“The hell I don’t. When I see myself in a mirror, I scream.”
In fact, she had one of those fine-boned, perfectly symmetrical faces that time could little distort, and her soft skin was not so much wrinkled as precisely pleated to sweet effect.
She said, “Can you drive?”
“Yes. But I can’t take a job right now.”
“You don’t look like a shiftless good-for-nothing.”
“That’s kind of you to say. But the problem is, I have this thing I’ve got to do.”
“Somewhere south of here, you don’t know where, but you’ll know the place when you get there.”
“That’s right, ma’am.”
Her blue eyes were neither clouded nor sorrowed by age, but were alert, quick, and clear. “This thing you’ve got to do—have you any idea what it is?”
“More or less,” I said. “But I’d rather not talk about it.”
“Okay, then,” she said, putting the limo in park and applying the emergency brake, but leaving the engine running, “you be my chauffeur and just drive us where you need to go.”
“You can’t mean that, ma’am. What kind of chauffeur would that be?”
“The kind I can live with. A lot of the time, I don’t much care where I go, just so I go somewhere.”
She got out of the limousine and came around to the passenger side. She was wearing a yellow pantsuit with a white blouse that featured frilly lace-trimmed collar and cuffs, and a gold brooch with little diamonds and rubies arranged to form a glittering exclamation point.
When she looked up at me, I felt extraordinarily tall, like Alice after consuming a piece of cake labeled EAT ME.
“As my chauffeur,” she said, “you need to open the door for me.”
“I can’t be your chauffeur, ma’am.”
“I’ll ride up front with you to get to know you better.”
“I’m sorry, but I really can’t be your—”
“I’m Edie Fischer. I don’t hold with formalities, so you can just call me Edie.”
“Thank you, ma’am. But—”
“I was named after St. Eadgyth. She was a virgin and martyr. I can’t claim to be a virgin, but the way the world is sliding into darkness, I might yet be a martyr, even though I don’t aspire to it. What’s your name, child—or are you as unsure of that as you are of where you’re going?”
I have in the past used aliases. Using one now made sense, if only to avoid having to explain the origin of my first name for the ten thousandth time. Instead, I said, “My name’s Odd Thomas.”
“Of course, it is,” Mrs. Fischer said. “And if you need to be paid in cash, I am entirely comfortable with that arrangement. Please open the door for me, Oddie.”
Oddie and Edie. I had seen and enjoyed Driving Miss Daisy, but I was neither as reliable nor as noble as Morgan Freeman’s character, Hoke. “Ma’am—”
“Call me Edie.”
“Yes, ma’am. The problem is, I’m looking for a dangerous man, this trucker who dresses like a rhinestone cowboy, and maybe he’s looking for me.”
Without hesitation, she zippered open her large purse to show me the pistol nestled among all the lady things. “I can take care of myself, Oddie. Don’t you worry about me.”
“But, ma’am, in all good conscience—”
“Now that you’ve gotten me intrigued,” she said, “there’s no way you’re going to shake loose of me. Child, I need a little danger to keep the blood creeping through my veins. Last time I had some major fun was Elko, Nevada, four months ago, when Oscar and I outfoxed those government fools and helped that poor creature get home again.”
“Poor creature?” I asked.
“Never you mind.” She zippered shut her purse. “Let’s find your rhinestone cowboy if that’s what you want.”
I opened the door. She got into the limousine.
Four
THE MERCEDES LIMO HAD A TWELVE-CYLINDER ENGINE and two fuel tanks, providing both speed and range.
Not a single cloud sailed the sea of sky above, and the coastal land rolled in gentle waves.
Riding shotgun with panache, voluminous black purse on her lap, Mrs. Fischer pointed to the radar detector that was fixed to the dashboard and then to something that she called a laser foiler, which she assured me meant that, regarding velocity, we were at little risk of being caught when we broke the law. I had never heard of a laser foiler; but she claimed that it was reliable, “as cutting-edge as any technology on the planet.”
She said her previous chauffeur, Oscar, had driven her across the United States, Maine to Texas, Washington State to Florida, again and again, often with the speedometer needle past the one-hundred mark, and they had never gotten a single speeding ticket. They had explored a hundred cities and a thousand small towns, mountains high and lush, deserts low and arid, anywhere a superstretch limousine could be piloted.
The current car was an impressive machine. So little vibration translated from the pavement into the frame that we seemed to be floating swiftly southward, as if the highway were a racing river.
“Oscar was a good employee and a perfect friend,” Mrs. Fischer said. “And he was as restless as I am, wanted always to be going somewhere. I knew him better than I ever knew either of my brothers. I would like to know you as well as I knew him, Odd Thomas. Even if I just live to be as old as Oscar, you and I will travel many thousands of miles together, and the journey will be so much more fun if we’re friends and understand each other. So … are you gay?”
“Gay? No. Why w
ould you think I’m gay?”
“You’re chasing after this rhinestone cowboy. That’s all right with me, child. I have nothing against gays. I’ve always liked men a lot, so I understand why you would.”
“I don’t like men. I mean, I like them, I’m not a man-hater, but I don’t love them. Except, you know, in the sense that we should all love our fellow man. But that means man and woman. In general. You know, like the whole human species.”
She favored me with a grandmotherly smile, nodded knowingly, and said, “So you’re bisexual.”
“What? Good heavens, no. I’m not bisexual. Who would have the time or energy for that? I’m just saying, I’m fine with loving all mankind in theory, which is different from dating them.”
She winked and said, “So you mean, you’re gay in theory but not in practice.”
“No. I’m not gay in theory or practice.”
“Maybe you’re in denial.”
“No, not at all. I love a girl. My girl, Stormy Llewellyn—she’s the only one for me and always will be. We’re destined to be together forever.”
My contention is that I’m not a total conversational idiot, although the foregoing exchanges might indicate otherwise. Engaged once more in psychic magnetism, concerned that I might again draw the cowboy to me instead of being drawn to him, getting accustomed to handling the massive limo, I was distracted.
Mrs. Fischer said, “?‘Destined to be together forever.’ That’s sweet. You’re a sweet child.”
“We once got a card from a carnival fortune-telling machine, and that’s what it said.”
As the speedometer needle crept past ninety, the highway might have been a runway. I felt as if we were on the brink of being airborne.
Mrs. Fischer said, “I hope you’re not one of these moderns who thinks marriage isn’t necessary. You’re going to marry the girl, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am. It’s all I want.”
“You wouldn’t be saying that just to please an old woman and keep your new job, would you?”