Shattered

was saying, but he knew it must sound hollow to the cop. “I happen to love life. I don't need drugs. I can make myself happy without them.”
        Ackridge watched him closely for a moment, then leaned back in his chair, crossed his heavy arms on his chest. “You want to know why I'm asking all these questions?”
        Alex did not respond, for he was not sure whether or not he wanted to know.
        “I'll tell you,” Ackridge said. “I've got two theories about this story of yours-about the man in the Automover. First one is-none of it happened. You hallucinated it all. Could be. Could be like that. If you were really high on something, maybe LSD, you could have given yourself a real bad spook.”
        The thing to do, now, was just to listen. Don't argue. Just let him go on and, hopefully, get out of here as soon as possible. Still, Alex could not help saying, “What about the side of my car? The paint's gone. The body is all torn up. My door won't open.
        “I'm not saying that is imaginary,” Ackridge told him. “But it could be that you side-swiped a retaining wall or an outcropping of rock-anything.”
        “Ask Colin,” Doyle said.
        “The boy in the car,' Your-brother-in-law? “
        “Yes.”
        “How old is he?”
        “Eleven.”
        Ackridge shook his burly head. “He's too young for me to touch. And he'd probably just say anything he supposed you wanted him to say.”
        Alex cleared his throat, which was tight and dry. “Search the car. You won't find any drugs. “
        “Well,” Ackridge said, purposely emphasizing his drawl, “let me tell you my other theory before you go getting your dander up. I think it's a better one, anyway. Know what it is?”
        “No.”
        “I think maybe you were tooling along in that big black car of yours, playing king of the road, and you passed some local boy who was driving the only broken-down old pickup he could afford.” Ackridge smiled again, and this time it was a genuine smile. “He probably looked at you with your loud clothes and long hair and effeminate ways, and he wondered why you could have the big car while he had to settle for the truck. And, naturally, the more he thought on it, the madder he got. So he caught up with you and held a little duel on the highway. Couldn't of hurt his old wreck. You were the only one with something fancy to lose.”
        “Why would I tell you it was an Automover? Why would I make up an elaborate story about a cross-country pursuit?” Doyle asked, barely able to control his anger but painfully aware that any expression of it would land him in jail, or worse.
        “That's easy.”
        “I'd like to hear it.”
        Ackridge stood up and pushed his chair back, walked over and stood by the flag, his hands clasped behind his back. “You figured that I might not go after a local boy, that I'd favor one of ours over someone like you. So you made up this other thing to get me onto the case. Once I'd gone on record, started a full investigation, I couldn't have backed out of it so easily when I learned the real story.”
        “That is far-fetched,” Doyle said. “And you know it.”
        “Sounds reasonable to me.”
        Alex got to his feet, his damp hands fisted at his sides. Once it had been easy for him to take this kind of abuse and crawl away without another thought. But now, with the changes that had taken place in him during the last couple of days, excessive humility was not his best suit. “Then you aren't going to help us?”
        Ackridge looked at him with real hatred now. For the first time there was genuine malice in his voice. “I'm not a man you can call a pig one day-then run to for help the next.”
        “I've never called any policeman a pig,” Alex said.
        But the cop was not listening. He appeared to be looking straight through Doyle when he said, “For fifteen years or better, this country's been like a sick man. It's been absolutely delirious, staggering around and bumping into things, not sure where it was or where it was going or even if it would survive. But it isn't so sick any more. It's casting off the parasites that made it ill. Soon there won't be any parasites at all.”
        “I get you,” Alex said, shaking uncontrollably with both fear and rage.
        “It will up and kill all the germs and be as healthy as it once was,” Ackridge said, grinning broadly, hands still clasped behind his