He entered the telephone booth, put a coin in the slot and dialed long distance. It was getting late and the rush hours were over. The call went through immediately.
“Hello.”
“Mr. Dodd?”
“Speaking.”
“You don’t know me personally, Mr. Dodd, but I have a proposition you might be interested in.”
“Clean?”
“Clean enough. I know you’re looking for Amy Kellogg.”
“So?”
“I can tell you where she is. In return for certain services.”
The man behind the counter had reheated the coffee on a little butane burner. “A bit of a warm-up, ma’am?”
She looked blank. “I beg your pardon?”
“That’s my way of saying, how would you like another cup of coffee without paying for it?”
“Thank you.”
He poured more coffee for her and some for himself. “Going far?”
“We are just traveling around seeing the country.”
“Gypsying, eh? I like gypsying myself.”
The word stung her ears. It meant wandering, homeless, poverty-stricken people who would steal anything. She said sharply, one hand on her purse, “We are not gypsies. Do I look like a gypsy?”
“Heck, no, I didn’t mean that. I meant, like for instance you pick up and leave and you don’t know where you’re going.”
“I know where I’m going.”
“Sure. All right. Just making conversation anyway. Business is slow, not many folks around to talk to.”
She realized she had made a mistake being sharp to him, he would remember her more vividly. She tried to make amends by smiling at him pleasantly. “What is the next city?”
“Highway 1 ain’t long on cities. It’s for scenery, finest scenery in the world. Lemme see, San Luis Obispo I guess you’d say is the next real city. When you get there you’re on 101, that’s the main highway.”
“Is it far?”
“A good piece. If it was me, now, I’d cut across to Paso Robles from Cambria, you get to 101 faster that way.”
“Is there a bus that goes by here?”
“Not often.”
“But there is one?”
“Sure. I’ve been trying to arrange with the company to use my place as a lunch stop, only they say it ain’t big enough and the service ain’t quick enough. There’s just me and the wife to handle everything.”
“How many doughnuts do you have left?”
“Six, seven.”
“I’ll take them all.”
“Sure. That’ll be fifty-two cents all together with the coffee.”
She opened her purse under the counter so that he couldn’t see how much money she had. She wasn’t sure herself, but it looked like a great deal, enough to make her free of Rupert. If I could get away from him, if I could hide in the woods... I’m not afraid of the dark, only of the dark with him in it...
Him. It was a curse, an epithet, a dirty word.
He was sitting behind the wheel of the car when she came out of the coffee shop. She had changed to flat-heeled shoes for comfort during the trip, and she moved with leisurely grace, not the way she moved in the city, wobbling and lurching along like a little girl wearing her mother’s high heels for the first time.
Instead of coming toward the car she turned right. He thought she was going to the rest room and he settled down to wait. The clock on the dashboard clicked away the minutes as if they were merry ones. Five. Seven. Ten. At eleven, he cranked down the window of the car and called her name, as loudly as he could without attracting the attention of the man behind the counter. There was no answer.
The little dog began whimpering again, as if he realized, before Rupert did, what was happening and how to deal with it. Rupert opened the car door and the dog leaped across the back of the seat and out into the night. He circled the parking lot, nose to the ground, lifting his head at intervals to yelp in Rupert’s direction. Then he turned suddenly and streaked off toward the rear of the cabins where the creek splashed down the hill to the sea.
Both the dog and the object of his chase were covered by darkness. Rupert didn’t call out to either of them. He simply began following the sound of the dog’s now frantic barking, walking silently among the vast trees, the noise of his footsteps muffled by layers of dense, damp redwood needles. He didn’t hurry, he needed time for his eyes to adjust to the dark, and he knew the dog wouldn’t stop chasing her as long as she kept running. If he had had a free choice, he would have whistled the dog to heel, put him in the car, and driven on, leaving her to wander in the woods by herself until she dropped of exhaustion. But he had no choice. She was his hope as well as his despair.
She had reached the creek and was about to cross when he caught up with her. The dog was running up and down in front of her, just out of reach of the kicks she was aiming at his head. His tail was wagging and his barking sounded more mischievous than angry, as if he thought this was a new game she was playing, throwing her foot at him instead of a tennis ball.
As Rupert approached, she began to scream strange curses at him: he was a pig, his mother was a sow, his father had horns, the little dog belonged to the devil.
He grabbed her by the wrists. “Shut up.”
“No! Leave me alone!”
A light went on in one of the cabins and the silhouette of a man’s head appeared at the open window. The head was cocked, listening.
Rupert said, “Someone’s watching.”
“I don’t care!”
“You will.”
“No!”
She struggled in his grasp. He could barely hold her; in her fury she was as strong as a man.
“If you don’t behave,” he said quietly, “I’ll have to kill you. The water’s deep enough. I’ll hold your head under. You can scream all you like, then. It will just help things along.”
He knew she was afraid of the water, she hated the very sight of the sea, and even the sound of water running in the shower made her nervous.
She had gone limp in his arms, as if she had already drowned of fright.
“You’re going to kill me anyway,” she said in a ragged whisper.
“Don’t be absurd.”
“I can see it in your eyes.”
“Stop this nonsense.”
“I can feel it in your touch. You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
Yes, I am. The words were in his mouth ready to be spoken. Yes, I’m going to kill you. But not with my bare hands, and not now. The day after tomorrow, perhaps, or the day after that. There are things to be settled before you die.
The beam of a flashlight flickered among the trees and a man’s voice called out, “Hello out there! Hey! Ahoy!”
Rupert tightened his grip on her wrist. “You’re to say nothing. I’ll do the talking, understand?”
“Yes.”
“And don’t get any ideas about asking for help. I’m your help, I hope you have sense enough to realize that.”
The man from the coffee shop appeared, his white apron luffing in the wind. The beam of his flashlight caught Rupert in the face like a slap.
“Say, what’s going on here?”
“Sorry for the disturbance,” Rupert said. “My dog jumped out of the car, and my wife and I were trying to catch him.”