Chute Roll

Chapter Seven

Fifteen minutes later, we were standing in the apartment parking lot in the bright Las Vegas sunshine. There were a lot of cars. None of them were mine.

"All I have is a motorcycle," I told Sabella. "Is that okay?"

"As long as it gets us there. I want to sky dive today."

I unlocked my helmet from the motorbike. I had a spare helmet for her.

We got on the motorbike. It's not too big — 500 cc — and uses a lot less gas than a car. I try to save all my money for sky diving. I had already put the two thousand dollars in my saving account.

Sabella rested her hands on my shoulders as I pulled out of the parking lot. I liked that. It seemed like she wanted to be a friend. Which was fine with me.

My apartment is in an area of town where it takes a bunch of winding streets to get to the main road. I noticed a square green car in my rear view mirror. At first, it didn't bother me.

A few minutes later, it did. Just because it was still following. There wasn't much traffic. It looked like the driver was doing his best to keep one or two cars between us.

We reached the main road.

I gunned the motorbike. The green car sped up and stayed with me.

I slowed down.

It slowed down.

"Sabella," I shouted above the wind noise.

She leaned forward to listen better.

"There's two guys following us in a green car. Do you know them?"

"No," she said.

"Do you want them to know where we are going?"

"No," she said.

"Me neither."

"Hang on tight," I said. "Lean with me into the turn!"

She wrapped her arms around my waist.

I spun a U-turn and drove straight back at them.

As we passed them coming toward us, I got a better look at their faces. They wore brown suits. They had crew cuts. Dark sunglasses hid their eyes.

Both of them snapped their heads to look at us.

I laughed.

"We're on our own," I told Sabella. "No worries now!"

Which, as I found out later, was one of the dumbest things I could have said.