The Passenger (3 page)

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
forward, 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.