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Show 87 Not a half mile down the road another car came up behind us, Pat in his Big Black Buick, and he honked for us to stop. He must have come by the house for Kate just after we left. "Oh my God!" said Betty, finding her rftle at once. Dom did too, pressing down on the gas and roaring out of there. Pat followed, and for five or ten minutes we raced back and forth across the top of the mesa. The roads were laid out at right angles to each other and we went around in squares and rectangles. Dom loved to drive as fast as they did in the movies, and I guess we were the good guys with the crooks close behind, though in the other car I suppose the roles were reversed: I was a bad guy who had stolen the girl. I didn't feel like a bad guy, I felt dumb sitting in the back seat while Dom and Pat dueled with the cars, and Kate was silent too, not in any rSle, looking unhappy. So Dom was going sixty on that narrow graveled road, braking hard for those square corners and sliding up to them, sliding around them, fishtailing and straightening out and going like hell again, making a lot of dust but not enough to deter Pat, who not only kept with us but came up beside us once at sixty and tried to force us off the road. Betty and I then pleaded with Dom to stop, giving him the excuse he needed. Pat stopped behind us, his lights on and coming in the back window. Dom jumped out and ran back to meet Pat, ready to give battle. Betty said, "Oh my God!" Kate stared straight ahead and I felt stupid. The funny thing was that Pat was Dom's best friend, and Dom was Pat's second best friend. But the scenario had made them antagonists. It also called for me to fight Pat. "I guess they'll be expecting me," I said, feeling stupid, and got out. Kate hadn't said a word. Pat and Dom were standing in the road between the two cars snarling at each other like dogs. Then Darrel Darr came from the Buick, Pat's best friend and Dom's second best friend. Pat and Darrel and Dom and their girls were often together. Darrel snarled too and I stood by |