Hope Never Dies

by Andrew Shaffer

  You’re not getting away that easy, I thought.

  I stepped on the gas, and we rocketed in reverse. The SUV seemed to pull out from under me, and my head jerked forward. The Little Beast plowed into an air station before I found the brakes. We screeched to a stop.

  We sat there for a moment in silence. All three of us were breathing heavy. Air escaped the broken hose somewhere under the vehicle with a high-pitched hiss.

  I collected myself as best I could, threw the gear shift into drive, and stepped on the gas like my wife was in labor.

  31

  I heard the sound of Steve checking the chamber on his gun. I looked in the rearview to see if he was planning to lean out the window and pop off at the biker to blow his tires out, but he’d already reholstered the weapon.

  “Everybody buckled up back there?” I shouted.

  “I strongly advise you to pull over,” Steve said.

  “And let this guy get away?”

  “Yes.”

  I snorted. “Not a chance.”

  We were heading northwest out of Wilmington on Route 52. The countryside passed by in a blur as we followed close behind the biker, who was zipping in and out of traffic. He must have thought it would be easier to lose us on the country road, rather than the tight grid of downtown or the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstate. Fortunately, there was one thing the biker hadn’t counted on: weekend drivers.

  We passed a pickup that was doing fifty-five in a fifty-five. Clearly a sociopath. Maybe in Middle America it was acceptable to drive the speed limit, but not on the coast. If you weren’t doing at least ten over, you were liable to be run off the road. In Delaware, speeding wasn’t breaking the law; it was self-preservation.

  Barack leaned between the seats. I could tell he was trying to get a look at the speedometer. The needle was fluttering between eighty and eighty-five. No matter how hard I pressed the pedal, the Beast wouldn’t go any faster. The motorcycle topped out at the same speed, so we were locked in step with each other.

  “Listen, I know he flipped you off. But this is madness. It was just a middle finger. It’s not worth getting into an accident.”

  “He knows us. He knows that we know who he is.”

  “And who is he?” Barack asked.

  “I don’t know his name, but I know that skull on his back. His club has something to do with Finn. And he’s just flaunting it in our faces. He was mocking us back there.”

  “He’s not going to pull over, that much is obvious. What are you planning to do?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “How are we on gas?” Barack said.

  The tank was three-quarters full and he knew it. “If you want to drive, you’re more than welcome to.”

  “You’re doing a great job, Joe.”

  “You mean that?”

  “Could I give you a suggestion, though?”

  I shook my head.

  Barack ignored me. “You might want to move your hands down a notch. Ten and two used to be the recommendation, but experts now say nine and three are better. In a crash, the airbag can break your wrists if your hands are too high on the wheel.”

  “That what they teach you at Harvard Driving School?”

  He didn’t take the bait. I waited for him to look away, and then I slipped my hands down the wheel to nine and three.

  The motorcycle whipped around a midsized sedan with Vermont plates, and I did the same, keeping pace. As we passed the sedan, I caught glimpse of a small tuft of white hair poking out above the bottom of the window. The driver’s head was so low, it was a miracle he could see. A pair of bony hands hung from the steering wheel like Halloween decorations.

  “Everybody wave to Bernie,” I said.

  Nobody laughed at my joke.

  Developed lands segued into fields and farms. Weekend drivers loved driving past fields for some reason. There wasn’t much to see right now. The corn was barely a foot high. Other crops hadn’t started poking up yet. The biker occasionally checked us out in his side mirror, but didn’t slow. Which one of us was going to make a mistake first?

  “You know what the official state beverage is?” I said out loud. There was no answer from the back. “Give up? I’ll tell you: it’s milk. Milk is the official state beverage of Delaware.”

  “Fascinating,” Barack said.

  “I know, right?” I said, glancing in the rearview to see if he was rolling his eyes.

  He wasn’t.

  “Cow,” Steve said.

  I looked at Steve. “Yeah, though we’ve got goats in Delaware, too. You know what gets me, though? Almond milk. It’s not milk, it’s more like juice. Just call it almond juice—”

  “Cow!” Steve and Barack screamed, pointing through the windshield.

  My eyes returned to the road just in time to see a large black-spotted dairy cow in the middle of our lane. In the opposite lane was a semi, coming right toward us. I pumped the brakes and spun the wheel hard to the right, praying silently to Saint Francis that we wouldn’t crash.

  My prayer must have gone to Saint Francis’s voicemail.

  We skidded around the cow, which had a very nonchalant look on its face, given the situation. The antilock-braking system kicked in and prevented the brakes from locking up and sending us ass over teacup, but it couldn’t prevent us from diving headfirst into the ditch.

  The Little Beast rocketed up the opposite embankment. We tore through a barbed-wire fence like it was nothing more than party streamers, and then we were in a field. The car rocked back and forth over the uneven dirt, going slower and slower until finally rolling to a stop. That’s the last thing I remembered before blacking out.

  32

  When I came to, I was still in the driver’s seat. My eyes were burning—not due to an injury, but due to the barbeque sauce that had splattered all over the dash. Steve was slumped over in the back, blood trickling down the side of his face. Barack’s seat was empty.

  I stumbled outside. The smell of burnt rubber filled my nostrils. There were deep scars in the field from the tires, all the way back to the road. The Escalade had left fifty-foot-long black skid marks on the highway. We’d come to a stop just short of a herd of cattle, which hadn’t taken much notice of us. I counted twelve of them, in addition to the cow that had somehow wandered onto the highway. A baker’s dozen.

  I heard the trunk slam shut.

  “Barack?”

  He peeked around the corner of the car. “You’re awake. I was just coming to check on you.”

  He was holding a first-aid kit. “I’m fine,” I said.

  “You sure? You hit the steering wheel pretty hard.”

  I touched my forehead and found a knot. I didn’t remember going headfirst into the wheel, but I must have.

  “You feeling nauseous? Brain fog?”

  “Not any worse than usual,” I said.

  “You’re making jokes, so you can’t be too out of it,” Barack said. He opened the rear driver’s-side door.

  Now that the smell of burnt rubber was dissipating, another smell took over. I looked down at my feet. I was inches away from a pile of manure. We were in the middle of a fecal minefield.

  Barack peered back at me. “Oh, and watch your step.”

  “I’ve been on farms before,” I said.

  We both had. A couple of summers, we’d spent more time in Iowa than in Washington. That was what you had to do if you wanted to win the first-in-the-nation caucus. My only regret was that with all the cows I’d milked in the state fair over the years, I’d never won the state Democratic Party’s nomination for president. Never even came close. At least there’d been ice cream.

  I peeked over Barack’s shoulder. Steve was awake, but he didn’t look good. There was a glassy look in his eyes. Steve wasn’t an agent, I realized. He was a human being. A human bei
ng in pain. He hadn’t asked to be dragged along on this quixotic quest. He’d only come along because he didn’t want a black mark on his record, not when he was so close to getting a spot on the presidential Counter-Assault Team. We’d taken advantage of him, and he didn’t deserve this.

  Still, he should have been wearing his seatbelt.

  Barack carefully wrapped gauze around Steve’s head. “There’s a cut along his hairline. The scalp bleeds more readily than any other part of the body. Except for arteries, of course.”

  “Of course,” I said, though I had no idea what he was talking about. Barack didn’t have any medical training, as far as I knew. But his brain absorbed everything. If it came down to it, I had faith that he could deliver a baby. Maybe even perform a circumcision.

  “He’s definitely got a concussion, but what worries me is internal bleeding. He wasn’t buckled in. He flew into the back of your seat pretty hard.”

  Steve squinted at me. “Was it the Russians?”

  “The Russians?” I asked, squeezing his hand. It was cold and sweaty.

  “They’re trying to tamper with the election. We have to stop them.”

  Barack frowned at me.

  “What happened?” Steve asked. “They won, didn’t they?”

  “We were chasing a biker,” I told him. “Do you remember that?”

  Steve coughed into his hand. There was fresh blood in his cough. “The Marauders.”

  “Have you called the meat wagon?” I asked Barack.

  “There isn’t an ambulance in Delaware that could make it through the mud in this field. Don’t think they’re going to land a helicopter here, either, least not without some trouble. We’ll take him ourselves, as long as the Little Beast starts.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said.

  “That’s because it is a plan, Joe.”

  “The Marauders,” Steve said again.

  Barack shook his head. “Hand me the keys, Joe. We need to get on the road.”

  It was his car, so that was fine by me. Or it was his wife’s, actually. Despite everything I’d driven it through, the Little Beast wasn’t in bad shape. It was bulletproof and, apparently, barbed-wire-proof. At least I hadn’t hit the cow. No car is cow-proof.

  “The Marauders,” I said, trying the word out on my tongue. Steve wasn’t talking about the Russians. He was drifting in and out of lucidity, but he was trying to tell us something. The Marauders…

  I snapped my fingers. “The MC.”

  “We don’t have time to talk hip-hop,” Barack said. “The keys—”

  “Not an MC, an MC. Motorcycle club. The Marauders.”

  Steve started to nod, but winced. He grabbed his ribs. He was trying to tough it out, but it was hard to hide his pain. He was a soldier…but even the best soldiers can go down. His eyes kept wandering, never stopping long enough to focus. He was fading fast. The last thing he said before passing out was, “Are those cows?”

  33

  After we dropped off Steve at the nearest hospital, Barack pulled into a nondescript garage and parked in the basement, the last spot in a long line of cars. There was a thin layer of water on the cement. Either there was nowhere for it to drain, or it was so thick with motor oil and sludge that it couldn’t move.

  “This is all my fault,” I said. “I’m the one who got us into this mess. I’m the one who couldn’t handle the car.”

  Barack didn’t look at me. He was behind the wheel now. “You’re being too hard on yourself, Joe.”

  “Am I wrong?”

  “About which part?”

  “Any of it,” I said.

  “I shouldn’t have let you drive in the first place. The Little Beast takes some getting used to.”

  “How many fields have you driven her into?”

  “Zero.”

  I felt a yawn coming on and covered my mouth. I was able to avoid it, but my energy was flagging. The car chase had gotten my heart rate up. Adrenaline was coursing through my body. Everything felt electric. My fingertips were tingling, abuzz with energy. And then I crashed. In more ways than one.

  A boat of a car crept past us. An olive-green 1973 Cadillac Fleetwood. It stopped, then backed up into a space directly behind us. I watched over my shoulder as it flashed its headlights—once, twice. Three times.

  That was the signal.

  Barack and I stepped out and slipped into the backseat of the Fleetwood.

  Detective Capriotti didn’t turn around.

  “Thanks for meeting us,” I said. “I wouldn’t have called if it wasn’t important. Should we drive somewhere…?”

  “I’ve already been put on traffic duty for a week. I could be fired just for talking to you. Let alone, I didn’t know you were going to bring…him.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “Dan, this is Barack. Barack, Dan.”

  They shook hands between the front seats.

  Neither man smiled.

  “We need your help,” I said.

  “I’m wondering if I haven’t helped you enough already. I told you what we found in your friend’s pockets because I thought you’d appreciate it. The lieutenant gets a call an hour ago from Finn Donnelly’s daughter, who’s all pissed off that we kept it from her. Now where do you suppose she learned about the drugs, Joe?”

  “She’s family. I assumed she knew.”

  “I told you she didn’t. Or are you forgetting things in your old age?”

  “I thought…” My voice trailed off. “It doesn’t matter now.”

  “I’m not finished. A couple of days ago, I get a call from you. Telling me I need to check up on some guy you thought might be snooping around Finn’s wife’s room. Nobody there knew anything about some minister—”

  “He wasn’t a minister.”

  “First he was, then he wasn’t. Do you hear yourself? This is paranoia.” He shook his head. “Then there’s this.”

  Dan unfolded a paper and passed it back to me. It was a sketch of the actor Richard Gere.

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “We got a call about ten thirty this morning,” Dan said. “Alvin Harrison died of an overdose. Oxy, from the looks of it.”

  I tried to look shocked, but I couldn’t fool Dan.

  He continued, “A neighbor described a suspicious character snooping around Alvin’s apartment. She’s one of those ladies who watches everything out her window. You know the type. Anyway, the only problem is, she’s not quite all there. Mentally, if you know what I mean. The description she gave the sketch artist was quite detailed, though.” He paused for effect. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about Alvin’s death, would you?”

  Barack examined the drawing, and then me.

  Back and forth.

  He bit his lip.

  “Talk to Richard Gere,” I said, handing the paper back to Dan. “He’s from Philly. He could have been in town. You never know.”

  “So this is how it’s going to be, Joe?”

  “I didn’t call you to discuss Alvin Harrison,” I said. “I need to know if you know anything about the Marauders.”

  “The outlaw biker gang. You want to let me know what’s going on?”

  “Not particularly,” I said.

  “I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with Finn Donnelly.”

  “If I say it does, are you going to tell me off?”

  “You want my help, I need to know where this is coming from. There’s no connection between the Marauders and your friend.”

  “The Marauders aren’t involved in the drug trade?”

  Dan shrugged. “I’m not a narcotics detective, but their name pops up now and again. Marijuana. Guns, I guess. The usual outlaw biker stuff.”

  “And you don’t shut them down?”

  “We have to pick and choose our battles, Joe. Half
of this city is high on something right now. Should we just start kicking in doors without warrants? Unless they start trouble, we keep out of their business.”

  “You’re saying because they’re white, you don’t hassle them,” Barack said.

  “You don’t know me,” Dan snapped.

  I felt a tension headache coming on. It could have been the aftereffects of the concussion. It could have had nothing to do with the concussion.

  I said, “The guy I ran into at Baptist Manor the other day was part of their club. Finn wasn’t, obviously—he didn’t even own a bike—but maybe he hung with them. Maybe they’re the ones who sold him his dope.”

  Dan laughed. “What are you going to do, arrest them by yourself?”

  “We’re not stupid,” I said.

  “Could have fooled me. These people call themselves one-percenters. As in, they’re the one percent of bikers who live outside the law. They don’t dick around, Joe. They’re a bunch of bad hombres. You can’t just walk in there and start asking questions. They’d cut you to ribbons. Here’s what I’ll do: I’ll ask around in narcotics, discreetly. Won’t let them know it’s related to Finn Donnelly, because I don’t want to catch hell with the boss. But I’ll see if there’s any heroin activity surrounding this group. If not, I want you to drop this thing. I mean it.”

  “That’s not up to me. It’s the Secret Service’s investigation.”

  Barack nodded slowly.

  “I don’t see how heroin trafficking falls under their jurisdiction,” Dan said. “So Finn printed off a paper with your address. I get that. But if you were truly afraid for your life, you’d be in a bunker right now. Both of you. Instead, you’re driving around without a single agent in sight. What am I supposed to make of that?”

  “It’s a national security—”

  “Don’t feed me that bull, Joe. How long we known each other? Long enough to know each other’s tells.”