Carbon 250 - Chapter 12

On a Mission

The police car followed Eve for two blocks and then pulled her over.  Eve was on her way home from work, and because of the way the lights were timed at that point in the day, she wasn't even speeding.

Eve had always been attuned to body language and what it revealed:  the way her mother slammed doors when she was little, the way her ex-boyfriend turned his head, the way people walked.  There was something wrong with the way this cop walked.  He was definitely a cop--that wasn't it.

"So where ya headed?"  the cop asked her.  That's when she knew.  This wasn't a traffic stop.  That is to say, it was only a traffic stop on the surface, like when someone wearing a watch asks you for the time.  What this was, really, was a chance for a guy to back a girl in the corner.  In the absence of the guilt that accompanied real traffic stops, Eve had no motivation for subservience.  She even checked the time.

The officer did, of course, ask for her license, registration and insurance.  He didn't back away when she dismounted in order to retrieve the registration from the compartment under the seat.  Carby was unexcited.  He had no fear of cops, but getting pulled over made him feel strangely like losing a race.

Six minutes had elapsed between "So where ya headed?" and "The reason I pulled you over today...."  It was another 12 until the cop finally tried to ask her out, and an eternity between and when he let her go with a warning for the fictitious infraction.  The entire conversation was filled with friendly phrases intended to give her the opportunity to smile playfully and give him some kind of opening.  It was torture.  Eve's cheeks were red with anger at the insult.  The lawyer that was helping her out with the red light ticket had told her to avoid getting any more.  Every time she sat on that bike her entire body was begging to let her right wrist give the throttle a good twist, and she had controlled herself every time.

The cop told her she was free to go and went back to his car.  There had been no point during the muted altercation that he had gone to his car and back.  During every other traffic stop the cop had taken her stuff, walked back to his car for a half hour, and then come back with the ticket.  This one hadn't.  There was probably no record of the event.

Eve was angry, and if she turned Carby back on, there was a good chance she would speed off right in front of the cop.  She looked up at the signed.  Residential parking.  Eve moved the bike manually, forward, twist, then back to the sidewalk, parking it.  She could feel the cops eyes on her and it made her angry.   She walked along the sidewalk, looking for a store she could walk into.  She would have taken anything, a seedy bar, musical instrument repair, even something creepy like a sex shop or video game store.  There was nothing but houses.  She walked along the sidewalk.  She was tempted to look behind her, but didn't want to give the cop a reason.  Eve walked to the next intersection, then turned and walked against the current on a one-way street.  She walked softly, around the leaves, listening for the cop car.  She heard it start up and she heard when it passed the street that it could not enter, not from that direction, not without putting the lights on.

Eve kept walking.

As an unusually attractive girl, Eve had spent her whole life feeling the constant demand for her party, and almost none of it single.  Breakups for her had been more like transitions to new boyfriends.  Even if she was the one getting dumped, there was someone waiting in line for the rebound.  Her standard rejection, therefore, was to tell the hopeful that she had a boyfriend, sorry.  On those few days when she was actually single, it worked as a wonderful lie.  This time was different.  She could no longer toss around the line about her having a boyfriend, because Dave might hear it, and he would either think that she was seeing someone else, or worse, that they were boyfriend and girlfriend.

Dave would have never backed her into a corner though.  He would never say one thing and mean another.  He was always direct with what he said.  In fact, he was almost too direct...too honest.  Once, she had dragged him along shopping with her.  He condition was that he be allowed to help her pick out dresses despite her lack of need for one.  When she pressed him about his opinion of one of them, he told her it was not as good as the blue one but better than the red one.  The next time she had walked out of the changing room with a dress on, Dave had held up a notecard with a big "8.0" on it and dumb grin on his face, but quickly admitted that the dress wasn't an 8.0;  he had just picked a high number while she was putting it on.

Try as she might, Eve couldn't prevent her mind from drifting back to the cop.  The was power that came with being a law man.  Put the lights on and people have to pull over.  They don't have an option, its part of living with cars.  Most people pulled over because they were programmed to.  They have no option but to pull over: they can't outrun a cop, not when he can radio his buddies and call for helicopters.  The people who didn't pull over fell into two groups:  criminals, who have no option but to try to run for it, because there is a tiny, tiny chance them might get away.  The other group was Biff.  Unlike most people Biff could outrun the cops.  He's seen through their strategy.  When a cop wanted him to pull over, Biff had an option.

Eve walked back to her bike while she thought about the night that she and him had been chased.  When the undercover cop caught them, she was ready to pull over and get scolded, like a child who's just run through the house and broken a priceless heirloom.  Biff had shown no such guilt.  The cop was not an authority figure to him but just another person, or maybe a traffic cone.  She wanted that.  While the conscious part of her mind would never admit it, the part that selected dreams knew that she also wanted him.

When Eve got back to her bike she took some time to look at the license plate.  It was smaller.  Could she put something over it if she was going to run away?  She tried sitting on the bike and leaning back.  There was no way to reach the plate and keep one hand on the grip.  Eve got back off the bike and tried covering the plate with her hands.

"There is an easier way," came a voice from behind her. Like, right behind her.  Like when she stood up and turned around Biff was only a foot away.  Eve wondered where it bike was, and then she saw part of it on the sidewalk, behind some steps.  It was parked inconspicuously.

"Omigosh you scared me."

"There's too good ways to do it.  You can attach the place to a spring, and pull a cord to release the spring, or you can get fancy and use a switch that lets you flip it up and down," said Biff.

"Which one do you use?" she asked.

"I moved onto something better."

"Which is?"  Biff didn't answer.  "So what are you doing around here?"

"Looking for someone."

"Who?"  Eve prayed it was her.  For a brief second she imagined him saying he was looking for her, and then whisking her a way on a date and then coming back to her place....

"That's not really any of your business."

"Oh come on.  I'm just asking."

"Who's the last person to slept with?"

"Excuse me?"

"Hey I'm just asking," he mocked her.

"Fine.  So where do I get one of these license plate flipper things?"

"Ask any tool geek;  they can hook you up."

"Are they illegal?"

Biff shrugged.  Eve would later realize that the legality of a device that helps you run from cops is a moot point.  Neither of them said anything for a few seconds.  Then he said, "are you hungry?"

"No," said Eve, without thinking.  Biff turned to leave.  "But...I could be."

Biff turned back around and laughed in her face.  "If you're that eager for it, come by The Train Diner on thursday."

"I'm not eager for it.  Its not a...I have a...."  Eve cut herself off a scowled.

"Whenever you get off work," Biff said, and walked away.  It had been a long time since Biff gave anyone a time and place that he'd be, especially a place with only two exits.

It wasn't a date.  Eve couldn't call him and reschedule;  she didn't have his number and didn't want to ask.  It was an event, like field hockey tryouts.  She would be there, or she wouldn't.  Why didn't matter.

Eve didn't plan to go.  She planned on not going.  She told herself again and again that she had no reason to, but on Thursday night, a girl in a pink jumpsuit rolled up to The Train Diner, a restaurant shaped like an old steam train, and tried to park. The gravel lot was enough trouble;  she still had problems with skidding on gravel.  The parking was a different story.  There was a soft spot in the parking space she chose, and Carby's side stand kept sinking in too far.  If she let go, he would fall over.

If this is what sex is like, you guys got it rough,  said Carby.

Eve took so long trying to situate her motorcycle that Biff had time to walk outside and toss a small aluminum tray (that Eve did not realize originally held sardines) on the ground.  The tray worked perfectly, and was small enough to fit under the seat.  Then Biff led her inside without speaking.  Their conversation that evening was not what Eve had imagined, but not all that surprising either.  Biff didn't talk much.  Silences weren't so awkward with him;  he seemed not to care.  He wouldn't say anything about who he was, where he was from, what he did and he was apparently "in between jobs" so besides some motorcycle stories it was all small talk.  Then he mentioned the book.

Eve saw him eyeing ever car through the window and asked what kind of car his mysterious quarry drove.

"I don't know."

"Then why are you looking at all the cars?"

"It's probably a black sports car, a muscle car if they followed the instructions."

"What instructions?"

"The person I'm looking for stole something from me," said Biff.  "It was a book called The Art of Driving."

"Never heard of it."

"Of course not.  There are only five copies."

"You wrote it?"

"Yeah."

"What's it about?"  Eve asked.

"You've seen what I can do."  Eve thought of the night they'd run from the cops.  "It's about that."

"So its an instruction manual from running from cops?  Is there a chapter in their about flippy license plates?"  Eve laughed.

"Keep your voice down.  There are no motorcycle parts;  its about cars."

"So the bike one could be a sequel, then."  Biff didn't answer.  "Why are you trying so hard to get it back?  Did he take all the copies?  Didn't you not use a computer?"

"I have three of the five copies.  Two are still outstanding.  I need them back because...they are a problem."

"How so?"

"Try to understand--these are not tutorials on how to parallel park.  I put everything in there--"

"Like what?  Making secret hideouts?"

"Like how to install high-powered halogen lights under your normal headlights, and how to spin your car around at 120 miles per hour and turn those extra headlights on in order to blind the people behind you.  Like how to approach another car from behind and hit them just right so they spin out of control.  How to lose helicopters."

"You're kidding."

"People died."

"You're not kidding."

Biff shook his head.  "It wasn't enough to just know all that, to just be a sort of road ninja.  I had to share it with someone.  So I wrote it all down and let someone find it book.  It was a disaster.  They were all disasters."

Eve didn't know what to say.  The conversation continued, in spurts, but she was out of glib remarks.  They parted company pleasantly, but without exhanging numbers.  Eve thought about Biff on her way home, thought about his strangeness.  He wasn't like anyone she had ever met.  She couldn't file him away under any stereotypes.  He was just...a character.  He appeared, briefly, and when he was gone you never forgot him but often wondered if he was even real.  Road ninja.  His words.  They had a strange ring to them.

Biff walked away wondering why he could have told someone so much.  Chalk it up to loneliness, maybe.  It was good to have a conversation.  She knew too much, though.  She knew too much the moment he gave her his real name.  She knew he was alive.

Eve rode home and called Dave.  She called him after 10pm, but she knew that he knew that her shirt still wasn't coming off.  She did invite him spend the night, though.  It was a big milestone for her, another requirement in her list of rules, but given the fact that they'd often accidentally kissed until the sun came up, the fact that she had so far left or kicked him out without actually sleeping sleeping probably wouldn't even register in his mind.