Paris Love Match

Chapter 31





Sidney twisted the key in the ignition. The engine churned and churned before it caught. She held the key in the start position and the motor squealed in protest, jolting her into releasing the key.

She put her foot on the accelerator and the engine screamed. She kept her foot down, but the car still didn’t move. The man outside held his gun on her and stepped backward. She gave him an unsure grin.

“Put in in gear, for Christ’s sake,” said a voice behind her.

She whipped around to see Little’s face looking up at her from underneath the rear seat. “Shit! What are you doing here?”

“Dying, if you don’t put it in gear!”

She grabbed the transmission lever and rocked it back and forth.

“Put your foot on the brake.”

She stamped on the brake and the lever bumped backward. A small display said, “Drive,” so she took her foot off the brake and stamped on the accelerator.

The car lurched forward, wheels spinning. She jerked the steering wheel as the car leapt for the end of the road. The tires squealed as she struggled to take the corner and ride up the slope to the main road. Above her she glimpsed a large flash of yellow and behind her she heard a terrific crash. She turned and saw a giant, yellow dumpster crushing the front of Brunwald’s Mercedes.

Little pointed forward. “Look, look, look!”

In front of her, traffic raced by on the main road.

Little jerked himself up between the front seats. “Slow down. You’ll bloody kill us.”

She stamped on the brake. The Citroën nose-dived and juddered to a stop, launching Little face-first into the center console. He yelped and wrenched himself back, blood running from his nose. “What are you doing?”

“Driving! What the bloody hell does it look like?”

In the distance, police sirens sounded. With a crack, the Citroën’s rear window exploded and she saw a man with a gun running up the ramp to the main road. She grabbed the gear lever, wrestled it into reverse, and stamped on the accelerator.

“Non, non, non,” Little screamed.

Sidney twisted the steering wheel and the car weaved toward the man. She saw the look on his face change to horror. He jumped, but the rear of the Citroën hit him and he crashed, face-first, onto the trunk. She stamped on the brakes. He tumbled off and rolled back down the slope to Petit Quai.

Little thumped her shoulder. “Go, go, bloody go!”

Sidney didn’t move; she was still staring at the man rolling down the road. Little reached over the seats, shoved the gear lever into drive and twisted her shoulders forward. It took a moment for her to realize he was pressing on her knee, forcing it down on the accelerator. The engine roared and the car shot forward.

Pedestrians leapt aside, and traffic on the embankment road loomed again. Sidney covered her face with her hands, and felt Little shoving past her. She peered between her fingers and saw Little twisting the steering wheel away from a red car right in front of them. She stopped pressing on the accelerator and grabbed the wheel. “Let me!”

“About bloody time,” Little said.

The Citroën leaned drunkenly and its tires squealed.

Little screamed “paintwork,” but the side of a minivan directly in front of her held her full attention. A deep crash of heavy objects was followed by the long screech of ripping metal. She braced herself against the steering wheel, but Little flew forward, over the front seats, landing head-first in the passenger footwell.

The engine’s roar died and the car bounced diagonally away from the minivan and into the oncoming traffic. Sidney screamed and twisted the wheel, attempting to perform a U-turn in the middle of the traffic while tires screeched and horns blared all around them.

Little righted himself in the passenger seat. “What the hell are you doing? This is my car!”

“Shut the f*ck up. I’m driving.”

“Driving?!”

Police sirens closed in on them. Cars weaved around Sidney’s slow progress across the width of the road.

Little pushed on the steering wheel to turn faster. “Come on, come on.”

“Get off! I’m doing fine,” Sidney said.

“Fine? You’ve bloody wrecked my car, and if you don’t go faster we’re going to be arrested.”

“For what? This is your car.”

“Are you on something? You’re forgetting the bullet holes, the cars you’ve run into and the dumpster your boyfriend dropped on Brunwald and his apes back there. Oh, and you ran someone over for good measure.”

She bumped over the curb and floored the accelerator. “You think they’re going to come after us?”

“They’re police, for god’s sake, that’s what they do—mind, mind, mind.”

She looked in the direction Little was staring and saw another yellow dumpster flying through the air. “Wow.”

“We have to be in front of it before it blocks the intersection. Go, go, go,” he said as he pushed on the steering wheel.

“Get off!”

“Faster!”

“It’s coming toward us.”

“Faaasterrrr!”

Sidney pushed the accelerator down hard. The engine note changed, the gearbox dropped down, the car leaned back on its suspension, and they lunged forward. As they raced across the intersection, Sidney kept watch on the giant yellow dumpster and Little tried to steer them around the car in front. They clipped its rear corner, and the Citroën bounced, while the car in front veered into rapidly-braking oncoming traffic.

Behind them, Sidney caught a glimpse of yellow, dust, and debris. She felt the force of the dumpster smashing down in the middle of the intersection. It bounced once, a solid, crushing force that dug into the tarmac. Cars screeched to a halt all around it, blocking the intersection in all directions. “That could have killed us!”

“Tell that to your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my—where is Piers?”

“In the Seine, if he’s lucky. Take the next left, Pont Saint-Michael.”

Sidney kept a vice-like grip on the steering wheel. The turning was close—so close that she turned the wheel sharply. The tires squealed. So did Little. The car leaned over so far she thought it would topple, and she raced across oncoming traffic, thumped the curb, and mounted an empty patch of sidewalk.

“Stop!” Little said. “Stoooppp!”

She trod hard on the brake and the car slewed sideways to a halt, rocking back and forth on its suspension.

Little panted. “Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Sh—”

“What?”

“Shit! Are you stupid? You bloody near killed us! This isn’t Starksy and bloody Hutch.”

“What do you expect? I can’t drive. No one said I would have to drive. I didn’t ask to drive. I’ve never driven anything before. I was expecting someone to be there to pick me up. You know, like a proper handover?”

“Can’t drive? And you tell me now? After you’ve wrecked my pride a joy?”

“Like I said, no one asked me. If you’d asked me, I would have—”

“You weren’t exactly easy to get hold of, you know?”

A car they had cut off drove past, its horn blaring and the driver shaking his fist at them. Sidney made a face back at the man.

Little stretched. “Besides, I risked my life by staying squashed up under that seat for the past several hours, just so I could help you get free.” He gestured to his car. “And this is the thanks I get?”

Sidney gave him brief apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

Little’s glower softened slightly.

“Thanks.” She gave him a big smile and wrapped her arms around him. He patted her shoulders before sliding his hands around her.

“Okay,” she said.

“Yeah.” He patted her shoulders one more time. “Come on, we need to find lover boy.”

They got out of the car. Back along the embankment, she could see lines of stationary cars, honking their displeasure at the congestion. Two giant cranes loomed over the quay, their cables drifting down to the yellow dumpsters.

Sidney laughed. “Look what he did.”

Little raised his eyebrows. “Oh, yeah. Laugh a minute. Bloody near killed us.”

“But he didn’t.”

Little huffed and walked toward the middle of the bridge.

Blue flashing lights surrounded Petit Quai. Handcuffed men were being forced into the back of an armored police van. On the bridge, police were attending to a man on the ledge where Piers had stood. She strained to see.

Little produced a small pair of binoculars. “It’s not him. One of Brunwald’s. The big guy. He looks in a bad way.”

Sidney took the binoculars and scanned the scene. “Kuznik. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.”

“You know him?”

“A bastard,” she said. “Where’s Piers?”

Little pointed at the Seine. “Down there somewhere.”

Sidney screwed up her face. “You’re serious?”

Little rolled his eyes. “I told you. He’s in the Seine.”

“In?”

Little leaned over the wall at the edge of the bridge. “In.”

Sidney stared at the murky water. “Why’s he in there?”

“Because Brunwald would have killed him if he’d been any closer.”

“Is he going to be okay?”

Little looked back down into the water. “Only if he gets here in the next couple of minutes.”