The Instant Enemy

chapter 21

WE AGREED TO DOUBLE UP in Fleischer’s car, which was new and fast. I left mine at an all-night station in Canoga Park, not too far from Keith Sebastian’s house. Whatever happened, I’d be coming back there.

I drove while Fleischer dozed in the front seat beside me. Up the San Fernando Valley, over the main pass, back by way of Camarillo to the dark sea. When we crossed the Santa Teresa County line, Fleischer woke up as if he could smell home territory.

A few miles south of Santa Teresa, as we were traversing a lonely stretch of highway, Fleischer told me to stop by a eucalyptus grove. I assumed it was a call of nature. He didn’t get out of the car, though, when I pulled off on the shoulder.

He twisted toward me in the seat and chopped at my head with the loaded butt of his gun. I went out, all the way. After a while the darkness where I lay was invaded by dreams. Huge turning wheels, like the interlocking wheels of eternity and necessity, resolved themselves into a diesel locomotive. I was lying limp across the tracks and the train was coming, swinging its Cyclops eye.

It honked its horn at me. It wasn’t a train sound, though, and I wasn’t lying on a track, and it was no dream. I sat up in the middle of the northbound lane of the highway. A truck lit up like a Christmas tree was bearing down on me, honking repeatedly.

Its brakes were shrieking, too, but it wasn’t going to be able to stop before it got to me. I lay down and watched it blot out the stars. Then I could see the stars again, and feel the blood pounding all through my body.

More traffic was coming up from the south. I crawled off the road, feeling small and awkward as a Jerusalem cricket. The eucalyptus trees muttered and sighed in the wind like witnesses. I felt for my gun. It was missing.

Fleischer’s treachery had touched a paranoid nerve which twanged and jangled in my injured head. I reminded it and myself that I had been ready to turn on Fleischer when it suited me to. His timing had been a little faster than mine.

By now the driver of the truck had pulled his rig off the road and set out a flare. He ran toward me with a flashlight.

“Hey, are you all right?”

“I think so.” I stood up, balancing the angry weight of my head.

He shone the flashlight in my face. I closed my eyes and almost fell under the slap of light.

“Hey, there’s blood on your face. Did I hit you?”

“You missed me. A friend of mine knocked me out and left me on the highway.”

“I better call the police, eh? You need an ambulance?”

“I don’t need anything if you’ll give me a lift to Santa Teresa.”

He hesitated, his face torn between sympathy and suspicion. The blood on my face cut two ways. Nice people didn’t get hurt and left on the highway.

“Okay,” he said without enthusiasm. “I can do that much for you.”

He drove me to the outskirts of Santa Teresa. The Power Plus station was still lit up, and I asked the driver to let me off there.

Fred Cram, the attendant with the special boot, was on duty. He didn’t seem to recognize me. I went into the men’s room and washed my face. There was a swollen cut above my temple, but it had stopped bleeding.

Someone had printed on the wall: MAKE SENSE NOT WAR. I laughed. It hurt my head.

I went outside and asked Fred Cram for permission to use the phone. He recognized me now.

“Did you find the girl?”

“I found her. Thanks very much.”

“You’re welcome. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Just let me use the phone, for a local call.”

The electric clock in the office had its hands straight up on midnight. Midnight was my time for calling the Längstens. I looked up their number in the directory, and dialed it. Henry Langston answered, in a muffled voice:

“Langston residence.”

“Archer. You’re going to hate me.”

His voice brightened. “I’ve been wondering about you. Davy is all over the local paper.”

“I think I know where he is, Hank. So does Fleischer – he’s on his way there now. Do you feel like another midnight drive?”

“Where to?”

“A ranch near Centerville in the northern part of the county.”

“And Davy’s there with Hackett?”

“I’d say there’s a fifty per cent chance of it. Bring a gun.”

“All I have is a .32 target pistol.”

“Bring it. And bring a flashlight.”

I told him where I was. While I was waiting outside the office, Fred Cram locked the pumps and turned out the overhead lights.

“I’m sorry,” he said to me. “It’s time to close.”

“Go right ahead. I expect to be picked up in a few minutes.”

But the young man lingered, eying my head wound. “Did Davy Spanner do that to you?”

“No. I’m still looking for him”

“That was him with the girl last night. I didn’t know him at first, he’s changed so much. But when I read about him in the paper – he really did have somebody in the trunk.”

“He really did. Do you know Davy?”

“I knew him in high school one year. He was a freshman and I was a senior. He wasn’t a delinquent back in those days. He was real little and small, before he got his growth, which is why I didn’t recognize him last night.”

“If you see him again let me know, Fred.” I gave him my card. “You can call my answering service any time, collect.”

He took the card, but the look on his face rejected it. “That isn’t really what I had in mind.”

“What did you have in mind?”

“The way things turn out in life. I mean, here I am pumping gas for a living and Davy’s turned into a criminal.”

Having put himself on record, he turned out the office lights and locked the door. He stayed around, politely, until Langston’s station wagon came in off the highway and pulled up beside his jalopy.

I said good night to Fred and climbed into the wagon. Langston’s sensitive eyes took in my face and head.

“You’ve been hurt. Do you need a doctor?”

“Not now. I’m at least half an hour behind Fleischer already.”

“How did he get into this?”

“He’s been in it from the beginning. You know that. I made the mistake of trying to work with him. That lasted about an hour. He knocked me out and left me on the highway.”

Hank whistled. “Shouldn’t you tell the police?”

“Then we’d never get away. Did you bring your flashlight and pistol?”

“In the dash compartment. I feel like a crimebuster’s apprentice.”

His humor sounded a little forced, but I went along with it. “Let’s go, apprentice.”

Langston turned onto the highway and headed north. He’d caught a few hours’ sleep before I called, and was full of energy and curiosity. He wanted to talk at length about Davy and his psychological problems. I was weary of such palaver. My answers got shorter and shorter. After a while I crawled into the back seat and tried to sleep. But every time a truck went by I woke up with a start.

Where the highway looped inland, we ran into a spatter of rain. Above the mountains to the north, the sky was very black, lit by occasional stabs of lightning. The highway brought us back to the coast. Here the night sky was still clear, and the moon’s white eye peered over the rim of the sea. I recognized the crossroads where we had picked up Sandy the night before.

The thought of the girl was heavy on my mind. She was swinging through all the changes of the moon. The moon was white and shining, the very symbol of purity, but it had its dark side, too, pocked and cold and desolate and hidden. The girl could tum either way, depending on the outcome of our journey.

If we could bring Hackett out alive, she’d have a chance for probation. If Hackett died, her future died with him.