Gary ran for his car, his heart beating fast. He couldn’t lose the camper. He came up to the Beetle, breathless, fumbled with the door lock, jumped in, started it, and raced after Alfred. By now the camper was out of sight and several cars were between them. He fumed as he crawled along in the traffic, until he got out of the village of Bodega Bay and was able to speed up.
He had to pass the cars ahead of him, and it was difficult to pass on the narrow and winding road, which was now heading inland, away from the coast. He drove more aggressively than he had ever driven. He passed cars on blind curves. He was doing this for perhaps the third time when a logging truck came around the corner in his lane, heading straight toward him.
The truck filled his field of vision. Gary’s first thought was that the truck wasn’t supposed to be there. He instinctively braked hard, even as he had this thought. He started skidding, but he was able to duck behind the car he had been passing. He released the brake and struggled to keep his car under control. He used the experience gained from driving on icy streets in Western New York while growing up. It was touch-and-go, but he felt the tires grab just as he was afraid he would go off the road.
He was shaking with fear and relief, but he didn’t dare stop while he calmed down. He had the camper in sight now, and he had to stay where he could see it. He realized that his instincts had saved him, not the thinking part of his brain. Thank God or Darwin or whoever for instinct.
He became much more cautious, but after a few minutes, he had a chance to pass the car ahead of him safely. Now he was directly behind the camper. He pulled up close to it and read the sign again. Yes, it definitely said “Penny” and “Alfred.”
He knew that Alfred had probably spotted him, but he wasn’t going to back off and take a chance on losing the camper. He would stick to it like duct tape.
Somebody was tailgating the camper. Alfred didn’t like tailgaters. He had the rearview mirror trained on Penny, so he checked his side mirrors. It was a Volkswagen-a green Volkswagen. Shit. It was Gary. He caught a glimpse of Gary’s intent face through the windshield of the
VW.
Alfred had spotted the VW parked on the side of the road in Bodega Bay, and had felt momentary alarm, but there had been nobody inside it. He had become elated, thinking he had 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 successfully. The other boy didn’t. He went over the cliff in his car. The irony was that James was later killed in an auto accident for real, not all that far from where Alfred and Gary and Penny were playing out their own drama.
The three of them should do it the same way. He and Gary should drive their cars over the cliff and find out who was chicken. Penny would be the girl, played in the movie by Natalie Wood. Alfred had always liked Natalie. He had seen all of her movies. Penny somewhat resembled the beautiful Natalie in looks, hair color, and hairstyle. Penny would wave her arms to start them. The winner would get her. That was fair.
Alfred drove through Bodega Bay for the second time this morning. Gary stayed on his tail. Once he was out in the open again, he watched the rugged landscape along the coast, looking for the spot he had in mind. He drove past a sandy beach. That wouldn’t do. Then he saw it on a curve. The vertical, black cliff, outlined against the sky, swooping down to the relentless ocean. The top of it was shielded from the nearest section of the road by rocks. And anybody who saw them from this far away wouldn’t be able to tell what was happening.