maintenance.
Joe could have followed the road to the west end of the memorial park and then looped all the way around to the entrance at the east perimeter, but he was in a hurry and wanted to go directly back the way he had come. Overwhelmed by a feeling that he had stretched his luck too far, he could almost hear a ticking like a time-bomb clock. Pulling away from the curb, he tried to hang a U-turn but couldn't quite manage it in one clean sweep.
He shifted into reverse and tramped on the accelerator hard enough to make the tyres squeal against the hot pavement. The Honda shot backward. He braked and shifted into drive again.
Tick, tick, tick .
Instinct proved reliable. Just as he accelerated toward the approaching groundskeeper's truck, the rear window on the driver's side of the car, immediately behind his head, exploded, spraying glass across the backseat.
He didn't have to hear the shot to know what had happened.
Glancing to the left, he saw the man in the red Hawaiian shirt, stopped halfway down the hillside, in a shooter's stance. The guy was as pale as a risen corpse but dressed for a Margarita party.
Someone shouted hoarse, slurred curses. Blick. Crawling away from the van on his hands and knees, dazedly shaking his blocky head, like a pit bull wounded in a dog fight, spraying bloody foam from his mouth: Blick.
Another round slammed into the body of the car with a hard thud followed by a brief trailing twang.
With a rush of hot gibbering wind at the open and the shattered windows, the Honda spirited Joe out of range. He rocketed past the groundskeeper's truck at such high speed that it swerved to avoid him, though he was not in the least danger of colliding with it.
Past one burial service where black-garbed mourners drifted like forlorn spirits away from the open grave, past another burial service where the grieving huddled on chairs as if prepared to stay forever with whomever they had lost, past an Asian family putting a plate of fruit and cake on a fresh grave, Joe fled. He passed an unusual white church-a steeple atop a Palladian-arch cupola on columns atop a clock tower-which cast a stunted shadow in the early afternoon sun. Past a white Southern Colonial mortuary that blazed like alabaster in the California aridity but begged for bayous. He drove recklessly, with the expectation of relentless pursuit, which didn't occur. He was also certain that his way would be blocked by the sudden arrival of swarms of police cars, but they still were not in sight when he raced between the open gates and out of the memorial park.
He drove under the Ventura Freeway, escaping into the suburban hive of San Fernando Valley.
At a stoplight, quaking with tension, he watched a procession of a dozen street rods pass through the intersection, driven by the members of a car club on a Saturday outing: an era-perfect '41 Buick Roadmaster, a '47 Ford Sportsman Woodie with honey-maple panelling and black-cherry maroon paint, a '32 Ford Roadster in Art Deco style with full road pants and chrome speedlines. Each of the twelve was a testament to the car as art: chopped, channelled, sectioned, grafted, some on dropped spindles, with custom grilles, reconfigured hoods, frenched headlights, raised and flared wheel wells, handformed fender skirts. Painted, pinstriped, polished passion rolling on rubber.
Watching the street rods, he felt a curious sensation in his chest, a loosening, a stretching, both painful and exhilarating.
A block later he passed a park where, in spite of the heat, a young family-with three laughing children-was playing Frisbee with an exuberant golden retriever.
Heart pounding, Joe slowed the Honda. He almost pulled to the curb to watch.
At a corner, two lovely blond college girls, apparently twins, in white shorts and crisp white blouses, waited to cross the street, holding
Joe could have followed the road to the west end of the memorial park and then looped all the way around to the entrance at the east perimeter, but he was in a hurry and wanted to go directly back the way he had come. Overwhelmed by a feeling that he had stretched his luck too far, he could almost hear a ticking like a time-bomb clock. Pulling away from the curb, he tried to hang a U-turn but couldn't quite manage it in one clean sweep.
He shifted into reverse and tramped on the accelerator hard enough to make the tyres squeal against the hot pavement. The Honda shot backward. He braked and shifted into drive again.
Tick, tick, tick .
Instinct proved reliable. Just as he accelerated toward the approaching groundskeeper's truck, the rear window on the driver's side of the car, immediately behind his head, exploded, spraying glass across the backseat.
He didn't have to hear the shot to know what had happened.
Glancing to the left, he saw the man in the red Hawaiian shirt, stopped halfway down the hillside, in a shooter's stance. The guy was as pale as a risen corpse but dressed for a Margarita party.
Someone shouted hoarse, slurred curses. Blick. Crawling away from the van on his hands and knees, dazedly shaking his blocky head, like a pit bull wounded in a dog fight, spraying bloody foam from his mouth: Blick.
Another round slammed into the body of the car with a hard thud followed by a brief trailing twang.
With a rush of hot gibbering wind at the open and the shattered windows, the Honda spirited Joe out of range. He rocketed past the groundskeeper's truck at such high speed that it swerved to avoid him, though he was not in the least danger of colliding with it.
Past one burial service where black-garbed mourners drifted like forlorn spirits away from the open grave, past another burial service where the grieving huddled on chairs as if prepared to stay forever with whomever they had lost, past an Asian family putting a plate of fruit and cake on a fresh grave, Joe fled. He passed an unusual white church-a steeple atop a Palladian-arch cupola on columns atop a clock tower-which cast a stunted shadow in the early afternoon sun. Past a white Southern Colonial mortuary that blazed like alabaster in the California aridity but begged for bayous. He drove recklessly, with the expectation of relentless pursuit, which didn't occur. He was also certain that his way would be blocked by the sudden arrival of swarms of police cars, but they still were not in sight when he raced between the open gates and out of the memorial park.
He drove under the Ventura Freeway, escaping into the suburban hive of San Fernando Valley.
At a stoplight, quaking with tension, he watched a procession of a dozen street rods pass through the intersection, driven by the members of a car club on a Saturday outing: an era-perfect '41 Buick Roadmaster, a '47 Ford Sportsman Woodie with honey-maple panelling and black-cherry maroon paint, a '32 Ford Roadster in Art Deco style with full road pants and chrome speedlines. Each of the twelve was a testament to the car as art: chopped, channelled, sectioned, grafted, some on dropped spindles, with custom grilles, reconfigured hoods, frenched headlights, raised and flared wheel wells, handformed fender skirts. Painted, pinstriped, polished passion rolling on rubber.
Watching the street rods, he felt a curious sensation in his chest, a loosening, a stretching, both painful and exhilarating.
A block later he passed a park where, in spite of the heat, a young family-with three laughing children-was playing Frisbee with an exuberant golden retriever.
Heart pounding, Joe slowed the Honda. He almost pulled to the curb to watch.
At a corner, two lovely blond college girls, apparently twins, in white shorts and crisp white blouses, waited to cross the street, holding
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