Free Spider’s Cage by Jim Nisbet Page B

them and raised his sleepy eyebrows fractionally. He lifted his chin about one-half of an inch and surveyed the length of the Fairlane. A conversation ensued between the man and the woman in Caló undertones so rapid and full of slang that Windrow couldn’t understand it. The light turned green. A car behind the Pontiac honked its horn. The driver of the Pontiac made a face and stroked his chin.
    â€œFour hundred fifty simoleons, conquistadór,” he said.
    â€œGracias,” Windrow said. He turned right through the intersection. Mad Bruce protested loudly by yelling Caló imprecations past Windrow at the Pontiac as it disappeared behind them.
    Windrow made a couple of turns and soon they found themselves on the South Van Ness on-ramp to 101. Once on the freeway, he pressed the accelerator. The speedometer wound easily to ninety. No doubt about it, the car had power, leg room and comfort, three things he’d missed in the Toyota. Bruised as he was, each trip to the grocery in theToyota would have been a hejira of endurance and discomfort; whereas now, in this red Ford, though a case should pound him into the ground, he might ride from beating to beating in style.
    There was something satisfactory in that.
    They drifted over the city, past the old Hamm’s brewery building, and merged onto 101 South, the road to San Jose, and ultimately Los Angeles. The Ford was smooth. Neither the front end or the recapped tires betrayed telltale vibrations at cruising speed.
    He saw her as he was decelerating onto the army Street off ramp.
    Jodie Ryan was in the passenger seat of some kind of station wagon, a Chevy, heading north. Her blonde hair, her face, were unmistakable. Her features waxed golden among the flat blur of concrete, metal and sun-faded automotive enamels flowing up the other side of the freeway. Someone wearing a ten gallon hat was driving her car; he hadn’t time to see who, but it could have been Sal. Could have been.
    On the other hand, might not somebody with a ten gallon hat, short one Caddy, have switched to Chevrolet?
    He pressed the accelerator, then braked and cursed. A huge, slow-moving truck filled the lane marked Army Street East. He guided the squealing car down and through the maze of ramps that led to Army Street West. At the first intersection, he slid around the median—an illegal U turn—and put the accelerator to the floor. Much to Windrow’s purpose the Fairlane leaped toward, though also sideways a little bit. He flicked the wheel a couple of times as the car sloughed east down under the freeway and up again, and regained control of its forward motion in time to spin the wheel left, snatch the emergency brake and slide around the median again, another illegal U turn. The car wallowed sidewaysacross two lanes of oncoming traffic as it slid right, then left, then right again, and onto the northbound on-ramp. Again he put the gas pedal to the floor, and the little V-8 torqued the red car up the ramp and onto the Bay Shore again, now heading north at 75 mph.
    Through all of this maneuvering, Mad Bruce, holding onto the dashboard with one hand and the armrest on the door with the other hand, yelling over the din of engine and tires, had begun to lower his price. He started with $560, clipped to $550 as they slid around the first median, went to $545 as they dropped under the overpass, feebly as if seasick mentioned $525 as they slid around the median for the second time, and finally, after shouting “OK OK OK charo, five hundred, five hundred dollars,” gloomily retreated to four ninety-five after the armrest came off the door in his hand.
    Windrow ignored him and accelerated up the hill as fast as the car would go. He weaved among cars across all five lanes until he gained a clear lane in the middle of the freeway. They hurtled past the Vermont St. exit, and topped the hill, where the vast network of the city spread below them. They could see all of downtown,