Detour (5 page)

Finally I heard the sound of a car coming towards me from the west. That snapped me out of it in a hurry. I started up the motor and got the Buick moving. It jerked around and almost stalled because my foot was shaking on the clutch pedal, but once I was in high it was O.K. Instinctively I realized that I was safe as long as I was on the highway and moving, but I also realized that I couldn't drive more than a few miles without stopping to take on gas. The gauge read empty. If I ran out... well, that would be curtains.

The other car came on full blast and flashed by like a bat out of hell. I'm sure he was going too fast to notice whether there were two of us in the Buick or just one. I breathed a little easier. One danger was past.

When my head cleared a bit, and I was getting over my first shock and panic, I reasoned that the circumstances pointed to but to one escape: if I was to get away, I would have to get rid of the body immediately. Alone I had a chance, but carting a stiff around in an open car was the same as shaking hands with the warden. Having come to that conclusion, I swung off on to the shoulder of the road and locked the ignition. I stood up on the seat so that I could look down into the gully. It was only nine or ten feet deep in there, but thick with underbrush. Obviously an ideal place. If I hid him carefully, nobody should run across him for a long time.

I listened for a few minutes before doing anything. When I was sure no car was coming I hopped out, ran round and hauled Haskell onto the shoulder near the edge of the ravine. I got him on the brink, laid him down parallel with the road and then gave him a shove. He rolled down, crashing through the bushes, until I heard him hit the bottom. He must have landed on his head, because it wasn't a dull thud like you read about in books. It was a very sharp sound, something like a cue striking a billiard-ball, only with more of a ring to it than that and with a cracking.... Well anyway it was horrible.

I'll never forget it.

I waited and listened a little while before I slid down after him. My plan was to cover him with brush, not to rob him. Nevertheless, as my mind began to function properly I remembered the car. That would be brilliant, wouldn't it? There are deserted Buicks all along the highway! So there you are. Any dope can see that there was nothing else to do but take the car with me. Leaving it there would be like erecting a tombstone.

That is the way it began, and, as the book says, one thing leads to another. I knew that even if I drove the car for only a hundred miles or so, and then deserted it, I would need money for gas and oil. Anyway, it was stupid to think of leaving all that dough on a man who was dead. I helped myself to his money.

I was about to place the wallet back in his pocket when I remembered that I'd better have the registration to the car and his driver's license, too—in case somebody stopped me. I was sure to get by with those. I could pass for thirty-two easily, and my hair and eyes corresponded with the description on the license. I stuffed the wallet into my pocket.

You see, by that time I'd done just what the police would think I'd done—even if I hadn't. It sounds punchy, but the only way I could beat the rap for something I didn't do was to do it. I had no choice in the matter. Oh, very well, if you want to get technical. I had the choice either of staying alive or committing suicide. Put it that way.

I was just getting ready to leave him and climb back on to the road when I thought of something else: the way I was dressed. Wearing the clothes I had on would not look kosher for the owner of such an expensive car. Some cop might pull me in on suspicion if I was stopped for some minor violation of traffic rules.

In the drizzle I yanked my clothes off. My nerves were so completely shot that I tore a big hole in the collar of my polo-shirt in trying to get it off without unbuttoning it all the way. I knew if anyone passed and stopped then it would be impossible to explain myself and the game would be up. The guy's shoes pinched somewhat because my feet were swollen, but his shirt was my size and his coat and trousers fitted fairly well. Everything but the coat was pretty dry because the heavy underbrush protected the gully. The only stitch I left on Mr. Haskell was his underwear. I'm finicky about such things.

After I dressed in his clothes, I put mine on him. They didn't look right, though. He was clean shaven, his hair was neatly trimmed and his nails manicured A crumby polo-shirt and an old pair of pants looked funny on a man like that. Yet somehow I couldn't laugh.

I covered him carefully with brush when I'd finished dressing him, but as I was about to climb the bank something else caught my eye. He had on a gold signet ring, a massive thing with his initials in what looked to me like platinum. It was tight and I had a tough time getting it off his stiff finger. Why did I take his ring? So they couldn't identify him, of course. If they just found a dead man dressed in those clothes they might figure it was only some bum who'd got into a fight. With that ring on him it would be different. Sure, and why should some crooked cop stick it into his pocket and have it melted down for somebody's maid? The thing looked like it might have a gold value of at least twenty bucks. I slipped the ring on my own finger, made sure Haskell was well covered, and climbed back out on to the road. By this time it was daylight. The sky was a dirty blue with rain clouds hanging low. There was no sign of the sun. I started for the car. Then I froze. All the strength in my body suddenly ebbed away and it was all I could do to keep on my feet.

Standing beside the car was a motor-cycle cop.

He was walking slowly around the car when I came up out of the gully. His machine was parked ten feet away with its headlight still burning, I could read what was written across the fuel-tank: Arizona State Highway Patrol. This was no messenger boy. He was checking the New York plates with some numbers he had in a little book, so it was a few seconds before he lifted his head and saw me.

“Oh, there you are,” he said.

The blood was pumping through me like mad. I felt like running. But I didn't feel like getting shot. “Yes, here I am.” It was a stupid answer, but I couldn't think. At that moment the world seemed to fade, numbing me upstairs. I think if he had asked me my name I wouldn't have been able to remember it. Sue and every other person I'd ever known would have been strangers to me if they had suddenly come along. The badge on the cop's cap was the only thing that registered.

“You the owner of this car?”

I opened my mouth to say I was but I couldn't get a word out. The cop didn't pick me up on that, though. He simply took it for granted. “Don't you know better than to leave a car with the wheels half-way out in the middle of the highway?”

“I'm sorry, Officer, I... I didn't think....” My voice did not sound like me at all. It was high and quavering, like the voice of a very old man.

“Well, next time, think. That's how accidents happen. I'll let it go now, but watch it in the future. I know this is a lonesome stretch, but cars do come by here once in a while, and we get plenty of accidents.”

He was telling
me.

All at once he looked down at my clothing. His eyes narrowed. I wanted to look down there, too, but I didn't dare. I imagined—and then suddenly I was sure—I was covered with mud or blood, or maybe Haskell's name was written all over the vest, or maybe...

“Say,” the cop said, “what were you doing down there, anyhow?”

I felt the corners of my mouth twitching to beat the band. At that minute I wanted to confess everything. The desire was so strong I had to fight myself. Because the suspense was pulling me to pieces, I don't think I ever wanted anything more. I was certain the cop suspected something queer and that it would only be a matter of seconds before he hiked down into the gully and had a look for himself. I opened my mouth to blurt it all out and take my chances with a jury. But then I shut it again and clamped my teeth together.

“Oh yeah, I see,” the cop said. “Well, next time be sure your car is off the road.”

I nodded without understanding.

“And you'd better button up, Johnny. You're wide open.”

“Thanks, officer,” I managed to say. “I will.”

“I notice you're from the big town. I was wondering if by chance you know my brother? His name is Sid Hammerford.”

“Sorry, I don't.”

“Too bad. I figured it was pretty much of a long shot. He works for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company there.”

“No, I don't remember anyone by that—Say wait a minute! Did he have red hair like yours, sort of a flat nose...?”

I thought I'd keep him in conversation and get his mind off the gully.

“Nope. Not Sid. He's short and darker than you.”

“Well, then I guess it's a different guy.”

“Yeah. Must be. Sid, he lives up in the Bronx, around Moshulu Parkway.”

“No, I'm sure I don't know him.”

“He's been in the east for almost eight years now. I hear from him every once in a blue moon. I was just hoping... well, thanks, anyway. And say, take it easy along in here. There's a washout about three miles ahead.”

I stood in the road, watched him mount his cycle, kick the starter and then ride off. I was too dazed from fright to move. I began to sob hysterically, like a woman. Strange sounds came involuntarily from my throat, high and silly and weird. I tasted salt and knew I was crying. Then, all of a sudden, I sprang into the car, pressed the rumble-seat button, pulled out my half-filled valise, and flung it down into the gully. If they found a dead man now, it would be me. I fastened down the top on the right hand side of the car as I drove off. It was still raining, and the drops streaked down the windshield like tears.

I WAS a fool to have let him—but it was done. Done, done, done, done....

That word kept drumming in my ears like a funeral march all the way home in the car. I was trying to coax myself to calm down, to forget it, and never to let such a thing happen again. But it didn't calm me and I couldn't forget it and I felt miserable and even worse than that.

I wanted to cry, and it was all I could do to hold myself in. Why give him the satisfaction of seeing me shed tears, I told myself, proving it had made a difference? He might begin to think I was in love with him, or perhaps that I was having a crying jag. Men can't understand women—at least regarding things like that.

When a man gets finished, he's through; his appetite's been satisfied, except that now he wants a plate of ham and eggs. We girls are quite another story. We have emotions and what not. We
feel
things. Any woman will know what I'm talking about. So I felt terrible.

Oh, I had made slips before—who hasn't?—but this one wasn't quite the same, because I'd known all along what he was planning to do and what to expect.

Good heavens, his manners were obvious enough, and the technique he employed had whiskers on it so long it would have fallen flat in the Middle Ages. Then, too, I hadn't been so drunk I wasn't able to see whatever there was to look at.

Yet, without being taken by surprise, and with every chance in the world to stop him, he got what he wanted. Oh, I struggled all right, told him I didn't like him
that
much, that I hardly knew him, that I was in love with someone else, and anyway,
pu-lease,
I was not that kind of a girl; I even slapped him once or twice, hard. But after saying “No!” about a dozen times, something happened, something that had never happened to me before. Although I still did not want him to have me, I found my “No!” getting just a trifle weaker; and then, curiously, all fight drained out of me and I gave up struggling entirely.

In the end, I didn't exactly give myself to him.

He took me.

Don't ask me why or how or when. I asked myself the same thing until my head spun. I didn't love the man—that much I was certain—nor did I even like him, when it came to that. He was very handsome and an actor and all the rest of it, but he was also the vainest, most self-centered individual I had ever run across.

When he finally won the argument about going to his apartment, did he show me etchings, a picture of his mother, or the customary rare something or other bachelors always have in their apartments? He
did
not.

He brought out his scrapbook. And after all the build-up he had been giving himself I was a little surprised to discover that although he had plenty of press notices, most of them were no larger than a postage stamp.

But I didn't hate him, even after it was all over. If I hated anyone, it was myself for having been so foolish. It made my cheeks burn when I realized what he must think of me: a little tramp, just another Hollywood pushover. What else could he think?

In my shame I almost wished I
was
in love with the man. Then I could ease my conscience by telling myself it had been foreordained—even if
he
didn't know it, the conceited thing.

I sat silently in the car, angry with myself and with him, at the same time trying to solve the problem of how it had happened.

I had never set eyes on him before seven o'clock when he drove in and ate dinner, tipping me a little too liberally. When he came back at eleven we began talking. Then, at twelve, when he asked to drive me home because it was raining, I began to suspect something. At first I refused, of course; but later, when I began to think of the long ride home on the bus, and how the buses were usually irregular at that hour, and how harmless he looked... Well, never again, I told myself.

While these reflections were further upsetting me he drove along the deserted streets whistling contentedly. Men are lucky that way. They can quickly forget things they prefer not to remember, and no matter what it is they have done, there are scarcely any distasteful after effects, recriminations or—worse yet—abortions. Then they wonder why a girl thinks it over a long time before she gives in! He pulled into the drive-in stand on Melrose where I worked and tooted the horn. Inside, I could see Mr. Bloomberg poke Selma into activity. She snatched up her trays, water, napkins and menu-cards and came running out through the drizzle. When she recognized the car she doubled her speed.