Frank De Felitta: For Love of Audrey Rose

Janice backed slowly away from him.

“Elliot,” she whispered, “He’s seen us!”

Hoover blanched. “He can’t be far.”

Hoover dashed into his bedroom, threw on trousers and a sweater, socks and shoes, then ran into Mr. Radimanath’s room. There were feverish whispers, a sleepy man’s grunt. Lights went on in a corridor. Then he ran back to the landing, grabbed Janice’s arm, and they went down the fire escape.

They saw a clear tangle of footprints leading away from the fire escape to the dining room window, then there was another disturbance of snow at the fence.

“He climbed the fence!” Hoover exclaimed, quickly unlocking the gate. They ran out into the snow of Tanner Street. Hoover pointed. A long double line of tracks led back to Colman Street.

At a gritty rectangle in the ground, where the snow was shallow, tread marks of tires had ground deep ruts down to the asphalt.

“He’s got a car?” Hoover said in disbelief.

At the side of the road the telephone pole leaned slightly. A streak of white had been gouged into its splintered side, about three feet off the ground.

“A white car,” Janice added.

The dug-up snow was an icon of hideous violence. Bits of black rubber melded into the white, blackened by a manic attempt at escape. It was an icon of Bill, of them all, their spiritual nature mutually defiled.

“We’d better follow him,” he said hesitantly. “Shouldn’t be hard. There are tire tracks, and no traffic yet.”

But he didn’t move. He stood rooted to the spot, gazing at the tracks of the car, converging in the fresh daylight, narrowing in the distance, toward Colman Street. They hypnotized him. They taunted him, beckoned him, waited for him like a hideous destiny.

“The snow’s falling again,” he said at last. “The tracks are filling in.”

He took Janice’s arm and they hurried up Tanner Street, unlocked his Ford, and got in. Mr. Radimanath came, shivering in his robe, to the edge of the road.

“He has a car,” Hoover shouted, rolling down the window. “It may be white. We’re following. Tell the police when they come.”

The Ford sputtered into life, the wipers cast off heavy coats of snow, and Hoover slid into Tanner Street. The tires skidded, caught, and skidded again. In the rearview mirror, he saw Mr. Radimanath put his palms together, with a small bow in his direction.

Hoover turned carefully onto Colman Street.

“He drove down this way,” he said. “See? He’s following his own tracks out of here.”

Janice shivered. She tried to coax the heater, but it would not work.

The shops were still closed. Heavy rills of snow hung down from black roofs, half iced, glittering over brick and tarpaper. At times snow broke, falling in disintegrating clumps on the sidewalks. It was a wonderworld, like the first day of creation. But God had withheld his blessing.

“Where do you think he’s going?” she asked, warming her fingers in her sweater.

“Probably just following the plowed roads.”

“You don’t think he’s going back to New York?”

“I doubt he knows which direction that is anymore.”

“Don’t underestimate him, Elliot.”

He looked at her sharply, surprised at the bitter tone of her voice. Grimly he cleared a circle in the fogging windshield. The car tracks led on, still fresh, tinged with black where the asphalt showed through.

The snow became softer and fatter, almost a rain.

“He’ll be going back to the airport,” she said, “if he’s just following his old tracks.”

“Depends on what happens at Ninety-fifth.”

The tracks ahead wallowed uncertainly, dug up the snow into a foul mixture of brown-black granite grit, then smoothed out onto Ninety-fifth.

“That’s where he’s going, all right,” Hoover muttered.

At Fitzwilliam Street the tires swerved clear across the road. An immense arc had been scraped up over the curb. The snow now was very soft, slushy, and the tracks were melting into shallow undulations up the street. The windshield was spattered by fat drops of rain.

As they drove up Fitzwilliam Street, a barrier of police cars protected an overturned Volkswagen van. It was blue. The entire front hood was buckled in, the contents spread unevenly up the embankment of the highway. The barriers were being erected, sawhorses hung with red flashing lights, and beyond, the highway was completely clear of snow. A few cars already traveled on the glistening, rain-soaked road, headlights poking into the gloom.

“Damn!” Hoover exclaimed, trying to see through the fogged windshield.

Janice leaned forward. “Elliot, there’s a white car!”

“Where?”

“Up on the highway. Getting on. It has lights on.”

“Let’s take a look.”

But the policeman at the barrier waved his arm vigorously, directing them back down Fitzwilliam Street. Hoover backed the car, then rammed it up onto the steep slope that supported the on-ramp. A suitcase from the van crunched underneath, ground into the mud, and the Ford careened, spitting muddy water and snow over the police cars.

Suddenly they were on the highway.

“It’s Bill!”

Far ahead of them a shining white Dodge, with its side slightly buckled, changed lanes erratically. It seemed to follow no lanes, gliding along rapidly through the downpour, fishtailing, and a mist of cold water flew from the rear wheels.

The Ford crept closer, now exceeding sixty miles an hour. Glistening lakes of water roared up into the fenders. Hoover peered ahead. Only a single head — Bill’s — was visible at the driver’s wheel.

Hoover flicked his lights on and off, then tried the high beam. The Dodge cruised serenely on. They saw the head turn to stare at them. The face was lost in the indistinct, murky shadows within the Dodge, but it looked back a long, long time. At the last minute, it turned back and the Dodge jumped away from the restraining barrier at the dividing strip.

“Where is he going?” Janice cried.

Slowly, very slowly, Hoover’s hand stopped wiping the sweat from his forehead. His eyes softened, dilated, his whole face radiated an unearthly revelation.

“I know where he’s going.”

Hoover swallowed. The Dodge took a sudden off-ramp. The Ford missed the ramp, skidded, spun around on the edge strip; panicked drivers slammed on brakes all over the lanes.

Hoover glimpsed the Dodge as it plunged into a muddy pool, then shot into an industrial zone, weaving insanely through parking lots, loading zones, and out of culde-sacs.

“He’s heading for the turnpike. I’m going to cut him off.”

Hoover drove down a frontage road, past corrugated sheds, then up a long ramp. Down below, the white Dodge careened away from them, past factories and heavy equipment, throwing a violent spray behind.

Hoover wheeled the Ford onto an overpass, cut past a truck filled with new cars, and heard the mighty horn blast near his ear. A landscape of snow, cut by gashes of brown-red mud, spread into the rural rain. Factories spewed black smoke to the clouds. The whole earth extended in a vista of crude mud, grit, and wet winds.

Entering the turnpike, the signs diverged, some to Harrisburg, some to Pittsburgh.

A cold chill invaded Janice’s body.

“Elliot, isn’t this where Sylvia and Audrey Rose were—”

“Yes! Here!”

Hoover peered forward, furiously wiping the windshield. He lowered the side window, a wet chill blew onto them. There was the full sound of wheels slapping against the hard, drenched cement below.

The rain came now in torrential squalls. Most of the snow was gone. Wisps of cloud rolled through the valleys, disintegrating, reforming, reaching fingers over the icy roadway.

The white Dodge ploughed through eddies of molten ice on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and Bill smiled.