Duncan Delaney and the Cadillac of Doom Read Online Free PDF

believed the three bean balls were accidental, and Benjamin’s mother drove him back to the reservation during the bottom of the seventh, and he had not pitched again.
    He threw the bird with all his might. It hit Leroy Kern center forehead with a sharp crack . The gun dropped from his hand and clattered to the floor. Leroy Kern’s eyes rolled up into his head. He did not quite fall. Benjamin grabbed the fat man’s shirt and gangster slapped him ten times fast. He let go. Leroy Kern crumpled to the floor. Benjamin picked up the gun, took out the clip, and racked the round from the chamber.
    “Drop it, Lonetree!”
    Two deputies stood at the end of the soap aisle, pistols drawn and pointing. Benjamin dropped the gun. One deputy holstered his weapon. It was Billy Masterson. Benjamin and Duncan had attended high school with Billy.
    “Hey, Billy. About time you got here.” He pointed at Leroy Kern’s unconscious body. “This asshole nearly killed me.”
    “Turn around and put your hands behind your back, Ben.”
    “Sure, Billy.” He did so, felt cold steel encircle his wrists.
    Billy put him in the back seat of a patrol car and belted him in. Two more deputies arrived and went inside. One revived Leroy Kern. Benjamin began to see how this thing looked. The other deputy went behind the counter and took a surveillance videotape out of a VCR. He came out and put the videotape in the trunk of his car.
    “Hey, deputy,” Benjamin called out just before Billy Masterson shut the door, “you take good care of that tape!”
    They drove him to the county jail where they strip searched him and took his picture and put him in a cell with a drunken rodeo clown. They did not bother taking his fingerprints. They had several copies on file already. Benjamin sighed deeply and sat on one of the cell’s two bunks. The rodeo clown looked up and promptly vomited.
    “Ain’t this some shit?” he asked miserably.
    “Yup,” Benjamin allowed. “It sure is.”

Three
     
    Duncan topped off his tank in Fort Collins and put in a quart of thirty weight. He stopped at a diner and bought a burger and a coffee. He put another quart in when he reached Denver. He slept beside the van, rose with the sun, gassed up, and bought a case of oil at an auto parts store. He crossed the Rockies that afternoon. He stopped only for food or gas or to put oil in the engine or to relieve biological demands. He was a driving fool. He would have driven non-stop, but the bus blew a tire at four a.m., and Duncan pulled off the road in the heart of the Mojave Desert. It was then he determined that the Volkswagen had no spare. He wrapped a blanket around his shoulders and slumped against the van. He watched his breath and listened to the wind in his hair. He waved at passing cars but none stopped. He tensed when a coyote yelped nearby. But the moon and stars revealed nothing but Joshua trees so ultimately he relaxed.
    Half an hour later, a star close to the horizon became two stars hurtling towards him. Duncan’s head whipped from west to east as a Porsche raced by in a cold rush of desert wind. A coyote stood transfixed in the middle of the highway, its eyes reflected red in the Porsche’s lights. The car jerked left. Duncan heard a dull thud and the coyote sailed into the desert. The Porsche’s wheels lost traction with a nauseating screech. The car spun cartwheels end over end, impacting the asphalt in a flurry of sparks like electric snowflakes, finally coming to rest upside down in the dirt by the side of the road, headlights bright and horn sounding sickly flatulent in the otherwise silent desert night.
    It took Duncan a minute to run to the Porsche. He knelt beside the inverted vehicle and looked inside. The driver was twenty-five years old, her head bent in an unlikely angle, her blonde hair wet and red. The steering wheel was broken and the post impaled her chest. He knew she was dead, but she did not look it. She just looked disgusted. He tried both