56

Through the windshield of his car, Pasquale watched the cop cross the parking-lot of the shopping mall. The guy had a slight limp. He was hurrying in an odd hip-hop fashion.

Pasquale drove slowly in the cop’s general direction, then braked. The cop vanished between a line of parked cars a moment and Pasquale, tapping his fingers on the wheel, waited for the guy to step back out into full view. He didn’t like this situation, this waiting, all these shoppers going about their business. Waiting frayed his edges.

The cop re-emerged between a parked camper with a bumper-sticker saying DIVERS DO IT DEEPER, and a flashy new pick-up truck painted in blue and burgundy streaks. Pasquale remembered he’d had a bumper-sticker one time with Bruce Springsteen’s face on it and an electric guitar. An old Camaro he’d owned when he was nineteen. Nice car. Babes liked it. Not like this one he was presently driving. This car was a total fuck-me embarrassment. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d want acquaintances to see him cruise around in.

He watched the cop pat the pockets of his jacket like he was looking for something. Shoppers walked in front of the car. One little kid stared at him and made a face, poking his ugly nose out of shape with a middle finger and pulling down the flesh under both eyes.

Pasquale rolled the window down. ‘Your face’ll stay that way, asshole.’

The kid flipped him a finger, then skipped away. Brat. Pasquale revved the engine. The cop was in open space, a bunch of keys in his hand, and Pasquale pressed his foot down on the gas pedal.

Go. This is your best chance.

The cop seemed oblivious to the car. He was elsewhere, wrapped up in his thoughts.

One hit, Pasquale thought.

He was a couple of hundred feet from the cop, who was still unaware of the car bearing down on him. It’s gonna be one of those last second things, Pasquale thought, the cop raising his face just before impact, fear and surprise thundering through him when it was too late to take evasive action.

Pasquale floored the gas pedal.

The cop turned. His face had a stricken look, like this was all some kind of mistake or a sequence in a very bad dream.

You’re not dreaming, buster.

The car struck the cop and tossed him in the air, and Pasquale felt the crack of impact and saw the guy tossed to one side, plaid jacket open and flapping in a draught of air, glittering coins falling from his pockets, a clutch of keys seeming to hang like a small silver kite.

In his rear-view mirror Pasquale saw the cop land on his side and roll over and then – holy shit! – he was raising himself up on one knee. His jacket was covered in blood and he was shaking his head in a dazed, pained way, clutching his arm, which had to be broken because it was bent at a weird angle, and his mouth hung open and contorted.

A fuck-up, Pasquale thought. Big time. He stuck the car into reverse. No other way to do this, Bruno. He tightened his grip on the wheel and zoomed backwards fast, before the cop had a chance to react, and he heard the crunch of the rear wheels against the cop’s body and the car rose a foot, suspension swaying, exhaust discolouring the air. He kept backing up, and then when he’d driven the front wheels over the cop he stuck the gear into first and rolled quickly over the guy again.

He looked in the rear-view mirror.

The cop wasn’t moving now. He was lying there in sunlight and blood.

Pasquale hammered the car forwards and screeched across the lot and out into the street. It was two miles before he felt he’d covered enough distance from the shopping mall and it was safe to pull over. He parked in a street of tract homes and sat motionless, his breathing heavy.

He noticed a streak of blood on the lower right-hand corner of his windshield, a dark smear already drying in the hot air, and when his phone began to ring he let it go unanswered for a time, because it could only be Dansk checking how things had gone. Dansk, always Dansk.

He picked it up on the tenth ring.

It wasn’t Dansk and it wasn’t McTell.

It was a guy he’d never heard before, a guy with a deep cracked voice and a wild hack of a cough.