My mouth pulls into a wide grin when I cross the finish line almost a half car length ahead of him.
“Yes!” I fist pump behind tinted windows. A few times. I’m damn near giddy when I pull to a screeching halt.
Alright, so I’m full on giddy. Sue me.
Not only am I not going to have to fight this asshole for the thousand dollars I put up just to be here tonight, but I just scored double that.
I pull myself together as I slide out of the Charger with a neck crack and shoulder roll. Cool like Alaska in the dead of winter.
I don’t like to gloat. Most of the time.
People run toward us. They’re hooting and hollering for me even though I don’t know a single one of them. Their voices echo off the trees, and I feel like we're in the middle of nowhere even though the interstate is only about a half mile up the road.
I have to give it to this kid, he’s not half bad. Disappointed, though. I can tell by the way he’s walking slower than before. But being who he is, he comes over to congratulate me anyway, impressed. As well he should be.
The money chick jogs up to us, handing me tonight’s take. The kid smiles as he praises me, in a solemn kind of way.
“Good race, man.” He shoves a hand toward me, and I debate it, sure, but I shake it in the end as I add another characteristic to his profile.
Respectable.
I find myself letting the moment hang there between us. A nice, firm grip holds onto him as I stuff my winnings into my front pocket with the other hand.
The bottom drops out of the pit of my stomach for a second. Damn if I don’t almost feel bad for what’s about to go down.
Almost.
He seems like a good kid but that's not my problem. And it’s not my job to feel bad. It’s my job to find the bad guys, take them in, and get paid. So I shove the doubts to the back of my mind.
“Thanks.” I point at him. “You’re Don Leary, right?”
Gotta get some confirmation. Just in case I’ve been following the wrong guy for half a month. Not that it’s likely.
“That’s right,” he says with a smug kind of a look. He loves that I’ve heard of him. Too bad it was for all the wrong reasons.
“My friends call me Donnie, though.”
“Well, congratulations, Don.” I nod and jerk him toward me as my smile dissipates. I spin him around and push his face against the hood of the Charger. And yeah, maybe a little harder than I need to. I like to make an impression that says, don’t even fucking think about trying to run, right off the bat.
“Ow. Shit.”
“I’m taking you into custody for jumping bail and for being stupid enough to stick around and show your face after jumping said bail.”
“The fuck?” Someone in the crowd is not happy. A few of his friends, once they understand what’s happening, start in for me. I whip the Smith & Wesson out, with my free hand, and point it in their general direction.
I sincerely hope they don’t rush me. If they do, I’m done for. So is the Charger. I don’t have the kind of money lying around that it’ll take to get dental surgery again or to reimburse that “friend” I was talking about earlier, so…
“Anyone got a problem with me arresting Mr. Leary here?” Suddenly, I’m a crazed lunatic waving my gun around. I gotta say, it surprises me that no one else pulls one out. I thought all these street racing types carried.
Apparently not, but that doesn’t mean a few of them don’t try to get all law-abiding-citizen on me.
“You can’t do that, man!” one kid hollers while he points an angry finger at me. Another one comes dangerously close to approaching me but thinks better of it at the last moment.
“You just partook in a drag race. We all saw it.”
“Yeah,” another one cries out. “We’re gonna make sure your badge is taken too, dude. This is like… wrong!”
Can I just say, the dude he added on there at the end kinda takes me out of the moment.
“Yeah!” a bunch of them yell out in contempt of my reckless abandonment of the law. I laugh because, ah, youth.
“I’m not a cop, asshole. So good luck with that.”
I press my knee up against Donnie and jam the gun back into its holster. I grab my cuffs out of a back pocket and get them on him pretty quick. I’ve been doing this a long time; I’ve gotten pretty good and pretty fast at it. Plus, I only have a few more minutes, if that, before this crowd decides to mob my ass.
When I’m done with the cuffs, I pull my S&W back out and drag poor Donnie over to the driver’s side of the car—amid the moaning and groaning of young adults unsure of exactly what the fuck to do with this situation. He complies when I push him into the back seat. After I get my ass in behind the steering wheel, I punch it.
I don’t slow up until I’m on the well-lit, highly populated interstate, headed toward downtown Redemption. After about five minutes, I breathe easier when I see no hint of souped-up cars or crazy vengeful teenagers behind me.
Bonus.