Strange Highways

simpler. Walking, it was easier to shut the mind off and just drift along.
     Ordinarily, the lunch counter at Woolworth's was a guarantee of privacy, even when every stool was taken. Businessmen reading the financial pages, secretaries drinking coffee and doing crossword puzzles, laborers hunched over plates of eggs and bacon - all wanted a moment of solitude before the daily hubbub began. Strangely, the elbow-to-elbow proximity fostered a respect for privacy. That Tuesday morning, however, halfway through his meal, Chase discovered that most of the other customers were watching him with only poorly disguised interest.
     The ubiquitous newspaper with the front-page photograph had betrayed him.
     He stopped eating, left a tip, paid his check, and got out of there. His hands were shaking, and the backs of his knees quivered as if his legs would fail him.
     He didn't like being watched. He didn't even like being smiled at by a waitress or a clerk. His preference was to go through life as one of those nondescript men whom people looked through.
     When he went to the newsstand around the corner from Woolworth's to purchase a paperback, he was confronted with so many images of his face in the newspaper racks that he turned away at the door without going in.
     At the nearby liquor store, for the first time in months, the clerk commented on the size of the whiskey purchase. Clearly, he felt that a man like Chase shouldn't be buying so much booze. Unless, of course, the whiskey was for a party.
     "Giving a party?" the clerk asked.
     "Yeah."
     Anxious for the barren confines of his little attic room, Chase walked two blocks toward home before he remembered that he now owned a car. He walked back to it, embarrassed that someone might have seen his confusion.
     When he settled behind the wheel, he felt too tightly wound to risk driving. He sat for fifteen minutes, paging through the service manual and the ownership papers before finally starting the engine and pulling away from the curb.
     He didn't go to the park to watch the girls on their lunch hour, because he feared recognition. If someone tried to strike up a conversation, he would not know what to say.
     In his room, he poured a glass of whiskey over two ice cubes and stirred it with his finger.
     He turned on the television and found an old movie starring Wallace Beery and Marie Dressler. He'd seen it at least half a dozen times, but he kept it on just the same. The repetition, the dependable order of the sequential scenes - through thousands of showings in movie theaters and on television - gave him a sense of stability and soothed his nerves. He watched Wallace Beery's clumsy romantic pass at Marie Dressler, and the familiarity of Beery's antics, seen so often before and in that same exact detail, was like a balm on his troubled mind.
     At five minutes past eleven the telephone rang.
     He finally answered it, declined to do a press interview, and hung up.
     At eleven-twenty-six it rang again.
     This time it was the insurance agent with whom the Merchants' Association had taken out a year's policy on the Mustang. He wanted to know if the coverage was adequate or whether Chase would like to increase it for a nominal sum. He was chatty at first but less so when Chase said that the coverage was adequate.
     At eleven-fifty the phone rang a third time. When Chase answered, the killer said, "Hello, how has your morning been?" His voice was hoarse, hardly louder than a whisper.
     "Not good."
     "Did you see the papers?"
     "One."
     "Lovely coverage."
     Chase said nothing.
     The man said, "Most people want fame."
     "Not me."
     "Some people would kill for it."
     "You ?"
     "I'm not after fame," said the killer.
     "What are you after?"
     "Meaning, purpose."
     "There is none."
     The killer was silent. Then: "You're a strange egg, Mr. Chase."
     Chase relied on silence.
     "Be by your phone at six o'clock this evening, Mr. Chase. It's important."
     "I'm tired of this."
      "You're tired? I'm doing all the work here. I've spent the morning researching your background, and I have similar plans for the afternoon. At six I'll tell you what I've found."
     Chase said, "Why?"
     "I can't very