Momentarily he glimpsed the motorcycle parked off on the gravel shoulder. The cop, in his uniform, peered back. He did not see the pick-up truck, and a moment later Ragle was safe. Well past. Now he speeded up; for the first time he shot ahead of the other traffic.
Soon he saw the signal light that he wanted.
But he did not see the Seaside Station that he had been told to look for.
Odd, he thought.
I had better get off the highway, he said to himself. So that I don't get flagged down again. No doubt there is something I've violated; this truck doesn't have the proper-colored reflector strips on its rear bumper or some such device. Anything for an excuse, so that the machinery can go into motion, and all the forces can close in around me.
I know it's my psychosis, he said to himself, but I still don't want to get caught.
Making a hand-signal, he left the highway. The truck bumped off onto a rutted dirt pasture. As soon as it had stopped moving he shut off the lights and the motor. Nobody will notice me, he said to himself. But where the hell am I? And what do I do next?
Craning his neck, he searched in vain for any sign of the Seaside Station. The cross street, at the light, vanished off into the darkness, lit up for only a few hundred yards. Nothing there. A minor route. This is the big road out of town.
Far off, up the highway, a single colored neon sign could be made out.
I'll drive down there, he decided. Or can I take the risk of getting back on the highway?
He waited until, looking back, he saw dense traffic. And then, gunning the motor, he shot out onto the road a split-second ahead of it. If any cop was coming, he wouldn't see one more tail light among all the others.
A moment later, Ragle identified the neon sign as that of a roadside tavern. A brief flash as it swept into view: the parking lot, gravel. Tall upright sign, FRANK'S BAR-B-Q AND DRINKS. Illuminated windows of a pentagonal stucco onestory building, somewhat modern. Few cars parked. He signaled and hurtled off the highway, into the parking lot. The truck barely halted in time. A foot from the wall of the bar-b-q. Trembling, he shifted into low and drove the truck around the side of the building, out of sight, back among the garbage cans and stacks of boxes at the service entrance. Where the delivery trucks no doubt came.
After he had gotten out of the pick-up truck he walked back to see if it could be seen. No, not from the highway. Not by a passing car. And if anyone did ask, he had only to deny any relationship to the truck. How could they prove he had arrived in it? I walked, he would say. Or I hitch-hiked and got a lift this far with somebody who turned off at the cross street.
Pushing open the door of the bar-b-q, he entered. Maybe they'll know where the Seaside Station is, he said to himself. This is probably the place where I'm supposed to pick up the fried ham sandwich and the malted milk.
In fact, he thought, I'm positive. There are just too many people in it. Like the bus depot. The same pattern.
Most of the booths were filled with couples. And at the doughnut-shaped counter in the center a number of men sat eating dinner or drinking. The place smelled of frying hamburgers; a jukebox roared off in the corner.
Not enough cars in the lot to explain so many people.
As yet they hadn't noticed him. He drew the door shut without entering, and then he walked rapidly off, across the lot and around the side of the place, to the parked pick-up truck.
Too large. Too modern. Too lit-up. Too full of people. Is this the last stage of my mental difficulty? Suspicion of people of groups and human activity, color and life and noise. I shun them, he thought. Perversely. Seeking the dark.
Back in the darkness he felt his way up into the truck, switched on the engine, and then, with the lights still off, backed around until the truck faced the highway. During a break in the traffic he drove out into the first lane. Again he found himself in motion, heading away from town, in somebody else's truck. A gas station attendant whom he had never been before in his life. I'm stealing his truck, he realized. But what else can I do?
I know they are conspiring against me. The two soldiers, the attendant. Plotting against me. The bus depot, too. The cab driver. Everybody. I can't trust anyone. They sent me off in this truck to get picked up by the first highway cop that came cruising by. Probably the back end of the truck lights up and reads RUSSIAN SPY. A sort of paranoiac "kick me," he thought.
Yes, he thought. I'm the man with the KICK ME sign pinned on him. No matter how hard he tries he can't whirl around fast enough to see it. But his intuition tells him it's there. He watches other people and gauges their actions. He infers from what they do. He infers that the sign is there because he sees them lining up to kick him.
I'm not entering any brightly lit places. I'm not starting conversations with people I don't know. There are no genuine strangers when it comes to me; everybody knows me. They're either a friend or an enemy....
A friend, he thought. Who? Where? My sister? My brother-in-law? Neighbors? I trust them as much as I do anybody. But not enough.
So here I am.
He continued driving. No more neon lights came into view. The land, on both sides of the highway, lay dark and lifeless. Traffic had thinned out. Only an occasional headlight flashed at him from the oncoming traffic beyond the dividing strip.
Lonely.
Glancing down, he noticed that the truck had a radio mounted on the dashboard. He recognized the slide-rule dial. The two knobs.
If I turn it on, I'll hear them talking about me.
He reached out his hand, hesitated, and then turned the radio on. The radio began to hum. Gradually the tubes warmed; sounds, mostly static, faded in. He fiddled with the volume as he drove.
"...afterwards," a voice said squeakily.
"...not," another voice said. "...my best."
"...okay." A series of pops.
They're calling back and forth, Ragle said to himself. The air-waves filled with alarm. Ragle Gumm eluded us! Ragle Gumm escaped!
The voice squeaked, "...more experienced."
Ragle thought, Next time send a more experienced team. Bunch of amateurs.
"...might as well... no further..."
Might as well give up, Ragle filled in. No further use in tracking him. He's too shrewd. Too wily.
The voice squeaked, "...Schulmann says..."
That would be Commander Schulmann, Ragle said to himself. The Supreme Commander with headquarters in Geneva. Mapping the top-level secret strategy to synchronize worldwide military movements so they converge on this pick-up truck. Fleets of warships steaming toward me. Atomic cannon. The usual works.
The squeaking voice became too nerve-racking; he shut the radio off. Like mice. Yammering mice squeaking back and forth
...it made his flesh crawl.
According to the odometer he had gone about twenty miles. A long distance. No town. No lights. Not even traffic, now. Only the road ahead, the dividing strip to his left. The pavement showing in his headlights.
Darkness, a flatness of fields. Up above, stars.
Not even farmhouses? Signs?
God, he thought. What would happen if I broke down out here? Where am I? _Anywhere?_
Maybe I'm not moving. Caught in a between-place. Wheels of the pick-up truck spinning in gravel... spinning, uselessly, forever. The illusion of motion. Motor noise, wheel noise, headlights on pavement. But immobility.
And yet, he felt too uneasy to stop the truck. To get out and search around. The hell with that, he thought. At least he was safe here in the truck. Something around him. Shell of metal. Dashboard before him, seat under him. Dials, wheel, footpedals, knobs.