O’Leary had one fact that might help him find his missing motorist; he probably wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat. He had left them in the car.
But the hostess who escorted diners to tables remembered no such person. “Not in the last ten or fifteen minutes, Dan.” She glanced around the restaurant, which was divided into two large wings, one on either side of a long soda fountain and take-out counter. Both were crowded; the air was noisy with conversation and the clatter of cutlery and dishes. “Of course, he might have come in while I was seating someone.”
“He couldn’t have found a table for himself?”
“Not when it’s crowded like this. But he might have gone to the take-out counter.”
“Thanks. I’ll check that.”
O’Leary stood patiently at the take-out counter while the waitress took an order for hamburgers, French Tries, milk and coffee from a thin young man who seemed vaguely embarrassed at putting her to so much trouble, He smiled nervously at O’Leary and said, “The kids are too little to bring in here. They’d play with the menus and water glasses instead of eating. My wife thinks it’s easier to feed them in the car.”
“She probably knows best,” O’Leary said. “Anyway, eating in a car is pretty exciting for kids.”
“Yes, they get a kick out of it.” The young man seemed relieved by O’Leary’s understanding air. When he went away with his sackful of food, O’Leary asked the waitress if she had served a man recently who wasn’t wearing a hat or overcoat.
“Gee, I don’t think so, Dan.” She was a plain and plump young woman, with mild brown eyes. Her name was Millie. “How come he wasn’t wearing an overcoat?”
“He left it in his car, which is out of gas about two hundred yards from here. I guess he figured he wouldn’t freeze in that time.”
At this point it was a routine investigation, a small departure from O’Leary’s normal work of shepherding traffic along the pike, of running down speeders, of watching for drivers who seemed fatigued or erratic, of arresting hitchhikers, or assisting motorists in any and all kinds of trouble. A car out of gas, the owner not in evidence at the moment; that’s all it amounted to. He might be in a washroom, might have stopped in the service-station office to buy cigarettes or make a phone call. There was no law against his doing any of these things. But O’Leary wanted to find him and get his car back in operation. The safety of the pike depended on smoothly flowing traffic; any stalled car was dangerous.
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” the waitress asked him.
“No, thanks, Millie.” There would be little time for coffee breaks tonight, he knew. A threat of rain was on the cold, damp air, and that meant the hazards of thickening traffic and difficult driving conditions. Also there was the convoy; every trooper on the pike had been alerted to that responsibility.
But at that moment there was an interruption which took O’Leary’s mind off his missing motorist; a dark-haired girl came up beside Millie and said breathlessly, “Has Dan told you about the glamorous date he has tonight?”
“Now, Sheila,” O’Leary said, and ran a finger under his collar.
“Tonight and every night,” Sheila said with an envious sigh, which O’Leary knew was about as sincere as the average speeder’s excuse and contrition. “You see, Millie,” Sheila went on, “Dan and I had a date last Tuesday, and before we went home he took me up to Leonard’s Hill. We could see the turnpike below us, the headlights blazing like long strings of diamonds in the darkness. And do you know what he told me?”
“Now, Sheila!” O’Leary said helplessly.
“He told me he loved the turnpike. Isn’t that lucky for him? Night after night he’s close to his one true love — a hundred miles of asphalt.”
“It’s concrete,” O’Leary said miserably; he knew it was a token point, but he disliked inaccuracies about the turnpike, major or minor. The fact was, he did love that hundred-mile stretch of concrete. And sitting in the darkness with Sheila the other night, it had seemed natural to put the thought into words. Why was he such a fool? And why did she make him feel so helpless and vulnerable? The top of her head barely reached his shoulders, and he could swing her hundred-odd pounds into the air as easily as he would a child, but these things made no difference; he was clumsy and inept with her, driven to silly talk by something intangible and mysterious that radiated from her personality. It wasn’t mere beauty, he knew that much; as an Irishman he was also a poet, and while he appreciated her green eyes and elegantly slim body, his heart and soul responded to more than these physical attractions. There was a quality of grace and strength about her, a thread of steel and music permeating her whole being, and because of this — and because I’m a fool, he thought — he had blurted out his feelings to her that night as they sat watching the traffic on the pike.
In his eyes the turnpike was a fascinating creation, a fabulous artery linking three mighty states, a brilliant complex of traffic rotaries, interchanges and expressways which carried almost a quarter of a million persons safely to their homes and offices each and every day of the year. Consider it, he had urged her, unaware that she was smiling at the clean, boyish line of his profile. This on their fourth date. She was not a regular waitress, but a part-timer filling in on evenings and weekends to help pay for her last year in college. Their fourth date and probably their last, he thought, for he had got on the subject of speeders.
As a logical corollary to O’Leary’s affection for the turnpike was his dislike of those who abused its privileges; and speeders topped this list by a country mile. O’Leary always thought of them as small and shifty-eyed, although the last one he had caught was built like a professional wrestler. They regarded the turnpike as a challenge and troopers as natural enemies. They didn’t have the brains to realize that the checks and safeguards, the radar and unmarked police cars were designed solely for their protection. Instead they acted like sullen, sneaky children, behaving only as long as the parental eye was on them. O’Leary knew their works very well; he had stood dozens of limes at the scene of wrecks, with the moans of the dying in his cars, and seeing the wild patterns of ruptured steel and broken glass, and the nightmarish contortion human bodies could assume after striking a concrete abutment at seventy miles an hour.
He felt strongly about these matters and had tried to make Sheila understand his convictions; but after completing his lecture with an interesting recital of various statistics, he had turned to find her peacefully asleep, with shadows like violets under her eyes and still the faintest trace of a smile on her lips.
Millie had turned to wait on another customer. A woman with two children was trying to catch Sheila’s eye. O’Leary adjusted his cap. Then he said quietly, formally, “I simply wanted you to understand—”
But she didn’t let him finish. “I understand,” she said, smiling up at him. “I couldn’t resist teasing you a little. I’m sorry.” She moved a sugar bowl, and the back of her fingers touched his hand. “It wasn’t very nice of me. I’m afraid.”