He pretended he didn’t hear me. The Stutz was a tan streak under us. I put a hand on the driver’s shoulder.
His shoulder squirmed under my hand, and he screamed “A‑a‑a‑a‑a!” again as if the dead black man had him.
I reached past him and shut off the engine.
He took his hands from the wheel and clawed up at me. Noises came from his mouth, but they didn’t make any words that I knew.
I got a hand on the wheel. I got my other forearm under his chin. I leaned over the back of his seat so that the weight of my upper body was on his head, mashing it down against the wheel.
Between this and that and the help of God, the Stutz hadn’t left the road when it stopped moving.
I got up off the flat-faced man’s head and asked:
“What the hell’s the matter with you?”
He looked at me with white eyes, shivered, and didn’t say anything.
“Turn it around,” I said. “We’ll go back there.”
He shook his head from side to side, desperately, and made some more of the mouth-noises that might have been words if I could have understood them.
“You know who that was?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“You do,” I growled.
He shook his head.