The Jack Finney Reader

by Jack Finney

  I glanced at her, and smiled; the radio was playing “Star Dust” very softly.

  I've had my doubts about us, she went on. Her head back on the seat, she was staring up through the windshield at the tremendous display of stars, bright and blue, in the clear desert sky. But I don't any more. I wish it were just the two of us driving now. To somewhere new, to settle down; no one else along.

  Yeah. I felt the same way; I was utterly happy and content, alone here with Tina. For no real reason, but just to say something, I added, But we need them. We couldn't swing this alone.

  She didn't answer for several moments; then she said, Yes, the money; that's important. Or was. Back home. Back at The Bowl. She sighed. It didn't seem as though I'd ever get away from The Bowl, or some other place like it, without money. But we're a long way from The Bowl now. And getting farther every day. And we don't ever have to go back; it's that simple. She turned to me. So I don't know about the money, Al. I've been thinking, and the reasons for wanting it seem to be fading away every mile we travel. She sat up suddenly, staring at my face. It's just you and me, Al. That's all we need. Far ahead were the pin-point lights of an approaching car. They grew to dimes; then for a time, several seconds, they stayed that way. Then they swelled, projecting beams onto the road ahead, and suddenly flared, dazzling bright, and the car shot past us. This has been growing on me, Al, Tina went on, I've been thinking about it a lot. Back home there was a pressure on me. I was alone; and I had to have position, status, or whatever you want to call it. But that's all faded to nothing. I'm not back there now. I'm not alone, and that's all that matters. Her voice was pleading now. I don't need that money; Al, it doesn't even interest me any more. All I want is what I have. And, Al, I don't want to lose it.

  A great relief was rising up in me, filling me like water flowing into a cup. If Tina didn't need or want the money we were after, I didn't either. I'd never had money; I wasn't missing anything; Tina was all I'd ever really wanted, and now I had her. Till this moment I hadn't realized the pressure of fear and worry I'd been under, but now I felt it washing off me like mud in a hot shower. And now the night — the soft June air, the music, and Tina beside me — was heightened, and it was wonderful to be alive. The very thought of robbing Harold's Club was suddenly absurd; it was impossible that we'd ever seriously considered it. But I couldn't help saying, jerking my head at the trailer behind us, What about them, though? They're counting on me.

  No. They've got no right to count on you for one moment longer than you want to be in on it. Risking your life for the sake of money for them is more than they have a right to ask. That was the agreement! Anyone can drop out before we reach Nevada. And, Al, I want you to do it. Drop out, Al! You're not going to die, or waste your life in prison, for something we don't need or want.

  Only one thing bothered me. Brick and Jerry put a lot of money into this.

  They'll get most of it back! They can sell the car and trailer. Anyway, it is only money, and not too much; they can afford it. You can't risk your life for that few hundred dollars. And, Al, you'll be saving their lives too. Because it won't work! This whole scheme is utterly foolish; I couldn't see that back home, but now I do. It's fantastic. You're all just boys, really — they'll kill you! Al, you've got to—

  All right. I reached out to pat her gently; she'd said all I needed to hear. This whole thing was foolish; we'd been driving to doom, carried on by a meaningless momentum, and now I could and did drop the whole burden of it, and I'd never been so happy. I wanted to shout and cry out with relief, and I had to kiss Tina. It was close to siestatime, and I shifted to low and very slowly and carefully edged off into the desert. Then I drove along, as carefully as I could, rocking the trailer no more than I could help, for a hundred and fifty yards or so. I stopped and listened; there wasn't a sound from the trailer; they were still asleep. Then I cut the motor, turned to Tina and kissed her and held her and talked and murmured to her for I don't know how long.

  Fingernails drumming on the door sounded beside me, and I turned fast, startled. It was Guy, still looking sleepy, grinning a little. Seventh-inning stretch, he said quietly, and turned away.

  Tell them now? Tina whispered.

  Might as well, I said, and opened the door.

  Tina got out and strolled off, ahead of the car. Guy and Jerry were wandering off, separately, into the sage. Brick stood at the door of the trailer, a bulky silhouette against the silvery aluminum of the trailer under the moon. Walking toward him, I saw him fumbling in his shirt pocket for a cigarette. Got a minute, Brick? I stopped before him.

  Yeah, he said, and I turned from the trailer, Brick following, and we walked off into the desert.

  I don't know what accounted for the impulse to talk first to Brick, and alone. We'd appointed no one leader of the project. There was no boss, and if there had been, logically, it should have been Jerry; he'd done most of the detailed planning. But somehow, not realizing it then, I wanted to talk to Brick first, almost as though I were asking his permission.

  We threaded our way through sagebrush. Maybe a hundred yards straight out from the side of the trailer we found an abandoned fence post or railroad tie, and sat down on it.

  Brick, I kind of hate to tell you this—

  But you and Tina want out. He drew on his cigarette, and as it glowed I saw he was smiling. That it?

  Yeah. I guess it is. I'm sorry, but — Well, I can tell you our reasons if you're interested.

  No, he said casually, I'm not. I could probably make a pretty good guess.

  I guess you could.

  But I'm not interested in your reasons — Brick drew on his cigarette again; he was still smiling, looking at me pleasantly — because they don't matter. Not any more. Because I just can't let you quit, Al; this is too important to me. We've almost got our hands on real money; this'll work, and we'll never get another chance like it. I want money, Al, and I'm going to have it.

  I was embarrassed. Brick, I'm sorry, but this is something each guy has to decide for himself. That was the agreement. If you're worried about me talking, in case you go ahead—

  Oh, no. Brick's tone was polite. It isn't that. It's just that three aren't enough. I've got to have you.

  I'm sorry, Brick.

  Look, Al — he put a hand on my knee for a moment — I hate to talk tough; to a guy I like, especially. But I am tough, he said softly. I think you know that, but I don't think you know how tough I really am. Quickly he added, Don't make me talk about that, though. I want you to change your mind, Al, of your own free will, without me having to say any more. Al, you'll be glad! Think of the mon—

  What's this tough talk, Brick? Tell me more; don't save my face. Go ahead; scare me.

  He was silent for a moment or so, sitting there on the desert. Then he took out his cigarette pack. Cigarette, Al?

  Thanks. I took one and lighted it, looking at him steadily, so that he could see my face as the match flared.

  Al, you have to understand and believe this: I'm a guy who wants money. Then, if you really know anything about me, you'll know I'll do absolutely anything I have to to get it. This is the way to get it, and it's too good to pass up. We're going through with this. All of us. Don't make me say any more.

  I shook my head. No; go ahead. You interest me.

  Brick flicked his cigarette away in a long curving spark; the spark shattered on the sand. All right, Al, listen. You're going through with this or I'm going to give Tina a beating. By that I mean I'll work her over for a long time; it might take a good half hour. When I finish, she'll be alive, nothing broken; she'll be in the hospital, but she'll recover — physically, that is. But, Al, it would do something to her spiritually that she'd never get over. I know people, and that's how it would be with Tina. It would be very painful. She'd scream, and after she couldn't scream, she'd—

  I'll kill you. I whispered it. Then I stood up suddenly, a raw red mist over everything, and started to scream it. I'll kill you, you dirty, rotten, filth
y—

  He yanked me down hard by one arm. Shut up! I was filling my lungs again when he actually shook me so I couldn't talk. Shut up, Al, or believe me you'll be sorry; listen to me now! — the words spilled out before I could answer. He paused, watching me for a moment, then said, I know you will, if you can. You'll certainly try — if you can find me. But I won't be around, Al; I'll run because I'll be afraid of you. You'll want to kill me, if you die for it; but I'll be on my way and I'll keep on going. I don't think you'll find me. Anyway, that's a risk I'll take.

  The red mist was gone, the rage quiet and controlled. I'll kill you beforehand. Before I'll let you even lay a hand—

  No. Brick reached into his shirt pocket for another cigarette. That's the funny thing, Al; you won't. You ought to, but you won't. It's odd, but I think little Guy would, if he were in your spot. But not you. Afterward, yes; I hope I never meet up with you then. He shrugged. But you just aren't a guy who could ever bring himself to kill a man before he'd actually done anything. Think about it a minute.

  I sat staring, pulling the cigarette smoke in, in great heavy drags — and I didn't know. I just couldn't tell whether Brick was right or not, and the possibility that he was right scared me. Listen, Brick, this is foolish. Whether you're right or wrong about what I'd do to stop you, what good would it do you? You ever touch Tina, and this much I know — I'll kill you.

  He nodded. I know. If you can. But afterward, not before.

  All right. Maybe. Only don't be too sure.

  Brick just grinned, dragging on his cigarette.

  Okay, I said impatiently. But what's the point? The plan will be finished then, and—

  This is the point. He tapped me on the knee to emphasize it. I'll have to go through with it then — because of what it means now. Don't you see that? Right now, you've got to know in your bones that I'll do it.

  If I tell Guy and Jerry—

  They'll side with you, and the project will be finished, he said impatiently. Al, don't you see? You kill this plan in any way and what I said goes.

  I'll stick with Tina every second from now on. We'll leave the trailer, and you'll never get the chance—

  Impossible. If not one day, the next. If not one week or month, then the next, or the next after that. If not here, somewhere else. You can't stick with Tina forever; there'll have to come a time when you're not around. But I'll be around, wherever you try to go. I mean it, Al, because I've got to mean it. He sat watching me for a moment, then stood up and walked on back toward the trailer.

  Once again we were moving, the trailer swaying gently, Guy at the wheel for the last night shift. Tina lay asleep between me and the trailer wall; Jerry slept against the opposite wall; and beside me Brick lay quietly asleep on his back. My hands clasped under my head, I lay there awake till daybreak.

  I thought first about running. I could simply open the trailer door when we stopped for a traffic light in some town, take Tina's hand, step out onto the street, and announce that we were through. Brick could follow us, but would he? I thought he might not. Because, with the project actually washed-up, what would be the point, no matter what he had said? And yet — he might. People do foolish and useless things. He might; I couldn't tell!

  I figured out how to kill him then: a flat tire, here on the desert. If I got a nail in the trailer tire, a slow leak, the jack would have to stand on sand. Get Brick changing that tire, and when the wheel was off, the others inside the trailer out of the sun, hit him with the tire iron, probably. Then jam his head under the fender, kick out the jack; half the weight of the trailer would drop onto his neck. It was a likely kind of accident. It could happen, if a man were careless; maybe had happened. I pictured it. Brick in the blue-black shade of the trailer, kneeling beside the exposed axle. I saw myself pick up the tire iron, feeling it warm in my hand from the sand; saw myself raising it to shoulder height, just behind Brick's bowed head, tensing my grip — Then the picture broke like a torn movie film, became unreal, unbelievable, impossible.

  Brick was right! There are people with the violence in their nature to act without thought at the right moment and place without care of consequences. And there are people, instead, who think too much. Brick knew me; I was one of the people who planned, imagined, and went over the act in their minds until the act itself was impossible. I remembered the phrase from Hamlet; we'd studied it in an English literature class. Sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, Shakespeare said. It was true; you can think till the act becomes sickly and unreal, impossible. The kind of violence it takes to kill a man wasn't possible for me until the man had done something — not threatened — but actually done something. Against Brick's threat alone I was helpless.

  Tina asked no questions that day. I'd told her the night before, when I got back to the trailer, that I hadn't been able to break the news yet, I knew the others would be so terribly disappointed. But there was time, I said, and I would pretty soon. She'd had to accept that; Brick was already in the trailer, Guy and Jerry were approaching, and a few minutes later we were on our way.

  We opened canned fruit the next morning and passed around zwieback and water, our standard breakfast. We didn't talk any more at breakfast. We all just sat staring at the floor or a wall, making ourselves eat, getting set to wait out one more day. And we got through it as we had the others. I slept a lot, or lay pretending to sleep. In the afternoon Tina read aloud.

  That night I asked for the first relief shift; Brick was willing, knowing, I supposed, why I wanted it, and Guy didn't mind. In the car with Tina I offered an explanation of why I had to stay with the project. Brick had to have the money, I said, for reasons I couldn't explain, and I felt honorbound to go through with it. I told her too that I'd thought things over and still wanted the money; and I repeated all the reasons we'd given ourselves back at school, trying to sound as though I still believed them.

  She argued, quietly and confidently at first. But time passed, moving along through the night; and when finally we'd each said everything there was to say, she saw I hadn't changed. She didn't like it, it frightened her, but she had to accept it. There's a stubborn mule-headed insistence men sometimes get about obscure points of ethics, and women — knowing better themselves — get to know there is nothing to do about it, and I think Tina attributed my decision to something like that. She accepted it; she had to, finally.

  The next morning, during Guy's shift, he honked the horn in a shave-and-a-haircut rhythm, and we knew we'd just crossed the Nevada State boundary. Jerry said, Yay! in a mock cheer, and so did Brick; he was tactful enough not to look at me, and I managed a smile, as though I were glad too.

  At nine the next evening, Jerry at the wheel, the horn sounded once, and Guy and I stood up to peek through the slats of one of the blinds. An instant later the black-and-white “Reno City Limits” sign slid past, and we saw that the highway was turning into a city street. We sat down then and waited, and I knew that already the signposts on each corner we passed were reading “S. Virginia St.” Within a few minutes we felt the street curve, and I knew that just ahead the Riverside and Mapes hotels were silhouetted against the neon-pink sky, the Truckee River tumbling along below and beside them. Now we crawled in low gear, the street heavy with traffic; and from the sidewalks I heard the shuffle of leather, heard voices and laughter, and knew the town was jammed with people.

  The white slats of the blinds turned pink, and all around us, we knew now, were the screaming red, green, white, yellow, pink, and orange neon lights of the gambling casinos; and even through the walls of the trailer we heard the Reno sound: the unceasing mechanical clunk of the slot machines. And loudest of all, the biggest and brightest — I knew we must be passing it at that moment — was the club with the enormous sign, over two stories high, running right up the north corner at the front of the building. “Harold's Club” it was saying in huge brilliant letters across the top of the building, then repeating itself in a vertical line down the front. “Harold's Club.” A moment
later we bumped across the railroad tracks and were suddenly out of the small, gaudy gambling center of the city.

  The trailer swung slowly, rocking, in a tight awkward circle, then stopped. We heard the hand brake being set and knew we were parked just across the railroad tracks, less than a block from the thronged heart of the city. The motor died, and outside the trailer it was al-most silent. Here, as in most of Reno once you cross the boundaries of the few square blocks of gambling casinos, we were in a quiet small town. Reno is mostly tree-lined streets, small houses, people watering their lawns in summer. Within the narrow limits of the center of town it's as crowded, brilliant, and feverish as Broadway; cross a street, walk on a few paces, and you begin to hear summer locusts drone in the trees.

  The trailer door opened and Jerry stepped in, closing it behind him. Then Guy turned to a cardboard carton, opened it, and as he had the first night out, began handing us cowboy shirts and hats. This time he wasn't smiling; our faces were set and tense; Jerry's was dead-white under the ceiling battery light.

  I took my shirt and hat; and now Tina stood before me, slipping her hands under my arms, holding onto me. Guy, Brick, and Jerry busied themselves around the cardboard box, buttoning their shirts, taking out the false beards, giving Tina and me, as well as they could in the tiny trailer, a last moment alone.

  Al, said Tina. That's all she said, but her face said the rest. I was horribly frightened; with all my being I wanted to do what she was asking. From a corner of my eye I could see Brick's back bent over the box of equipment and knew he was listening. I smiled, putting my hands on Tina's shoulders to draw her to me. See you in half an hour, Baby, I said quietly, then kissed her, holding her to me for several long seconds. Then I looked down at her again. You got the address?

  Tina nodded, touching the purse in her hand. Yes. Her eyes were sick, and I knew she was wondering if she'd ever see me alive again.