from Jonathan Pearce's Serving Humanity

    The assassins pursuing me are probably two in number. It is possible there are three, the third unknown to the pair--known in tradecraft as an "insurance agent." They will likely try to sneak up on me when I am least prepared to confront them. They will probably use the garrotte or high-impact plastic knives, as firearms are now so much more difficult to move through international airlines. In any event they will likely need to get close.
    If I hadn't been in such a cowardly dither about my personal safety, I would not have lost the case in such a foolish manner. I had been glancing in the rear-view mirror frequently and had thus missed the turn-off to the Interstate. I found myself on a country road, little traveled evidently, except by large gray lorries laden with bits of gravel that blew off and struck my windscreen again and again. The road sign, white letters on a green background, read "Balona, A Friendly Place," and I presumed that in this little hamlet I could acquire enough petrol to see me on my way safely via back roads. I would thus not have to worry about murderous agents sent by Lady Demelza's swinish suitor, at least for a time.
    I crossed a bridge over a trickle of stream labeled "Yulumne River," saw a petrol sign on my left, turned round-about in the middle of the street and pulled into the station. Building needed a fresh coat of paint. Petrol pumps hadn't been wiped clean in perhaps years. Office window filthy. I was almost atremble with indignation. The help nowadays, anywhere, is truly atrocious.
    A short stout youth was polishing a motorcycle next to the pump.
    "Clean my windscreen, if you please," I said politely. He barely looked up from his task.
    "I don't please. You pay in there first. Then you can clean your own damn window." This was my initiation, my welcome to Balona, A Friendly Place.
    I did as I was told and paused to select a handful of picture postcards from a fly-blown display just inside the door. "Vistas of Balona" read the sign at the top of the rack. Upon close inspection the cards were of scenes circa 1955 and featured Front Street buildings in sepia-tone. Nevertheless, I needed the cards to keep the connection with dear Mum open. A surly youth inside, a boy with fire-red pimples, took my currency and turned away without giving me change. "My change, please."
    "Change? You give me a ten, and you, like, get them cards in your hand and nine dollars of gas. So, like, go get it. You don't get no change. I don't keep change on account of muggers and stuff."
    While filling the tank, I set my case upon the top of the car and got out the road map, being careful to lock the case, even for such a brief occasion. My caution was based on recent experience when I had left the case on the same roof under similar circumstances and drove off with it teetering there. Fortunately, I have always kept my boxes in the boot, so there is little chance of their becoming lost unless I should lose the car. I chuckled at the thought of someone's finding my boxes and the puzzlement at how one might open them! Balona looked as if it had died.
    "So this is Balona, a friendly place," I said, again attempting to initiate friendly banter with the young motorcycle-polishing citizen. No response.
    "Have you a hotel in Balona."
    "Burnt down last year."
    "Well, are there rooms to let, perhaps?"
    "To let what? Ask at Kuhl's Real Estate. Over there on Front Street."
    "That would beÉ?"
    "Yeh." The youth completed his cosmetic chore, climbed on his cycle, and sped off in a cloud of smoke, fog, and dust.
    I decided Balona was truly not the friendly place it advertised itself to be, and that I should seek the Interstate and thence another location in which to disappear. With that and lost in thought I replaced the petrol hose, climbed in my vehicle, and returned the way I had come--at perhaps a faster clip than that at which I had arrived.
    The fog-fuzzy sun was beginning to set and masses of insects thrashed themselves against the glass. I noticed that I had forgotten to clean the windscreen. I wondered if I had remembered to replace the fuel tank cap. I was half-way to the Interstate, whistling to myself, when it occurred to me that my case was not on the seat next to me. I had again left it on the roof of the car. "Blast!" I exclaimed. I stopped at once, but of course, the case was gone. It had slipped off somewhere between my present location and the service station in Balona.
    I determined to retrieve the case at once, for it contained not only most of my funds, and my access to the rest, but also papers of momentous import, a treasured photograph, my vocabulary builder, Uncle SweeneyÕs best razor (an heirloom), my swagger stick, my flask of English Leather, clean Argylles, et cetera.
    I watched the roadside carefully, slowing down significantly to do so, thereby evidently creating some bit of havoc among the lorry drivers sounding their klaxons behind me. Red and blue lights in my rear-view mirror stimulated me to pull entirely off the roadway. Soon a stout fellow in uniform approached. I lowered the window.
    "Had a couple too many, have ya?" The round red nose twitched. Beady eyes searched the interior of my vehicle.
    "Sir?"
    "Been at the brewski in Mello Fello Pizza, have ya?"
    "Pardon?"
    "You been drinking, have ya?" The fellow wore a silver metal star on his dark-blue bosom and a large white cowboy hat with a hole in the crown. The hole was edged with dark gray. It appeared that it might be a bullet hole. I was in the Far West at last. John Wayne Country perhaps, although a weatherbeaten sign at the side of the road testified that this was Carp Country. Some wag had attacked the letters of the first word with a marking pen.
    John Wayne spoke again: "You're driving slower than the flow of traffic and you're on the wrong side of the road."
    Betrayed by custom! Of course, in Britain one drives on the left-hand side of the road, and there I was on the left-hand side again in a right-hand-side world. I at once created a cover story for the constable. "I'm a scientist looking for specimens, sir."
    "Oh, well, then. That's okay. I guess you're a foreigner, too?" He had discerned my origins, possibly in my accent.
    "Yes, an anthropologist." I smiled at my quick creativity.
    "Oh, yeh. Sure. Birds. Well, we got plenty around here. You find any?"
    "No, I'm losing the light, y'know."
    "Well, good luck, but get on the other side of the road," said the officer, readying himself for departure. "Dumb foreigner," he muttered to himself but loud enough for the rudeness to be overheard. Aloud: "You more like to find samples on the West Levee Road. Anybody knows that. Oh, well, it's a free country." He turned and fumbled in his shirt pocket, brought forth a large red [end of 3d p]

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