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“Do what?”
“Answer questions before I ask them. It makes it seem like our conversations are planned out four or five steps ahead, and you’re just waiting for me to catch up.”
“If that were the case, they would not end in arguments much of the time.”
“Most of those arguments are because of this kind of thing. Start trusting me with the truth, or use someone else.”
“I will explain the situation later, if you wish it.” Translation: it’s bad enough that I don’t want to talk about it over the phone. “Did Louis-Cesare mention what his interest was in your errand?”
“He wasn’t feeling chatty. But probably the same as yours. Whatever that is.”
He was silent for a moment. “I sincerely hope not,” he said quietly.
It really is amazing what they can do with their voices, I thought, as gooseflesh broke out over my arms. I couldn’t translate that particular tone, because I’d never heard it before. But it had sounded a lot like: I’d hate to have to kill a member of the family.
“Come again?”
“Pull over. My men will locate you and assist with the search.” Translation: I’ll have my loyal minions take over and find Louis-Cesare, because you might not like what I plan to do to him.
I stared at the phone for a moment. I owed Louis-Cesare a world of hurt, and I fully intended to deliver. But that wasn’t the same thing as throwing him to the lions. This was personal, and until somebody bothered to give me a good reason otherwise, it was going to remain that way.
“Sorry. I didn’t get that,” I said.
“Dorina! Pull off and wait for—”
“I’ll call you back,” I told him, then chucked the phone out the window so he couldn’t use it to track me.
It looked like we were on our own.
CHAPTER 13
A quick check in the rearview mirror showed that the coupe was back on our tail, with a crumpled front bumper but no other obvious damage. It had also acquired a buddy, a black sedan. It sped past the accident, passed the coupe and was coming up fast.
Ray flapped a hand frantically at me and held up the map. HE’S AT THE CLUB. I RECOGNIZE THE CARPET.
“The club? But why would he go back—”
The sedan rammed us from behind, and it was a hell of a hit. We went spinning into an intersection, barely missed a motorcyclist and didn’t miss a streetlight. Fortunately, the Impala was from the era when cars were built like tanks. Even more fortunately, the light toppled onto the sedan as it tried to follow us onto Leonard Street, and put a mass of white cracks in the windshield. Things were starting to look up until the coupe screeched in behind us, and our front left wheel started going soft.
I didn’t know if we’d run over some glass or if the tire had just been crappy all along, but either way, we were screwed. A bullet whizzed through the air, like an exclamation point on that thought, and took out my driver’s-side mirror. And Ray stuck the map in front of my face again.
It was flapping in the breeze, and there wasn’t a lot of light. But even so I managed to see that he’d circled a street five or six blocks ahead. “Read the map,” I told him impatiently. “That’s a dead end.”
He snatched it back and wrote PORTAL over the top in bold black letters.
“That doesn’t help! If I stop, they’ll shoot us before we get anywhere near it!” Not to mention that portals give me the creeps, and that’s even when I knew where they went.
Ray shook a fist at me and stabbed the spot, repeatedly. If he’d had a head, he’d have been screaming it off. “I get it!” I told him, stabbing back with my finger. “But I can’t stop, and cars don’t go through portals!”
We were rammed again before he could respond, and the pen in his hand went flying. But he really didn’t need it. I didn’t know what our odds were of surviving the portal, but they had to be better than staying here.
“You better be right about this,” I told him, and swerved hard to the left.
There aren’t many true dead ends in Manhattan, but this one qualified. On either side were tall buildings and narrow sidewalks, and in front, only more of the same. There was a walkway for pedestrians that cut through to another street, but it didn’t look wide enough for the car. And then it didn’t matter, because Ray wrenched the wheel toward the plywood-covered front of a restaurant.
We hit going about forty, which doesn’t sound like a lot unless you’re plowing into a wall of wood. The plywood front was apparently real enough, because it splintered and flew everywhere. As did glass, brick and drywall as we hit something fairly substantial on the other side. But there must have been an active portal in there somewhere, because I felt the usual nauseating drop as it caught us.
I’d never heard of portals being approved for vehicular use, and now I knew why. There was suddenly no road anymore, no up or down, no anything but a rushing slur of color and noise and out-of-control momentum. We were tossed down its long gullet, twisted violently around and then hurled out onto a quiet, tree- shaded street. Upside down.
