The Return of Count Electric & Other Stories

by William Browning Spencer

  Just then the security guard laid a hand on my shoulder.

  “What’s your problem, buddy?” he asked.

  “That’s my girlfriend,” I said, pointing at the parking lot. He squinted, following my finger. “There. She’s getting into that blue car. A rat or something is holding the door open.”

  “That’s no rat,” he said. “That’s Hamlet Hamster.” He sounded surprised himself.

  I pushed him away and ran back down the stairs. I can move fast when I’ve a mind to, and I got to the parking lot before they’d made it to the main gate. I jumped in my van and went after them. I gained some time by flying past the parking attendant without paying. He shouted after me.

  I saw the car up ahead in traffic—it was a Lincoln—and slowed a little. I wouldn’t lose them now. I took some deep breaths. Okay, okay. Let’s just ease back, I thought, and see what the story is here.

  MALCOLM

  It was a brilliant plan, and it worked. I got up early the next morning—I had rented a room at the nearby Holiday Inn—and drove quickly to the park. As soon as it opened, I sought out Hamlet Hamster.

  Hamlet Hamster proved to be a skinny teenager, one who had shaved his head to nubbly baldness and wore a small, gold earring. “I don’t know,” he said. “I could get in a lot of trouble.”

  What he meant, of course, was that I would have to meet his exorbitant fee if I wanted to rent the costume. I didn’t even bargain, just forked over seventy-five dollars. He looked a little unhappy. The alacrity with which I produced the money made him think, no doubt, that I would have been good for even more. He was, I could see, the sort of person who always feels ill-used.

  He led me to a locker room where he removed the costume. He wore nothing but his underwear, and he advised me to do the same. “It’s hot inside this muther,” he said.

  I thanked him for this advice but didn’t take it. I didn’t intend to be in the costume long, only long enough to spirit Eleanor away.

  Eleanor showed up at ten. By then I understood the teenager’s advice. I felt as though I were being boiled in a burlap bag. My vision was severely limited, and I was required to pat children on the head, be photographed with obese, lewd women, and wave at crowds. I realized that the last occupant may have shaved his head for comfort rather than adolescent style. My hair felt like a thicket of dirty briars, and rivulets of sweat ran down the back of my neck.

  I forgot all about this when she arrived. Eleanor alone might have made me forget my discomfort, but she was accompanied by Lou Willis! Willis’ father was nowhere in evidence—but that was a small thing. Lou Willis!

  The man terrified me. He seemed to look right at me and I thought: He sees me! and it was all I could do to keep from turning and running.

  But, of course, he didn’t see me. He saw Hamlet Hamster. I was invisible. The plan remained a good one; I had only to carry it out. And I had, after all, already made a seventy-five dollar investment toward the success of my mission. No turning back.

  My chance came when Lou Willis went off to the restroom. I followed him, and when I saw him go in the men’s room, I raced back to Eleanor.

  I tapped her on the shoulder, trying my best not to scare her while still wishing to convey the urgency of the situation.

  “Eleanor,” I whispered. “Eleanor.”

  “Hamlet Hamster!” she shouted. She hugged me.

  I whispered into her ear: “Eleanor, you’ve got to come with me. I don’t have time to explain, just follow me, okay?”

  Eleanor said, “Okay.”

  Eleanor kept up with me. Running was strenuous in the costume, and I thought the heat would finish me, but I ran through the main gate and out into the parking lot. Eleanor was giggling.

  “There!” I shouted, pointing to my rental car. “Quickly.”

  Eleanor ducked under my arm and slid into the passenger’s seat without hesitating.

  I ran around to the driver’s side and got in.

  I was terrified that Lou Willis was right behind us, and I had a bad moment when I realized that my car keys were in my pocket. I pulled off the hairy mittens that were Hamlet Hamster’s paws. The rest of my costume—not counting the head—was a one-piece, like those pajamas with feet that little kids wear, and I was going to have to get back out of the car and get this costume off—and Lou Willis would saunter up and shoot me.

  “Eleanor,” I said. “Do you have a nail clipper?”

  She stared at me, her mouth open and shook her head no.

  I am in trouble here, I thought.

  “I just use this to trim em,” Ellie said, producing the pocket knife.

  I grabbed the knife and sawed through the threads at a seam, jammed my hand through the opening and retrieved my keys.

  I heard Eleanor say, “Gosh.”

  I pulled out and drove up to the parking attendant. I started to fumble in my pocket for the parking fee, but the attendant waved me through, and I realized that I was a celebrity.

  The man hollered after me: “Jimmy! You better be careful. You’re gonna have a wreck if you try to drive with that mask on.”

  I saw, immediately, what he meant. I was driving while looking through a keyhole, no peripheral vision. I had to turn my whole upper body, making sure my shoulders moved on an even plane, or I lost one or another of the eye holes. At the first red light, I wrenched the head off and tossed it into the back seat.

  Eleanor gasped. “Dr. Blair!”

  I looked at her. “It’s okay, Eleanor. I had to resort to this disguise to get you away from Lou Willis. I have every reason to believe that man is dangerous.”

  Eleanor’s eyes were wide. She shook her head, raised a hand to her forehead. “Who would have believed it?” she said. “Dr. Blair is Hamlet Hamster! If I told my friends, if I told them this story … they’d say, they’d say: ‘Ellie you are taking bad drugs!’ That’s what they’d say.”

  “Your brother’s worried about you,” I said.

  “He is? Hank?”

  “Yes, I thought I’d better take you back to Texas. I can’t make you go, of course, but I have every reason to believe that Lou Willis is a very dangerous man.”

  “Well, he is,” Eleanor said. “That’s true. He’ll say it himself.”

  We drove on. Getting out of the parking lot had disoriented me, and I wasn’t sure how to get to 19.

  I heard Eleanor say, “I can’t believe it,” again.

  Then I saw The Gull’s Rest Motel up ahead and Eleanor said: “I can’t go to Texas without my things! You got to stop!”

  I was reluctant to do that, but Eleanor was insistent.

  I turned into the motel. “You’ll have to be quick.”

  “Sure,” Eleanor said.

  I waited in the car with the engine on. The place seemed pretty much deserted. There was a cart with towels and sheets parked right next to Eleanor’s room so maid service must have been around. I decided to shed my costume before anyone showed up, and I got out of the car and wriggled out of my hamster skin. I had the costume crumpled down around my ankles, and I was leaning against the side of the car when the Eskimo Air van pulled in.

  My throat closed to a pinhole. “Eleanor!” I shouted, but it was hardly a noise at all.

  I yanked the costume off my feet and kicked it away. I jumped back in the car and threw it in reverse.

  I crashed into the front of the van, and the collision banged me against the dash. I suppose I hadn’t closed the door properly, because it flew open, and I bounced out onto the pavement.

  Lou Willis was already out of his van, and I could see the gun in his hand.

  He walked over to me and looked down. “We met before,” he said.

  I heard an odd, rattling noise and looked up to see the maid’s cart full of towels rolling slowly toward us.

  The cart caught Lou’s attention too. He looked away for a second and shouted, “Ellie!”

  I looked too. Eleanor must have bumped the cart, sending it on its jittery course as she stru
ggled out the door. She was dragging a mattress through the door. She turned, saw us, and said, “Give me a hand with this mattress.”

  “Ellie,” Lou said, running up to her, “get back inside now, you hear?”

  I scrambled back in the car. It had stalled out when I hit the van, but the engine caught when I turned the key. Lou Willis heard, and turned back to me. He raised the gun. The cart was right in front of him, and he started to push it away.

  I couldn’t back up; the van blocked me.

  I think I screamed. I know I made some kind of noise and then threw the car in drive and stomped the accelerator.

  The car leaped forward, slammed into the cart and kept going. Towels and sheets flew into the air, flapping like monstrous gulls. The Lincoln stalled again, and I climbed out. Lou Willis was slumped over the grill in a welter of white towels.

  Eleanor looked up at me. There were tears in her eyes. “Help me with this mattress, Dr. Blair.”

  “Eleanor, we have to leave.” I took her by her shoulder. “Do you have the keys to that car?” I asked, pointing at the Impala. I knew the Lincoln wouldn’t be going anywhere.

  “Roy always keeps his keys under the seat.”

  This proved to be the case.

  I found them and started the car. “Please,” I said. “Hurry.”

  Eleanor frowned, looked at the mattress, and then turned away, ran to the car, and jumped in.

  “It doesn’t matter, I guess,” she said.

  I looked in the rearview mirror as we pulled out into traffic. Someone had run out of the office and was running toward the Lincoln and Lou Willis. I thought I saw Lou Willis move.

  LOU

  They wrapped about ten pounds of tape around my ribs, and I was moving around like I was eighty years old. I guess it didn’t matter; I wasn’t going anywhere where speed was required.

  If it had just been me, the car, and the wall, I wouldn’t be going anywhere at all. That case worker wasn’t playing games.

  “The cleaning lady’s cart absorbed most of the impact,” one of the cops told me. “You were lucky,” he said.

  “I feel lucky,” I said.

  They thought I might have a concussion too. I had cracked the back of my head against the wall. But X-rays didn’t show anything, and so the doctor handed me over to the cops, and they took me downtown.

  It was uncomfortable, sitting around with my chest tied so tight that each breath was an effort.

  They asked me a lot of questions. Finally, one of them said: “You know anyone named Walter Reed?”

  “No,” I said.

  “He worked in a gas station,” the cop said. “Some sorry son of a bitch shot him in cold blood for a couple of dollars.”

  I didn’t say anything. Then he shifted subjects, wanted to know if I knew about a truck driver killed at a rest stop outside of Temple.

  He asked if I wanted a lawyer, and I said I didn’t. He started talking about fingerprints, witnesses. “We can place you at both scenes,” the cop said.

  “Where’s the girl?” one of them asked.

  “What girl?”

  “Your accomplice,” the cop said.

  I shook my head. My heart felt like someone was holding it in his fist. I couldn’t let them get the wrong idea. “It wasn’t like that,” I said.

  “How was it?” he asked. So I told him. I knew I wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t know. They had me tell it a couple of times, and then the next day another fellow came around, this one in a suit, and he had me tell it all again.

  I finished my piece and he said: “You shot the truck driver with this gun.”

  He held the gun up, and I said, “Sure.”

  “He was coming toward you, and you shot him.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Was Miss Greer with you when this happened?”

  “Naw, she didn’t see it. She had run off.”

  “There’s no possibility that it was Miss Greer who shot this truck driver, then?”

  I laughed. “Ellie wouldn’t hurt a fly.” This was true; Ellie didn’t hold with harming flies or any kind of bug or animal.

  The detective stood up. “You might be interested to know that Mr. Sterling”—that was the truck driver’s name—“was shot at close range. The barrel of the pistol was probably touching his throat when the trigger was pulled.” He turned and walked to the door. He paused. “And it wasn’t this gun. It was a smaller calibre.” He looked at me, said, “I just thought you might be interested,” and left.

  They came and took me back to my cell. That detective was wrong, though. I wasn’t interested.

  I had other things on my mind. I knew I wasn’t going anywhere for a long time, and I was worried sick about Ellie. That case worker proved to have some backbone, but I still didn’t think he was capable of really looking out for Ellie. She was just a child out there, and she needed a load of protection.

  Who was gonna do it now?

  MALCOLM

  I drove north up 19 with my heart pounding. I had run a man down, and now I was fleeing the scene. I kept thinking: I’ll stop and phone the police. I’ll tell them I panicked. I’m sure it happens all the time.

  But I didn’t do that. Instead I drove on up to Gainesville, got on the interstate, and kept heading north.

  Eleanor reached over and turned the radio on. She found a country station and turned it up loud.

  I was in shock, I suppose. The day was oppressively bright, cheerful.

  Eleanor said, “I could use something to eat.”

  We stopped at a restaurant where the food took a backseat to postcards and paperweights made out seashells.

  I wasn’t hungry anyway, and I ate my watery hot dog without enthusiasm. Eleanor, however, devoured a hamburger, french fries, and a chocolate milk shake and said, “I could use a piece of pie.”

  I don’t believe she was fully aware of our plight. The terrible events at the motel had left her seemingly unaffected. Of course, her behavior might be a defense mechanism. She might actually be in shock. I am no psychologist, and I’m not capable of evaluating such things. She did not seem traumatized. Although I was unable to follow her words closely, she seemed to be chatting easily about the various rides and wonders found at Barney Baker’s Funland.

  I swallowed the last, leaden bite of my hot dog and said, “Eleanor, I believe we will have to call the police.”

  “Lou doesn’t like police,” she said. I sympathized, for a moment, with Lou Willis. “Police are always telling you what to do. Lou don’t like that.”

  I wasn’t looking forward to it myself. “I’m afraid we have to talk to them.” I didn’t go to a telephone though. Instead, I paid the check, and we got back into the car, and we got back on 1-75.

  I was still trying to sort things out when the wail of the siren made me look up. The flashing lights in my rear view mirror told me the decision was out of my hands. The police had arrived. I was relieved.

  “Do you know how fast you were going?” the officer asked.

  I had been stopped for speeding.

  “No officer,” I said, “but—”

  My right ear exploded, my cheek was instantly scalded, and the policeman was gone from my window.

  Eleanor Greer had leaned across my shoulder and shot him with a small, silver pistol which she was now demurely returning to her purse.

  I pushed the door open and fell out onto the side of the road. The cop lay on his back. There was blood all over his face. His sunglasses were still on. Behind me, a big semi-truck was pulling off the road.

  “Hurry!” Eleanor screamed.

  I jumped back in the car and drove away.

  “Take the exit,” Eleanor shouted.

  I took country roads, turning whenever a new one presented itself.

  Finally I pulled the car to the side of the road and threw up in a ditch. Eleanor climbed out of the car too and stood beside me. “It’s that hot dog,” she said. “I don’t ever eat hot dogs when I’m gonn
a be going on a trip. Car riding and hot dogs don’t mix.”

  “Eleanor,” I said. “Why did you shoot that police officer?”

  She smiled. “Well, I could see you weren’t going to. He had the drop on you.”

  Well, I thought, well, well, well, well, well. That explained everything. I felt abandoned, emptied of all faith and conviction. It seemed of no consequence what I did next. My illusions were like so many shards of glass from a picture window some vandal has smashed. I got back in the car, waited for Eleanor to close her door, and drove off down the country road. Perhaps I would seek out the police station in the next town. Perhaps I wouldn’t.

  Just then the car made a mechanical grunt and the telltale whunk, whunk, whunk of a blown tire forced me to let up on the accelerator.

  “Flat tire,” I said to Eleanor.

  “Lou was meaning to buy new tires,” she said. That was no consolation.

  I got out and opened the trunk.

  “That’s Roy,” Eleanor said.

  I peeled back the plastic bag to reveal that, indeed, I was in the presence of the pale, departed Roy Willis. There was a small round hole in his hairy chest.

  “I had to shoot him,” Eleanor said.

  I nodded my head in agreement. I didn’t say anything. Perhaps Eleanor sensed a certain skepticism in my agreement.

  “I did,” she said. “He got fresh. Lou wasn’t around, so he thought he could take advantage of me.”

  “He was wrong,” I said.

  I rolled the body out of the way and dragged the spare out of its well.

  I changed the tire, throwing the old one in with Roy, and banged the trunk down.

  We drove on.

  “Good as new,” Eleanor said.