Strange Highways

you a tail as well. Have you thought of that?"
     Alarmed out of proportion by the suggestion, Chase said, "No. I don't see what value that would have."
     "Well, the story was in the papers this morning. He probably doesn't fear you identifying him as much as he does the girl, but he might bear a grudge against you."
     "Grudge? He'd have to be nuts."
     Wallace laughed. "Well, if not nuts, what is he?"
     "You mean you've found no motives from questioning the girl, no old lovers who might have-"
     "No," Wallace said. "Right now we're operating on the assumption there's no rational motive, that he's psychotic."
     "I see."
     "Well," Wallace said, "I'm sorry there isn't more solid news."
     "And I'm sorry to have bothered you," Chase said.
     He hung up without telling Wallace about the calls that he had received from the killer, though he had intended to spill it all. A twenty-four-hour guard on the girl. They would do the same to him, if they knew that he'd been contacted.
     The walls seemed to sway, alternately closing in like the jaws of an immense vise and swinging away from him as if they were flat gray gates. The floor rose and fell - or seemed to.
     A sense of extreme instability overcame him, a sense that the world was not a solid place but as fluid as a shimmering mirage: the very thing that had landed him in the hospital and had eventually led to his seventy-five-percent disability pension. He could not let it grip him again, and he knew that the best way to fight it was to constrict the perimeters of his world, take solace from solitude. He got another drink.
     The telephone woke him from his nap just as the dead men touched him with soft, white, corrupted hands. He sat straight up in bed and cried out, his arms held before him to ward off their cold touch.
     When he saw where he was and that he was alone, he sank back, exhausted, and listened to the phone. After thirty rings, he had no choice but to pick it up.
     "Yes."
     "I was about to come check on you," Mrs. Fielding said. "Are you all right?"
     "I'm okay,"
     "It took you so long to answer."
     "I was asleep."
     She hesitated, as if framing what she was about to say. "I'm having Swiss steak, mushrooms, baked corn, and mashed potatoes for supper. Would you like to come down? There's more than I can use."
     "I don't think-"
     "A strapping boy like you needs his regular meals."
     "I've already eaten."
     She was silent. Then she said, "All right. But I wish you'd waited, 'cause I got all this food."
     "I'm sorry, but I'm stuffed," he said.
     "Tomorrow night, maybe."
     "Maybe," he said. He rang off before she could suggest a late-night snack together.
     The ice melted in his glass, diluting what whiskey he had not drunk. He emptied the watered booze into the bathroom sink, got new ice and a new shot of liquor. It tasted as sour as a bite of lemon rind. He drank it anyway. The cupboard and refrigerator contained nothing else but a bag of Winesap apples.
     He turned on the small black-and-white television again and slowly cycled through all the local channels. Nothing but news, news, news, and a cartoon program. He watched the cartoons.
     None was amusing.
     After the cartoons, he watched an old movie.
     Except for the telephone call he'd been told to expect at six o'clock, he had the whole evening ahead of him.
     At six o'clock on the nose, the phone rang.
     "Hello?"
     "Good evening, Chase," the killer said. His voice was still rough.
     Chase sat on the bed.
     "How are you tonight?" the killer asked.
     "Okay. "
     "You know what I've been up to all day?"
     "Research."
     "That's right."
     "Tell me what you found," Chase said, as if it would be news to him even though he was the subject. And maybe it would be.
     "First, you were born here a little over twenty-four years ago on June eleventh, 1947, in Mercy Hospital. Your parents died in an auto accident a couple of years ago. You went to school at State and graduated in a three-year accelerated program, having majored in business administration. You did well in all subjects except a few required courses, chiefly Basic Physical Sciences, Biology One and Two, Chemistry One, and