Hildegarde Withers Makes the Scene Read Online Free Page B

right. The cops.”
    “How would you like to be, so to speak, a kind of unofficial member of the fuzz?”
    “Not me.”
    “Nonsense. It would give you a sense of responsibility, and it would be a service to me. If it offends you to be a part of the Establishment, you can pretend that you’re Philip Marlowe. I should think that even you would have no objections to playing private-eye.”
    Understandably, a trace of bewilderment was beginning to encroach on Al’s expression of amiable tolerance. As a matter of fact, he liked this old chick. In her way, she was pretty cool. But sometimes she seemed to be way out, like now, and he wondered if she had her full quota of marbles.
    “Look, Miss Withers,” he said desperately, “maybe you’d better just tell me what you’ve got on your mind. Like straight out, I mean.”
    “A commendable suggestion. Here, like straight out, is what I have on my mind. I have been commissioned, in a manner of speaking, by a certain rather important member of the fuzz to try to locate a young lady of twenty-one years who is suspected of being in the Los Angeles area. Specifically, in one of the areas frequented or inhabited by hippies. Her name is Lenore Gregory, and she is a member of a substantial New York family. No crime is involved, I assure you. It’s simply a matter of locating the girl and reporting her whereabouts. Her mother and father are naturally, distraught.”
    Al swallowed all this without a gulp. Indeed, he had heard rumors to the effect that Miss Withers was not in all ways exactly what she seemed, and that she had had, in fact, a pretty checkered career in New York City before moving West. Having heard the rumors and having now heard what she had to say, he was beginning to feel, actually, a stirring of interest, in her proposition. It might provide a welcome break in his reflections on where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do when he got there.
    “And you want me to drive you around to these places so you can try to pick up this girl’s trail,” he said. “Is that it?”
    “Precisely. I shall, of course pay all expenses.”
    “Well, Miss Withers, I’d like to help you, and that’s the truth, but I’m pretty sure my dad wouldn’t relinquish the family wheels, and all I’ve got is the Hog.”
    “The what ?”
    “The Harley.” He affectionately patted the saddle of the ominous-looking machine he had been tinkering with. “The Hog.”
    To Miss Withers, the name seemed highly inappropriate. She was inclined to think of it rather as a Brahman bull or a bucking bronco. It looked as if it would immediately try to throw off anyone who was rash enough to climb on.
    “Does this machine come equipped with a sidecar?” she said.
    “I could attach one if I had it, but I don’t.”
    “They are available, however, are they not?”
    “Oh, sure. Why?”
    “Young man, if you think for an instant that I’m going to straddle that thing, you have even less sense than I give you credit for. You will buy a sidecar today at my expense. When I’m finished with it, it will become your property.”
    “You’ll need a crash helmet too. It’s against the law to ride a motorcycle without one.”
    “Merciful heavens! However, if one must, one must. It is necessary, after all, to show proper respect for the law.”
    And so it happened that Miss Hildegarde Withers, in the best tradition of chivalry from Camelot to La Mancha, went forth to rescue a fair damsel in distress, riding sidesaddle, so to speak, on a Hog.

3.
    A FTER ALMOST A WEEK of fruitless searching, she was beginning to feel, it must be admitted, more akin to the fantasy-ridden don than to any of Arthur’s knights. She had started out with the naïve notion that her assignment was simply one of tracking down a willful and deluded girl, no doubt spoiled rotten by permissive parents, and giving her, after finding her, the benefit of a few choice words about the facts of life. It was not, of course, that easy. As