For the next hour or so, I was at loose ends, envisioning Molly’s desperate situation while regretting my inability to save her. I remember her saying years back, right before she asked me to leave, that she couldn’t trust her life to me. I had denied it with as much conviction as I could work up on a moment’s notice and she had said, “Time will tell.”
I was almost prepared to acknowledge that Molly had been right when a knock on the door followed by a ringing of the doorbell, followed by the click of a key in the lock, distracted me from my thoughts.
It figured that the intruder was one of the kidnappers, who had gotten the key to the house from Molly’s purse. I looked around for a weapon and, finding nothing that answered to the moment, I settled for Donald’s bowling ball which was nestling among his shoes at the back of a closet. It seemed a particularly heavy ball but I lodged my fingers in it and I was swinging it laboriously back and forth to familiarize my muscles with its heft.
I could tell from the sound of running water that the intruder was in the downstairs bathroom, washing hands or peeing or perhaps even taking a shower.
I tiptoed my way down and waited impatiently for whoever it was to emerge, the bowling ball in readiness behind my back.
The phone rang and it felt as if the sirens were calling to me, but just when I decided to leave my post it stopped. Momentarily, the ringing resumed.
Molly came out of the bathroom, unaware of my presence behind the door, and headed for the kitchen phone. “You’re safe,” I said unable to control my astonishment, the bowling ball slipping from my fingers with a terrifying bang, turning Molly’s head.
“You scared me,” she said. “Is that Donald’s ball that’s rolling across the floor? He doesn’t even allow me to touch it.”
I ignored her complaint. “How did you get away?” I asked.
“You don’t even have the right to ask,” she said. “Why don’t you just get out of here, okay?”
When I said that I would leave as soon as I could get my stuff together, she seemed almost disappointed. “There’s no rush,” she said. “In any event, I’m going to be away for the next two weeks. The kidnappers are waiting for me in the car. We’re going to this adorable island off the coast of Maine.”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t worry so much, Jack,” she said. “It’s going to be all right.” She came over and gave me a quick hug as if someone who disapproved might be watching.
“I’ll call the police,” I said, which was a concession on my part — I never called the police. “You don’t have to go with them.”
“When they elected not to kill me,” she said, “I felt this sudden surging affection for them. They’re not such bad guys when you get to know them. Sweetheart, I’ll be back before you know it. Promise.”
I stepped out of her way and she was gone.
49th Night
Of course I should have found out where Molly was going — what island off the coast of Maine — before I decided to rent a car and go after her. But then I thought, not having another opportunity to ask, how many “adorable” islands could there be in that part of the world? And then, already caught up in what seemed an urgent agenda, I never should have stopped for the sexy hitchhiker, for which I plead loneliness and boredom.
She had a baby face — she was likely older than she looked — and there was something appealingly (even appallingly) shy about her.
Once I had stopped for her and she had eased her way into the seat next to me, tossing her backpack in the back, there was no way of undoing my impulsive decision.
I made small talk, asked her how long she had been waiting and where she had been going.
She neither answered nor looked in my direction, seemed to be focused on whatever lay ahead.
There was something odd about her, though I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Stopped for a light, glancing at her, I asked again where she was going.
“Wherever this bus goes,” she said, emphasizing each word, a sly almost eerie smile punctuating the remark and then disappearing almost instantly.
She was wearing dark glasses and carrying a canelike stick which folded up into something not much larger than a pencil. If she was blind, which was my first impression, how did she see to get into the car?
“I’m going to Maine,” I said — we were still in New Hampshire at the time — “and I’ll be driving along the coast. So…”
When you’re riding in a car with a silent person, there is a temptation to fill the void. I told her about the first time I had been to Maine and the story branched off into areas I had not intended to enter.
She said, “Uh huh,” at approximately five minute intervals. At some point, when my story was losing its impetus, she said, in a way that made it hard for me to know that I had heard what I thought I had, “Would you be interested in a little fun?”
I knew what she meant and yet I couldn’t believe that she meant it. I suddenly noticed that we were getting low on gas — the fuel sign was flashing — but from the look of things we were miles away from the nearest station.
A few miles down the road a Mobil station appeared in the distance but it disappeared like a mirage as soon as I approached.
And after that, a Gulf and an Arco offered themselves only to disappear before I could reach them. There was even a local brand — Ouija Gas — that was similarly evanescent.
The next time I looked over at my companion, there was a small gun in her lap. “Take the next left,” she said. “Don’t make me ask twice.”
“Look,” I said, “I need to find a gas station in the next few minutes or we’re not going anywhere.” I pointed out the flashing light.
“You should have been more careful,” she said. “What kind of father are you?”
“Who said I was a father? Who have you been talking to?”
She lifted the gun and kissed the barrel in a provocative way.
Another Ouija station appeared and I headed toward it, quixotically hopeful as always, the car beginning to cough and fart in desperation.
This time the station didn’t fade into smoke as I approached it and I had a moment of elation but then the motor died and I was stranded approximately seven feet from the nearest pump. I sat in the car with my head in my hands.
“I might have known,” my companion said, in her expressionless voice. “Nothing you do ever comes to anything.”
“I need you to help me push the car,” I said.
“I don’t do pushing,” she said, slipping the gun inside her pants.
Just as I was getting out of the car, three burly men I hadn’t seen before came over and offered to help. They got behind the car while I worked the steering wheel, but their first series of pushes, accompanied by ear-piercing grunts, were to no effect.
I realized that I had forgotten to release the emergency break and I waved a hand in apology.
As I released the break, the car shot forward and when it finally skidded to a stop we were as much past the second pump as we had been behind the first one before.
One of my helpers approached the driver-side window and said they had done what they could and now had to get back to their other business. I said that one more push from the other side might do the trick.
“Sorry, cowboy,” he said. “There’s only one person in town who gets off on pushing from the front and he’s gone to his reward.”
I noticed that one of the other burly guys was talking to my passenger and she got out of the car and followed him into the convenience store that adjoined the pumps.
Relieved of her weight, the car rolled backwards a foot or so, barely improving my position. I got out, opened my gas tank (which had an awful smell) and stretched the gas pump hose to its limit. Straining the hose a few inches further, I could just about reach my tank with the point of the nozzle.