Honeymoon for Three (4 page)

Alfred’s Timex said two-thirty. In the
morning. Had he been searching that long? No wonder he was
exhausted. His car was on the street near the only entrance to the
parking area. He would sit in his car and wait for one of their
cars to come out. Then he would follow it.

If he followed them and they were leaving on
a trip, he would need some things. Clothes. A toothbrush. He
couldn’t risk driving back to his apartment. That must be close to
thirty miles one way. They might leave before he returned.
Fortunately, he had all his money with him, hidden under his seat.
He didn’t trust banks.

No, he had to wait here. He settled into his
car, trying to get comfortable. Not too comfortable. He didn’t want
to fall asleep. He opened the front window, letting in the cool
night air. That would keep him awake.

CHAPTER 4

If the distinctive engine roar hadn’t jogged
his brain, Alfred might have slept blissfully on. The harsh noise
of the Volkswagen accelerating in first gear woke him with a jerk.
As he struggled to open his rebellious eyes and sit up from the
prone position he had slid into after failing in his effort to stay
awake, he caught a glimpse of Gary’s car, headed down the short
hill toward Atlantic Avenue.

Alfred fumbled for the key to his Ford, his
hand shaking. It was in the ignition. He managed to grasp and turn
the key, and he heard the engine crank and catch. Simultaneously,
he adjusted his stiff limbs to the driver’s position, blinking his
eyes to dissipate the mist in front of them.

He failed to check his rearview mirror
before pulling away from the curb, but fortunately, nobody was
approaching from behind at this early hour. As he started down the
hill, he saw the green VW make a left turn onto Atlantic. Gary was
heading north toward the San Bernardino Freeway. That just about
clinched it. He and Penny had to be leaving on their trip. If Gary
were going to his office at IBM, he would have turned right on
Atlantic.

Alfred had to stop for the traffic light at
Atlantic. A quick glance at his watch told him that it was barely
six-thirty. The sun had been up for an hour, but it felt like the
middle of the night. The odds were overwhelming that Gary was going
to get on the freeway, but in which direction?

If they were traveling up or down the
California coast, they would head west on the freeway. If they were
going toward Phoenix, say, or Las Vegas, they would head east.
Alfred remembered Penny’s mother saying that Penny wanted to visit
national parks, like Yellowstone. Yellowstone was inland. That
meant east.

Alfred had to make a quick decision, since
he was approaching the freeway entrance and the green VW was
nowhere in sight. He jogged onto the eastbound onramp and
accelerated as he merged with the moderate morning traffic headed
out of L.A. The cars were moving quickly. The powerful engine of
his Ford enabled him to easily stay with the flow.

A Volkswagen had a top speed of what—about
seventy miles per hour? By going seventy-five, Alfred should be
able to catch it soon—assuming he had guessed right about Gary’s
direction. If he had guessed wrong—well, he wouldn’t think about
that.

Fifteen minutes later he spotted a green VW
ahead, cruising in the second lane from the right. He had to make
sure it was Gary’s car. He approached from two lanes to the left of
it until he was close enough to read the license plate. Yup, it was
the correct car. So far so good.

There was one more thing. He had to make
sure that Penny was actually in the car. He dropped back and moved
right three lanes. There was a gap in the traffic ahead of him,
enabling him to close the distance to the VW again. He pulled up
almost even with it until he could look in the right-side
window.

He saw Penny’s profile, as pretty as a
cameo. His heart soared; he had found her. He didn’t want her to
take note of him or his car, so he dropped back again and assumed a
position in the lane to the left of the VW and several hundred
yards behind it. He could easily maintain surveillance from here,
and his car blended in with all the other Fords on the road.

Alfred relaxed the intense concentration he
had been forced into from the moment he had awakened. Then he began
to be aware of other things. Number one, he had to go to the
bathroom. Was this a problem that all detectives and spies faced?
Number two, he needed to get gas. He should have filled the tank
yesterday, but it had slipped his mind.

Gary had one big advantage over him. The VW
got excellent mileage. His boat got lousy mileage, as he’d found
out when he’d driven it cross-country from Connecticut. His parents
had given him the car several years ago. He had persuaded them to
give him the same model that Penny had, although, of course, he
hadn’t said that was the reason he wanted it. He had been thrilled
with it at the time, but this mileage problem was a major
shortcoming.

Alfred opened the glove compartment and
drove with one hand while he found his map of California. He spread
it out as well as he could and placed it on the steering wheel in
front of him. If they were headed for the big national parks, what
route were they likely to take? Shifting his eyes between the road
and the map, he studied the possibilities.

The answer was Route 395, which went north
out of San Bernardino. If they turned onto 395, they were probably
going to be on it for a long time, and it would be safe for him to
stop. He had to make sure. Would his gas last that long? Would his
bladder hold that long?

By the time they entered San Bernardino, the
gas gauge was tickling empty, and Alfred was in agony. He saw a
sign to 395. Five miles to go. Four miles. Hold on. Not much
longer. Three miles. When they were within a mile of the exit, the
VW pulled into the right lane, ending the suspense. Yes, they were
turning.

Alfred also pulled into the right lane, but
well behind the other car. He took the cloverleaf exit and in a
minute found himself heading north on 395. He looked frantically
for a gas station and pulled into the first one he saw. He stopped
the car with a screech of tires, opened the door, and sprinted
toward the Men’s room.

***

“Have you ever been to Reno?” Penny
asked.

Gary glanced at her, sitting beside him,
wearing shorts and a white blouse. He was sure he was doing the
right thing. She had gotten a permanent to curl her short, brown
hair, which was blowing in the breeze entering through the
partially open windows. Her inquisitive brown eyes matched the
color of her hair. She looked desirable, but she was also smart and
sensible. All in all, an ideal wife.

The car didn’t have air-conditioning, and
the open windows helped to moderate the inside temperature, made
warm by the still potent sun of the late August day. They were
heading north and would soon encounter cooler weather.

“I’ve been to Reno once. My brother, Tom,
and I drove through Reno on our vacation trip in
nineteen-sixty-two. We stopped there for about twenty minutes. I
won ten bucks playing blackjack. Then we drove on toward San
Francisco where we were meeting friends. So I’m a lifetime winner
in Reno.”

“Did you actually see any wedding chapels
there?”

“I think so. There are wedding chapels in
Las Vegas, so there must be some in Reno. It’s known as the divorce
capital of the U.S. Don’t weddings and divorces go together?”

“Bite your tongue. Once we get married, it’s
going to be forever.”

Gary hoped that was true. “Where a need
exists, somebody’s going to supply what is needed. Since there’s a
waiting period to get married in California, Nevada is filling the
gap, so to speak.”

Penny was looking at the map. “It’s going to
be dark before we get to the campground.”

“That’s all right. All we have to do is to
put up the tent and unroll the sleeping bag.”

The double sleeping bag Penny and her two
girlfriends had slept in when they had driven across the country
two years before, fresh out of college. Gary liked the concept of a
double sleeping bag.

***

How far were they going? Alfred hadn’t
reckoned with the necessity of following them in the dark.
Especially now that they had turned off 395 onto a smaller road
that was curving its way through the mountains toward Lake Tahoe.
He could see this from the signs, even though he could no longer
read his map.

A while back they had entered Nevada on 395,
but if they continued in this direction they would reenter
California. That set Alfred’s mind at rest concerning one worry
that had been bugging him. Apparently they weren’t going to get
married tonight.

He passed a sign announcing that they had
climbed to over 7,000 feet. Mountainous terrain. He hadn’t been
this high since he had driven over the Continental Divide on his
cross-country trip.

Following them in the dark and the hills and
the curves was a much harder proposition than following them during
daylight. During the day, when they had stopped to eat or get gas,
he had stopped farther on, duplicating their activities, and
watched for them from the window of one of the many mom-and-pop
diners. He had gotten into a rhythm, sometimes driving behind them,
sometimes ahead of them, but always knowing exactly where they
were.

Now he had to stay much closer to them to
make sure he was behind the correct set of taillights. The traffic
was sparse, but another danger was that they would turn off and he
would miss their turn because they were out of sight around a
curve. He might sail right on by them. This closeness made the
chances of them becoming suspicious of him much greater than it had
been.

Alfred was right behind the VW when it
turned left onto Route 50, trusting in the darkness to keep them
from noticing his car. He dropped back a few yards and caught
glimpses of Lake Tahoe on the right by the light of the moon. They
drove through the resort city of South Lake Tahoe, mixing with
enough other traffic to keep him on high alert.

The VW suddenly turned into what looked like
a driveway. Alfred couldn’t afford to take this turn, but he
strained to read a sign as he drove by. El Dorado Campground. He
drove on around a curve, parked, and used the car’s interior light
to read his watch. It was almost ten o’clock. It had been a long
day. He was having a hard time staying awake.

As he waited five minutes to make sure they
had checked in and driven away from the entrance, Alfred put his
hand under his shirt and felt his bellybutton. His outie
bellybutton. If it had been an innie, his life might have turned
out differently. He might have been the person in the car with
Penny. He might be sleeping with her tonight. He might be….

Rage expanded inside him, like steam from a
teakettle. His body vibrated. Life was unfair. He became wide
awake. He started the car and made a U-turn. The Ford had a wide
turning radius, and he didn’t judge the distance correctly. He had
to back up to complete the turn. When he was in reverse, a car came
around the curve, traveling fast. Alfred didn’t have time to do
anything. He watched, mesmerized, as the headlights seemed to drill
right into him, but the car swerved at the last second as it roared
by, its horn blaring.

Now his shaking was from terror. He pressed
the gas pedal, forgetting that his car was still in reverse. It
flew backwards into the bushes alongside the road, narrowly missing
a tree. He braked belatedly and finally got it into drive. The
wheels spun for seconds. Then he surged forward with a squeal of
tires, almost going off the road on the other side before he got
the car under control.

He turned into the campground and stopped
beside the office. He had to sit for several minutes until his
bodily functions returned to a semblance of normalcy. He got out of
the car. The first thing that registered was how cold the night air
felt. It penetrated his sweatshirt and khaki pants. He was wearing
all the clothes he had brought. He quickly entered the office to
get warm.

***

When Alfred entered one of the campground
restrooms, he remembered how poorly equipped he was. Not only was
he underdressed, he also didn’t have a toothbrush or toothpaste. He
hadn’t brushed his teeth for over thirty-six hours. He had to
settle for rinsing his mouth out with water he sucked from a faucet
by sticking his head into a sink and tilting his mouth up. He tried
to remove the scum that coated his teeth with his tongue. He could
imagine what his breath smelled like.

He didn’t have any shaving equipment either.
Of course he was wearing a beard, but he was thinking that it might
be better if he shaved it off. He had been in close proximity to
Penny during those Sunday mornings in the café. If she saw him, she
might recognize him by his beard.

He could sleep in his car, lying across the
bench seat. That wasn’t comfortable, as he knew from his experience
last night, but the worst part was that he didn’t have any
blankets. He would freeze his ass off. He couldn’t handle that
prospect yet. He decided to find Penny’s campsite.

The campground was dark and silent. The
inhabitants slept in their tents or campers. It was too cold and
too dark for anybody to be outside drinking wine at one of the
wooden picnic tables. Alfred used his flashlight sparingly and
walked warily along the rough roads of the campground, trying not
to run into one of the many tall evergreen trees, or step on a
large pinecone, or, worst of all, come into contact with one of the
bears that his imagination saw prowling at night, looking for
food.

It was a large campground, and he wasn’t at
all sure of his directions. He had the feeling that he was going
over the same paths again and again. Just as he was about to give
up and return to his car—assuming he could find it—he spotted the
green VW. In the dark it looked black.