Bill Pronzini - Night Freight

There is something wrong with all this

As I drive out of Lake Industrial I am watchful for one of the night patrols, but I see no one. Observing the speed limit, I follow the route that McAnally habitually takes home—a route that includes a one-mile stretch through Old Mill Canyon. The canyon road is little used since the construction of a bypassing freeway; McAnally takes it because it is the shortest way to the suburban development where we both live.

At the top of the canyon road is a sharp curve, with a bluff wall on the left and a wide shoulder with a guardrail along its outer edge. Beyond the rail is a two-hundred-foot drop into the canyon below. There are no lights behind me as I take McAnally's car to the crest. From there I can see for a quarter mile or so past the curve. That part of the road is also deserted.

I stop the car a hundred feet below the shoulder, take a few deep breaths before I press down hard on the accelerator and twist the wheel until the car is headed straight for the guardrail. While the car is still on the road I brake sharply; the tires burn and shriek on the asphalt, providing the skid marks that will confirm McAnally's death as a tragic accident.

The truck

I manage to fight the car to a halt a dozen feet from the guardrail. I rub sweat from my forehead, reverse to the road again. When I've set the emergency brake, I get out to make certain we're still alone. Then I pull McAnally from the rear floor, prop him behind the wheel, wedge his foot against the accelerator pedal. The engine roars and the car begins to rock. I grasp the release lever for the emergency brake, prepare myself, jerk the brake off, and fling my body out of the way.

The car hurtles forward. An edge of the open driver's door slaps against my hip, knocking me down, but I'm not hurt. McAnally's car crashes into the guardrail, splintering it, and goes through; it seems to hang in space for a long moment, amid a shower of wood fragments, then plunges downward. The darkness is filled with the thunderous rending of metal as the machine bounces and rolls into the canyon.

I go to the edge and look over. There is no fire, but I can make out the shape of the wreckage far below. I say aloud, "I'm sorry, Fred. It's not that I hated you, or even disliked you. It's just that you were in the way."

Then I turn, keeping to shadow along the side of the road, and begin the long, three-mile walk home.

What is it that's so wrong

And late the following morning I stand on the porch of the home that now belongs only to Judith, my Judith. I ring the bell, my chest constricted with excitement as I wait for her to answer.

The door opens at last, and my love looks out at me.

My ardor swells inside me until it is almost like physical pain.

"Hello, Judith," I say gravely. "I just heard about Fred, and of course I came right over."

Her grief-swollen mouth trembles. "Thank you, Martin. It was such a terrible accident, so . . . so sudden . I guess you know how much Fred and I cared for each other. I feel lost and alone without him."

"You're not alone," I tell her, and silently add the words my love . "It's true we've never been any more than casual neighbors, but I want you to know that there isn't anything I wouldn't do for you. Not anything I wouldn't do . . ."

The truck!

I know what it is now. I know what's wrong.

None of this happened.

It was planned to happen just this way, a thousand times I envisioned it, it was like a Technicolor film in my mind as I rode in the taxi. But something else took place, something interfered. The truck, the taxi—

An accident.

I remember it now. The taxi rushing through the dark, empty streets, and the truck coming out of nowhere, barreling through the red light at the intersection, and the impact, and the spinning, and the pain. And then . . . nothing.

Where am I?

Utter blackness. No pain now, no feeling at all.

Vague bodiless sensation of floating, drifting. Coma? Hospital? No, something else, somewhere else. Thoughts, the sudden remembering, the drifting

and I am beginning to understand, to realize

that I was killed in that accident.

I'm dead.

Fred McAnally is alive and it is Martin Hammond who is dead.

. . . and the door opens at last, and my love looks out at me. My ardor swells inside me until it is almost like physical pain . . .

No, not dead. Not as I've always understood death to be.

Even though I was killed in that accident, part of me remains alive.

Increasing awareness now. I think, I comprehend, therefore I am . The essence, the intellect, of Martin Hammond has somehow survived.

Why?

And the answer comes: My love for Judith, the depth and power of my love for her. Too strong even for death. Transcending death. My love lives, therefore I live.

And where I am must be

the netherworld.

Yes. Drifting—spirit drifting. I am spirit.

The blackness is beginning to lighten, to become a soft gray; and as it does

my awareness increases and I realize with sudden joy that soon I will be capable of vision, corporeality, mobility through time and space. I will be able to return to the mortal world, to Judith. I will be able to

bring my love to my love in the warm silent hours of a night when she is alone . . .

. . . and all at once—there is no temporality where I exist—I find myself standing in her bedroom, that place where I longed so often and so desperately to be. She is there wearing a pale blue dressing gown sitting before her vanity mirror while she brushes her hair. Her face is radiant, smiling, and I know it is a Friday night and she is waiting for McAnally. I accept this, it does not disturb me. Nothing can disturb me now that I am in the presence of my love.

Her voice whispers in the quiet, counting each brush stroke. "Eighty-nine, ninety, ninety-one . . ." But she might be counting the minutes until we are together at last, and that is how I choose to hear her words. "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred . . ."

Reflected in the mirror, her beauty is so flawless that it is as if I am looking at a priceless painting that must not be seen by anyone else, must belong to no one else but me. I no longer have a heart, but if I did it would be hammering like the beat of drums. I no longer have loins, but if I did they would be aflame with the purity of my desire.

"One hundred nineteen, one hundred twenty . . ."

The need to go to her, touch her, is exquisite. But how will she react when she sees me? I mustn't frighten her.

Slowly I cross the room. Yet as I draw near, the image of myself that I expect to see behind hers does not materialize. Then I am standing close to her, closer than ever before—and still she is alone in the glass.

"One hundred forty-eight, one hundred forty—"

Abruptly she stops counting, holding the brush against the silkiness of her hair. Her smile fades; small ridge lines appear on her forehead.

"Judith," I whisper. "Judith, my love."

She frowns at the mirror, puts down the brush.

"I'm here, darling."

And I reach out with trembling fingers, touch the softness of her shoulder.

She shivers, as though it were not I but a sudden chill draft that caressed her. She turns, looks around the bedroom—and it is then I accept the truth. She can't see me, or hear me, or feel the gentle pressure of my hand. Perhaps it is because I am not strong enough yet. And perhaps

it is McAnally.

I know then that this is so. He is still alive, he still stands between us—now like a wall between our two worlds.

Always, always, that bastard McAnally!

Judith rises from her chair, crosses to the window, secures the lock. Then she sheds her dressing gown, and the silhouette of her body beneath her thin nightdress fills me with rapture. I watch her put out the lights, get into bed, and lie with the coverlet drawn up to her chin.