Jack Ketchum - The Passenger

“See?” the Nazi said. “You cut her here and it don’t hardly hurt.”

He sliced the top of her foot just above the second toe.

“You cut her here though…”

He moved the knife across the sole of her foot and the woman screamed again. Emil grabbed Marion’s arm.

“What the hell you doing?”

She didn’t answer. Just stood there watching the blood drip off the woman’s foot along either side.

“Hey, Maria. We got to go.”

“Damn right,” said the guard.

“Fuck off,” said the Nazi. He pointed the knife at Emil. Emil let go of Marion’s arm and backed off, hands in the air.

Now this was interesting.

“Got nothing to do with you, friend,” he said. “We got business, that’s all.”

“I told you, fuck off!"

He jabbed with the knife and as Emil darted back and away the black guard stepped forward easy as you please. He placed the tip of his index finger against the lip of the blade and smiled.

“ Play nice, ” he said.

The Nazi didn’t seem to know what to make of that.

“Like the gentleman says, it’s business. This what you came for?” he asked Emil.

He nodded. The guard looked at Marion.

“Come on, sweetcakes,” he said. “She gonna be hanging around awhile.”

“Not yet.”

She turned to the Nazi and put her hand out, palm- up. The Nazi didn’t seem to understand at first and then he did. He handed her the knife. Marion looked at the guard.

“Is this okay?” she said. “I can do anything I want, tight? I mean, that’s true, isn’t it? Hell, I can kill her if I want, right?”

“ Excuse me, lady?”

“Suppose I killed her, is anybody going to mind or what?”

“Jesus, Marion!”

“Oh, shut up, Emil.”

She turned back to the guard. He smiled again and hook his head.

“Nah, can’t kill her, honey. She belongs to somebody. You could hurt her a little, though. Nobody going to bother you about that.”

You don’t need to see any more of this shit, Janet thought. You can just turn away. But it seemed important to know exactly how far this goddamn woman was willing to go. So she watched her as she reached up and traced a slow deep line across the woman’s thigh from hip to knee with the point of the knife, the woman trembling and moaning, and watched the blood well up thick over the blade of the knife onto Marion’s white- knuckled hand. Watched the hand draw away and poise to cut again and then the black man’s bigger hand close over it gently and take the knife away and hand it to the Nazi.

“Come on, baby,” he said. “Leave a little somethin’ for later.”

As he moved her away she was smiling.

“You’re not entirely a real nice person,” said the guard as the music welled and boomed again. “You know that?”

They followed him through the crowd to the stairwell at the end of the bar.

At the top of the stairs he led them down a long dark oak-paneled hall, empty but for half a dozen vases on pedestals from which dozens of long-stemmed red roses sprouted and scented the still air, rioting away the odor of cigarettes and stale beer below. He opened a set of double doors to a stark, brightly lit room with a single long table and chairs around it the only furnishings-a boardroom not unlike those back at the courthouse except that this table and these chairs must have cost a lot more than the taxpayers were going to put up with. Closed glass doors beyond the desk led to an open porch-a widow’s walk. Beyond them she could see moon and stars.

The man at the head of the table was middle-aged and small and thin, his wrists wiry in his rolled-back shirtsleeves. He looked like a businessman who’d just spent a rough but eventful evening coming up with whole new ways to hammer the competition. Papers fanned across the desk in front of him. Behind him stood an immaculate gentleman with manicured fingernails and a rose in his wide lapel and the word thug writ plain all over him.

“Mr. Thaw?” said the guard.

“Fine. You can leave now.”

He backed out of the room and closed the door.

The man looked up from his desk.

“Harold Thaw,” he said. “This is my associate, Mr. Coombs. And you are Rothert, Short and Ripper. You want a car, I’m told. Is that all?”

“That’s all, Mr. Thaw,” Emil said.

“Fine. Ten thousand cash.”

Ray looked stricken. “Ten thous…?”

“You killed a policeman, Mr. Short. It’s a very good price.”

“I was thinking of something else, sir,” Emil said. “Were you.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What were you thinking, Mr. Rothert?”

“I heard that… I understand you do… a certain business. With certain parties. Foreign investors, sort of..

For the first time Thaw smiled. “What business would that be, Mr. Rothert? I have any number of businesses and you’re interrupting all of them. Please do get on with it.”

She saw that Emil was distinctly uncomfortable now but determined to do as the man said and get on with it. And even before he opened his mouth again she knew exactly where he was going with all this. It was rumored at the courthouse. She’d heard it a dozen times. You goddamn son of a bitch, she thought.

“ Women, sir,” he said. “I understand you… that you deal in women sometimes.”

For a moment Thaw just stared at him as though he was speaking in some unknown tongue. He looked at Marion and then at Janet and when his eyes went back to Emil again he laughed and his hands went wide and spiderlike across the table. Behind him, Coombs smiled.

“You’re offering me these? In exchange for a car?” “Uh, yes, sir.”

Thaw laughed again and shook his head.

“Rothert,” he said, “these parties you’re talking about are interested in twelve-year-olds. Twelve-year-olds, Rothert. Do you understand me? Do you see the problem here?”

Emil nodded toward Marion.

“Sir, this one in particular. Have somebody try her out, that’s all I’m asking. She’s a little crazy, see? She’ll do anything. You don’t think you can use her? Fine, no car. We’ll figure out something in the morning.”

“Hey, Emil,” Marion said, “screw you!”

“That’s all I’m asking, sir.”

“Fuck you, Emil!”

She turned on her heel and went for the door, turned the knob. Twisted it. Shook the door and pounded it. “What have you got to lose, sir?” Emil said.

“You fucking prick! Open the fucking door!” she yelled to the guard outside. She turned to Emil. ‘Tell him to open the fucking door! ”

Thaw leaned back in his chair and sighed. Marion twisted at the knob one last time and then she was moving fast across the room to the glass double doors to the widow’s walk beyond, and to Janet it looked like she just might kick the damn things in in order to get out of there. Thaw stood up from his chair and shouted.

“ Big!”

The glass doors parted and Marion stopped dead in her tracks. The man standing in front of her was big all right-as big as a goddamn bear and looked easily as dangerous. She recognized the long square jaw and scraggly beard. The arms beneath the cutoff sleeves of his faded denim shirt were easily as wide as her thigh. A massive chest tapered down to an almost graceful waist. Six-foot-six, 320 pounds, she remembered. “Big ” Micah Harpe. In person.

He didn’t move.

He didn’t have to.

And seeing him there finally after having searched for him ever since arriving scared the hell out of her and made her heart leap all at once. With Micah Harpe it would be all or nothing. She’d known that from the very start.

Thaw sat down again and leaned back in his chair.

“You heard?” he said.

“I heard a talking asshole, sure. How about you?”