Dark Passage Read Free Page B

hit.
    Parry got out of the way and the Nash went
ripping down the road. Another fifteen minutes came in and went out
again. Parry was leaning against the same tree. He wanted a match
badly. He wanted water badly. He wanted a lift badly. He wished it
wasn’t August. He wished he had been born somewhere up in the
Arctic Circle where these things didn't happen to a man. He heard
another automobile.
    This was a Studebaker. It was from way
back. It was doing about thirty and Parry had an idea it couldn’t
do any more no matter how hard it tried. Again he was out in the
center of the road, waving his arms.
    The Studebaker stopped. Its only occupant
was the driver, a man in old clothes, a man who looked Parry up and
down and finally opened the door.
    Parry stepped in. He closed the door and
the man put the car in gear and got it up to thirty again. Parry
had already noticed that the Studebaker was a coupe and the man was
about forty or so and he was about five eight and he didn’t weigh
much. He wore a felt hat that had been dead for years.
    For a few minutes there was no talk. Then
the man half looked at Parry and said, “Where you
going?”
    “San Francisco.”
    The man looked at him directly. Parry
looked straight ahead. He was thinking that approximately four
hours had passed since he had stepped into the barrel. Perhaps by
this time it was already in the papers. Perhaps the man had already
seen a paper. Perhaps the man wasn’t going to San Francisco.
Perhaps anything.
    “Whereabouts in Frisco?” the man said. He
pushed the hat back an inch or so.
    Parry was about to say Civic Center. Then
he changed his mind. Then he took another look at the man and he
came back to Civic Center. It really didn’t make much difference
what he said, because he was going to get rid of this man and he
was going to take the car.
    He said, “Civic Center.”
    “I’ll get you there,” the man said. “I'm
taking Van Ness to Market. How come you're using this
road?”
    “Fellow gave me a lift. He said it was a
short cut.”
    “How come he left you off back
there?”
    “We had an argument,” Parry
said.
    “What about?”
    “Politics.”
    “What are you?”
    “Well,” Parry said, “I’m non-partisan. But
this fellow seemed to be against everything. He couldn't get me to
agree with him and finally he stopped the car and told me to get
out.”
    The man looked at Parry’s bare ribs. The
man said, “What did he do—steal your shirt?”
    “No, I always dress this way in summer. I
like to be comfortable. You got a match?”
    The man fished in a coat pocket and two
fingers came out holding a book of matches.
    “Want a cigarette?” Parry said as he
scratched a match.
    “I don’t smoke. Mighty funny looking pants
you got there.”
    “I know. But they’re
comfortable.”
    “You like to be comfortable,” the man
said, and then he laughed, and he kept on looking at the grey
cotton pants.
    “Yes,” Parry said. “I like to be
comfortable.”
    “You can keep the matches,” the man said.
He kept on looking at the grey cotton pants. He dragged the
Studebaker back to twenty-five, then to twenty. His eyes went down
to Parry’s heavy shoes.
    Parry said, “How come you got matches if
you don’t smoke?”
    The man didn’t answer. Parry kept his face
frontward but his gaze was sideways and he could see the man's
weather-darkened features and the short thin nose and the long
chin. He got his gaze a little more to the side and he could see
the car and the mixture of black and white hair beneath the
rippling brim of the felt hat. The light temple, he was thinking.
Or maybe just under the right ear. He had heard somewhere that just
under the ear was the best place.
    “Where you from?” the man said.
    “Arizona.”
    “Whereabouts in Arizona?”
    “Maricopa,” Parry said
truthfully.
    “Hitched all the way from Maricopa,
eh?”
    “That’s right,” Parry said. He eyed the
rear-view mirror. The road back there was empty. He got ready. His
right hand formed a fist and he tightened it, making it hard.