For Whom the Minivan Rolls: An Aaron Tucker Mystery - By Jeffrey Cohen Page 0,83

visor. I had pulled down, over my eyes, a New York Yankees baseball cap—a real one, not the kind with the adjustable band in the back. I was also wearing dark sunglasses with a little image of Mickey Mouse in the lower part of the left lens—a pair I bought for an emergency during a trip to Orlando two years ago. A denim work-shirt filled out the image. That’s all that mattered because, if Ladowski saw me at all in the minivan, he’d see me only from the steering wheel up.

You follow most people so you can observe them without their observing you. But I had just the opposite in mind. I very much wanted him to see someone following him, though not clearly enough that he’d recognize me, because let’s face it, I don’t cut what they’d call a threatening figure. So a little finesse, but not too much, was called for here.

Milt drove out of the parking lot and toward Route 27, which takes you either north toward the Garden State Parkway and Newark or New York, or south toward New Brunswick. I muscled the minivan, which has steering like a Sherman tank, out of the lot behind Ladowski, and stayed two cars back of his fancy-shmancy Infiniti heading toward 27.

Once at the two-lane highway, he made a left, which would indicate he was headed south. Good. A trip into the city today might have taken me too far out of the way to be back home when the kids trooped in after school. Different gumshoes have different concerns.

Milt was driving calmly. He didn’t notice me yet. Probably wanted folks to believe he was listening to Mozart and Brahms on the onboard CD changer. More likely he had a Metallica album on. (I never believe it when people say they only listen to classical music or watch only public television.)

I decided to push it a little and get his attention. So I pulled the van out from behind an original Volkswagen Beetle I was tailgating and passed it and a Chevy to get directly behind Ladowski. The Chevy driver wasn’t pleased when I nosed my way in between him and Milt, but I wasn’t getting paid to make friends with the Chevy guy. Come to think of it, I wasn’t getting paid at all.

Milt still didn’t seem to notice, so I got closer, and started to tailgate him. This got his attention, and he speeded up a little bit. So did I. He went a little faster. Me, too. Soon, we were doing 65 in a 45-mile-an-hour zone. He must have begun wondering what the hell was going on.

He changed lanes. Whaddaya know? So did the minivan behind him. Then he headed for the fork in the road where Route 27 runs into Midland Heights, and coincidence of coincidences, so did the minivan.

Ladowski, I hoped, was now sweating behind those very expensive sunglasses of his. He was, in fact, driving like a man who was sweating, all right. He wove back and forth in the right lane, wondering if he should call the cops on his cell phone or if he was just being paranoid. Why would this old, beat-up hunk-of-junk minivan behind him be tailing a classy piece of machinery like his?

I’m assuming he let out a sigh of relief when I passed him on Edison Avenue. But because I knew where he was going by this point, I had made a quick change in my plans.

I wrestled the minivan into the Borough Hall parking lot, and backed into a space. Now I wanted him to know exactly what he’d seen in his rear view mirror. I pushed the button to open my back hatch, and got out through the back just as Ladowski was pulling into the lot. He didn’t notice the minivan right away, but did a double-take when he saw it. But it was too late. He was already out of his car.

Ladowski stared at the minivan, frozen. He couldn’t know if the evil tormentor who had tailed him here was still in the vehicle, or if he was walking into an ambush. The thought processes were practically spelled out on his face like that ribbon news line that used to run on Times Square.

I settled it for him by circling around behind his car, crouching until I was right behind him, and grabbing him from the back. He let out a sound similar to that of a gosling pushed in front of a