The Passenger Read Online Free Page B

open the door
and there it was, tumbling out onto the scruffy grass in front of him. He
picked it up. Pointed it at the cop. The cop was mopping blood out of his eyes
with his fingers.
    “Head wounds,” Emil said. “They’re a
bitch.”
    Marion watched him pull the cop from his
car and drop him to the ground. She knew it was a cop because she’d registered
the cherry. Her tits hurt like hell from the steering wheel but otherwise she
was fine. Poor Janet seemed to have bumped her head. Poor Janet wasn’t moving.
She just lay back in her seat with her head lolling and except for the nasty
cut across her forehead you’d have thought she was sleeping.
    Well, she’d said she was exhausted.
    She saw the three men surround the cop
and the gun glint in the moonlight and then heard him howl and yelp as the
smaller of the men began kicking him in the shoulders, in the legs and ribs.
She could hear muffled voices.
    She watched all this with interest.
    Then the man with the gun looked up,
looked directly at her. Stared at her in fact, directly into her eyes.
    Marion looked right back.
    Behind them she saw headlights coming up
fast, bathing them all in light. She watched the three men freeze, trapped
there beating on a wounded cop for godsakes should the driver decide to play
Angel of Mercy and stop. The car slowed, the curve of the road throwing its
lights on her too for a moment. Then it accelerated and moved on. She realized
she’d been holding her breath all the while.
    “ What ...
?”
    Beside her Janet was moving, pressing her
hand to her forehead, aware of the wetness there and looking down into her
glistening hand.
    “Shhhh,” she said.
    “What...?”
    “Shut up.”
    The man with the gun had returned his
focus to the cop. She saw the little guy kick him in the ribs again and heard
him cry out and then moan and she guessed that got Janet’s attention too.
    “Marion . . .” she said.
    “I told you to shut up.”
    “Marion, get us out of here!”
    But by then the man had raised the gun to
the cop’s head and she watched and saw him fire and heard the flat report of
the gun, felt its impact deep within her, and the cop jerked to the side and
rolled over on his back and lay there and the man looked up and over at her
again and she looked back.
    “My god, will you get us out of here?”
    “We’re fine. Relax.”
    And they were fine, she knew that, but she guessed Janet didn’t believe her because she
turned and reached for the door handle and Marion had to grab her by the arm and
haul her back.
    “You try to leave here and they’ll see
you. And you’ll be dead. You get that? Look. Watch.”
    They were piling into the Jeep. The man
with the gun was trying to key the ignition but all he was getting was a
metallic grind. Obviously the cop’s car was useless— there was smoke pouring
out from under the hood. She could see the two men in back were starting to
panic now, could hear their voices raised and the little one hopping up and
down in his seat and then the driver turned and looked at her a third time.
    That was when she smiled.
    The man stared back, expressionless.
    “Oh
my god, ” Janet
whispered beside her.
    Then her hands were at the glove
compartment, Bloody palms pounding at the button, leaving bloody palm prints
all over the thing. The compartment popped open and she pushed the pint bottle
aside and groped for the gun. Marion waited until she had it out waving around
in front of her and then reached over and simply wrenched it from her slippery
hands.
    “ Unh-unh ,”
she said. “Nope. Not today you don’t.”
    She leaned out the window.
    “Guys!”
    At first they just sat there watching
her. Then she turned the ignition key and the car fired up nice and easy, so
she backed away from the tree and shifted and pulled forward to the roadside
and waited.
    The driver got out first and started
across the street. The others followed. And that was when Janet went for the door again so she had to whack