Come Easy, Go Easy (16 page)

She reached for a cigarette and lit it. She let the smoke drift down her nostrils.

"Why worry about him? Open the safe, take your share and get out. I'll go too. When he comes here again, we'll have gone."

"Is that the best you can do?" I said impatiently. "You've got that money on the brain! How can we walk out and leave this place deserted? Talk sense! Imagine someone coming here for gas and finding the place locked and empty. Imagine Ricks coming here. He would tell the police and there would be an investigation."

"We could sell the place."

"Could we? Is it yours to sell?"

She frowned at me. "What do you mean?"

"The only way you could sell it is to prove Jenson is dead and he has willed it to you. How are you going to prove he is dead without the police finding out he was murdered?"

"He wasn't murdered! It was an accident!"

"You tell that to the police and see what happens!"

Her hands turned into fists. I could see by her expression that at last it was dawning on her the kind of trap we were in.

"Give me my share of the money and I'll go," she said. "You can stay here. What's the matter with that? You can say I've gone to join Carl in Arizona, leaving you here to run the place."

"Do you imagine Ricks would believe that? First, Jenson disappears: then you, and I have the place. He'd tell the police I had murdered you both to get it. They might not believe him, but they would come out here and investigate They would find out who I was. They might even find where I buried Jenson."

That really jolted her.

"You aren't telling me you have been mad enough to bury him here!"

"Where else do you imagine I have buried him? You didn't' help me, did you? How could I have got him in the Station wagon? He weighed over two hundred pounds. I buried him in the repair shed, and if they suspect I have murdered you two, they'll start digging. If there's one thing they are good at—it's digging. They could find him."

She ran her fingers through her thick hair with a movement of exasperation.

"What are you trying to tell me?" she demanded, her voice shrill. "That we have to stay here forever!"

"We have to stay here. I don't know for how long. If we leave now, we're sunk. They'll dig the whole place up and they'll find him, and then they'll come after us. Our one hope is to stay here and make my story stick that he had gone off with another woman."

"I'm not staying!" She pounded her fist on the arm of the chair. "I've had enough of it! I want that money! I'm going to have it!"

I waved my hand towards the safe.

"Go ahead and help yourself," I said and got to my feet. "The money's there if you can open the safe. Maybe when you have thought more about it, you'll see I'm talking sense. You think about it."

I walked out of the bungalow, leaving her, white-faced, her eyes pools of fear and rage.

From then on until midnight, I sat by the pumps, waiting for trade. The hot wind blew around me, stirring the dust and the sand, making my body feel gritty and uncomfortable.

As I sat, staring into the darkness, my mind probed at the problem without getting anywhere. At least, now I didn't feel entirely alone. The lights in the bungalow remained on. I was sweating it out, but she was too.

At half past midnight, I decided to go to my cabin and try to sleep. No truck nor car had come through during the past two hours. There seemed no point in sitting there in the hot wind waiting any longer. As I started towards my cabin, the light in the lounge of the bungalow went out and the light in her bedroom went up. She too, had the same idea.

I took a shower. It helped a little, but not much. I lay on the bed. I saw her light go out I tried to shut my problem out of my mind and go to sleep but it was useless.

The sound of my bedroom door opening jerked my mind out of its panicky thinking.

I half sat up, staring towards the door lit by the moonlight coming through the window.

A shadowy figure moved into the room. It was Lola. She paused in a puddle of moonlight that lay on the floor. She had on a green silk wrap which she held tightly round her.

We stared at each other, then she came to the bed and sat by my side.

"If we have to stay here together," she said, her voice an intimate whisper, "there's no need for us to remain enemies, is there?"

She leaned over me, her mouth seeking mine…

A band of sunlight coming through the chink in the blind woke me. I stretched, yawning, then lifting my head, I looked at the bedside clock. The time was twenty minutes past six. Lola had gone. It took me a few minutes to realise that she had spent the night with me.

There's no need for us to be enemies she had said, but she hadn't fooled me and she wasn't going to fool me. I was sure all she thought about and all she planned for was to persuade me to open the safe. She was now attempting to break down my resistance by this new intimacy, hoping she would be able to influence me to change my mind and open the safe.

This was going to be a one-sided bargain. The safe was going to remain closed.

I slid off the bed, shaved, showered and dressed. I was curious to see what her attitude was going to be towards me this morning.

I went to the lunch room. The screen door stood open, and there was an appetising smell of ham grilling coming from the kitchen.

I walked around the counter and tentatively pushed at the kitchen door, half expecting to find it locked, but it swung open.

I walked in.

Lola, wearing her neat white overall, was breaking an egg into the fry pan. She looked over her shoulder at me. "Hello, I was beginning to wonder if you were going to sleep all day," she said.

I came up behind her and slid my arms around her, pulling her against me. I kissed the side of her neck.

"Hey! hey! Your eggs will be spoiled," but she leaned against me, her face against mine.

"Are they for me?"

"Who else do you imagine they're for?" She twisted out of my grip and faced me. Then she smiled. "Hello, lover! Any regrets?"

"No regrets."

"Surprised?"

"Knocked for a loop."

She came up to me and slid her arms around my neck, her green eyes glittering. Kissing her was an experience. Her body pressed hard against mine, her fingers moved through my hair.

"Who's spoiling the eggs now?" I said.

She moved away. "Come on and eat then."

I watched her dish up the eggs and slide the ham onto a plate.

"Pour the coffee," she said, putting the plate on the table.

We sat opposite each other. She took a cigarette from the pack and lit it.

"I guess I've been pretty mean to you ever since you came," she said, staring at me. "But I have had a change of heart. I realised we couldn't go on living the way we have been living. Besides, you're attractive and it's been a long time since I've lived near an attractive man. Do you want to move into the bungalow?"

I hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment. In that moment a picture of Jenson came into my mind but I pushed it out fast as I looked at her.

"Yes," I said. "You're attractive too, you know."

She smiled. "I'm not so lousy. Are you going to forget how mean I've been to you?"

"Yes. The moment I saw you, I wanted you."

A truck pulled up by the pumps and the driver sounded his horn.

"I'll fix it," she said. "You finish your breakfast."

As she went past me, she touched my shoulder in that intimate way women in love have, then she went out to the waiting truck.

I finished my breakfast, my mind busy.

I told myself I had to watch out. This is an act, I said to myself, so watch it, but already I was beginning to wish it wasn't an act.

I was running hot water over my breakfast plate when she came back into the kitchen.

"I'll do it." she said.

"It's done." I put the plate in the rack and turned to face her. She moved close to me. I put my hands on her hips, feeling hard flesh alive under my fingers. "Any ideas about Ricks yet? He'll be out here tonight."

"He doesn't worry me. I'll give him some money: ten dollars will be enough. He won't make trouble if he gets some money and we can afford it."

"Don't be too sure. He's dangerous. Once you start giving him money, he'll keep coming back for more."

She shook her head.

"I've handled him before. I can handle him now. You leave him to me."

"Just watch out. He could make trouble."

"I'll watch out."

The hot wind now had died out. It was cooler. By ten o'clock more traffic was coming through from Oakland. For the rest of the day we were both kept busy.

I found myself enjoying working with Lola. Whenever I went into the kitchen to load up a tray for a waiting customer, we fooled around together, kissing and fondling each other. I enjoyed it a lot, and maybe she did, but I still wasn't that far gone not to be pretty sure this change of heart, as she called it, was an act.

Around seven o'clock, the traffic suddenly fell away and there was a respite. I went into the kitchen and stood around, watching Lola prepare a dozen or so veal cutlets for the evening's menu.

"Instead of devouring me with your eyes, how about peeling some potatoes?" she said.

"Who cares about potatoes?"

I slid my arms around her.

She tried to break free, but I held her. We were wrestling the way lovers do, when I heard the kitchen door creak open. I let go of her and moved away from her fast, but not fast enough.

We both looked towards the kitchen door.

Ricks was standing in the doorway, watching us. There was that sly, poisonous grin on his thin face that told me he had seen what had been going on.

I cursed myself for being such a careless fool for I had known he was coming out this evening.

I looked at Lola.

She was completely unperturbed: her face was expressionless; her eyebrows slightly raised.

I knew I was the give away. I wasn't able to control the guilt nor the fear that was showing on my face.

"I didn't mean to butt in," Ricks said and showed his yellow teeth in a sneering smile. "I said I'd call—remember?"

I just stood there, scared and sweating. No words came.

"Hello, George," Lola said indifferently. "What do you want?"

The small, sly eyes shifted from her to me and from me to her.

"Didn't this fella tell you I'd be looking in? Have you heard from Carl yet?"

She shook her head, still completely unperturbed.

"I don't expect to hear from him until he gets back. He's pretty busy."

"Did this fella tell you about my pension papers?"

"What about them?"

"I want Carl to sign them."

"Any lawyer or bank manager will sign them for you."

He squinted at her, scowling.

"That's where you are wrong. If I go to anyone but Carl my pension could get held up. Then what would I have to live on? Carl's always done it for me."

Lola shrugged indifferently.

"I don't know where he is. He's moving around. You'll have to wait."

Ricks shifted from one foot to the other. I could see he wasn't at ease with Lola. Her steady, indifferent stare seemed to confuse him.

"Maybe I'd better write to the Arizona police," he said. "My pension papers are important."

He was watching her closely, but he didn't get any change out of her.

"Perhaps the police won't think so," she said. "Please yourself. I couldn't care less who you write to. Carl may not be in Arizona for all I know. He said he was going on to Colorado before making up his mind." She leaned her hips against the table and began fiddling with her hair the way women do. With her arms up, her breasts lifted and she looked provocatively sensual. "Don't fuss, George, for heaven's sake. Take your papers to a bank. If you're that hard up, I can lend you something."

It was casually and beautifully done. I wished she had handled him from the start. I saw now that in my clumsy way I had only succeeded in arousing his suspicions. Her approach left him in two minds.

"How much?" He looked eagerly at her. "How much would you lend me?"

"Don't get so worked up," she said, her tone contemptuous. "I'll let you have ten dollars."

His face fell.

"That wouldn't help much. I've got expenses like everyone else. How about twenty dollars?"

"Always the big mouth, George," she said. "You never miss out on a chance, do you?" She walked past him into the lunch room and I heard her open the cash register. The ping of the bell as the drawer slid open made him point like a gun dog.

She came back with three five dollar bills in her hand.

"Here . . ." She thrust the bills at him. "That's all you're getting so don't come here scrounging any more. Carl doesn't want you here, and you know it."

He grabbed the money, putting it hurriedly into his hip pocket.

"You're a hard woman, Lola," he said. "I'm mighty thankful I'm not your husband. I reckon Carl will regret taking you as a wife before long."

"Who cares what you think?" she said and laughed scornfully. "Go away and don't come back pestering me,"

"Two's company and three's a crowd, huh?" He looked from her to me. "You two watch out.

Carl won't like what's going around here."

Lola looked at me.

"Kick the scrounger out. I've had enough of him."

As I started towards Ricks, he turned and bolted out of the kitchen. Neither of us moved until we heard his car drive away, then with a grimace, Lola went back to trimming the cutlets.

"He saw us," I said.

"Who cares? I told you I could handle him."