Free Midnight Guardians by Jonathon King Page A

ignition and pulled out to put my truck between them and the Brown Man. As I searched every possible corner for a flash of green, I could feel all the muscles in my neck and shoulders tighten with anxiety.
    When I turned back to the Brown Man, I saw Andrés come out of the BioMechanics door, now empty-handed. The two men appeared to exchange a few words, and then split, Andrés into his car, the drug dealer into the office. When the white Corolla pulled out, I relaxed a bit and went back to surveillance mode. I gave Andrés a few hundred feet, and then eased my truck out to follow. We’d gone three blocks when the metallic green Monte Carlo yanked into view, the rumble of its engine guttural and ominous. When the car jumped in behind Andrés’s, I was thinking only one thing: pursuit.
    It took the kid about thirty seconds to figure what was going on. Once the Corolla hit the turn onto State Road 7, it bolted south without the slightest hesitation at the stoplight. Oncoming traffic screeched to a halt as the Monte Carlo rumbled unimpeded through the intersection. Stupidly, I was too far back; by the time I got close to the turn, irate drivers were already starting to inch forward. I cut the corner through a gas station driveway at a speed that turned several heads and elicited a “fuck you” from a patron. The move put me back on tail of the Monte Carlo.
    Andrés had now pulled a Jekyll and Hyde as a driver. As patient and unhurried as he’d been on the roadway to make his delivery, he was now a madman. I kept my eyes fastened on the chrome of the Monte Carlo. But ahead of him, I could see dozens of brake lights flashing, and the roofs of vehicles skewing off to the left and right. I didn’t bother to look at my own speedometer, but I knew from experience that in this kind of traffic and on this kind of road, our cars might have been hitting forty-five m.h. or fifty at certain stretches. But even those speeds were twice as fast as anyone else, and crazy enough to scare the shit out of everyone caught in the mix.
    I worked my way up within a two-car length of the Monte Carlo’s bumper and rode it, following like it was a snowplow in bad weather, thus avoiding the swerving commuters and obstacles slewing in its wake. The Monte Carlo’s rear window was too tinted to see how many people were inside, or whether they had noticed me following. The only thing I could make out on the back window was a cartoon of a devilish-looking boy pissing on an oval Ford symbol. Somehow the insult seemed personal; I was starting to get angry.
    We swerved through traffic. I knew these high-speed gigs didn’t last long, despite the ones you see on most dangerous police videos. It was going to end soon, and badly. Trying to anticipate, I took a chance, looking up ahead as we approached another traffic light. Andrés’s white Corolla jerked east, with the Monte Carlo following, cutting off a wall of vehicles and stomping out of the turn, smoke roiling out of its wheel wells as he punched it. I was caught in the cloud, unable to see a damn thing. As I waited for the inevitable jolt of some other blind driver hitting me, my stomach clenched. The scream of tire rubber and the blare of horns created a noise cloud of its own. All I could do was hold the line until we straightened out.
    Now the kid was getting wild, searching like a trapped mouse for someway out: he’d start left, get cut off, and spin right. It wasn’t working. The Monte Carlo was on him. I was on it. And no doubt a dozen people behind us were calling 911—fine with me. I just hoped the kid was smart enough to keep moving. Once he stopped, that automatic rifle that had been trained on me and his sister was going to start blasting. And this time, I was sure it wouldn’t be firing into the trees.
    My hope ended when the white Corolla pitched right, jumped a curb, and squealed into a neighborhood complex. We’d suddenly ducked out of traffic, but Andrés had isolated himself in a