The challenge was keeping his attention on the here-and-now, concentrate purely on what he needed to do. But he kept being taken on these little mental detours, a helpless observer of the fact that if he’d played things differently, he’d still be in Jordan’s apartment, in her bed: at or near the zenith of modern urban comfort. He wasn’t sure if it was an evolutionary flaw, the fact he was in this much peril and still being distracted by what might’ve been, or if there was some existential benefit to unconscious musing: remind him every so often of what was at stake, and thereby encourage survival.
He watched his window. Route 4 became Route 208. Beyond the highway’s shelterbelt of trees, he caught glimpses of suburbia, low and undistinguished, everything homogenized by nighttime. Small, bright nodes of commerce at the highway interchanges. Motels and gas stations and diners. Businesses catering to the long-hauler.
At Franklin Lakes, Route 208 turned into Interstate 287, easing them westward. They stayed on it for a mile or so, and then Benny took an offramp, curling them under the highway and into a northbound sideroad.
Nine miles to go, according to the GPS.
Forest country. Headlights flashed past southbound, one pair and then another, and then they were alone, tunneling into a darkness that felt total and uncharted, the SUV like some wayward satellite, hurtling without end.
Eight miles.
Eight minutes, Marshall guessed.
Close enough, they might decide there was no point stopping.
So do it now or don’t bother.
He slumped against his door. Nothing ahead except the empty road, the dashed centerline a steady Morse Code through the spill of headlights and the carriageway seeming to hover on shadow, ditches running parallel to either side. He jerked upright, wild-eyed and panicked, as if overcome by something hideous, and he saw in Benny’s backward glance an expression of equal horror: the horror of knowing that something bad was going to happen to his car.
‘No, no, no. The window, the window—’
The glass was coming down, more than enough room now to stick his head out of the car.
But he didn’t.
He retched and convulsed, leaned forward, and released the mouthful of bloody spit he’d been building for the past twenty minutes. The wet slap of contact with the floor was clear and unmistakable, even above Benny’s shouting – ‘Shit, no, no, no, no, no’ – and he fell hard against the seat in front of him as they braked, the SUV coming to a halt on the right-hand shoulder, fishtail and smoke and a squeal.
‘Get him out, get him out, get him out—’
Marshall swayed, summoned a shocked look, as if gut contents were on the rise once more, and Benny shouted again for him to use the window. Marshall collapsed forward, made a gagging noise that was barely audible amidst Chris and Benny’s shouting:
‘You didn’t want to stop, you get him out. Get him out of my car, or you fucking tell Lynette—’
‘We’re almost there, just drive—’
‘Dude, get him out of my car.’
‘Motherfucker—’
‘Fuck you—’
‘Fuck you—’
He heard Chris’s door open and then slam as he jumped out, and Marshall knew he had five or six seconds to get this right. He rose as best he could in the confines of the cabin, standing hunchbacked with his head and shoulders crushed to the roof, tortuously awkward with his hands cuffed behind him. He heard Benny say, ‘Hey, get down – sit down,’ not seeing it yet.
Chris was coming around the back of the car, grit-crunch of footsteps, three seconds maybe from opening Marshall’s door. With a desperate off-balance lurch, he got his right foot and then the left up on the seat cushion. He stumbled briefly, head and torso flat against the roof, turned to face the open window like some strange and wingless bird: legs a shaky A-frame, cuffed hands cocked oddly behind him like a stump of tailfeather.
Benny seemed to get it now, realizing that such urgent and decisive motion was not commensurate with a state of limp and feeble nausea. He shouted again for Marshall to get down, and then called for Chris to wait.
But it was all happening too fast, and with Chris no doubt running hot from the argument, the shout probably sounded like one more pejorative, rather than a warning. He was right there now, standing by the rear tire, and Marshall heard the thunk of the outside handle, and then the door began to open.
Marshall crouched lower and stepped forward, saw the surprise come into the man’s face at the unexpected scene: Benny looking panicked back across his shoulder, and Marshall up on the seat.
Chris had the gun in his right hand, but aimed at the ground – arm lowered to accommodate the swing of the door. His instincts were fine: he brought the weapon up as he stepped back, trying to give himself more space as he lined up a target, but Marshall was already in motion, scything with his left leg, a swing-kick on a wide, savage radius.
It was a clumsy move: poor stance, poor visibility, poor balance, but the one redeeming factor was the open window, giving him a broader sweep, rotational momentum he wouldn’t have otherwise achieved. He caught Chris on the point of the chin with the instep of his boot, and saw his jaw shunt back a full three inches. The gun was still thirty degrees below level, and the shock of impact made him squeeze off a round, the scene glimpse-lit by the flash, roadside trees in black and yellow.
Marshall jumped down from the rear seat onto the roadside, off-balance in the dark, adrenaline and desperation keeping him upright, a vague man-shape ahead, teetering, on the cusp of a fall. Marshall kicked him again, a groin impact this time that doubled the guy over, kicked him a third time, a vicious blow summoned up out of fear and fury. He heard the guy wheeze, but didn’t stop, couldn’t afford to stop. Again, again, again, and the man went headfirst on his back into the roadside ditch. A metallic skitter as the gun followed likewise.
Benny was still behind the wheel of the SUV, and Marshall heard him shouting – ‘Chris, Chris!’ – and then something else that was lost as the engine revved and the vehicle took off, tires spitting road gravel and the rear door flapping closed with the boost, a flash of headlights as another car went past in the opposite direction.
Marshall slid down the bank of the ditch, careful to keep his feet. Chris was supine and groaning.
‘Where’s the key? Where’s the handcuff key?’
The guy was trying to feel for the gun, moving his arms feebly like a ditchwater snow angel. Marshall heard the scrub of locked tires, looked up to see the SUV skid-stop on the shoulder, two hundred yards away. The dome light came on as Benny jumped out, and Marshall saw him open the rear door of the truck.
‘Key. Where’s the key?’
Chris said, ‘Nnnh.’ Still learning to talk with a broken jaw and a three-inch overbite.
Marshall crouched by his head, straddling it with a foot at each ear, and with his cuffed hands grabbed the guy by the ponytail.
‘Nnnh! Nnnh!’
He eased himself vertical, jaw clenched with the effort, breath hissing in his teeth. On the road to his right, he heard a door slam. He looked toward the noise, saw the SUV’s rear taillight vanish briefly as Benny passed in front of it. Another door slam as he got in behind the wheel. Marshall sucked air, huge frantic gulps, and then surged toward the road-side bank of the ditch, dragging the guy with him. Legs burning as he made the climb, slow-motion agony. Every fiber at its white-hot limit. He yelled with effort, and got a foot up onto the roadway. To his right in the distance, the SUV’s lights were sawing back and forth across the width of the road as Benny tried to get himself turned around.
Marshall stood there gasping, willing more out of muscles that had already given him everything. The guy was wet with ditchwater, but the gain in weight felt exponential. It was like trying to haul a parachute full of sand. He gave himself a final standing lungful, head pounding to his heartbeat, and then he leaned forward like a mountaineer attacking the last hundred feet of Everest, and ran with everything he had.
When he reached the far shoulder, he kept going, down into the roadside ditch, and with a crazy, frantic burst of effort, he powered himself up the far side, the broken and catatonic cargo dragging behind him, Marshall panting and spitting foam like a flogged racehorse. Ten feet beyond the far bank, his legs wobbled and gave out.
He fell to his knees, hunched and gasping, as if in penitence to the forest before him. Shadows forming now, shadows from headlights, growing more distinct as the SUV’s engine in turn grew louder. White glare behind him, and long stripes of tree-shadow stretching off into the depths, everything rotating about its respective tree-axis as the car approached. Dark spokes turning about some terrible and awesome fulcrum.
The car halted, and everything went still.
‘Key. Give me the damn key …’
The guy called Chris gaped and said nothing.
Marshall turned and felt blindly with his cuffed hands. He heard a door open and then slam, and then another car went past on the road behind him: the same twirling shadow pattern, but briefer.
‘Come on, come on. Where is it?’
Wallet in his right trouser pocket.
Phone in his left pocket.
He glanced behind him toward the road, saw a flashlight beam twitching left and right, scouring the far shoulder.
‘Chris! … Chris!’
The guy’s coat pockets were zippered. Marshall found the tab for the side pocket, tugged it down gently.
Nothing but lint. He worked his way north and found a breast pocket, tugged the zipper down.
And found two handcuff keys on a split ring.
Benny was down in the far ditch now. Marshall ran crouched, deeper into the trees. Awkward and lurching, like some lab-cooked humanoid, making its escape. Twenty feet, thirty. The night air freezing and piney.
He dropped to his knees in the pitch-black lee of a gnarled trunk, searched by touch for the lock barrel on the left handcuff bracelet.
There.
Shiver-fingers lining up the key.
One stab. Two. Three.
Come on.
Fourth stab. A scrape of metal as the key sunk home, and then a click that unlocked more than just the bracelet: adrenaline, elation. He rose to his feet and unlocked the second bracelet as he walked, moving parallel to the road, the SUV off on his right. He saw the twitch-motion of Benny’s flashlight crest the far ditch and then come across the road to Marshall’s side.
‘Chris! Chris, what the fuck? Where are you?’
Marshall paused at the tree line.
He breathed deeply, evenly. Calmer now. He watched the torch sweeping wide arcs, way off to his right. Marshall crossed the ditch, far less demanding without a passenger, and then walked across the road. Invisible in the dark. Benny’s torchlight sweeps still frantic, but safely distant. Marshall slipped into the tree line on the far side and worked his way back in the direction of the stopped SUV, red taillights guiding him. He knew he wasn’t far from where they’d first pulled over, and that meant he wasn’t far from where Chris had dropped the gun.
He stood still and scanned the length of the ditch below the car. Nothing. He hadn’t built up the night vision. He crouched and waited for it to sharpen, the torchlight still flicking randomly on the opposite side of the road, Benny calling Chris’s name.
Marshall waited, silent, safe in the trees. He heard Benny say, ‘Shit,’ and then the flashlight went out. Darkness for a second, two, and then light began to filter between the trees, an accelerated dawn as another pair of headlights came along the road, soft note of tires growing louder. Marshall didn’t move. He could see now where Chris had fallen: scour marks in the bank from where he’d been dragged up onto the road, patterns richly textured in the glare. He scanned the ditch again, alert for any hint of gleam.
And there was the gun, ten feet away, just lying in the mud.
The shadow-motion slowed and then went still as the car came to a halt up on the road, level with the parked SUV.
Muted purr of an electric window, glass descending.
‘Everything OK?’
Benny said, ‘Oh, yeah … I, ah.’
The sound of the idling motor was low and smooth and patient, like the car could sit there all night until the man offered up a decent story.
Benny said, ‘I saw a dog run in front of me, I’m worried I might’ve hit it.’
‘You need some help?’
‘No, no. I’m fine. I’m just looking around. I don’t think … I just want to make sure. I’m hoping it got away clean. I’m pretty sure it did …’
Engine noise.
Then: ‘All right … take care.’
By the time the car had pulled away, Marshall had retrieved the SIG and climbed up the bank and onto the road. He laid the gun across the warm hood of the SUV and sighted in. Not easy in the dark. It was all guesswork. Benny’s flashlight was back on, the beam skitting left-right in the trees.
Not long now.
‘Holy shit. How’d you get over here? Chris! Oh man, oh shit. Where is he? Chris? Where is he? Oh man …’
He kept saying it as he scrambled up the bank toward the road – oh man, oh man, oh man.
Marshall waited, focused on his breathing, making it gun-ready. Nice slow heartbeat. He sensed the quiver-pause rhythm of the muzzle, matching his body tremors. He saw the man’s head crest the top of the bank, and then his torso came into view. The flashlight was underslung on the barrel of what looked to be a ten-gauge Ithaca shotgun. Marshall let him get all the way up onto the road, and then shot him twice in the chest. Trees in prickly visage with each flash. He came out from behind the hood of the SUV and stood for a moment looking down at Benny, lifeless and crumpled in the bottom of the ditch. Visible in dead repose by the glow of his own flashlight.
Marshall slid down the gravel incline and picked up the shotgun, used the flashlight on the barrel to find his way back over to Chris, half-hidden beyond the tree line. His phone and wallet were lying where Marshall had left them. He put the wallet in his coat pocket and picked up the phone. It wanted a fingerprint for access.
He tried Chris’s index finger. No good. The device shivered in rebuke. He tried the guy’s thumb.
The imagery refreshed, and brought up the home screen.
Marshall opened the history, found the call Chris had made from the car, when they’d first picked him up. No name attached to it.
He held the screen by the guy’s face.
Chris said, ‘Nyuh …’
‘Is this Frank’s number? Frank Cifaretti? Look at it.’
He could see he wasn’t going to have much luck. The guy’s focus was about ten miles away.
‘Help …’
Marshall said, ‘What were you going to do to me? Once you’d driven me out here?’
No answer. A car went past, nightmare shadows through the trees. Then dark and quiet again, no sound except the guy’s breathing, shallow sips of air, rapid and feeble.
Marshall said, ‘Yeah, I thought so.’
He put the SIG in his belt and picked up the shotgun and walked back to the road.