Copp For Hire, A Joe Copp Thriller (Joe Copp Private Eye Series) by Don Pendleton

I figured a good combination for Juanita's problem."
           "You read tea leaves and cast horoscopes too?"
           "That's easy. You're a Leo. Enough said."
           I could not just leave it at that. "Suppose you're a Pisces. Swim both ways at once. What does Linda versus Belinda tell me?"
           She moved back close. "Belinda is the root name. It's Germanic, not Spanish as you would think. The Spanish Linda means pretty."
           "What does Belinda mean?"
           "Originally, a serpent."
           "No kidding."
           "It was the title of an oracular priestess. Linda is a diminutive."
           "You don't look much like a serpent to me," I said.
    "Especially not on stage."
           "You're forgetting Eden. The serpent is mankind's oldest symbol of temptation."
           It was a symbol for something else, too.
           But actually I don't put that much stock in names, Copp notwithstanding. And I really did not want to think about snakes.
           Besides...we had a tail. And it was crowding closer and closer as we sped down the mountainside.
     
     

Chapter Nine
     
    IF YOU MEAN to play vehicular games on a winding mountain road at night, you should know the territory better than your opponent knows it.
           I had been driving that road for five years, at all times of the day and night.
           This guy had come to play games.
           It was his tough luck that he had come to
    play in my territory.
           He was crowding my rear bumper close enough that I could see the orange flames decaled across the hood in my rearview. I sent Linda a warning signal with the eyes and
    told her to buckle up.
           She obeyed quickly. Linda was no dummy.
    She knew what was coming down, even before the guy rode up and tapped my bumper.
           I drive an old Cadillac, one that was built before the EPA standards scaled them down to economy size. Sumbitch weighs three tons, believe it or not, and packs five-hundred cubic inches beneath the hood. It's like an armored tank, and that's why I love it so, even when the monthly gas bill comes.
           So I was not going to let that TransAm push me off the road.
           In fact, I damned well dared him to try. Next time he surged forward for the tap, I tapped my brakes. The tap became a cruncher and sent him swerving away in reaction. He lost a headlight in that exchange but not a lot of nerve because he came right back for more, this time nosing up past my rear end on the passing side.
           Bad timing on that one, though. Another vehicle swept around a curve headed our way about a hundred feet ahead, sending the guy swerving back in line. Even with that, he tried to clip me as he swung back in, caught maybe a silly millimeter of bumper, which affected him more than it did me.      
           By the time he was in control again we were riding the final ridge before the road curved abruptly into a descent to level terrain. It was about a three-hundred-foot drop
    graded over maybe a quarter of a mile if you stayed on the road; if you didn't it was just about foot for foot on the descent—not the way you want to do it in a vehicle.
           There was a turnout at the curve, a widening of the shoulder to allow a park-and-view of the valley below. It was on the uphill side. I went for it, with the TransAm again crowding the rear.
           I did not go all the way.
           He did.
           Maybe because he was so intent on me, maybe because of the limited visibility resulting from the smashed headlight; maybe because he was a jerk and had been trying for three miles to buy something like this.
           Anyway, I did a sliding Uey with the Cad; he tried too late to do the same with the TransAm . It teetered broadside at the edge, then went on over in a slowly rolling descent.
           I sprang a backup .25 automatic from the glove box