“Hey Mike, what do you think of the affair Senator Brown is having with that French model?” Ted asked.
“Yeah, you have to agree, she’s got a better set of knockers than his wife.” Andy elbowed Ted in the ribs.
Mike shook his head at his two co-workers. “Funny, guys. I’m sure she’s great-looking but you know my rule. I never watch–”
“Never watch the news.” Ted and Andy finished in unison.
The two guys followed Mike to the time-clock.
“You know, one of these days, you’re going to miss something vitally important,” Andy said.
“Yeah, right.” Mike punched his card. The sound reverberated off the metal lockers. “If you consider which celebrity is screwing who or which politician has a drug problem of ‘vital importance’, I think I’ll pass.”
“Man, come on.” Ted clapped a meaty hand onto Mike’s slender shoulder. “What if the world is like, ending or something and you miss the warning?”
“Then I do.” Mike shrugged into his regulation store polo and affixed his name badge to the fabric. “At that point, a warning wouldn’t do much good.”
Andy sighed. “You can’t always live in ignorance, buddy. There are some things you really need to know.”
“Exactly,” Ted agreed. “Never mind celebrity gossip or politics. What about the girls they keep finding dead all over the east coast? This is the third body….”
Mike put up his hand, cutting Ted off. “Case in point, stories like that are what keep me from ruining my dinner every night at 6-o-clock.”
Four hours later, the trio headed to the diner across the street from the hardware store that employed them.
The waitress who’d served them their lunch of greasy chicken, soggy fries and wilting salad was not the same who now laid their check on the Formica table in front of them. This one was much younger, barely eighteen with dark hair piled high on the top of her head and large eyes trained on Mike. Her heart-shaped face seemed to pale as she stared at him and her full, pink lips trembled. Stammering something unintelligible, she fled from the table, nearly colliding with a customer.
Ted groaned, grabbing his sizable middle. “Man, let’s never eat here again. Not only is the food lousy but the staff is twitchy.”
As they walked out the door, Mike watched the skittish waitress who was now serving an elderly couple at the other end of the restaurant. He locked eyes with her just as she glanced over her shoulder. Ted snickered and poked Mike in the ribs, gesturing with his chin. “She likes you, man.”
Mike frowned. The doe-eyed girl dropped her pen and scrambled to retrieve it.
“She looked afraid,” Mike told the guys as they walked back across the street. “Didn’t you think so?” He glanced back. “That was weird.”
“Maybe you should cut your hair.” Andy gave one of his friend’s dark shoulder-length locks a tug.
They entered through the back door and headed toward the time clock.
“Yeah,” Ted chimed in, “you look like a serial killer.”
Mike punched him in the arm. “Thanks.”
Suddenly, Andy spun Mike around and stared at him, his face intense. His eyes widened. “Hey, wait a minute….”
“Andy!”
The voice belonged to bespectacled, acne-ridden part-timer, Mitch Chase. He flew around the corner, nearly upending a stack of boxes. It was a second before he could catch his breath to speak. “Dude, is your cell phone on?”
Andy frowned, reached into his pocket and pulled out his flip phone. He switched it on. “Um, it is now. What’s up?”
“Your mother just called. She gave me an earful. Something about picking up your sister on your lunch–”
“Dammit!” Andy clenched his fist, jammed his phone back in his pocket and trotted back out the door. Before he disappeared through the swinging double doors, he called back over his shoulder. “Somebody tell Mr. Reynold’s I’m going to be late coming back from lunch.”
***
Mike ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at its slick feel. He eased his foot on the brake as the light ahead of him changed from green to yellow. He’d seen at least three cop cars since he’d left the store and he didn’t want to chance getting a ticket, even if it would be his first.
Glancing into the rearview mirror, he studied his reflection and tried to picture himself with a more respectable haircut, maybe even contact lenses. His mom had always told him he had nice green eyes. Was he really the only guy his age still sporting long hair?
A horn honked behind him and Mike glanced into his rearview. Light from a street lamp poured into the small, dark vehicle behind him, revealing a man in his early thirties, with long, dark hair, wire-rimmed glasses and a trimmed moustache.
Mike grinned and stepped on the gas. “Well, that answers my question!”
As Mike climbed the entrance ramp to Highway 6, just before he was about to belt out that great line from The Silver Bullet Band’s most famous song, the one about long hair on men, the radio announcer cut in with a breaking story.
“This is an update on The Samaritan. We have a new lead on this serial–”
Mike’s finger shot out automatically to switch the station. He flipped past Garth Brooks and Natalie Merchant before stopping on Dishwalla.
He was a mile from his exit when he spotted the red Chevy and the small, blonde woman kneeling by the back drivers-side tire.
A flash in the rearview mirror showed the car behind him signaling over.
“Oh, not so fast guy!” Mike said, pulling sharp to the right and slowing to a stop a car length from the stranded motorist.
She looked up, blue eyes flashing in the headlights. There was something small and silver in her slender hand. Mike realized she was planning to call for help. She probably didn’t need him at all. Still, no man could be blamed for being drawn to the pretty girl with cut-off shorts busting out of a pink tank top. She was wearing heels. Was she planning to change the tire herself in those?
He switched his headlights to parking lights. Blinding the girl would not be a good way to impress her.
Reaching beneath the dash, he popped the trunk before opening the door and stepping out. His sneakers crunched on gravel as he walked to the back of his car. Grabbing the crowbar and flashlight he’d gone in for, he slammed the trunk shut and approached the young woman.
“At least it’s not raining. I’ve had car trouble in the rain before. It’s not fun. I’m….”
He stopped, jaw hanging open as his eyes found the deflated tire. It hadn’t just gone flat, it was shredded. Jagged pieces of rubber hung limp off a dented rim.
The girl in pink stood slowly, shaking hands clasped together as her arms stretched toward him.
For one moment, Mike puzzled over why she was holding her cell phone out to him. Then, the blood drained from his body as his brain changed the phone to the silver pistol she had trained at his chest.
Raising his left hand to defend himself, the crowbar he no longer realized he was holding lifted into the air. His mouth opened but the words never left his throat.
The sound of the gun going off was like dynamite in his head. His chest exploded and Mike rocketed backward, falling onto the warm hood of his car, dead.
***
“We have unfortunate news this evening. Last night we reported that the serial killer know as The Samaritan had been shot to death by one of his intended victims, twenty-six-year-old Lauren Shultz. This is not the case. Mike Thompkins, twenty-five, had been driving home on Highway 6 after his shift at the local hardware store when he apparently stopped to help Mrs. Wells, who was having trouble with a flat tire. The young woman reports that she and her husband had been following the multiple news stories about The Samaritan, who got his name from the way he stalks and kills his victims. He tampers with his intended victim’s car, follows them until they break down then stops on the pretense of offering assistance. He then rapes and bludgeons the women to death with his weapon of choice, a crowbar.”
A slow, satisfied smile spread over Alan Hume’s newly shaven face. He leaned back against the propped pillows of his hotel bed and turned up the volume as Lauren’s tearful interview began to play.
“He had long hair and glasses. He was about the same height and build and when he stopped, he got a crowbar out of his trunk. I was positive, positive this was The Samaritan. My husband gave me the gun for protection one hour beforehand. They looked alike. How did this guy not know this?”
The footage dissolved into two still images, one of Mike Thompkins, the other a composite drawing of Alan Hume, The Samaritan. “Clearly, there is a resemblance. Close friends of Mike say he never watched, read or listened to the news. They say he found it depressing and preferred to focus on the positive things in life.”
Alan switched off the TV and turned out the bedside lamp. He was grateful to the do-gooder for looking like him. The sensational media coverage of his death had given him just enough time to change his appearance and get out of the country.
After all, “The Samaritan” was a pretty cool name but here in England, you could get a name like, “The Ripper”.
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