Free Speak Ill of the Living by Mark Arsenault Page B

7
    Leaving the
Empire
library was a lot easier than getting in. Security didn’t care who broke
out
. Eddie had studied every story in his brother’s file, and by the time he left the
Empire
, night had fallen.
    The night was unusually cool for August. Eddie stuck his hands in his pants pocket and walked toward his car, which was tucked discreetly in the parking lot of one of the city’s historic mills. The mill buildings were monsters of red brick that seemed too big to have been built in the century before modern machines. It seemed more likely that the mills just pushed themselves out of the ground the way mountains do. Some of the mills had become luxury apartment houses, others had become museums. They were the centerpiece of the city’s tourism economy, a marketing plan based on America’s industrial history.
    Eddie squinted and scanned the field of dark asphalt. The Mighty Chevette was alone, deep in the parking lot. He listened to the knock of his shoes on the ground. He felt the breeze on his face. Simple details from everyday life, inaccessible to his brother. To live in such a way for thirty years seemed impossible. Eddie thought about goldfish that grew only as big as the bowl you kept them in. That must have been how Henry handled prison.
    He fished his key ring from his pocket and felt for the ignition key. Headlights came on across the parking lot. Eddie held up his keys to the light and found the right one. He listened to an engine revving, from the car across the lot. He wondered if Henry could still drive a car after three decades in jail. Would he even know how to change the TV channel by remote control?
    Eddie creaked open the car door and looked inside. The headlights from across the lot were coming toward the Mighty Chevette from the rear, and they illuminated the interior of the car. Eddie gave the back seat a quick inspection in the light. Finding Dr. Crane’s body had been unnerving. The memory gave his mind plenty of raw material to imagine a killer hiding in his car. But there was nothing there but a few hand tools for the garden he intended to grow someday, two dozen empty Dunkin Donuts cups, and potato chip bags.
    An engine gunned. Tires scrubbed the pavement. The headlights swerved toward Eddie. He saw the outline of a van.
    This guy drunk?
    The van lurched forward with a roar and the high beams bore down on Eddie.
    Eddie froze for a moment in amazement.
    He’s running me down.
    No place to run.
    He dove into the Mighty Chevette a split-second before the van strafed the car with a screaming metallic crunch. The Chevette rocked and groaned, the driver’s door was shorn clean off its hinges. Eddie heard it crash and skid away.
    He looked over the dash, disbelieving what had just happened.
    The van’s brake lights came on. It was slowing down.
    He’s coming back.
    Eddie fumbled with his keys, dropped them, snatched them up and tore through them. He looked up. The van made a hard U-turn. Eddie jammed the ignition key home, stomped the clutch and prayed as he turned the key.
    For once, let it start the first try.
    The Mighty Chevette coughed to life. The van came at him again, slowly this time. Eddie flicked on his lights, saw an arm sticking out of the van’s window, a gun in the hand.
    He popped the clutch and the Mighty Chevette jerked forward.
    The gun flashed and banged.
    The Chevette’s windshield crackled in a spiderweb pattern, just below the rear view mirror.
    â€œJesus!”
    Eddie drove straight at the van’s headlights, then veered hard left at the last second and passed the van on its passenger side. He slammed the gearshift into third and floored the accelerator, aiming across the parking lot, for the street.
    With no driver’s side door, the pavement raced by close enough to touch. In one quick motion, Eddie reached his right hand over, dragged the seat belt across his body and clicked it into place.
    Headlights filled his