Tom Piccirilli: The Cold Spot

Jonah was sitting in a pool of blood at the foot of the bed. He’d been shot in the back twice but his face didn’t register much pain.

Angie was lying just inside the room, dead. Most of her face had been torn off and flung onto the wall behind her. Chase could see what had happened. She’d made a move on the old man, trying to get out from under him. She’d put two into him and still hadn’t been able to put him down, and Jonah had killed her.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Chase hissed.

And in Jonah’s face, even now, after clipping the woman who had been like his wife, the mother of his kid, the old man showed nothing. He said, “Give me a hand.”

“In a minute. It’s not over yet.”

Chase moved away, took three steps out the door, and fell on his face.

Lila was there. She came to him and gripped the sides of his face and raised his head. She said, “I didn’t want any of this for you, but we’re in it now. You’ve got to get up, love, he’s coming.”

A shriek of tires erupted from around the corner of the far end of the parking lot. Chase opened his eyes and tried to rouse himself. Earl must’ve parked his muscle in one of the driveways of the decrepit houses around them. A gutsy move being that far away from your wheels. Chase saw a flash of headlights reflected in the windows of the manager’s office a moment before Earl’s car appeared.

So they were going to get to race after all.

Chase stumbled out to the Chevelle and saw that Earl Raymond was driving a gorgeous 1970 Plymouth Superbird with the funky extended front end but without the high back spoiler. It was tuned up right. The 440 V8 damn near howled.

Earl slowed and came to a stop in the distance, checking the scene, trying to squeeze a little more action from it.

Settling behind the wheel of the Chevelle and splashing blood over the seat, Chase twisted the key and felt the power of the engine rise into him.

The Chevelle was ready. Its dark energy merged with his own.

He thought, This is how it’s supposed to be. Both of us in machines, ready to go running around the city. Or just sit back and play chicken, do this short and sweet.

Seventy yards separated them. No chance to build up any real speed, but still, there’d be enough.

They could play tag through Jersey, ripping up these roads, wheeling through residential neighborhoods, and breaking for the highway. They might shake and bump each other for hours, crushing car frames and bouncing loose the suspension, the exhaust systems, mile after mile. Earl occasionally hanging his left arm out and firing mad-dog style.

Where would they end up? The Pine Barrens? Atlantic City? Philly? Mississippi? Would either of them want it to end or would it just be too much fun letting the hammer down and running like that for the remainder of their lives?

Chase thought, This is what he’s thinking too. I can feel it.

Earl revved his engine. Such an old-school thing to do, but he probably couldn’t help himself. His stereo was turned all the way up, a nice speaker system pounding out an incredible bass track that pummeled the night. He was having a ball. Chase wasn’t. He was leaking out across the floor mat.

He waited. The Chevelle’s power burned through him. It worked into his bones, into the back of his skull, rattling away some of the pain but none of the rage.

Earl Raymond had killed Lila and Chase still wanted to talk to him, pull photos from his wallet, stick them in Earl’s face and get some kind of human reaction from him. At least hear his voice, the nuances, the inflections. Watch his eyes. Earl stood on the brake and the gas pedal together, the tires screeching insanely, smoking like a brush fire had been set underneath the Superbird. He dropped off the brake and tore at Chase, eating the space between them.

Chase moved into the cold spot. It frosted his burning mind. He saw what he had to do.

He opened the door and climbed out.

He walked away from the Chevelle.

A driver without any muscle but with plenty of drive. Chase doubled over and let out Walcroft’s noise. Then he straightened himself as his blood hit the asphalt.

He stood his ground as the Plymouth ripped toward him, edging past 30 mph, 40, 50. Earl hung his left arm out the window and blasted away.

A bullet took Chase in the collarbone and his right arm went dead. But he didn’t drop the gun.

He reached for it with his left and had to pry the numb fingers of his right hand from around the pistol.

There was still time, he could do this. He was fast. Even now, sounding like a busted bellows, his chest heaving. He closed his fist around the 9mm and lifted his left arm and started firing.

The Plymouth was so damn close now, the blazing headlights illuminating Chase with an icy intensity that met with his own inner cool. He fired blindly five times.

He missed. The grille was less than thirty feet away, the car hauling in at about sixty. Time maybe for one last pull of the trigger, or maybe not. The world was nothing but light. He snapped a final shot off.

Now the front end was no more than ten feet away, and Chase was going to die beneath three thousand pounds of Detroit muscle. It actually made him grin.

Earl cared for the car but wasn’t overzealous about it. If he had been, he would’ve restored it fully and put the funky back spoiler on even if it did make the Superbird stand out. He didn’t quite love the car enough.

There was a slight pull to the right and the Plymouth angled just enough to miss Chase as it roared past.

He got a good look. The last bullet had smashed Earl’s head apart and a nice red cascade had covered the dashboard and the inside of the windshield.

The Superbird’s side mirror caught Chase’s left hand and he felt three of his fingers break. It spun him around and he polished the driver’s door with the seat of his pants. He went down again and watched the car make a wild turn and plow into the front of Room #18, roaring over and crushing the bodies of the crew. The idle was stuck high and the engine kept screaming. Chase wanted to join it, but the Jonah in his head said, Get the fuck up.

His grandfather was there telling him, “Get the fuck up.”

Jonah drove like shit. Chase could see why the old man always needed a getaway driver, and why during the Philly museum heist escape he’d nearly run over a teenage girl. Way too loose with the wheel, too heavy on the gas pedal, taking turns too tight. He swerved all over the road trying to get to the George Washington Bridge. Maybe the two bullets in his back had something to do with it, but still.

Clearly Jonah still knew his way around the area but not as well as Chase did, and the old man kept barking questions, asking if he should take a left or right here to get uptown, which way was quickest to the East Side. Chase tried to focus and keep his eyes on the road but his vision kept doubling, tripling. Racking coughs filled his mouth with blood. Even then, he couldn’t brush past the nagging feeling that he was staining the seat. The next thief who boosted the Chevelle was going to have his work cut out for him when it came to the detailing.

Way uptown on 203rd, right on the Harlem River, Jonah finally got them to a safe doctor, which meant the guy was a fucking butcher. He was also a junkie and looked high on speed or meth. He’d fallen from grace decades ago and stared vacantly but bright-eyed at Chase. The guy looked happy and genuinely deranged.

He gave Chase a needle and said, “This will kill the pain.”

It didn’t. Five minutes later, while the guy poked around in the bullet wounds, scratching at the collarbone, Chase wailed as loudly as he could, which wasn’t much above a whisper because of the collapsed lung. He tried to reach his good hand out to Jonah but the arm was nearly useless. Still, Jonah knew what Chase was doing, and Chase was surprised as hell when his grandfather took it. That meant something but he wasn’t sure what.