"Alameda, Patricia - Velkommen Til Solvang" - читать интересную книгу автора (Alameda Patricia)

She looked at the speedometer. They were going sixty miles an hour. She let her foot off the gas. An odd twinge of guilt came over her; she was endangering him, and he was sick and hurt. She looked at him. His pale face was covered with tiny beads of sweat, like dew. He stared at her with bloodshot, exhausted eyes. The gun lay limp in his lap, not even pointing at her, seeming almost forgotten.

"Sorry," she said.

He blinked at her. "S'okay. Keep it under the ... the limit." He paused, and she saw him clench his teeth. She heard the squeak of them grinding together. His face twisted, and he bent over, his mouth opening, as if to vomit. But in a moment, he recovered, and, as if the pain had made him remember, he lifted the gun a little, pointing it at her once more. She saw him glance over at something in the rear seat. Suddenly he seemed a little stronger. He straightened a bit in his seat and shook his head from side to side.

There was nothing on either side of them but trees now, and the occasional turnoff to a farmhouse. A car passed them, going the other way. She could feel him tense up beside her, pushing a bit harder against the seat.

She was surprised at her own complete calm. She was not frightened of the gun he was pointing at her. She was not afraid at all of what lay ahead. She drove the car easily and surely. Her mind turned to her father-what would he be doing right now? Had he rung the shop yet? Had he started to worry about her? Probably, he was not even aware that she was late. Certainly he would never dream that she had been kidnapped. Nothing unusual ever happened in their stable, small world. Everything moved ahead, very orderly and neat. Even deaths in the family seemed to happen in order-the older, more distant relatives dropping off unobtrusively, their funerals always conveniently scheduled on a weekend. And they always died in the hospital, rather than being stabbed or shot or hit by a truck. So unlike the man beside her, whose life had led up to a bullet.

She was so lost in her thoughts that it took her minutes to notice the red flashing lights in the rear view mirror. She looked at the speedometer. Eighty-five. She looked over at her kidnapper-had he not noticed them yet? But he was unconscious, slumped against the passenger-side window. Or was he dead? She could not tell whether he was breathing. His pale face looked peaceful and vacant. The gun lay limp in the palm of his hand, which had fallen open. She glanced up at the mirror again. There was what he feared-what he was running from. But why was he running? She peered over her shoulder into the back seat. The bag was black, shaped like a little doctor's satchel in a quaint old movie. It was slightly open. And they glittered up at her from inside. Hundreds of them-maybe thousands.

She stepped lightly on the brake, and guided the car, with exaggerated caution, toward the shoulder of the road.

THE black car pulled over and came to a halt, idling. The sheriff's car slid up behind it and stopped a few yards away from its bumper. An amplified voice boomed: "Turn off your engine." The engine of the black car shut down, leaving only the steady purr of the sheriff's car. The spotlight on the sheriff's car clicked on, flooding the interior of the black sedan with light, illuminating the head of the blonde driver, who sat very still-but not as still as the passenger, whose head rested against the side window. That one appeared to be asleep. The door of the sheriff's car clicked open, and the deputy got out. He was sharply dressed in polished engineer boots, well-pressed khaki slacks, a tan shirt, and a hat that looked more like a milkman's hat than a policeman's. The red lights atop his car flashed across the silver star over his left pocket.

He took two steps toward the black car, then stopped and returned to his vehicle, retrieving an aluminum clipboard from it, and bending over to read the license plate number of the car into the radio. He jotted the license plate number on the clipboard, and walked toward the black car again, stopping to bend down and pick at something on his boot-a piece of sticky white paper on the toe. He flicked the offending paper away and continued, shaking his head. He was a young man, with a slightly rounded face and a head of curly ash-blonde hair that seemed to be trying to escape from beneath his cap. He tapped the clipboard twice with the end of his pen, and smiled as he reached the driver's side of the car and bent down.

"Do you have any idea..."

His sentence was interrupted by two loud pops. He stumbled back, still bent over, then jerked upright, his hand clamping itself to the grip of the automatic in his belt. His upright jerk carried him away from the car. His hat came off of his head and dropped to the pavement, just across the white line that marked the shoulder. He took two stumbling steps, his weight shifting further and further onto his bootheels, until finally he went over backwards, and his head hit the pavement of the road with a loud "thunk," like a bowling ball dropping onto a lane. One of his booted feet kicked up into the air and cracked back down. He did not move again. A small, dark hole in his throat began to seep red, slowly.

The black car's engine started. It pulled out into the road, sped up to five miles an hour below the speed limit, and continued on its way.


PATRICIA ALAMEDA was born in London, and immigrated at a young age to California. She lives in San Francisco. This is her first published story, and it won't be her last--as long as she doesn't get sucked into an underwater cave and drown in the stupid ocean. She can be contacted at [email protected].

Copyright (c) 2000 Patricia Alameda