Starman (10 page)

Brad Heinmuller entered, brushed self-consciously at his hair. Shermin studied him closely. He didn’t look like a nut, lug or otherwise. Svarland interrupted his examination.

“Just put out an All-Points Bulletin, Mister Shermin.”

That woke him up fast. “An All-Points Bulletin?”

Svarland nodded, looked pleased with himself. “Yep. Tristate. Don’t worry, we’ll nail ’em.” He indicated the tall, tired-looking young man standing nearby. “This here’s Brad Heinmuller. Fella who phoned in the report about Miss Hayden’s maybe being kidnapped.”

“Kidnapped!” Mrs. Gilman clutched her broom and looked ready to use it on somebody. “I knew it. I knew something had to be wrong when I got here this morning and saw the packing and cleaning half finished.” She looked at Shermin. “Didn’t I tell you I thought something was wrong? Her car gone, the door unlocked, not even a note on the counter—and that bullet hole in the window.”

Svarland perked up. “Bullet hole?”

Mrs. Gilman moved away from the window. “Why, yes. Right over here. See?”

Both men crossed to inspect the puncture and the glassy spiderweb that radiated from it.

“Old?” Shermin asked the chief. The older man ran one finger around the edge of the hole, finally shook his head.

“Too many splinters still around. It’s new, Mister Shermin.” His tone was grim. Shermin could see him thinking,
not in my district.

“I told you.” The real-estate lady looked vindicated. “I would have noticed if it was here before. It’s my business to notice things like that.”

Behind them, Heinmuller shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. “Look chief, I want to help, but I’ve got a door to hang in Ashland and my boss ain’t the understanding type, you know?”

Shermin turned away from the window. “Sorry, Mister Heinmuller. We really do appreciate your cooperation. As for your boss, don’t worry about him. If you have any trouble, just have him call the chief here and he’ll explain what’s going on.”

Heinmuller was only slightly mollified. “You don’t know my boss,” he said glumly.

“We won’t keep you but a minute, I promise.” Shermin went back to the box and picked up the picture again. “All I want to know is if you’re positive the young lady in this picture is the same one you saw on the road this morning.” He handed over the eight-by-ten, waited anxiously for the young man’s reaction.

He barely glanced at it, handed it back. “Yeah, that’s her. Hey, wait a minute, Set me see that again.” Shermin passed it over. He squinted hard at the glossy, looking for something he might have missed. Heinmuller’s next words surprised him anew.

“Yeah, I’m sure of it.”

“Sure of what?” Svarland pressed him.

Heinmuller tapped the photo. “Him. This here fella in the picture is the same guy I saw out there wrestling with her.”

Mrs. Gilman folded her arms and spoke with quiet assurance. “Well I don’t know what’s going on here, but that’s one piece of nonsense I can put to rest. One thing’s sure and that’s that nobody saw that man this morning.”

“I’m telling you it was him.” Heinmuller was insistent. “I’m as sure of him as I am of her.”

“Then there must be something seriously wrong with you, young man.” She indicated the picture. “That’s Jenny’s husband, Scott Hayden. He was killed last April.”

It was a long way to the next town, so Jenny was relieved when the service station appeared around a turn in the road. The last thing she wanted was to be marooned out in the woods with this whatever-he-was with night coming on. Better to keep driving. At least that way she had some control over her surroundings. And she still might be able to work something when he wasn’t ready. She knew the Mustang a lot better than he did.

If only he didn’t know the forty-five so well.

“We’re coming to a gas station.” She pointed up ahead. “See? I’m going to stop and fill up. Okay?”

He nodded once. “Okay.” Then he reached under the seat and brought out the gun, tucked it out of sight in the waistband of his chinos and pulled the front of his shirt out and over to cover it, exactly as he’d seen Scott do in the home movies.

She pulled into the station. There was only the one attendant, which was the norm for an isolated place like this. He was just giving change to someone driving a blue Buick. The customer grinned as he revved his engine and saluted the gas jockey with a jaunty thumbs-up.

“Take ’er easy, Phil.”

The attendant echoed the gesture as well as the words. “Take it easy.” The Buick pulled out and Jenny took its place beside the pumps. The attendant gave her a pleasant smile.

“What’ll it be today, folks?”

“Fill ’er up. Unleaded,” Jenny instructed him.

The starman leaned over and stared up at the young man, smiled politely. “Gas.”

“Gotcha.” Whistling to himself, the attendant retreated toward the pump.

Jenny looked at the starman, then opened her door and started to get out. He eyed her warningly and pulled up the front of his shirt just enough to reveal the handle of the gun.

She tried to sound as casual as possible about it. “Yeah, I know. But I’ve got to go to the ladies’ room. If you want to shoot me for that, go ahead.” He just stared blankly at her and she tried to explain. “The restroom. It’s the place where a person goes—when a person has to—” She shook her head tiredly. ‘The hell with it. Figure it out for yourself.” She stepped out and headed for the back of the station.

He watched until she’d disappeared, then climbed out of the car and stood inspecting his new surroundings. The sun was bright, and warm, but something wasn’t right.

It was the baseball cap. He was wearing it exactly as it had been worn by Scott in the movies, but it didn’t feel proper. Removing it, he studied it a moment before divining its intended function. Then he put it back on properly, front to back, so that the bill shaded his eyes. Eminently satisfied with this discovery, he turned to trace Jenny’s path, hurrying a little in order to catch up to her.

She was just opening the door to the ladies’ room. He moved in close behind her, intending to follow.

She put up a hand to forestall him. “That’s far enough.” Turning, she indicated the blue sign on the door. Beneath the word
LADIES
was a small stylized drawing of a woman. “Ladies. Me. Woman, female, opposite gender from you only. Understand?”

When he didn’t respond she pointed to the other door, which had the appropriate word stenciled above a male figure.

“Men. You only. Okay?” The starman continued to stare at the other door and said nothing. For physical as well as mental reasons Jenny didn’t feel like taking the time to explain further. She went inside and locked the door behind her.

As her companion stood thoughtfully regarding both doors while trying to make sense of this new information, a sizable truck pulled up behind the station. The driver hopped out of his rig and strode purposefully across the asphalt toward the starman. He took in the silent waiter and the locked ladies’ room door and spoke sympathetically.

“Can’t get her out, hey?”

“Gas,” the starman said somberly.

The trucker nodded as he shoved open the mens’ room door and stepped inside. “I know how she feels. I just ate a whole can of cashews between here and Madison. Man, let me warn you, don’t ever eat a whole can of cashews at one time!” He didn’t bother to shut the door behind him.

So when he happened to look over his shoulder it was to see the man he’d spoken to staring in at him. The man smiled. The trucker turned his face away. Evidently he’d misunderstood both the guy’s attitude and the reason for his presence outside the john.

Whatthehell. “Every goddamn place you go,” the trucker muttered to himself. Finishing his business, he zipped up and started back toward his idling truck. The starman politely moved aside for him, grinned, and made the thumbs-up gesture.

“Take it easy,” he said.

Growling, the trucker gave him the finger. “Up yours, buddy.”

The starman watched interestedly as the trucker climbed into the cab of his rig, shoved it in gear, and rumbled back out onto the highway. Somewhere off in the trees a bird offered its own commentary on the eighteen-wheeler’s departure.

“Take it easy,” the starman repeated softly to himself, practicing Scott’s voice. Interesting. Words and phrases were apparently interchangeable between individuals, but inflections and frequencies were distinctive. It was important to remember such things. He jabbed a finger toward the still singing but unseen bird and said, “Up yours.” Satisfied, he was nodding to himself when the ladies’ room door opened.

“Oh, hi.” Jenny appeared slightly startled to see him still standing there waiting on her.

“Something is wrong?”

“No—nothing. I thought you’d have gone back to the car by now, is all.”

He shook his head. “Nothing to learn in the car. Much to learn out here.”

“Yeah, well, come on. Let’s go.”

Instead of turning with her, he stepped into the ladies’ room.

Oh my God, Jenny whispered to herself. She paled and stood there praying silently that he’d come out quickly.

He did not. He took his time studying the bathroom, noting the slight differences between it and the tiny room marked men. In most respects the two rooms were identical. There was a john, basin, towel rack, and mirror. Taped to the mirror was a paper towel on which had been written in light pink nail polish,
KIDNAPPED. GOING WEST ON
169
GREEN MUSTANG LIC
. PXV 237
HELP
.

There was also a broom in one corner, a small couch and a dispensing box on one wall. Having completed his examination he exited. “Come on,” he told Jenny, “let’s go.”

She let out a long sigh and followed him back to the car.

The attendant was standing in front of the Mustang, putting the license number down on the purchase slip. She gave him her credit card and he ran it through the printer, then handed card and slip over. She signed the chit, conscious of alien eyes following every step of the procedure, accepted the receipt and card, and slid into the driver’s seat.

He didn’t say a word as she thanked the attendant, put the car in gear, and pulled out onto the empty highway. She pushed it up to sixty and found herself stifling a yawn.

“Don’t you people ever get tired?” she asked him curiously. “We’ve been going for hours now and you’ve hardly even blinked.”

“No. We do not get tired. And I have blinked.” He did so, as if to demonstrate that he could. “Not from being tired. Analysis indicates periodic action is required for proper lubrication of visual receptors.”

“Sorry I asked.”

They drove along quietly for another ten minutes before he said quietly, “Kidnapped?”

“What?” She turned to him as he removed a folded paper towel from his pocket and pointed to her desperate inscription.

“What is ‘kidnapped?’ ”

That was it. She just couldn’t take this anymore. She’d handled it well up to now—hadn’t she handled it well up to now? But everyone has their breaking point and she’d finally reached hers. Mentally and emotionally she was completely drained. She had no more reserves and in any event, she was just plain tired.

She crushed the brakes and brought the car to a skidding halt on the shoulder. More than anything else, she was surprised by the intensity of her voice.

“You wanna know what kidnapped is? All right, I’ll tell you. It’s being dragged out of your house in the middle of the night and being scared and dirty and hungry and going to the john in cruddy gas stations so if you’re going to shoot me go right ahead because I’d rather be shot than scared to death every minute of the day and
I can’t take it anymore.”
She turned away from him, dropped her head.

“Go on.” She swallowed. “Get it over with.”

She found that she was trembling. She was too exhausted to scream.

Nothing happened.

When she finally spoke again, her tone was much subdued. “Come on, what are you waiting for? Do it.”

There was a snicking sound. Something landed gently in her lap. Opening her eyes, she looked down to find herself staring at the clip from the automatic.

“I mean you no harm, Jennyhayden,” he told her softly. “I do not want to hurt you.”

“You . . .” Suddenly she was crying. It was positively the last thing she wanted to do, the last thing she expected to do. She couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop the tears from flowing no matter how hard she tried. She didn’t try very hard.

A hand reached over to gently squeeze her arm. Somehow that made it worse than ever.

No one gave the green Mustang a second look as it cruised smoothly down the highway. There was nothing unusual about it, except perhaps its speed. It was traveling sixty miles an hour. That in itself was not extraordinary. What was remarkable was the precision with which it maintained that speed. It didn’t matter whether it was going uphill, or down, or around the occasional curve. The speedometer needle clung to the small space between the six and the zero as if it had been glued there. No cruise control could have maintained that speed with such precision, and in any case, the Mustang was not so equipped.

But then, the mind that was monitoring the flow of fuel to the engine was far more accurate than anything electronic.

The radio had been bopping away until a series of particularly uninformative and annoying commercials replaced the music. The starman took one hand off the wheel and killed the radio.

New music replaced the commercial pitches. It emanated not from the radio but from the driver, from somewhere deep inside. It didn’t sound quite like it was supposed to because the body that was producing the music wasn’t designed to generate such sounds, but it was a reasonable approximation. The music was soft, atonal but without being harsh. Not twelve-tone fragments and not Cageish raucousness but something very different. Harmonious and yet constantly changing.

Jenny blinked and looked up. She was curled up in the passenger’s seat and she’d been sound asleep. It took her a moment to realize that the music had to be coming from the starman.

It produced a gentle warming inside her, a feeling of peace and vast relaxation. Whether the sensation was the product of the music or of something else he was putting out she didn’t know. There was a sweetness to it, an innocence that was utterly different from the sounds he made when he spoke to her. Probably he found human speech harsh and rough, she thought. What must his own language sound like? His own voice?