I stood by the telephone waiting for him to call back, but he didn’t. I waited
maybe for three minutes—it seemed like three hours, then still sweating and
with my nerves sticking a yard out of my skin, I went once more to the front
door, checked the empty road, then manhandled the truck out of the
bungalow. I trundled it over to the shed and got it alongside the grave I had dug.
I got him into the grave and then shovelled in the soil.
It took me the best part of an hour to get the grave filled in and stamped flat.
It was a hell of a way to bury a man as good and as fine as Jenson, but there
was nothing I could do better if I were going to save myself from the gas chamber.
I felt I should have said a prayer over him, but I had forgotten any prayers I
might have known, I just hoped he would understand and I let it go like that,
but I felt bad.
I moved a heavy work bench over the grave, swept up, put the pickaxe and
shovel away and then surveyed the scene. I had made a thorough job of it. No
one would know nor even guess that a dead man lay four feet below that work bench.
I turned off the light and went across to my cabin. I stripped off and took
another shower, then I went to my bed and lay down.
Already the grey light of the dawn was making the mountains sharp etched
against the sky. In another hour the sun would be up.
My mind was too restless and uneasy to think of sleep. I lit a cigarette, and
stared up at the ceiling.
Now was the time to cook up a story to take care of Jenson’s permanent
absence. This Swede— Hal Lasch—would be telephoning sometime in the morning. I had to take care of him. I felt sudden panic grip me. If my story
wasn’t good and wasn’t put over convincingly, someone, even if it wasn’t
Lasch, would become suspicious and the police would move in. They would
only have to check on me and I would be cooked. My story had to be good.
By six-thirty, when the first truck to go over the mountain pulled in for gas, I
had a story that satisfied me. It wasn’t one hundred per cent foolproof, but at
least it was believable.
I rolled off my bed, feeling hot and tired, and I walked over to the pumps.
The trucker nodded to me. He was fat and elderly and his sweaty unshaven
face told me he had been driving all night.
“How about some coffee, bud?” he said. “You open yet?”
“Sure. Stick around. I’ll fix it for you.”
I shot gas into his tank, then went over the lunch room, opened up and heated
some coffee.
He came in and sat on a stool, rubbing his eyes and yawning.
I put the cup of coffee in front of him.
“Do you want anything to eat?” I said, “Eggs and ham?”
“Yeah. Eggs and ham is fine.”
While I was fixing the meal, he lit a cigarette, and putting his elbows on the
counter, he groaned to himself.
“I guess I’ll have to quit in a year or so. This racket’s getting too tough for a
guy my age,” he said. “Where’s the big Swede? In bed?”
That was what it was going to be now for months: Where’s the big Swede?
You couldn’t have the personality Carl Jenson had and get forgotten.
“He’s out of town,” I said. “He’s gone down to Parker, Arizona. He plans to
open another filling station down there.”
That was my story and I might as well rehearse it. I saw the trucker look interested.
“Is that right?” He took a drag on his cigarette, letting the smoke drift down
his wide nostrils. “That Swede is smart. I’ve been coming through No Return
now for the past fifteen years: regular every two months. I’ve watched this
place grow. Sooner or later, I’ve said to myself, that Swede is either going to
quit or expand. Arizona, huh? That’s a h*ell of a long ways from here.”
“I guess so. There’s a station already there and it’s going for a song. All he
has to do is to walk in, and in three months he reckons he’ll double the take.”
“That’s smart.” The trucker wagged his head. “What’s going to happen here?
You looking after it?”
“That’s right …” I hesitated before I went on, knowing this was the curse.
“Me and Mrs. Jenson.”
He looked up sharply, frowning.
“Mrs. Jenson is staying on here then?”
“Just for a couple of months until Mr. Jenson can get a good man to take care
of the Parker station. I couldn’t handle this setup on my own.”
“That’s a fact.” I could see the surprise and the growing ‘Hey-hey-hey!
What’s going-on-around-here?’ expression in his eyes. “Mighty nice looking
girl—Mrs. Jenson.”
Go on, you big s0nofabtch, I thought. Think what you like. You’ll never
prove anything.
“Certainly is.” I dished up the ham and slid three eggs onto a plate. I put the plate down in front of him.
I saw he was studying me the way everyone else when they heard the news
would study me.
“So you and she are running this place from now on—that it?”
“She’s running it. I’m just the hired man,” I said. “But only for a couple of
months. Mr. Jenson will be back by then.”
He grunted and started eating.
I went into the kitchen, leaving the door open, and began loading potatoes
into the peeling machine. When I had the machine working I went over to the
deep freeze cabinet and checked on the food we had in store.
Then I sat down
and wrote out the lunch menu, aware this had been Jenson’s job; aware now I
was taking his place.
I took the menu card into the lunch room and hung it up. The trucker had
finished his meal. He paid me.
We went out together to his truck, talking. As he was climbing into the cab, I
saw Lola come out of the bungalow.
She was wearing a pair of scarlet shorts and a white halter. In that rig-out her
shape was sensational.
The trucker paused and sucked in his breath sharply while he stared at her, then he looked at me and grinned.
“I wouldn’t mind being in your place, pal. Strikes me you have a pretty sweet job.”
He slammed the cab door shut, winked at me, gunned his engine and drove off. As he passed Lola, he gave a shrill wolf whistle.
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