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.Susantaught me a lot.Once she got me past the initial shyness, she showed me andtold me all the ways I could increase her pleasure while delaying mine.Itgave me a wonderful feeling of domination and control to be able to turn thatstrong, tense, mature female person into gasping, grasping, shudderingincoherence.I was in love with her, of course.I could not stand the thoughtof the summer ending.I told her I loved her, and I was going to come to NewYork to be close to her.I will always remember the way she cupped both hands on my face and lookeddeeply into my eyes."Travis, you are a very very sweet boy, and you are goingto become one hell of a man.But if I ever find you outside my apartment door,I am going to have the doorman throw you out on your ass.We can end it rightnow or next week, whichever you choose.But end it we will, boyo, with noloose ends.No letters, no phone calls, no visits.Ever."And that's how it was.So now I walked my way deeper into my Tom McGraw role.Trucks whuffed by withthe trailing turbulence tugging at my clothes.Divided highway.Route 101.Looking for the daughter lost.Too many years ago.This didn't have the bare rolling look of the hills near the sea below SanFrancisco.There was more water here, rivers and lakes and forest country.Ihad flown into San Francisco as Travis McGee, taxied to a Holiday Inn nearFisherman's Wharf, and spent a day assembling a wardrobe to go with the newidentity I had bought from a reliable source in Miami.The McGee identityfitted into a suitcase.I stored it and paid six months in advance.Thestorage receipt was the only link, and I didn't want it on me.Small thingscan be hidden in public places.There was a bank of new storage lockers in thebus station.They were not quite flush against the rear wall.I taped it atPage 38ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlshoulder height to the back of the lockers, out of sight.If I could stand up,I could get it back.If I wanted it back.NineI GAVE up walking when the heel of my right foot began to bother me.The workshoes were too heavy for one who had spent such a chunk of his life barefoot.I wished I had taken the bus.I found a good place to hitch a ride.I hate to see the damn fools on thehighways hitching in the wrong places.It is a waste of energy.You have to bewhere they can see you a long way off, and where you, stand out well againstthe background.They have to be able to see a lot of highway beyond you, andthey have to spot a place where they can pull off.You have to make a gestureat each car, a big sweeping one.You leave the duffel bag at your feet and youtake your hat off, and you smile wide enough to show some teeth.An animalwill roll onto his back to demonstrate his harmlessness.A man will grin.Itis better to trust the animal.A gaunt old man in a rattle-bang Ford pickup stopped at high noon and pickedme up.He wore banker's clothes and a peaked cap that said Oakland Raiders."Only going as far as Lake Mendocino, friend," he said."Is that past Ukiah?""Next door.I can drop you off before I make my turn.Get in." He looked back,waiting for a hole in the traffic, and when one came along, he jumped into itwith surprising acceleration."Don't know this country, eh?""Don't know it at all.This is the first time for me."Hunting work?""Well, I might have to do some to keep going.But mostly I'm trying to getsome kind of trace of my little girl.I think she's out here somewhere.""There's a lot of young girls out here somewhere.There was a time in thesixties when they'd come drifting up from San Francisco.Communes and farmingand all.What they call alternative lifestyles.Potheads, mostly.No offense.I'm not saying your girl is one of those.She missing long?""Six years.""Hear anything from her in all that time?""One time, and that was a few years ago.She'll be twenty now.Peg and me, wemarried young.Kathy was sixteen when we got those cards from her.They cameover a month or so.They never gave an address we could write back to.Theywere mailed in San Francisco, and then the very last one was from Ukiah.Itsaid she was joining up with some kind of church and we should forget abouther forever.You know, when you've got just the one kid, you don't forget likethat.It took the heart out of Peg.She died a while back, and after I soldoff a little piece of land and the trailer and an old skiff, I thought I mightas well use the money trying to find her.""Friend, this state is chock-full of religions.You can find any kind you arelooking for.There's some that'll take you to Guyana and teach you to raiseoranges and how to kill yourself quick.They start in the north and go all theway down to the Mexican border, and to my way of thinking, the further souththey go, the crazier they get.People are hunting around for something tobelieve in these days.All the stuff people used to believe in has kind of letthem down hard.You'd have to know the name of the religion first, I'd say.""I learned it by heart.The Church of the Apocrypha.""I've lived pretty close to Ukiah for ten years, and I can't say I ever heardof it.But I've seen some strange ones drifting around the streets there,selling flowers and candy and wearing white robes.""I can ask around there, I guess.Big place?""No.I'd guess maybe twelve thousand.What kind of work you do?""I fish commercial.Net work, mostly.Mullets usually.When they're hard toPage 39ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlfind, it pays good.When they're easy, it isn't hardly worthwhile going out,you get such small money.What kind of business are you in?""Investments.""Oh." From the way he said it, I knew that was all I was going to learn.Hemoved the pickup right along, tailgating the people who wouldn't move overinto the slow lane."Where would be a good place to ask in Ukiah?""Maybe the police.Police usually know about the crazies and where they live."He dropped me off at the Ukiah ramp.The wind felt cool and fresh.I found onegas station that wouldn't let me use the rest room, and another one thatwould.I shaved off the stubble and put on my wire glasses and looked into themirror.In the hard fluorescence, my deepwater tan looked yellowish.Deepgrooves bracketed my mouth.The gold glasses did not give me a professoriallook.I looked like a desert rat with bad eyes.He was an officer of the law.Not too long ago he had been a fat, florid,hearty man.The balloon was deflating.He had made a couple of new holes inhis belt.His color was bad.His chops sagged.He looked me over with alistless competence.And he listened to my story."Apocrypha.Kind of rings abell.Short dirty-white robes.Beards.Sister this and Brother that." Hedialed a three-digit number and leaned back in his leather chair and beganmurmuring into the phone, listening for a time while he stared at the ceiling.Then he hung up and took a sheet of yellow paper and drew a crude map."Where that outfit was, McGraw, they were over in Lake County.They had apretty goodsized tract.What you do, you take Twenty East and go over pastUpper Lake, maybe two miles, and there's a little road heads off to the east,unpaved but a good surface.You go along that road, mostly uphill, and itwinds around and there are little roads heading off it, smaller still, andthat encampment is off at the end of one of those
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