Motherless Brooklyn

Our red did change, but so did theirs, and, infuriatingly, their vehicular mass surged forward while ours crawled. That mass was our hope-they were at the tail end of theirs, and if it stayed densely enough packed, they wouldn’t get too far away. We were almost at the front of ours. I slapped the glove-compartment door six times. Coney accelerated impulsively and tapped the cab in front of us, but not hard. We veered to the side and I saw a silver scrape in the yellow paint of the cab’s bumper. “Fuck it, keep going,” I said. The cabbie seemed to have the same idea anyway. We all screeched across Fifty-ninth, a madcap rodeo of cabs and cars, racing to defy the immutable law of timed stoplights. Our bunch splayed and caught up with the rear end of their splaying bunch and the two blended, like video spaceships on some antic screen. The K-car aggressively threaded lanes. We threaded after them, making no attempt to disguise our pursuit now. Blocks flew past.

“Turning!” I shouted. “Get over!” I gripped the door handle as Coney, getting fully into the spirit of things, bent topological probability in moving us across three crowded lanes full of shrieking bald rubber and cringing chrome. Now my tics were quieted-stress was one thing, animal fear another. As when an airplane lands shakily, and all on board concentrate every gram of their will to stabilize the craft, the task of imagining I controlled things I didn’t (in this case wheel, traffic, Coney, gravity, friction, etc.), imagining it with every fiber of my being-that was engagement enough for me at the moment. My Tourette’s was overwhelmed.

“Thirty-sixth,” said Coney as we rattled down the side street.

“What’s that mean?”

“I dunno. Something.”

“Midtown Tunnel. Queens.”

There was something comforting about this. The giant and his driver were moving onto our turf, more or less. The boroughs. Not quite Brooklyn, but it would do. We bumped along with the thickening traffic into the two dense lanes of the tunnel, the K-car safe tied up two cars ahead of us, its windows now black and glossy with reflections from the strips of lighting that laced the stained tile artery. I relaxed a bit, quit holding my breath, and squeaked out a teeth-clenched, Joker-grimacing eat me just because I could.

“Toll,” said Coney.

“What?”

“There’s a toll. On the Queens side.”

I started digging in my pockets. “How much?”

“Three-fifty, I think.”

I’d just put it together, miraculously, three bills, a quarter, a dime and three nickels, when the tunnel finished and the two lanes branched out to meet the six or seven toll booths. I balled the fare and held it out to Coney in a fist. “Don’t get stuck behind them,” I said. “Get a fast lane. Cut someone off.”

“Yeah.” Coney squinted through the windshield, trying to work an angle. As he edged to the right the K-car suddenly cut out of the flow, moving to the far left.

We both stared for a moment.

“Whuzzat?” said Coney.

“E-Z Pass,” I said. “They’ve got an E-Z Pass.”

The K-car slid into the empty E-Z Pass lane, and right through the booth. Meanwhile Coney had landed us third in line for EXACT CHANGE OR TOKEN.

“Follow them!” I said.

“I’m trying,” said Coney, plainly dazed by this turn of events. “Get over to the left!” I said. “Go through!”

“We don’t got an E-Z Pass.” Coney grinned painfully, displaying his special talent for rapid reversion to a childlike state.

“I don’t care!”

“But we-”

I started to pry at the wheel in Coney’s hands, to try and push us to the left, but it was too late by now. The spot before us opened, and Coney eased the car into place, then rolled down his window. I plopped the fare into his open palm, and he passed it over.

Pulling out of the tunnel to the right, we were suddenly in Queens, facing a tangle of indifferent streets: Vernon Boulevard, Jackson Avenue, Fifty-second Avenue. Et cetera.

The K-car was gone.

“Pull over,” I said.

Chagrined, Coney parked us on Jackson. It was perfectly dark now, though it was only seven. The lights of the Empire State and the Chrysler loomed across the river. Cars whirred past us out of the tunnel, toward the entrance to the Long Island Expressway, mocking us in their easy purposefulness. With Minna lose were nobodies, nowhere. “Eatmepass!” I said.

“They could of just been losing us,” said Coney. “I’d say they were, yes.”

“No, listen,” he said feebly. “Maybe they turned around and went back to Manhattan. Maybe we could catch them-”

“Shhh.” I listened to the earphones. “If Frank sees we’re off his tail, he might say something.”