Strange Highways

had the name he wanted, but she wouldn't give it to him on the telephone.
     "You'll have to come around and see me," she said coquettishly. "My mom's away for the weekend with this guy. Got the place all to myself."

     When Louise answered the bell, she was wearing a yellow bikini, and she smelled of coconut tanning lotion. Opening the door, she said, "I knew you'd be back to get the reward-"
     When she saw Glenda, she fell silent.
     "May we come in?" Ben asked.
     Louise stepped back, confused, and closed the door behind them.
     Ben introduced Glenda as a close friend, and Louise's face soured into a pout.
     Heading to the living room, rolling her hips to show off her tight butt, the girl said, "Will you have a drink this time?"
     "Early, isn't it?"
     "Noon."
     "No, thanks," Ben said. "We've only got a couple of questions, and we'll be going."
     At the wet bar, Louise stood with her right hip cocked, mixing her drink.
     Ben and Glenda sat on the sofa, and Louise carried her drink to an armchair opposite them. The girl slouched in the chair, with her legs spread. The crotch of her skimpy swimsuit conformed to the folds of flesh that it was supposed to conceal, leaving nothing to the imagination.
     Chase felt uncomfortable, but Glenda seemed as serene as ever.
     "The name you wanted," Louise said, "is Tom Deekin. The guy who dated my mom, the guy with the ring. He sells insurance. Has an office over on Canby Street by the firehouse. But he isn't the guy who knifed Mike."
     "I know. Still ... he might be able to give us the names of other people in the brotherhood."
     "Fat chance." She was holding her drink in one hand and lightly caressing one well-tanned thigh with the other, trying to make her self-appreciation seem unconscious but being too blatant by half. "These guys are committed to something, you know, they have ideals - and you're an outsider. Why're they going to tell you anything?"
     "They might."
     She smiled and shook her head. "You think maybe you can squeeze a few names out of Tom Deekin? Listen, these guys have steel balls. They have to be tough, getting ready to defend against the nappy-heads and the kikes and the rest of them."
     Ben supposed that some members of the Aryan Alliance might be dangerous - but most of them were probably playing at this master-race stuff, drinking beer and gassing about racial Armageddon instead of watching football games on the tube.
     Glenda said, "Louise, as I understand it, you'd gone with Mike for a year before ..."
     "Before that fruitcake gutted him?" Louise said, as if to prove that she was as tough as anyone. Or maybe the coldness in her was as real as it seemed. "A year - yeah, that's about right. Why?"
     "Did you ever notice anyone following you - as if they were keeping a watch on you?"
     "No."
     Ben knew what Glenda was after. Judge researched his potential victims to discover their sins, to attempt to justify his murderous urges as righteous judgments. He had followed Mike and Louise; he'd told Ben as much; therefore, they might have noticed him.
     "You answered too fast, without thinking," Ben said. "Glenda doesn't mean was someone following you recently. Maybe it was even weeks ago, even months ago."
     Louise hesitated, sipping her drink. Her free hand slid from her thigh to the crotch of her bikini. Her fingertips moved in slow circles over the yellow fabric.
     Though she stared mostly at Ben, the girl occasionally glanced assessingly at Glenda. She clearly felt that they were engaged in a competition.
     Glenda, in her serenity, had won all the necessary races years ago - and had never run against anyone but herself.
     Louise said, "The beginning of the year, about February and March, there was something like that. Some creep hanging around - but it never amounted to anything. It turned out not to be any mysterious stranger."
     "Not a stranger? Then who?"
     "Well, when Mike first said he was following us, I just laughed, you know? Mike was like that, always off on one fantasy or another. He was going to be an artist, did you know? First he was going to work in a garret and become world famous. Jesus. Then he was going to be a paperback-book illustrator. Then a film director, paint with the camera. He never could