Read Online 1970 - There's a Hippie on the Highway by James Hadley Chase - Free Book Online

eyed Harry again, then went back into the restaurant.
    ‘Maybe I’d better clear off,’ Harry said. ‘I don’t want to make it tricky for you.’
    ‘Forget it,’ Randy said. ‘Solo hired you. He’s satisfied. If he wants you to go, he’ll tell you. Come on: I’ll show you your pad.’
    Harry shrugged, picked up his rucksack and followed Randy along a cement path, around the back of the restaurant and finally to four wood cabins, screened from the restaurant by shrubs.
    Randy pushed open the door of the second cabin.
    ‘This is yours.’ He stood aside. ‘Mine’s next door. Manuel has the one the other side of yours. The other is empty.’
    Harry entered the cabin. It was stiflingly hot in the small boxlike room which was furnished with a truckle bed, an upright chair, a closet and a chest of drawers. Behind a plastic curtain was a shower and a toilet.
    He dumped his rucksack on the floor, crossed the room to throw open the window, then moved out to join Randy who had left his guitar and duffel bag in his cabin and was waiting for him by the door.
    ‘Okay?’
    ‘Not a Hilton, but it will do,’ Harry said. He lit a cigarette and regarded Randy, then went on quietly, ‘Go ahead and say it. According to you, I shouldn’t have hit the old man . . . right?’
    Randy didn’t meet Harry’s eyes.
    ‘You hurt his pride. Solo imagines he is the best man in the district. He’s never been taken.’ Randy thrust his hands deep into his pockets. ‘Hell! You certainly socked him.’
    ‘He had it coming. You can’t go throwing punches the way he did without having to pay the check sooner or later. It was only because he is fat and a lot older than I am that I held off the first and second times. I hit him just hard enough to warn him, but he thought he could take me and he couldn’t resist trying.’ He stared at Randy, his eyes cold and pale. ‘I’ve just come out of the jungle where dog eats dog. It’s hard to have patience with the phonies, the hippies, the freaks, the junkies and the soft livers who are cluttering up this country. If they leave me alone, I’ll go along with them, but if they start leaning on me, it’s just too bad for them.’
    ‘Sure.’ Randy forced a grin. ‘The trouble is people don’t expect it from you. Maybe you should hang a danger label on yourself.’
    Harry suddenly relaxed. He grinned.
    ‘Maybe I should,’ he said.
     
    * * *
     
    A little after 10.00 hours, Harry saw Solo Dominico return from marketing. He watched two Negro waiters run across the sand to carry in the various boxes and baskets that half-filled the estate car.
    Harry was sitting in the shade of a palm tree, a dozen yards or so from his cabin. He had been there for the past two hours, keeping out of the way and waiting for Solo to return. During the wait, his mind had been busy. He was far more concerned with the puzzle of the dead man than he was with Dominico or his fiery tempered daughter.
    After they had buried the body, he and Randy had driven to the outskirts of Miami where they came on a caravan site. There was a free parking sign above the entrance and already there were some two hundred caravans on the site. Harry had decided this would be the best and safest place to lose the caravan.
    At that time in the morning there was no one around. They had unhitched the caravan and had left it in a row with other caravans without being seen.
    Beyond Miami, they load found a vast parking lot crowded with cars and this too seemed an ideal place in which to lose the Mustang. Before leaving the car, Harry had gone over it with a damp leather, making absolutely sure that the car, inside and out, was free of their fingerprints.
    Reluctantly leaving the Mustang, they had walked to the highway and had picked up a bus that had brought them to the Dominico Restaurant.
    Thinking back on each move he had made, Harry was now satisfied that he had taken every precaution to cover their tracks. So long as the body wasn’t