Joe edged the ageless, canvas-topped, open-sided Land Rover slowly along the narrow West End back street, heading leisurely toward a set of red traffic lights, fully expecting them to switch togreen.
The long, floor-mounted gear lever shuddered steadily under the palm of his left hand. He gripped it tighter, letting the heavy vibration from the engine spread along his arm. He did this too often. His left shoulderached.
He leaned forward, ready to shift down to second so that he could pull away as the lights changed, but instead, they remained fixed onred.
In such a moment, lives canchange.
Joe braked slowly to a halt, and eased into neutral. His mood altered. He decided to savor the rare early evening calm of that late summer’s day in London’s fair city. He was in no rush to get to thecasino.
Leaning back in his once-beloved, now-neglected, mud-splattered ex-Army pick-up, he asked himself, for no particular reason that he was aware of at the time, what other species of animal allows a set of colored lights tell it how tobehave.
He took his feet off the pedals, his hands off the wheel, and stretched his arms and legs with exaggerated effort. He was trying to re-capture the nonchalance of his teens, but, at the same time, he did not want to risk splitting the satin seams of his cheap, black, badly fitting croupier’s suit. He breathed in deeply through his nose, letting his lungs fill slowly andcompletely.
The smell of traffic fumes still lingered in the cool cityair.
For months afterward, he would believe that it was nothing more than random chance, nothing more than an unconscious reflex that set in motion all the events that were tofollow.
As his chest swelled, he gulped unexpectedly. The contradictory movements in his throat closed his windpipe, locked his tongue solidly across the back of his mouth and left him gasping silently foroxygen.
The lights finally changed. Red and amber; then green, just the way they always do inEngland.
He was stuck there, mouth wide open, helplessly trying to swallow. From close behind him, he heard the gentle toot of an automo
