Vapor Trail by Chuck Logan

sapping his energy like quicksand. C’mon. Move.
    Harry? There he is, crouched behind the wheel of the Forester, swearing and banging his shoulder at the door. Running toward him, Broker saw what he was swearing about. In his haste, Harry must have slammed the seat belt and buckle into the door well. Now the door was jammed shut and he couldn’t start the car because the door wasn’t all the way closed. And he couldn’t get the door open.
    Seeing him coming, Harry yanked and banged harder on the door, and, as Broker came within arm’s reach, Harry broke the door free. As he disentangled the belt and leaned to turn the key, Broker thrust his arm into the half-open window and grabbed at the wheel.
    Harry was giggling like a boy playing a game. “Let go, motherfucker.” The engine quietly purred on, and the car started to move in a fitful circle because Broker was cranking on the wheel with his right hand as he ran alongside.
    “Stop the car, Harry!” Broker yelled.
    “Anybody but you; shit. I’d make the trip with Lymon Greene before you. John should have known . . .”
    “HAIR REEEE!” Broker yelled, seeing the side of the building loom up and letting go of the wheel just before the front bumper, headlights, and grille crumpled into the cinder block.
    The Forester did a quick steel-crunching rhumba motion, theair bag engulfed Harry, and then the car settled. Almost the second it stopped moving, Harry scrambled out from behind the air bag and pushed out the door. He staggered over to where Broker was in a pushup position, getting up from the boiling asphalt. From the corner of his eye Broker saw the poker players coming out the back door. And something else. During the shock of hitting the pavement, his pistol had jerked from the holster and was lying about three feet from his head.
    Harry stopped and shook his head. He had a crazy bewildered grin on his face. He said, “Shit, man. That’s twice in twenty-four hours I been kissed by a fucking air bag.” Then he saw the pistol lying on the asphalt. His grin broadened to show wolfish canines, and he said, “Gee, and I thought you didn’t like handguns? I thought killing people one at a time bored you. What was it you racked up in Quang Tri City back in seventy-two—something like six or seven confirmed kills? Course, by then they were scraping the bottom of the barrel, sending down half-trained fifteen-, sixteen-year-old kids . . .”
    “Harry, back off,” Broker said, getting up.
    “More like child abuse than a war. Hell, I mean, we wasted all their real soldiers by seventy-one when I was there,” Harry said.
    Limping slightly, Broker retrieved the pistol, secured it back in the holster, and pulled the shirt over it.
    “You all right?” Harry said.
    “No thanks to you, asshole,” Broker said.
    “C’mon. It was fun,” Harry said.
    The poker guys were now assembled around the Forester.
    “You saw the fucking squirrel, right?” Harry said.
    “What’s that?” they asked.
    “When the tow truck gets here, a couple of you will be witnesses and mention a squirrel ran across the lot, and I swerved to miss him, and I hit the wall.”
    “Got it.”
    On full alert now, Broker waited at Harry’s elbow while the call was made. Harry handed the keys over to the guy who kept track of the game in his little black book, along with instructions about where to take the car. Then he said to Broker, “Don’t suppose you want to stick around till the truck gets here?”
    “No, Harry. Right now let’s get you separated from your support group here,” Broker said.
    Harry adopted a slightly wavering stance, eyed Broker, and said, “You used to have more hair, didn’t you?”
    “C’mon. Let’s go.”
    “Okay, okay. Aw, shit. One last thing.” Harry grimaced and slowly raised his cell phone. Entered a number. Waited. “She ain’t home, got the machine.” He paused, took a breath, and adopted a contrite tone. “I have some bad news, Annie; got in a