The Passenger Read online

  “Pull up here,” he said. “Keep her running.” They were about three car lengths away.

  “Chevy looks just the ticket. Ray? You want to do the honors?”

  Ray, the one with the hands. He nodded.

  “Billy, go along and keep an eye on the house. Real quiet.”

  They opened both doors and stepped outside. He didn’t have to tell them not to shut them. He turned to the woman beside him.

  “You too,” he said. “Real quiet. Are we clear about that?”

  “Yes.”

  He watched them move to the driver’s side of the Chevy and saw Ray open the door and duck in, Billy a little in front of him watching the house and already jittering like he had the shits, looking back at Ray as though willing him to hurry. He heard the engine sputter and die and sputter again through the still night air and thought, damn! just as the living room window flew open and the shotgun appeared and let fly and the Chevy’s windshield exploded. He saw Billy hit the ground and start crawling toward the back of the car, Ray nowhere in sight.

  “Get outa there! Goddammit! I’ll blow your goddamn ears off!”

  An old man’s voice. One very pissed off old man.

  The shotgun sparked and roared again and punched a hole in the grille. The car shuddered and the hood flew up as he fired a third time and then the left front tire was down and hissing. He saw Ray bail out of the seat and stumble for cover toward the rear of the Chevy and crouch beside Billy.

  “Aw, shit,” he said.

  He put his arm out the window and fired at the same time the old man did and this time the blast kicked the hood off its hinges entirely and back against what was left of the windshield. The bastard’s sure doing a fuck of a job on his own car, he thought. Doesn’t seem to give a fuck either. Only now he’d discovered that there was somebody in the station wagon firing back at him, and Emil saw the shotgun glint and shift in the moonlight.

  “Hit it, Maggie!”

  He got off three fast ones toward the window and saw wood fly off the sill as she slammed her foot to the gas pedal and sent the car screeching into a turn behind the Chevy, spraying dirt and gravel as the goddamn woman beside him tried to haul herself over the seat, making for the open rear doors so that he had to reach for the back of her blouse and grab hold of her with one hand and fire at the farmer with the other and the farmer was shooting back. He felt the impact thump and quiver through the right rear body of the wagon. Ray and Billy were up and running for the wide-open backseat doors as she pulled the car through the full 180- degree turn, getting them the hell out of there, yes! and picking up speed, the two of them racing for the car and catching it right and left just as the shotgun roared a final time and they finally slammed the doors.

  “Whew! That was one single-minded guy,” Ray said.

  “Disreputable,” said Billy.

  * * *

  The detective—the bigger of the two, Frommer his name was—was seated on the couch flipping through his notepad, frowning. Alan sat across from him on tin edge of the armchair and waited. He heard the toilet flush and finally the smaller cop came out of the hath room so that then they could begin.

  “What we’ve got here’s kind of unusual, Mr. Laymon,” Frommer said. “Three out-of-staters and a local girl.”

  “Why unusual?”

  “The boys turn up easy on the computer. Emil Rothert, Ray Short and Billy Ripper. Rothert and Short originally from Dead River, Maine. High school buddies, what little they had of it. Mostly they had Juvenile. Assault, arson, skin the neighbor’s cat, that kind of thing. Graduated to armed robbery, rape and aggravated assault. No convictions. Both did time in Jersey—annul robbery again. And we figure they linked up with Rip per there because next we got all three of ’em booked for auto theft in Bristol, Connecticut, charges dismissed This Ripper’s a total fruitcake. Went after his mom eight years ago with a straight razor and damn near killed her. Lady sixty-six years old. Imagine that? Bui the real puzzler’s this Lane woman.”

  “How come?”

  “Let’s just say the consensus is that she ain’t got all her cookies in the jar,” the smaller cop said. Frommer shot him a look that went from hot to cold. Then he shrugged.

  “It’s true,” he said. “I wish I had a buck for every time she’s called the station with some lame news or another. First she says she’s being followed by some guy in a white Mercedes. Then she’s getting obscene calls every night and she can’t be sure but she thinks the caller’s a woman. She can tell by the breathing. She calls us at least a dozen times on this one. Then somebody breaks in and cuts the wire to her window fan in the dead of summer. Then somebody breaks in again and cuts her phone line. Finally somebody sets fire to her garage.

  “Well, there was a fire. Burned up an old sleeping bag and some old clothes and papers. We got no proof but two guesses who set the thing. She was all right I guess until her boyfriend ran off and dumped her. Since then, whacko.”

  “So you’re saying ...”

  “So I’m saying we don’t know if she’s with ’em or against ’em. We figure she wasn’t in on the killing. The driver who called it in said their car was off the road trying to kiss a tree. But other than that? Could easily be the one as the other. So the point is . .

  He knew what the point was. “Jesus,” he said.

  “Right. We could be talking three bad guys and two hostages, or three bad guys, one hostage and one crazy. And I got to be honest with you. Either way it could get very nasty here.”

  * * *

  They’re up against it now, she thought. The police band had them made. Not just the car but them. She didn’t know whether it made her feel frightened or elated. Maybe both.

  “. . . suspects identified as Emil Rothert, thirty-four, white male, six feet two inches, two hundred fifteen pounds . . . Ray Short, thirty-four, white male, five feet eleven inches, one hundred seventy pounds . . . William Grant Ripper, thirty-one, white male, five feet nine inches, one hundred forty pounds. ...”

  Emil reached over and turned it off.

  "I don’t like this,” Ray said. “This ain’t good at all.”

  "We’re fine. All we need’s a car.”

  His voice was different though. Maybe she was seeing the first cracks in the great Emil Rothert bravado. She could hope so.

  "They got the names, Emil, they got the plate number, the registration .. .”

  "Which is why we need the car.”

  "And maybe here she comes,” said Marion.

  Headlights gleamed in the rearview mirror.

  "Go for it, Mags,” Emil said.

  Marion got out and slammed the door and Emil inched across and locked it. His look said she had better not move, locked or unlocked. He turned and offered Marion’s .22 to Ray and Billy.

  “Who wants it?”

  "I’ll take it,” Billy said. “Thank you very much.”

  “Everybody down.”

  In the mirror above she could see Marion waving frantically at the car’s approach and she thought how he’d been doing exactly the same thing a few hours ago, just looking for a lift and then watched the car slow and stop directly behind them, the driver, a man in jacket and tie, leaning out and Marion walking over and leaning down, pointing back at the wagon, the man opening his door and getting out and his car’s courtesy light blinking on so that she could see that there were other her people in the car too, a woman in the front passenger seat and two smaller figures in back, Marion gesturing with fake exasperation as they walked toward the wagon, heard their footsteps approach and stop and the man say what the. . . ? in surprise as the two left-side doors swung open and Emil and Billy stepped out. She sat up. The man’s eyes were going back and forth from gun to gun.

  “Oh god. Oh, Jesus. Listen, please... my family. Whatever you want. Anything you want. Please . ..” “Sir,” Emil said. “We won’t hurt your family. Just walk back to your car nice and slow. We’re not gonna hurt anybody. Just take it easy, now, okay, sir?”

&
nbsp; The man was clearly terrified but he did as he was told, turned and started walking. Emil, Marion and Billy followed.

  Emil called over his shoulder, “Hey, Ray!”

  “Yeah?”

  “Bring her.”

  “Ray, you don’t have to do this,” she said. “Let me help you. Remember our talk? I can help you.”

  He sighed. “Listen, lady, I don’t want your help. And I’m not so stupid that I’m gonna trust you either. Now get out of the car. Nothing’s gonna happen to those people except we take their wheels.”

  “You can promise me that, Ray? Really?”

  He couldn’t. Only Emil could.

  “Damn right I can promise you.”

  He dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wallet-sized snapshot, creased and worn. He handed it to her. “Look,” he said. “I found it.”

  She was looking at a color photo of a scrawny dishwater blonde and two scrawny kids of indeterminate sex, barely smiling, standing in a miserable yard in front of a broken swing.

  His family.

  “Now would you please get the hell out of the car?”

  He held out his hand and she gave him back the photo and opened the door. He got out behind her.

  “Listen,” he said. “I want you to know I feel bad about. . . what happened back there. At the house I mean. Sometimes a guy . . . you know . . .”

  “I know,” she said and started walking.

  She guessed the man and woman to be in their late twenties, early thirties. The woman had seen the guns and was out of her seat already and had gone around back to the little girl. The woman was pretty and her left eye had let go of one long tear that streaked her cheek but her arms were around her little girl and you could see she was trying to be brave and stay calm so as not to panic her and you could see that it was working. The girl was only five or so and looked confused by all this activity and her mother’s sudden urgency but she didn’t cry but only sat silent, wide-eyed and tense.

  Beside her sat a teenage girl who looked much like the woman. She guessed they were sisters because the girl was too old to be the woman’s daughter. At first glance she seemed frozen with fear. Then Janet saw something pass across her face and her lips set tight as she took the girl’s hand in both of her own.

  A family with grit, she thought. They don’t deserve this.

  “Let’s go,” said Emil.

  He waved them out of the car. She noticed that it was another station wagon. Another fake “woodie” like Marion’s, only a later model.

  “Like I said, it’s just the car we want, ma’am.”

  The man’s arm went around his wife’s waist and his hand down to his daughter. The sister held the girl’s other hand as Emil and Billy walked them back to Marion’s car. Marion lit a cigarette with a wooden match that flared brightly in the still air and then diminished. She leaned back against their car.

  Somewhere in the distance frogs bellowed out their longing.

  “I think you can all squeeze together in the backseat there, right?” Emil said. She could hear every word. “I mean, for all I know, your wife might be an expert at hot-wiring. This is your wife, right, sir?”

  He was trying to be reassuring. Janet wasn’t reassured.

  “Yes,” the man said.

  “Your daughter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Kid sister?”

  “Yes . .. well, no. My wife’s sister.”

  “Well, sir, you’ve got a real pretty family here.”

  “Thank you.”

  “What I want you all to do is to stay in the back right where you are till we’re ready to leave, okay? Then I’ll toss you the keys as we go. Oh, and I might as well take yours now, sir. Good now as later, right?”

  The man dug into his pocket and handed him the keys.

  “What we’re going to do is, we’re going to have a little conference, the three of us, and then we’ll be moving on.”

  They walked back to Ray, Janet and Marion.

  “Give Margaret the gun, Bill,” he said. “I don’t see any problem coming from these people, Maggie, but you might want to watch your friend here. Ray, let’s us talk.”

  They went off onto the shoulder a bit. Janet nodded toward the gun.

  “Would you really use it on me?”

  She seemed to consider.

  “I don’t know. I might. I think, probably. I mean, old times only goes so far, you know?”

  “Jesus, Marion. He can’t even get your name right!”

  And then she shut up because she could hear what they were saying, talking the way other men might discuss some ad campaign or product or corporate merger, the way she’d heard herself talk in conference rooms and chambers with judges and lawyers and witnesses, all matter-of-fact and bottom-line and so much more terrible for that to hear hell, they’ll remember all of it, everything. . . how many guns we’ve got, what we look like, what we’re wearing . . . sure they will... I don’t see that we’ve got a choice, then . . . neither do I... we have to kill them .. . we’ve got to kill ’em .. . okay then, so what about the kid? because if Janet could hear, then so could the people in the car, the windows were all wide open and they could hear their deaths discussed like three guys splitting the check in a restaurant and she could see them all huddled together, heard somebody openly crying now, saw them through the rear window embracing tight and frantic and the woman stroking her sister’s hair and thought, so tender! my god! this can’t be happening! and the man leaning over and wrapping his arms around them as though to ingest and swallow them up safe inside him and his back moving, sobbing or trying not to sob, she couldn’t tell which and then she looked at Marion.

  Marion standing there still and cold as a snake. The gun pointed casually in her direction.

  Marion, who could and would let this happen.

  She might be the worst of them, she thought. At least the others have their twisted evil reasons.

  Then the men were moving, Billy toward Marion, taking the gun from her hand and following Emil who was headed straight for the car and Ray stopping beside Janet saying, you want to be very smart now and then watching them walk to the wagon and Janet watching too still unbelieving and wholly unable to speak as though that power was shut down tight in her as Billy and Emil turned their guns to the backseat of the car, flashes of muzzle fire and raw sharp clapping in her ears and bodies jerking, twisting, falling inside the car, blood and glass suddenly everywhere and the sharp tang of cordite assailing her and she turned and tried to run, needed to run, run anywhere, fighting Ray with all her strength and Ray simply turning her, his grip on her arms shearing deep into her muscles, turning her and forcing her to see the final volley, the sullen punch of bullets into limp flesh.

  “Bless our loved ones,” Billy said.

  And when she heard the whimpering into the silence that followed, the little girl’s voice, the first she'd even heard that voice take breath, her legs gave way beneath her. Oh dear god no, she thought. Alive. Amid all that frightful death.

  Ray held her to her feet while the firing began again and Janet closed her eyes.

  When she opened them and cleared them of tears the first thing she saw was Marion, her hands clutching hard at her breasts, the sheen of perspiration on her face and the wild light skittering in her eyes—a woman shattered in the wake of revelation and probably the orgasm of her life. She saw the men staring through the window, watching for further movement. She turned and saw Ray. And there was nothing there to see at all.

  In the distance behind them headlights crested a hill and began to roll toward them deep into the moon- drenched valley.

  Emil held up his brand-new set of keys.

  “Let’s move!” he said.

  * * *

  They’d driven a mile or so before she thought of it. Until then she’d felt empty inside as a propped-up wooden manikin sitting between Billy at the wheel and Ray riding shotgun, aware only of the straight smooth tarmac hissing beneath their wheels, the sou
nd of flight, of movement. And maybe it was that which served to bring her back to herself and back to what she’d actually seen these people do just moments before. Because finally she thought of it.

  She reached over past Ray to the glove compartment. Popped it open and reached inside. A can of de-icer. A pair of sunglasses. A cracked plastic windshield scraper. Half a roll of Five-Flavor LifeSavers.

  The papers were scattered at the bottom atop the owner’s manual. There weren’t many. Insurance papers for the car. A dog-eared state map. Somebody’s old shopping list on folded paper. Penciled directions to somewhere or other tom off a yellow legal pad.

  That was all.

  She almost wanted to laugh but laughter was still not even remotely possible.

  “He was one of those,” she said.

  “Huh?” said Ray. “One of what?”

  “He was somebody who kept his license and registration together. In his wallet. Did anybody get his wallet?”

  She sat there and let that sink in.

  Emil pounded the car seat behind her. It didn’t even startle her. She’d figured he’d be the one to get it.

  “God-fucking-damn it!”

  “I didn’t think so. So it was all for nothing,” she said.

  “What?” Ray said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “Shit!” said Emil. “Goddammit! We gotta go back now.”

  “What?”

  “We gotta go back!”

  “Are you fucking out of your mind?”

  “You wanted to get lost again,” she said. “Switch cars. Lose the APB. Problem is, as soon as they find him they’ll find the registration for this car in his wallet. So you didn’t get lost again, did you? It was all for nothing.”

  “Jesus H. Christ.”

  “You killed a five-year-old girl for nothing.”

  “Turn here!” said Emil.

  They were coming up on a turnoff to the right, a narrow strip of two-lane blacktop winding higher up the mountain. Billy slowed and made the turn.

  “Pull up some and kill the lights, Billy. I want to see that car go by. Whoever it is can’t be very far behind. There weren’t any other turns off the road between here and there. If they didn’t stop they’ll pass us real soon. We’ve got to go back there but I want to see them pass first. That’s it. Kill the goddamn lights.”