Merrill started running, his stomach knotted. As he hit the warm, moist air of outdoors, people turned their attention from the Lincoln to him. A woman covered her mouth with the palm of her hand and threw up violently. Merrill looked around for another car. A hotel valet sped off in the red American convertible. Merrill turned to the taxi line. One driver wheeled his car around and headed in the wrong direction. Merrill ran to the lead taxi, a big, old American sedan. The driver, a black man, stared at Merrill as if hypnotized. He was wearing an adjustable cap that read James Auto Sales, Glenwood, Iowa. Merrill couldn’t help staring at the cap: how had it gotten here? The driver’s eyes darted toward Merrill’s bloody gun.

“Don’t shoot me, guv. I seen you on telly last night. I know who you are.”

“Then you know to follow that limo. They have my wife.”

The man’s hand went toward the meter; then he thought better of it. “Those boys had guns, you know that.” He stepped on the gas, but only so the car eased forward slowly.

Merrill stomped on his foot. The taxi leaped forward. “Hey, man, don’t do that.” The driver reached for the ignition switch. “I’ll kill the engine.”

Merrill jammed the gun into his ribs. “Drive faster!”

“You’re not going to shoot anybody!”

Merrill turned the gun toward the windshield and pulled the trigger. The roar stuffed his ears instantly. A chunk of windshield the size of a quarter was gone. The driver pushed the door open. Merrill struggled to press the man’s foot to the floor.

“Let me out. You crazy.”

“What’s down this road past the airport?”

“Nothing’,” the driver said. Merrill had hardly heard his voice. “Used to be place for kids to fish before the hotel poisoned the water. Let me out of the car, please. I don’t want to get hurt.”

“They have my wife.”

Merrill didn’t want to slow down, but just as much he didn’t want to be taken for a crazy person. Or was it too late for that? Who knew what people thought? Or why?

“Let me get out. Please, man. I saw those guns. Maybe I shouldn’t be tellin’ you this, but they weren’t being too nice to her.”

The Lincoln was coming into view, a quarter mile ahead, weaving in and out of traffic. The taxi was doing almost seventy. Merrill was sure they knew he was behind them. They were probably wondering what happened to their partners. Or had they figured it out? Kidnap? What he had done in the hotel room was still wheeling into focus. Merrill was not so pumped up that he could not still see the two lying on the floor, dying – - and how he might have poisoned his luck with a bad joke. “What do you mean?”