Max Collins - Bullet proff

"'Doll.' It's so corny."

"I seem to recall you calling me a 'big lug' not so long ago."

"You got me," she said, and held up her wrists, locked together. "Slap on the cuffs."

"You look like you might not hold up too well under the third-degree."

"Why don't you get me back to that boathouse and see, copper?"

He smiled at her again, a small one-sided smile, and put his eyes back on the road. He turned left on West Ninth Street, and glanced up at the rearview mirror. His eyes tightened. So did his lips.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"No."

"Eliot, what is it?"

"Probably nothing. That car behind us, that just cut off from that side street…"

"What about it?"

"It doesn't have a license plate."

"What does that mean?"

"Probably nothing," he said lightly, smiling again, but his eyes kept flicking back to the rearview mirror.

She turned to look, and he touched her arm, gently.

"Don't," he said.

"You could call on your police radio or whatever it is, couldn't you?"

"It's nothing. He's fallen back. There's two cars between now. It's nothing."

Her heart was pounding. Cleveland didn't seem so dull all of a sudden.

"Coming up," Eliot said, "is proof that this fair city does have its cultural qualities."

He was nodding to a massive concrete-and-steel bridge spanning the Cuyahoga and its industrial area; with its many arches and abutments, it did have a certain skeletal beauty.

"Largest double-decker concrete bridge in the world," he said, with what might have been pride but probably was dry humor. And he was still looking in the rearview mirror.

"How very interesting," she said, and she moved closer to him, not for comfort, but to get a better look at that mirror herself.

Eliot guided the sedan up the ramp onto the upper level of the bridge, the screech of the streetcars below cutting the air like a wounded animal's cry. There were four lanes of traffic up here, moderate traffic at the moment; the pedestrian walkways on either side weren't getting any business at all right now.

The landscape below was a gloomy one-the Flats, Eliot called it; a long freighter heavy with iron ore was moving upriver, heading for one of the steel mills, no doubt. Looking down at the Cuyahoga, which seemed yellow under the glimmer of city lights, she was amazed by this city's lack of regard for itself. Earlier she'd gotten a load of the lakefront, which was littered with industry, a wasteland of smokestacks and salt mines. Not like back home, where the lake was damn near sacred.

For a moment she forgot about the car behind them.

And when she looked in the rearview mirror, she didn't know what she was looking for.

"What color is it?"

"What color is what?" he asked.

"The car! That's following us."

"I don't think he's following us."

"Is he still back there?"

"Yes. Three cars behind us."

"What color is it, damn it!"

"It's a dark blue Buick sedan."

She looked in the rearview mirror again. She could see the car; it was too far back, and the bridge not well lit enough, for her to make out anything else.

He took one hand off the wheel and patted her leg. "It's nothing," he said. "A man in my line of work learns to be careful."

"The alienists call it 'paranoid.'"

"That, too."

"Eliot. I think he's moving up."

"He's just passing. We're going a little slow and the cars behind us aren't passing. He is. Nothing to get excited about."

"He's coming up. He's coming up on us!"

"Please, Ev. Easy. It's just a car. It's just… get down! Down!"

She ducked down on the seat.

"Eliot, what is it?"

"I saw a glint of what might be metal. Get on the floor. Get on the floor!"

She got on the floor, up in front of the rider's seat, as low as she could, against and under the dash.

"He's pulling alongside," Eliot said. "Brace yourself."

Eliot hit the gas pedal and a metallic staccato thunder shook the night, and the car. The windows on Eliot's side shattered, like brittle ice, emptying in on Eliot.

"Eliot!"

"Stay, down! I'm fine…"

He was slouched behind the wheel, head up only barely enough to see as he drove; the roar of both accelerating vehicles replaced the monotone chatter of what she supposed was a machine gun, as they raced along the bridge.

"Do you have a gun?" she shouted.

"No," he said. "Just stay down. These doors are heavy-hard for bullets to penetrate."

What a comfort that was.

"I'm going to ram him. Hold on!"

She braced her hands against the underside of the dash and the car swung over into the next lane and there was a metallic crunch as their car sideswiped the adversary vehicle, jolting it and her.

Then Eliot swerved back, and the tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat resumed, landing up toward the front, she thought, across the side of the engine hood.

Eliot hit the pedal again, and the car lurched forward, but just as suddenly he hit the brakes and slid with a smack against the guardrail to the right, jostling Ev, shaking her like a child by an angry abusive parent.

The sedan stopped up against that rail, and Eliot was sitting up now, calling in on the hand microphone of his police radio. He let go with a flurry of words, which she was in no shape to hear, but it did register that there was almost no emotion in his voice, other than perhaps a cold, tight anger.

He clicked off the mike and looked down at her with concern, the emotion finally coming through.

"Are you all right?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't know."

He reached his hand out. "They're gone. They've gone on and won't be back. You're safe."

She took his hand and allowed him to pull her up on the seat. There was glass everywhere, particularly on him, tiny bits of it, flecking his shoulders like dandruff, but also bigger pieces. The windscreen, she saw, had not been touched. The motor was still running.

"Why didn't you get hit," she said, "when they shot out that side window?"

"They didn't shoot it out," he said. "It broke from the impact. I'd already ducked down, so the gunner aimed for the door. Hard to shoot through a bulky car door, even with a Thompson."

"You mean, we were safe as long as we were down low?"

"No. A third of the bullets would make it through, probably, and a third of those would do damage. He probably fired off a hundred rounds."

She swallowed. "Why are we alive?"

"He hit behind us, and in front of us. Tommy gun's not much for hitting a moving target when you're shooting from a moving vehicle. He was stupid-a shotgun would've made a lot more sense."

"Oh, really? A shotgun would've made sense."

He smiled at her, touched her face. "Let's get out of this thing before we cut ourselves to pieces on this broken glass."

Then they were standing on the bridge, in the chilly night with its sooty snow drifting like dust motes, traffic having screeched to a halt. Eliot's assessment of the damage was correct: the pattern of bullet holes-nasty round holes that puckered away the paint around them, groupings so close that some of the holes gathered into larger, gaping ones-were along the rear door and up along the side of the front left fender. But not a tire was flat.

He brushed the glass fragments off him with gloved hands and then he grinned at her sheepishly and said, "Does Cleveland still strike you as dull as dishwater?"

"No," she said, and she grabbed onto him, hugging his arm. Then he took her into his arms and in front of God and Cleveland and the startled motorists making their way around the stalled vehicle, he kissed her slowly and passionately.

"I'm sorry," he said, still holding her. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be sorry," she said. Her fear was slipping away; she was now caught in an ephemeral moment of romance and melodrama that she would remember fondly till her dying day.