This chapter's mostly vehicle maintenance and intestinal distress.
After returning to his motel room, we finally learn why Heller bought some of his stranger purchases of the past hour. He strips the labels and some other bits from the old Nikon cameras and attaches them to what turn out to be a pair of "time-sights" from the spaceship, cleverly disguising them as obsolete Earth technology. He mixes his hand-made candy with the pounds and pounds he just bought, and spreads the tangled fishing lines through all his luggage. In short, Heller's taken steps to disguise his extraterrestrial equipment.
And rather than feeling amazed at Heller's bout of competence, or experiencing a flicker of hope that Heller might have the brains to survive after all (at least until it's safe to kill him), Gris' only response is "What a MESS!" Just in case, you know, you'd forgotten that he's an imbecile.
Thus packed, Heller wakes up Mary and urges her to get moving, though she's hampered by painful knots and cramps in her legs from the drug withdrawal. She's eager to get to Washington, since it's swimming in all kinds of delicious drugs. Gris watches helplessly as Heller gives the room key to a black cleaning lady, chats about where they're going and what route they're taking, and leaves while she has full view of their car's license plate, thus guaranteeing that she'd be a very useful witness. Aaaand they're off.
Thrill as Heller combats the August weather by turning on the car's air conditioning, which Gris gushes is "amazingly quiet!" Laugh as Heller passes a ranch, learns what horses looks like, and talks to his car, assuring it that he likes it just the way it is! Gasp as Heller steers with one knee! Tremble as Heller does 65 on a highway with a 55 mph speed limit!
And then Mary wakes up from her nap, groaning that she's feeling awful. Heller turns on the radio to distract her from her failing body, but the song playing is "St. James Infirmary Blues," which concerns a dead girl, so Mary shrieks for Heller to turn it off. I guess this could be foreshadowing. It's also at least the second Louis Armstrong blues number included in Mission Earth, for reasons that I'm sure make sense to the author. Kinda like all the Prohibition-era gangster crap.
As she goes through more withdrawal symptoms, Mary starts alternating between hot and cold, then cries out for a bathroom, as Gris recognizes that she's experiencing "the diarrhea." They stop at a service station in Culpeper, and while Mary rushes to the restroom Heller gets his car serviced with gasoline and various fluids while the attendant has a great time teaching him all about automobiles.
Heller checks on his companion and finds Mary passed out on the toilet, and for once I'm grateful that Hubbard spends only two sentences on him rousing her. Conveniently, this lets the pair overhear some policemen talking with the attendant just outside the bathroom, asking about an extremely wanted man and woman last seen traveling this direction in a "Cadillac. Same color as the one you got on that rack."
"In fact, let me check the license plate number - hey, are those bullet holes?" is not the next sentence out of the officer's mouth, unfortunately. The attendant guesses that these fugitives must have passed by while he was off-duty. The cops leave, and the gas monkey grins that he knew Heller had stolen the car. He sends them on their way, promising to show him more car tips if they ever come back - he doesn't like the fuzz either, you see, so he's instinctively siding with Heller even though the man could be a cannibalistic serial killer for all he knows. (bleep) the police and all that.
And that's that. Aside from Heller's clever bit of packing at the beginning, I think this chapter's mostly filler. Good news is that stuff actually happens next chapter. Bad news is it's still a novel written by L. Ron Hubbard, so it's not going to be much of an improvement.
Chapters without anyone commenting on Heller's stupid clothes: 7
Back to Part Fourteen, Chapter Seven
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