and suddenly his long black hair, tangled by the wind, his scruff of beard, and his dark eyes made him seem Manson-like and wild.
'Where do you go to school?' she asked. Her fingers were plucking at her slacks, and she made them stop.
'Pitt,' the hitchhiker said, and no more. His eyes met hers in the mirror, and Leigh dropped hers hastily to her lap. Cranberry red slacks. She had worn them because Arnie had once told her he liked them - probably because they were the tightest pair she owned, even tighter than her Levi's. She suddenly wished she had worn something else, something that could be considered provocative by no stretch of the imagination: a grain-sack, maybe. She tried to smile - it was a funny thought, all right, a grain-sack, get it, ha-ha-ho-ho, wotta knee-slapper - but no smile came. There was no way she could keep from admitting it to herself: Arnie had left her alone with this stranger (as punishment? it had been her idea to pick him up), and now she was scared.
'Bad vibes,' the hitchhiker said suddenly, making her actually catch her breath. His words were flat and final. She could see Arnie through the plate-glass window, standing fifth or sixth in line. He wouldn't get up to the counter for a while. She found herself imagining the hitchhiker suddenly clamping his gloved hands around her throat. Of course she could reach the horn-ring . . . but would the horn sound? She found herself doubting it for no sane reason at all. She found herself thinking that she could hit the horn ninety-nine times and it would honk satisfyingly. But if, on the hundredth, she was being strangled by this hitchhiker on whose behalf she had interceded, the horn wouldn't blow. Because . . . because Christine didn't like her. In fact, she believed that Christine hated her guts. It was as simple as that. Crazy but simple.
'P-Pardon me?' She glanced back in the rearview mirror and was immeasurably relieved to see that the hitchhiker wasn't looking at her at all; he was glancing around the car. He touched the seat cover with his palm, then lightly brushed the roof upholstery with the tips of his fingers.
'Bad vibes,' he said, and shook his head. 'This car, I don't know why, but I get bad vibes.'
'Do you?' she asked, hoping her voice sounded neutral.
'Yeah. I got stuck in an elevator once when I was a little kid. Ever since then I get attacks of claustrophobia. I never had one in a car before, but boy, I got one now. In the worst way. I think you could light a kitchen match on my tongue, that's how dry my mouth is.'
He laughed a short, embarrassed laugh.
'If I wasn't already so late, I'd just get out and walk. No offence to you or your guy's car,' he added hastily, and when Leigh looked back into the mirror his eyes did not seem wild at all, only nervous. Apparently he wasn't kidding about the claustrophobia, and he no longer looked like Charlie Manson to her at all. Leigh wondered how she could have been so stupid . . . except she knew how, and why. She knew perfectly well.
It was the car. All day long she had felt perfectly okay riding in Christine, but now her former nervousness and dislike were back. She had merely projected her feelings onto a hitchhiker because . . . well, because you could be scared and nervous about some guy you just picked up off the road, but it was insane to be scared by a car, an inanimate construct of steel and glass and plastic and chrome. That wasn't just a little eccentric, it was insane.
'You don't smell anything, do you?' he asked abruptly.
'Smell anything?'
'A bad smell.'
'No, not at all.' Her fingers were plucking at the bottom of her sweater now, pulling off wisps of angora. Her heart was knocking unpleasantly in her chest. 'It must be part of your claustrophobia whatzis.'
'I guess so.'
But she could smell it. Under the good new smells of leather and upholstery there was a faint odour: something like gone-over eggs. Just a whiff . . . a lingering whiff.
'Mind if I crank the window down a little?'
'If you want,' Leigh said, and found it took some effort to keep her voice steady and casual. Suddenly her mind's eye showed her the picture that had been in the paper yesterday morning, a picture of Moochie