Strange Highways

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     A new, quiet, but profound anxiety overcame him. Embracing the possibility of hope was far riskier and more frightening than walking boldly through enemy gunfire.

     Once Chase had shaved and bathed, he realized that he had no leads to follow in his investigation. He had been everywhere that Judge had been, and yet he had gained nothing for his trouble except a description of the man, which would do him no good unless he could connect a name with it.
     While eating a late breakfast at a pancake house on Galasio Boulevard, he decided to return to the Gateway Mall Tavern and talk to the real Eric Blentz to see if the man could put a name to Judge's description. It seemed likely that Judge had not just chosen Blentz's name out of the phone book when he'd used it in the Student Records Office at State. Perhaps he knew Blentz. And even if Blentz could provide no new lead, Chase could go back to Glenda Kleaver at the newspaper morgue and question her about anyone who had come into her office on Tuesday - which he hadn't done previously, for fear of making a fool of himself or pricking the interest of the reporters in the room.
     From a phone booth outside the restaurant, he called the newspaper morgue, but it wasn't open for business on Saturday. In the directory he found a listing for Glenda Kleaver.
     She answered on the fourth ring. He had forgotten how like music her voice was.
     He said, "Miss Kleaver, you probably don't remember me. I was in your office yesterday. My name's Chase. I had to leave while you were out of the room getting information for one of your reporters."
     "Sure. I remember you."
     He hesitated, not certain how to proceed. Then he blurted out a request or an invitation; he wasn't sure which it was. "My name's Chase, Benjamin Chase, and I'd like to see you again, see you today, if that's at all possible."
     "See me?"
     "Yes, that's right."
     After a hesitation, she said, "Mr. Chase ... are you asking me for a date?"
     He was so out of practice - and so surprised to discover that he did, indeed, want to see her again for reasons that had nothing to do with Judge - that he was as awkward as a schoolboy. "Well, yes, more or less, I suppose, yeah, a date, if that's okay."
     "You have an interesting approach," she said.
     "I guess so." He was afraid that she would turn him down - and was simultaneously frightened that she would accept.
     "What time?" she asked.
     "Well, actually, I was thinking today, this evening, dinner."
     She was silent.
     "But now," he said, "I realize that isn't much notice-"
     "It's fine."
     "Really?" His throat was tight, and his voice rose toward an adolescent pitch. He amazed himself.
     "One problem, though," she said.
     "What's that?"
     "I've already started marinating a lovely sea bass for dinner. Started preparing other dishes too. I don't like wasting any of this. Could you come here for supper?"
     "Okay," he said.
     She gave him the address. "Dress casually, please. And I'll see you at seven."
     "At seven."
     When the connection was broken, Chase stood for a while in the booth, trembling. Into his mind's eye came vivid memories of Operation Jules Verne: the narrow tunnel, the descent, the awful darkness, the fear, the bamboo gate, the women, the guns ... the blood. His knees felt weak, and his heart beat rabbit-fast, as it had done in that subterranean battleground. Shaking violently, he leaned against the Plexiglas wall of the booth and closed his eyes.
     Making a date with Glenda Kleaver was in no way a rejection of his responsibility in the deaths of those Vietnamese women. A long time had passed, after all, and a great deal of penitence had been suffered. And suffered alone.
     Nevertheless, he still felt that making a date with her was wrong. Callous and selfish and wrong.
     He left the booth.
     The day was hot and humid. His damp shirt clung to him nearly as tenaciously as guilt.

     At the shopping mall, Chase browsed in the bookstore until shortly after noon, then walked up the carpeted slope of the main promenade to the tavern. The bartender said that Blentz was expected at one o'clock. Chase sat on a stool at the bar, watching the door, and nursed a beer while he waited.
     When Eric Blentz arrived,