Read Online Hit and Run by James Hadley Chase - Free Book Online Page B

hands on her shoulders and gave her a hard little shake.

    'Once and for all! I said no and I mean no! He can't do anything for you!' I was shouting at her now. 'If you tell him, you'll make him an accessory! Don't you realize that? If he doesn't hand you over to the police, he could get a sentence. You've got to leave this to me! I'll tell you what we will do tomorrow.'

    She shrank away from me, and taking out her handkerchief she began to cry.

    I drove fast towards Palm Boulevard.

    II

    On the highway I came suddenly on a long line of cars, crawling towards the city. I had never seen such a traffic jam, and I knew at once that it had to do with the death of this speed cop.

    I had trouble in forcing my way out of the secondary road from my bungalow into the stream of traffic. Finally, someone gave way to me and I got into the line of the creeping cars.

    Lucille stopped crying when she saw what was going on.

    'What is it?'

    'I don't know. There's nothing to worry about,' and I wished I really believed that.
    We crawled on. Every now and then I looked at the clock on the dashboard. The hands showed ten minutes to twelve, and we still had about two miles to go before I got her home.

    Suddenly the cars ahead of me crawled to a stop. I sat, gripping the wheel, staring into the darkness ahead of me, seeing only the red tail lights and maybe a hundred cars stretching in a long motionless line up the road.

    Then I saw the cops. There must have been a dozen of them. They were moving down the line of cars, powerful flashlights in their hands, and as they passed, they threw the beams over each car.

    That brought me out into a cold sweat.

    'They're looking for me,' Lucille said in a voice tight with fear and she made as if to get out of the car.

    I gripped her arm.

    'Sit still!' My heart was thumping and I was thankful I had been smart enough to use Seaborne's car. 'They're not looking for you! They're looking for the car. Sit still and keep quiet!'

    I could feel her shaking, but she had enough sense not to move as one of the cops neared us.

    A big, broad-shouldered man got out of the car just ahead of us. As the cop came up to his car, the big man said in an explosion of rage: 'What the hell is this? I'm trying to get to Palm Bay. Can't you guys keep this goddamn road clear?'

    The cop sent his beam over him.

    'You can come down to the station and make a complaint if that's the way you feel about it,' he said in a voice that could have peeled rust off the keel of a ship. 'You'll go when we're good and ready for you to go, and not before.'

    The big man seemed to lose some of his size.

    'What's going on anyway, officer?' he asked in a much milder tone. 'Are we likely to be long?'

    'A hit-and-run job. We're checking all cars going out of the city,' the cop said, 'and you won't be long.'

    He checked the big man's car, then moved on to mine. I found myself gripping the wheel until my fingers hurt as he sent the beam of his flashlight over my wings, and then over the bumpers.
    The cop, a thickset man with a face that could have been carved out of flint, looked at me, his light swinging first on me and then on Lucille, who cringed back, catching her breath sharply. He didn't seem to notice anything for he moved on to the car behind us.

    I put my hand on her arm.

    'Take it easy. There's nothing to be frightened about.'

    Frightened? Cold sweat was rolling off me.

    She didn't saw anything. She sat, her hands gripped between her knees, and see breathed like an old woman of seventy after a climb up a flight of stairs.

    The car ahead of me began to move, and I went after it. We crawled on in silence for four or five hundred yards, then the pace quickened.

    'They were looking for me, weren't they, Ches?' she said, her voice shaking.

    'They were looking for the car, and they didn't find it.'

    'Where is it?'

    'Where they won't find it. Now look, will you stop working yourself into a panic? Just sit still and keep