“Oh, yes,” said Mary. “You have to graduate to amount to anything. I’m a full-fledged Doctor of Philosophy. I even got my sheepskin in my bag. I’ll show you. Psychology, you know.”
My ears tingled! Ah, this dear girl! A psychologist! Empathy flooded through me.
The car almost left the ground over a rise.
“Psychology?” said Heller. “What’s that?”
“A lot of horse (bleep). It’s a con game. They try to make you think you’re nobody, just a bunch of cells, an animal. They can’t do anything. They teach that you can’t change anybody. They even have total consciousness that they’re fakes. So why bother to practice it?”
I went catatonic with shock!
My newly formed empathy shattered utterly into non-rapport! A heretic! A foul nonbeliever! She had no reverence whatever for the sacred! Absolute antisocial negation!
The Cadillac was racing down a bumpy lane. The screams of the cop cars got louder.
“I was an A student,” said Mary, “but every time any of the professors (bleeped) me, they’d say I should be more libido oriented. That’s why they kept putting me on drugs. Listen, if psychology is so good, why are all the psychology professors so crazy?”
Heller slued the Cadillac across a muddy stretch of road. The speedometer said one hundred.
Mary swabbed at her running nose and eyes. “They preach free love just so they can get it free.”
Another shot hit the road and ricocheted away.
“They’re all bad (bleeps), too. I suppose it’s the constant overstimulation of the erotic sensory capacity that causes the consequent response deterioration. But they say it’s a lot of hard work to turn every college dorm into a whorehouse. You just missed that cow.”
Heller said, “But if you got your diploma, why couldn’t you get a job?”
A huge sign whipped by. It had said:
Heller braked. The engine screamed. He let off the brakes and shot into the four-lane U.S. 29, heading north.
“The public won’t have anything to do with a psychologist. They know better. The only people who employ psychologists are the government. They think they need them to teach kids, to defend the bankers and wipe out dissidents. The government thinks the psychologists can keep the population under control. What a laugh!”
The cop cars had entered U.S. 29 behind them.
A sign said:
“I sure hope I can get a fix in Lynchburg,” said Mary.
Heller started letting the Cadillac out.
Heller said, “Did the government offer you a job?”
The Cadillac engine was screaming at such a pitch, it became hard to hear what they were saying.
“They sure did,” she said. Then she swabbed at her nose and frantically tried to yawn. Then she leaned forward to look at him intensely. “Listen, kid. I may be a thief. I may be a totally hooked dope addict. I may be a whore. I might have some incurable disease. But don’t think I’ve sunk so low as to work for the God (bleeped) government! Do you think I want to be a paranoid schizophrenic like those guys?”
I thought to myself, remembering Lombar, well, she has a point there. I began to take a more tolerant view of her, apostate though she might be. I suddenly recalled how clever and cunning she had been in doing Harvey “Smasher” Lee out of his favorite and vitally fetish-worshipped Cadillac. The psychology training had vividly shown through. Hadn’t she used blackmail? Ah, well, my faith in psychology was totally restored.
The four-lane highway had a wide divider in the center. At intervals a gap in the abutments showed through where one could do a U-turn.
U.S. 29 was undulating at this point, with many rises and dips. As it went over the tops, the Cadillac tended to float.
“Now, you chemical-engined Cadillac Brougham Coupe d’Elegance, it’s time you started to move!”
A sign flashed by:
The cop cars were in sight in the rearview mirror. The Cadillac engine was winding up to a shriek. “Jesus!” said Mary. “You’re doing over 120.” The speedometer was stuck at the top. “We’re doing 135,” said Heller. A sign:
Another sign:
They flashed by the junction of State Highway 699.
The opposite lane had some truck traffic in it.
They soared over a rise. All four wheels of the Cadillac left the ground!
It hurtled down the hill.
The cop cars had vanished, hidden by the rise.
Heller was watching the center dividers for an opening.
“HOLD ON!” yelled Heller.
He stamped on the brakes.
Mary slapped a hand against the cowling.
Heller floorboarded the accelerator. He yanked the wheel to the left.
The car, in a skidding scream, spun through the divider opening.
It shot ahead in the opposite lanes, going now in the other direction.
A big truck was just ahead in the passing lane.
Heller stamped on the brakes and brought the car to the right of the truck!
The Cadillac came down to a shuddering fifty-five.
On the opposite side of the highway, the two police cars screamed over the rise and down the hill, still heading for Lynchburg as though the world were on fire.
Their yowls and chortles faded away to the north.
“Now,” said Heller, pointing as they ambled quietly along, “we’ll turn over to State Highway 699.” The junction was right there. They turned sedately. “We’ll go over to U.S. Highway 501 and then up into Lynchburg.”
“Jesus,” said Mary, “I hope so. I sure need a fix.”
Chapter 5
As they headed up U.S. 501, I laughed.
What an amateur! They’d have his license number spread through Lynchburg and all the states to the north. And here he was, tamely rolling along to the first town where he’d be expected. I knew they’d spot and catch him there or somewhere up the line for sure!
Fleet combat engineer! Never trained for anything really important. Anyone with any sense would have headed in the other direction. Even for California! Fast! Yet there he was, driving at a leisurely pace into the northern side of the town.
A big neon sign said:
Heller pulled in beside the office.
Mary swabbed at her nose with her skirt. “I better go in.”
Heller unlatched the door for her and helped her out. He went in with her. Just what I wanted.
The clock on the office wall said it was 11:45.
A clerk with his sleeves rolled up had his gray head lowered over some bookkeeping. He reminded me of Lombar’s chief clerk, so I expected him to be nasty.
Mary went to the desk. She sure looked awful. “Mister,” she said, “could you tell me where I could buy a dollar bag or tell me where I could get one? I need it awfully bad!”
The clerk looked up and fixed her with a gimlet eye. “Aw, Ah’m terrible sorry, ma’am. Ah jus’ cain’t.” He turned to Heller apologetically. “It’s the local Feds. They grabbed all the hard stuff in sight jus’ las’ week. They said they’s holdin’ it to shoot up the price afore they puts it back on the mahkut. You know how the God (bleeped) narcos is.” He turned back to Mary. “Ah’m terrible sorry, ma’am, Ah shorely is!”