Dead, the man was an anchor around my neck.
Alive? Better, although not much better.
I clicked the knife blade shut. 'Sit up and listen to me,' I said.
He gave a kind of shuddering sigh.
'Shut up. Drive back to the motel.'
It took him a full minute to get the car started. His coordination was gone. He drove like a sleepwalker, his face like yellow wax in the light from the street lamps, his eyes sneaking looks at me. The car bounced high as he turned too fast into the motel driveway. For a second I thought we might take out a unit before he hit the brake and we skidded to a stop.
I got out of the car, then motioned at him. 'Take off, man. Get lost.'
He stared at me suspiciously from behind the wheel. Was it a trick? It didn't take him long to decide if it was, that he still liked it better than where he'd been. He tramped on the accelerator, and his car hit the street doing forty-five, tires squealing in the night.
I watched him go.
Jimmy had been right up to the gates, and he knew it. Given his type, la-should head straight for his bed and stay there with the covers over his head for three days.
But I couldn't count on it.
Five minutes after his tail-lights winked out of the motel driveway. I was headed east again in the Ford.
III
In a way it was odd about that fat kid's family leaving town that time. Six years later it was my family who were going to leave.
The way it happened was like getting struck by lightning.
I was eighteen, in my senior year in high school. It was late in the spring, and after a succession of chill, rainy days we'd finally caught a hot one. I had my sweater over my arm when I came out the school's back entrance and cut through the parking lot on my way home. I saw four policemen standing in the middle of the lot, and I wondered what they were doing there.
I knew one of them, Harry Coombs, and I nodded as I passed the group. He said something to the others, and the biggest one, who had been standing with his back to me, turned around to look. 'You,' he said to me. 'Come over here.'
I went over to them. I knew who the big one was without really knowing him. His name was Edwards, and he was a sergeant. He was a beefy type with thinning red hair. I didn't like him. No good reason. His voice was too loud. He took up too much of the sidewalk when he swaggered by. Things like that.
He looked me up and down when I stood in front of him. 'What d'you know about hubcaps missing from the faculty cars three times a week?' he demanded. He looked hot and uncomfortable, still in his winter uniform.
'I don't know anything about it,' I answered him. And I didn't, except what I'd been hearing in school assemblies for the last month.
The lower lip in his red face swelled pugnaciously. 'Harry says you spend enough time in this parking lot to tell us what's going on,' he continued aggressively.
'I said I see him going through here on his way home from school most days!' Coombs cut in.
Edwards paid him no attention. 'Well?' he said to me.
'You think whoever's doing it waits for me to come by so I can see them?' I was mad. 'Or maybe you think I'm doing it?'
'I'll ask the questions,' he snapped, scowling. 'What's your name?' I told him. I was liking him less and less every second. 'Now you know you must've seen what's been goin' on out here.' He said it almost coaxingly. 'Who are you covering up for?'
I looked at Harry Coombs to see if Edwards was kidding. Coombs looked away uncomfortably. 'Look, you can't mean it,' I said finally. 'I don't—'
'Answer the question!' he roared.
I started to walk away. Edwards grabbed me by the arm. I've always hated having people put their hands on me. I jerked my arm out of his hand. He probably outweighed me three to one, but I caught him on the wrong foot. He staggered sideways two or three paces. His red face looked bloated.
My sweater had fallen from my arm, and I stooped to pick it up. Edwards kicked me, hard. I went over and down, flat, skinning my palms on the parking lot cinders.
I scrambled up and went after him, the hate of the world in my heart. Harry Coombs clamped me in a smothering bear hug before I could reach Edwards. Coombs kept muttering in my ear, but I was struggling so hard I couldn't hear what he was saying. I kept yelling at Coombs to lei me pi, my head twisted over my shoulder. I never even saw Edwards when he stepped up and slapped me heavily In the lace.
'Goddammit, Sarge!' Coombs said angrily. His grip on me relaxed, then tightened again when I lunged forward.
'Shut up, you!' Edwards barked at him. 'This is a wise guy. We'll take him down to the station and talk to him.'
'Then take him down yourself,' Coombs said. He released me. 'I'm on duty on the beat here.'
'You're on duty where I tell you you're on duty, Coombs,' Edwards warned. 'Get him in the patrol car, an' get in yourself.' The sergeant clumped heavily back to the other two officers who had been standing by silently.
It was only by an effort of will that I kept my hand away from my smarting face. Don't fight it, I told myself. I walked toward the cruiser parked in a corner of the lot. Harry Coombs tramped along beside me, muttering under his breath.
The five of us rode downtown. I never said a word. Inside the police station a cop who had previously taken no part took my arm and led me to a door opening on two steel cells with cement floors. He motioned me inside.
Even a couple of years later I'd have known they were just trying to scare me. Nobody goes into a cell without a charge against him. A session in an interrogation room would have been the correct thing. But I didn't know. I took it seriously.
I looked around inside the cell. There was a steel cot without even a blanket. Nothing else. The policeman didn't close the cell door, but he closed the outside door. I got a good look at his face before he went out.
I sat down on the cot and tried to get myself organized. I knew they'd be coming in. I didn't feel worried, just mad. Edwards' tactics infuriated me, and I knew I would get that big sonofabitch some day if it was the last thing I ever did. And if I could do it today, so much the better.
I stood up quickly when the outside door opened. It was Harry Coombs. He closed the door and stood with his back to it. 'Listen, kid,' he said hurriedly. 'I got through to him finally that you're no juvenile delinquent. He don't think so much of himself right now, but when he comes in here he's got to make a little noise to justify himself. Get smart. Agree with him. Do what he says, y'hear?' I looked at him. 'Ahhhhhh, you're as thick-headed as he is,' Coombs growled. He opened the door and walked out.
I took off my shoes and put them on the steel cot beside me, then stretched out on my back. I stared up at the ceiling that was covered by misty-looking cracks. Do what Edwards told me? Not a chance. Not a bloody fucking chance. If he was on a hook because of me, he'd stay there (ill his liver and lungs rotted for all the help I'd give him.
I sat up when the outer door opened again. Three of them filed into the cell, Edwards in the lead. I didn't know the names of the other two, but by now I knew their faces. Harry Coombs wasn't with them. I sat there and watched them enter.
'Let's hear the answers to a few questions now,' Edwards began. His voice was rough. He looked the same, his red face as shiny as ever, but even disregarding what Coombs had said he didn't sound the same. His voice said
