The rain had started again. It wasn’t much of a rain but it was enough to hide the moon and stars and give me a feeling of protective isolation from people. Traffic going north on Tamiami Trail was light, but there was the usual cast of coastal Florida characters on the road. I passed the infirmed and ancient, weak of sight, hearing, and judgment, hunching forward to squint into the darkness, driving twenty miles under the speed limit, trying not to admit to themselves that they were afraid of driving. These senior drivers were a potential menace, but I understood their loneliness, their unwillingness to give up driving and lose even more of their contact with the world. Then there were the grinning kids in late-model cars or pickup trucks. They took chances, cut people off, and were unaware that death was a reality. You might challenge death fifty, a hundred, two hundred times, but the one time you lost, the game was over. They didn’t consider losing. The game was everything. There were families on their way back from somewhere or someone, one or two children sleeping in the backseat, mother and father in the front listening to the radio, just wanting to make it home and to bed for a few hours.
What do You think about Midnight Pass: A Lew Fonesca Novel (Lew Fonesca Novels)?
