Free Dying Embers by Robert E. Bailey Page A

stripes that had been painted across the blacktop by the local teenagers.
    A yellow warning sign marked the approaching curve with a fifteen mileper-hour speed limit. Ben mashed the binders and dropped the shifter back to third before he got into the turn. The shoulder belt pressed into my chest, and I planted my hand on the dash. Our friend came on hard.
    The curve began gently enough and put you off your guard. Ben accelerated into it, staying low but keeping his wheels off of the gravel shoulder. About halfway through, the curve took a steeper bank. Ben got off the gas and pulled the shifter down to second—allowing the engine to slow the car without showing any brake lights and bucking us both forward. The big rat motor roared up to about four grand. Our friend was already in the middle of the blacktop and charging hard.
    The last third of the curve had a sharply banked diminishing radius. The rear tires of the Camaro lost traction and started to slide up the banked asphalt. Ben cranked the steering wheel into the skid and allowed the car to drift up the banked pavement. When the nose of the car got pointed into the straightaway at the end of the curve, he nailed the gas. The positraction rear caught and generated a couple of G’s that pushed us back into the seats. Ben banged third gear without losing five hundred RPM, and we bolted onto the straight ribbon of blacktop beyond the curve. I pulled the vanity mirror down again. Our friend’s headlights flashed around twice as he took a flat spin into the cornfield.
    â€œFront wheel drive,” I said. “Must not have been the Jag. Let’s go home.”
    Ben was silent.
    â€œEvery time you drive like that,” I said, “you risk your life and the life of anyone you might meet in the oncoming lane. Things happen. Small things can make a big difference in your life. A spill on the pavement or a critter crosssing the road could put you in a wheelchair or make you responsible for a tragedy.”
    â€¢ • •
    We live on a lake, a dream that Wendy and I discussed on our honeymoon, but one that had not been possible to realize in the suburban Detroit area. In the late seventies, high-tech defense industries moved to Western Michigan and so did my job with the Defense Intelligence Service.
    Pete Ladin and I had been “sheep-dipped”—discharged from the military to work as civilians on the economy, where more latitude was available to make discreet inquiries and run surveillance operations—sorting the wheat from the chaff—before disturbing the rest of the federal alphabet.
    The Berlin Wall fell directly onto the DIS, crushing the counterintelligence program into a slide show and a one hour lecture, and squirting guys like Pete and me onto the economy for real. We retired, but kept the PI business. A couple of snotty bureaucrats bitched, but—not wanting to discuss the matter publicly—went away. Wendy and I stayed on to enjoy our dream house, but Marg lost Pete to a stroke.
    We crunched up the gravel drive, and motion sensor lights on the garage and corners of the house came on. Rusty, my Frisbee-getter chocolate Lab, was out on his chain and greeted us with a motor tail. Wendy walked up to the window to look out, holding the telephone up to her ear. We have one of those long telephone cords—you never know who might be listening to a cordless phone.
    I gave Rusty a brisk two-handed rub on the head and unhooked him. I pulled the chain up to the porch and opened the screen door. Rusty thundered up the stairs to the great room.
    The house is one of those bi-levels that was popular back in the decade of shag carpets and leisure suits. As you come in the door it’s a choice—eight steps down to the “walk-out” lower level or eight steps up to the all-in-one kitchen, living room, and dining room, with bedrooms down the hall.
    Before I could get up the steps Rusty stood at the head of the stairs