Come Easy, Go Easy (22 page)

"I'm not worrying," I said.

But when I saw them go off together the following morning, I felt lonely and uneasy. To get my mind off them, I began to take down the engine of the Station wagon, but even working on a job I liked, I kept thinking and wondering and worrying.

A big truck, loaded with wooden crates, pulled up by the gas pumps. The driver was a thickset, elderly man. His blond hair was shot with white and his red, heavy face was shaded by a Stetson hat.

While I was filling the tanks, he climbed down from the cab, wiping his face with a grimy handkerchief.

"You're new around here, aren't you?" he said, looking curiously at me. "Where's Carl Jenson?"

I spotted he was a Swede, and that warned me he might be a friend of Jenson's. I gave him the story that Jenson was in Arizona.

For some reason this seemed to bother him. I saw his face tighten and his staring eyes harden.

"I've never known him to leave here before," he said. "I've been through here off and on for the past twenty years, and I've always found him here. Arizona, huh? Going to open a new gas station? Does that mean he isn't coming back?"

"He'll be back to clear up."

"Did he take his wife with him?"

"She's running this place while he's away. I'm just helping out."

"Are you a friend of hers?" he asked as I screwed on the caps to the tanks.

"I'm just hired to help out. What do you mean?"

"She's no good. You could have knocked me over with a puff of wind when I found her here, married to Jenson." He leaned up against the side of the truck and began to roll a cigarette. "I knew her in Carson City. That was five years ago. Then she was married to a guy named Frank Finney. He ran a repair station and a snack bar: she helped out. It wasn't his place: he just ran it. Know what happened to him?"

I was listening, tense, not missing a word.

"They found him dead in the snack bar one morning. There was a gun in his hand and his brains all over the floor. Her story was she heard the shot when she was upstairs. She came down and found him. There was a check on the till. They found over two thousand bucks missing. It looked like Finney had been robbing the till for months. They never found the money. The cops reckoned she had it, but they never proved it. There was one cop who even figured she shot Finney. They had been quarrelling for months, but they never proved that either. She left town soon after. Imagine my surprise to find her here, married to a good man like Jenson."

"First time I've heard of it," I said, managing to keep my face expressionless.

"It's not the kind of thing she would advertise," the trucker said. "Jenson is okay, isn't he? He really is in Arizona?"

I suddenly felt cold. This was dangerous. This Swede could be a lot more dangerous than Ricks.

"He's fine," I said, forcing myself to meet the pale, staring eyes. "I had a letter from him the other day. He's pretty pleased with this new filling station. Maybe the next time you come through you'll catch him."

He looked relieved.

"I'm damn glad to hear it. You know, for a moment, when you said he wasn't here, it jumped into my mind that—well, I thought maybe he was dead."

I was really sweating now.

"This story about her shooting her husband," I said, "there was no proof, was there?"

He suddenly looked embarrassed.

"No, but there was a lot of talk."

"As far as I can see, Mrs. Jenson makes Mr. Jenson very happy," I said. "He wouldn't like a story like that going around. I reckon he'd be pretty angry with you if he heard what you've been saying."

"You mean he's really happy with her?"

"That's what I'm telling you."

"Well . . . yeah, maybe, I have shot my mouth off. You forget it, will you? Don't mention it to Mr. Jenson."

"You forget it too." I took his money. "That kind of talk can cause an awful lot of mischief."

He got in the cab, slammed the door and drove off. I could see from the expression on his face I had thrown a scare into him.

He had certainly thrown a scare into me.

I stood staring after him.

Thoughts raced through my mind. So Lola had been married before. Her husband had died violently, and there had been money missing. I felt a tightening in my chest. Jenson had also died violently, and maybe, if I hadn't slammed the door of the safe shut, more money would have been missing.

I walked over to the lunch room veranda and sat down. I lit a cigarette, aware my hands were shaking.

My mind was now buzzing with alarm and suspicion.

According to the trucker, the Carson City police had thought Lola had not only taken the money, but she had murdered her husband.

I thought back on that scene that now seemed terribly near to me and startlingly vivid. In my mind, I say her come into the sitting-room. I could almost hear her quick, hard breathing. She had the gun in her hand. I heard again the fast, unreal dialogue. I remembered Jenson, red in the face with anger, getting to his feet

I saw Lola looking at me as I slammed the safe door shut, then I heard again the bang of the gun.

I had been convinced then that the sound of the safe door shutting had made her accidentally tighten her finger on the gun trigger. The gun had gone off, and Jenson had been killed.

Accidentally?

I threw the half smoked cigarette away and wiped my face with the back of my hand.

Accidentally was now the operative word.

She was suspected of murdering her first husband and money was missing. Had the shooting of Jenson been deliberate?

It had looked like an accident, but had it been, after all, murder? She could have pinned the murder on me. Then I had another idea that made my heart skip a beat.

The safe door had been open when she had come into the room with the gun. Suppose she had planned first to shoot Jenson, and then me, and then take the money from the safe? Suppose this had been her plan? She could have hidden the money and then called the police. Her story would be that she and Jenson had caught me opening the safe. I had murdered Jenson. By some trick, she had got the gun from me and had shot me in self defence. I was an escapee from Farnworth: a man with a reputation. That fat sheriff from Wentworth might very easily have accepted such a story.

But she hadn't killed me because I had shut the safe as she had shot Jenson. She had been quick enough and smart enough to know that she couldn't open the safe, but that I could. When she found she couldn't blackmail me into opening it, she had had this sudden change of heart and had pretended to be in love with me. She had suddenly turned hostile when she had discovered I now wasn't the only one at Point of No Return who could open the safe! Roy could open it!

She had the gun. I was now sure her story of getting rid of it had been a lie.

That could mean both Roy's life and mine were in danger. She could persuade Roy to open the safe, then she would kill him. She could kill me too. Her story could be more or less the same as the one she would have told if she had killed me when she had shot Jenson.

I got to my feet

This was guess work, sparked off by the mischievous talk of an old Swedish trucker. The chances were that this guy Finney had committed suicide and Jenson's shooting had been an accident, but I wasn't going to take chances. I remembered those hard green eyes. There was one way to fix her. I would take the money from the safe, leaving the safe door open so she would know that there was no point in working on Roy or planning to murder me.

I had to find a safe hiding place for the money, but that wouldn't be difficult I looked at my wrist watch. The time was ten minutes past ten. They wouldn't be back until mid-day. I would bury the money in Jenson's grave. If she wanted it, she would have to dig him up as well.

It was a good idea, but it didn't work out

As I started over to the bungalow, a truck, towing a 1955 Packard came down the Wentworth road and I had a major repair job on my hands.

The driver of the Packard was in a hurry to get to Tropica Springs. He was an aggressive and impatient salesman. He wouldn't take no for an answer.

I was still working on the Packard when Lola and Roy came back from Wentworth.

For the next three days and nights I never had a chance of getting near the safe.

Lola was always around. She had given up night work, and as soon as Roy and I settled down to our game of Gin, she went to bed.

She was now on speaking terms with me, but there was a reserve in her manner that warned me we could no longer be on the same terms as we had been before Roy arrived. I made no attempt to touch her. I didn't even want to touch her. I was suspicious of her, watching her all the time for some sign that might confirm that she was planning to murder me, but the sign wasn't there.

I also watched Roy, anxious to see if there was now any change in his attitude after his drive with her to Wentworth, but, here again, I saw no change.

There were moments when I was tempted to take him into my confidence, but I didn't. I had an instinctive feeling that the knowledge that what was in that safe would be too much for the urge in him to lay his hands on any easy money. So I held back, hoping sooner or later, she and he would go into Wentworth again, and I could get at the safe.

The chance came about a week later when Lola said as we were clearing up after a busy supper trade, "There's a good movie on in Wentworth. I want to see it. This French star: Brigitte Bardot. I want to see her. Is anyone coming?"

Roy shook his head.

"Not me—I only go for gangster pictures." Here was the chance I was looking for. They wouldn't be back before three o'clock in the morning. I would have all the time I wanted to get the money from the safe and bury it before they returned. After midnight, I wouldn't have to worry about any interruptions.

"I'm stuck here, Roy," I said. "I can't go into Wentworth. It's my turn for night duty anyway. Take a chance: you might get a kick out of a French star."

He looked at me, puzzled.

"I'd just as soon play cards."

"Pretty tough on Lola to go twenty miles on her own." I was scared I was overplaying my hand for now Lola was staring at me, but this was a chance I had to take.

"Well, when you two have made up your minds," she said, "You don't have to do me a favour. I can go on my own."

Roy suddenly grinned.

"Okay: you have a date," he said. "Let's go." Soon after half past nine, Lola came from the bungalow. She was wearing a white frock I hadn't seen before. It was tight across her chest and flared out over her hips. She had taken a lot of trouble with her make-up. The sight of her set my heart thumping which irritated me.

I watched her get in the Mercury beside Roy. He grinned at me as he gunned the engine.

Out of the comer of his mouth, he said, "This was your idea, pal: not mine."

It was a remark I hadn't expected from him, but I didn't care. Once I had the money buried, I had the whip hand over them both.

"Have a good time," I said.

Lola was staring at me. Her green eyes were mocking.

"We will. Don't let the place run away."

Roy shifted from neutral into drive, and the Mercury moved off.

For some moments I stood motionless, watching the red tail lights climbing the hill towards Wentworth, then I started for the bungalow, but I might have known it wasn't going to be that easy.

The bungalow door was locked. The lock wasn't anything, but I had to go to the repair shed for a length of wire. I then had to fashion the wire into a pick, and it took me a few moments to get the lock turned.

I went into the sitting-room and squatted down before the safe. Opening it was nothing. I had done it often enough, but this night, probably because I was nervous, I took longer than I had done before. Then just as I was opening the safe door, I heard the honk of a car horn.

A grey and yellow Cadillac stood by the pumps.

I spun the dial, making sure the door was locked again, then cursing to myself, I went out and fed gas into the car.

The driver, his wife and four awful kids wanted food. I fixed them sandwiches. They were in the lunch room for thirty minutes. As they drove away, a truck came in and the trucker wanted ham and eggs.

So it went on.

I expected this, and it didn't worry me. This was routine. Around midnight, the traffic would stop. I would still have three hours in which to do the job—it was enough.

At midnight the traffic did stop. I sat on the veranda, watching the long, winding road, lit by the moon for ten minutes before I got to my feet and started towards the bungalow again. Then I paused, and this time I felt a nudge of desperation as I saw the headlights of a fast approaching car.

I was pretty certain the car would stop, at least for gas. I walked to the pumps to save time.

As the car pulled up, I saw it was an old, dusty Buick. There were two men in it. The driver leaned out of the window, looking towards me.

He was a man around my own age, wearing a black slouch hat, a black shirt and a white tie. His sun-tanned face was thin and hatchet shaped. His small dark eyes were like bits of glass, and as expressionless.

His companion was fat, oily and swarthy with a straggly moustache and the narrow, olive black eyes of a Mexican. He was wearing a shabby, stained light grey suit and a Mexican hat, the cord under his fat chin.

There was something about these two I didn't like. I had an instinctive feeling they were dangerous. This was the first time since I had been at Point of No Return that I was suddenly conscious that I was alone, and this was a lonely spot

The Mexican was eyeing me over while the other man was looking around, his hard, bleak eyes probing the shadows.