The New Black Mask (No 8)

Night Ride John D. MacDonald

About “Night Ride,” John D. MacDonald says, “I wrote this story twenty-four years ago. I came upon it last year when I was grubbing around in the old files, looking for something else. I wondered why it had not been published. I cannot remember who thought it needed more work, my agent or I. I suspect that some other project got in the way and it fell through the cracks. So, I gave it a quick polish and sent it in, pleased to find it was not dated.”

The drove swiftly through the night, thinking of that last poker hand. God damn that Dev-Ian, suggesting raising the limit for the last hand. It was as though he knew he was going to get the case ace. It had been a long and very expensive hand. As he drove Harry Varney figured he had dropped four hundred dollars on that last hand. Poker seemed to be getting too rich for his blood lately. The disastrous last hand had left him with almost an eight-hundred-dollar deficit for the evening.

And that was too much. Way too much. He remembered with self-contempt the elaborate casualness with which, as the game broke up and as Dick Winkler was paying off the chip stacks from the bank, he had suggested to Devlan they cut high card for two hundred. Devlan, he knew, had not been deceived. But Devlan, as the big winner, couldn’t very well refuse.

Harry Varney remembered the bright light shining down on the green tabletop. The others were putting their coats on. He remembered his own hand reaching out, taking a thin cut, remembered the good hot feeling as he turned the stack just enough to catch a glimpse of the spade jack. But Devlan, almost contemptuously, had cut the remaining cards and flipped the heart king over. Harry Varney, taking the last four fifties out of his wallet, turned so that Devlan could not see the two remaining bills, a five and a one, left out of the thousand dollars he had taken to the club with such high hopes at eight o’clock.

“Guess you’ve had one of those nights, Harry,” Devlan said.

For a moment Varney was tempted to suggest another cut for two hundred. Devlan wouldn’t know the wallet was nearly empty. But should he lose, betting without a stake, they might bar him from the game. As casually as possible he said, “You boys bruised me a little tonight.”

Bruised, hell! Isobel, when she found out about it, as she inevitably would, was going to be merciless. “Oh, you have to be the big shot! Oh, you have to, don’t you? Swagger and brag and throw your money around. I hope you can remember what we owe.”

Last year he had won with reasonable consistency. Last year, of course, when he didn’t have to win. Now he played with scared money. And it had been damned foolishness to sign for the drinks. Six rounds was it, or seven? Seven by the way the yellow line down the middle of the two-lane highway kept turning into two lines. His vision was better if he kept one eye shut.

Losing the Taylor account had been the first blow’ For years it had accounted for almost half his income. Things seemed to be getting worse and Isobel seemed to become more shrill every day.

There was a slow, thick anger in him at the way things seemed to be closing in. The poker crowd could smell it, winning this year on bluffs he would have called last year — before the money got scared. He remembered what had happened to Stolts, remembered that night when Stolts had been the banker and had dipped into the bank chips so often that at the end of the session he couldn’t pay off all the way around. Stolts had given Devlan a check that bounced. Yes, Varney remembered last year, how he had told Dick and Devlan that if Stolts showed up again, they should tell him he wasn’t welcome.

The club bills were overdue, and the bill this month would be so fat there was a chance he and Isobel would be posted. He felt cold inside when he thought of the way things were going. The check he had cashed for a thousand took the balance down, way down, and he hadn’t dared enter it in the checkbook, not on the joint account with Isobel. He had cashed a counter check.

His face felt thick and sweaty, and the drinks had made him slightly nauseated. He was driving fast. He decided he would open the vent window on the driver’s side and turn it to direct the blast of cold air at his face. It was three in the morning and the commuter highway ahead was empty. He looked away from the road for an instant as he reached for the handle to open the vent. When he looked back at the highway he saw a flicker of motion so startlingly close he did not have time to swerve or hit the brakes before he felt the thick, sick, solid thud of metal hitting flesh at sixty-plus miles an hour. Then the brakes were on, but too late and too hard, so that the big expensive car swerved on the edge of control. He drove off onto the shoulder and stalled the engine. Far ahead, coming toward him, he saw the Christmas tree lights of a truck. With a sudden instinct for secrecy he turned his car lights off and sat in silence and darkness as the truck droned by, the engine sound dwindling in a descending Doppler key, his car rocking slightly in the after draft.

His instinct to drive away, fast, and not look back was almost too strong. But he took the flashlight from the glove compartment, got out of the car slowly. His brain had been shocked into sobriety, but his legs felt drunk and unwieldy.

He stood in the night for a few moments, a big man with a salesman’s face and a soft waistline. He went around in front of the car and listened for traffic sounds. There were none. He heard the faraway metallic honk of a diesel train in the valley. He aimed the light at his right front fender. It was smashed in, almost against the tire tread. The heavy bumper guard was canted back, and the bumper itself was bent inward. The headlight was smashed, chrome rim bent. Two-fifty or three hundred damage, he thought, realizing how incongruous that thought was. Staring closely at the damage, he could see no blood or fabric or hair on the crumpled metal. He straightened up and turned off the flashlight as he heard a car coming. It finally went by at a sedate speed, an old car with big tail fins. They had had one just like it, he remembered. How many cars since that one? Six? Eight? It was essential to keep up appearances. You couldn’t call on an account driving an old heap.

All this was delaying what he knew he had to do. Someone might be back there, bleeding, dying. You had to stop, even if it was just a dog. It was a cold night. The ruts of the soft shoulder were frozen. Shining the light ahead of him, he walked back until he found the shiny spray of broken headlight glass. The twin skid lines began after the point of impact and continued almost all the way back to where his car was pulled off. The road was empty. The shoulder was empty.

He found the body in the shallow ditch beyond the shoulder, half-concealed in the tall dead winter weeds. He focused the light on the dead face and turned it off quickly. When two cars went by he doused the light again and stood with his back to the road. It was the body of an old man. Very obviously dead, clad in layers of ragged sweaters, ancient jeans, broken shoes. Toothless gums in the mouth agape. Over the smell of the liquor in his own system, Harry Varney could detect the alcohol reek of the body.

It wasn’t fair. This old man. This wandering useless alcoholic nobody. Killing this one was practically doing him a favor. He suspected that if he were sober he would have a good chance of carrying it off. “Swear to God he staggered right out in front of me!” It would be difficult, of course, because they could measure the skid marks and approximate his speed. But he was used to dealing with people and he was perfectly aware of his own ability to sell himself. But half-drunk at three in the morning? Exhale into this tube, sir. Walk this chalk line, sir. Close your eyes and touch your nose, sir. It was frightening to be so coldly sober on the inside that he could estimate his chances, yet to be so drunk he kept losing his balance and staggering to catch it again.

When he heard the next car coming he stepped across the ditch and squatted in the field behind the screen of weeds. They had ways of finding out. They had their goddamn microscopes and their spectroanalysis and their chromatography. And this was an old bum, tanked out of his mind, wandering into a public highway. He hated the old man for being dead. It was not fair. Even the minimum penalty, suspension of his license to drive, would be impossible. He had to have a car and be able to use it. Hiding the body would be no good because he couldn’t take the car into any repair garage looking like that, not with the distinctive look of that bashed area.

Still squatting even after the car had gone by, he hit his knee with his fist. Think, Varney. Think, damn you. If you never used your head before, use it now. And to think you were bitching about losing a thousand. You thought life had turned sour. In retrospect, Harry, it was delightful.

Slowly the plan began to take shape in his mind. Then he began to have that good hot feeling in his throat, the same feeling as when he had caught a glimpse of the spade jack. He did not trust his mind after so much alcohol, and so he went over the plan again, checking every portion of it, over and over. It would be difficult to carry out, but it would be a hell of a lot less trouble all the way around.

He went out and, with great care, picked up the glinting little bits of glass. Twice he had to lumber out of sight as cars went by, speeding in the night. When he was certain he had it all, he scuffed the remaining glass dust out of sight with the edge of his shoe. He hurried to his car and placed the glass fragments inside the rim of the broken headlamp. The chrome ring retained them. He backed quickly down the highway and pulled well off onto the shoulder near the body and turned his lights off, and left the motor running.

Touching the body was more difficult than he had imagined it would be. The old man seemed impossibly heavy. He got some stickiness on his hands, but knew that would not matter too much. The plan seemed good. Much better than the infantile idea of reporting the car stolen. They were always suspicious of that, he had heard. He dragged the body to the car, got the passenger door open, and then worked it up onto the seat. It was disconcertingly slack. It toppled over against the steering wheel. He rolled the window down, reached through and pulled it back so that it leaned against the closed door. On sudden inspiration he went over with the flashlight and searched the area of death with care, and was extremely glad he had done so when he found a bulging old suitcase tied with rope and a shapeless felt hat. Starlight was pale on the old broken face and the stained, matted hair. He put the old hat on the head, opened the back door and put the suitcase on the floor.

He got behind the wheel and waited until an oncoming car went by before turning his own lights on and starting out. The body toppled over against him and he pushed it away with a sudden violent panic and anger that made him breathe hard.

As he drove carefully he rehearsed his lines. “It was a cold night and I guess I just felt sorry for the old guy, seeing him there trying to hitch a ride. I was sorry as soon as he got in the car. He was drunk and noisy and out of control. I drove for a while and all of a sudden, no warning, he reached over and grabbed the wheel and yanked it so that he steered us right into that tree, that pole, whatever. Smashed hell out of my car. That’s what I get for trying to be a nice guy. Me? Oh, I had some drinks at the club but I had the car under control until he yanked the wheel like that.”

He drove carefully, totally aware of the body in the seat beside him, never looking over at it. Got to bang the hell out of that front right corner of the car. Smash it complete. Then open the door and tumble the old drunk out and then stop the next car. It would have to be a place where a good solid tree grows close to the road. He peered ahead. A car came into sight rounding a curve. That curve might be a good place, he decided. It would look right. Who would examine a car looking for a trace of two accidents? This impact would conceal the previous one.

He dimmed his lights for the oncoming car and put them back on high when he was by it. As he looked ahead he noticed out of the corner of his eye, in the rearview minor, that the car he had just passed was swinging around in a U-turn.

Harry Varney held tightly to the wheel. Somebody forgot something. Somebody changed their mind. That was all. That had to be all. Nothing to worry about.

The headlights came up behind him and suddenly the string of blue lights on top of the car came on, spinning and flashing, and he heard the warning growl of the siren in low register. He stomped the gas pedal and the big car jumped ahead. He drove with his mouth open, sagging. His lips felt numb. He could not take air into his lungs. The siren lifted into a high sustained scream. The big car rocked with speed and he knew it was time to turn into the trees now lining the road but he could not make himself do it. Not at that speed.

When the patrol car moved up beside him all the nerve went out of Harry Varney and he began to pump the brakes. They stopped ahead of him and put a swivel searchlight in his face. He squinted through the dazzle and saw them coming back, two of them, tall and young, guns drawn.

The one on his side said, opening the door, “Keep your hands in sight. Get out slowly. Slowly. Now brace your hands against the car. Higher. Move your feet back.”

On the other side of the car the other officer said, “You too, Pops. Come on out. Easy does it.”

There was a silence and then the officer on the far side came walking around the car and said, “I’ll watch this one. George, you go around and take a good look at the other one.”

Harry kept his eyes shut but the spotlight shone pink through his eyelids. He heard George whistle. He felt sick again. His arms were getting tired.

“Why did you come after me?” he asked. “Why?” His voice was sharp and thin and high-pitched. Like Isohel’s.

“We were going to warn you, mister. We were going to tell you one of your headlights is out.”