Just as the cab of the truck ran ahead of me, I slammed on the Subaru’s brakes. Thrown forward, bracing myself stiff-armed against the wheel, I watched the truck lurch into the right lane. The driver, perhaps half expecting the crunch of mass slamming into mass, nearly lost control. The truck wobbled, swayed from left to right a moment, right to left, and then at last straightened out.
But by then I’d stopped the Subaru, cut the ignition, whipped up the emergency brake, snatched the .38 from the passenger seat, opened the door, jumped out, and braced both forearms against the top of the window, the pistol aimed at his gate.
I hadn’t been able to read his license plate; the light was out.
The truck raced away, down the hill, its red taillights shrinking, shrinking, and then disappearing around a bend. The sound of its engine slowly faded into the silence of the trees.
I let out a breath and turned and sagged down into the seat, my feet still on the road, my arms on my thighs, the Smith dangling loosely in my right hand. I was soaked with sweat.
It didn’t have to be someone trying to kill me. It could have been some local cowboy, annoyed that I wouldn’t let him overtake and pass.
But he’d cut back into the right lane while I was supposed to be in it.
Maybe he was drunk. Maybe he misjudged the lane change.
I didn’t really believe that the driver had been a drunken cowboy. But I was trying to persuade my body that I did, because my body was absolutely horrified at the thought that someone might set out, deliberately, to end our existence.
It was a drunken cowboy.
It was someone who wanted to kill us.
Both of us realized, simultaneously, that the station wagon and I were sitting in the middle of the right lane of the highway. Where another drunken cowboy, coming down from the ski basin, would very likely kill us.
I swung my legs into the car, pulled the door shut. Wedged the pistol down against the cushion again. Put the stick in neutral. Turned on the ignition. Fastened the seat belt. Released the emergency brake. Checked the rearview mirror. Took another deep breath. And then set off down the road, slowly, driving like a rickety old man.
He wanted to kill us!
Shut up. We’re still alive. Drive.
He got me just at the end of the straight, where the road arched off to the left. I went back up there later, and I worked it out. He must have spun around, turned off his lights, driven back to the turn, parked it. He must have left the truck, its engine running, and bolted back to the road to watch for my approach. Probably he saw the car sitting there, immobile. Probably he saw it start moving. Then he must have run back to the truck, climbed in, and waited till the brightening glow from my headlights told him that the time was right.
From my left, suddenly, a pair of headlights flared brilliant white, blinding me as they rushed directly toward the car. I jerked the wheel to the right, knew instantly that this was a mistake, felt the Subaru stagger as it snapped the retaining post. The car lifted itself off the road and then it tilted to the right and then the right front wheel slammed down onto something and then the car was spinning over, left to right, and it seemed to keep spinning forever, over and over, like a Ferris wheel in hell.
“This baby’s got everything,” Ernie told me. “Look at this. You got your AM, you got your FM, you got your C.D., you got your cassette. You got your amp, you got your graphics equalizer. You got speakers like you wouldn’t believe. Monsters. What kinda music you listen to, Josh?”
“Lawrence Welk.”
“The accordion guy? Yeah? Well, I tell you, Josh, it’s amazing, a system like this. You’re sitting in the car and it’s like you’re actually sitting inside Lawrence Welk’s accordion.”
One of life’s cherished dreams fulfilled.
The car in which we sat, me in the driver’s seat, Ernie to my right, was a three-year-old Jeep Cherokee. Ernie was my height, bulkier in the shoulders, chest, and stomach. White haired and white bearded, he was wearing a gray down jacket that made him look like the Michelin man, and he and the coat were stuffed into the bucket seat like a pillow into a shoebox. Even though the seat was shoved all the way back, the interior of the car seemed cramped.
“Look at this,” Ernie said. “You got your air. You got your cruise control. You got your rear window wiper, you got your rear window heater. This baby’s got it all.”
“How big is the engine, Ernie?”
“Four liters. Hey it’s not a Maserati. We’re not talking Formula One here. But this baby can move. In two-wheel, it’ll keep up with just about anything on the road. In four-wheel, it’ll take you up and down the craters of the moon. And power? Whoa! The winch? Up front? You hook that sucker to the Empire State Building and you turn it on, and I bet you that damn building comes down on top of you.”
A new dream to cherish.
“Does it run?” I asked him.
“Does it run? Josh, this baby runs like a goddamn sewing machine. Go ahead. Turn it on.”
I reached forward, winced, turned on the ignition, winced again.
“You okay, Josh? You’re looking a little peakéd.”
“I’m okay.”
“Rough night last night, huh?”
“Kind of.”
I didn’t pass out while the Subaru was careening through the air. I noted with a mild, detached interest everything that happened. Centrifugal force ripping at my body, pulling me in every direction at once. The insane spin of the car as it wheeled through the air on its horizontal axis, left to right. The series of deafening crashes as it rolled. The final crash as it hit something, punching my left side against the door, knocking my breath away.
It became clear to me, after a while, that Movement had stopped.
But the engine was still running. How could that be?
I watched my hand reach out, reach out, out, out, to the end of the known universe, and turn off the ignition. That was good, I remember thinking. But the dashboard lights were off now. Was that good? I didn’t know.
It was good, yes, because now I could smell gasoline. Don’t light any matches, I told myself. Idiot. You don’t have any matches. You don’t smoke.
Something was strange here.
I realized that I was upside down.
That wasn’t so good …
If I was upside down, let me see, if I was upside down, then the road should be that way, to my right. Does that make sense? Sure, the road was off to my right, so all I had to do was get out of the car and walk in that direction. Which would be left, then. Or would it? Left or right? Which was right? He got left because he couldn’t tell right from left. Right from wrong. Left, right, left, right, company halt …
Why am I not breathing well?
Because you’re upside down, you idiot. The seat belt harness is digging into your chest.
Well, that’s not good. Maybe I should do something …
What if I can’t do anything! What if I’m paralyzed?
Check it out. Right arm. Okay. Left arm. Okay. Right leg. Okay. Left leg. Okay.
Nothing broken. No blood. Everything’s fine.
Except that I’m upside down.
With both hands I reached up and felt for the roof. It seemed much closer to my head than it was supposed to be, only an inch or so away. And it was lumpy in strange places, and there was something scattered all over it—clicking, clattering chips of something.
Glass. A window must have shattered. I reached out to check the window to my left. My hand went through empty air until it hit cold damp snow. I realized, abruptly, that I felt cold and damp myself.
I looked at the windshield. It was still there, but in the faint glow of starlight on snow I saw that it was cobwebbed with fractures.
Time to get out of here.
Okay. Here’s the plan. You brace yourself with your left elbow against the roof. Get to the seat belt with your right hand. Tuck in your head. Unbuckle the belt. Then, like a stone, you fall.
Before I could put a
ll this into operation, a bright light started flickering at me, off to my right.
“Hey. Hey, you okay in there?”
Paul Chang?
I reached over to the passenger seat, groped around for the gun.
It wasn’t there.
“Hey, mister,” came the voice. Suddenly a flashlight beam lanced through the passenger window, directly into my eyes. “You okay in there?”
The passenger window was gone, too.
“Yeah,” I said. “Could you get that light out of my eyes?”
He did, whoever he was.
“Thank God,” he said. “I thought you were a goner. I saw that truck coming at you and then you went off the road and started cartwheeling. Jesus! You are one lucky man, mister.”
“Where’s the truck?”
“The sonovabitch took off. I couldn’t believe it! Just backed up and turned around and headed down the hill. The sonovabitch! I never saw anything like it! He came right at you, deliberately!”
My head, saturated with down-rushing blood, felt as big as a basketball. “You think—”
“What’s this world coming to? Jesus, mister, your car is totaled!” There was a kind of awe in his voice, almost religious.
“You think you could come around and help me get out of here?” I said.
“I don’t think you should move, mister. That’s what they say. You don’t move an accident victim. I already called the cops on the car phone and they’re on their way. Be here any minute. An ambulance, too. Judy, that’s the wife, she’s up there waiting. She’ll send them right down.”
As though she’d heard her name mentioned, a woman called out from somewhere far away, “Roger? Are you all right down there?”
“I’m fine, hon!” the man called out. “He’s okay, I think!”
“Roger,” I said.
The flashlight blinded me. I shut my eyes and turned away. I realized that my neck hurt.
The beam swung off my face. “Sorry,” he said.
“Roger, it’s probably become pretty obvious to you by now that I’m upside down. This isn’t my normal position, Roger. I’d like to get back to my normal position. Do you think you could help me do that?”
“I don’t know, mister. You’re not supposed to move the victim.”
“Fine, Roger. I’ll do it myself.”
“Wait wait wait. Hold on. I’ll see what I can do.”
I watched through the crazed windshield as the beam of the flashlight, occasionally revealing Roger’s upside down legs and feet, slid and slipped across the upside down snow. And then Roger was outside my window, his head and shoulders a black silhouette against the gray. I still couldn’t see his face.
“Jesus,” he said, “your car’s a wreck. I hope you’ve got insurance.”
“Are you going to help me, Roger?”
“You’re sure you want to do this?” he asked me.
“Yeah. I’m going to open the door.”
“Hey. Hold on. Wait. I smell gas.” He stood up. I could see only his lower legs against the pale gray snow.
“Is there any gasoline by the door?” I asked his legs.
The flashlight beam wobbled. “I don’t see any,” his legs said. They didn’t sound entirely convinced.
“Okay.” I pulled the door handle. Nothing.
“It’s jammed,” I told Roger.
“Why don’t we just leave it until the cops come. They’ve got tools. They’ve got that Jaws of Life deal.”
“Can you pull on the door, Roger?”
“I don’t know, mister.”
“My name is Croft, Roger. Joshua Croft. I’m perfectly okay. I’m fine. Just pull on the door for me. I’ll push from this side.”
“I don’t think this is a good idea. You’ve been in an accident. You’re a victim.”
The woman’s voice came again: “Roger, what are you doing?”
“Everything’s okay, hon!” he called out. “The guy wants to get out of the car!”
“Then get him out of the goddamn car! It’s freezing up here!”
He muttered something under his breath.
“Roger?” I said.
His head and shoulders were back in the window. “What?” A note of impatience in his voice now. I think that he was reappraising the concept of the good Samaritan.
“Pull on the door, Roger,” I said.
“Awright, awright.” Under his breath: “Shit.”
“You got it?” I asked him.
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.” Very slightly, the car rocked.
“Won’t open,” he said.
I sighed. “I wasn’t ready, Roger. Wait a second.” I braced my knees against the dashboard, my feet against the ceiling-floor, my right hand against the passenger seat. “Okay. Let’s try it on the count of three. One, two, three.”
With a sickening metallic crunch, the door swung open.
“It was just luck, I guess,” said Roger, walking beside me. “I mean, we haven’t been up to the Big Trees in ten, twelve years. It was Judy’s idea. Jesus, we didn’t expect anything like this.”
“Me neither,” I said.
“Yeah, well, sure. Of course not. And you’re really okay?”
“I’m fine.”
We walked up the incline, the soles of my boots slippery against the snow. My body was beginning to stiffen up, joints going grainy, ligaments tightening. I felt very cold, very shaky. I paid close attention to the beam of Roger’s flashlight as it spotlit the lumps and ridges in the snow along my path. I didn’t want to fall down. I wasn’t sure that I’d be able to get up.
“Why would someone do a thing like that?” Roger asked me. “Come at you like that? Deliberately?”
“It’s a cruel world, Roger.”
“Yeah, but deliberately …”
We reached the top. I could make out, against the backdrop of roadway and forest illuminated by the headlights, a figure standing beside the car, wrapped in a bulky coat, hands buried deeply in the pockets.
Roger said, “This is Judy, my wife.”
The flashlight beam lit up the wincing, displeased face of a middle-aged woman. “Roger!”
“Sorry,” he said. “And this is, um.”
“Joshua Croft,” I said. “Hello. I want to thank you, both of you, for …”
“Hey,” said Roger, “are you okay?”
I didn’t actually faint, although I admit it might’ve looked as though I did. I simply decided that I was tired of standing up and being conscious, and so I toppled to the ground.
Everyone kept telling me that I was a lucky man. The paramedics did, when I came to, inside the ambulance as it raced toward town. The head nurse did, in the emergency ward at St. Vincent’s. The X-ray attendant did, as he walked beside my gurney on the way to his radioactive lair.
They wouldn’t let me get off the gurney. They wouldn’t let me make a phone call.
“Just relax,” everyone kept telling me. “You’ll be fine.”
“I’ve got to make a phone call.”
“Relax.”
For some reason, I’ve never been able to relax in an emergency ward, surrounded by people in various states of dismemberment.
“Nothing is broken,” the doctor told me, after he received the X-ray results. He was a small slender man, East Indian, probably Pakistani, with large brown eyes and a small slender mustache. We were in a small examining room and I had finally been allowed to sit up. I was perched on the examining table. Getting upright had taken me less than an hour. “You have many contusions on your left side, oh my yes, many many contusions, eh? And, yes, a serious strain, here, you see, along the neck. Painful, eh? You will need to wear a collar for a time, most probably. But nothing is broken, nothing at all. You are a very lucky man, yes indeed.”
“A collar? What kind of collar?”
“A foam collar, to provide the support, you see. It will reduce tension to the neck.”
“Great,” I said. “Can I get my collar and go home now?”
&
nbsp; He giggled. “Oh no, no no no. Not as yet, you see. We will be keeping you for observation, you see. Overnight. Because, you see, there is always a danger, in situations of this sort, of the bleeding inside the skull.”
“Subdural hematoma.”
“Ah yes, excellent, you understand, do you? Excellent!”
“Could I make a phone call?”
He frowned. “Not as yet, I am afraid, no. There is a policeman wishing to speak to you, you see. He seems quite a nice chap. If you are too tired, of course, I can ask him to postpone this discussion.”
“After I talk to the cop, can I make a phone call.”
“We shall see, yes?”
“Hello, Hector.”
He nodded. “Josh.”
Sergeant Hector Ramirez worked the Violent Crimes Unit of the Santa Fe Police Department. A weightlifter, he was under six feet tall and he weighed about two twenty. His neck, thrusting up from the collar of his black trench coat, was as big around as my thigh. Beneath the trench coat he wore a gray three-piece suit, a tattersall shirt, a blue silk tie. “You come here often?” he said.
“Whenever I can,” I said. “It’s the smell of disinfectant. It drives me wild.”
He ran his hand down over his Frito Bandido mustache. “They tell me you’re going to live.”
“Yeah. But they won’t say for how long.”
Hector smiled grimly. “Not very long, you keep getting run off the road like that. How you feeling?”
“I’m okay. But what brings you here, Hector? You working Traffic these days?”
He shook his head. “I was at my desk when Gonzalez told me you’d taken a tumble. The officers in the cruiser called in your name. The witnesses said the guy in the truck took off after he ran at you. That right?”
“I saw him run at me. I didn’t see him take off.”
“Any idea who it might’ve been?”
It didn’t seem to me that I owed Paul Chang or his sister anything. I told Hector about meeting the lovely Miss Chang that morning, about the fight with Paul, the two phone calls from Veronica, the race down the highway.
When I finished, Hector said, “But you couldn’t identify the driver of the other car as Paul Chang?”
The Hanged Man Page 16