He raises his head carefully, looking around. “Don’t see it.”
Oh God, hear me now. Please. Please send him. I’m sorry for everything I’ve done. I’m sorry I’ve kept secrets from him. I need him. If not for me, then at least for my friend. Abe needs your help. He needs it more than I do. Please, oh please, help him.
There’s no response, but isn’t that the way of things? The decision gnaws at my insides, but I don’t care. I can’t. This man is my friend. He is my family. I won’t let him fall.
“Fuck it!” I snarl at him. “You listen to me. You listening, old man?” He nods, not meeting my eyes. “When you move, you gotta move fast, okay? It’s going to hurt like hell, but you gotta roll out. Roll over until you feel the cement on your back. Once you do, you keep fucking rolling, you hear me?”
“But the truck,” he whispers. “You….”
Blood drips from my face to the roof. I know where it’s coming from now. It feels like my shoulder has been sliced open. The blood is steady, not gushing.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him. “It’s either one or both of us, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you go down with me. You listen to me, okay? You have to go get help. You can’t let them get away with this. It’s Griggs. It’s Walken. It’s Traynor. And whoever their boss is. They have killed, Abe. They’ve killed so many people, and you have to stop them. I can’t. Not anymore. You have to—”
Footsteps, crunching glass.
“Hello in the truck!” a voice calls out. Not Cal, but familiar.
“Oh, thank God!” Abe cries out. “Help! Benji’s stuck! The whole damn thing’s about to go over!”
“Is that so?” a voice drawls, the footsteps getting closer.
“No,” I whisper. “No. Not like this.”
Jack Traynor crouches under the hood of the Ford, cocking his head to peer in at us. The smile he gives is one of such terrible beauty that I want to scream and fight and rip him to shreds. He reaches up and presses against the truck, and it rocks even further, and he laughs quietly. “You bastard,” I whisper. “Oh, you fucking bastard. You did it, didn’t you?”
He misunderstands me. “Yeah, thought you guys would go over a lot more quickly. Still a pretty crazy flip you did. Kind of exciting to watch.”
“My father,” I snarl at him. “You did it!”
He’s taken aback a moment, the surprise on his face almost comical. He glances down at Abe, who is glaring up at him. “Ah, son,” he says, as he rocks the truck again. “That was before my time, though I do admit to copying the move a little bit. Works better than you’d think. By the time this old beater falls, there won’t be many people left for anyone to figure out a single thing. I wonder if it’ll explode? Like in the movies.” He looks wistful. “But no. No, it wasn’t me who done in your dad. Had I been around, I would have done it gladly, but I can’t take credit. Seems to me that you just couldn’t keep to your own business, could you? Like father, so much like son.”
“I’ll fucking kill you!”
He smiles again. “No. No, I don’t think you will. Should have just left the grown-ups alone, Benji. This whole thing could have been avoided had you just minded your own business. If it’s any consolation, it will be quick. I’m sure of it.” He says this last as if he’s being kind, and a shudder tears through me.
Abe moves then, quicker than I could ever imagine, given his age and injuries. I see a flash of silver in Abe’s hand before the gunfire erupts inside the cab, the noise deafening in the enclosed space. A spray of blood erupts from Traynor’s right side and he howls as he falls backward, out of sight. Abe’s hand is shaking as he raises the gun again, but it’s too much for him and it falls to the floor, bouncing out of his reach. He tries to move, but the truck has started to sway again alarmingly.
Traynor curses loudly, and there’s a reverberating bang that shakes the truck. “You assholes!” he shouts, and the bang happens again. “You faggots! Oh, fuck, I’m going to kill you!” His foot flashes up in my vision,