Honeymoon for Three

gotten safely past Gary. Now he remembered the guy he had seen, loitering on the side of the road, just before he spotted the car. That must have been Gary, watching for him. He had been wearing a baseball cap, and Alfred hadn’t recognized him.
    Gary hadn’t given up. Alfred had underestimated him. What should he do? He couldn’t outrun the Beetle. It was more maneuverable than the camper and could go faster. And as much as he hated to admit it, Gary could drive a stick-shift better than he could.
    He had to abort his plan to go over the Golden Gate Bridge. All Gary had to do was to tell the toll taker that there was a kidnapped girl in the camper, and the San Francisco police would be all over him like maggots on a dead body. In fact, although he had now backed off, Gary had been close enough to read his license plate. He could report it to the Highway Patrol.
    Alfred guessed that Gary wouldn’t stop to do that as long as the camper was moving. He wouldn’t want to take a chance on losing Penny. That meant Alfred had to deal with Gary. He had to go toe to toe with him. The situation was like the one Gary Cooper faced in High Noon , except that Gary was the bad guy in this case. Alfred was the good guy. He would win the battle.
    He had one advantage that even Penny didn’t know about. While he had been searching for the duct tape, he had found something wrapped in a cloth in the back of the storage cabinet. Something hard. It was a small handgun, much like the one he had purchased. It must belong to Don.
    Alfred had checked it, holding it inside the cabinet, out of sight of Penny. It was loaded. When Penny bent down to pick up the tape, Alfred shoved the gun into his pants pocket. He was glad that Don was a gun lover. He was ready for Gary.
    ***
    Penny worked carefully, trying not to attract Alfred’s attention. She knew he was watching her in the rearview mirror. Since she was completely under the blanket, he couldn’t tell exactly what she was doing. Hopefully, he would regard her movements as just an attempt to get comfortable.
    She was pulling the tape off her wrists, using her teeth for the most part. Because her hands were taped in front of her, she had been able to use them to untape her mouth. However, she left that piece of tape dangling from her cheek, so that she could quickly retape her mouth if Alfred stopped the camper. It was tedious work, especially in the dark, but she had found the end of the tape with the sensitive tip of her tongue and managed to get a tooth hold on it. She was carefully unwinding it, working it around and around her wrists.
    As the loose end got longer, she could even help the process along with her hands. Not much further to go. Then she would take the tape off her legs. Once she was free, she would be ready to make her escape when Alfred stopped to pay the toll at the Golden Gate Bridge.
    Suddenly Alfred braked and put the camper into a tight left turn. What the hell was he doing? From the sound and feel of it, he fishtailed on gravel for a few seconds. Now they were back on the road again. Unless she was mistaken, he had made a U-turn and was headed in the opposite direction, away from the Golden Gate Bridge. Had he lost his mind? Or had he seen something? The change in direction threw her plans into disarray.
    ***
    When Alfred slowed and made the U-turn, he caught Gary by surprise. Without thinking, Gary immediately turned behind him. His car had a tighter turning radius than the camper, but he had to cut in front of an oncoming car, causing its driver to stand on his brakes, which produced the loud screeching noise of skidding tires, followed by several honking horns. Too bad. Gary took off after Alfred, ignoring the car that was now behind him with the driver still blowing his horn. Alfred had to do better than that to get away from him.
    ***
    On their drive south, Alfred had noticed a particular cliff a bit north of Bodega Bay, with a place to park beside it. It was far enough away from the road that the traffic from Route 1 wouldn’t be able to see what he was doing. It was a perfect place to get rid of Gary. Gary, who was the source of all his problems.
    A cliff. Alfred thought about another movie: Rebel without a Cause . With James Dean. Alfred was James Dean. He was the misunderstood rebel. There was a scene in Rebel in which James Dean and another boy drove stolen cars over a cliff. Last boy to bail out before the cars went over was chicken. James bailed out