Like Mind Read Free Page B

at the scene. Okay, I chuckled a bit. Until the passenger burly—I’m pretty sure he’s the one I roundhouse kicked—pulled a gun out.
    I’d never had a gun pulled on me to that point in my life. I’m not proud of how I reacted, but it’s what actually happened.
    “Oh my God, he’s got a gun, he’s going to shoot us, we’re going to die!” with each phrase my voice jumped an octave or so. Anka looked at me for a long hard moment before sighing and turning back to the road.
    “They won’t shoot us in public.”
    “Oh,” I can’t say I was mollified by that assurance.
    She used her e-brake magic powers again to slide us through the corner at 6th and send us north suddenly. I glanced behind and saw the twins overshoot the intersection.
    “We lost them.”
    “No. Not even a little.”
    “But…” then I looked back to see the tiny car come back into view, “Oh.”
    Anka sighed again. I felt like she was deducting man-points from me for every sigh I elicited. She slid the Beemer between bikes and other cars on 6th and quickly outpaced the Smart Car, but when she turned on to Glisan heading west, traffic suddenly slowed. The two lanes clogged up with overly-courteous drivers. Tweedle-burl and Tweedle-burly were right on us again.
    “Hey,” I said in my most reassuring voice, “what can they do when, or if, they catch us? They’re in that little car.”
    In response to my asinine statement, the side mirror shattered. For a moment I thought we’d hit something and I kept looking for the downed biker or parked car that we’d clipped. I figured it out when the next gunshot sounded from behind us. Next to me Anka inhaled as if to sigh again.
    “Yeah, yeah, I get it. You’re good at this stuff and it’s my first day.”
    She looked sideways at me for a moment before smiling tightly and weaving the car to the left just in time to miss another bullet.
    “Once we get on the freeway we’ll lose them, they won’t be able to keep up.”
    “Why are you going this way if you want to get on the freeway?”
    “The 405.”
    “Not today, the bridge is closed for repair.”
    “Shit. What about going south instead?”
    “I suppose that could work, but if we hit traffic from 26 we’re in the same boat.”
    “You know, traffic in this city really sucks.”
    “But at least people are nice to you while you’re all stuck in traffic.”
    “Great. So what do you suggest we do?”
    “Um. Why don’t we just deal with the twins? You have that awesome brake-y-turn-y thing you do. Spin around and run them off the road so they won’t be able to follow us. We’ve got to have, like, a ton or so of weight on them.”
    She grunted. I think that means she liked the idea, especially since she again popped the e-brake and sped around a corner. But this time she turned again and again and again until we were coming up right behind the egg with a burly center.
    “Ever heard of the PIT maneuver smart guy?”
    “Um…”
    With that she came up just to the left of the Smart Car and put the right, front fender of the BMW on the back, left fender of the twins’ car. Then Anka jerked the wheel hard to the right forcing the back tires of the Smart Car to slide out and then the whole car started spinning out of control. The clinical precision she used to disable our pursuers made my hyperventilating panic seem even worse by comparison.
    “Where to now?” she asked.
    “Um…”
    “I’m going to need something more than that.”
    “Sorry, uh, head north to Lovejoy and then go east. You’ll cross the Broadway Bridge and you can get on I-5 from there.”
    “Great.”
    If she hadn’t just deftly destroyed two trained henchmen, I’d say her voice had a quaver in it. I chalked it up to the acceleration of the car instead.

Anka's Place
    Anka took us on the freeway north toward my neighborhood, so I thought she might be taking me home, but she passed by all the North Portland exits and kept going. When we got to the I-5 bridge I