“I wish I were, my friend.”
He glanced into the rearview mirror, rolled down the window on his side, and hand-signaled that he was pulling over to the curb. He double-parked alongside a laundry truck, looked into the rearview mirror again, and sighed deeply.
“It’s a horror movie, am I right?” he said, and shook his head. “You want to check that right rear tire?”
Michael opened the door on the passenger side and stepped out into Nanook of the North. He closed the door behind him and sidled back between the laundry truck and the car, his coat flapping around his knees, his hair dancing wildly on top of his head, snow beginning to cake on his eyeglasses. He stopped before the right rear tire, kicked at it perfunctorily, and was kneeling to study it more closely when the car pulled away.
He threw himself back against the laundry truck, thinking in that split second that Crandall had accidentally stepped on the accelerator, and then realizing in the next split second that Crandall hadn’t made any damn mistake, the car was speeding away, swerving a little as it sought purchase on the wet roadway, and then shooting off as straight as an—
“Hey!” he shouted.
The car kept speeding away into the distance.
“You son of a bitch!” he shouted, and began running after the car.
He ran up the middle of Canal Street, waving his arms and shouting, his coat flapping, horns honking behind him, headlights coming at him from the other side of the road, blinding him. A fearful blast immediately at his back caused him to leap to his right just as the sound of air brakes filled the snow-laden air, and then another blast of the horn, and a voice shouting, “You dumb fuck!” and the rush of the trailer truck as it came by him like a locomotive on the way to Albuquerque, wherever that was, and then the truck was gone as certainly as was Crandall in the rented car.
Sucking in great gulps of air, trying to catch his breath, Michael leaned against a red Cadillac parked at the curb. The window on the driver’s side slid down suddenly and electrically. He jumped away from the car, turned, saw a girl on the passenger side with her blouse wide open and her breasts bulging out of her brassiere, and alongside her, behind the wheel, a teenage Puerto Rican with a scraggly moustache and a lipstick-smeared face.
“You mine not leanin’ on dee wagon?” the boy said.
A sign in Spanish on the wall behind the muster desk advised Michael of his rights. To the right of the sign was the same warning in English—which was considerate, Michael thought. The sergeant sitting behind the desk and before both signs was a very fat man wearing a long-sleeved blue sweater over his blue uniform shirt. He looked up and said, “Help you, sir?”
“I want to report a few crimes,” Michael said.
“Let me hear ‘em,” the sergeant said.
“A fake detective stole all my money and my …”