Control

  “Is that spearmint or what?” he asked her. “I want taknow what flavor’s killing me.” He took one hand off the wheel, gestured a sign: “Here lies Hubert J. Hutner, dead of Dubble Bubble.”

  She stared silently out into the storm.

  Traffic was murder. Murder, Not that many cars but those that were out were crawling. Let me count the reasons I hate her, Hubert J. Hutner decided, to calm himself. I hate her because of the traffic. I hate her because when she married me she was five two, one hundred and five, and curvy in the right places whereas now even her wrists are curvy—she would never tell him her weight anymore but he knew it was over one seventy-five. I hate her because she insisted we go to this goddam heart fund benefit at the Waldorf because her hairdresser insisted he knew that Frank Sinatra was going to make an unscheduled appearance.

  He tripped, on and on, coming up with any number of good and valid reasons, but the chief one was this: He hated her because she insisted he drive from Great Neck to Manhattan in his Mercedes.

  He’d told her it was going to snow, so they should take the train but she was having none of it—she would not go from the station to the Waldorf and ruin her formal.

  So they took the Mercedes. Hubert’s Mercedes. His new, chocolate Mercedes. He loved it. There was not a Rolls in the world he would trade it for.

  But already on this trip he had been bumped twice from the rear by cars unable to stop. Each bump took, he figured, maybe a year off his life.

  “And you wanted to take the train,” Candy Hutner said.

  Candy. What a name. Another reason to hate her.

  “I could have wrung this dress a year and it never would have gotten dry if I’d walked from the station to the Waldorf.”

  “When you crack your gum, that way you don’t talk so much; please crack your gum.” He peered out into the evening, trying to decide whether he should force his way into the next lane over to the right.

  Now a big guy was standing by his window, pounding on the glass.

  “Quit that!” Hubert Hutner snapped.

  From outside: “Give me your car—”

  “Wham?”

  And now the big guy was yanking at the locked door, trying unsuccessfully to open it.

  “Quit that!”

  “I want your car now get out—”

  “—buy your own Mercedes, asshole?’

  The big guy started away, then turned back and when he turned there was a gun and theiUhere were two shots and shattering glass and the blood actually leapt from where it had been sequestered, in Hubert Hutner’s heart…

  ***

  —run, that was the message, run, don’t look back, run, something might be gaining on you—so when he got to the corner Billy Boy ran straight into traffic right across the street and he didn’t look back to see if the nightmare was following—

  —how could he have fired that one shot?—

  —he forced his way to the far sidewalk and then he surprised himself even, because instead of going on in a straight line he ducked over, hunched way over and began running with the cars, but you couldn’t see him, not if you were where the nightmare was, no, he was invisible, he was gone, safe and gone—

  —he ran and ran always hidden by the snow, hidden by the height of the car roofs.

  But it was slow going.

  Slow and cold.

  The cars looked warm—but the traffic was shitty, no point in getting into a car, not when you could make better time on foot —the snow was beginning to swirl around now, the winds picking up, making it even worse for the cars.

  He continued his bent-over way uptown, running, passing a side street, running, passing another side street, running—

  —hold the fucking phone—

  —the side streets weren’t so bad—you could almost make time on the side streets, so if you got yourself some wheels and turned off the main drag you could maybe move—

  —here came this chocolate job, a fat broad chewing gum sitting by a skinny guy at the wheel. Chocolate and foreign, expensive, shit that was great, when he got done moving in the thing he could probably sell it for a ton, so he grabbed the front door by the driver’s side—

  —locked—

  The skinny guy yelled out at him and he yelled in and pulled harder and yelled again and again came the reply, and he felt pretty tough, the skinny guy did, locked and safe, and “—buy your own Mercedes, asshole!”

  Billy Boy turned away, what the hell, the car was locked, the next one would probably not be, he’d take the next one, he’d—

  —no—

  —there were some things that just didn’t go, and no skinny shitface could call him names, not that name, not “asshole!” with that cruddy rich look on his face and then one of the guns was in his fist and two quick shots and who was the asshole now?

  The next car was locked too and the car after that was full of four guys and they were no problem, he’d taken on more than four in his time and come out ahead but what was the point, none, not when the next car had a lady alone in it and she didn’t know what hit her as he grabbed the door open with one hand, clubbed hard with the other, shoved her over, got inside, took the wheel in his hands—

  —he’d never driven, not in the Apple, close to it, on the trip in, but here he was, behind the wheel, his own boss, ready to roll—

  —except the goddam traffic wouldn’t move.

  Ahead was a cross street. Not a bad one. Haifa block ahead and he could gun it good. But Christ, that half block, it was forever. The snow was bad and the wind was bad and people were honking and behind him the fat woman who’d been in the chocolate job was standing in the street screaming her fat rotten lungs out—

  —and the traffic still wouldn’t move.

  Shit! He reached over, took the woman slumped beside him and tossed her in the back on the floor—who needed her staring at him all the time. He kept her purse, opened it, grabbed the billfold. Eighty bucks!

  His luck was beginning to change.

  Eighty bucks and now the traffic was starting to move.

  Definitely changing.

  Eighty bucks and the cross street coming up and Billy Boy took it and gunned the motor just for the hell of it, just for the freedom of it, because there was nothing to stop him now, he owned all the luck and it was coming up sevens and then he screamed “Jesus” and held to the wheel—

  —because in the rearview mirror now another car was closing, and the driver of that car was him, the cop, the cop coming to get him, his nightmare come to get him through the storm …

  The emotional swings of the last few days had been like nothing Eric had ever experienced before, but as he stood on the corner of Second Avenue in the blizzard with his quarry gone, he was overtaken—it was as if a blanket had been thrown, covering every inch of him—with despair.

  Every instinct told him that tonight was it, Armageddon, tonight there would be blood on the moon—except Billy Boy was gone.

  Eric stood in the snow, scanning the car-clogged street, trying to see the sidewalk through the white. His clothes were soaked from the snow now and his hair too, but he felt it not at all and could have cared less.

  Now he began to move—first uptown, then abruptly, for no reason, down. He began to run, more out of frustration than need, jogging along the slippery sidewalk, peering into the stores as he passed, trying to catch a glimpse inside the cars-—was anybody acting funny, were there clues he was missing, was there unusual behavior he should be able to spot?

  He spotted nothing.

  Not thing one!

  Eric stopped. Uptown was better maybe. He turned, started that way. Then he decided that he was going too fast. When you went too fast you missed things.

  Eric slowed.

  Slowed and paid close attention now to everything, all his senses ready—a fruit store, the woman behind the counter, did she look afraid, was there someone out of sight that was scaring her.

  He moved suddenly into the store, gun ready—
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  —that really scared her. The poor bitch gasped and paled and Eric got the hell out before things got more complicated.

  Back in’ the street he continued to prowl, probably would have gone on as long as his legs would take him. He would circle around this area forever if he had to, he would walk the world away if he had to, he would—

  —gunshots—

  Eric whirled.

  —gunshots behind him.

  Where though? Below him, yes, but where, which car, he couldn’t tell for sure as he ran toward the area. He moved off the sidewalk now, racing between the jammed cars as he headed toward where the sounds had come from more than a block below. It was slow, he couldn’t make time, the snow and the jammed cars blew that possibility, but he did what he could wondering where the hell exactly he was headed. But then he knew. Where. Exactly.

  Because half a block below him a fat lady stood beside a car in the street and screamed and screamed and—

  —and just below her now there was Billy Boy—in a car, his giant shoulders filling the front seat and edging toward the side street that headed toward Third. Eric threwa cab door open, said “Out” to the driver and the customer behind. He flashed his badge and his gun but neither of them wanted to move.

  The passenger in die back was a Wall Streeter and he informed Eric getting another cab would be impossible.

  “I just put on snow tires,” the driver said. “And I had the motor overhauled—I put a bundle in this baby and—”

  “I’ll blow you both away,” Eric said very quietly, and of course it was a lie, he would never have done such a thing, but they had no way of knowing that and evidently they believed him because their evacuation was more than fast enough and Eric made a wild right turn, scraping the hell out of the cab and another car but who cared, not now, nothing mattered now—

  —now that he had Billy Boy in his headlights.

  As he entered the cross street, Eric thought about the shots— two, it sounded like. Definitely two. That made a total of three. Three bullets gone, three to go.

  They were more than halfway to Third Avenue. Up ahead the light had just turned red.

  Good.

  And there were several cars waiting by the light, blocking the street.

  Better and better.

  Eric gunned the cab and the snow tires bit and the car moved easily and well and he was closing in now, was getting there when he knew that Billy Boy had spotted him—his car, it was a Chevy, picked up speed suddenly. Or tried to. Its wheels spun, snow flew from the wheels but the car wasn’t responding all that well.

  Eric picked up his pace even more. The light was still red and the cars still blocked the way so Eric moved his gun from his left hand to his right, ready to fire the instant he had Billy Boy cornered—

  —which was when Billy Boy spun his Chevy up onto the sidewalk, managed to get it straightened, and roared toward Third Avenue.

  Eric had no choice but to follow and Third was the total reverse of Second, Third was almost empty, the street must have been tied up down below, nothing getting through for now and Eric watched as Billy Boy slid across the street, the car motor roaring, but he was having trouble, no traction, and he was still trying to get it going when Eric blasted broadside into the Chevy and both cars went flying across the avenue, Billy Boy crashing into a parked car, gunning the motor again, starting forward with Eric turning more easily on his tail and for a moment it was like some lethal game of bumper tag, the cab and the Chevy, careening across Third, and Eric got him again at the next corner, except this time, the impact was greater on the cab than he figured and his head took a blow from the wheel, nothing damaging but it smarted, and the Chevy slipped away again and up ahead was another cross street and Eric could see the move the Chevy wanted to make, a sharp left turn, but the wheels didn’t dig deep enough, the traction was not there and the Chevy skidded sideways up the avenue and beyond it was a construction site, a large permanent house trailer serving as its office, and Eric gunned the cab now, jammed his foot all the way down and the cab leapt forward and the two cars locked and spun and smashed full tilt into the dark trailer and Eric had initiated the move, he had the power and the momentum, but as they spun, he also took the brunt of the hit and this time his forehead hit the windshield and he knew he was cut as blood splashed down into his right eye and Billy Boy was able to get out of his car first, and he fired, and Eric thought “he must be panicked, what a shitty shot, he didn’t even hit a window” and then he realized Billy Boy wasn’t trying for a window but his gas tank instead, and Eric fumbled for the fucking door handle, got it, jammed it forward as he caught a glimpse of flame and he rolled out of the car onto the street as Billy Boy fired again and the cab began to blaze. Eric kept moving the hell away because an explosion was going to come and he made good time, was safe enough when the explosion came, and it blew the night apart, but what Eric was thinking at the time was that his right leg hurt like hell and as he looked at it he saw it should hurt like hell, he’d been shot in the thigh, God knew how bad.

  Up ahead now, Billy Boy ran into the side street.

  The flames from the cab burned into the night behind him as. Eric began to move. There were screams from passersby but he ignored them, glancing back only once.

  But he wished he hadn’t—far across the street but coming his way were The Fruits.

  Eric tried to get his brain going as he limped along. Billy Boy was running up ahead still, and that had been two more bullets gone, the one into the gas tank, the other into his leg—-

  —five down and one to go.

  So now it was a three-way chase, he had to get to Billy Boy before The Fruits got to him, so Eric told himself to forget about his leg, he had all day tomorrow to cry like a baby, just forget the fucking thing and run—

  —his pace picked up.

  Billy Boy wasn’t that far ahead, visible through the snow.

  But The Fruits weren’t all that far behind.

  And for a moment it all seemed to Eric like that great cartoon where the two mice in the maze are talking and one says to the other, “Do you ever get the feeling this is all part of some crazy experiment?” and was he that too?—was there some person in what to him was the future who was controlling him and Billy Boy ahead and The Fruits behind and was it all to be like that poor poet and the Russian, fighting forever through time?

  Billy Boy was running faster now. Eric sometimes lost sight of him when the snow was too thick.

  And then it came to Eric where he was; this was the street in the Bloomingdale’s area where it all began, where Frank had found that poor Oliver woman with the broken neck and the unused ticket to A Chorus Line.

  Eric glanced back—The Fruits were still there but no closer. Now he looked forward—and Billy Boy was gone again, but this time Eric didn’t bother to sweat it, he knew where he was, he was back in that dark area between the buildings where he’d mugged Sophie the queen of the shoplifters and killed Oliver. Billy Boy did that—returned to places—he was in front of the oversize-men’s clothing store and he was up ahead in the darkness now—

  —with his one shot left.

  Ordinarily the catbird seat, but this was no ordinarily he’d encountered before—not with the two behind him coming closer. Maybe he could handle them, maybe he could handle them and Billy Boy, but he was shot and bleeding and not at his best, and if he was going to get to Billy Boy before The Fruits got to him, he was going to have to make Billy Boy come out—

  —Eric slowed. The dark area with the stairs leading down was just ahead now—

  —and Billy Boy would only come out when he thought he was safe and he would only know he was safe when Eric was dead—

  —Eric moved forward into the area just in front of where the giant waited—

  —with one shot left—

  —not bad odds—one shot and not much light and heavy snow —he had run worse risks before and he was still here, wasn’t he?—

  —then just to make
himself irresistible, Eric faked as if he were looking around confused.

  Then he turned his back on Billy Boy.

  And waited for the shot.

  The barrage that followed kicked him forward into the street, and for a moment the surprise of the number of times he was hit held off the pain the wounds brought with them.

  But only for a moment. The pain had him totally then.

  Eric closed his eyes and could not not think about dying…

  He knew his luck was good when he remembered the street and he knew it was better than good when he forced his way back to the dark stairs and waited with his guns ready. If it all went great the cop would come by and maybe slow down enough for a shot.

  Billy Boy waited.

  Here came the nightmare.

  Billy Boy raised his guns.

  The nightmare slowed and he was about to fire when it got better—the guy stopped. Stopped just there in front of him.

  Then it got great—the guy turned his back.

  And stood there. And stood there.

  As he fired he remembered all of a sudden some of the great times he’d known, his first fuck, no, not really his first but the first time the girl wanted to, and the first big fight, the one that made him know he was stronger than anybody or anything—

  —but they felt nothing like this felt.

  The cop was like he’d been jerked by a wire—forward and down and over. Billy Boy didn’t know for sure how many bullets hit but he figured most, he was a great shot and he was lucky again.

  He took a step forward, then another to the very top of the stairs, looked ahead at his enemy, the blood coming nice and free down his back. Then he looked left and right—

  —and shit, here they were coming, the boys in blue, and probably they had guns again and if they didn’t then they had that thing that stopped him before because they wouldn’t come this far without some kind of protection, so they must have been good and armed—