Never Too Rich (36 page)

The Ferrari plowed into the table and flung it
aside. Glowing yo-yos went flying, and rained down like giant green
hailstones.

Duncan jumped the Ferrari back off the curb, joined
the traffic pouring up Sixth Avenue, and fought his way into the
right-most lane.

Billie twisted around in her seat. Behind them, the
vendor had jumped into the street and was gesticulating wildly and
screaming obscenities after them. But he, too, was apparently
possessed of that special urban streak of self-preservation.
Hearing the Harley bearing down on him from behind, he dived across
the hood of a parked car just in the nick of time.

The chase was back on. And Snake, like a driven
demon, was just three cars behind the Ferrari.

Duncan knew his only chance to shake him was to find
empty streets and rely purely on speed. But empty Manhattan streets
were few and far between, especially above Twenty-third Street. So
what was left?

Without warning, he threw the car into another sharp
right at Twenty-eighth Street.

So far, so good. This street was blessedly clear of
traffic. Duncan opened up all the way, slowed and burned the red
light, creating automotive pandemonium in the intersection of Fifth
Avenue. Each time he looked in the mirror, the single high beam of
the Harley blinded him.

He made another sudden turn, a left, on Park Avenue
South. By now, the roller-coaster turns were making Billie
nauseated. Her stomach heaved. Fear and fury only added to the
bilious churning inside her.

Then suddenly her nausea was forgotten. Other, more
pressing problems were at hand. Park Avenue South was clogged with
cars and cabs and trucks.

Duncan jumped lanes, squeezing aggressively into any
available opening.

Twenty-ninth Street was left behind.

Thirtieth was coming up. Snake was now only one car
behind, and was beginning to pass on the right.

Three blocks ahead, the two center lanes, one
northbound and one southbound, dipped into the tunnel underneath
Park Avenue. A yellow sign above it read CLEARANCE 9 FT 2 IN, and
flashing amber lights warned unwary motorists of its maw.

Duncan kept in the lane to the right of the one
leading down into the tunnel, as though intending to head up the
avenue above ground. Then, at the last possible moment, he cramped
the wheel to the left, cutting off a tailgating cab, and veered
toward the tunnel entrance.

The Ferrari dived into it. The Harley, for all its
maneuverability, was blocked by the cab Duncan had cut off. In
fact, it was all Snake could do to avoid being sideswiped and
getting a bad case of asphalt rash.

“
He’s gone,” Billie said with
relief, inching her head up over the seat and looking
back.

But the biker wasn’t finished. Braking, he made a
U-turn, headed fearlessly against the one-way traffic and, ignoring
the blaring of horns, wove his way past the oncoming cars and
backtracked to the entrance. A few deft twists and turns later, he
was in the tunnel.

“
Don’t be so sure,” Duncan said,
glancing into the rearview mirror. He caught sight of a single
wobbly headlight.

Snake was in a rage. His tawny eyes blazed with a
crazed light and he roared curses into the wind. The killing fever
that gripped him in a chokehold was blinding; revenge was all that
mattered. Right now, nothing else existed.

Only Shirl and some rich asshole in a spaghetti
burner.

The tunnel’s confines amplified the roar of the
Harley’s engine to a shattering crescendo, and as he shot ahead in
fourth gear, the orangey lights lining the curved tile walls became
a blur. The oncoming lane was empty, and there was only one
uptown-bound car ahead.

The red Ferrari.

“
Got ya, cocksuckers!” Snake
snarled, banking into the empty lane and opening the throttle all
the way.

Billie said, “If we couldn’t shake him already, what
are we going to do once we’re out of the tunnel and stuck back in
traffic?”

“
I’ll think of something,” Duncan
said with an expressionless smile, and reached for the door handle.
He kept his left hand on it.

He knew what he would do if he was forced to: if the
bike passed for another attack, he would open his door at the very
last second— and the bike would plow right into it. The Ferrari
would lose a door—the biker might lose his life.

Don’t make me do it, Duncan prayed silently, his
eyes flickering constantly to the rearview mirror. I’m a doctor,
for crying out loud!

But there was no time to debate the ethics of his
defensive actions. Sitting up straight, Duncan suddenly feathered
the brakes, careful not to go into a skid.

Snake’s snarling grin turned into a frown as the
Ferrari’s brake lights suddenly lit up like twin Christmas trees.
“What the hell?” he muttered to himself. Why was that yuppie
fuckface slowing down? Did he
want
a trashed car?

Then he grinned again.

All right, you assholes! Say bye-bye to that pretty
red car. And to your thick-headed skulls while you’re at it!

“
What
is
it?” Billie Dawn
wanted to know as they slowed down. “Doc, why are you
braking?”

“
That,”
Duncan said grimly,
and further explanation was unnecessary as they hit a big oil slick
that almost, but not quite, reached from one wall of the tunnel to
the other. Some truck or car passing through recently had obviously
blown some gaskets—or worse.

Despite his caution and driving skills, Duncan could
feel the wheels skating, and then the car whipped this way and
that. Twenty feet later, when the tires gripped asphalt once again
and he had the car back under control, he immediately gave it
gas.

They’d lost precious lead time by slowing down and
skidding, and Duncan feared Snake could now easily catch up with
them: with only two thin tires to contend with, the biker could
easily skirt the oil slick altogether by simply riding along the
extreme edge of the left lane.

Snake did no such thing. He didn’t see the oil slick
coming up. He was too caught up in the closeness of his quarry. Now
only ten feet separated him from the Ferrari, and his face filled
with a perverse joy. Any moment now, they would be at his
mercy.

The distance between bike and car closed with each
passing half-second. Nine feet, eight feet . . . six . . . four . .
.

Snake lifted the chain high and thought: You fuckers
are never gonna be able to look at yourselves in a mirror
again!

And then, like a rocket, the Harley hurtled into the
black oil slick.

There was nothing Snake could do. Too late, he saw
the Ferrari fishtailing; too late, he saw the shiny black surface
gleaming iridescently with squiggly rainbows; far, far too late to
take evasive action, he realized his folly. One moment his tires
were biting asphalt; the next, they were useless. The bike might as
well have been on skates. The Harley skimmed across the oil as if
it had a mind of its own, then went into a lethal broadside
skid.

Snake saw it in slow motion: the broadside slide . .
. the tiled tunnel wall angling drunkenly in front of him instead
of rushing past him in a blur . . . the momentum of the skid
listing the bike to the left, first to a forty-five-degree angle,
then down to ninety degrees. He threw all his weight in the
opposite direction for counterbalance, but to no avail. And then
his eyes filled with sudden comprehending terror. The gears in his
mind ground and grated and shrieked discordantly.
He was going
down!

Then everything sped up again.

The fork jammed to the extreme left, the front tire
tried to lunge up the curved tunnel wall in a climb, and after a
yard or so the bike bounced back off the wall and did a series of
end-over-end flips. Snake was unceremoniously tossed off, and he
somersaulted twice before sliding sixty-odd feet on the seat of his
pants. His boot cleats, drive-chain belt, and the length of chain
he still clutched in his hand sent a spectacular comet’s tail of
sparks flying behind him.

Further back, the bike was still flipping, bending,
crumpling, and twisting itself into a tortured steel knot. Parts of
it tore loose and flew off in every direction; a mirror popped off
the contorted handlebars, bounced, and rolled away like a
wheel.

Then the gas tank burst. An orange and yellow
fireball roared and expanded, filling the tunnel from wall to
wall.

The two lanes under Park Avenue became an
underground inferno.

Duncan stopped the Ferrari just outside the tunnel
exit, opened his door, and looked back. Even from this distance,
the heat was unbearable.

Billie opened her door and recoiled. Despite their
narrow escape from Snake, she couldn’t help feeling horror. She
whispered, “Maybe . . . we should go back and try to help him?”

“
He doesn’t seem to need our help,”
Duncan said dryly. “See?”

Then she saw. Snake had escaped the explosion and
raging fire. His sixty-foot-seat-of-the-pants slide might have
sanded a good half inch of flesh off his buttocks, but amazingly
enough, other than being momentarily dazed, he had come through it
all relatively unscathed.

She couldn’t believe it. He really did have the luck
of the devil.

She watched him struggle to his feet and stand there
hunched forward, still in a daze. Then, noticing the Ferrari, he
raised his head slowly and staggered forward, backlit by the
boiling flames, a dark silhouette dragging the chain still clutched
in his hand.

Duncan slammed his door shut, as did Billie Dawn.
Nothing but trouble to be gained in sticking around, Duncan
thought. Then he stepped on the gas. With a squeal of the tires,
they sped off—from zero to sixty in eight seconds flat.

He couldn’t resist one last backward glance in the
rearview mirror. He had to smile. It was a classic image of
frustration—Snake tossing down the chain in fury, kicking at it,
and doing an infuriated contortion of a dance.

Chapter 38

Snake lay on his stomach on the emergency-room
bed.

He had singed hair, a raw and bloodied gluteus
maximus, and an assortment of sprains and bruises. But what hurt
him even more than his wounded macho pride was his irreparably
trashed bike.

For Snake, the loss of his prized scoot was akin to
the loss of both testicles for any other man. And, like so many
true sadists, he was a baby at enduring pain of any kind
himself.

“
If you don’t keep still, it’s
gonna hurt you twice as much,” the nurse warned. “You’re the worst
patient I’ve ever seen, you know that?”

His body arched and spasmed each time she tweezed a
bit of pavement out of his butt. He cursed and ranted and raved.
Rare tears rolled from his eyes.

“
Shame on you,” she chided. “Big
bruiser like you acting like a baby.” She clucked her tongue and
shook her head.

Snake replied by breaking wind in her face.

Darleena Watson, R.N., did not suffer indignities
gladly. In fact, she refused to suffer them at all. After sixteen
years of nursing at Bellevue Hospital, she had a remedy for every
occasion—and she had a remedy for this one too. Picking up a bottle
of alcohol, she poured its contents liberally over Snake’s bleeding
butt.

He screamed and nearly levitated.

“
You fart in my face again, and
you’re dead meat, boy,” Darleena declared, stabbing his raw
backside particularly hard with the tweezers for good measure. “You
hear?”

He heard.

When Duncan dropped her at home, Billie Dawn fled
from the car with barely a good night and made a beeline for the
elevators. She couldn’t wait to get upstairs and hole up quietly in
her bedroom.

The shock of running into Snake and the violent
chase had left her jittery and depleted. She needed peace and quiet
and familiar surroundings in order to calm herself.

Rest and sleep, she thought as the elevator carried
her swiftly upstairs. Those two magical cure-alls might—just
might—bring her back to normal. Rest and sleep could wipe away
horrors and ease jangling nerves. By tomorrow she should feel like
a new person.

Rest was her hope, sleep her prayer.

But when she let herself into her sublet apartment,
Obi Kuti, a model from one of the other agencies whom she’d
befriended while they’d both worked on a Revlon shoot, called and
said, “Joy Zatopekova’s been murdered. Is it okay with you if I
stay at your place for a few days?”

Billie said it was fine.

Twenty minutes later, Carmen Toledo dropped Obi by.
The bizarrely beautiful six-foot-tall black model was tearful and
shattered. She was hugging a cat.

“
I’ll take good care of her,”
Billie Dawn promised the detective.

So, instead of holing up in her bedroom and
preoccupying herself with Snake, Billie sat up with Obi and offered
what sympathy she could. Only after they got ready for bed did it
occur to her that since Obi’s arrival, she hadn’t once given Snake
or the terrifying chase so much as a fleeting thought. She hadn’t
even noticed that her adrenaline had dissipated and her shakes had
vanished. Strange, she thought, how providing someone else with
emotional succor was just the tonic she herself needed.

Duncan called. “I’m sorry our evening turned out the
way it did,” he told her gently. “If you need anything, I’ll be
here.”

“
I’m fine now, Doc,” she assured
him.

And it was true: she was. Joy’s murder made her own
problems seem inconsequential.

“
I’m not trying to be pushy, but
since this evening’s date was ruined, mind if we try again?” he
asked.