Red Tide by G. M. Ford Page B

said. “Goddamn it.”
    A cycle dyke slammed her hand on the hood of the cab as she crossed the street, her narrow eyes etching displeasure at the cab’s intrusion into the crosswalk.
    “Fuck you,” Stevie muttered, racing the engine.
    She stopped, making like she was going to come back and kick his ass; Stevie was reaching for the lock button when she smirked, shot him the finger and strode away.
    A pair of red dots appeared on Stevie’s cheeks. A moment later, a slight break in the stream of humanity proved to be all the encouragement he needed. He nosed the cab the rest of the way through the crowded intersection, waited another moment for side street pedestrians to pass and then squealed around the corner.
    The rear of a tandem Metro bus loomed like a mechanical mountain. “Wash Me” had been fingered into the thick dirt on the back window. Stevie screeched to a halt, throwing Dougherty forward in the seat, bouncing his chest off the steering wheel.
    The cab’s interior was hot with their frustrated breathing as slowly…incrementally…the knot of traffic began to unwind and the bus began to nose into the curb, the front coach sliding along the bus stop, leaving the rear hanging out into traffic, until suddenly the air was filled with the sound of squeaking brakes and the hissing of hydraulic doors. “Goddamn it,” Dougherty said again, slapping the seat.
    Stevie hit the gas, throwing the cab toward a narrow opening between the bus’s big ass and the steady stream of oncoming traffic. The breath caught in Dougherty’s throat. It seemed certain they were going to have a head-on with a red Dodge pickup. The truck’s driver jerked the wheel to the right, narrowly avoiding a line of parked cars as the truck fishtailed in the street. Stevie kept the cab so close to the bus Dougherty could see the screws that held the advertising signs. Then bang! And the tinkling sound of broken glass. Stevie looked around, as confused as she was. Couple of blocks later she saw him wince.
    “We hit mirrors,” Stevie said disgustedly.
    Dougherty slid across the seat and peered along the side of the cab. Where the side view mirror had once been was now nothing more than a jagged pair of torn-out screw holes in the yellow sheet metal. She turned in the seat, looking for the truck, but the bus completely blocked her view.
    “Oh…man…I’m gonna be in deep shit over the mirror,” Stevie said as he wheeled wildly down the street. “Gonna get my ass fired for sure.”
    “The damage is on me,” Dougherty breathed. “You just catch him.”
    He snuck a peek over his shoulder, making sure she was serious, and then floored it.
    The street ahead was temporarily clear. “Come on…come on,” she whispered as they raced down Denny Way, her hopes fading with every passing block.
    Halfway down the hill, a yellow Penske truck was trying to turn left onto Summit Avenue, holding a dozen vehicles hostage as a steady stream of uphill traffic prevented the maneuver. Brian Bohannon and the gray van were third in line behind the truck.
    “There’s our boy,” Stevie said.
    Dougherty dove forward, once again hanging over the driver’s seat and peering intently out through the windshield. “Sure is,” she said. She clapped him on the shoulder.
    The van was ten cars in front of them. They sat and waited. Another dozen vehicles crawled uphill before the truck was able to make the turn onto Summit.
    Stevie glanced over at the torn metal where the side view mirror used to be and then turned to meet her gaze. “You sure you don’t wanna just call the cops on this guy?” he wanted to know. “This is getting hairy.”
    “No,” was all she said.
    He lifted his hands from the wheel in an unspoken question. She answered.
    “I don’t know, man,” she said. She stared straight ahead as the traffic began to move. “I used to dream about what I’d do to him…all the ways I’d make him pay for turning me into a freak…” Stevie began to