Last Seen Hitchhiking

Chapter 5

“Now you see why I wanted you along,” Frieda said as they drove away. “You’re the expert. Were they lying?”

“There were things they weren’t saying. That’s normal.”

“Now you’re cheating. What I want to get you to admit is that it’s very likely — not certain, just likely — that Meri Gillespie was picked up and kidnapped by somebody, not because she had a piece of a Toltec mask in her knapsack, but because she was a young and good-looking girl. It doesn’t matter whether she was heading for an old boyfriend in Fort Myers or Maxine Holloway in Seminole Beach. She didn’t arrive. You know what I’m thinking about, Mike. I’m thinking about going out hitchhiking. If I can find out what happened, and find the knapsack, and if I’m right and the kidnapper didn’t know that that little bright fragment had any importance or value, I can buy myself into a game that seems to be played for rather high stakes.”

“It’s also a high-risk game.”

“Sometimes you have to take chances.” She was speaking soberly, looking straight ahead. “Here’s my situation, Mike. I try to look optimistic, because nobody likes to do business with a pessimist. But the agency loses a little more money every week. Not a whole lot more, just a little, little enough so it seems to me I have to stay open and hope for a change in the weather.”

“I didn’t know you were one of those people who think it’s disgraceful to go bankrupt.”

“I didn’t say it would be disgraceful. Just too bad. Have you ever seriously considered going into something different, or going to work for somebody else?”

“In the early days, sure. I’ve been at it longer than you have.”

“I’m stubborn. I still think there are things I can do that even you can’t. And this may be one of them! I’m not thinking just about money. I want potential clients to know I exist.”

“If you stake yourself out on the highway and capture the Interstate Rapist, you’ll get attention, I grant you. But nobody’s going to want their investigations handled by somebody who’s gone completely haywire. You’ve already got two strikes on you, as a woman. This isn’t your problem. If the cops can’t find him, the guy can’t be found.”

“That may be true, Mike. But I’ve been hired to locate a missing person and recover a piece of stolen property. If I’m willing to go hitchhiking in enemy country, those potential clients are going to be impressed, and you know it. It’ll put Field and Field on the map.”

“Or somewhere else. Do you want me to tell you how I figure the odds?”

She hesitated. “Better not. I’d probably agree with you. Let’s just fool with this for a minute. You said the totals in series murders tend to get inflated. Be conservative. Besides Meri and the two girls outside Jacksonville, there are three other pretty good candidates. All were hitching alone on a major highway. Between fifteen years old and twenty-five. I’m twenty-six, which puts me over the top range, but there won’t be many of us out today. We know what kind of clothes they were wearing. I think I’ll carry a guitar. I have a feeling that girls who play the guitar don’t pay attention to news broadcasts, and may have missed the warnings. Now for the odds. The odds against being picked up by the one man we want are probably a hundred to one. I know that doesn’t mean that if I take a hundred rides, I’ll finally hit the right one, because there may be something about me that won’t appeal to him at all. And if he does pick me up, the odds against anything happening are probably, again, a hundred to one. But the client’s going to like my attitude. It’ll show I’m trying. Mike, it’s better than advertising in the yellow pages!”

“I was thinking more about the odds against living through it.”

“I carry a gun. I used to be a terrible shot, but I’ve been going to the range and I’m much better. I know a few simple self-defense moves. In addition to all that, I hope you’ll be covering me.”

“I have a better idea,” he said. “Let’s charter a boat for a day’s sail. I’d like to get out in the Stream and see if any bluefish are waiting for me. You can lie on the bow, with or without bathing suit, and let your mind drift. That’s the way to find answers. Stop thinking about the questions.”

“If this was your case, would you go fishing?”

“Probably not. I wouldn’t dress up in a blond wig and stand out on the edge of the road thumbing, either.”

She laughed. “That’s what I was saying. You can’t. I can.”

“Why do you think so many police departments gave up using decoys? Too many got hurt. It’s a dumb idea, Frieda. It isn’t that important. A six-hundred-year-old funeral mask.”

“A twenty-three-year-old girl.”

“Those guys we surprised in the Seminole Beach house must have some kind of art-world connection. I know people I can ask. Let’s lean on this New York guy, Tree. Talk to Holloway’s colleagues. Koch. Give it another day, anyway, Frieda.”

She shook her head. “Will you help me, Mike?”

“Hell, no. Why should I take part in something I think is stupid?”

They were on the road by noon.

Frieda was wearing zip-up boots and old pants with a flowery patch on one knee, a tight purple sweater. Her hair was loose and blowing. Besides the guitar, she carried only a shoulder bag, holding everything she was taking with her, including a snub-nosed.38 revolver. A bright yellow scarf was looped around the handle of the guitar case.

They started at the 8th Street interchange, from which Meri Gillespie had set out two days earlier. Shayne drove ahead to the first gas pumps and parked. He had only a few minutes’ wait. He read the front page and the sports section of the morning paper, and was studying an open road map when Frieda passed him, the only passenger in a sports car. With her long black hair she was easy to spot, and to make the identification certain, she had closed the door on her scarf, which fluttered conspicuously from the side of the moving car.

Shayne folded the road map and followed. Frieda got out of the car at the next exit, having satisfied herself, apparently, that the driver was not the man they wanted. She waved Shayne past. He found another place to pull off the road and wait.

This first ride had been with a middle-aged man who didn’t seem to be tempted to use any of the sports car’s acceleration or power. He gripped the wheel tightly with both hands, except when he removed one hand to put a cigar in his mouth. He was leaning forward against the shoulder belt, in a state of some tension. Once Frieda was inside the car, he didn’t appear to give her a thought. When she tried to open a conversation, he replied in grunts, without removing his eyes from the road. He stayed in the right-hand lane, swearing under his breath when anyone passed him too fast, making his low-slung vehicle rock and swerve.

“I don’t know why,” Frieda said, “but I’m restless today.” She moved in the bucket seat, her inside foot close to his on the accelerator. “It must be the weather. Something interesting and out of the ordinary absolutely has to happen.”

“Mmm.”

“Not going anywhere special. Just going! That’s one of the things about hitching. A car stops, you get in, and you never know if it’s going to be nothing or something.”

He delivered another all-purpose grunt. After half a mile more she tried again.

“Times have certainly changed. People have begun to open up, finally, after so many centuries. Freedom! It’s wonderful.” She stretched her arms over her head. “This is a neat car. Can I drive?”

“Of course not,” he said sharply.

The window on his side was closed. She waved at the smoke that drifted in front of her, to leave by her window. She told him she didn’t believe in putting anything down that gave people pleasure, but the one thing that made her feel like throwing up was cigar smoke, and she didn’t want to mess up his nicely maintained automobile. Would he mind letting her out?

It made no difference to him, and he replied to her thanks with another abbreviated grunt.

A man and a woman, with children in the back seat, were the next to stop. Conceivably a schizophrenic could be a rapist by day and a family man by night, but Frieda thought it was unlikely that the two roles would overlap. She told them she was waiting for someone her own age, with a tape deck. A truck driver was next. He gave her breasts, in the tight sweater, more than one look. He started talking at once. Some of what he said was inaudible. She thought for a time that he was talking about women who had let him love them, for his tone was husky and sensual. Actually, she learned, he was telling her about different vehicles he had owned or driven. He was keeping a schedule, watching the time and the odometer, and he didn’t pick up on her hints that she was bored, ready to listen to any reasonable suggestion for getting off the hot highway.

So she left him.

Now she had a half-hour wait, while hundreds of cars boomed past, without slackening speed. She found a spot with a sliver of shade and tied the bright scarf around her forehead. The sun was like brass. Sweat ran down her legs.

A clean-shaven young man pulled over finally, and she felt a quick flicker of apprehension as he opened the door. She had been looking too long at the sundrenched concrete. There was a hot glitter in his eyes. She pulled her scarf free and let it catch in the door as it slammed.

His first remark after rejoining the traffic was: “You can thank Jesus for this.”

“I can? In what way?”

“He told me to pick you up.”

She shifted her shoulder bag to her lap so she could get to her gun quickly. “Why do you think he did that?”

The eyes, a very pale flat blue, red-rimmed, touched her again and slid along her body. He seemed to be disgusted with what he saw. He looked somewhat weatherbeaten, with a radiation of sun wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. His arms, emerging from the tight sleeves of a T-shirt, were like twists of bridge cable. In any physical struggle with this man, she would lose.

“Jesus,” he said lovingly. “The wind was in my ears. It was hard to hear all the exact words. I get flashes sometimes. The sky opens. Light blazes up, the breath is knocked out of my body, and I hear the voice. I believe you’ve been waiting to have Jesus Christ the Savior revealed to you.”

“Not consciously.”

“Jesus has his eye on girls on the highway. All the traveling girls — fleeing from something. They are ready for the flash, like Saul on the road to Damascus.”

Seeming to share his excitement, the speedometer needle had continued to climb until it stood straight up.

“Don’t you feel it? Don’t you feel it? See the shimmer rising from the roadway. What do you think that is, girl? Heat refractions? It’s the Holy Ghost. Open yourself. You’ll thank me. Consider the way you’re sitting there in the seat. So tense and unwelcoming. Part your knees. Prepare yourself to receive.”

“If you don’t slow down, you’re going to meet your maker quicker than you think. We’re twenty-five over the limit.”

“I live my life over the limit,” he said. “I get away with it because I believe in the power of prayer. Pray with me, all will be well.”

“We might have a better chance of being saved at seventy.”

“Those little details aren’t important. Sin is what matters. It’s sin that leads to hellfire. Thank you, Jesus.”

“I’ve done quite a bit of sinning, I’m afraid.” Her hands were tightly clenched. “It comes over me, and I think, ‘Why not?’ Slow down and tell me what I have to do to change.”

“Love Jesus!” he explained. “Unlock your knees and let the sweetness in. The honey of his love, let it fill you. He died for you. And what do you do for him? Stand at the roadside with the outlines of your body showing through your clothes. Girl, do you realize that your nipples are sticking out? That I can see the very hair on your sweet mount under the tight pants? You drink, you dope, you fornicate, you stay up late picking at that guitar.”

As the pressure grew inside his head, so did the pressure of his foot on the gas pedal.

“I feel it preparing to enter!” he shouted, gripping the wheel. “The truth! I see it. Oh!”

He closed his eyes and reared back. Fortunately they were alone on a straight stretch of concrete, and the seizure passed before their wickedness caught up to them and the ride came to a flaming finish. He blinked and said softly, “Wow.”

To Frieda’s relief, he began to slow down. The car was shaking, as though trying to shed its skin.

“That was far out,” he said. “Real communication that time. A flight of angels, their wings stretched out to us. I felt something delicate brush my face. Did you feel any of it?”

“I was too scared.”

“Scared!” he said, surprised. “Of the angels of Jesus?”

“Or something.”

He laughed, and in a changed voice said, “Turn the mirror and look at yourself. You’re as white as a painted wall.”

“You were going a hundred and five with your eyes closed.”

He went on laughing. “I may have peeked a little. With the off-eye.” His accent had changed slightly and was less rural. “How far are you traveling with me, girl?”

“Not far,” she said grimly. “I haven’t been to church for years, but I’m an Episcopalian and we don’t believe in enthusiasm.”

“But are you happy? Look at those tight thighs. You’re not happy. I’d say you’re about ripe for the kiss of Jesus.”

She gave him a closer look. “You’ve been putting me on.”

“What are you doing hitching without a bra, dummy? Haven’t you heard there’s a rapist prowling the interstate? Now I’m serious! Don’t you listen to the news, or what?”

“I’m into sensory awakening and Hermann Hesse. What can a news broadcaster say to me?”

“I thought that was it. For your information, people have been getting killed lately. How much have you got with you, in the way of cash?”

“I don’t carry money. It distorts the real things. Just a dollar for fruit and milk.”

“A dollar won’t buy you much public transportation.”

They were now moving at a legal speed. He glanced at her, shaking his head.

“Jesus wouldn’t want me to pass on the other side of the road, would you, Jesus?” He looked aloft. “I’m getting off at Pompano, and I really do mean it’s a damn-fool thing for you to be out doing right now, hitching. O.K., chances are that most of it’s propaganda, but it gives people ideas. Like somebody hijacks an airplane in a certain way, and all the copy-cats go to work and do just exactly the same thing. Everybody driving an automobile these days has to be a little cracked.” He hooted sharply. “Except me! And with all these rapists around who dig the sight of a couple of nice tits, you’ve got the only two on the road today, and the guys are going to be bumping fenders to get first crack at you.”

“I doubt that.”

“I’m coming up from Key West, and you’re the first girl single I’ve noticed all afternoon. That hair is crazy. I like it, and the rapists are going to like it. If they’re going the other way, they’ll turn around and come back. So if you’ve got a five or ten under the sole of your boot, blow it on busfare.”

“The difference between you and me is,” Frieda said, “I’m not paranoid.”

“In fact,” he went on, “do you absolutely have to travel? A week from now, if no more bodies turn up, the hitchers will be moving again, and you won’t stand out this much.”

“I can’t hold still and grow roots. I’ve got to move.”

He sighed. “All right. Show me your ID and make me a solemn promise to pay me back, and I’ll advance you for the ticket. I’ve been working a charter for some wealthy people, and the tips have been good.”

She let him persuade her to stop hitchhiking, and when they left the highway at the Pompano Beach exit, she admitted her financial situation was better than she had made out and she wouldn’t require a loan. At the bus depot, they exchanged names and addresses.

“And just in case I didn’t convince you,” he said before driving off, “stay off the big road, for the love of Jesus. So far nobody’s been raped on Route One.”

She remained on the sidewalk until he was out of sight. Shayne pulled up and she got in.

“Don’t say one word, Michael Shayne,” she said, furious. “Back to the highway, and if you want to make yourself popular around here, keep your mouth shut.”

“Did the subject of rape come up at all?” he said with a slight smile.

“It came up,” she said, tight-lipped.

“I clocked him at a hundred and seven.”

“With one eye closed. Now shut up!”

At the interchange, he pointed out that the afternoon sun was uncomfortably hot, and he had ice, gin, tonic, and glasses in the back seat. She allowed him to make drinks, and found herself beginning to relax.

“Sorry I snarled, Mike. There was a flight of angels overhead, and for a minute I thought they were going to swoop down and pick us up.”