Chapter Eight
I
I found Lola in the kitchen. As I came in, she turned and faced me. She looked pretty bad. There were circles around her eyes, her face was pale and
drawn and I guessed, like me, she hadn’t had much sleep.
I was furious that she had been so stupid and thoughtless to have put on the get-up she wore.
“Do you have to show your body off like this?” I snarled at her. “Do you
want every godd@mn tongue to start wagging about us?”
She looked blankly at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Use your head!” I reached for her overall and threw it at her. “That trucker
saw you just now. He said I had a sweet job. He knows we’re alone together.
That’s the way talk starts. Before we know it, we’ll have the police here!”
Sulkily, she put on the overall.
“What have you done with him?” she asked, not looking at me.
“I’ve buried him. Now listen, we’re going to run this place together,” I said.
“I won’t interfere with you and you’re not going to interfere with me. When I
think it’s okay to move, I’ll go, and when I go I’ll open the safe and you’ll
get the money.”
She looked sharply at me, her eyes glittering.
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know. I’m not moving from here until I’m satisfied the hunt for me
is over. You’ll have to make up your mind to wait.”
Her mouth became sulky again.
“Carl has friends. They’ll want to know where he is.”
“Do you think I haven’t got that worked out?” I said, impatiently. “You will
tell them he has gone to Arizona to investigate another filling station. We
don’t expect him back for a couple of months. In the meantime you are
running this place and I’m helping you.”
“And then? What happens? They won’t forget him. They’ll keep asking.”
“At the end of a couple of months you will get a letter from him. He’ll tell
you he has found another woman he likes better than you and be is not
coming back. That kind of bad news is believed because people want to
believe it. Because he feels he has treated you badly, he is giving Point of No
Return to you. You will continue to run it with me until I’m sure it is safe to
quit, then when I’ve gone, you can get rid of it if you want to.”
“I have a better idea,” she said, resting her hips against the kitchen table.
“Open the safe now and you can have the thirty thousand dollars Carl was
going to give you. With that money you can get away.”
“No! I wouldn’t touch his money. I’m safe here and I’m staying here! When
I’m ready, you’ll have the money, but not before.”
Two little spots of red showed in her cheeks and she started to say something
but stopped as we heard the sound of a car pulling up.
Leaving her, I went out into the lunch room as the screen door pushed open.
A heavily-built man, tall and beefy, with sandy hair, prominent blue eyes and around forty, came in.
He gave me a long hard stare before saying, “Where’s Jenson?”
I had an idea who he was. Obviously he was a Swede and besides, I
recognised his aggressive voice.
“He’s out,” I said. “Anything I can do?”
“Out? At this hour? Where’s he gone?”
“Anything I can do?” I repeated, “or do you want to talk to Mrs. Jenson?”
Hearing voices, Lola came to the kitchen door. As soon as she saw the big
Swede, the sulky look went away and she smiled at him.
“Why, hello, Mr. Lasch, you’re early.”
He relaxed a little and tipped his hat.
“Morning, Mrs. Jenson. I came over to talk to Carl about Wallace’s funeral. I
guess Carl told you the poor guy had a heart attack last night. The Legion
want to do the right thing by him. As Carl was an old friend and an important
member of the Legion, we thought maybe he would do the oration. This fella
tells me Carl isn’t here.”
I looked at Lola. She was quite calm. At the mention of Wallace’s death, her
smile faded and she looked sorrowful. She was certainly some actress.
“That’s right. You’ve just missed him. He left for Tropica Springs about half
an hour ago.”
Lasch gaped at her.
“Carl did? His car’s in the shed. I saw it as I came in.”
My heart began to pound, but I needn’t have worried. She was a fluent liar,
and she was more than capable of handling a big, dumb Swede like Lasch.
“He didn’t take the car. He’ll be away for a few weeks. He got a lift into Tropica Springs on a truck. I couldn’t be left here without the car for so long.
He’ll be sorry to have missed you.”
I could see Lasch was surprised and puzzled by all this. He lifted his hat to
scratch his head, then he said, “You mean he won’t be back in time for the
funeral, Mrs. Jenson?”
“Oh no. I don’t really know quite when he will be back. Several weeks …
He had the chance last night to buy another filling station. He had just got back
after the meeting had been cancelled. Someone called and made him this
offer. We talked it over. He decided to go down there and take a look.”
Lasch squinted at her. “Down where?”
“Some place in Arizona,” Lola said. “He has always wanted to own another
filling station. This sounded like a bargain so he rushed off before it is
snapped up.”
I couldn’t have done better myself. She really could tell the tale.
“Arizona? Why, that’s miles away,” Lasch said blankly. “He isn’t planning to
leave here for good, is he?”
“We haven’t got around to that yet. I think his idea is to put someone in
charge down there. I’m sure he’ll tell you about it, Mr. Lasch, when he comes
back.”
That pulled him up short. He looked a little embarrassed.
“I didn’t mean to sound inquisitive. I’m surprised not to find him here. Well,
if he won’t be back for some weeks I guess I’ll have to deliver the oration
myself.” He looked at me. “Who’s this fella?”
“Jack Patmore,” Lola said “He’s helping out while Carl is away.”
Lasch looked me over, his eyes hostile.
“Are you the guy who called me a goddamn Swede last night on the telephone?”
I matched his look.
“At four o’clock in the morning I’m likely to call anyone anything.”
He hesitated, grunted, then turned his back on me.
Lola said, “Won’t you have breakfast, Mr. Lasch? It’s all ready.”
“No, thanks. I’ve a lot to do. When Carl gets back, ask him to call me, will
you?”
She said she would and he left without looking at me.
There was a pause, then Lola went back into the kitchen.
Well, at least, the story was accepted. There would be talk of course about
Lola and me out here alone together. I remembered what Carl had told me,
how when she first came here to work for him the talk got so bad he married
her to shut their mouths.
This day was Sunday. On Sundays we had a lot of traffic over the mountain,
and we were both kept busy. We served thirty lunches and twenty-three
dinners. I had a major repair job, to say nothing of serving gallons of gas.
By the time the traffic slacked off, it was close on midnight.
During the day Lola hadn’t said a word to me. Now when I walked into the
kitchen just as she was finishing clearing up, she didn’t look round nor show
she knew I was there.
“Pretty good day,” I said, leaning against the door post. “I reckon we’ve
taken close on four hundred bucks.”
She put the pan she had been scouring on the shelf. I might not have spoken
for all the notice she took of me. She took off her soiled overall, rolled it and
tossed it into the laundry basket. I felt a stab of desire go through me to see her again in those halter and
shorts. It was a physical urge and made me go hot. I had to fight down the
impulse to cross the room and grab her.
She went out by the back door, leaving me alone in the kitchen.
I turned off the lights and locked up.
So she was going to sulk, I thought as I walked over to my cabin. Well, okay,
we’ll see who gets tired of that first. I went into my bedroom, crossed over to
the window to pull down the blind, then paused.
The light was on in her bedroom. She hadn’t pulled down the blind. I could
see into the room. She was standing directly under the light. She had taken
off her halter and as I watched she stepped out of her shorts.
I stood there, watching her, my heart bumping unevenly against my ribs. I
watched her, naked as the back of my hand, turn and walk to the bathroom,
enter and close the door.
I had to make a conscious effort to reach out and pull down the blind.
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