Gin Palace 02 - The Bone Orchard

keep others from me, keep me safe from those who come looking for me, for my help or to do me harm. Maybe all this would be worth a month of peace, a month of shelter, of living like the Buddha or maybe even Boo Radley. I didn’t care which.
    The night was clearer than the last time I was here but still dark. I had driven past the pond, past the spot where Augie and I sat in his truck at the side of the road, past the tree where we had seen the mysterious man, where the spike strip had been laid out for Amy Curry.
    I rounded the corner that she had rounded too quickly and saw the only lights to be seen--a contemporary house with a small lawn set right in the middle of a potato field. Several of the long vertical windows were lit, and in the driveway was a sports car. As I got closer I saw that it was a Fiat.
    I parked on the shoulder, under an oak tree whose lower branches reached not upward but downward, for the ground. I cut the motor and the lights and watched the house. Its covering wood was plank, painted gray, and its driveway was gravel. The stones were white and caught what little light the night sky had to offer. The house was angular and not very large. It seemed to me like a piece of a child’s toy left out in the yard.
    I cracked my window and let in the cold and the smell of farmland. It was subtle but I could sense it. It felt just like November, what November meant to me. In town leaves would tumble across Elm Street and the smell of those that had been raked up and burned in the afternoon would still be lingering in the air. The Hansom House fireplace would be lit and that smell would be in the air, too. Out here on Seven Ponds Road the only smells were that of near-dormant earth and cold.
    I watched the house for an hour, feeling the inside of my car turn from warm to cold, but nothing more than that happened. Then around one in the morning a man exited through the garage and got into the Fiat parked in the driveway and started it up. I could hear the distinctive sound of its motor, more of a power tool than an automobile. When he pulled out of the driveway and started toward me, I could hear him move through the gears fast. He drove by me quickly, and when he was out of sight I cranked the ignition and hit the lights and made a U-turn and went after him.
    I sped till I caught sight of him, and then I backed off. I kept my distance as I followed through the winding back roads. He headed toward town, then rode through east the village, often jumping lights. I didn’t want to get busted for a traffic violation--in my uninsured car, in the Chief’s town--so I kept to the traffic laws. Each time I lost the Fiat I’d press the speed limit as much as I dared till I caught sight of it again. Once we cleared the village the Fiat continued east on Sunrise Highway. I followed it through Water Mill and Bridgehampton, past the street on which Gale lived. By the time we passed East Hampton I had been following that car for a half hour, keeping my distance, letting it get ahead of me, then pulling up behind it at stop lights, only to let it pull ahead again after the lights turned green. I had no idea where he was going or what my following him would tell me. I had no idea what I would bring back from this trek, if anything. After East Hampton we passed through Amagansett and were then headed toward Montauk and this long road’s inevitable end.
    I followed the Fiat onto Old Montauk Highway, where the road narrowed and ran close to the primary dunes and the ocean beyond them. It was a stretch of no man’s land where only grass and sand bordered the road on both sides for long stretches at a time. Once we were on this road the Fiat all of the sudden took off in a burst, racing down the highway, its engine whining. My engine was a 327, fast, and the road immediately ahead was long and straight, and I felt my foot press down on the gas pedal, heard the deep groan of the exhaust tumbling down the exhaust pipes below, and watched the Fiat go from pulling away from me to coming closer.
    I knew that the smart thing to do was let the Fiat go, but I wasn’t in the mood for smart. I wanted to press the issue, to force its driver to act in a way that would give something up, something I could use.
    Ahead I could see the curve that ended the long stretch in the road. I had to press my advantage while I could. I held the accelerator to the floor, my right leg almost completely straight. I was closing on the Fiat but