Flash and Filigree Read Online Free Page B

slithering the heavy car on the rounded curve. The Doctor raised his eyes like an alerted animal: the soft contusion of gravel under rubber wheels; he savored it, every sound and motion connected with an automobile, a low, heavy automobile.
    Stopping directly in front of him, the attendant got out and held open the car door. Dr. Eichner studied his face keenly for an instant. He was evidently new at the Clinic’s garage.
    “Good morning,” said the Doctor.
    “Morning, Doc,” the attendant said, “swell car you got there.” It was a Delahaye 235.
    Dr. Eichner came down the steps slowly. “This is interesting,” he said, “my experience had given me to believe that the majority didn’t care for foreign cars.”
    The attendant scratched his head confusedly. “Well, Doctor, I been a mechanic for twelve years. Before that I was a trucker. I ought to know a good motor and body when I see it.” He gave the nearest tire a proving kick with his toe.
    “Yes, it’s a fine car,” said Dr. Eichner getting into it. The door shut with a quiet expensive click, and the attendant stepped back, as though now it were he who held a signal to send the car and driver shooting away.
    “Well, so long, Doc,” he said, saluting.
    “Yes, so long,” said Dr. Eichner with a little smile for him.
    Going down the drive, the Delahaye slid through the gravel like a speedboat over a slow swell. The Doctor drove extremely fast.
    At the bottom, where the drive poured into Wilshire Boulevard, the car slowed, perceptibly nosing down, and in a sudden squelch-sounding lurch, swerved up and out toward Santa Monica. As the car steadied and settled in the far lane, picking up speed the while, Dr. Eichner leaned forward and switched on the radio. It was the hourly news. He pushed the buttons, seven in all, then toyed with the dial-knob, allowing the indicator to rest on a serialized drama as he, sounding the air-horns, took the wheel in both hands and pulled to the left, even into the oncoming speed-lane, to pass a fast moving convertible. Slowing at the intersection, the Doctor turned left into Highlord’s Canyon Drive. Ahead, the six-lane stretch tipped and fell in straight and desolate long-graded runs as far as the eye could see. From his breast coat pocket the Doctor drew out a thin silver cigarette case, steadily lowering the throttle while the countryside fled past like a film that has slipped the reel, and the saccharine tedium of the radio announcer’s voice was strangely muted under the climbing roar of the engine, “. . . just as we left him yesterday, still sulking down by the black ships. Meanwhile, old Nestor . . .” Dr. Eichner twisted the dial-knob abruptly to a static blank, lit his cigarette and adjusted the rear view mirror. There behind, a black sedan closed fast on the right.
    These canyon roads toward noon are blazed with heat, and now the sun lay afire on the mountain land, striking every light surface with wild refraction. Dr. Eichner turned down the green glass visor and floored the throttle, racing up a long slow rise in the highway road. The Delahaye touched the crest of the hill with a whirlwind drone and plunged into the descent as for an instant the black sedan was lost behind.
    At the far bottom of the hill below was a crossroads with traffic signal, and at quarter way on the descent, a white stone marker showed the distance from there to the intersection as one-eighth mile. It was Dr. Eichner’s habit to time his descent on leaving the crest so as not to pass this stone marker until the warning amber had shown on the traffic light below; and then to race down the hill at full throttle and beat the red. The duration of the amber was five seconds, so that to clear the intersection ahead of the red fight, he must do the eighth-mile in an average of ninety.
    Now, as the light was green, he slowed the car leaving the crest approaching the stone marker, and the black sedan swung again into the rear view mirror just