He is in conversation. Someone is in the trunk flashing SOS. Richard has to stop the car; he has to get the car off the road without hitting the trunk. He puts up alongside, pressing in towards the other guy. The two cars touch as if kissing and then pull apart. The guy speeds up. Richard keeps up the pace. He leans on the horn as if blowing a warning, and then veers into the guy — hard.
The guy glares at him. "What the fuck?"
He pulls away and Richard speeds up and does it again. People are honking, trying to get out of the way. SOS. SOS.
The guy slams Richard back and then swerves onto the shoulder. Richard follows alongside, squeezing in.
"Are you fucking nuts?" the guy yells. They are so close that Richard can hear him perfectly clearly.
He might be.
What would happen if the guy stopped, if he opened the trunk, and all that was in there was a spare tire, a couple of cans of oil, and some old clothes that the guy kept forgetting to drop off at the Salvation Army? The car is talking to him, communicating, and why would the guy be trying to get away if he wasn't hiding something?
The two of them are side by side on the shoulder. The guy is stepping into the gas and heading into him, this time clipping Richard's door. Richard returns, aiming for the guy's front wheel. Both cars slide off the road, down a grassy hill, the big Mercedes creaking, crunching, complaining, but taking it like a pro. As soon as they come to a stop the guy is out of his car and running. Richard goes after him, catching him only when the guy trips, falling. Richard jumps on his back while the guy is facedown.
"What the fuck?"
Richard sits on the guy, riding him like he's a pony, actually more a bucking bronco. How long can he keep him down? Richard kicks him with his heels, digging in.
And finally there's someone at the top of the hill.
"Do you need an ambulance?"
"Hurry," Richard yells.
"Should I call 911?"
"Help me." The guy is about to get away. He's wiggling out from Richard. Two men come running. "Sit on him," Richard says, and they do, and then one of the guys says, "Why are we sitting on him?"
And Richard tells him about the SOS signal.
"Is there someone in the trunk?" they ask the guy. He doesn't answer.
"You'd better go," the men tell Richard.
Richard climbs back up the hill and knocks on the trunk. "Hello?"
"Yes," a woman says.
"I saw your SOS," he says. "I ran the car off the road. Everything is fine. I'm going to get you out."
"Don't open the trunk."
"You don't want me to let you out?"
"Are there people out there?"
"Yes."
"I'm naked."
"OK." He pauses. "I'll crack the trunk lid and hand you some clothes."
"My hands are tied," she says.
"All right, I'll pop the lid so you can get some air while I find some scissors." He reaches into the front seat and pulls the trunk release. "How's that?"
"Good," she says. "I can see."
A highway cop pulls up on a motorcycle. "Do you need help?"
"It's a hostage situation," Richard says.
More cars have pulled off the road; the two men who were sitting on the guy have tied him up with their belts.
Someone has a pocket knife; the girl sticks her wrists out of the trunk, they cut the duct tape. Richard takes off his shirt and pushes it through the crack, and someone has some sweatpants and they stuff those in, and then she says, "You can open it."
Richard lifts the lid and there she is — eyes blinking, adjusting to the daylight, wet like she's been half drowned, terrorized.
"I was taking a shower; he grabbed me out of the shower." Her hair is still wet.
"Do you know the guy?" the cop asks.
"He repaired my television a couple of weeks ago."
By now, an ambulance has pulled up and they're helping the girl into the back, and the guy is being stuffed into the backseat of a police car, complaining that they hurt him when they sat on him.
And the cop taking the report is saying to Richard, "I just want to get this right. You were driving behind them and the car started talking to you?"
"SOS, SOS," Richard says, "in Morse code."
"And what's that, Morse code? Is that something I should know?"
"Yes," Richard says.
"Some kind of high-tech Internet talk?"
"He was going to kill her," one of the men who'd been sitting on him said.
"Did he tell you that?" the cop asks.
"Not in so many words, but once they put you in the trunk it's a bad sign," one of the men says.
"Right," the cop says. "Trunk crimes have a very high lethality."
"You saved her life," someone tells Richard.
Police dogs are searching the area; a bystander with a video camera is filming everything. "Off the shoulder, off the shoulder," a cop says, directing traffic. "No gawker accidents."
"I need to go home," Richard says to no one in particular. And while the cops are getting the last of his information, address, phone number, one of the men drives his car up the hill. They escort him onto the highway, and he drives off squinting into the glare of the bleached afternoon.
He drives with pieces of metal dangling, the car sounding like tin cans at a wedding.
IT IS ONLY when he pulls up to the house, when he turns off the ignition, when he is safe, that he realizes what happened. It was so strange, like something you'd see on a TV movie, only worse. The trunk smelled. When the trunk was opened, an incredible smell — dark-vinegary, urine — came up out of the car, and the girl, looking beyond scared, made eye contact with him, and Richard put out his hand to help her. He put out his hand and she took it.
Richard gets out of his car and vomits, spills everything onto the edge of the road, into oncoming traffic. He throws up and feels even worse. He knocks on the door to the homeless man's house. "Go away."
"Do you have some Advil?" he yells, knowing the medicine cabinet in the white cube is empty.
The guy opens the door. Richard sees his arm, sees plastic tubing — he's hooked up to an IV.
"Oh, sorry, I didn't realize you were sick."
"I'm not sick, it's vitamins. What happened to you? You look" — he pauses — "shocked."
"Have you got any Advil?"
He shakes his head. "Hard on the liver. But I can help you. Come in."
The guy pours Richard a drink. "Scotch, better for you." He motions to a chair. Richard sits. The guy rummages through a drawer and then goes to the refrigerator, comes back with a few small bottles. "I'm a certified homeopath," the guy says, "along with being a psychopath." He laughs. "Open your mouth."
Richard obeys, and he squirts a few drops from each bottle into Richard's mouth.
Richard gags. "What is that?"
"A remedy. I make it myself."
The man hands him the scotch. "It helps."
Richard drinks. He could have been killed. The asshole in the car was certainly going to do something to the girl, and he could have done the same to Richard. Did he really do a good thing? Did he save someone's life, does that make a difference, did he interrupt history, fate? What came over him?
"More scotch?"
Richard nods. The guy's house is rustic, a bachelor beach cottage, exposed wooden ceiling beams, a big desk overlooking the ocean, crooked pictures, a huge bottled-water dispenser.
"Why do you take the vitamins like that?" Richard asks.
"Because I'm nuts. I want to live forever and I've got this sagging ass, this gut. Aging is the one thing that terrifies me. I can't imagine myself old." The guy lights a cigarette. He is rugged, weathered; his hair is like a lion's mane; his eyes are the bluest of blue; his features are hard and strong.
"Are you an actor?"
"No — worse."
"A producer?"
"Further down the food chain."
Richard shrugs.