“Drivel” Reverend Justice shouted.
“Yeah, get the fuck outta here!” Slim Jim screamed.
“Duck down!” Trader yelled.
“Man, you’re crushing me!” Cat complained.
The men ducked down on the floor as Barbie shot out of the parking lot and noticed cop cars with flashing lights rushing toward the gloomy brick jail across the street.
“Just drive normal, ” Hooter said, because somebody had to have a clear head and take control. “You be whizzing around like this and the police will stop us for sure. Then we gonna get arrested for helping convicts escape from jail. ”
“What?” Barbie panicked, clutching the steering wheel in both hands. “Convicts?”
“We was unfairly arrested, Barbie, ” the reverend said from the floor in back. “It’s the Lord’s will we got out and you’re helping us. And I had no choice about it ’cause these other inmates forced me to act like I was rupturing something in my belly and when the guard burst inside the cell to help, I smacked him over the head with a food tray, just like Pinn had done to him when he used to work as a prison guard.
“So I got the idea from being on Head to Head with Pinn. Ain’t it wondrous the way the Lord works?” Reverend Justice preached on. “If I hadn’t been on that show, all ’cause of Moses Custer and the Neighborhood Watch I started down there near the Farmers’ Market, well, I never would’ave thought to smack someone with a food tray. ‘ Course, if I hadn’t been so over-stended and stressed out from all the publicity I suddenly was getting, I might not have tried to pick up that old woman for purposes of releasing myself, and then I never would’ave had to smack nobody with a food tray. ”
Maybe it was just a superstition, but Moses Custer had always heard that if his ear itched, it meant someone was talking about him. As he rode in the governor’s motorcade, Moses’s right ear was itching something fierce beneath bandages, and he wondered if it might indicate that a lot of people out there knew he was a VIP guest in a long black limousine, and destined to sit in the governor’s box at the race. He stared out tinted glass at backed-up traffic as the governor snored and his peculiar daughter with her jet-black helmet haircut kept staring down at her quivering cleavage while that tiny red horse stood in the woodchips and now and then stepped on Moses’s foot.
Macovich, meanwhile, was trying to weave through traffic as he talked over the radio to Andy, who had turned the helicopter’s intercom to crew only so the road dogs couldn’t hear what he was saying.
“To make everything worse, ” Macovich said into the mike, “six inmates just broke out of jail and cop cars are everywhere, so I’m telling you, it’s a mess out here. I don’t know when we’ll get to the racetrack, but we gonna be late. ”
“Look, I’ve got to go to Plan B, ” Andy transmitted as the mobbed racetrack appeared a thousand feet below, in the distance.
“Wooo, seems like we should be on Plan G or H now, at least. ”
“I’ll do a high recon over the racetrack and just keep circling until you can get a bunch of uniformed cops to swarm onto the helipad so Smoke will change his mind and order me to take them to Tangier Island, ” Andy came back.
“But we ain’t got no undercover backups down there, man!” Macovich worried.
Andy looked down at thousands of fans waving wildly up at the helicopter and fighting to get close to the helipad.
“I wasn’t expecting this and should have, ” he said, “but Brett’s fans are recognizing his bird and are going to storm us on the ground. Someone may get hurt or Smoke’s going to get away. No way I’m setting down at the racetrack. ”
“Ten-four, ” Macovich came back. “I mean, roger. ”
The stands were filling up as Andy switched on pulsing landing lights and began to slow down. He turned the intercom back to all so everyone in back could hear him through the headsets.