Тэлмидж Пауэлл - Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 1, January, 1957

Dell hadn’t put on much weight since. Julia had. In brief white pants and brassiere, she was a lush and lovely woman. Thick black hair waved and massed across olive-skinned shoulders. Her waist was strikingly slim and firm, her hips sharply curving out and down to long-thighed, smoothly-rounded legs. Her breasts were large and high-peaked. Her face was sometimes piquant, sometimes sad — often both, the dark eyes a shade too thoughtful, the pouting, red-lipped mouth curiously immobile. She was possessed of a strange, almost electric nervousness that kept her forever on the go.

“Well, by gosh, I’m going to be cool!” She snatched something from a hook in the closet. She stepped into a pair of white shorts that were high and tight when she got them fastened. She struck a pose, looked at her husband through half-lidded eyes, and grinned. He lit a cigarette, staring at her. She turned, pulled a thin yellow jersey over her head, glanced at the full length mirror on the back of the door, and said, “Let’s go, then.”

Harper stomped toward the bedroom door. As he passed her, she touched his arm lightly, smiling up at him, a sudden and emphatic flash of crystal invitation. “Like my shorts, huh? You haven’t seen ’em.”

“Fine,” he said, leaving the room, stomping down the hall.

She continued to smile for a moment. Then she forgot the smile and looked at herself in the closet mirror again. Her lips were parted and she breathed heavily, her eyes darker than they had been. There was a kind of viciousness in her fingers as she crimped the edges of the shorts still higher, until they bit into the soft swollen flesh of her thighs. She checked herself from the side, arching her back, yanking the jersey down tightly. “God damn,” she said. “God damn! God damn!”

“We’ll have to stop for gas,” Harper said. “Meant to fill her up this morning. Clean forgot. There’s a place I know down the road. We’ll stop there.”

Linda was standing on the back seat, staring out the rear window. She wore a blue playsuit, and was jumping up and down, softly chanting, “Hungy... hungy... hungy...”

“Why don’t you give her a sandwich — shut her up?” Harper said. “You made plenty, didn’t you?”

“God damn right,” Julia said. “Better if she waits, though.”

Harper craned his neck, frowning at her. Then he turned his gaze ahead and said, “There’s the station.”

Harper pulled the car off the main highway into a small country gas station with two red pumps. He stopped the car by the cement island and climbed out as the stocky, overalled attendant strolled out of the paint-peeled office.

“Fill ’er up,” Harper said. “Check everything. Battery, water, tires — the works. An’ be sure to wash that windshield. Better catch the rear window, too. All this dust.”

The attendant began to whistle.

Julia, sitting in the car, nervously flipped the sun-visor down on her side and arched her back slightly, stretching up so she could see herself in the small mirror. She opened her white-beaded purse, dipped in and brought out a large gold-cased lipstick, and worked on her lips. They were already quite red, but she went over them still more heavily. Finally she sighed, put the lipstick away, folded the visor back with a flip of her hand, and opened her door. She climbed out, glanced at Linda. Linda was occupied watching the cars and trucks whizz by on the main highway.

Harper was discussing oil grades with the attendant. Julia looked around, then wandered over to the map rack on the wall of the office, beside the doorway. Georgia. Florida. Mississippi. South Carolina. North Carolina. Virginia. Delaware. Oregon... she withdrew the Oregon roadmap from the black metal rack, opened it, her face quite sober.

A gleaming yellow and chrome car, not more than three feet high all around, shot roaring off the highway and slid to a grinding stop on the gravel just off the cement, inside the gas station area. There were five young men in the car. The hood of the engine was off, and chrome and nickel furnishings sparkled with a hard brilliance in the sunlight. It was as clean and sparkling as an expensive china steak platter.

Julia turned, holding the roadmap.

The driver of the hot-rod, a tall, broad-shouldered, yellow-haired youth with a violent sunburn, wearing khaki shorts and mocassins, gunned the engine loudly. They all roared with laughter.

The driver shut the engine off, leaped over the side of the car and crouched low and yelled, “Look at that!”

“Va — va — VOOM! ”

“Hot rivets!”

“Bite me!”

Shrill whistles soared crazily into the sunlight, cutting through the afternoon with that same hard brilliance the car itself possessed — edged, clean, glasslike.

“Oh — daddio!!”

“Hit me!” one of the boys yelled. “Bash me — sock me — hit me!” He leaped from the car, ran around to where the yellow-haired youth stood and stuck his chin out. “Knock me cold!”

The yellow-haired youth rapped his chin with a big fist, laughing. The other faked a backward stagger, turned fast and looked at Julia, eyes bugging. Then he ran around the side of the car, yelling like an Indian. He reached over the side of the car, came up with a brown pint bottle and gulped from it. He sprawled against the side of the car, gasping.

“I’ll never make it now, boys. Never make it now. I seen the light.”

Julia turned and tried to fold the roadmap, so she could put it away. It wouldn’t fold right. Each time she moved, the round flesh of her hips bunched under the tight shorts. She gave up trying to fold the map and jammed it at the rack, her hands trembling.

“What the hell’s going on here?” Harper said, walking toward Julia.

The yellow-haired lad pulled himself erect, then went very loose all over, like a released sack of potatoes, and lurched in an affected stagger toward Julia. He came up close to her, ignoring Harper. He looked Julia up and down beadily, his mouth hanging open. The rest of the young men in the glinting hot-rod vaulted out and formed a pack behind the yellow-haired driver.

“Baby,” he said in a stage whisper. “I can’t stand it. Do something before I shoot myself.”

The roadmap fell out of the rack. Julia Harper’s face and throat had become violently red. She tried to walk away. The yellow-haired youth blocked her path.

Harper shouted, “God damn! Get away! What you doing there?” His voice lowered. “What is this?”

The yellow-haired one turned abruptly, ran over to the others, spoke quickly, and they all formed a straight line across the front of the gas station. They stared at Harper.

“Dress right,” the yellow-haired one snapped. “Dress!”

The line straightened.

Julia hurried to the car, got in and closed her door.

“What the hell’s going—?” Harper broke off his question.

He stared at them. They returned his stare. They stood very straight, lips tight, watching him.

The attendant came over to Harper. “Bring you your change,” he said, then went around the line of boys and inside the office.

Harper stood furiously in front of the line, his mouth faintly moving, but saying nothing. The attendant returned and handed Harper some change, then went quickly over to the gas pumps.

“All right, men,” the yellow-haired one said, jumping lightly out in front of the other four. “Atten — shun! Pre-e-e-e-e-sent — arms!”

The yellow-haired leader turned and they all held their arms out toward Harper. Each face was emphatically sober and deeply sincere.

Harper wheeled and stalked stiffly toward the car, jamming the change into his pocket. He turned suddenly toward the stocky attendant.