Chapter 14
Maurie finished his pastrami on rye sandwich and started forking the lemon meringue pie into his mouth. The diner had ebbed into a hush, after the evening rush hour. He ogled the shapely waitress who came ambling down the aisle to his booth. "A glass of water, please," he said. She pivoted away toward the fountain and left him momentarily with his thoughts.
Things at home had reached a total impasse. Ellen constantly nagged him to death about every insignificant detail-and he knew why. She sensed the blockade which had grown ever higher, chaining him on his side of the fence marked LOVE.-KEEP OUT; and the love was between him and Ida.
The waitress' breasts did a pleasant jig as she returned to Maurie. "We have some fine cheesecake for you. Shall I get you a piece, sir?"
"I'm afraid I've overdone the pastries lately."
She glanced at her own full, firm breasts. In his mind he envisioned them naked, like the topless girls who worked at offbeat night clubs.
"Yes," she nodded. "I do believe I know what you mean."
He paid his check and then went out to the street, where the lights had been turned on as dusk fell. He remembered his recent visit to Yvette at the house of ill repute. She had nothing else to tell him, except that he was in danger and should decide upon one course or the other.
The car purred to life beneath his gas pedal. He drove across Nutmeg Avenue with his eyes on the treacherous, twilight-dim highway ahead. Yvette certainly had a motive in becoming a paid whore. Sure, her dad had drunk heavily and she was bred in the city delinquent jungle-but Maurie figured the reason went deeper.
She yearned to be hurt, physically and emotionally, to sacrifice herself at the heathen bonfire of pain. Some textbooks on abnormal psych might call it masochism.
The way she had cut respectability and decency from her life made him shudder. He guided his vehicle around a hairpin turn, then let a truck drift past. Suddenly he experienced the weird sensation of being observed, as though someone were following him. He scanned the rearview mirror.
Your nerves are shot. The highway's as empty as a baseball field in January.
Grimacing, recalling his long-dead heyday as an athlete in high school, Maurie wondered if he'd been satisfied even then. Of course age created its problems. You had to eliminate a lot of activities and it bugged you when time for another medical check-up arrived, and you wondered if the doctor would dismiss the case as hypochondria. Age also brought wisdom, though. No person would really enjoy being sent back via a time machine to the period of duped, dream-silly adolescence.
The sky was much darker now, as clouds hid the stars. He cruised down a long graded hill and heard a throaty roar from the rear of his car.
Panic seized his body and stiffened it when he saw that someone, indeed, hung on his tail. It was a motorcycle with fox fur and a green wind visor on its handlebar. Even under the high-powered arc lights spaced at regular intervals, the driver's face could not be discerned well enough for recognition. A cap and mask hid the features of his face.
Maurie sped up so that he could test the validity of his suspicion. Sure enough, his cyclist pursuer also increased the pace until he once again crept close from behind. It seemed to be a game like "chicken" on the narrow laned road.
Not until the bike swerved within a hair's breath of his left rear tire did Maurie comprehend what devilish aim his friend had. The two-wheeled machine contained Ben Hur chariot hubs ... razor sharp prongs jutting out and spinning viciously with each rapid rotation of the wheels. Maurie couldn't let the whirling blades hit his tire at this momentum.
His speedometer read 55.
Of course it was too late, but he reviewed his quick decision in horror and knew the car should have been slowed rather than accelerated.
He hugged the center line of the road as he attempted to outdistance the cycle. Again it swept in. The driver's teeth glistened and faded like a neon sign with each whizzing glare from the luminous posts alongside their route. Another few inches and the fiend would slash rubber. The Renault would hurtle crazily off a steep shoulder to crash there unless Maurie could avoid the blades.
Icy dred of disaster pummeled his thumping heart. He jerked the wheel to the right and hit his brake, pumped it, smelled the tires and heard them screech. Those few seconds were a nightmare. A voice cried out in death throes as the cycle skidded diagonally on a path across the road and smashed into a huge tree.
"Oh, no!" the teacher whispered.
He circled around and returned to the site where his pursuer had landed. Wreckage was strewn along the dark grass. Flames licked at the cycle's twisted, smoldering chassis, and a body lay in a pretzel shape several yards away.
The fact of self-defense did not ease the guilt Maurie felt when he gazed down at his vanquished enemy.
Blood and dirt ringed the face, but anyone could see it had been John DiCauslow. Yet who would believe he'd go so berserk with jealousy and try this bizarre eradication of a rival? Maurie trudged toward his car and figured he should call the state troopers. They'd mark this one in their accident log with an asterisk.