Once on the freeway, in that anonymous world of rushing lights and darkness, he began to talk in his human voice to Stella.
Carol had phoned him, using his personal number, several weeks before. She wanted to arrange a meeting with him. That night, driving Ralph Hillman's Cadillac, he picked her up at the view-point overlooking the sea near Dack's Auto Court.
He parked in an orange grove that smelled of weddings and listened to the story of her life. Even though he'd often doubted that he belonged to the Hillmans, it was hard for him to believe that he was Carol's son. But he was strongly drawn to her. The relationship was like an escape hatch in Captain Hillman's tight little ship. He kept going back to Carol, and eventually he believed her. He even began to love her in a way.
`Why didn't you tell me about her?'
Stella said. `I would have liked to know her.'
`No, you wouldn't.'
His voice was rough. `Anyway, I had to get to know her myself first. I had to get adjusted to the whole idea of my mother. And then I had to decide what to do. You see, she wanted to leave my father. He gave her a hard time, he always had. She said if she didn't get away from him soon, she'd never be able to. She wasn't good at standing up for herself, and she wanted my help. Besides, I think she knew he was up to something.'
`You mean the kidnapping and all?' she said.
`I think she knew it and she didn't know it. You know how women are.'
`I know my mother,' she answered sagely.
They had forgotten me. I was the friendly chauffeur, good old graying Lew Archer, and we would go on driving like this forever through a night so dangerous that it had to feel secure. I remembered a kind of poem or parable that Susanna had quoted to me years before. A bird came in through a window at one end of a lighted hall, flew the length of the hall, and out through another window into darkness: that was the span of a human life. The headlights that rose in the distance and swooped by and fell away behind us reminded me of Susanna's briefly lighted bird. I wished that she was with me.
Tom was telling Stella how he first met his father. Mike had been kept in the background the first week; he was supposed to be in Los Angeles looking for work. Finally, on the Saturday night, Tom met him at the auto court.
`That was the night you borrowed our car, wasn't it?'
`Yeah. My fa - Ralph had me grounded, you know. Carol spilled some wine on the front seat of the car and he smelled it. He thought I was driving and drinking.'
`Did Carol drink much?'
'Quite a bit. She drank a lot that Saturday night. So did he. I had some wine, too.'
`You're not old enough.'
`It was with dinner,' he said. `Carol cooked spaghetti. Spaghetti a la Pocatello, she called it. She sang some of the old songs for me, like 'Sentimental journey.'
It was kind of fun,' he said doubtfully.
`Is that why you didn't come home?'
`No. I-' The word caught in his throat. `I-' His face, which I could see in the rear-view mirror, became contorted with effort. He couldn't finish the sentence.
`Did you want to stay with them?' Stella said after a while.
`No. I don't know.'
`How did you like your father?'
`He was all right, I guess, until he got drunk. We played some gin rummy and he didn't win, so he broke up the game. He started to take it out on Carol. I almost had a fight with him. He said he used to be a boxer and I'd be crazy to try it, that his fists could kill.'
`It sounds like a terrible evening.'
`That part of it wasn't so good.'
`What part of it was?'
`When she sang the old songs. And she told me about my grandfather in Pocatello.'
`Did that take all night?' she said a little tartly.
`I didn't stay with them all night. I left around ten o'clock, when we almost had the fight. I-' The same word stuck in his throat again, as if it was involved with secret meanings that wouldn't let it be spoken.
`What did you do?'
`I went and parked on the view-point where I picked her up the first time. I sat there until nearly two o'clock, watching the stars and listening, you know, to the sea. The sea and the highway. I was trying to figure out what I should do, where I belonged. I still haven't got it figured out.'
He added, in a voice that was conscious of me: `Now I guess I don't have any choice. They'll put me back in the Black Hole of Calcutta.'
`Me too,' she said with a nervous giggle. `We can send each other secret notes. Tap out messages on the bars and stuff.'
`It isn't funny, Stell. Everybody out there is crazy, even some of the staff. They get that way.'
