‘Are there two beds in there?’ Randy asked hopefully. ‘I’m dead on my feet too.’
‘If you can’t control this freak, then he stays on the road,’ the girl said to Harry and there was a snap in her voice that made Randy stiffen. ‘Get in and get going. She walked stiffly around to the back of the caravan. They heard the door open and then slam shut. They heard a bolt snap home.
The two men looked at each other, then Harry slid under the driving wheel.
‘Come on, freak,’ he said, ‘unless you want to walk.’
Randy bolted around the car, jerked open the offside door and got in beside Harry who set the car surging forward.
‘Well, what do you know?’ Randy said. Talk about luck! We could be in Miami by seven o’clock.’
‘Could be luck or something else,’ Harry returned. ‘Do girls ferry caravans for eighteen hours non-stop these days? I wouldn’t know. I’m three years out of date.’
‘Let me tell you, Van Winkle, ol’ pal, ol’ pal,’ Randy said, grinning. ‘The dolls do everything these days. That’s what’s the matter with them. They have no respect for us men either... widow spiders, all of them!’
‘Pretty cool,’ Harry said thoughtfully, ‘stopping like that and then handing us this car. She could have got knocked on the head and raped for all she knew.’
‘They like being raped: it’s their new occupational pastime,’ Randy said bitterly. ‘I bet she was disappointed to find you were an old-fashioned gentleman.’
‘Take a look in the glove compartment See if she’s left any papers in there,’ Harry said. The speedometer needle was now steady at 50 m.p.h.
Randy opened the glove compartment and found a plastic folder. He took out some papers, turned on the map light and leaning forward, examined them.
After reading, he sat back.
‘This is a Hertz hired car, rented at Vero Beach to Joel Black, 1244, Springfield Road, Cleveland.’
‘Have they logged the mileage?’
‘Yeah, 1,550 miles.’
Harry looked at the mileage counter on the dashboard. He did a sum in his head.
‘Since this car was hired, it has driven 240 miles. Not what you would call an eighteen hour drive.’
Randy turned and stared at him.
‘Do you always act like this? You sound like a fuzz.’
‘She isn’t Joel Whatever his name is. She hasn’t been driving eighteen hours. I don’t like it She might have stolen this car.’
‘Look,’ Randy said earnestly, ‘don’t let’s push our luck. We have a car. We will be in Miami by seven. From there we will waltz to Paradise City. We can even go by bus if we can’t thumb a ride. So what do we care?’
‘You’ll care if there’s an alarm out for this car and some cop stops us.’
‘Oh, for Pete’s sake! At this time of night and on this highway, the cops are in bed.’
Harry hesitated. There was something wrong about this setup which he didn’t like, but he told himself that it was the girl’s business. If they were stopped by the police, he would have no difficulty in clearing himself. If Randy was willing to take the risk why should he worry?
He gently squeezed more pressure on the gas pedal and the speedometer climbed to 65 m.p.h.
‘Have you calmed down?’ Randy asked.
‘It’s your headache. I don’t risk a thing. If you don’t care, why should I?’
‘That’s my boy.’ Randy reached into his duffel bag and found the parcel Morelli had given him. ‘My worms are beginning to gnaw at me.’ He undid the parcel and found a roast chicken, neatly quartered, two doughnuts and four slices of buttered bread, smeared with mayonnaise. That Wop certainly knows his food. You want something to eat?’
‘Not now.’
‘Well, I do.’ Randy began to eat contentedly. With his mouth full, he said, ‘Talking about girls: how were they in Vietnam?’
‘You won’t be going there so why should you care?’ Harry said curtly.
Randy looked at him, bit into the bread, munched for a long moment, then said, ‘Do they do it in the usual way or do they do something different?’
‘You won’t be going there so why should you care?’ Harry repeated, staring at the road ahead, lighted by the powerful headlights.
Randy grimaced.
‘Excuse me for speaking. Yeah... why should I care?’ He tossed a chicken bone out of the window and helped himself to a thick slice of the breast.
Harry thought nostalgically of the Vietnamese girl he had left in Saigon. Whenever he had come out of the front line he had found her waiting. She had made a precarious living selling cooked food at a street corner. He had always marvelled that she was able to carry the cooking stove and the sundry pots, slung on a bamboo pole on her shoulder. She had always reminded him of a beautiful butterfly in her pink cheongsam, but he had learned later just how durable and how strong she had been.
She had become the most precious thing in his life during those three dreary years: a thought to cling to during the dark, frightening nights. She represented to him tenderness, interest and love and when she had been blown to pieces along with others by a Viet Cong bomb Harry hadn’t looked at another woman out there, nor could he bring himself to talk about the Vietnam girls neither with his buddies nor with men like Randy who had seen pictures of them and thought they were just companions in bed.
Any suggestive talk about them turned Harry sour. His girl, who had been so much fun, so dependable, always waiting for him, represented to him the women of Vietnam, slighting one meant slighting her.
In the wing mirror, he saw the headlights of a car some half mile behind him and he eased the pressure on the gas pedal. There was a 60 m.p.h. speed limit on this highway and the car behind him might be a patrol car He wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks.
Randy, noticing the fall off of speed, glanced at him.
‘Car behind,’ Harry explained.
He looked in the mirror again. The car was driving at his speed. It remained half a mile behind.
‘The cops are in bed,’ Randy said. ‘I know this road, I’ve never seen a cop on it after eleven o’clock.’
‘All the same, sixty is fast enough.’
Randy lit a cigarette and slouched back.
‘You sure you don’t want to eat? I can drive.’
‘Not yet.’
‘I’d dig for a good, strong cup of coffee.’
‘That’s something I could use.’
‘About fifteen minutes will bring us to that all-night snack bar I was telling you about. They have good coffee there. Let’s stop. Won’t take us five minutes. Maybe the doll could use a cup too.’
‘She said we weren’t to wake her until we get to Miami,’ Harry reminded him. ‘If she wants to sleep, let her sleep.’
‘Did you get a look at her?’
‘No more than you did.’
‘She could be dishy.’
‘So why should you care, freak?’
Randy laughed.
‘That’s the great thing about Solo’s place. It’s alive with dolls. As a lifeguard you’ll have all you can handle. Working behind the bar puts a crimp in my style. I don’t get the opportunities you’ll get. Solo advertises swimming lessons and you’ll handle that Boy! Wouldn’t I like that job! Cuddling a lush babe in the sea is my idea of good living!’
‘You’re still a bit of a kid, aren’t you?’ Harry said with a friendly grin.
‘So what’s wrong with being a kid?’
‘Nothing. Maybe I’m envying you.’
‘Hey you sound as if you were my father! You’re not telling me you don’t dig for dolls?’
Harry thought of his wife lying in the bath with her wrists slashed. He thought of Nhan smeared in a bloody mess against a brick wall. The other women in his life too were uneasy ghosts. He couldn’t think of one of them that he could remember with pleasure.