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out?"
"Bust radiator grill," said Bond, watching out of the rear window. "Both front wings
flattened. Fender hanging off. Windshield starred, maybe broken." He lost the car in the
dusk and turned round. "They're out on the road trying to pull the front wings off the
tyres. They may be able to go before long, but it was a good start. Got any more like
74
that?"
"Not so easy now," grunted the driver. "War's been declared. Watch it. Better get
down. The Chevvy's pulled up at the side of the road. They may try some shootin'. Here
we go."
Bond felt the car surge forward. Ernie Cureo was half lying along the front seat,
driving with one hand and with his eyes watching the road ahead from just above the
dash.
There was a clang and two sharp cracks as they flashed past the Chevrolet. A
handful of safety glass showered round Bond. Ernie Cureo swore and the car gave a
swerve and then got back on its course.
Bond knelt on the back seat and knocked out the glass of the rear window with the
butt of his gun. The Chevrolet was coming after them, its eyes blazing.
"Hold it," said Cureo with an odd muffled voice. "Coin' to do a sharp turn and stop
under cover of the next block. Give y'a a clear shot as they come round after us."
Bond braced himself as the tyres screamed and the car lurched on two wheels and
then righted itself and stopped. Then he was out of the door and crouching with his gun
up. The lights of the Chevrolet tore into the side road and there was a squeal of tortured
rubber as it made the turn on the wrong side. Now, thought Bond, before he can
straighten up.
Crack a pause. Crack. Crack. Crack. Four bullets, at twenty yards, dead on the
target.
The Chevrolet didn't straighten up. It went over the kerb on the other side of the road,
hit a tree broadside, bounced off it and smashed into a lamp standard and turned
completely round and slowly toppled over on its side.
As Bond watched it, waiting for the echoes of the smashing metal to stop ringing in
his ears, flames started to bleed slowly from the chromium mouth of the car. Someone
was scrabbling at a window, trying to get out. At any moment the flames would find the
vacuum pump and run the whole length of the chassis to the tank. And then it would be
too late for the man inside.
Bond had started across the road when there was a groan from the front seat of the
cab and he turned round to see Ernie Cureo slip from under the wheel to the floor.
Bond forgot the burning car as he tore open the door of the cab and leant over the
driver. There was blood everywhere and the whole of the driver's left arm was soaked
in it. Bond somehow hauled him into a sitting position on the seat and the driver's eyes
opened. "Oh, brother," he said through clenched teeth. "Get me out of here, Mister, and
drive like hell. Next thing that Jag'll be after us. Then get me to a medic."
"Okay, Ernie," said Bond slipping behind the wheel. "I'll take care of it." He rammed
the car into gear and moved fast off down the road and away from the blazing pyre and
the frightened people who had materialized out of the dusk and were standing watching
the flames, their hands up to their mouths.
"Keep goin'," muttered Ernie Cureo. "This'll get you near the Boulder Dam road. See
anything in the mirror?"
"There's a low-slung car with a spotlight coming after us fast," said Bond. "Could be
the Jag. About two blocks away now." He stamped on the accelerator and the cab
hissed through the deserted side street.
"Keep goin'," said Ernie Cureo. "We gotta hide up some place and let them lose us.
Tell ya what. There's a 'Passion Pit" just where this comes out on 95. Drive-in movie.
Here we come. Slow. Sharp right. See those lights. Get in there quick. Right. Straight
over the sand and between those cars. Off lights. Easy. Stop."
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The cab came to rest in the back row of half a dozen ranks of cars lined up to face the
concrete screen that soared up into the sky and on which a huge man was just saying
something to a huge girl.
Bond turned and looked back down the lanes of metal standards, like parking meters,
from which speakers could be connected wthi your car to pick up the sound. As he
watched, one or two cars drove in and ranged themselves in the rear rank. Nothing low
enough for a Jaguar. But it was dark now and difficult to see and he stayed slewed
round in his seat, his eyes on the entrance.
An attendant came up, a pretty girl, dressed as a pageboy, with a tray slung round her
neck. "That'll be a dollar," she said, glancing into the car to see there was not a third
customer on the floor of the cab. She had pick-ups coiled over her right arm and she
took one off, plugged it into the nearest standard and hung the small speaker through
the window on Bond's side. The huge man and woman on the screen started talking
heatedly.
"Coco-Cola, cigarettes, candy?" asked the girl taking the note Bond handed her.
"No, thanks," said Bond.
"You're welcome," said the girl and sauntered off towards the other late arrivals.
"Mister, for Chrissake willya switch off that crap?" pleaded Ernie Cureo through his
teeth. "And keep watching. We'll give 'em a whiles more. Then get me to a doc. Dig out
the slug." His voice was weak and now that the girl had gone he was half-lying with his
head against the door.
"Won't be long, Ernie. Try and stick it." Bond fiddled with the speaker, found the
switch and silenced the wrangling voices. The huge man on the screen looked as if he
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