“Come on,” Smoke said. He, his girlfriend, and the road dogs climbed over the fence and held on to their MAC Tools, M&M, and Excedrin baseball caps as they ran through gusting rotor wash toward the 430.
BARBIE and Hooter saw the bright helicopter pop up over the tops of buildings and speed away as Barbie turned into the empty parking lot of the courts buildings. She drove to the back, and instantly six desperate-looking men, including the reverend, rushed out of a wooded area and ran like hell toward the minivan, jerking open the doors and piling inside. It did not escape Hooter’s attention that the men smelled unwashed, were unshaven, and had neither belts nor shoelaces. She knew inmates when she saw them, and froze in fear. Oh, oh, oh, what had she gotten herself into now? And wasn’t that Mexican boy the same one she’d met at the tollbooth the other night?
“Drive!” Reverend Justice shouted.
“Yeah, get the fuck outta here!” Slim Jim screamed.
“Duck down!” Trader yelled.
“Man, you’re crushing me!” Cat complained.
The men ducked down on the floor as Barbie shot out of the parking lot and noticed cop cars with flashing lights rushing toward the gloomy brick jail across the street.
“Just drive normal,” Hooter said, because somebody had to have a clear head and take control. “You be whizzing around like this and the police will stop us for sure. Then we gonna get arrested for helping convicts escape from jail.”
“What?” Barbie panicked, clutching the steering wheel in both hands. “Convicts?”
“We was unfairly arrested, Barbie,” the reverend said from the floor in back. “It’s the Lord’s will we got out and you’re helping us. And I had no choice about it ’cause these other inmates forced me to act like I was rupturing something in my belly and when the guard burst inside the cell to help, I smacked him over the head with a food tray, just like Pinn had done to him when he used to work as a prison guard.
“So I got the idea from being on Head to Head with Pinn. Ain’t it wondrous the way the Lord works?” Reverend Justice preached on. “If I hadn’t been on that show, all ’cause of Moses Custer and the Neighborhood Watch I started down there near the Farmers’ Market, well, I never would’ave thought to smack someone with a food tray. ’Course, if I hadn’t been so over-stended and stressed out from all the publicity I suddenly was getting, I might not have tried to pick up that old woman for purposes of releasing myself, and then I never would’ave had to smack nobody with a food tray.”
MAYBE it was just a superstition, but Moses Custer had always heard that if his ear itched, it meant someone was talking about him. As he rode in the governor’s motorcade, Moses’s right ear was itching something fierce beneath bandages, and he wondered if it might indicate that a lot of people out there knew he was a VIP guest in a long black limousine, and destined to sit in the governor’s box at the race. He stared out tinted glass at backed-up traffic as the governor snored and his peculiar daughter with her jet-black helmet haircut kept staring down at her quivering cleavage while that tiny red horse stood in the woodchips and now and then stepped on Moses’s foot.
Macovich, meanwhile, was trying to weave through traffic as he talked over the radio to Andy, who had turned the helicopter’s intercom to crew only so the road dogs couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“To make everything worse,” Macovich said into the mike, “six inmates just broke out of jail and cop cars are everywhere, so I’m telling you, it’s a mess out here. I don’t know when we’ll get to the racetrack, but we gonna be late.”
“Look, I’ve got to go to Plan B,” Andy transmitted as the mobbed racetrack appeared a thousand feet below, in the distance.
“Wooo, seems like we should be on Plan G or H now, at least.”
“I’ll do a high recon over the racetrack and just keep circling until you can get a bunch of uniformed cops to swarm onto the helipad so Smoke will change his mind and order me to take them to Tangier Island,” Andy came back.
“But we ain’t got no undercover backups down there, man!” Macovich worried.
Andy looked down at thousands of fans waving wildly up at the helicopter and fighting to get close to the helipad.
“I wasn’t expecting this and should have,” he said, “but Brett’s fans are recognizing his bird and are going to storm us on the ground. Someone may get hurt or Smoke’s going to get away. No way I’m setting down at the racetrack.”
“Ten-four,” Macovich came back. “I mean, roger.”
THE stands were filling up as Andy switched on pulsing landing lights and began to slow down. He turned the intercom back to all so everyone in back could hear him through the headsets.
“We’ll be landing in a few minutes,” Andy announced. “Now it’s very important you follow instructions, for reasons of safety. When we set down, just keep your seats and the ground crew will get you out.”
Smoke was staring out his window. When the helipad came in sight, he noticed dozens of cops crowding onto it. Smoke also detected that there was something odd about the pilot’s ponytail. It seemed to him that a minute ago, the ponytail had been centered, and now it was cockeyed.
“What are all those cops doing?” Smoke said into his mike.
“Don’t know, but they’ll clear out of the way as I get closer,” Andy replied, and Hammer tensed up and wanted desperately to turn around and check on Popeye.
“Oh yeah?” Smoke countered as meanness crept into his voice. “Well, maybe something stinks about this.”
“Man! Look at all them people down there,” Cuda marveled. “And look how all of ’em are pointing up at us and pumping their fists! They must think we’re Donny Brett!”
“Bullshit,” Smoke’s voice filled Andy’s headset, and suddenly the ponytail wig was yanked off from behind and the Ray-Bans were knocked askew.
Andy remembered what Macovich had drilled into him when Andy was learning to fly: Just fly the helicopter. No matter what happened or how desperate the situation, Andy must simply fly the helicopter, and he held it in a steady descent as he felt the hard, cold barrel of a gun at the back of his neck and Smoke yelled obscenities at him and threatened to kill the dog.
“Calm down.” It was Hammer who spoke. “Do you want us to crash, you idiots? Now shut up back there so we can handle this huge machine because none of you knows how to fly, and that means you’re going to have to depend on us!”
“. . . Fucking cops!” Smoke was ranting and raving. “I know who you are, you motherfuckers! And I’ve got your fucking dog back here, you bitch, and if you don’t do what I say, I’m gonna pump her full of rat poison!”
Hammer assumed and sincerely hoped Smoke was bluffing, but Possum saw the syringe Smoke had just pulled out of a pocket. Possum held Popeye and could feel her shaking through the flag as Unique sat very still, as if in a trance, her eyes filled with an eerie light.
“Don’t do nothing like that right now,” Possum told Smoke. “You stick the dog and she’s gonna start having cavulshuns and jumping everywhere, and if she dead, you ain’t got nothing to threaten them with no more.”
Smoke fell silent for a moment, and decided Possum was probably right, as Hammer’s heart was seized by fear, because she realized Smoke might really have a syringe full of rat poison back there. The bastard. If they ever got back on the ground alive, she might just kill Smoke even if it was a bad shooting and she ended up professionally ruined or charged with manslaughter.
Unique slid a box cutter out of a pocket, her surreal stare fixed on the back of the blond cop’s neck. The Nazi had directed that she would find her Purpose, and she had. She rearranged her molecules and then arranged them back to normal as she realized that the cop she had been stalking, who had turned out to be Andy Brazil, had already seen her when he picked them up in the helicopter. So there was no point in being invisible, and he wasn’t going to recognize her, anyway. Her groin throbbed as she anticipated cutting his throat from ear to ear. Then the copilot would take over, and
after they landed, Unique would cut her throat, too, and spend some alone time with the body.
“Get us out of here!” Smoke ordered Andy. “Now! Take us to Tangier Island! And don’t you say anything I can’t hear in the back!”
Thirty-two
Macovich spotted the white minivan with the rainbow bumper sticker two cars ahead, and he recalled the rainbow sticker on Hooter’s tollbooth. Just as Hooter entered his mind, he realized with surprise that she was sitting in the front passenger’s seat of the minivan and turning around to talk to people in back, none of whom Macovich could see.
“Wooo, girl, what’s going on here?” Macovich muttered to himself as he noted that the minivan was driving a bit erratically, slowing down and speeding up, swerving and trying to switch lanes to pass.
Macovich flipped on the specially equipped limousine’s blue grill lights and got on the bumper in front of him, forcing the motorist to pull off on the shoulder. He did the same thing to the next car, and was now on the minivan’s rear, his emergency lights strobing.
“What’s going on?” Regina asked as she tried a few pats of the face powder Barbie had given to her.
“I’m just trying to get us through all this traffic,” Macovich said as he managed to nudge into the left lane and get parallel to the minivan.
He started waving at Hooter, trying to get her attention, and when she finally looked over and saw him, after Barbie brought him and the limousine to her attention, Hooter made a face of distress and mouthed help!
“Shit!” Macovich said, because he was not allowed to make traffic stops or get involved in incidents while he was driving the governor.
He shrugged, as if to tell Hooter there was nothing he could do. He pointed toward the back of the limousine and drew a box in the air to indicate he was carrying The Package. Hooter rolled her eyes and mouthed help! again as she pointed to the back of the minivan and held up six fingers and then wiggled two fingers to suggest six people running. Macovich frowned and wondered what she was trying to say. Six passengers in back who were running? Wooo, he thought. Didn’t six inmates just break out of jail not too far from here, and if normal, innocent people were in back of the van, then why were they ducking out of sight?
Macovich got on his radio and called for backup units while he motioned for Hooter to get her ditzy-looking driver to somehow pull off the road.
GIRLFRIEND,” Hooter said loudly to Barbie. “I is so sorry, but I got to use the lady’s room, and I mean got to.”
“Forget it!” Cat’s urgent voice drifted up from the floor in back. “We’re not stopping until we get outta all this traffic and to some place where there ain’t no police!”
“Let me tell you something,” Hooter tossed over the seat, “when a lady say she gotta stop, then she gotta stop, you understand what I’m saying? Didn’t your mama raise you right, huh? Didn’t she teach you nothing about ladies and their monthly spells, and how a lady can be riding along minding her own business when all a sudden, she feels her fertility waking up when it wasn’t expected for two more days?”
The men on the floor in back fell silent.
“So, girlfriend, you just pull over right up there at the Hess station and I’ll run in. I’ll be quick, but I sure hope I ain’t gonna get the cramps. Oh Lord, please don’t let me get the cramps.”
Barbie was so concerned she momentarily forgot the inmates inside her minivan. Barbie had suffered terribly from cramps when she was younger, and she understood completely how unbearable and debilitating they could be. She flipped on her right turn signal and reached over to pat Hooter’s arm.
“Just drive!” Trader ordered.
“Do you have any Midol?” Barbie asked Hooter.
“Uh-uh, ohhhh,” Hooter replied with a groan as she held her belly. “Ohhhh! I didn’t bring nothing ’cause I wasn’t expecting my periot. Ohhhhhh! Lord, why this have to happen on today of all days?”
“I am very sorry,” Reverend Justice said with feeling as he inhaled a mouthful of dust from the carpeted floor and shoved Cat’s foot out of his face. “I’ll pray that the Good Lord deliver you from The Cramps. Dear Lord”—he sneezed twice—“please deliver this woman, your servant, from The Cramps. I claim your powers of healing in the name of Je-sus!”
“Ohhhhhh,” Hooter moaned louder as the minivan crept ahead in the barely moving gridlock of race fans, all of whom were getting out of sorts and worrying about missing the start of the race, when the pace car would roar out onto the track and Air Force F-16s would fly over in formation.
“All right, okay, all right,” Slim Jim’s voice sounded, and if there was one thing he couldn’t stand, it was hearing a woman with The Cramps and then having to brace himself for the rotten moods and mean-ass behavior that were sure to follow. “Pull over and you make it quick and don’t talk to nobody or do nothing to ’tract attention!”
MACOVICH was intently watching Hooter as he drove beside her. Clearly, she had been injured and needed to be rushed to the hospital, and Macovich was beginning to panic. How did he know one of the inmates hadn’t stabbed her with a shank and she was bleeding to death right before his eyes?
“Sir, excuse me,” Moses raised his voice to the governor.
“What?” the governor asked, waking up.
“That little horse’s got his hoof on my foot and I can’t move it,” Moses said, trying not to cause an inconvenience, but he feared his foot might be broken and he was in terrible pain.
Regina tried to remember where she’d put her list of commands and realized she had left it at the mansion. She knew there was a command for picking up a hoof, and she searched her memory. What was it?
“Closer,” she said to Trip.
Trip responded by moving a foot closer to his handler, who in this case, was the governor.
“Ahhhh!” Moses yelled when the minihorse knocked against the cast on his arm and then stepped on his other foot. “I don’t mean to complain, but I’m getting as banged up back here as I was at the hospital!”
“Right!” Regina began to panic and all of the commands she had glanced at tumbled together in her head. “I’m sorry.”
Trip turned right and banged Moses’s bandaged head against the window. He screamed and begged for someone to let him out of the car.
“I’ll just get me a cab and go on home to bed,” he said as he tried to push the minihorse away.
“Can you pull over?” Regina yelled to Macovich as she tugged on her denim skirt, which was a bit snug and tended to creep up her enormous thighs. “Mister Custer’s not feeling well and needs to go!”
“Needs to go where?” Macovich said as he crept along with the minivan.
“Back,” Regina shouted, and Trip stepped back and rested all of his weight on both of Moses’s feet this time.
“Ayyyyyyy!” he shrieked.
“Ohhhhhh,” Hooter moaned as Barbie finally, at long last, turned into the Hess station, and the governor’s motorcade pulled in right behind her.
Other race fans who also had decided to take advantage of a pit stop stared in amazement at the lead limousine with flashing blue lights and the other three black stretches that followed. Shiny black doors opened and the governor, a fat girl with awful hair and bizarre taste in clothes, and what looked like a hospital patient, in addition to a tiny red horse, and plainclothes drivers who had guns under their jackets, and the rest of the First Family, climbed out to get a little fresh air.
The governor grabbed Trip’s harness and took a few uncertain steps as Macovich rushed toward the minivan just as Hooter climbed out and began to wave her arms and yell.
“We’ve been abducted by convicts!” she shouted, and immediately, every NASCAR fan who had stopped to buy beer, and relieve himself from beer already consumed, began to cheer.
Slim Jim, Stick, Cruz Morales, Trader, Cat, and the reverend boiled out from the back floor and scattered. Two of them were tackled by Bubba Loving. Macovich snatched Cruz and Stick up by the backs of their shirts, a
nd Cat zigzagged and dodged and ran straight at the governor, whom he intended to hold hostage. Regina, remembering that she was still a police intern, decided it was up to her to control the situation and yelled at Trip, “Sic him!”
The minihorse was unfamiliar with the command and did nothing as Cat ran past, and the governor squinted about in confusion and patted for his magnifying glass. Regina, who as a child had annoyed and injured mansion staff and family by butting them in tender places, lowered her NASCOIFED helmet-head and pawed the ground with her red patent-leather high tops, building up steam as she suffered a violent atavistic throwback to her primitive programming. She rushed the inmate and butted him in the groin, knocking him off his feet and sending him sailing through the air and body-slamming into Trader. Then she pounced on both of them, sprawled across their chests, and hollered as she banged their heads together and strangled them. Hooter hurried over to assist, while cheering NASCAR fans encouraged the fat girl to slam into them again and stomp their pedals to the metal and blow their asses off the track.
SMOKE continued to bump Andy’s head with the pistol and threaten to kill Popeye if Andy and Hammer didn’t do exactly as they were told.
“I know you got guns, so hand them back here,” Smoke ordered over his mike.
Just fly the helicopter, Andy told himself.
“Hand them back here now!” Smoke’s cruel voice sounded in Andy’s headset.
“I’m flying,” Andy replied. “It takes both hands and feet to fly and I’m not about to start rooting around for any alleged weapons until we’re on the ground.”
“I don’t have a weapon,” Hammer answered as she wondered if she dared turn around and shoot Smoke with the nine-millimeter pistol inside her Harley purse.
She supposed this was not a good idea. Nailing Smoke wasn’t the problem at such close range, but if he happened to fire his gun because she’d fired hers, then Andy might be wounded or killed and it would be up to her to fly and she didn’t know how. Not to mention, if her bullet passed through Smoke and penetrated the helicopter, severe damage might be the result and they could crash. She looked out at the dark waters of the James River as it opened up into the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and remembered her fear of drowning.