Stopping for a light at the crest, she turned her head and spoke. “It’s my Uncle Dan. His name is Gale. He came last night and asked me—”
She fed gas and we shot forward, but a car heading uptown and squeezing the light was suddenly there smack in our path. With a lightning reflex her foot hit the brake, the other car zipped by with at least a foot to spare, she fed gas again, and the Curtis jerked forward.
I asked her, “Taking the West Side Highway?”
“Yes, it’s quicker.”
“It will be if you make it. Just concentrate on that and let the details wait.”
She got to the highway without any actual contact with other vehicles, darted across to the left lane, and stepped on it. The speedometer said fifty-five when she spoke again.
“If I go ahead and tell you, I can’t change my mind. He wanted me to persuade Bill to fix the game. He said he’d give us ten thousand dollars. I didn’t even want to tell Bill, but he insisted, so I did. I knew what Bill would say—”
She broke off to do some expert weaving, swerving to the middle lane, then on to the right, then a sprint, then swinging to the middle again just ahead of a tan convertible, and so back to the left again in front of a couple of cars that had slowed her down to under fifty.
“Look,” I told her, “you could gain up to two minutes this way with luck, but getting stopped and getting a ticket would take at least ten. You’re driving — okay, but don’t try to talk too. You’re not that good. Hold it till we’re parked.”
She didn’t argue, but she held the pace. I twisted around to keep an eye on the rear through the window, and stayed that way clear to Fifty-seventh Street. We rolled down the cobbled ramp and a block south turned left on Fifty-sixth Street, had a green light at Eleventh Avenue, and went through. A little short of Tenth Avenue we turned in to the curb and stopped. Lila reached for the handbrake and gave it a yank.