Taking the Highway (21 page)

“A fourth mentioned something that got me thinking,” Andre said. Sofia’s hand strayed down to his lap and caressed him through his pants. What had Nikhil said this morning? Oh, yeah. “He wanted to know why nobody tracks fourths through their badges.”

Sofia’s hand froze on his crotch. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“What?”

“You’ve been working on this for three days and that’s all you’ve got?”

“I thought if we looked into—”

“You’re supposed to be infiltrating the union.” She opened his coat lapels and snaked her hands into his pockets. “Give me the cash.”

Andre wriggled as she poked his ribs. “What cash?”

“The money you’ve earned fourthing. Give it.”

“No way!” Andre caught her hand and removed it from his body.

“You’ve been robbing the police department. You were supposed to be putting time into the job.”

“I was! I gave you Hugh Ingersol. Have you even looked into his background?”

“Thoroughly. No mafia connections, no history of violence. Ingersol is a boy scout with a big mouth. Now give me the cash.” She reached for his pocket again.

Andre caught her hand and pulled. She ended up half-splayed across his lap and her skirt crept up her thighs.

“I’ve been working my ass off.” Sofia freed one of her hands and went digging into his pants pocket. “Mother Mad has dumped enough paper on my desk to insulate a house. Kosmatka has such a hard-on for the mafia I don’t know if he wants to arrest them or sleep with them, and you don’t even want to know what that econ guy is doing.” She came up empty with the first pocket and started in on the other.

Andre moved the seat back to give her more room, keeping his foot near the brake pedal. She wouldn’t find cash in his pants pocket, but it wasn’t really what she was looking for. Around them, Overdrive kept the maximum distance between cars, and as traffic thinned, they were soon isolated on the road.

Sofia lifted her head and her mouth found his. He kissed her hungrily, but kept his eyes on the road ahead, trying to be in two places at once. He caught his breath as Sofia lowered his zipper. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

Sofia freed him from his pants. “You’ve never thought about it?”

Andre looked out the window at the dark and lonely road. “Were you planning this, or did this just come to you?”

For an answer, she lifted her skirt and placed his hand between her legs. She wasn’t wearing anything under her skirt and he cupped his palm over the neatly trimmed strip of hair, finding slick wetness beneath his fingers. He helped her unbutton her blouse, but he already knew she’d be braless. And he wanted her. Dangerous or not, foolish or not, bad idea or not. He needed her and he would have her, right here, right now. She smelled like heaven. Soap, perfume, and something a lot more musky.

The minimum-passenger notice flashed by in his peripheral vision like an omen he wanted to ignore. The fines for civilians without four passengers on the highway ran to thousands of dollars apiece. He wondered what the fines were for indecent exposure.

“Do you suppose our official exemption covers this too?”

“Why not? Life is hard for the authority figures.”

“Life isn’t the only thing.” He snuck a glance at the companel on the dash. “We’ve got about fifteen minutes of road before Overdrive runs out.”

Sofia licked her lips. “Then we’d better get to it.” She commanded the car to lower his seat so he could see nothing out the windshield but the globes of streetlights over the highway flashing and vanishing. Then she was on him, one leg thrown over his lap, straddling him, kissing his face, his neck, his lips.

“This is a very, very bad idea,” he murmured to her lips.

“I know,” Sofia said “But everybody likes a little kink.”

“This isn’t kinky.”

“No?”

“Kinky is what other people do.”

She smiled and moved against him, rubbing her slickness over him. She wanted him, and he was harder than he could ever remember, dying to have her.

“Sofia,” he breathed, trying to touch her everywhere. Some small, rational part of his brain told him that he was playing a very dangerous game. The car would not crash. Overdrive would not let it. The car might weave, it might decelerate, but it would not crash, no matter what he did or did not do. But things happened. They didn’t happen often and they rarely caused a problem, but what about a power failure or a detour or another malfunction? He needed to be alert to take manual control. Besides, they were in public. Far from the city on a nearly empty road, but public nevertheless.

And then she raised her nipple to his mouth and he couldn’t see and he didn’t want to see anything but her shape flashing with the racing lights, didn’t want to feel anything but himself entering her, pleasuring her. One small movement and he was inside. Sofia gasped and arched. “Yes,” she said. “Oh, yes, right there.”

He thrust upward as much as he could in the small seat. He reached around her, holding her tiny waist and pulling her onto him as he thrust over and over.

He was vaguely aware of movement outside the window. Had another car passed them? Unlikely. They would have plenty of warning to make their exit. He gave himself over to pleasure.

Sofia had both hands on the seatback and she bounced on his lap, moving for both of them. He was hyper-aware of her breathing, the sweat glistening on her brown skin, the rustling of her hair. The movement of the car and the movement of her body blended into one exquisite sensation. He wanted to explode in her, but more than that, he wanted to make her come. He reached between them, touching her.

Lights. Sirens. Warnings. Sofia stopped moving. The car cut speed and Andre’s eyes snapped open. Their exit already? He looked over Sofia’s shoulder through the front windshield.

Talic’s mint green Mustang was directly in front of Sofia’s Banshee, as close as the Overdrive-capable bumpers could be without touching. Talic had turned completely around in his seat to stare out the back window at them.

“What the hell?” Sofia was trying to twist, trying to see.

“Get off,” he told Sofia. All pleasure was gone and he tried to grip the wheel, tried to feel for the brake. “Get off, get off, get off.”

“I was trying to.”

He grabbed her under the arms and pushed her off of his lap. She landed half on the seat, half on the floor. “Jae Geoffrey Talic.” Andre leaned forward and canceled Overdrive control, grabbing the wheel and checking his blind spot. Exit coming up.

Sofia peeked over the dashboard. “Shit.” She ducked back down.

Andre cut across two lanes of traffic just in time to make the exit. “I take it you didn’t tell him about our meeting.”

“Hell, no.”

A beep as Sofia’s datapad automatically routed itself through the dash. “Don’t answer it!” they said at the same time.

“It’s him.” Andre stopped the car at the foot of the ramp. He checked his rearview. No one behind them.

Sofia pointed at the companel display. “No, it’s not. It’s Mother Madison.” She was back on the seat now, buttoning her blouse.

“Do
not
answer it.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.”

Andre reached down, tucked himself back in and zipped his pants.

Sofia patted her skirt into place. “Do you think we’ll ever have this-is-a-good-idea sex?”

Andre gently took her hand and lifted it to his lips. “I hope so.”

He glanced over his shoulder at the cars on the highway. How had Talic gotten in front of him? How was he always one step ahead? He curled his fingers into fists and pounded the steering wheel. He didn’t believe that Talic was smarter than he was, or had resources that he didn’t. It was a matter of degree. Talic was one part more determined, one part more ruthless.

Andre tromped the accelerator and turned the wheel, steering the car under the highway bridge. Talic was somewhere up there. Waiting.

It was happening again.

The last of the day’s sun on his face was unaccountably hot, the heat of a stifling attic, the smell of the zone from the vents just like the smell of that attic. He was brought back to dust, to rot, to the stench of failure. He was brought back to a late summer day three years ago, when carefully-orchestrated events had slipped out of his control.

T
he sting had taken
months to set up. The final preparations had taken weeks, and Andre had been hidden in this attic crawlspace for two hours. Unwilling to sit in a pile of toxic insulation, unable to fully stand without impaling himself on the exposed nails in the beams above, he had to crouch in the airless attic. His legs had gone beyond hurt, beyond cramping, to some sort of transcendent ache that had become a part of him, as if the pain would stay in his body for the rest of his life.

He tried to shake a knot out of his right leg as he half stood and checked the remote feed from the hidden camera. He’d set it up himself after the tech department had ignored all of his requests. He hadn’t figured out how to put a motion detector on the camera, and the view was neither wide nor clear, but the resolution was good enough. From up here, he could watch and record everything that happened at a small but very important slice of property across the street. His camera was focused on the most famous address in the oh-zone, the mansion that belonged to Sufek Reem.

While other houses in the area were mere carcasses, Reem had taken over a six-bedroom manor that was built in 1927 and lovingly restored it to its former glory. The leaded windows, the art deco stained glass, and the gas lights on each fence post were finer than the originals, paid for by the addictions of others.

And when the profits from glaze weren’t enough, Reem had branched out beyond drugs into prostitution, protection schemes and contract killing. He was responsible for eight murders that the public knew of, and probably more that they didn’t. He ruled the Chandler Park section of the zone like a medieval prince, collecting tithes from his peasants, passing out punishments and largesse in equal measure, living above the law because he
was
the law.

Andre pinched his nose to stifle a sneeze. His eyes watered from the effort and he turned his head to either side, wiping them on the shoulders of his shirt. He caught a tangy whiff of his own nervous sweat, then pulled his head away and inhaled a lungful of dusty air. He checked the camera again. The Vice squad should have been here by now, dragging Reem out of his house with overwhelming force.

Dead air across the street. He couldn’t even see Reem’s security guards. He risked looking away from the camera to check his latest messages. His datapad’s front page showed a stream of old text. Nothing new. Where the hell was Vice?

A crash above his head almost made him drop the pad. Another heavy thump, followed by scraping and under-the-breath swearing. At least two people stood on the roof above his head. The crumbling ruin across from Reem’s house had seemed like the ideal vantage point. But what was ideal for him was also ideal for the Vice squad. Andre turned to the camera and focused on the viewer. Three people in riot gear moved into position around Reem’s house. The flickering gas lights obscured their features and from this distance, he couldn’t discern race, or even gender.

Footfalls boomed into the attic room and Andre prayed the people on the roof wouldn’t crash through the damaged boards and land in his lap. He could hear bags unzipping and mumbled conversation. It sounded like one man and one woman.

[
ATTENTION. ATTENTION.
] Andre was straining so hard to make out the conversation above his head that it took him a moment to understand that the signal was not coming through his ears, but through his phone implant. Lieutenant Quigg’s voice reached him next. “Where are you?”

Andre lifted a sweaty finger to the point just behind his ear and sent a single pulse. It wasn’t an answer to Quigg’s question, but what could he do? Quigg would have to be satisfied with simple affirmation.

But of course, he wasn’t. “I know you’re in the zone. What do you think you’re doing?”

A double pulse this time. Negative. Andre could hear insistent whispers above his head, which meant the people on the roof could hear him. A single word, a misplaced grunt, even moving around too much would compromise his position.

Through the camera, he saw a black-clad figure scuttle across the lawn and duck into a corner of the low brick wall that marked the boundary of the lawn. The night was still, the house silent. Was Reem even in there?

Quigg’s voice boomed through the implant. “I asked you a question, LaCroix. I expect an answer.”

Andre disconnected the call and took one last look at Reem’s yard, then frowned down at his datapad’s screen. Too bad he couldn’t look through the camera with one eye and focus on his datapad with the other. He sent Quigg a quick blip. [
MONITORING A SITUATION.
]

Quigg’s return blip was almost immediate. [
WHAT KIND?
]

[
SUFEK REEM.
]

[
DROP IT. WE DON’T STEP ON VICE’S TOES.
]

[
ATTENTION. ATTENTION.
] Another call came through his implant, the bland computerized voice somehow sounding more insistent, as if Quigg had programmed it for urgency.