“Relax,” Daisy said. “One thing I learned, this life is a wild ride and you got to just go with it.”
I turned to her. “I need a moment to think. I need a moment to plan. I need a moment to myself.”
“That’s just when it al goes wrong, when you have time to think. And you got an eternity of lyin’ alone in your coffin.
Now you best be spendin’ your time with good folk and a handsome man. Come when you’re eighty and wonderin’
where your life went, you won’t thank yourself for cuttin’
loose and leavin’ a good thing behind, comprende?” I opened my mouth to say something but Daisy didn’t let me.
“Trust me Sugar, I –” then she stopped talking, her eyes got big and she looked beyond me, out the side window.
I turned to see what she was looking at and in my window was a man, bent over and looking in.
Not just any man, one of the men who took Bil y.
He tapped on the window with a gun.
“Get out of the car,” he said, looking at me.
“Please tel me that’s a flashback,” I whispered.
“That ain’t no f**kin’ flashback,” Daisy replied. Then she slammed the car in reverse and sped backwards on a vicious tug of the wheel, curling sideways. The bad guy jumped out of the way of the bumper and Daisy nearly rammed into Eddie’s truck, which was pul ing down the al ey behind us.
The man with the gun ran to a car on Bayaud and got in as Daisy took the turn onto Bayaud. The other man who’d come to take Bil y, the one who tied me to the sink, was driving the car. They shot away from the curb after us.
“Oh no. No, no, no. Shit! ” I shouted.
I looked behind and saw that they fol owed and Eddie turned in behind them.
“You know these boys?” Daisy asked.
“They’re the ones who took Bil y.”
“Mm hmm,” she mumbled, shifting up and staring in the rearview mirror as she ran the red and turned onto Broadway.
Cars honked and swerved as we cut into traffic. I held onto the dash with one hand, the ceiling with my other and braced my body as best I could. When we were rocketing down Broadway, I chanced another glance behind and saw that the two guys and Eddie had taken the red too. To my further despair, I saw a Subaru pul ing up the rear, it’s end dragging under a load and two mountain bikes were strapped to its roof.
Shit.
Cars were swerving everywhere, honking and I could see angry faces through windows.
A Crossfire and Hank’s 4Runner both zoomed out of parking spots at the front of Fortnum’s and joined the parking spots at the front of Fortnum’s and joined the chase.
Then, the bad guy in the passenger seat leaned out the window and aimed the gun at us.
“Holy cow! He’s gonna shoot!” I yel ed just as we heard gunshots and a “ping, ping, ping” as the bul ets hit the trunk of our car.
“They shot me! They shot my Mercedes! Those f**kin’
bastards!” Daisy squealed, then she hooked a right down some narrow road with parked cars on either side; barely enough room for us to drive down.
A car was coming toward us and Daisy leaned on the horn. “Get out of my way, motherfucker!” she shouted, leaning forward squinting through the windshield like she was nearsighted and nearly resting her huge bosoms on the steering wheel.
At the last possible moment in our scary game of chicken, the car swerved into an open spot and we flew by.
I looked behind us and saw the rest of the cars in our convoy fly by too.