His body moved before his brain caught up. Jason whirled, saw a car screaming toward them, something low-bodied, a dark shape cutting the rain. A strobe of lights flared from the passenger side, and as he dropped he processed the image, someone shooting at them with a submachine gun, a drive-by, he was in a goddamn drive-by, and as he realized that, fivesixseven holes ripped in the door beside him, the firecracker rattle of the gunblasts arriving just afterward, the bullets traveling faster than the sound.
He heard an engine turning over, looked to see Cruz cranking the key. Jason threw himself into the passenger seat as Cruz slammed the car into reverse, the Honda whining like a toy as it rocketed backward. The sudden motion had him scrabbling for a grip, and he got a hand against the dash just as the rear window blew in spiderwebs of broken glass. Cruz's lips were moving but he couldn't hear what she was saying, and then the Honda slammed into something solid, a bone-crunching jerk he felt in his teeth, the impact of metal on metal, a screeching sound that pitched him back into the seat, neck whiplashing, the angry slippy hum of tires against wet concrete, momentum slamming shut the passenger door, and then Cruz threw it into drive and spun the wheel and stamped the accelerator, and they were moving again, the Honda leaping forward gamely, a rattling from behind like they were dragging the bumper or muffler.
His head hurt, and he realized he must have hit it against something, maybe the dash. Cruz kept mumbling to herself as she squinted out the windshield, foot jammed all the way down on the gas. The world blurred and shifted, lights running like melting wax, and for a moment Jason wondered if he'd hit his head harder than he thought. Then he realized it was water streaming down the glass, the rain, and he said, in a voice that sounded calmer than he would have expected, "Wipers."
She reached for them with her left hand, and he could hear what she was saying now, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed are thou among women, the wipers starting now, shick-shock, their pace steady and fast and metronomic, her words timing to them.
Get it together, man. You're a soldier. What's your goddamn situation?
The sit rep was that they were streaking north on Damen, the wind howling in the passenger window, where a few scraps of safety glass clung stubbornly to the frame. Turning, he could see headlights through the splintered back window. Someone chasing them. He couldn't say who, though he'd seen the car. Low and fast-looking. A Mustang, a Charger, something like that. Something that would be able to smoke a '94 Honda. Her ramming maneuver had bought them a little time. But unless she'd been able to take out a tire or bend an axle, it wouldn't be enough.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God." Cruz's voice was settling now, not the panicked mumbling of before. Her eyes flicked to the rearview, narrowed. "Hold on."
Jason reached for the seatbelt, clicked it into place as she yanked the wheel to the right, a hard, sliding turn on streets slick with rain and grease. The back fishtailed, skidding around, and then she hit the gas again, the vector overwhelming the spin as they charged east. The street was ghetto-residential, sagging houses drooping toward cracked earth, rusting fences, weeds shining damp in gardens of broken glass. Battered cars lined both sides of the street, shit, all facing toward them, which meant they were going the wrong direction down a one-way street. The rain had driven people off the street to their porches, and Jason heard angry yells. Someone threw a bottle wrapped in brown paper, the glass smashing in their wake.
Behind them, headlights spun around the same curve, slid too far, side-slammed into a parked car. Jason watched, willing the car to flip. It didn't. Another set of headlights came in behind.
"There's a second car," he said.
Cruz nodded, her knuckles white on the wheel.
He'd have given a finger for a weapon. He felt helpless, Cruz driving, him riding shotgun without a shotgun. More flashes exploded behind them, but didn't seem to hit anything.
A hundred yards ahead, headlights glowed. An oncoming car. The street was too narrow for them to pass. It would trap them.
"Elena-"
"I see it." She stayed on course, running straight, the accelerator to the floor. There was a cross-street between them and the oncoming car. A northbound street, Racine he thought. It was a toss-up whether they could get there first. A horn shrieked from the oncoming car. Behind them, the Charger was gaining fast. Jason gripped the armrest. Angry yells poured in the Honda's broken windows. A couple years ago a white delivery driver had accidentally hit a black kid in this neighborhood. The crowd had pulled him from his car and beaten him to death before the police arrived. Jason watched the headlights grow larger, the distance disappearing.
Then they reached the corner and Cruz yanked the wheel left in a full-speed turn. Centripetal force threw him against the seatbelt. Tires screamed on asphalt. Jason had a glimpse of the terrified eyes of the driver of the other car, a Buick, and then they cleared it by inches.
He swiveled to look behind in time to see the Charger slam into the Buick. The squealing horn died, replaced by the nails-on-chalkboard sound of metal tearing. Glass cracked and popped, and headlight beams swam wildly up the sides of rotting houses. Then the Charger flipped to its side and surfed a trail of sparks out of sight.
Jason let himself breathe again.
They were heading north, the Honda's four cylinders as close to roaring as they were likely to get, a clank coming from the engine that he didn't like. Fifty blocks up, Racine was a lovely residential street of hundred-year trees and million-dollar graystones. But on the south side it twisted between abandoned factories and weed-filled lots strewn with black garbage bags. The rain covered everything with a greasy film.
"We made it," he said.
Cruz nodded, blew air through her lips. Didn't even slow for a red light. Shipping containers packed dark parking lots under broken warehouse windows. They hit a bump that knocked loose glass from the broken rear, the green pieces glowing eerily under dingy streetlights. Jason tried to picture where they were on his mental map. They'd made distance on the empty streets, probably putting them at the south end of Bridgeport. There weren't any headlights behind them. With luck, the second car had gotten tangled up in the accident. At very least, it would have to reverse and circle around.
Cruz eased up on the gas, letting the Honda drop to fifty. She took one hand off the wheel, flexed it, the knuckles popping, then did the same with the other.
"Nice driving, Officer." He smiled, postcombat shakes hitting now, that goofy energy. "They teach you that at the academy?"
She laughed, a nervous sound. "Jesus."
"Mary," he said. "You were saying Hail Marys."
"I was?" She shook her head. "Didn't even notice. Haven't said a Hail Mary since I was sixteen."
"I guess somebody was listening."
"Guess so." She put on her blinker for a left turn onto Thirty-fifth.
"Where are you headed?"
"The Stevenson. Put some distance."
He settled back into his seat. From the expressway they could get most anywhere, then wind their way back to Washington's place at leisure. The light at the lonely corner ahead was green. He could see the darkness of the river just west of them. The windshield wipers thunked back and forth, strangely comforting.
They were almost through the turn when the Escalade jackhammered into them. The Honda rocketed forward, spinning, the back wheels lifting. The spiderwebbed rear window exploded, fragments of safety glass raining in sparkling slow motion. There was a blur of headlights, flashbulb bright. The world spun like a carousel. Through the windshield he saw the pitted and scarred landscape of some kind of construction site swing by, replaced by a flash of the truck that had rammed them, then a metal railing and yawning darkness. He felt a sick slippy sensation as the Honda hit the guardrail, half bending it and half bouncing over it, and briefly they hung in a fantasy of flight, wheels spinning over nothing.
Then black water rushed up to meet them.
The impact slammed Jason against the seatbelt, his head snapping forward, white stars flaring. The front of the car plowed water up in a shimmering arc lit by one unbroken headlight. He just had time to wonder if the water would be cold before it started pouring through the shattered windows.
It was.
He gasped for breath, shook his head, dazed. Felt like he'd been hit by a linebacker, the wind yanked out of him, vision darting and narrow. He fumbled at his seatbelt as the Chicago River rushed into the car, the water sheened with oil.
Beside him, Cruz moaned.
Jason looked over, saw her sprawled across the steering wheel, blood trickling from her forehead. Her fingers fluttered like she were waving away bugs.
"Elena?" Water was coming in at an unbelievable rate, gushing over the side of the car. He tugged at his seatbelt, fingers unwieldy. The release button seemed stubborn, and it took a moment to realize he was pressing the wrong side. "Are you all right?"
She moaned again, straightened slowly. In the heat of the chase, she hadn't had time to buckle her seatbelt. Her eyes were wide and unfocused, her bangs wet. He leaned over and the car reacted to his movement like a tipping rowboat. The water had filled to seat level. The windshield cracked in lightning ripples.
"Elena. Let's go!" Her eyes seemed to spin glassy in her head, then she blinked, long slow blinks like she was focusing. She nodded at him.
Free of his belt, Jason scrambled half over his seat, splashing in the back for the briefcase. It was too dark to see, and the angle hurt his head, blood rushing in to make the world pulse. He bumped something, lost it, reached again. Found one leather edge jammed under the seat. The briefcase must have slid under and gotten wedged in the impact. He leaned over, breath coming hard, tugging.
Cruz moaned, and he looked over to see her with her head back on the steering wheel. Dark blood ran down her cheek. She lay there like she were taking a nap.
"Elena!" He made his voice snap. "We have to move."
She stirred, then slumped again.
The windshield creaked from the pressure of water. If it gave, the car would go like a brick.
He was bent over the seat, the edge of the briefcase in one hand. He yanked at it, and it gave a little, but then stopped. It was wedged on something, the handle probably caught. He could get it. He was certain. It wouldn't take a minute.
The windshield creaked again. Cruz had stopped moving.
Jason cursed, then let go of the case and leaned across her. With fast cranks he lowered her window, the water pressing against it hungrily, slopping in. She gasped at the cold, eyes widening. The Honda made a sickening groan and lurched forward. A crack rippled across the windshield like ice on a lake.
Jason grabbed the passenger side window frame, chunks of safety glass poking dull into his hands, and hauled himself out to belly-flop in the oily water. The headlight below him lit the river like a polluted swimming pool. He took a breath and dove, his eyes closed against the murk. Counting, one, two, three, four, frog-legging down and over. Then surfacing slow, one hand above to make sure he didn't hit the bottom of the car. When he felt air he kicked hard and came up alongside her door.
She stared at him, blinking like she was surprised he was there. The Honda shuddered, the entire hood submerged, three-quarters of her window underwater. He grabbed the frame with his right hand and with his left leaned in for her, clamping his arm in a crude hug under her shoulders. "Come on," he said. "I need you to help."
She blinked, shook her head, then nodded. Her hands found the window frame, white fingers clenching the edge. He tugged at her, planting his feet against the side of the car, the traction of his sneakers lending purchase. She steered herself out the window, body slipping through. He had her most of the way out when the windshield gave. Water flooded in, yanking the car downward. He kicked frantically, one arm slung around her, terrified she would get caught and tug them both to the bottom.
And then she was clear, and he was on his back, pulling her in a lifeguard cradle through inky water.
The Honda canted up, only the crumpled trunk sticking out of the water, already beginning to sink. Iridescent bubbles streamed around it.
"Are you okay?" He kicked backwards. The eastern shore was closer, so he headed that way. There was hardly any current; this section of the river was really a channel, used for shipping.
"I'm dizzy," she said.
"Can you kick?"
Her legs began to scissor. It was wobbly at first, but grew stronger as they moved.
Jason looked up to the bridge twenty feet above. From this angle he couldn't see much, but an Escalade was a big vehicle. If it were there, he should have been able to spot it. Maybe they'd continued on, not wanting to linger near the accident. The corner had been deserted when they'd gone over, but surely other cars would have come soon.
An Escalade. Until now, he hadn't had time to process what that meant.
The east bank of the river was lined with scrub trees, their branches festooned with plastic bags and rotting sneakers. A sludgy, organic smell surrounded them. The channel walls were vertical concrete three feet high. He looked at it, then at her.
"I'm okay," she said.
He let her go cautiously, and she tread water with one hand on the wall. Jason took a breath, ducked underwater, then kicked hard, flinging an arm up to catch the lip of the breakwall. He brought his other to join it, then pulled himself up, the concrete scraping against his body. A thin ribbon of trees bordered the construction site he'd seen before the car went over. Heavy equipment was parked fifty yards away, and mounds of dirt screened them from the road.
He lay on his belly and extended an arm for Cruz. Water sluiced off her as he hauled her out, her feet scrabbling against the concrete.
When she was safely on dry ground, he flopped down on his back. He hurt in a hundred places, and his breath came hard. But they had made it. He stared up at the sky, the rain cool and cleansing. Clouds hid the stars. Cruz lay beside him, panting. Her upper arm touched his, and the warmth felt good. He lay still, not thinking and enjoying it.
Then Cruz jerked upright. "The briefcase."
He shook his head.
She stared at him. "You were reaching for it. I remember."
"It was caught." Jason sat slowly. He ran a hand through his hair, brushing twigs. "Under the seat. I couldn't get it in time."
Her eyebrows knit. "It had everything to save your life, and Billy's. You needed that briefcase." City light reflected off the clouds to paint her profile, and he saw something like understanding dawn there. "But I couldn't move."
He didn't know what to say, so he said nothing at all.
Cruz stared for a long moment. Then leaned forward to bring her face close. Her hair was matted and wet, and she had a leaf stuck to her neck, but she glowed anyway. "Thank you," she said.
"You would have done the same."
She smiled. "Don't believe it." Then she kissed him, her lips cool, her tongue sweet, and he felt something loosen in him. The Worm giving ground, and he realized that whatever else happened, whatever this thing between them turned out to be, he hoped he didn't screw it up the way he screwed most things up. He prayed that if it did end wrong, at least let it be a new screwup. A screwup that came of reaching for something more. Maybe even of daring to be responsible to someone else.
Then he heard a voice he recognized.
"Y'all kissing on each other after climbing out of the Chicago River?" Playboy sounded mean and close. "That's just got to be love."