The Crossroads

by John D. MacDonald

  He patted the seat of her shorts as he released her. “Be wearing a wide grin for ole Pete when I get back, puss.”

  “Lo, the intrepid mariners,” Joan said.

  He grinned at her. “The Rover boys goof again, Sis.”

  “Let’s roll,” Jack said. “Come on. ’Bye, gals.” He gunned the engine. Pete climbed in, shoved his lucky hat onto the back of his head. The wagon went down the drive and turned right. They could see it again after it had made the turn by Chip’s house, going up the slope and over the crest toward the Motor Hotel and the highway.

  It was the first time Joan had been with Sylvia since she had overheard the phone conversation. Sylvia, in rust-colored short shorts and a pale-yellow blouse, high-heeled sandals and gold hoop earrings, stood squinting and frowning in the sun, her posture bad, looking small and rather dumpy and discouraged. She was at her worst in sunshine, Joan thought. She’s made for dark places.

  “Off they go,” Joan said. “Come on in for a coffee break, Sylvia.”

  “What? Oh, no thanks, honest.”

  “Then come watch me drink some. We never get a chance to talk.”

  “Okay,” the girl said listlessly. She followed Joan into her kitchen, sat in the incongruous Boston rocker by the kitchen fireplace and crossed her ripe dusky legs.

  Joan felt that she was chattering. She could not bring Sylvia out of her shell. She provided a half dozen openings which, had Sylvia been in any mood for confession, she would have taken. But she could not dent the listlessness, or get anything but mechanical answers to trivial questions. She watched Sylvia trudge slowly back to her own house. Joan went back to the office. As she walked by the Jeana Louise Shop she looked in and saw Jeana standing by a display case, talking to an elderly couple. She turned as Joan walked by and gave her a quick wave and her wonderful smile.

  Chip was coming out of his office as she approached. He straddled the Vespa, chugged over to her and cut the motor, sat balancing it with one foot braced against the gravel drive.

  “You look thoughtful,” he said.

  “I just saw Jack and Pete off. Then had a little chat with Sylvia. She’s acting … a little dreary lately.”

  “She’s basically dreary, isn’t she?”

  “You know what I mean. Up until lately she’s been, at least, a goodhumored little thing.”

  “I suppose. Say, what’s this about the Daniel Shop?”

  “Everybody around here has their own radar! I didn’t find out about it until today. He wants an extension on the rent. Fifteen days.”

  “What did you decide?”

  “Give it to him.”

  “What’s the story?”

  “He’s been going downhill for six months. Bad buying, bad stock control, bad advertising, bad customer relations.”

  “Will he go under?”

  “Yes. Without a doubt.”

  “And you could rent the space right away?”

  “In a minute.”

  “Then why the generosity, Joan? I don’t get it.”

  “You have a flaw, Chip. You lean too hard. First, he’s going to have a big clearance sale and move a lot of the stuff at cost. We’ll get the money. Secondly, he talks too much about his problems, and he is going to make it well known that we gave him a break. Our other tenants will know that if they have some trouble, we’ll go along. It makes good relations.”

  He grinned at her. “Why do I bother questioning your judgment?”

  “Get there early for the sale. He does have some handsome Italian sports shirts and some wonderful doeskin Daks. It starts Monday.”

  “All the other tenants happy and healthy?”

  “Extremely. How about the auto agency?”

  “They break ground Monday.”

  “How’s Nancy making out?”

  “She’s not complaining and she’s stopped limping. She might even last the whole summer.”

  “You better take a closer look at the dainty little jaw on my niece, Chip. That gal will never quit anything she starts.”

  “We should have more of them in the family, Sis.”

  “I suppose.”

  She watched him ride off, heading south, his broad back dwarfing the scooter, bloused shirt rippling. She walked into her office, her mind back on Sylvia.

  At three-thirty in the morning Glenn drove Sylvia back to the municipal parking lot and pulled in on the left of her car. As she reached for the door handle he caught her arm and pulled her back.

  “Don’t be in such a rush.”

  “It’s awful late, Glenn. Somebody could see me coming in so late.”

  “That would be a terrible shame, kid. You flip me. You really do. You line up this deal we’re going to do … I’m going to do … and you’re as cold as a damn piece of ice about it. But you get in a big sweat about going home late.”

  “It’s different.”

  “I want to talk to you another couple of minutes, so lean back. You act like I’m some kind of a slob. You give the orders. I got some ideas too, kid. I’ve been thinking. My neck is going to be out a hell of a lot further than yours is. I’ve got some ideas about this thing. See what you think of this …”

  “Glenn!”

  “Shut up. This car is too damn conspicuous. This is the way I want to do it. Take it from when I walk out of the bank with the money. I got my suitcase in the trunk. Okay. As soon as you’ve phoned me, you’ve started out, heading east on 82. I get in my car and head east and I’ll get on 82 east of Walterburg. You keep it at about forty and I’ll catch up with you maybe fifty miles east of here. Soon as I pass you, you follow me. I’ll find some side road to pull off into. There’s some wild country over that way. I’ll put my stuff in your car. I’ll take the plate off this crate and find a good place to run it off, maybe into one of those lakes over that way. I’ll have a Florida plate to put on the Chevy. There’s one kicking around the station I can lift. It fell off a car going by over a month ago. We ditch our two plates and keep going in the Chevy. When we stop that night, you be fixed up with some junk to turn you into a blonde, baby. We’ll ditch the Chevy someplace in Texas and we’ll cross …”

  “No! We’ll do it my way, Glenn. I told you and told you. I’ll find a place for you to meet me. But … maybe we could go in the Chevy. If you think that’s best.”

  He sighed. “So we use one of my ideas anyhow.” He cupped his hand on her large solid breast. “It scares me, baby, when I think of what we’re doing.”

  “It’s an awful lot of money. I got to go, honey.”

  “Will you turn into a blonde?”

  “If you really want me to, I guess. Leggo me, Glenn, please.”

  He kissed her and let her go. She drove out. He waited a few minutes and then drove out of the parking lot, back through the empty night streets to his room.

  Sylvia drove down 71 to the Crossroads. All the units at the Motor Hotel were dark. She was happy to be off the highway. The big trucks that hammered through the night, passing her car, scared her. As she passed the Motor Hotel office she saw the night man leaning on the desk near the switchboard, reading. As she dipped down over the crest she turned her motor and lights off. She could see the road by starlight. She coasted almost silently to her driveway, left the car out, latched the car door carefully and went in. She drew a hot tub and lay in it for a long time, soaking. She had never been so tired in all her life, or so unhappy.

  On Monday, the second day of July, at ten-fifteen, Glenn Lawrenz went to the Walterburg Bank and Trust Company and rented one of the larger boxes, paying cash. He wore the sedate brown suit, a brown felt hat, a white shirt and a conservative tie. His shoes were polished. His cheeks were padded with cotton. He carried a brown dispatch case he had purchased at a pawnshop. It was scuffed, but appeared to be of good quality. He wore a pair of glasses with heavy frames. He had lifted them off the front seat of a car from Indiana while sweeping the floor boards. The correction was slight, but it bothered him, and the bows hurt his ears. He pitched hi
s voice higher than usual and spoke more rapidly. And he did not smile.

  The whole routine was far simpler than he had anticipated. The woman took his money, wrote down his name and address, had him sign a signature card, gave him a receipt for the box rental, two keys in a small red cardboard envelope and explained what it would cost to have the box opened should he lose both keys. He hoped the address was satisfactory. It was the rooming house where he had first stayed when he came to Walterburg, one he had been requested to leave.

  He followed her into the vault and got the box. She showed him where to take it. It was just as Sylvia had explained it to him. A hushed place, narrow aisle between the cubicles, soft dark-green rug. You couldn’t see down the aisle from either the front desk or the vault. Somebody had to be coming or leaving to catch you.

  He sat in the small booth and lit a cigarette. He missed his watch badly. Get one as soon as they were free and clear with the money. Get a damn good one, one of those things about the same size and thickness as a silver dollar. Solid gold with a solid gold wrist band. Initials on the back.

  Stay in here a long time. Get her used to it. Half to three quarters of an hour every time at least. Come here three times a week. And sit. He inspected the safety deposit box curiously. It would hold plenty of cash. Funny, a girl like that thinking of a deal like this.

  He heard somebody pass his booth, breathing asthmatically, shut themselves in a booth, clunk their box on the small counter. Sounds carry pretty well in here. Too damn well. Be careful not to give the old guy a chance to yell. He clicked open the dispatch case. The padded piece of pipe was wrapped in a dirty piece of toweling. He transferred it to the safety deposit box. Good place for it.

  How the hell long have I been here? God, she’s a good piece. Break your back if she tried. But there’s thousands as good. And they drop right out of the trees if you have the money. Get across the border and ditch her. Get it steady and get a lot of it all the way down. Remember what Roagen was telling you that time? About if you had the right contacts, and the girl didn’t have anybody who’d make a big stink with the government, and if she was young and stacked, and you had the contacts down there, you could sell them for a good price, to guys who knew how to keep them in line. Take their identifications away from them. Blondes were easier to unload. Roagen said if you ever checked it out to find out how many broads between twenty-two and thirty disappeared without a trace every year, in Mexico and Cuba and the islands, it would curl your hair tight. Maybe Roagen had been piling it on with a shovel. But he said it was an international kind of thing. They run them down through the S.A. circuit, maybe a couple of years. By the time they’re beat down, they get shipped out to the Orient or the Middle East, and work a crib in Cairo or Calcutta or Shanghai or one of those places. By then they wouldn’t come home if they could.

  Roagen had the contacts all right. He explained the whole deal that night. He’d been working for some pretty big guys in Nevada and L.A. He said somebody’d spot some cute crazy kid and bird-dog her for one of the big shots. She’d get maybe a year of minks and ringside tables, then they’d start passing her down the line. When she began to get in everybody’s hair, somebody would take her on a little vacation to Mexico. Roagen said he’d done it a few times. They never came back. Depending on condition, they were worth from five hundred to twenty-five hundred bucks. They gave you a couple of pills to stick into a drink. By the time they woke up they had new friends, and they were a long holler from any Mexican cops, even if you could get one to listen.

  Sylvia wasn’t any blonde, but she was going to turn into one. From what she said, her own family didn’t know where she was and didn’t give a damn. And after this deal, the Droveks wouldn’t give a damn either. If you could make the right contact, she maybe would bring a good price. And, as far as her ever getting back to the States and shooting off her mouth about who slugged Papa, it would be just as effective as killing her.

  How long have I been here now?

  Roagen always had a lot of things working for him. He didn’t overlook a thing. I’ve got to play this like Roagen. Go over it in my mind so many times that when it comes along it will be automatic. Maybe she’s planning how to cross me up. Can’t tell what she’s thinking. Don’t give her a chance.

  When he left he was surprised to find that only twenty minutes had passed. He walked to his car, moving swiftly, face turned from people walking toward him. He stopped on a quiet street, put the cotton and glasses in the dispatch case along with the deposit box keys. He put the necktie in his jacket pocket and the hat on the seat beside him. He shifted the rear-vision mirror, peered into it carefully as he combed his hair. He grimaced, showing himself his even teeth.

  It hadn’t been tough at all, he thought. Not so far. Done everything just right. Careful about everything, even thinking up a name to use. Thought of some pretty good names. Gregory Gable. Clark Armstrong. And then I got smart. Every little delay is going to help. Thought of somebody who has a beef against the Droveks. Couldn’t remember his last name. Had to ask around in a smart way until I got it. Heard he’s still in the area. It may give us an extra hour or two, while they hunt up the guy they think rented the box and sapped Papa. Mark Brodey. He has a beef. They fired him.

  On the following Friday afternoon at two o’clock, following Glenn’s third uneventful visit to the bank, Glenn and Sylvia met in the last row of a second-run movie house six blocks from his rooming house. No one was sitting near them. Glenn risked lighting a match to look at the small crude map she had drawn for him.

  “You better drive out and take a look at it so you’ll be able to find it all right.”

  “Okay, okay. I can find it all right.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you, honey.”

  “With your car, right?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Make sure it’s gassed up good, running right. I might have to push it pretty hard, baby.”

  “All right.” Her fingers closed cold on his wrist. “I won’t see you again until it’s over.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “It’s too much risk, honey. Honest. When it’s over we can be together all the time.”

  “You’re nuts about me, huh?”

  “I’m crazy about you, honey.”

  “You got the number to call me at that I give you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe I’ll answer; maybe somebody else’ll answer. Be sure. It’s a pay booth in a saloon. Be sure you got me before you say anything. Nick opens at nine. I’ll be there from nine on.”

  “Don’t get drunk, honey.”

  “The way I’m going to feel, forty drinks wouldn’t touch me. But I’ll take it real easy. Just a couple of shots. For my nerves. Remember, if somebody comes along the wrong second, we’ll have to wait a month.”

  “I know.”

  “And that means I don’t see you for all that time too?”

  “Maybe we could figure something out. Something safe. I got to go, Glenn.”

  He held her, kissed her, ran his hands over her body until his breathing was shallow and fast. She pulled away from him, whispered goodbye and left him there. He sat through another half hour of space opera and walked out into thunder and a heavy rain.

  On Saturday morning, using the map she had given him, he drove south on 71. Three miles beyond the city limits he turned left at a light and drove two miles over to State Route 118, a two-lane asphalt road that headed roughly southeast. Twelve miles from where he had turned onto 118 he slowed down and began looking for the collapsed barn on his right. He found it, a great pile of gray boards and timbers, with one angle of the roof sticking about ten feet up into the air. A hundred yards beyond it, on the right, he found the turnoff she had marked. But a farm truck was coming, so he drove right on by. When the road was empty again, he found a place where he could turn around and head back. When he reached the turnoff, the state road was empty. He turned off quickly. It was a narrow gravel road that made S
curves between high banks. Grass grew tall in the middle of the one-lane road, and he was not pleased to see fresh-looking grease that had rubbed off the underside of cars onto it.

  Three hundred yards from the state road, the road ended in a rude bowl set in the small hills. The far banks were cut steeply away, but vines had begun to cling to the raw earth. He saw that it had once been a gravel pit. But now it was filled with deep blue water riffled slightly by the morning wind. The road slanted right to the edge of the water. He backed around so that the car was heading out, turned off the motor and got out.

  He soon found out why the winding road showed recent signs of use. He saw where cars had parked, saw the great quantity of beer cans, ranging from shells of rust to gleaming newness, saw the litter of empty cigarette packages, the broken and unbroken pint bottles, and the latex spoor of roadside love. A hidden place, where they’d come at night, but not during the day. He stood and heard the bugs in the grass, and heard a noisy car clatter by on 118. When the sound had faded away he broke a long branch and tested the depth of the water. It seemed to shelve off deeply, but he couldn’t be sure until he had taken off his shoes, socks and trousers and waded out a little way. Ten feet from shore it was at least fifteen feet deep. Probably more. The water was unusually icy. He guessed the pit had been abandoned when they had broken through into water-bearing strata. Finally, reluctantly, he stripped down, waded in again, swam out about twenty feet and dived. He could not reach bottom. He surfaced, gasping, swam to shore and came out, shivering. The sun soon warmed him and dried his body.

  He grinned. She knew what she was doing. It made the whole thing look better. Give the Ford a good start and it would tuck itself right down out of sight. And off they’d go in the Chev, wearing the Florida plate he’d smuggled into the Ford and had hidden under the rubber floor mat in front on the right side. He took a last look around. Brush grew tall about ten feet to the left. He kicked a beer can into the pond. It floated, one third out of water. He threw rocks at it until it sank.