Unintended Consequences - By Stuart Woods

39





In the wee hours of the morning Stone felt fingernails running across his bare buttocks. He turned over to give Helga a better field of play. After a brief moment of fondling, she rolled onto her back and pulled him on top of her. Stone was groping for a point of entry when Helga said, “Oh, look, isn’t that pretty?”

“What?” Stone asked, baffled.

“Out the window.”

Stone momentarily abandoned his quest and turned his body so that he could see the window without straining his neck. “Good God!” he shouted. “Wake everybody and tell them to get their things out of the house.”

“What’s wrong?”

“The house is on fire!” Stone said, leaping out of bed and into his trousers. He found his shirt and a jacket, got into his loafers, and ran down the stairs, shouting, “Everybody up! Get out of the house!”

He ran into the kitchen and began looking in cupboards. Dino came padding in, his shoes in his hand. “What’s going on? What are you looking for?”

“The fire extinguisher,” Stone said, slamming a cabinet shut.

Dino opened the pantry door and held up a good-sized red bottle. “This fire extinguisher?”

Stone grabbed it from him and ran to the front door. He could see flickers from the side lights. He flung the door open and was driven back by flames.

“Use the goddamned thing!” Dino shouted.

Stone tore off the seal, pointed the extinguisher at the flames, and pulled the trigger. It worked faster than he had thought. He ran out the door, dousing flames as he went, then ran around to the back of the house. A column of flames was making its way up the rear wall, licking at his bedroom window. Stone pointed the extinguisher at the base of the flames and put them out, then worked his way up the wall of the house. He stopped spraying. “I think that’s it,” he said to Dino. “I wonder why my fire alarm hasn’t gone off.”

But Dino wasn’t there. Stone ran back to the front and found everybody standing on the front walk, looking confused.

“It’s all right,” he said to them. “Let’s go back inside.”

Dino trotted up. As the garage door opened, Viv backed out the Bentley. “Where are you going, baby?”

“For a ride,” she said.

Dino piled into the backseat, and Stone called out to Helga to get everyone inside, then hopped into the front passenger seat.

Viv backed up. “Which way would you go if you had just set a house on fire?” she asked.

“That way,” Stone said, pointing. “The other way is a dead end.”

She drove the block to the main road. “And now?”

“Turn right. Left is into the center of the village.”

She did so and started south out of the village green.

“Now it’s either straight ahead or turn right,” Stone said. “They would have done one or the other. Right is toward New York.”

Viv made the right and floored the Bentley, and it rocketed up a hill and around the curve.

“Our best bet,” she said, “if we’ve taken the correct turn, is to drive like hell.” And she did. “They’ll think they got away clean, and they won’t be going all that fast.” She kept accelerating, hitting the apexes of the sharp turns and sometimes using the opposing lane, if she could see ahead. A big moon came from behind a cloud, and Viv switched off the headlights.

“What are you doing?” Dino hollered from the backseat.

“I can see, and I don’t want them to see me coming.” They rounded another curve and caught a brief glimpse of taillights ahead, before they disappeared around yet another bend.

“You’ve got them,” Stone said. “They won’t see you coming.”

Viv sped up even more. “I’ll catch up to them and ram them,” she said.

“Don’t even think that!” Stone cried. “This is not an NYPD Crown Vic! It’s mine, and I don’t want to lose my insurance company!”

“All right, all right,” she muttered. “There they are!” The taillights were a couple hundred yards ahead. She accelerated.

“What’s your plan?” Stone asked nervously.

“I’m going to scare the shit out of them,” Viv said grimly.

“Oh, swell.”

Viv was gaining fast now. She waited until she was nearly on top of the van, then she turned on the lights and hit the bright switch. “Take that, you sonofabitch!” she yelled. “How do you like them xenon gas lamps?”

The van wobbled, then accelerated, but Viv stayed right on its bumper.

“Don’t hit them,” Stone said, almost to himself. “If you can get alongside them, maybe I can get a shot into the cab.”

“Do you have a weapon?” Dino asked.

“Well, no, there is that.”

“Then shut up and let me do this!” Dino slid across the rear seat and put down his window. “Stand on it, Viv!”

Viv pulled into the passing lane, then whipped the car back behind the van. A car zoomed by, headed in the other direction.

“What’s that guy doing up at this time of night?” Stone asked nobody in particular.

Viv made another attempt to pull alongside, then suddenly steered into another sharp turn. “I didn’t see that coming!” she yelled. “Where’s the van?”

Dino stuck his head out the window and looked back. “They slammed on brakes and took a right into the woods!” he shouted.

Viv came to a short, straight stretch of road, stomped on the brakes, and whipped the car around 180 degrees. Amazingly, it did not roll over. Then they were going back the way they came, and they could see the van in the woods, upside down. Viv pulled into the side road the van had tried and failed to make and slid to a halt.

“You stay behind us, Stone!” Dino commanded as he and Viv led the way toward the upturned van. Viv had produced a small but powerful flashlight from somewhere, illuminating the van. One of its wheels was still turning.

Each of the Bacchettis took a side of the van, with Viv shining her light through the driver’s open door.

“Empty,” Viv said. “They’re gone. Everybody shut up and listen.”

Everybody did. They heard nothing.

“They’re either running or hiding,” Viv said, switching off her light, “and we’re too good a target. Let’s go back to the house and call the state police. They have a trooper stationed in the village.”

They tramped back to the Bentley and were shortly headed back.

“Thanks for not bending the car,” Stone said to Viv.

“Don’t mention it,” Viv replied.

They got back to the house and found the phones dead. “They cut the wires. That’s why the fire alarm system didn’t go off.”

“How far do I have to drive to get a cell phone signal?” Viv asked.

“Go back to the main road and take a left, toward Washington Depot. Halfway down the hill there’s a church on your right. Pull over there, and your phone will work.”

Viv ran back to the Bentley and drove away.

Stone found everybody sitting in the library around a cold fire. “You might as well get some sleep,” he said to them.