The Passenger Read online

  “Passed away.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thanks. It’s okay. They were never much with us anyhow. So who do you still see? Anybody?”

  “Nobody. I used to call Lydia Hill once in a while.” “Lydia Hill?”

  “Tall? Blond? Always wore long-sleeved white cotton blouses and minis? You know, the kind with the button-on suspenders.”

  Marion laughed. “Sure, I remember them. Ran along the sides of your boobs and made ’em look bigger. And I remember Lydia Hill too, I think. Wasn’t she a cheerleader or something? Prom committee or something?” “Lydia? No, she was more debating team. We both were.”

  She drank from the bottle. “You were popular though. You weren’t just some damn egghead.”

  Janet shrugged and smiled. “I guess.”

  “Sure you were. You dated that guy Wilder for a while, and Kenny Whatsisname, big Irish preppie. What was his name?”

  “Coughlin.”

  “Coughlin. Kenny Coughlin. Right. Real sonovabitch that guy was to me. You know that?”

  “No. I didn’t even know you’d gone out with him.” Kenny and Marion? Before or after us? she wondered. Kenny was about as straight arrow as they come.

  “See, you and me didn’t hang out with the same crowd. Guys I hung with, they expected you to put out, and maybe at first you didn’t and maybe later you did. And that was seriously fucked because as soon as you did their friends would know, so from then on you pretty much always did, and by the time a guy like Kenny comes along your cunt’s Grand Central Station and everybody knows it. So what’s Kenny do? He comes on like he’s going to save me. You believe that?”

  Marion drank again. Not good, she thought. It was starting to worry her. That and the fact that she was accelerating now, just a bit over the speed limit. But the woman would be in trouble if some cop pulled her over.

  Then she thought, what cop? We’re out here in the middle of nowhere.

  “At least with one of those other guys it’s right out front, know what I mean? At least he doesn’t do the movie-and-dinner routine so he can excuse his own sorry butt for wanting to screw you in the backseat later on. And then never calling you again. At least with those other guys, they call again. Kenny Coughlin. What a bastard.”

  She’s using the present tense, Janet thought. Like she’s still there. Back in high school. She knew that some of them got stuck in time—she’d seen it before. The same old town, the same jobs, the same old friends growing older. Some simply got trapped there and it looked as though probably Marion was one of them. She was starting to get very unhappy about the whole conversation and it didn’t help at all when Marion pounded at the steering wheel.

  “Who the fuck is Kenny Coughlin not to call me?”

  She watched her take a deep breath and hold it and expel it slowly, and then she seemed to calm again.

  “I mean, you dated that guy?”

  Janet nodded.

  “How’d he treat you?”

  “Okay I guess. It didn’t last that long, not really.”

  In her look Janet seemed to read a barely concealed hostility. And not toward Kenny, but inexplicably, toward her. As though this whole business with Kenny Coughlin were somehow Janet’s fault. And she held that look too long—considering she was the one doing the driving. And then she reached suddenly for the glove compartment and Janet couldn’t help it, she jumped.

  She glanced down and saw the gun in there and then she saw her slide the bottle in and slam it shut.

  Her heart was pounding. She wondered if Marion had noticed the overreaction.

  For a moment I thought. . . my god. . .

  But no, Marion had done the right thing—not the crazy thing. She’d put away the bottle. And maybe it was the bottle that had been talking all along. Maybe there was nothing to worry about here at all.

  “Not too long, huh?” she said. “Well, good. Good for you. Myself, I could have killed the little prick.”

  She laughed. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “I was always too serious. Y’know?”

  * * *

  Emil watched the girl take her beer back into the poolroom, stand and watch one of the games. From what he could see the game wasn’t much. The players were just a couple of skinny kids in their twenties who thought that if you didn’t hit the fucker hard you didn’t hit good. He got more interested when he saw her reach into the pocket of her cutoffs and pull out a quarter and set it down by the left comer pocket.

  The girl was a player. Or wanted to be.

  He was surprised the bartender hadn’t carded her. She was just a kid.

  “How’s your game these days, Bill?” he said.

  “Oh, imperative, Emil. Imperative.”

  “Fine.”

  * * *

  “So I guess you got married, huh?”

  “No,” Janet said.

  They were about twenty minutes from home now. Still in farmland, all gentle rolling hills and dark two- lane blacktop. They’d be coming up at a Kaltzas’s service station soon though, in about ten minutes or so. She wondered if she should tell Marion to stop there instead of taking her home. It was probably a good idea. If Dean was on, he’d give her a lift the rest of the way, drop her off and then go deal with her car. Dean had a massive crush on her that she didn’t exactly discourage. It helped if your local service-station guy happened to like you.

  Besides, there was the matter of that gun.

  “You got a boyfriend?” Marion said.

  “Yes.”

  “Fiance, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Been together a while?”

  “Almost eight years, believe it or not.”

  “What is he? Doctor? Lawyer? You got a congressman tucked away somewhere?”

  “Lawyer, actually.”

  Interesting, she thought. She hasn’t asked me what I do for a living.

  “Lawyer. Actually. ” She nodded. “Well, I guess you really made something of yourself then, didn’t you.” And the hostility in that little zinger was loud and clear. Jesus! It was definitely going to be the service station now, even forgetting about the gun. She didn’t want this woman in her life any longer than she needed her to be.

  “So how come you don’t marry the guy? What is he? Lousy in bed?”

  “Marion ... listen .. .”

  “What? I can’t ask a question, now?”

  “I’m not up to having a personal discussion right now, that’s all. My car’s dead, I’m exhausted, I’ve got work to do. You know what I mean?”

  She laughed. “You’re not up to it. Having a hard night, are we?”

  “Now that you mention it, yes. I didn’t need a broken-down car right now, that’s for sure, and .. .” “And you don’t need me asking personal, friendly questions of an old girlfriend, right? Well, pardon me!”

  “God, Marion. I only said ... look, there’s a gas station coming up on your right. Why don’t you just. . .”

  “You want out? Is that it? You fucking want out? You want out of the car right now?”

  Where the hell is all this coming from? she thought. What in god’s name did I do?

  "Okay, yes. I think I do.”

  "You think you do?”

  "I think that’d be best.”

  "Right here.”

  You’re angry and... yes. I think that’d be best.”

  “It would, huh?” She looked at her, lips pressed tight together. “Yeah, maybe it would at that.”

  Her foot went to the brake and the car slowed and Janet could finally breathe again. Then she hit the accelerator. Tires screeched beneath her and jolted her back in her seat. Marion was grinning.

  “Nah,” she said. “I want the company.”

  * * *

  They were standing behind her a little to the left by the jukebox along with three other guys watching her make her shot, the girl leaning way over the table to reach the cue ball so that her ass punched the cutoffs from within like a blast of helium into a
balloon. She was wiping the floor with this kid. She made the comer shot and then lined up the seven to the right side pocket and sunk that too. Gently easing it in so that the eight ball was directly opposite. The kid was shaking his head and scratching distractedly at his pimples while Patsy Cline sang “Faded Love.”

  “Side pocket,” she said.

  Her voice had a hint of country twang to it.

  Not a New York State kid.

  She took her time. Aimed low for the backspin and got it right. The eight clattered home and her cue ball stopped on a dime directly in front of the pocket. She smiled and the skinny kid smiled and shook his head again and somebody applauded and Billy and Ray and one of the other guys across the room laughed along with the kid’s former partner. She picked up the quarter off the table. Her fingernails were cut short and flat.

  “Who’s next?”

  “Me,” Billy said and stepped over with his cue.

  “You any good?”

  “I am the best.”

  Emil couldn’t help it. With Billy sometimes you just had to smile. She put the quarter in and when the balls dropped gathered them to the table and racked them efficiently and perfectly over the head spot while Billy chalked his cue halfway to death. She rolled him the cue ball over the foot spot. Directly over the foot spot. “Your break.”

  “Side wager, miss?”

  “Sure. Ten?”

  “Ten will be fine. May I buy you a beer?”

  “Thanks. I got one already.”

  She lifted it and drank.

  * * *

  By the time she sank the fifth ball he was ready to make his move. Billy’s break had sunk nothing but scattered everything as was typical of Billy, who was decidedly not the best and she was popping them in all over the place. Guys were hollering encouragement. The girl was smiling. Billy looked like he was about to blow any minute but you had to know him like Emil and Ray did to see that.

  He moved behind her and when she drew back the cue took hold of the hilt and held it. The girl turned around. Annoyed with him.

  “Guess that’s it,” he said.

  “Huh?”

  He reached into his back pocket, fished out his wallet and flashed her the phony shield. Then returned it to his pocket.

  “Got any ID?”

  “Hey, come on. What is this?”

  “I think you’re underage. I think you’re drinking in a public place and hustling my buddy here for pocket money. I’ll take the cue now, miss.”

  She handed it to him and he set it against the wall.

  “Lean over on the table. Hands on the table. Spread your legs, please.”

  And yeah, he’d been right all along. She was underage and she was scared now and humiliated and she did as she was told so he proceeded to pat her down, thinking it was too bad about the cutoffs because he’d have liked to give those good smooth thighs a squeeze but there was no excuse for that with the girl bare-legged, though the ass was fine and the tits were especially fine and those he did squeeze and when she gasped and the two burly men who saw him do it started forward he reached for the pool cue and pointed it at them.

  “Don’t even think it, gentlemen.”

  The room was quiet now except for Patsy Cline and the girl, who had started to cry. Emil stepped away from her toward the men and watched them back down in front of the cue and move silent and sullen back to the wall.

  “Okay, miss,” he said. “Get your purse. Officer Short here and I will escort you to the station. Billy? Officer? Let’s go.”

  Again the girl did as she was told and bent and retrieved her purse, and Ray had her by the arm and was starting to move her along when the kid she’d just beat muttered something to his buddy across the room.

  “What’s that?”

  “I said you guys ain’t cops. You didn’t read her her rights.”

  “You’re interfering with an officer of the law, sonny. Put your quarter on the table and let somebody else whip your ass before I take you along and read you your rights.”

  He took her other arm and Billy trailed along behind while they marched her out of the room and into the bar, weaving their way through the tables and only then was he aware that the barman and some of the guys at the bar were watching all of this, so he stopped in front of the barman and pointed at him.

  “You I’ll be seeing a little later, friend,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere.”

  The barman frowned and turned his head away, all of a sudden paying very close attention to the glasses in the sink.

  Offensive action. Worked every time.

  Lieutenant Paul Wellman picked up his Dewars and finished it and turned to the bartender.

  “You know those guys?” he said.

  “Nope.”

  “That’s interesting. Neither do I.”

  He tapped the three singles in front of him. “Yours,” he said. “And thanks. They’re right about one thing though. You shouldn’t have served her.”

  He got off his stool and walked out of the bar, stood on the porch steps and lit a smoke. They’d moved fast. He could hear them laughing across the lot, but at first he couldn’t spot them. If they were cops at all, which he doubted, they were not from around here and thus had no jurisdiction. He knew that because he did have jurisdiction. Then he heard more laughter caught in the warm summer breeze and muffled screams and protests from the girl and by the light of the moon saw them standing in a tight half-circle around her behind a beat- up Jeep.

  Christ, he thought. Right here out in the lot. When he was a boy his dad had talked about how stupid criminals were, but he hadn’t really believed him because there had always been their behavior on television and in the movies to contradict him. It was only when he followed in his footsteps and became a cop himself that he realized what he should have known all along.

  Father knows best.

  He moved off the stairs and casually across the lot as though he were headed for his own car, the Colt unholstered and held to his leg slightly behind him. He tossed away the Marlboro, wondering why in hell he’d lit it in the first place. Nerves, he guessed. At cigarette prices these days I can’t afford nerves.

  The guy who’d spoken to the bartender had one hand inside her tank top and the other cupped over her mouth and must have been squeezing pretty hard because she was wriggling and pushing at him and trying to yell, her back arched against the hood of the Jeep and the other two were watching, leaning against the Ford Maverick parked beside it as he approached them. Waiting for sloppy seconds, he guessed. So that at first they didn’t see him. And then of course they did.

  And then everything went to hell all at once because a car pulled into the lot and flooded all five of them with sudden rolling light.

  “Police!” he said and raised his shield and Colt together.

  The one with the girl grabbed hold of her by the hair and threw her headfirst into the passenger-side window of the Maverick. He saw blood splash the window and the girl slam down to the tarmac like a sack of rocks and the other two men were piling into the Jeep when he fired his warning shot into the air. But that stopped none of them — nor whoever had pulled into the lot, because the car stopped right the hell between them.

  He ran around behind it and saw the fake cop lurch into the driver’s seat and heard the Jeep turn over and saw it start to pull away and fired for the left rear tire and fired again. Sparks scattered across the tarmac, but marksmanship had never been his strong suit so he ran to the driver of the car, an old guy in T-shirt and suspenders who from the look of him finally was aware of what kind of shitstorm he’d just driven into. He pointed at the girl.

  “Go inside and call Nine-one-one. Tell them you need an ambulance. Tell them it’s an emergency!”

  Get to your fucking car, he thought. And then he thought, Where? Jesus, where? Where the hell did I park it?

  * * *

  Inside the Jeep Emil was having his own goddamn problems. The piece of shit kept slipping out of gear, lurching forwar
d, stopping, lurching forward. Through the rearview mirror he saw the cop running around through the parking lot like a confused dog who’d lost the scent and wondered briefly what the hell that was all about.

  “Better move it, Emil,” Ray said.

  Emil shot him a look in the mirror and tried again.

  * * *

  Wellman flung open the door to his car and slapped his cherry on the roof, hit his siren and slammed the door. He knew something was happening with the Jeep. He had that window, thank god. The Jeep kept stopping and starting and then as his own car roared to life he saw that the driver had finally got it right. He was headed for the exit and seconds later they were out on the road together and Wellman was riding up his tail pipe.

  * * *

  Emil felt the jolt from behind and then something went terribly wrong and he was swerving back and forth from one lane to the other, the Jeep nearly impossible to control and he glanced into the rearview mirror and saw the cop fishtailing all the hell over, their rear and front fenders locked together.

  Then ahead of him he saw the headlights.

  * * *

  Wellman saw them too, headlights coming on fast, much too fast goddammit and reflexively hit his brakes. His tires locked, screeching, the car whipping back and forth like a trailer gone berserk. No belt again, you fool, he thought, smelling rubber smoke off the braking Jeep ahead as it veered suddenly and finally into the oncoming lane.

  * * *

  “Marion!” Janet screamed.

  Her hands slammed the dash and the harness scraped her breastbone as Marion hit the brakes and wrenched at the wheel but for a moment she was absolutely certain it was much too little much too late, the headlights were almost on them, so close she could see the Jeep’s tires smoking and then it jerked suddenly off to the right and they were tumbling down a low shoulder, Marion struggling for control, and the last thing she saw was the tree.