The Passenger Read online

  They waited and Billy fidgeted beside her, tapping at the wheel with his thumbs to some music unheard by them while Emil, Ray and Marion watched through the rear window and Janet sat there staring straight into the dark, feeling strangely calmer now as though something had changed between them, some reconfiguration of their tableau and the odds against her. Though nothing had changed, really.

  They waited and nobody came. The road behind them dark and silent.

  ‘They stopped, didn’t they,” said Billy. “They stopped back there. They’re viewing the whole image.” “Shut up, Billy.”

  “Shit! Shit! Shit!”

  “I said shut the fuck up, Billy.”

  “He’s right,” said Marion. “They’d have passed by now if they hadn’t stopped. Billy’s right.”

  “I know he’s right for chrissake. I just want a minute 10 figure this thing, okay?”

  “What do you suggest, Counselor?” said Ray.

  “Counselor?”

  “She’s a lawyer.”

  “What?”

  “She’s a lawyer. She told me.”

  “No shit. And you knew this how long?”

  “Since before we went to her place. While you and her lady friend here were out in the bushes.”

  She could feel the rush of anger behind her, then just is quickly sensed him gain control again.

  “You ought to have told me, Ray.”

  He sighed.

  “Well, we got maybe two more hours till dawn, three to the state line. So I figure the state line’s out for tonight. And yeah, she’s right. We’ve got to assume they’ll make this car once they find him. For all we know whoever the asshole is is already calling it in. So we need another car or a place or preferably both. Maggie’s is out because they know she’s with us and her place is probably out for the same reason. So your question’s pretty good, Ray. What do you fucking suggest, Counselor? And don’t say give yourselves up or I’ll figure you’re too damn stupid to be a lawyer.”

  “You think I should help you?”

  “I’d say it’s in your goddamn best interests, yeah.” - And she knew he thought she was considering his threat. But she wasn’t.

  She was considering something else entirely.

  So that when she spoke the hesitancy in her voice was phony but not the least untrue. She was a trial lawyer and part of lawyering was about performance and the correct and useful stance so she knew damn well it wouldn’t show.

  “Okay ... all right. I know a place. It might work anyhow.”

  “So tell.”

  “You ever hear of a place called Hole-in-the-Wall?” she said, and then turned toward him.

  He was smiling.

  * * *

  The night was awash in artificial light. Police flashlights slow-arced through the scrub and field along either side of the road. Flashbulbs burst sudden and stark against the human ruins in the wagon. Six sets of headlights set to high poured off the cruisers and the Volvo of the guy who’d called it in. Alan leaned against one of those cruisers and tried not to puke.

  He’d seen what was inside.

  Hee was shaking like it was zero degrees out, clammy with sweat at the same time. All he kept thinking was at least she wasn’t one of them. At least that.

  Frommer stubbed out his cigarette on the center line n| the tarmac and then carefully policed his butt into his jacket pocket and walked over.

  Alan shook his head. “I never. . . Jesus, Frommer, that little girl . . .”

  “I know,” Frommer said. “But I’ll tell you, I think we can still hope for the best here, Mr. Laymon. I don’t think we’ll find her out there. I think she’d have been in the car with these poor people. These guys don’t seem to take too much trouble hiding what they do.”

  He glanced toward the car and then back to Alan.

  “I told you you shouldn’t have looked,” he said. "Hell, I shouldn’t have either.”

  * * *

  “How far?” Ray asked her.

  Ray was nervous, Emil could see that—almost as nervous as goddamn Billy driving. It wasn’t like Ray. It wasn’t the guy who could lift a wallet in plain sight or steal a car in broad daylight on a busy street. Billy, on the other hand, was probably born nervous. He wondered if maybe he should be doing the driving but then thought no, it was better back here with his arm over whatsername’s shoulder and his hand playing with her tit. Irresponsible but what the hell. They’d be all right.

  “Just a few miles or so,” she said.

  “They’re not gonna do this for free,” he said.

  “I know,” Emil said.

  “So?”

  He’d already thought that out. He didn’t answer though. There was no way he was going to let that out of the bag just yet. But he knew about Hole-in-the-Wall from the joint and didn’t think it was going to be a problem. Ray obviously did. He dug into his pocket and pulled out some wadded bills and change and counted it. Emil watched him and almost had to laugh.

  “I got a total of seventeen dollars and seventy-eight , cents.”

  He grabbed the lawyer lady’s purse out of her lap and flipped open her wallet and started counting the cash inside. She didn’t make any effort to stop him.

  “She’s got fifty-nine. Makes sixty-six, seventy-eight. What about you, Billy?”

  “Exactly twenty-five dollars. Exactly what I came out with—you and Emil being kind enough to entail me my drinks for free.”

  “That’s ninety-one, seventy-eight. Shit. Not even a hundred bucks. Emil? Maria?”

  “Marion.”

  “Marion, sorry. What’ve you got?”

  Emil pinched her nipple and she jumped and smiled, then reached over for her purse.

  “Forty-three dollars, fifty-two cents, hon.”

  “Okay, okay. Shit, forget the cents. Forty-three dollars. Forty-three dollars and ... what?”

  “I believe we were up to ninety-one, Ray. Ninety-one dollars, seventy-eight cents, when you bash your groupings,” said Billy.

  “Forget the seventy-eight cents, all right? Forget the goddamn cents! That’s ... one hundred thirty-four. Emil?”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Huh? Don’t worry about it? Jesus, Emil! We’re asking them to get us outa state here, you know? And so far we haven’t got fifty bucks apiece!”

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got plenty.”

  “You got plenty. Fine. What’s plenty?”

  “Your turn’s right here,” the lawyer said. “Road to your left, just ahead.”

  “Goddammit, Emil,” Ray said. “What the fuck’s plenty?”

  * * *

  She’d driven by one day, curious, but as an Officer of the Court and “Little” Harpe’s attorney of record, she’d been restricted from going any farther or seeing any more than she was seeing now—a wide dirt strip maybe twenty yards across cut through open, uncultivated fields on either side, rising up the slope of a mountain. No house in sight and no gate. No structures at all. But any approach observable from above.

  They drove slowly and in silence until they crested the hill and that was when the first guard appeared along the side of the road, a big man almost comically dressed in nightfighter makeup and combat gear, his assault rifle held at port arms. There was nothing comic about the rifle.

  “Slower, Billy,” said Emil. “Stop if he tells you to.” But he didn’t. He didn’t look interested in them at all. Didn’t even bother to wave them on.

  Nor did the second guard a quarter-mile up, the field narrowing around them by then, gradually being swallowed by scrub and pine.

  At the top of a rise, with dense forest pressing close now on either side, narrowing the road to a single lane funneling them up the mountain, she saw a third guard dressed in biker’s colors talking into his cell phone, saw him shove the phone into his utility belt and raise his automatic rifle. The guard checked their license plate but didn’t even glance at them.

  It was eerie. As though they didn’t matter.


  And maybe they didn’t.

  The road narrowed even more. The woods drew closer.

  At the top of another rise two more guards in military gear stood across from one another on either side of the road, one black man and one white. Each had a sleek black Doberman on a short leash.

  “I hate those doggies,” said Billy. He pronounced it dawgies.

  “Shut up,” said Emil. “Slow down.”

  Because this time the guards were stepping toward them. The men stopped and turned their flashlights into the car and then the black guard on Billy’s side motioned them on.

  “This is pretty fucking weird,” said Ray.

  Nobody contradicted him.

  The road sloped downward and narrowed yet further as though the woods were a fist closing in on them and at the bottom of the hill stood a tall bald black man in dark neatly pressed suit and tie with his hand raised and his assault rifle cradled in the crook of his arm. Billy stopped the car. The man walked over to his side, taking his time. He stooped and peered in, smiling.

  “Welcome to Hole-in-the-Wall, gentlemen,” he said.

  The man had no trace of an accent at all. The black man in the dark expensive suit was from Anywhere, U.S.A. Their welcoming committee. Very civilized. Uh- huh.

  “Directly on top of the next hill there. Can’t miss it.

  You can state your business to the gentleman at the bar. Have yourselves a pleasant evening.”

  He stepped aside and watched them pass and Janet turned and looked back.

  The man was following them on foot, his rifle slung over his shoulder, moving at a graceful, easy pace.

  * * *

  Marion thought, Humpty Dumpty.

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men, couldn’t put Humpty together again.

  It was something about the tree, something about the huge ancient solitary oak tree in front of the house— the mansion, really, Hole-in-the-Wall was a three-story, gabled, corniced, fucking bay-windowed porched-in old mansion, some hole! some joke!—something about that tree and the tire hanging from the chain that depended from a limb, the skeleton of a big openmouthed dog or maybe a wolf, the wolf-dog grinning, arranged seated on the tire with hind legs dangling, another fine joke, the four thick nooses swaying in the wind hanging from another limb higher up, the nooses not so funny, something about the tree had put that stupid old nursery rhyme into her mind.

  Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. ...

  A marching song. A drum cadence. Her dad had been VFW all the way. Dat-da-dat-da-dat-dat-dat-dat. . .

  As Marion herself marched along behind Emil, as l hey all did, past the hogs and pickups and Land Rovers and Jeeps and Mercedes and black stretch limos and Rollses. Marched up the stairs to the porch, the suited black guard with the rifle ambling along behind, dat-da- dat, to the dimly lit porch with heavy chains hanging from the eaves like a thick metal curtain, parting them, chains ringing in her ears like strange dull wind chimes and the scent of oil and metal on her hands as she touched them, stepping onto the porch hung with mobiles—inverted bone crosses and rusted knives and studded belts and weathered leather collars—where six wooden barrels filled with what looked like old automobile and motorbike parts stood in an orderly row to her left and a smashed-in Wurlitzer jukebox lay on its side to her right beside a broken plough propped up against the siding, its handles carved into knobbed human phalluses and flanked by two painted wooden signs— TREE FROG BEER and DWARF SNUFFING STATION NUMBER 103.

  Somebody around here’s got a real strange sense of humor, she thought.

  She saw Emil hesitate at the door and heard the black man behind them tell them to go on in, folks in his calm soft voice and so they did.

  They walked into a fucking party is what they did.

  She could feel her heart thud all of a sudden fast and heavy, making her tits tremble, was aware of her eyes going wide and her lips pulling up into a smile she had nothing to do with at all.

  Daddy, she thought, if you could see your little girl now. You’d be fucking floored by this.

  Beyond the heavy oak door was an enormous open space and the goddamn place was swarming. Motorbike headlights slung from the rafters handled the lighting, streaming down on them like spotlights. She saw bikers, skinheads, longhairs straight out of the goddamn Sixties, men in tuxes and women in gowns all mingling and laughing. She saw a male tattooed hand go to a female pearl-draped breast. She saw steroid freaks dressed for combat and guys naked and limp-dicked and emaciated all to hell. She saw martini glasses and Budweisers and joints and in the comer to her left, the sharp glitter of needles. She saw crude prison tattoos and elegant multiple piercings. They had weapons all over the place. Handguns in shoulder holsters. Shotguns and automatic rifles propped against the wall while their owners roamed and drank and did whatever the hell they were doing.

  The whole first floor had been completely gutted, the walls knocked down to expose rough support beams that reached twenty-five feet all the way to the ceiling—a ceiling draped and webbed thick with a canopy of chains. At intervals they dangled to the floor. Six feet or so up one of the support beams a naked brunette dangled too, suspended by ropes wrapped around her wrists and elbows. She looked drugged out of her fucking gourd and like she’d been up there quite a while. There were bloody welts along her tits and thighs and the blood was already drying. Everybody just ignored her.

  They moved through the crowd toward the bar, Emil first with her behind him and then Ray and then Billy behind Janet bringing up the rear. Some asshole head- banger music was pouring off the speakers. The floors were long wide slabs of polished hardwood, expensive as hell she bet. By contrast the bar was crude and cut of rough naked oak with the bark still attached where it wasn’t planed down smooth and it crawled the whole length of the room all the way to the open staircase in back like a living thing. The six beefy guys who were working it were dressed in formal white starched shirts and black ties. Directly across from the bar a fire blazed in an open stone grate cut into the wall like the huge open mouth of hell. It must have been over a dozen feet across. Considering its size it didn’t seem to throw much heat, just the smell of wood smoke.

  She guessed that on the air-conditioning bill alone this place could probably buy and sell her.

  She saw bright primitive murals on the walls, scenes she recognized right away from Revelations. Daddy? Momma? You’d just love this shit! The Dragon. The False Prophet. The Great Whore. The Beast. The Woman in Scarlet. Religion? In this joint? Between the murals meat hooks polished to a high sheen, dozens of them, substituted for what—in someplace less bizarre than this—might have been stuffed moose or deer or bobcat. Somebody’d painted the words BILGE RAT next to one of them. Under another, MEN ARE NECESSARY FOR THE GODS. Huh? Beside a third, the numbers 666. She sure as hell knew what that meant.

  Jesus, she thought, who are these people?

  She glanced back at Janet. Janet was looking decidedly twitchy and tense, eyes darting around the room as though she expected somebody to come out after her with a goddamn meat cleaver. Poor baby.

  Their bartender was a neatly dressed Jabba the Hut made flesh.

  “Heineken,” said Emil. “Five of ’em.”

  The bartender reached for the beers and popped them.

  “We need a car,” said Emil. “First we need a place to stay tonight and tomorrow we need a car.”

  The bartender shrugged. “You don’t get anybody too pissed off at you, you can stand right where you are till you drop dead or hell freezes over, whichever comes first. I could give a shit.”

  “What about the car? We need a car.”

  “You can pay? Got money?”

  “We can pay.”

  She wondered how much Emil did have. Billy and Ray seemed freaked about the whole money thing.

  She watched the bartender walk the length of the bar and stop in front of a black man who looked like the twin of the suited
guard who’d pointed them toward the house—right down to the shaved bullet-shaped head and the assault rifle slung across his shoulder. The bartender spoke to him and the man nodded and turned toward the staircase and the bartender waddled back to his post.

  “You’re Rothert, right?” he said.

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  “You’re the news tonight. Shot a cop. That gives you three whole minutes of glory. Enjoy yourself. I could give a shit.”

  She heard a sudden commotion behind them, raised voices and heavy footfalls and clanking, grating sounds and felt the crowd shift around her and turned and saw two big men in studded boots and leather pants and vests hauling a woman off the floor by a chain attached to a pulley twenty feet away. The woman wore police cuffs and nothing else and the look in her eyes was drugs and fear and then pain shooting through her wrists as the men tugged the chain through the pulley and she could see that somebody’d shaved her completely, both head and cunt too.

  They hauled her five feet or so off the ground and then slipped a link of the chain through a hook set into the floor and she hung there and the men were smiling and saying something to one another and then they weren’t smiling, they were all pissed off all of a sudden. With the pounding tide of music she couldn’t hear what it was they were saying but they were pissed off all right and the crowd was moving back in her direction even though some were laughing as though the two men arguing were the center of an oncoming twister.

  One guy had a short goatee kind of thing and the other didn’t but they were matched pretty well physically, she thought, big raw biceps and beer bellies so goddamn hard that when the bearded guy gut-punched the other she could hear it over the music like a basketball smashed down from a hoop. He doubled over and the man kicked him in the face and sprayed the crowd with blood and spit. The man went over backward and scrambled across the floor and came up with a length of chain, stood and started flailing, catching the bearded guy across the back and then the shoulders and then the head as he fell, going for the head over and over again—and the crowd was wild by then and so was she. She could barely fucking breathe. The bearded guy’s head was a mess but he must have had something amazing left inside him because his hand swung up from the floor and he took the other guy’s balls in his great big hand and squeezed. Then they were both rolling groaning along the floor.