Read 1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway for Free Online

him of a beautiful butterfly in her pink cheongsam, but he had learned later just how durable and how strong she had been.
    She had become the most precious thing in his life during those three dreary years: a thought to cling to during the dark, frightening nights. She represented to him tenderness, interest and love and when she had been blown to pieces along with others by a Viet Cong bomb Harry hadn’t looked at another woman out there, nor could he bring himself to talk about the Vietnam girls neither with his buddies nor with men like Randy who had seen pictures of them and thought they were just companions in bed.
    Any suggestive talk about them turned Harry sour. His girl, who had been so much fun, so dependable, always waiting for him, represented to him the women of Vietnam, slighting one meant slighting her.
    In the wing mirror, he saw the headlights of a car some half mile behind him and he eased the pressure on the gas pedal. There was a 60 m.p.h. speed limit on this highway and the car behind him might be a patrol car He wasn’t taking any unnecessary risks.
    Randy, noticing the fall off of speed, glanced at him.
    ‘Car behind,’ Harry explained.
    He looked in the mirror again. The car was driving at his speed. It remained half a mile behind.
    ‘The cops are in bed,’ Randy said. ‘I know this road, I’ve never seen a cop on it after eleven o’clock.’
    ‘All the same, sixty is fast enough.’
    Randy lit a cigarette and slouched back.
    ‘You sure you don’t want to eat? I can drive.’
    ‘Not yet’
    ‘I’d dig for a good, strong cup of coffee.’
    ‘That’s something I could use.’
    ‘About fifteen minutes will bring us to that all-night snack bar I was telling you about. They have good coffee there. Let’s stop. Won’t take us five minutes. Maybe the doll could use a cup too.’
    ‘She said we weren’t to wake her until we get to Miami,’ Harry reminded him. ‘If she wants to sleep, let her sleep.’
    ‘Did you get a look at her?’
    ‘No more than you did.’
    ‘She could be dishy.’
    ‘So why should you care, freak?’
    Randy laughed.
    ‘That’s the great thing about Solo’s place. It’s alive with dolls. As a lifeguard you’ll have all you can handle. Working behind the bar puts a crimp in my style. I don’t get the opportunities you’ll get. Solo advertises swimming lessons and you’ll handle that Boy! Wouldn’t I like that job! Cuddling a lush babe in the sea is my idea of good living!’
    ‘You’re still a bit of a kid, aren’t you?’ Harry said with a friendly grin.
    ‘So what’s wrong with being a kid?’
    ‘Nothing. Maybe I’m envying you.’
    ‘Hey you sound as if you were my father! You’re not telling me you don’t dig for dolls?’
    Harry thought of his wife lying in the bath with her wrists slashed. He thought of Nhan smeared in a bloody mess against a brick wall. The other women in his life too were uneasy ghosts. He couldn’t think of one of them that he could remember with pleasure.
    ‘I wouldn’t want to be your father,’ he said, sidestepping the question.
    Randy laughed and began to eat a doughnut.
    ‘While we are talking about dolls,’ he said with his mouth full, I’ll give you the photo about Nina.
    Harry glanced into the wing mirror. The headlights of the car behind him remained at its half-mile distance.
    ‘Nina?’
    ‘Yes . . . Solo’s daughter. Maybe I should tell you about Solo first. Twenty years back, Solo was the best peterman in the business. There wasn’t a safe he couldn’t open if he wanted to. The Cops finally caught up with him and he went away for fifteen years. While he was doing his time Nina was born and Mrs. Solo died. When he came out he decided to retire from the racket and he set up this restaurant in Paradise City. He is still considered the best peterman in the game and from time to time he gets propositioned to come out of retirement, but nothing will shift him. He has a good business: he makes a