“Honey,” he said. Damn. He never called me “honey.” He was scared for me. “Run like your ass is on fire. They’re probably tracking my calls.”
“I’m on an untraceable satellite phone.”
“Why do you have an untraceable satellite phone?”
“I said no questions.”
“Right. So, listen. It’s time to get outta Dodge, babe. As in get the hell out. As in right now. Got it?”
“Got it. And Donald? Next time, call the morning after.”
He didn’t laugh. I hung up. I typed “Toronto International Airport” into the Caddy’s GPS, made a very careful U-turn, and headed due north.
Damn! Shining like a beacon in my rearview mirror were the headlights of a car higher up the street making the same U-turn I’d made. Then those headlights went out. I could still hear the engine hum as the car came closer and closer. It was like “Christine”! Even though I couldn’t see anything on that dark street, I knew it was too close to me and I was too close to the cliff. If I slipped on the wet road, the car could careen onto the grassy part and fly over the cliff.
Nonetheless, I hit the accelerator and said the second prayer I’d said in less than two days to a god I didn’t believe in, in the first place.
My tires screeched as I navigated the road. I could see the end of the street up ahead. Before I reached it, I tried to shut off the car lights, but the Caddy’s damned safety feature would not allow it. Talk about stupidity! So I made a sharp right and a then quick left, passing an inn and onto a flat, straight road again, with my car lights like a beacon to the pursuers.
I couldn’t see it in my rearview mirror, but I could still hear it, and it sounded like it was right on my ass.
The safest bet I figured was to drive into the town of Rhinebeck and onto the main drag, where, hopefully, stores and restaurants would still be open and where whoever it was in that lightless car following me would be exposed to the lights of the town. Of course, I would be exposed as well, and now that I’d somehow turned into a wanted fugitive, it wasn’t a great choice, but it was better than leaving myself open to whatever/whoever it was that was following me.
I could see streetlights up ahead. Thank God. The town was indeed alive—in fact, throngs were gathered on the sidewalks and spilling out onto the street. What the hell? Equinox festival or something equally insane that brought out the neo-hippies?
It was so packed that I had to slow way down so that I didn’t plow down any pedestrians—or more accurately, spectators—since I saw they were all standing still and staring off in one direction. I checked my rearview mirror and saw—nothing. Where the hell had the car gone? Two seconds before the damned thing had sounded like it was practically attached to my bumper, and now—gone.
I very slowly navigated my way down the street. Everyone was standing mesmerized in front of a tavern with a sign that read BILLY’S LOCAL, SPORTS BAR AND CAFÉ. These people in the street and on the sidewalk were just the overflow crowd; the place was jammed inside. But oddly I didn’t hear any of the loud noise, or woo-wooing that is the language of sports bars. In fact, it was way too quiet.
As I slowly drove past, and the people moved aside, I glimpsed what it was that had had them all so fascinated: On every one of Billy Local’s giant 3-D flat screens was the face of Demiel ben Yusef. Filmed earlier in the day, the footage showed a close-up of ben Yusef’s calm demeanor and slight smile as he was being walked out of the tribunal, shackled, wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before, his Rasta braids reaching down to his waist in the back.
People had gathered to see the spectacle together. Remarkable. In an age when everyone had become so insular, each of us so comfortable staring alone at our own computer screens at night and communicating virtually—even virtually having sex—the folks of Rhinebeck had joined together as a community to watch this remarkable event.
Instead of the shouting, fist-waving threats, and arguments that had become commonplace wherever and whenever ben Yusef showed up, everyone in this town seemed to be taking it all in calmly.
The reporter in me was of course desperate to jump out of the car and start interviewing people, but I’d somehow ducked that car following me, so I wasn’t taking any chances.
Instead, the fugitive I’d just become kept moving ahead at only 10 or 15 mph with my eyes trained alternately on the parting crowds and the rearview mirror. I felt like I’d entered The Twilight Zone.
A middle-aged, plump woman with out-of-control gray hair, wearing a tie-dyed schmata, approached the car. She walked in front and stood there, causing me to slam on the brakes.