Lawrence Block - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 129, No. 6. Whole No. 790, June 2007

Jana’s birthday, he kept telling himself. Jana’s birthday.

He honked his horn a few times, but the guy didn’t react. A few minutes later, they crested a rise and rounded a bend, entering a brief downhill straight stretch. Ah, now here was the passing lane. The road opened up, the dotted white line appearing. Accelerating, Simon moved to the left. The biker stayed on the right and in a few seconds Simon was alongside him.

For just a moment, no more than a few seconds, Simon eased off the accelerator to look at the biker.

From the side, it was easier to get a good look. He was a big guy, not tall but broad, wide across the shoulders, thick in the middle. If he had a neck, Simon couldn’t see it — his helmet sat right on his linebacker shoulders. His pants tucked snuggly into his boots, pulling tight around his bulging calves. His hands, covered with black leather gloves, were also huge. Clenching the handlebars, they made the bike seem undersized beneath him, like a toy.

Simon realized this guy didn’t seem like a guy at all. He seemed more like the creature on the back of his jacket — a bear. He suddenly wished he could see the guy’s face. Would he look like Grizzly Adams, hair all over the place? He chuckled at the thought.

As if sensing he was being mocked, the biker turned and looked. It was then that Simon realized he had made a terrible mistake, lingering like this; imagining the eyes staring at him from behind the face shield sent a chill up his spine. He did not know this man, had no idea where he was going or why, but he sensed that this was not somebody to mess with. This was not a man you stared at, not for five seconds, not even for one. He wasn’t threatening in a Hell’s Angel sort of way, all bravado and bullying. Most bikers acted tough because they didn’t want to fight, hoping their image of toughness would be enough to scare you away. No, Simon got the feeling this guy didn’t care about projecting an image of toughness.

He didn’t need to act tough because he was.

As if he had just come face-to-face with a rattlesnake, Simon turned slowly toward the road, applying gentle pressure to the accelerator.

But as he accelerated, the biker also increased his speed. Forty-five miles an hour... Fifty... Fifty-five...

The end of the passing lane was coming up in a hurry. The guy stayed right there, across from his window. Simon didn’t dare look, but he saw well enough with his peripheral vision that the guy was still looking at him.

A yellow sign warned of the end of the passing lane. Sixty... Sixty-five... Seventy... For Christ’s sake, the guy would not back off. The dotted white line vanished, the two lanes merging into one. His heart racing, Simon punched the accelerator and his Miata jerked forward.

He hoped one last burst of speed would propel him past the biker, but the guy stayed neck and neck. Worse, the road brought them together like two canoes in a narrowing river, and soon the guy was so close to his passenger-side window that Simon couldn’t help but look. There, beyond the rain-streaked glass, lost in all that black leather, was the shiny faceplate still looking straight at him.

Cursing, Simon hit his brakes.

The biker sped past. Immediately the guy started to slow down — dropping, dropping some more, forcing Simon to keep tapping the brakes, until they were all the way back down to thirty again.

“I don’t believe this,” Simon said aloud.

He honked his horn a few more times. Again, the guy puttered along, not once turning to look back at his follower. There wasn’t another passing lane for at least ten miles. At this pace, the poker games would be shut down for the night by the time he got there.

Simon thought about taking his chances across the double yellow line, but as if in response to his thought, a pair of headlights emerged from the gloom and a van whipped past, rocking his car and spraying his windshield.

He laid on his horn, then gave the guy’s back a double bird. Still nothing. Maybe the guy was deaf. He drummed his fingers on his steering wheel. He’d just have to bide his time. There was a place to pass in a few minutes, and if he had even a hint of open road, he’d go for it. Show this punk what real speed was all about.

But when he reached the area to pass, and started to make his move, the guy sped up again.

Totally unbelievable. The guy was determined to be an absolute prick. This went on for another ten minutes — slowing in the double yellows, speeding up in the passing areas — until finally Simon couldn’t take it anymore. He was going to pass and damn the consequences. The jerk was on a motorcycle, for Christ’s sake. He would have to back off or he’d end up flying over his handlebars.

The nachos and cheese he’d had an hour earlier now came back to haunt him; his stomach churned and gurgled. He’d need a bathroom before too long. He was halfway to the coast now, in one of the darker stretches; the dense forest on both sides crowded the twisting road, the branches reaching overhead, creating a canopy. They passed a wooden sign indicating they were in the Van Duzen National Forest. Simon knew that except for a rest stop and a campground, there wouldn’t be any other sign of people for twenty miles.

At least the rain had lessened to a light drizzle, allowing him to turn down his wipers. He passed up a couple of opportunities to pass until he hit the spot he wanted — another downhill slope with a passing lane. Then he bore down on the gas. His quick move got him alongside his companion, but as expected, the biker matched him.

Simon clamped down on the steering wheel. He felt his pulse in his hands. They streaked down the hill, the forest a blur on both sides. The extra speed increased the moisture spattering his windshield, making the glass blurry for seconds at a time, but Simon didn’t want to take his hands off the wheel to speed up the wipers.

They barreled along, his speedometer passing over seventy, then eighty, then ninety...

As his engine screamed, Simon held his breath. The dotted white line vanished. The road narrowed. The punk still wasn’t backing off, and there was no way Simon was letting off the juice now. He took a quick glance at the biker and, with a chill, saw the guy look over at the same time.

The extra lane disappeared, and then the two of them shared a lane, Simon partially over the double yellow. A bend in the road loomed ahead, a wall of trees beyond it.

Knowing his Miata cornered well, he kept his speed high and squealed around the bend. The biker stayed right with him, leaning into the curve, his shoulder nearly touching Simon’s passenger-side window. That’s when a pair of headlights appeared.

Simon had only a second to react. The gap between the lights made him think the vehicle was a semi or a motor home, and he jerked his wheel to the right. He knew the biker was there, but he had no other choice. As the truck — and it was indeed a semi truck — rumbled past, shaking his little car with its wall of wind, the Miata bumped the motorcycle.

The guy swerved onto the shoulder and beyond, kicking up a shower of mud. Simon’s momentum drifted him toward the shoulder, and for a second he thought he was going to hit the guy again, but the biker suddenly dropped behind. By then they had rounded the corner and Simon had the Miata under control.

He gasped for breath, finally remembering to breathe. Heart pounding in his ears, he roared up a hill in the storm, nothing but open road in front of him. The surge of adrenaline lit every one of his senses on fire. He’d done it. He’d actually done it. Glancing in his rearview mirror, he saw only blurry darkness behind him. The guy was gone. He must have pulled off, shaken up by the whole thing. Simon had actually proven the cooler customer.