FLIPKA

Chapter Twelve

I had lost touch with the casualness money lends to the enjoyment of luxury. My rescuer’s Jaguar smelt of lavender, the eau de cologne for the enlightened set, with just the right hint of new leather. At first I declined to sit on the plush passenger’s seat until she produced a towel. What a rank amateur I exposed myself to be! The privileged sink their dusty derrieres wherever they please, regardless of the resulting mess for the clean-up crew. Pardonne moi! 

“I can’t apologize enough for my smell. You certainly are a saint for even letting me into your car,” I blathered, politely opening the window.

“What happened?” she asked. From her appearance I jumped to the unfair conclusion that she was a showgirl, on her way from Vegas to Jackson Hole or some such resort locale in a “friend’s” jag. She had a dancer’s endless legs, long blonde hair piled loosely on top of her head and a voice cooled by years of performing on a smoky stage. However, she was dressed in a simple white sari and wore little jewelry or makeup, so I allowed that I could be dead wrong about her profession.

Figuring I’d sound like a blithering idiot if I told her the truth, I lied. “My car broke down and the gentleman who offered me a ride to the next town turned out to be a lunatic with a bat fetish—hence my lovely aroma!”

“And he left you out here in the middle of nowhere?” 

“Yup!”

“Wow.”

“Well, apparently the little people in his head didn’t like me. I guess it could have been worse—they could have told him to kill me!”

“Oh my God,” she cried, shifting rapidly from first to second and then third as we blasted off. “What were you doing way out here in the middle of nowhere?”

“I work down the road at the Eastern Nevada Girls Training Facility?”

“Oh my God!” she breathlessly gasped. “I don’t believe it—that’s where I’m going!”

“What a happy coincidence for me.”

“Rev. Achmed, my guru, says that there are no coincidences. Kindred souls ebb and flow together at certain preordained points, and we will for the rest of eternity!”

“Sounds like he’s read Siddhartha a few times.”

“Siddhartha?”

“Yeah – a book by Hermann Hesse. Say, do you know how to get to Enev?” The Jaguar was slicing through the night like a hot knife through butter—80, 90 even up to 95 miles per hour. 

“Sort of—we turn off just past someplace called Cave Lake, right?”

“It depends on which way we’re heading—if we’re driving north the turnoff is just past the Steptoe exit.”

“Oh, that was miles back. And we are going north.”

“Aha.”

“Then we should probably turn around. Right?”

“Yup.”

“Hold on.” 

Slowing ever so slightly, she executed a burning rubber U-turn and then began tearing up the other lane of the highway. 

“You know Enev’s going to be locked up tighter than a drum by now,” I shouted. “They might not let you in.” 

“What?” She shouted in return. We had to shout to overcome the wind noise from the open windows.

“They—might—not—let—you—in.”

“Ha,” the pretty woman laughed, “see the envelope on the back seat? It’s a court order.”

“You just passed a sign.” 

“Shit! What did it say?” 

I rolled up the window. “Might I suggest that we drive a little bit slower? The signs on this highway are difficult to spot even in broad daylight. At night, they’re impossible, especially driving at the speed of light.” 

“Sure,” she agreed. “It’s just the desert freaks me out, you know. It’s so . . . I don’t know—dead.”

“Aye, that it is.” I started to ask why she was on her way to Enev, when she cut me off, leaning forward into the windshield.

“What’s that?” There were lights ahead on the right side of the highway. “I hope it’s a gas station? I am a little low.” 

I wondered what she meant by “a little low” but was too afraid to ask. “I think it’s the store at the Steptoe exit which means we’ve passed the road to Enev.” 

As we got closer, I realized the lights were not coming from the store but from the oversized truck with a blown-out back window parked in front. It was the truck belonging to Dr. Gnecht’s cohorts, Luke and Cal. “Turn around,” I ordered and she did.