THE WHISKY BURNS his throat, but it isn’t numbing him. Not enough. The police chief at the wheel of his car has her eyes on the road. Roger feels the blood course through his veins boiling hot, and then it abruptly recedes somewhere, leaving his fingertips ice-cold. The monotonous wooded landscape racing past outside the window, the absolute ennui of snowy conifers, is making him nauseous. He is burning with the impulse to take his driver up on her offer and ask her to pull over. He wants to sprint into the forest, to plunge between the trees like a waterbird diving into a weed-choked pond. He wants to disappear in that nondescript mire, to press himself to the earth, to bury himself in the snow. He wants to drift off into hibernation like a bear, giving no thought to the upcoming spring.
It’s his fault. He has murdered Maria. The thought releases something inside him. He feels the tears stream down his cheeks and his mouth twist up in inconsolable weeping. He has achieved everything he ever wanted: literary success and a beautiful wife waiting for him in a big house on the water. But now it all feels final, as if he was living and writing for Maria alone, living through her reactions, seeing himself from her perspective. Admiring himself from wherever Maria was standing at any given moment. And now Maria is gone. For good.
Did he love her? Maybe. At least in his own way. He was prepared to make sure she lacked for nothing. Was that love, or had Roger just been keeping his aquarium clean and his fish fed? He doesn’t know the answer, and that makes him feel a strangling guilt. And now it’s too late to find out; lost happiness will gild his memories forever.
A big truck drives past them. The car rocks; the automatic windshield wipers wave for a second like hands at a rock concert. The car is only six weeks old. Or new. Every single detail down to the accessories and the leather upholstery was carefully selected last year. But it doesn’t smell like a new beginning anymore. It smells like death. It’s like a casket being drawn by 340 horses.
“Turn them off, goddamn it.”
“What?” Roger asks with a sniffle, and raises the bottle to his lips.
The police chief glances in the rearview mirror. A bright light is blazing through the car’s rear window. “That car behind us has its high beams on,” she says, then flips her rearview mirror down.
Roger wipes the corner of his eye on his sleeve, glances over his shoulder, and is instantly blinded.
“Goddamn . . . ,” Roger mutters, and quickly turns back around. He’s seen enough to know the car is only a few dozen meters away.
A moment later, the car’s lights dim.
“And now they’re going to pass us,” the police chief says to herself, both hands clenching the steering wheel.
Roger looks over as the car pulls up alongside them. The police chief has decelerated; they’re not even going eighty now, but the car doesn’t pass. Roger sees the hood of an SUV gliding along steadily, keeping pace with the rear window of the Audi.
“What the hell is he doing?” The police chief at the wheel turns to shoot a flinty look out her window. There’s a portable blue light in the passenger seat. It’s hooked up and ready to use; the police chief brought it along just in case. The bullshit in the car driving next to them would come to a quick stop if she turned it on.
Roger glances at the console; their speed has dropped to seventy. The SUV is a shadow; it clings to them like a sidecar. The long stretch of road opening up before them is deserted.
The detective’s fingers grope for the portable police light. She lifts it up to the dash and turns it on. A band of blue light licks the windows of the vehicle dogging them from the side. And then the rear window of the SUV rolls down. The mini bottle of whisky slips from Roger’s fingers. He recognizes the thin face staring out of the open window, the question formed by the black maw gaping at its center.
Are you afraid of what you write?