AHMM, July-August 2007
Page 28
They weren't Birkenstocks.
"Was that your car?” he asked, sure it had to be. Two accidents and a murder couldn't have taken place at the same site, could they? Not in the same week.
She swallowed, then glanced at the portable toilet. The look sent a chill through him. He was about to reach for her when she took off.
She ran for the truck. He lumbered to his feet and hurried after her, but she would reach the door long before he'd get close. She dragged the bungee cords behind her, and he stomped on the nearest one.
It held and she kept running. He bent over and grabbed the end, then yanking on it so hard that he had to take three steps backward.
She flew backward, and landed, hitting her head on the asphalt. She didn't move.
He prayed she was all right—he didn't need another body here, not one wrapped in his bungee cords—and he hurried to her side. Her eyes were rolling, but she was conscious, and when she saw him, she started to scramble up.
"If you tell me what happened,” he said, “I can help you."
She kicked him, hitting his left knee. He gasped at the shuddery sensation that went through him; he knew, suddenly, that she had shattered something.
She was reaching for the metal edge of one of the bungee cords. He growled like the linebacker he used to be and lunged for her, ignoring the pain, dragging his malfunctioning leg. He slammed her into the back end of the truck and held her in place as he wrapped the bungee cords around her until she looked like a tied-up character in a Warner Brothers cartoon.
He hoisted her into the back of the truck but knew he couldn't keep her there. She'd free herself. He was shaking. He limped to the driver's side, got in, and drove to the two portable toilets. Then he got out again, went to the back of the truck, and picked her up as if she weighed no more than a child.
It was hard to carry her when he couldn't brace his leg, but he did anyway. He used a fireman's hold, making sure her feet were on his backside. She wriggled and kicked and called him names; he wasn't sure if she was in her right mind. He'd been trying to help her, for heaven's sake, and now she was trying to hurt him.
She must have figured he'd seen the cuts on her hands. The missing fingernails—those came from trying to climb free. But the cuts were the kind that could only come from a knife blade. He'd seen a few knife fights in his day; he knew what offensive wounds looked like. Defensive wounds were on the palms. Offensive were on the backs and sides of the hand.
Like hers.
He shoved her wrapped body inside the clean portable toilet and closed the door. Then he took one of the old bungee cords and wrapped it around the door, pulling it tight.
She'd be okay in there for a little while. But he couldn't risk leaving her here, not even for the short time it would take to drive to where he could get reception on his cell phone.
So he got in the truck again, drove it to the edge of the highway, and backed it up. He kept the keys in the ignition, got out, and lowered the gate.
Reloading would be hard. His leg felt like it was on fire. He could scarcely move his entire left side. But he'd have to, one last time.
Getting portable toilets back on the truck took some doing. Normally, he would brace his legs, rock the thing, and move it just enough that it would sit on the lip of the truck gate. He'd have to do that now with only one leg and a lot of determination.
Coach Stevens still spoke in his head. Their only bowl game—not the Rose Bowl, but so damn close that it mattered to them—was his last game. Coach pulled him aside and said, “Give it everything. This is your last chance for glory. Don't worry about how it hurts. Just see how superhuman you can be."
Oscar dragged himself behind the portable toilet and grabbed it on both sides. Then he shoved with the shoulder opposite his good leg and rocked the thing.
The woman screamed, the sound muffled through the plastic. The damn toilet was heavier because of her. He wasn't sure he could move it even with two good legs.
Then she slammed herself against the door, and that was enough to loosen it. He rocked it just a little, and it came to rest on the lip. He shoved, and the toilet slid into place.
He leaned for a minute, sweat rolling down his face, his breathing harsh. But he didn't have a lot of time to rest. She was still screaming and rocking, and if he didn't move fast, she might knock the entire toilet over.
He closed the gate, then slammed the button with his fist. The lift rose and she screamed louder. At least he didn't have to worry that she couldn't breathe. With those lungs, it was clear she was doing just fine.
He used the three remaining bungees to strap the portable toilet in place. Then, bracing one hand on the side of the truck, he hobbled to the driver's seat. He got in, closed his eyes, and tried to breathe away the throbbing in his knee.
It didn't work.
At least it was his left knee and the truck was an automatic. He could drive away from here. His hands were shaking. It took two tries to get the truck in gear. He wasn't thinking clearly, he could feel it. He felt like he was underwater.
He'd felt this way before, after the big game. He'd cracked two ribs and had a concussion and had been going into shock. But they'd won. Coach had praised him. The papers had praised him.
He still had them framed on the wall of his apartment. Not even his greedy ex-wife had gotten those.
Shock. He didn't have a concussion now, but he wouldn't be making good decisions. He couldn't be on the road long. He got out his cell phone and propped it on the dash, waiting for the reception bar. Nothing.
He made himself breathe, then put the truck into drive. He rolled onto the highway and turned back the way he'd come. Behind him, he could hear the portable toilet thumping on the back gate. He hoped she didn't damage anything; it would probably come out of his salary.
The trees loomed over him like the living trees in the Wizard of Oz. It was dark here and the road twisty. He had to focus on the asphalt, driving so slow that he felt like he wasn't moving at all.
He kept glancing at the phone's reception bar, and when it finally jumped to full, he pulled over, put on his flashers, and dialed 911. He gave the dispatch the mile marker, asked for an ambulance and the sheriff, and then closed his eyes.
They had to shake him awake when they finally showed up.
* * * *
He got the story in bits and pieces, some of it from the cops in the hospital, some of it from the TV news, the rest from the papers. The station wagon belonged to Mr. Birkenstock, a hiker named Jorry Kling. He was single and unmarried. Near as the cops could figure, he'd picked her up. She'd been hitchhiking.
Her ruined clothes were expensive, but she had no luggage. Later, her defense attorney would claim she'd been ambushed in Astoria, raped and beaten and had managed to escape, hitchhiking south. Then Kling had picked her up and somewhere along the way, she'd forgotten he was her rescuer. When they stopped at the wayside, she'd tried to take the car.
But that didn't explain his body's position or the fact that the car had gone through the guard rail. She hadn't come back up the cliff to fight Kling and stuff him into a portable toilet.
Oscar had to testify at the trial, saying that she seemed okay until he asked her about the car, and then she'd attacked him too. Turned out that she had a history of attacking people—stabbing her mother in Longview, Washington; trying to shove another driver out of his car when he'd picked her up (and he'd shoved her out and drove away). She had had some kind of psychotic break, and the real victim of it had been Kling.
No one knew for certain what happened at that wayside. Only that Kling had ended up dead, and she'd ended up on the ledge, probably after losing control of the car she'd killed Kling to steal.
Oscar, though, had become something of a local hero, trying to save a girl only to have her turn on him.
And in those weeks of interviews—some even for big magazines in the East (Port-A-Potty Man Saves Psycho! read one headline, which really offended him because he worked f
or POTS, not Port-A-Potty), he kept getting the question he hated—How come you do this job?
No one liked his answer, about the pride in his work and the chance to drive to remote parts of the best state in the lower 48. So he finally had to give them an answer they understood: It paid well.
It did too. Commission on each toilet he delivered plus his weekly salary. He made more than some of the bozos who asked him questions.
Money they understood. The rest they didn't. Like how antsy he got during the rehab, how much he wanted to be in his truck again.
The first day back, a Monday, he had to drive with his boss in the truck, just to make sure he could handle the work. He did just fine, reveling in the narrow highway, the crouching trees, the ocean peaking through the spring leaves.
He stopped, like he always did, and checked out the asphalt before going to the Lonely Rocks Wayside. His boss bleated at him, worried that Oscar was scared to return to the scene of the crime.
But Oscar ignored him and followed the routine.
The rest of the winter, the part he had missed, had come with heavy rains and high tides. The road looked even more unstable than it had before. But he could stand on it, and when he returned to the truck, he didn't say anything, just drove forward.
The guy who'd replaced him had put the new portable toilet in the wrong place. It was hard to get to.
But Oscar didn't complain. Instead, he got out of the truck and stopped, just like he had dozens of times in the past, taking a deep breath of the fresh ocean air.
He loved this place. It didn't matter that some psycho woman had committed murder here. It didn't matter that he'd have a permanent limp because of her.
She'd given him a second chance to go the distance, and he had. Twenty years and one hundred pounds after the last time, he found he still had the strength to push himself to the very edge.
It wasn't about being a hero.
It wasn't even about being more than a portable toilet serviceman, like the magazines had claimed.
It was about delivering at the right point in the game.
It was about being a winner.
Which he was—and always would be.
Copyright (c) Kristine Kathryn Rusch
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SOLUTION TO THE MYSTERIOUS CIPHER
It was now, quite suddenly, that he saw it: There was a case against him. Fascinated, he watched it growing, growing, like some monstrous tropical plant.
—Aldous Huxley
From “The Gioconda Smile” (1922) by Aldous Huxley
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COMING IN SEPTEMBER 2007
THE GUARDIANS by Jim Fusilli
IMPORTED FROM AFRICA by G. Miki Hayden
WASTING ASSETS by Mike Wiecek
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ALFRED HITCHCOCK'S MYSTERY MAGAZINE (ISSN:0002-5224), Vol. 52, Nos. 7 and 8, July/August, 2007. Published monthly except for combined January/February and July/August double issues by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications. Annual subscription $43.90 in the U.S.A. and possessions, $53.90 elsewhere, payable in advance in U.S. funds (GST included in Canada). Subscription orders and correspondence regarding subscriptions should be sent to 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Or, to subscribe, call 1-800-220-7443. Editorial Offices: 475 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016. Executive Offices: 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. Periodical postage paid at Norwalk, CT, and additional mailing offices. (c) 2007 by Dell Magazines, a division of Crosstown Publications, all rights reserved. Dell is a trademark registered in the U.S. Patent Office. The stories in this magazine are all fictitious, and any resemblance between the characters in them and actual persons is completely coincidental. Reproduction or use, in any manner, of editorial or pictorial content without express written permission is prohibited. Submissions must be accompanied by a self-addressed, stamped envelope. The Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts. POSTMASTER: Send Change of Address to Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, 6 Prowitt Street, Norwalk, CT 06855. In Canada return to Quebecor St. Jean, 800 Blvd. Industrial, St. Jean, Quebec J3B 8G4. GST #R123054108.
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