The Passenger by Jack Ketchum Read Free Book Online Page B

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