Tammy said, 'They're bound to stop us and send us back home. Edgar, why don't we just turn back? Please!'
Shark McManus turned in his seat. 'Of course they'll stop us. But if we use our noodles, they won't turn us back. Now relax, will ya? I have some brainwork to do.'
Tammy said, 'Edgar — tell him we're turning back!'
But Edgar said nothing, and kept on driving through the outskirts of dreary Jersey City — through the silent, deserted suburbs — with the emasculated obedience of a man who knows he will never have the courage to argue against a gun.
Shark McManus, chewing gum noisily and repetitively, directed Edgar through the streets of Jersey with laconic expertise. It was a dead city of parked cars and windblown garbage, and the gradually-brightening sky only made its shabbiness look worse.
Tammy sat there, pale-faced, with dark rings under her eyes, and the two children silently dozed, with heads lolling against the seat. Tammy was coming along because Edgar was her husband and she was Edgar's wife, but — with a strange kind of internal tension that she had never felt before — she was beginning to suspect that Edgar was not the man she had once thought him to be.
She even wondered if he had shot that Boy Scout out of something more than the righteous defense of property and the American way — out of violence, even, and calculated hatred. A bond of some sort — an understanding — seemed to have grown up between Edgar and this hoodlum Shark McManus. She looked at the back of her husband's neck as he drove and it looked like the back of a stranger, someone she didn't love very much at all.
At five-thirty in the morning they stopped. She opened her eyes and realized she'd been sleeping. They were third or fourth in a line of cars that was being checked by police and National Guardsmen by the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel.
'Edgar,' she said. 'What's happening?'
Edgar didn't turn around. 'Lincoln Tunnel,' he said flatly. 'We got as far as here, and we didn't get stopped by the cops once. We can thank Shark for that.'
'That's right, ma'am,' grinned Shark McManus. 'Right through them back-streets like rabbits through a warren. Any time you want to get yourself out of a jam, just call on Shark McManus, and you're saved. Service with a smile.'
Tammy said, 'They won't let us through here, whatever happens.'
Shark pointed across the gray ruffled waters of the Hudson, to the gray spectral spires of Manhattan. This morning, the city looked like a ghostly mirage of itself — an oasis of purity in a desert of disease.
'You see that?' he said, smiling lopsidedly. 'That's where we're headed, ma'am, and ain't nobody going to stand in our way.'
Two cops in amber sunglasses strode up to their car and signaled for Edgar to roll down his window. They looked tired, but tough, and they had four or five armed National Guardsmen backing them up.
'Hi, folks,' said the cop, checking the inside of the car. 'Can I ask where you come from, and where you believe you're headed?'
'We came from Elizabeth, New Jersey,' said Edgar, in a dry voice.
'And we're headed for there,' put in Shark, nodding towards Manhattan.
The cop looked thoughtful. Behind him, one of the Guardsmen was yawning.
'I'm sorry, folks,' said the cop, 'but we have emergency regulations in force right now. Nobody is permitted to leave the state of New Jersey, and nobody is permitted to enter Manhattan.'
Edgar Paston lowered his head tiredly. 'What you're saying is, we have to turn around and go home?'
'I'm afraid that's the message, folks,' said the cop. Edgar turned to Shark. 'Looks like we don't have any option,' he said.
Shark shook his head. 'Life is full of options, man.' He produced the police.38 from under the seat, cocked it, and pointed it straight at Edgar's head, a half-inch from his right ear. The two cops quickly stepped back, and drew their pistols.
One of them called, 'Hey, George! Trouble!' to the National Guardsmen. The men lifted their rifles, and two of them ran across to the other side of the road to keep the Pastons covered.
'Okay, kid!' yelled one of the cops, in a rough voice. 'Don't be a dead wise guy! Throw the gun out, and come out of there with your hands up!'
'Start the engine, Edgar,' hissed McManus. 'What?' said Edgar faintly. 'Start the fucking engine. Get this heap moving.'
'They'll kill us.'
'No, they won't. They're good guys. Now get moving.'
Edgar hesitantly reached for the ignition keys, and started the engine. Shark screamed, 'if any of you guys fires a single shot, this dummy gets it in the brain! Just one shot, you hear!'
Tammy said, 'Please — you don't know what you're doing!'
'Of course I know what I'm doing,' said Shark. 'I'm getting us into Manhattan. Now move your ass, Edgar, or I'll blow your head off I'
Slowly, the Mercury wagon rolled down the gradient towards the tunnel. Two or three police and National Guardsmen jogged along beside it, while the rest of them ran back to their patrol cars, started them up, and tailed the Fastens at a circumspect distance.
As they entered the tunnel, a police bullhorn gave them a raucous message, weirdly distorted by echoes and half-drowned by the draft that blew through the tunnel from the Manhattan shore.
'Listen, kid! Throw out the gun! You don't have a chance! We have both ends of the tunnel sealed! You'll never get away with it! Throw out your gun and you won't get hurt!'
Tammy was sobbing. Chrissie and Marvin sat white and frightened. Only Shark was relaxed. He held the.38 steadily against Edgar's head, and chewed gum as casually as if he were propping up a street corner.
'Come on, Edgar,' he coaxed. 'Drive a little faster, man.'
Edgar speeded up. He could see the black and white police car, fifteen or twenty yards behind him, with all its lights on. They were going too fast now for the jogging cops and guardsmen to keep alongside, and McManus even found time to wave to them.
'So long, suckers! See you in the city!'
The drive through the Lincoln Tunnel seemed endless. As they went deeper under the Hudson, it seemed to Tammy that it was more like the end of the world than ever. There were tears running down her face, and her hands were tightly clenched in her lap.
Gradually, they perceived the gray light of morning ahead of them, washing wanly down the tunnel gradient. They also saw the police cars pulled across the roadway, and the armed officers waiting for them.
'Okay,' said Shark, 'this is the difficult part. Stay cool and everyone is going to be fine.'
'What do you want us to do?' asked Edgar, in a numb voice.
Shark peered along the tunnel towards the roadblock.
'There ain't no way we're going to smash our way through there, so we're going to have to walk. Just before you get to the roadblock, pull up sharp. Then we all get out of the car at once, and we stroll in a bunch towards the cops, and through. I want you in front, Edgar, and I'm going to have this piece right up against your skull. Then I want the missis and the kids all around me, so none of those police marksmen starts taking pot-shots. You understand?'
Edgar nodded. They were only seventy yards away from the roadblock now. He could see the police squatting down behind their cars, gripping their guns in readiness. The patrol car that had been tailing them all the way through the tunnel edged closer, and its headlights dazzled Edgar in his rearview mirror.
They rolled nearer and nearer the roadblock. The patrol car behind them was almost touching their rear bumper.
'Stop,' said Shark McManus, and opened his door.