Free The Whole Lie by Steve Ulfelder Page B

we got into city-warfare driving, vacant lots and speed bumps and more curbs, he’d have the edge.
    I thought this through as I hammered west on Bennington Street. Kept one eye on the rearview, saw the Expedition come around a corner like a cow on ice skates.
    Decided to see what the big ugly dude in the big ugly SUV wanted.
    I slowed, let him pull within four car-lengths. Then I spun a quick right onto a typical Eastie residential street: narrow, cars parked on both sides, triple-decker houses stuffed right next to each other.
    I took it slow. Wouldn’t do me much good to run over a kid in here. The question: Was the Expedition running a loose tail, or would he truly come after me?
    Answer: loose tail. As I chugged through tight streets, the guy had plenty of chances to ram me, even pin me against a car if that was his job. He didn’t. Stayed behind me instead, never more than five car lengths back.
    I took rights, circling back to the main drag. What kind of guy, when he knows he’s been made like that, hangs on your bumper? Why not throw in the towel, motor off, and come at me again another time?
    He might be a flunky, an order-taker. And not a smart one. His boss had said follow that car or else—and he was, by God, even when the tail turned sour.
    Or he might be a nutcase.
    From what he’d shown me in the barbecue joint, that seemed like the smart bet.
    But who was he?
    I knew how to find out.
    I hit Route 1-A, took it to the new section of Route 90—the Mass Turnpike extension that was part of the Big Dig boondoggle—and, in light traffic, used my rearview to learn more about the Expedition.
    Like me, he used a FAST LANE transponder to zip through tollbooths. But whereas mine, like most everybody else’s, was Velcro’d high on the windshield, the guy in the Expedition had to fumble his from the center console at each toll, then aim it at the electronic reader.
    Which might mean he’d stolen the transponder from another vehicle. Or might mean nothing.
    As we dipped into the Ted Williams Tunnel, lit up bright as day, I learned more. No state inspection sticker in the lower right corner of the windshield, so it wasn’t a Massachusetts vehicle. And no front license plate on that chewed-up bumper to help me figure out what state it was from.
    We cleared the tunnel. I hit the throttle.
    The Expedition disappeared.
    He tried to stay with me, but there were just enough curves and dips on this chunk of the Pike to make him uncomfortable when our speed topped a hundred. I kept my foot in it and pulled away.
    After the exit for Cambridge and Brighton, there was a long flat stretch. I looked ahead and to the right, hoping for help.
    Got some, in the form of a bus smoking along in the slow lane.
    I dove in front of the bus and matched its speed, keeping an eye on my side-view mirror. In thirty seconds I spotted the Expedition, honking along, still thinking he could catch me.
    I eyeballed the breakdown lane—clear—and watched the green SUV and timed everything just right.
    As the Expedition drew level with me, I slashed into the breakdown lane and tapped the brakes. The bus threw me one pissed-off honk and kept moving, shielding me from the driver of the SUV.
    I rolled into the gas, checked mirrors, cut back into the slow lane, looked ahead and to my left.
    There he was. Green Expedition with gold bumpers, highballing along, trying like hell to catch a glimpse of me.
    He was looking in the wrong direction.
    I might have smiled.
    But not for long.
    I sat a full two hundred yards behind the Expedition. I could afford to. Knew where the exits were, knew a squirt of throttle would pull me to him anytime I wanted. There were a bunch of cars between us. One of them was a sensible-shoes Nissan Sentra in that boring silver-gold color.
    In the light traffic, it soon became clear the Sentra was tailing the SUV. It darted lane to lane whenever he did, rode his bumper too close, then too