The Expendable Man (2 page)

He asked, “Where are you from? Indio?”

“No, I'm from Banning.” She spoke too fast, lying again. Even she knew she was caught out; she raced on to ask him, “Where you from?”

“Los Angeles.”

“What do you do?” The Cadillac was still on her mind.

“I'm a doctor—an intern.”

“Really?” She stretched the word, like a credulous child. Yet the answer had somehow taken away her uneasiness, even her resentment. She half turned in the seat to look over at him.

“Really,” he said good-naturedly. The response didn't disturb him. “I'm at the Med Center—UCLA.”

“Did you go to UCLA?”

“I did my pre-med there and finished at Northwestern. UCLA didn't have a full medical program at the time. Then I did my Army stint and now I'm interning.” He was talking with purpose, to keep her relaxed, with a hope of her becoming friendly. If he could get her to that point, possibly he could find out the truth about this trip of hers, perhaps help her. A young girl hitchhiking to Phoenix needed all the help she could find. “Are you in high school?”

“Yeah, I'm a junior.” She said it with pride. But if she was a junior, she was older than he thought she was and brighter.

“Do you want to go to college?”

“I don't know. I don't like school much.”

Again she was retreating, and he made conversation quickly. “I have a sister, a freshman in college. UCLA. She'll be eighteen this summer. She's a brain, I guess you'd call it. Not that she's always in a book, she's a babe. My other sister, she's fifteen, is a sophomore at L.A. High. She's not so much on books but she's knocking herself out to get college grades so that she can go to UCLA too. She doesn't want to miss the fun.”

She said, “If I was going to college, I'd go to UCLA. They have the best teams.”

“They usually do,” he admitted.

“Did you play football?”

“No. I played some basketball.”

“How tall are you?”

He smiled. “Only six and a point. Not tall enough to be a star.”

“There's a boy on our team is six seven. All the schools are after him. He's good.”

“Where does he want to go?”

“UCLA, of course. If he can get in. You have to have awful good grades to get in there.”

“Don't I know it? Doesn't Allegra know it—that's my younger sister.”

“Allegra. That's a funny name.”

“‘Brave Alice and laughing Allegra—”'

She was lost.

“Don't you know ‘The Children's Hour'?”

“I never watched that.”

He said gently, “It's a poem. By Longfellow.”

“I guess we haven't had that in school yet.”

He guessed she didn't read anything out of school but comics and lurid romance magazines. He said, “My mother said Allegra was laughing as soon as she was born. My mother learned the poem in school when she was a girl.”

The girl asked then, “What's your name?”

“Hugh Densmore. What's yours?”

She hesitated rather too long. “Iris Croom.” It might be. The hesitation could mean only that she didn't want him to know her name. Without warning, she asked, “What kind of a doctor are you?”

He didn't quite understand her meaning. He began, “At the moment, I'm not practicing. I'm interning. That means working at a hospital before actual practice.”

“I know.” She flounced. On television they learned all manner of bits and pieces. “But what are you going to be? A brain surgeon? Or a baby doctor? Or just plain.”

“I want to do research,” he said. “Cancer research. That's why I'm lucky to get in at Med Center. They're doing exciting things about cancer.”

He didn't know if she understood what he was talking about. She was abruptly silent, watching the road ahead. Then again she turned suddenly to him. “I'm hungry.”

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I don't even have a candy bar. Didn't you eat before you left Indio?”

“I had a malt. But I'm starved now.”

She wasn't hinting, there was not so much as a service station in sight. There'd be no place to get food until they reached Blythe. Nor would he stop if there were one, not until he got to Blythe, where he could put her off at the bus depot. “I have some gum.” He felt in his pocket and found the package.

“Maybe it'll help.” She extracted a stick and handed the package back to him. He unwrapped a piece for himself.

“This'll keep me from smoking so much,” he said.

After a moment, she stated, “I guess I'll put up my hair.” She rooted in her handbag, found bobby pins and a man's black pocket comb. She pulled off her scarf and ran the comb through her hair. She looked even younger with the lank, badly bleached hair hanging around her face.

“Don't you need a mirror?”

“I have one.” She showed him, inset in the lid of her box purse. But she could wind the pin curls without it, there wasn't enough light from the dashboard for her to see in the mirror. By now it was quite dark outside the car. Johnny Mathis was singing from the radio; she hummed with the song.

He wondered again just whom she was meeting in Phoenix in the morning. Or was it simply habit that she put up her hair at night. He asked, “Do you have a boy friend in Phoenix?”

She was immediately suspicious. “Why'd you ask me that?”

“Putting up your hair—”

“I don't want to get to Phoenix looking a mess. It got all wet this afternoon when I was swimming.”

He didn't say anything, but it must have been quite a day. From Banning to Indio to the desert highway. Swimming where?

“Are you going to Phoenix?” she asked.

“I am.” He was ready for the question, he had been expecting it. “But I'm not going through tonight. I'm stopping over in Blythe.”

“Do you have friends in Blythe?”

“No, but I'm too tired to drive through.” Actually it was true. “I've been on night duty.” Although he'd wanted to walk in on the family tonight, it would be just as well to have some rest and be ready for tomorrow.

“I wish you were driving through.” She tied the scarf around her head again, and put on the heavy school jacket. “I'm going to sleep,” she announced.

“It's only eight o'clock.”

She gave a small but knowing smirk. “I didn't get much sleep last night.”

“Do you want to move in back where you can stretch out?”

She considered it, pushing onto her knees and leaning over for a careful investigation. There was nothing on the back seat but his folded jacket. On the floor was a Thermos jug of water. He disliked, from taking family trips as a boy, no doubt, a cluttered car when touring.

She decided, “I guess not. It's warmer up front. I'm used to sleeping in cars.” She giggled a little at that, as if it were funny. She turned her back on him, curled herself into the corner, and rested her head against the cushioned seat. She went to sleep almost at once, he could tell by her slightly nasal breathing.

He drove on through the night. The road was good; he hadn't seen half a dozen cars since leaving Indio. He should reach Blythe by around nine o'clock. He began to wonder about the bus schedule to Phoenix. He couldn't simply drop this girl on a street corner. If there was no bus out tonight, he'd probably have to give her the price of a room. In a motel as far as possible from the one where he would stop. He was quite sure she wouldn't have enough money to get one for herself. He didn't have much with him; he never had much money, not on an intern's allowance. Again he wondered if the girl had ever had bus money.

If he had to, he'd lend her what she needed. The aunt could repay him, if there was an aunt in Phoenix. If not, perhaps her family would some day. By now he was in his own mind certain that Iris was a runaway. The sooner he could be shed of her, the safer he'd be. If there was a teletype out for her by now, his position could be more precarious than he wanted to think about.

Worrying about it was pointless. Nothing was going to call attention to them until they reached Blythe. At Blythe he'd see that she was taken care of, and that would end it. And he'd never pick up another hitchhiker, never. Not even a ninety-year-old grandfather or the chief of police.

She wakened when a gargantuan oil truck thundered by, rocking the car. She made a word sound and then for a moment her sleep-dulled eyes looked at him in fear. But she came more fully awake and said, “Oh, it's you. Where are we?”

“About ten miles out of Blythe.”

“You're still going to stop there?”

“That's right. But I'll see about your bus first.”

“I'm not going on the bus,” she said sullenly. “Don't worry about me. I'll get another ride.”

He was sharp with her. “What's the matter with you? You can't pick up a ride with strangers in the middle of the night. It isn't safe.”

She looked at him for a moment, a level, too-old look. It said she'd let him pick her up and that she was safe with him. Or was she wondering why she'd done it. She said finally, “I can't go on the bus. I don't have any money.”

Anger came to his voice. “Now look here, Iris, or whatever your name is, you can't tell me your family let you set off for Phoenix without a bus ticket.”

“You don't know my family.” Her voice was brittle.

“I don't know your family but I know my family. I know lots of families. There isn't a one that would let a fifteen-year-old kid hitchhike—”

“I told you I was eighteen.”

“You've told me plenty of things. You haven't made me believe them. You're not more than sixteen. And unless you're running away from home, you started out with a bus ticket.” He calmed down, losing his temper wouldn't help matters. “I'd like to help you. Why don't you level with me? Are you running away?”

“No, I'm not,” she flared. “I told my father I was going to Phoenix and he didn't care. He told me to go on and go.”

“What did your mother say?”

“My mother ditched us six years ago. She was a tramp.”

His hand clenched to keep from striking her. “Don't say that!”

“My father says she was. He ought to know better than you, hadn't he?” she asked insolently.

“Don't you say it,” he repeated. “You don't know her side of it. You respect your mother until you know better.” It occurred to him, “Is your mother in Phoenix?”

“We don't know where she is. My aunt's in Phoenix.”

“Your father's sister? Or your mother's?”

“My mother's.”

“And that's where you're going.”

“That's where.”

“Your father gave you the money to go.”

“He didn't give me nothing.”

“How did he expect you to get there?”

She said, “I knew he wouldn't give me the money. When he asked me how I was getting there, I told him I'd saved up from baby-sitting.”

“You hitchhiked to Indio?”

“I didn't have to. I rode down there with some of the kids.”

He was trying to form the truth. “It was the kids who dropped you there on the desert. And drove back again to see if you had a ride. That car we passed—”

“You think you're pretty smart, don't you?”

“No, I don't. I'm trying to find out what happened. That's the way it was, wasn't it?”

She didn't answer him.

“But why? Why didn't you try to get a ride in Indio? You're from Indio, aren't you, not Banning? You were afraid someone might see you trying to hitch a ride there, tell your father.”

“That wasn't it,” she denied. “It was Guppy's idea. He hitched to Phoenix once. He said they're more apt to stop for you out on the desert than in town. They're sorry for you. In town they think like you do—‘take a bus.”'

It disturbed him too much to keep silent, although he didn't want to know, actually was afraid to know. “You were one of the kids in the beat-up car at the drive-in, weren't you?”

She was furtive. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“It was the same car passed us going back to Indio.” He demanded fiercely, “Did you have my car staked out from the beginning? Were you waiting for me?”

“I should say not!” she denied with emphasis. “That's not the way it was at all. I wouldn't have—” She broke off. “It wasn't that way,” she started again. “I was expecting to get a ride with a family. Not many women would pass up a girl on the highway.”

More of Guppy's wisdom, no doubt. With some rancor, he said, “You were willing enough to get in my car.”

“It was turning dark and I was getting sort of scared. I didn't want to have to go home and start all over again. My aunt's expecting me. I wrote her I'd be there in the morning.”

“And she thinks you're coming by bus.”

“That's right. But I didn't tell her which one because I didn't know what time I'd get there.”

He studied it. It could be the truth; it could be a pack of lies. It didn't make much difference to him now. He said, “Well, I can't take you on to Phoenix. But I won't just desert you in Blythe. I'll see about a bus and I'll lend you the money for a ticket. You can pay me back tomorrow when I get to Phoenix.”

“With what?” she sneered.

He was patient. “I'm sure your aunt will lend you the money. What's her address?”

She made a quick gesture of her head that might have been panic, and again he decided there was no aunt. “Don't you come bothering her,” she said. “You give me your address. I'll bring the money to you.”

He had no intention of giving her an address. He said, “Never mind that. Just give me your aunt's number. I'll phone before I come, to make sure I'm not bothering her.”

His sarcasm was lost on her. She didn't care what he said, she was too involved in putting on fresh lipstick by the dash light. They were coming into Blythe. It was just a small town of the sort you passed through on any highway but for some reason it was, to Hugh, a singularly pleasant one. The wide main street managed to give the impression that it was a main street in spite of being also a state highway. The business section was no more than a few blocks with the usual small-town businesses, the usual wealth of gas stations which cluttered all highway towns, and an abundance of motels, good-looking modern motels. Neon lights were rainbow above the latter, otherwise most of the town was dark.