Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 51, No. 7 & 8, July/August 2006

Hitch-Hunting by Jeremiah Healy

Coby Pierce, soaked to the bone in his denim jacket and black jeans, watched as the old Lincoln slewed onto the shoulder of the state highway, no more than fifty rainy feet beyond his outstretched thumb. Shuddering in amazement and shouldering the duffel bag, he ran toward the car’s passenger side, noticing its license plate had a logo stamped into it. The stick figure of a cripple.

Easy pickings, unless there were others along for the ride.

Once at the rear window, Coby could see — even through the worms of water sliding down the glass — that it was just a geezer behind the steering wheel. Coby yanked open the heavy door and pitched his duffel onto the back seat, where it landed next to a pair of those shiny metal braces he’d seen on the TV news once about polio freaks from, like, the 1950s.

Even better: Dude can’t walk straight, much less run away.

Coby slammed the rear door, pulled open the front one, and slid onto the passenger seat. It was covered by thick, clear plastic, with the same under the geezer.

Old guy probably pees his pants; he can’t get to a toilet in time.

Coby closed the front door too. Another solid thunk, the way a car door should sound, not the tinny sound of the last Jap coupe he’d boosted. Though he couldn’t complain about the driver of that one.

No, he couldn’t complain about her — or the things Coby made her do for him — at all.

“Welcome,” the geezer said, lips barely moving as he extended his hand. “My name’s Oswald.”

“Jim,” Coby lied, just in case anything went wrong later. “Jim Davis.”

They shook to seal the introductions, the dude’s limp grip more like a dead fish.

Letting go, Coby said, “Hey, you got the same name as the guy killed one of the Kennedys?”

“Yes, though Oswald is my first name, not my last.”

When the geezer didn’t go on, Coby just said, “Well, Oz, thanks for the ride.”

“My pleasure, Jim, but please fasten your seat belt before I re-enter traffic.”

Re-enter traffic. Both old and odd, this guy.

The click of the buckle connected to the shoulder harness was solid, just like the door. Coby flat-out loved big American cars.

Speaking of which, Oswald then put the car in gear with his right hand, but instead of just driving away, he used his right again to work a lever on the dash, the car’s engine revving as he checked both mirrors, then slowly edged back onto the road.

There were lots of other buttons and switches around the thing Coby was interested in, so he pointed. “What’s that lever?”

Oswald glanced over to him. “I had polio when I was a boy, Jim.”

The word bingo! popped into Coby’s brain.

“I need these braces behind me for walking, and my feet aren’t reliable on even the pedals. This lever lets me throttle the gas, and this one—” The geezer’s left index finger tapped another lever on the other side of the steering wheel. “—is for the brake.”

Jesus, Coby thought. Taking this car might be easy, but learning to drive it could be a real pain in the ass. Or a good challenge. Maybe even use the braces back there to look pitiful, to make boosting the next ride that much easier.

“So, Oz, where are you heading?”

“Down the highway. Gayle — my daughter — attended college in that big town about ten miles behind us, and I drive this stretch of road whenever I can.” Oswald looked at Coby squarely, the dude’s eyes dull and kind of... cold? “The students often hitchhike, Jim, and I like to help them out.”

This could be kind of fun. “You figure me for a student, Oz?”

“I wasn’t sure. But you certainly seemed like you could use a lift.”

“ ‘Hitch-hunting,’ ” said Coby, sharing the word that was one of his favorites, mainly because he’d made it up shortly after changing... careers.

“I’m sorry?” said Oswald, but never taking his eyes off the road — careful old geezer — the wipers of the big car plowing the rain off the windshield.

“I never liked the word ‘hitchhiking.’ I mean, you’re alongside the road, looking for a ride, right? So you’re not hiking at all, Oz. You’re walking backwards, thumb sticking out. What you’re really doing is, like, hitch-hunting, account of you’re waiting for that one—” Coby was gonna say “stupid,” until he realized they were passing through a crossroads with some stores and houses clumped on either side of the highway, and he didn’t want to make this dude jumpy in a populated area. “—that one kind driver who gets off on helping other people out.”

“Hitch-hunting, hitch-hunting,” Oswald rolling the word around his mouth a few times, the way Coby milked a shot of good booze when he could afford it. Or steal it. Then the geezer turned his head to Coby and smiled, yellow teeth, crooked and big. “I like that, Jim. I like that very much.”

“It just fits better, you know?”

“Yes. Yes, it certainly does.”

Coby decided there was definitely something a tad off about this dude. Oswald looked normal enough: suit, tie, haircut, mid-level lifer for some corporation the government forced to hire weird cripples. But the geezer had a way of talking that came across as more... detached — yeah. Yeah, that was the word. Like his mind was on something else. Coby knew a guy like that from back home, and he was on some kind of meds for depression.

Might could have some fun with this one. Nothing like the girl in the coupe, of course. But fun just the same.

“So, Oz, tell me: What do you do for a living?”

“I’m retired now, but I used to be an industrial designer.”

Didn’t make sense. “You designed industries?”

A small laugh, what Coby always figured chuckled meant.

“No, Jim. I designed machines. Drill presses, mostly.”

“Drill presses?” Coby conjured up a good lie in his head almost without trying. “My uncle lost his hand working one of those.”

“Oh,” said Oswald. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

The geezer didn’t sound sorry. “I sure hope you didn’t design the machine made my uncle a crip.”

Coby thought that might get a rise out of Oswald, what with him being a crip himself after all. But instead, the geezer just turned his head and nodded once, slowly, like that was all the energy he had left inside him. “I certainly do hope that press wasn’t mine, Jim. Do you recall the manufacturer of it?”

Recall the...? “No way. Happened when I was just a kid.”

“As with my polio, Jim.”

“What?”

The geezer’s eyes went back to the road. “Your uncle suffered his disability from injury when you were a boy, and I suffered my affliction from polio when I was only a boy myself. My parents thought it was a simple summer flu at first, but then came the real diagnosis. And the paralysis, the isolation wards, the physical therapy that could make you cry out in pain and frustration.”

Christ, if there was a connection there between his fake uncle and this whack-job crip, Coby sure didn’t see it.

Then the dude said, “What kind of work do you do, Jim?”

Back on track. And near a real deserted area, just trees and maybe a pullout where the Lincoln couldn’t be seen from the road, get the thing done.

“I already told you, Oz. I hitch-hunt.”

“But toward what... destination?”

“No ‘destination.’ ”

“Then toward what purpose?”

“I like riding in cars.” Coby shrugged, part of the show, but the movement also let the knife slide tip-first down the inside of his right sleeve, the handle fitting that palm perfectly and out of the geezer’s line of sight as well. “Only, Oz, I have to tell you: I like driving them even better.”

A deep sigh from behind the wheel. “You’re a carjacker.”

Another good-hearted senior citizen disappointed by Coby’s generation. “You could say that, yeah.”

“Let me show you something, Jim.”

The knife could wait, unless the geezer made for a weapon himself. “Sure.”

The dude used just the index finger of his right hand to flip down the visor above his head. From the little mirror flap he pulled out a photo and laid it face up on the console between them.

“Cute chick,” said Coby, leering at the more-pretty-than-foxy teenager. Nice tits under a T-shirt but sweatpants hiding her legs.

“My daughter, Jim, in a photo taken four years ago. Witnesses interviewed by the state police reported seeing Gayle stop to pick up a hitch... hunter. They described a young man much like you, and the detectives involved speculated that he took her car, which was found about fifty miles from here in a heavily wooded area.” Oswald glanced around at the passing scenery. “Rather like this one, Jim. But we never found Gayle’s body.”

Hiding a body was something Coby could teach a college course on, except there was no need to make things any harder on the geezer.

Or was there?

“Hey, Oz,” embroidering the lie before he even started telling it, “I think I remember her. Yeah, a bitchin’ bod but kind of sweet.”

Coby turned to look at the geezer, read his reaction to the next part. “Your Gayle cried a lot, though, claiming she was still a virgin and all. Well, Oz, believe me, by the time I got finished with her, she couldn’t claim that anymore.”

The dude’s eyes closed, but just for a second. Then he took the photo off the console, air kissed it, and put it back into the visor. “Would it surprise you, Jim, that you’re the third young man to tell me some version of that story?”

It did surprise Coby, actually. He thought of himself as almost unique, you know.

Now Oswald shook his head. “But, Jim, do you know that neither of them could seem to remember where he put her body? Which doesn’t seem fair, really. I mean, to take a life, and then not give the victim’s survivors closure? At least an opportunity to bury the remains of a loved one?”

Hey, can you believe this geezer, wanting to... what, debate the issue? “Yeah, well, you got to look at things from our side of the situation. Those C.S.I. shows on television, they tell us that hiding the body and dumping the car are real good ideas. Plus—” Coby glanced around like Oswald had a minute before. “—the rain’s even better, washes away all kinds of evidence.”

“Yes. Yes, it does that.”

Now the dude was nodding slowly, even... sympathetically. Too weird.

Time for Mr. Blade to meet up with Mr. Throat. “Okay, Oz, here’s what you’re gonna do. Pull over at the first dirt track that goes into the woods.”

“You have a weapon, I suppose?”

Coby grinned, brought the knife up and wiggled it a little in his lap. But he also kept the whole item below the dashboard, even though Coby didn’t think anybody in a passing car would be able to see through the window, the way it was still pouring outside.

Oswald said, “I recall a fire road up ahead.”

Another half mile, and sure enough, there was the red numbering on a white sign. The geezer — ever the careful driver — checked all his mirrors before pulling in and going slow down the road, hard-packed despite the rain.

Coby kept his eyes on Oswald’s hands. “Keep going till I tell you to stop.”

“I will, Jim.”

Christ, the dude showing no fear. Just that dull voice to match those dull eyes. Then Coby thought maybe this was natural for crips, to realize they couldn’t control much in their lives, and so you could lead them around like sheep.

A good spot turned up on the right. The road widened, and there was a little path winding into the trees. Even if it was a recreation trail, nobody was going to be on it in this weather.

“Over here should do just fine, Oz.”

Checking those mirrors for the last time, the geezer did what he was told, using the brake lever to bring the Lincoln to a complete stop, then shifting into park.

“If I turn off the engine, Jim, you may have trouble starting it back up again.”

Hey, if this wasn’t the oddest dude Coby had ever met. “Well now, thanks for that, Oz. I really appreciate your concern and all.”

One hand on the wheel and the other on the console, Oswald jerked kind of sidesaddle to him. “You see, I modified this car myself.”

Coby tilted his head toward the buttons, switches, and levers on the driver’s side. “Those things?”

“Among others. For example, your seat belt, once fastened as I asked you to do, can be released only from my side of the steering wheel.”

Now that geezer was trying to creep him out. However, when Coby ran his left thumb over the buckle, he really didn’t feel any button.

Enough of this crap. Coby lunged with the knife in his right hand pointed at Oswald’s throat and—

Coby couldn’t move his right shoulder.

“I’m afraid, Jim, that the strap mechanism is also a specialty item. One abrupt movement by you, and it draws you back against the seat. Even if you now relax, the strap will hold you fast.”

Coby was trapped all right, no give whatsoever to the belt stretched diagonally across his chest. He felt liquid running down his neck, but not from his time in the rain.

No, it was a panic sweat, and Coby could smell the fear starting to rise off him.

He made a little sound deep in his throat and started to saw at the strap with his knife.

“Jim, that blade seems — and I’m sure, has been — deadly, but the material embracing you is tougher than Cordura. I doubt even your knife’s point could penetrate it, and you certainly can’t cut through it.”

The dude was right: The blade could have been made of plastic like the seat cover under him, for all the good it was doing.

Coby licked his lips, tried to think. “Uh, like, what’s going on here, Oz?”

“It’s quite simple, really.” The geezer’s eyes went up toward his driver’s side visor. “I want you to tell me where you hid my daughter’s body.”

“I didn’t, man.”

“You’ve already confessed, Jim.”

“No! No, I swear. Never met her, never even seen—”

“Then why did you offer that you had?”

“To... to get a rise out of you, you know?”

“That would be rather cruel, Jim, don’t you think?”

“Hey, sure, sure. Oz, I’m sorry, okay? But I didn’t kill your daughter.”

The dull eyes closed, then opened again. “After my Gayle disappeared, I went into a deep depression. I couldn’t work, or sleep, or even think about anything but finding my little girl, laying her to rest next to my wife, her mother. Then I began taking antidepressants in rather large doses.”

Coby thought another bingo! would go off in his mind, but somehow it just didn’t come.

“Which, Jim, is the reason that I may seem a bit like an android to you. Or at least to normal people. But I’m really quite focused. You might even say ‘obsessed.’ With finding my Gayle through the only person in the world who can tell me where she is. Her killer.” The geezer jutted his chin closer. “In other words, you, Jim.”

“Oz, I’m telling you!” No. No, you’re losing it. Calm down. “I don’t know anything about your daughter.”

The eyes closed again for that pause, like a nervous tic for some guys. When the eyes opened once more, the dude said, “You do appreciate my dilemma? Earlier, when there was no evident threat to you, I heard a confession that you raped and killed my daughter.”

“I didn’t do it!”

“You knew Gayle was a virgin, Jim.”

Coby couldn’t believe that for once in his new career he had to rely on the truth. “I made it up, Oz. I swear, I made it all up!”

“And you were right about Gayle being sweet too. The kind of person who would offer someone less fortunate than she a ride in her car.”

Coby felt tears welling in his eyes, blurring his vision like the heavy rain outside had before he got into the Lincoln. “I didn’t hurt your daughter, man. I never even met her.”

“So you say now, when your options appear rather limited. But, either way, you’ve lied to me at least once, and one version of your account is supported a great deal more persuasively than the other, thanks to that knife in your hand.”

Hand. Knife.

Though Coby was a righty, he could switch the knife to his left hand, slash the bastard crip’s throat, and then figure out how to make the seat belt work. Or maybe somehow just wriggle out of it.

But first things first.

Coby flashed the knife into his left palm so fast even he couldn’t see it happening, but when he struck out at Oswald, the geezer’s right hand snagged Coby’s at the wrist.

Not the way the dude shook hands, though. This was like being caught in a vice.

“After the polio made my legs into rubber bands, my parents used to wheel me out into the sunshine. When God takes away one of your abilities, Jim, he often helps you compensate via another.”

“Oz, please don’t—”

“Within two months, my hand-to-eye coordination had developed to the point where I could snatch a fly out of the air, cup it in my enclosed palm without even damaging a wing. And years of weight lifting built up my arms and shoulders to the point where I could probably crush your wrist right now. And I’m afraid I’ll have to do just that, unless you drop the knife.”

Coby felt the bones above his left hand caving in toward the center.

“Let it go, Jim.”

Squeezing his eyes shut from the pain, Coby started to cry out loud, but he let the handle slip from his fingers, and he heard the knife clatter onto the console of the Lincoln.

Oswald let go of his wrist. “Jim?”

When Coby finally looked over at the dude, the knife was gone.

“Jim, where did you hide my Gayle’s body?”

Coby started to speak, then realized it was a sob, not a word, and he tried to catch his breath. “Please, man, I swear to God. I’ll swear on anything you want. But,” slow now, slow and even, “I... never... touched... your... daughter.”

The geezer closed his eyes again, but instead of opening them right away like before, he hung his head, then shook it slowly, side to side. “You are not helping my depression here, Jim.”

Coby was afraid he was going to soil himself. “You’ve gotta believe—”

“Oh,” the face snapping up now. “Oh, I do believe you, Jim. You aren’t the one responsible for my Gayle’s death.”

It was Coby’s turn to hang his head, the waterfall of tears still flowing, but now in relief rather than panic. No, wait a second: He never panicked. Coby was just a little afraid, that’s all. Like anybody would’ve been, this crazy crip playing devil games on them.

“Okay, Oz,” Coby said, getting a hold of himself, eyes kind of drifting around the dashboard, from all the gizmos on the driver’s side to the glove compartment in front of him. “You believe my story, you can let me go now.”

“Why would I do that, Jim?”

Coby sent the geezer a sideways look. “Because I didn’t hurt your daughter.”

“But what about your attempted carjacking just now?”

Coby sensed the comeback more in his chest than his brain. “Just your word against mine, man. And I don’t see the police buying your story, especially with all these... torture chamber ‘modifications’ you made to your car. You’d come across as seriously weird, Oz.”

“Yes.” The slow, single nod. “Yes, you’re right, of course. I thought about doing that with the first one, but as you say, I realized how it would look in context.”

Coby got caught up in the middle there. “The first one what?”

“Of you.”

“Of me?”

“No, the second-person plural, Jim. I meant the first carjacker who I thought might be my Gayle’s killer.”

Coby didn’t like the sound of that, and another trickle of sweat started down his neck. “Oz, let me go here.”

“To loose you on an unsuspecting public? To let you do what someone cut from your same cloth did to my daughter? No, I think not.”

Have to try something different. A little humor, maybe? “Hey, it’s gonna get kind of tiresome, me riding around with you, don’t you think?”

“Oh, I agree, Jim.” Oswald flicked a switch on his side of the steering wheel and the glove compartment door dropped open, bouncing a few times on its hinges.

Coby flinched, tried to cover his reaction. “Nice trick, Oz.”

“Saves me straining to unlatch it from behind the wheel, Jim. But that’s not the modification I want you to appreciate the most.”

The geezer opened the console and took out a pair of screwy yellow glasses with big lenses and side things that wrapped around his ears, making him look like a praying mantis.

“Oz, what’re those for?”

“They’re industrial safety goggles, Jim. To prevent any foreign matter from striking, and perhaps injuring, the eyes.”

Coby wasn’t following him at all. “The hell are you talking about, man?”

“You do recall asking me earlier about what I did for a living?”

“Yeah. So?”

“And you did notice the plastic slipcovers on the seats?”

Coby felt his mouth open, but no words came out until the dude’s finger moved to flick another switch.

“Oz, you’re not making any—”

Suddenly, from the mouth of the glove compartment came first a grinding, machine-like noise, then the business end of a rotating, multibladed metal thing like a giant sprocket wrench.

Advancing straight toward Coby’s belly. And big enough to involve his crotch as well.

The “hitch-hunter” began screaming, thrashing his arms and legs, rocking the car as he tried to break free from the seat belt harness.

Oswald said, “A horizontal drill press, Jim. My most impressive modification yet. And conceived, as I believe all significant creations are, purely out of love.”

Coby Pierce registered that the Lincoln stopped rocking shortly after the drill press broke his skin, but he kept screaming anyway.

Copyright 2006 Jeremiah Healy