Beyond it were some animals in the field, leaping and prancing about. Apparently he added something up. He laughed. “So those are horses!” Then for some idiotic reason, he patted the Cadillac panel ledge. He said, “Never mind, you chemical-engine Cadillac Brougham Coupe d’Elegance. I like you even if you don’t have any of those things under your hood.”

I will never understand Fleet guys. Compared to a Voltar airbus, an Earth vehicle is a farce. And he knew it! Then I had it. Toys. Anything was a toy to Fleet officers, from landing craft to battleships to planets. They just have no respect for force! No. Then I really had it: fetish worship.

He found he could drive with one knee and leaned back, arms spread out along the top of the seat. It made me nervous until I realized I was 105 degrees of longitude away.

But another shock was in store. He glanced at the speedometer and it was doing SIXTY-FIVE! The speed limit is fifty-five and all those roads have signs that say they are radar patrolled!

I saw he was not driving by the speedometer: he was running with the traffic — some big trucks and passenger cars — and by and large was doing sixty-five. But cops love to pick one car out of such a clump and arrest it. I went and got some more sira.

He got through Charlottesville all right. And then Mary Schmeck, who had been in a twitchy, comatose state, woke up.

“Oh, I feel awful!” she moaned. “My legs are killing me! I ache in every joint!” She was thrashing about, obviously in a bad state. “How far are we from Washington?”

“We’re almost to Culpeper,” he said.

“Oh,” she moaned. “It’s still a long way yet!”

“Only about an hour,” said Heller.

“Jesus, I hurt! Turn on some music. Maybe it will redirect my focus intensity.”

Heller fiddled with the radio and finally got some jazz. A song came on:

Mary moaned, “Oh, my legs!”

“Oh, my God,” said Mary.

“Turn that off!” Mary shrieked.

Heller turned it off. I was very sorry he did so. It was the first pleasant thing I had heard for days!

Mary was covered with goose pimples. “I’m freezing!” she cried out, writhing.

Heller quickly turned the thermostat up to eighty.

Long before it could have warmed up, Mary said, “I’m roasting hot!”

Heller turned the thermostat down again.

She kept it up, thrashing about. It was obvious to me what was wrong with her. She was in the third stage of withdrawal symptoms. People sure do complain about them.

“I can’t get my breath,” she was panting now. Well, that’s normal, too, for somebody who has a bad heart. But still, respiratory failure is the usual cause of death in morphine addiction and it would be no different for its derivative, heroin. The lung muscles cease to function. And in her case, since she’d been complaining of a bad heart, I wondered idly whether she would die in the car or in the next motel.

Then it was I who almost had respiratory failure. What if Heller had a dead prostitute dope addict on his hands! With his assumed name!

Oh, Gods! He’d be front page in every tabloid dirt sheet in America! And what Rockecenter would do was awful!

I couldn’t count on Heller to do the right thing. In espionage, he simply would have known enough to haul up out of sight and dump her in a ditch and leave her quick. But no, here he was, doing the wrong things as usual! He was trying to help her!

They were through Culpeper. Suddenly, the girl said, “You got to find a toilet! Look, that service station ahead! Stop there! Quick!”

Fourth stage. The diarrhea had hit her!

Heller zoomed into an unfrequented service station and Mary was out of the car like a shot, racing to the women’s room. I prayed they wouldn’t stay there long, exposed to view from traffic.

Heller told the gawky country boy attendant to “fill up the chemical repository” and the lonely boy made out that Heller meant gas. The usually idle boy then figured out for himself that Heller’s early education had been neglected.

With careful instruction, Heller got taught to service the car: steering fluid, brake fluid, transmission fluid, correct radiator coolant, windshield wiper water with Windex in it, oil and the right and wrong kinds of oil, gas and the right and wrong kinds of gas. Apparently nobody in his whole life had ever listened to this country boy before and he really went flat out to educate a “younger Virginia kid,” even though he seemed disappointed to find that Heller hadn’t stolen the car.

The kid exhausted the subject of tires and then got bright. He said the car needed a grease job and the differential checked. He said it would only take a short while to grease it up. And onto the rack he drove it and up into the air the car went. Sure enough, the differential was half empty. And sure enough it needed grease and the airhose and greasegun pumped away. Heller marked where all the fittings were. And then he got worried about the girl and went to find her.

Mary was crumpled up on a toilet seat, passed out. Somehow, Heller roused her and got her to straighten herself up.

Then voices outside. Heller peeked through a window.

A cop car! Virginia State Police!

I turned up the gain. The cop was saying, “…man and a woman. They went up this road someplace last night.”

“What kind of a car?” said the gawky country boy.

The officer consulted his sheet. “Cadillac. Same color as that one you got on the rack.”

I went white. There went Heller and no platen!

“Could be that they passed when I was off shift,” said the country boy.

“Well, you let me know iff’n you do see’m, Bedford,” said the state policeman. “They’re wanted awful bad!”

“Always willin’ to oblige, Nathan,” said the gawky country boy. And when the cop drove off, going back down the road toward Culpeper, the boy added, “You cocky son of a (bleepch).”

He got the Cadillac down off the hoist and Heller came out, carrying Mary. He put her in the front seat.

The gawky country boy was all smiles. “I knew you stole it!” He looked Heller up and down admiringly. Then he said, “I was going to remove and grease the wheels but that can wait. I got an idea you better be goin’.”

The Cadillac had only taken ten gallons of gas. I was amazed. Then I realized it had just been a clever psychological ploy on the part of the girl to call it a gas hog.

The bill, in fact, was not all that great. And Heller paid it with a twenty-dollar tip. Count on Heller! He’d be broke soon which was another hurdle I’d have to cross. I couldn’t just have Raht or Terb walk up to him and hand him money. They must be somewhere on this road but I couldn’t contact them when they were moving.

Mary had to go to the can again and the boy instructed Heller how to wash windows: Never use a grease rag, only paper. Never use a wax glass cleaner. Amazing, he’d already been tipped!