21
OBJECTS IN MIRROR are closer than they appear. That’s what your car’s side mirror will tell you, but I am here to say that the minute you can make out that the object you see is a police car, it is already way too close.
“Robinson,” I hissed, panic rising in my voice.
“Maybe they’re not after us,” he said. “I was only going … hmm, twenty miles over the speed limit. Heck, it’s practically a crime to go any slower around here. This is Las Vegas, baby—everything’s legal but good behavior.”
I could tell by the sound of his voice that Robinson didn’t believe this but wanted me to. He didn’t want me to be afraid. He never had, for as long as I’d known him.
“Pull over to the right-hand shoulder.” The amplified, crackling voice came through a megaphone mounted on the side of the police car.
Robinson glanced down at the speedometer as if checking to see how high the numbers went. Like he was wondering if he should try to outrun the guy.
“Don’t even think about it,” I warned. “Do what the policeman says.”
“You don’t sound much like Bonnie,” he said reproachfully.
“For God’s sake, this isn’t a movie. This is life! Pull over!”
I was reaching for the wheel to yank it to the right when Robinson slowed, flicked on his turn signal as polite as you please, and eased onto the right shoulder.
“See? I can follow directions,” Robinson said. He tried to keep his tone light.
But it didn’t matter now. I put my face in my hands. We were caught. I saw the headlines, the court-appointed lawyer, the hideous orange jumpsuit they’d make me wear. Was I old enough to be tried as an adult?
“It’s going to be okay,” Robinson said quietly.
Liar, I thought.
The officer approached Robinson’s window. From my angle I could see only his belt and the soft, round stomach above it. “License and registration,” he said gruffly.
Not even a “please.”
“Sir,” Robinson began, “is there a problem?”
The officer’s hand shot out. “License and registration,” he said again.
Robinson smiled ingratiatingly. “I believe I was going the speed of traffic—perhaps it was a trifle fast—”
“License and registration.”
Robinson turned to me, his eyes wide. “He seems to have a somewhat limited vocabulary,” he whispered, and to my horror, I almost burst into giddy laughter.
I covered my mouth as Robinson made a show of rooting around in the glove compartment. “It’s in here somewhere,” he said.
The cop began tapping impatiently on the roof of the car. Then he leaned in and looked at both of us carefully. He had small, mean eyes and an angry mouth. “Not many kids got a car this nice,” he said. “You’d think their folks’d teach ’em how to drive it. But spoiled little rich kids—they don’t listen to their parents much, do they?”
It was the first time in my life anyone had ever mistaken me for rich.
“I liked him better when he didn’t talk,” I whispered to Robinson.
Robinson pulled out the registration and handed it over. The cop inspected it. “License,” he said.
“Sir, this is all a mistake,” Robinson said. “I’m very sorry for speeding. If you’ll just let us go with a warning, I promise I’ll never do it again.”
The cop barked out a laugh. “I heard that one before. There’s a sucker born every minute, son, but you’re not looking at one.” He stared philosophically down the highway and then turned back to us. “See, these rich kids,” he went on, his eyes narrow and cold, “if their folks can’t teach ’em things, the law has to. The law just loves to give lessons.”
Robinson was so used to charming people. I’d seen him talk his way out of detentions, and into a Hollywood party, and everything in between. So now he looked as though he couldn’t believe what he was hearing. But he nodded. “Of course, sir. I understand. I’m going to have to get out, though. I keep my wallet under my seat, and I can’t reach it from in here. May I step out, sir?”
The cop backed away. Robinson reached over and grabbed my hand. Hard. “Bonnie,” he whispered.
“What?” I asked. But he was already out of the car, and I could still feel the pressure of his fingers on my skin.
I saw it all through the window. At first Robinson kept his hands in the air, to show the cop he meant no harm. But the next thing I knew, there was a flash of movement, a grunt, and then a holler of rage.
Robinson yelled, “Get out, Bonnie, I need you!”
Without thinking, I obeyed. And that was when I saw the love of my life—car thief, trespasser, and kisser of strippers—pointing a gun in a young cop’s face.
I nearly fell to my knees. I reached out to the hood of the Porsche to steady myself. The metal of the gun glinted in the desert sunlight. This can’t be happening, I thought. This is definitely a dream or a scene from a movie—or a hallucination or something.
Robinson half-turned to look at me and, I swear to God, winked.
My jaw dropped. If I’d thought he was a little crazy before, now I was sure he’d gone utterly insane. Then I saw that tiny smile flicker at the corner of his mouth. That smile I knew better than my own. It said to me: This is all a game, Axi. No one’s going to get hurt.
I took a step toward them, and I prayed that he was right.
“I’m really sorry that I have to do this,” Robinson said, turning back to the cop, “but you gave me no choice.”
The cop’s face was red and glistening. He was silent, full of brutal but impotent rage. He seemed to have lost the power of speech altogether.
I looked up and down the road, watching for traffic. Never had I been gladder that Robinson stuck to the back routes.
“Bonnie,” Robinson said, “you take his cuffs and put them on him.”
Fumblingly, I did as I was told. When I snapped the metal around his wrist, the cop flinched. “I’m so sorry,” I blurted. “Are they too tight? I don’t want them to be too tight, but I don’t exactly know how to work them.”
The cop merely turned redder in the face.
Robinson was jittery, like he might jump out of his flannel. Even on a back road, someone could drive by at any moment. “Again, I’m really sorry about this, sir. It’s just that we’re on a mission. We have to keep moving. It’s a life-or-death situation.”
The red-faced cop cleared his throat like he was going to say something. But then his mouth contorted and opened, and he spit. A whitish glob of mucus landed right on the tip of Robinson’s cowboy boot.
“Well, that was rude,” Robinson said, sounding shocked.
As if the cop should be more polite. I wondered if Robinson had somehow hit his head in our fender bender and the blow had knocked his conscience out of whack.
“You kids have no idea the trouble you’re going to be in,” the cop suddenly bellowed. His anger and his scarlet face frightened me. I could hardly look at him.
Maybe it wasn’t the cop who was the problem—maybe it was us. The teen outlaws.
Maybe I was kind of terrified of who we’d so quickly become. We’d just threatened a police officer with his own gun and locked him up with his own handcuffs!
How had our trip gotten so out of control after I had mapped it out to perfection?
And why … didn’t I care anymore?
I suddenly felt exhilarated. Unstoppable. This was the moment to make a real choice about the rest of my life, no matter how afraid I was to do it.
I steeled myself and dragged my eyes up to meet the cop’s. “We’re not going to get caught,” I said.
I said it softly but firmly. It was a promise. A prayer. A wish.