On this particular morning, two days after this conversation and three weeks
since I had come to Point of No Return, I lay in bed, brooding about Lola.
It was her turn for night shift, and from time to time during the night I had
heard trucks pulling up and I had looked out of the window to see her in jeans
and a shirt serving gas and talking to the truckers.
Jenson had wanted her to give up the night shift now I was there to help out,
but she wouldn’t. She said she liked doing it. She knew most of the truckers,
and they liked her. So Jenson reluctantly let her do one shift a week. He did
two and I did four.
After one o’clock in the morning the traffic dropped away, and the one on
nightshift could then turn in. It was seldom anyone came after that hour, and
if they did, there was a night bell to ring.
I watched Lola as she sat in the basket chair on the veranda preparing string
beans for the lunch trade. The time was just after six.
I saw the grocery truck coming. It came regularly every morning, bringing
the groceries and any special orders from Wentworth. As the driver pulled up
outside the lunch room, I tossed off the sheet and got out of bed.
The guy carried the big box of provisions up the steps and into the lunch
room, and Lola followed him.
I stretched and yawned, then wandered into the bathroom, was feeling
relaxed and pretty good. As I let the cold water from the shower run over me,
I thought of Farnworth. I couldn’t help feeling complacent. I had certainly
had some luck, but at the same time I had been pretty smart the way I had
handled my escape.
But my luck was running out, although I didn’t know it right then. In that box
of provisions the guy had just carried into the lunch room was something that
was going to blow my complacent and my feeling of security sky high. One
of Fate’s little jokes. This day was pay day.
With a roll of money in his big sweating hand, Jenson can lumbering into the
shed where I was working after breakfast on the wreck of an outboard motor
he had been paid to take away.
“How’s it coming, Jack?” he said, standing over me. “Think you can fix it?”
I looked up and grinned at him.
“Why, sure,” I said. “I’ll get it to work, but I don’t guarantee how long it will
last. This one’s a bad one: pretty nearly played out, but I’ll get it to work.”
“Good boy.” He wagged his head at me, “We’ll make a few bucks out of it,
huh? I’ve got some dough for you. Forty for the job—right?”
“Yeah.”
“Then there’s the restaurant cut: a hundred and ten.”
“As much as that?”
He laughed.
“Hear the man talk! You’ve sold more lunches and more dinners than we’ve
ever sold before. You’re a knock out! Just as a sign of appreciation, I’m
giving you another hundred for the scrap you’ve worked on.”
I stared at him.
“I didn’t expect that, Mr. Jenson. After all, this is my job.”
“Now look, Jack, leave this to me. You’re doing all right. It was my lucky
day when you came here. Since you’ve been here I’ve made a stack of dough.
Take what I’m giving you and shut up.”
“If that’s the way you feel—well, thanks.” I took the bundle of bills he thrust
at me. “Now you have me worried. I’m not spending the money I’m earning.
I have it all in my cabin. With what you have just given me, I have over five
hundred dollars. So what do I do with it? Would you give me an introduction to your bank?”
“My bank?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Who wants to put their money in
a bank? Three years ago the Wentworth bank failed. All the guys who had
put their savings in that bank went under. I don’t trust banks. I’ve never given
any bank a cent of mine. I like it in cash. I like to know if anything happened
to me, Lola could put her hands on my money without a lot of talk from the
bank. Okay, you have five hundred dollars. I’ll take care of it for you. I have
a safe. That’s where I keep my money. I’ll keep yours with mine.
Then when
you want to spend it, you come to me and you’ll get it in cash. Cash is more
important than any bank talk. Never mind about putting the money out at
interest. You can lose plenty of money if you’re after interest. One day it’s
up, the next day it’s down, and if you want your money quick, you’re always
out on the deal. You make a note of what you’ve got. I’ll keep it for you, then
any time you want it, you can put your hands on it.”
I stood up, gaping at him.
“You don’t keep your hundred thousand dollars in a safe here, do you?” I
said.
“Why, of course I do. Why not? You don’t imagine I’d trust any bank around
here to keep that amount of money for me? I’ve a safe that’s really good—the
best. A Lawrence safe is the best money can buy. I don’t have to tell you that.
You know safes. Isn’t that right? Isn’t a Lawrence safe the best money can
buy?”
“Is that what you’ve got?”
“Why, sure. I had a salesman out here some five years He sold me this safe.
He was the sincerest salesman I’ve known. Put money in a Lawrence and it’s
safe. That’s what told me— that’s the Corporation’s slogan, and a damn good
one. He was right, wasn’t he, Jack?”
That sardine can? That box of phoney steel I could open in three minutes?
I looked at his beaming face and I saw how proud he was his judgment. I hadn’t the heart to tell him.
“Why, sure. I know them. They’re the best.”
He reached out and patted my shoulder. I was getting used his pats now, but
each time he dropped his great hand on shoulder my knees sagged. He just
didn’t know his own strength.
“Okay, then I’ll keep your money for you. Any time you want it . . . just say
the word.”
“Well, thanks, Mr. Jenson.”
“Go and get it. I’ll give you a receipt. May as well make it right now. You
never know. Keeping it in your cabin’s no good. Who knows? The cabin may
burn down.”
So like a dope, I went over to the cabin and took the money I had saved from
under my mattress and gave it to him. He gave me a receipt for five hundred
and ten dollars.
“I’ll lock it up right away, Jack,” he said, and I could see was as pleased as he
could be. “Any time you want it …”
“Sure,” I said.
He looked at his watch.
“Moving up for twelve. We have the Greyhound bus here half-past. That’ll
mean thirty people. Suppose you give Lola a hand? I’ll put your money away,
then I’ll take care of the pumps. In half an hour we’re going to be busy.”
“Right,” I said.
I went over to the lunch room and into trouble.
Lola was arranging newly-baked pies in the glass case as walked in. She
looked over her shoulder at me.
There was an expression in her green eyes that immediately warned me that
something was up.
“Anything I can do to help out?” I said.
She smiled. This was the first time she had smiled at me: jeering smile that
started an alarm bell ringing in my head.
“There’s plenty for you to do, Patmore,” she said. The emphasis she put on
the phoney name I had given myself sent up red light. “I’ve unpacked the
groceries—suppose you put them away?”
I went into the kitchen. The cans of food, the two dozed chickens in their
plastic bags and the rest of the stuff were spread out on two tables.
Lying on the cans of food was a crumpled newspaper that had obviously been
used to pack something in. I picked it up. Then my heart gave a violent kick
against my side.
Don’t ask me how a Wentworth grocery store had got hold of an Oakland
local newspaper. That’s one of the jokes of life, but there it was: the front
page of the Oakland Inquirer, and slap on the front page was my photograph
with a banner headline:
Escaped Safe Robber Still Free.
I stood motionless, staring at the photograph, feeling cold chills running
through me. It wasn’t a good photograph, but good enough, and she had
pencilled in my moustache on the photograph to tell me that she knew who I
was.
Farnworth, the stinking bunkhouse and the brutal guards suddenly came into
focus. They were no longer a remote nightmare.
In the silence of the safe, clean kitchen, I heard the screams of a man in the
punishment cell and the hissing crack of the belts as the guards beat him. I
saw again the guy who had lost an eye, staggering down the corridor, his shirtand trousers plastered to his back with blood, his hands covering his face.
My dream of safety dissolved the way a fist disappears when you open your
hand.
Had she told Jenson? I was pretty sure she hadn’t yet. If she had I would have
known by his manner. But she was certain to. This was the perfect excuse for
getting rid of me.
All she had to do was to reach out for the telephone, and I’d be on my way
back to Farnworth within the hour.
I could imagine the welcome I would get there. I could imagine the gleeful,
sadistic grins of the prisoners as I was marched across the tarmac to the
Chiefs office. I could imagine them, listening and nudging each other, as they
waited for my first yell of pain.
I crumpled the newspaper between my hands, then I went over to the stove
and dropped it in.
So I was on the run again. I had to get out of here. But how? I was one
hundred and sixty-five miles from Tropica Springs. Once she had told them I
had been here, Tropica Springs would be the first place they would look for
me. I didn’t dare double back to Oakland. I would have to get to Tropica
Springs and then go on from there. At least I had five hundred dollars. With
that money I could take a plane to New York . . . five hundred dollars? I felt
cold fingers squeezing my heart. I had given my getaway stake to Jenson not
half an hour ago! Now I would have to ask him for it! What would he think?
Anyway, how could I walk out of here in daylight without him thinking I had
gone nuts?
I was in such a panic I could scarcely breathe.
Then the kitchen door swung open and she came in.
She looked at me: a searching, jeering, probing expression in her green eyes.
“Haven’t you put the groceries away yet?” she said,
“I’m putting them away.”
I began to pick up some of the cans.
You btch! I was thinking. Have you called the police? What have you done?
She began to put the chickens in the freezer. She hummed under her breath as
she worked.
It wasn’t until I had put the groceries in the cupboard and she had packed the
last chicken into the freezer that she said suddenly, “It’s time you and I had a
talk. It’s your night shift tonight, isn’t it?”
I faced her. “Yes.”
“When he’s asleep I’ll talk to you.”
That told me she hadn’t called the police. She was going to make terms. I
began to breathe again.
“Anything you say.”
“Run away, Mr. Chet Carson,” she said. “I can manage very well without
you.”
Well, there it was. She had me over a barrel, but at least I had a little time
before the axe fell.
I looked her over: aware of her body under the halter and the shorts.
“Anything you say.”
She smiled.
“That’s right, Carson. From now on—it’s going to be anything I say.”
As I walked out into the lunch room, the Greyhound bus arrived and from it
spilled thirty hungry customers.
The three of us slaved. Jenson and I handled the lunch room. Lola slogged in
the kitchen. Every one of the passengers took the lunch. When I wasn’t
handing around the lunches, I was rushing out to serve gas.
I’ll say this for Lola: the way she kept the food moving out of the kitchen was
really something. No one had to wait. Everyone had what they wanted.
Finally, when the bus moved off, we were all pretty bushed.
Jenson grinned at me as he mopped his face.
“This is a record, Jack,” he said. “We’ve never done this before. Without you
we would never have made it. Thirty lunches! Before—they had to do with a
snack.”
“It was the cook,” I said.
“Yeah! What a wife! Well, anyway, we three made it. Now look, Lola and
me will fix the dishes. You sit out here and take care of the pumps. You’ve
got the night shift. No point in killing yourself.”
In an ordinary way, I would have done my stint, but I couldn’t face working
close to her. I wanted time off to think. Now the rush was over, I had the bile
of fear in my mouth again.
When he had gone into the lunch room, I sat down and lit a cigarette. I was
just starting to relax when I felt someone watching me.
I looked over my shoulder.
Lola had come out onto the veranda. She was staring at me, her green eyes
glittering.
Jenson had come to the open window, a stack of dishes in his bands. He
looked worried.
“What’s this patsy think he’s doing?” Lola shrilled. “Doesn’t he work here
anymore? Have I got to do all the work?”
“Look, honey,” Jenson said pleadingly, “he’s on night shift …”
“I don’t give a damn what he’s on.” To me, she said, “Go in and clear the
dishes! If anyone is going to loll around in a chair it’s going to be me! Now
get in there and earn what we’re paying you.”
“Hey, Lola!” Jenson said, his voice sharpening.
I was on my feet and moving towards her.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Jenson: just as you say.”
“Lola! Quit talking to the guy like that! I told him to take care of the pumps,”
Jenson said, leaning half out of the window.
“Don’t I get any consideration around here?” she screamed at him. “It seems
I’m good only for slaving in a stinking hot kitchen and going to bed with
you!”
She ran off past me and over to the bungalow. She went inside and slammed
the front door.
Jenson put down the dishes and came out. He looked bad: his face sagging.
“She’s worked herself into the ground,” I said. “She’s tired. Women get like
that. They blow off. It doesn’t mean a thing. Tomorrow she’ll be fine.”
He rubbed his jaw, shaking his head and frowning.
“You think so, Jack? I’ve never heard her speak like that before. You think I
should talk to her: soothe her or something?”
I couldn’t tell him the whole thing had been an act. She was making sure she
would sleep alone this night so when he was asleep she could come out and talk to me.
“I’d leave her alone, Mr. Jenson. It’s my bet tomorrow she’ll be okay. She’s
tired. How about you and me fixing these dishes?”
He put his arm around my shoulders.
“You’re a good guy, Jack. Most guys would have blown their top to be
spoken to the way she spoke to you, I was ashamed. Like you said—she’s
tired. I’ll talk to her about it tomorrow, doesn’t seem to realise what a help
you are around here.”
“Forget it,” I said. “Let’s get to work.”
It took us until after seven o’clock to clear up the kitchen, what with serving
gas, serving snacks and a couple of repairs that came in. There was no sign of
Lola until past four o’clock, then as I heard a car engine, I looked out of the
window. She was driving off in the Mercury, wearing her green dress. The
car was heading for Wentworth.
That scared me. Was she going to the police?
I told Jenson.
He grimaced.
“She’s done this before when we’ve had words. She always goes to the
movies. She’s crazy about the movies. She won’t be back now until after
eleven. Well, we’ll have to manage on our own, Jack. Can you cook?”
“Why not?” I said. “Anyway, I can fix chickens.”
It was while I was preparing the chickens and he was cutting sandwiches that
he let drop the hint that he wasn’t all that happy with Lola.
“Of course she’s young,” he said, slicing away at the loaf. “My first wife was
different. She and me went to the same school together. We grew up together.
She was my age when she died.
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