“I heard on the radio that the fingerprints on the safe belonged to Otto Finney. That's hard to believe, isn't it?”
“You can't ever tell about people, I guess. Anything new out here?”
“Everything's about the same.” Then he grinned. “By , golly, there is something. You remember the guy with the blonde wife, the ones in the blue Buick?”
An anvil dropped in my stomach.
“Well,” Ike said, “they're back.”
Chapter Ten
I couldn't believe it. It was impossible! They couldn't be stupid enough to come back here at a time like this!
But they had. That blue Buick was parked in the carport beside Number 2, like the returning of a nightmare. “I don't know what we've got,” Ike said, “but they must like it. This is the third time they've stopped here, isn't it?”
“I don't remember.”
“Sure, two times before. I remember the last time was the night the box factory was robbed.”
I was about to blow up. Why had they come back? “Maybe you're right,” I said, and my voice was surprisingly calm. I felt like yelling.
“You goin' to town tonight?” Ike asked.
“No. There's no need of your staying on; I'll close the station myself.”
“I don't mind staying.”
“Ike, take the night off. I want to go over the books, anyway.” He stood there grinning, and I could have slugged him. “What's the matter with you? What are you grinning at?”
“Why, nothing, I guess. Is anything wrong?”
“No, nothing's wrong. Go on, Ike, take the night off.”
“Whatever you say, Joe.”
I was tingling all over. I wanted to get that Sheldon by the throat and beat some sense into his stupid skull. And Ike wouldn't leave. He kept puttering around for maybe five minutes while I tried to keep from yelling.
“Well, if you're sure you won't need me tonight...” he said finally.
“I won't need you, Ike. That's the truth.”
I was as tight as a drum. Just about another minute of Ike and I would have exploded. But he left. I was never so glad to get rid of anybody in my life.
Now that he was gone, I didn't know what to do. I had to see Sheldon. I had to find out if he had completely lost his mind. He must have lost his mind, coming back here at a time like this! At least Paula should have known better.
I was afraid to leave the station untended, but it looked like the only way. As soon as Ike was out of sight, I headed for Number 2. There was a coldness inside me; I was ready to take somebody's throat in my hands and start squeezing.
Paula was at the door when I got there, and the sight of her jarred me. She looked as though she hadn't slept for a week. That blonde hair wasn't as blonde as it had been before, and it looked as though it hadn't been combed since the night of the robbery. I jerked the door open and said, “What the hell do you mean, coming back here?”
She took two steps back, like a sleepwalker, and glanced at the bed. Sheldon was stretched out on the covers, his face flushed, his lips tight. One shirt sleeve had been ripped off at the shoulder and his left arm was bound with what looked to be dirty rags.
“Hooper?” he almost whispered.
“Goddamn you, why did you—”
“I've got to have a doctor,” he said, talking through clenched teeth.
I wheeled on Paula, who still hadn't made a sound. “What's wrong with him?”
She smiled then, without humor. “He's been shot.”
The full implications still didn't hit me. “How did it happen?”
“We'll go into that later.”
“We'll go into it now!”
She shrugged. “All right We were in Texas. We saw this drugstore, a little hick drugstore in a little one-horse town in Texas. I was buying some aspirin and I saw the druggist go to the safe, and I saw the money there. It looked easy.” She sighed wearily. “There must have been a week's take there in a safe that I could have opened myself.”
“And then what happened?”
“For God's sake,” Sheldon said hoarsely, “don't stand there talking. I've got to have a doctor!”
“And then what happened?” I said again.
Again Paula smiled that smile that wasn't a smile at all. “We took the drugstore that night. Or we almost did. The town marshal, a hick town marshal, just happened to see us as we were leaving. The whole town was asleep, but not that hick marshal. He was a hero. He had been wearing that six-shooter for God knows how long, just waiting for a chance to use it. And he used it oil Karl.”
“But why come here, all the way from Texas?”
“Karl's got blood poisoning, I think.”
“But why did you come here?” I insisted. She sank to a chair beside the kitchen table.
“Because,” she said, “Karl has to have a doctor. And because doctors don't treat gunshot wounds without reporting them. And,” she added, “because I remembered that your father was a doctor and I thought maybe he would overlook the report if it was for a friend of yours.”
That stunned me. It had been obvious all the time, but she had to spell it out for me before I got it.
“You're crazy!”
She shrugged, very lightly.
“You must be insane,” I almost yelled. “Or maybe you just don't know what an honest man is like. Well, that's what my father is. Nothing in the world could make him take a case like this and not report it!”
“Not even to save his son from the electric chair?”
She had me.
She knew she had me, and she could start turning the screw any time she felt like it. And she felt like it right now. She stood up suddenly, and she didn't look so tired now. She pushed her hair back and looked straight at me with those cool blue eyes. “I'm not going to argue about this. Karl has to have a doctor.”
“Then get one of your own!”
“You know that's impossible. Your father is the doctor we want, the one we're going to have.”
And then a car honked outside and the sound made me jump.
“What's that?” Her eyes brightened just a little.
“Somebody at the station. A customer. I've got to get back.”
“Have you got a telephone at the station?”
“No.”
The corners of her mouth turned up again. “Sure you have. Well, call your father and tell him to get out here, understand?”
The car honked again and we stood there staring at each other, and even then, at a time like that, I kept thinking what a hell of a woman she was. She had looks, she had brains, and she could set a man on fire. I hated her guts at that moment, and it was all I could do to keep my hands off her.
“For God's sake!” Sheldon groaned.
“You'd better go, Joe,” she said, and fatigue crept back into her face. I turned on my heel. “And don't forget to call your father,” she added as I went out the door.
I was shaking with rage when I got back to the station. The guy was just beginning to honk the horn again as I rounded the corner. “All right!” I yelled. “All right!”
They were tourists, a fat old geezer of about sixty and a little pinch-faced woman. I looked in the car window and said, “Fill her up?”
“No, we just want a cabin,” the man said.
Of all the times to get business! “I'm sorry,” I said, “we're full up.”
“You've got a 'Vacancy' sign out,” the little old woman said peevishly.
“I just forgot to take it in, ma'am. Sorry.”
“Don't look like you're full,” the man complained. “There ain't but one car back there. I looked as we drove up.”
I could feel my nerves unraveling. “Mister,” I said tightly, “I've got no vacancy. Why don't you try one of the other motels? There are plenty of them down the road.”
“The good places are all filled,” the old woman whined.
The man said, “Look here, son, I'm not as young as I used to be. Driving tires me, and I've been driv
ing all day. You sure you haven't got some kind of place?”
“For Christ's sake!” I exploded. “How many times do I have to tell you? We've got no vacancy!”
“Well!” The little old woman pulled herself up, outraged. The fat man got red in the face. I turned my back on them and went back to the station as they drove off.
I was still shaking. I took the “Vacancy” sign down and put the “No Vacancy” up, the first time it had been up since I started running the place.
At that moment Paula stepped through the station doorway. She had washed her face and combed her hair and put on fresh lipstick and she looked like ten million dollars.
“Have you called your father?” she said.
“I'm not dragging my father into this, Paula. That's something you'd better get straight.”
Surprisingly, she smiled. “All right. If that's the way you want it.” She stood up, lazily, like a young savage. Then she stepped to the wall phone and picked up the thin directory.
“What are you doing?”
“I'm going to call a doctor, any doctor.”
“You can't! Any doctor you call will have to report that gunshot wound!”
“It can't be helped,” she said, as though it didn't make any difference to her one way or the other. “Karl will die if that arm doesn't get attention.”
“Then let him die!” I took Paula's arms and held her tight. “What do you care what happens to him? You don't love him. You despise him. I can see it in your eyes every time you look at him.”
I must have been hurting her, but she only shrugged. “Maybe, Joe,” she said softly, “but he's been good to me.”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
This time her smile was edged with bitterness. “Joe,” she said huskily, “could you guess what I was before Karl married me? Could you guess what I did for a living?”
I turned her loose. I could guess.
“That's the reason I won't let him die,” she said. “Love has nothing to do with it. Karl has everything to gain and nothing to lose by calling a doctor. If the wound is reported, if the story gets to the police—well, it was you that killed the watchman, Joe.” She found a number, then lifted the receiver, and I could hear the operator answer.
I slammed the hook down with my hand.
“Well, Joe?” she asked softly.
She had me and she knew it. I picked up the phone and gave the number.
“Hello, Dad?”
Chapter Eleven
It was closing time but I was still at the station, waiting, wondering what I was going to say when my father came out of that cabin, wondering how I was going to explain it to him. Then I heard his footsteps—those slow, weary footsteps—as he came around to the front of the station. He looked a hundred years old as he came in and set down his bag.
“How's the patient, Dad?” It sounded insane, but he didn't seem to notice.
“Blood poisoning,” he said heavily. “Another day without attention would have killed him. He still stands a chance of losing that arm.” He reached for the phone and I jumped.
“Who're you calling, Dad?”
“The Sheriffs office. That man has a gunshot wound and I have to report it.”
“But it was an accident, Dad. Didn't they tell you?” I was hoping that he wouldn't notice how I was sweating. “You don't have to report it, do you, if it was an accident?”
“All gunshot wounds have to be reported and investigated, Joe. You know that.” He reached for the phone again and I stopped his hand with mine.
“Dad, as a favor to me, don't report this one. These people are friends of mine and I know it will be all right. Just don't bother them.”
Those old eyes looked puzzled, and I couldn't tell whether he suspected anything or not. “Joe,” he said slowly, “you know I have to make a report. I'd be breaking the law if I didn't.”
“Then you'll have to break the law, Dad.” And that was when he began to notice things. He noticed the sweat, the veins standing out on my forehead, and I guess he saw some things in my eyes that scared him. He felt for a chair and sat down very slowly.
“What is it you're trying to tell me, Joe?”
I couldn't tell him. I couldn't bring myself to hurt him any more than was absolutely necessary, but he knew something was wrong, and he knew it was bad. And he was waiting.
“Joe,” he said finally, “you're in trouble, aren't you?”
“Yes.”
“Is it bad?”
I couldn't look at him. I nodded.
He just sat there, looking at his hands. Those white, thin hands. After a moment he said quietly, “Why did you do it, Joe? Was it because of that woman?”
I didn't understand at first. Then it began to come, and an unexpected hope began growing inside me. He thought I had shot Sheldon! I took hold of that hope and held it tight, I held it with all the strength that was in me.
And then I was talking. “Dad, I don't know how it happened. I'd tell you if I could, but I don't know.” I saw the opening and the words came pouring out. “You saw what kind of woman she is. When she came playing around, I lost my head, I guess. I know that's not much of an excuse, but that's the way it was. And lien her husband found out what was going on, and there was a scuffle. I don't know.... There was a gun in it somewhere, and it went off, and when it was over there was a bullet in his arm.”
He just sat there.
“Dad,” I said, “don't you see why you can't turn in that report? The whole story would come out and the whole town would know about it.”
He folded and unfolded those white hands, saying nothing.
“Dad, the rest of my life depends on what you do about this report Should one mistake be that expensive? Just one mistake!”
“I was thinking about Beth,” he said heavily. “I didn't want to meddle any more in your affairs, Joe, but that woman, that man's wife, is she the one? Is she the reason you and Beth stopped seeing each other?”
I said nothing and let him think what he wanted to think. His hands trembled as he fumbled for his handkerchief and wiped aimlessly at his forehead.
I couldn't tell how I was doing. I couldn't tell what he was thinking or how much of the story he believed. “Dad,” I said tightly, “you hold the lives of three people in your hands. What happens to us now is up to you.”
He was hurt, but not nearly as hurt as he would have been if I had told him the truth. He looked at me once, then picked up his bag and slowly got to his feet. “Fm tired, Joe, very tired. I think I'll go home now.”
“The report, Dad. What are you going to do about it?”
He smiled then, and it was the saddest expression I'd ever seen. “It's a terrible thing,” he said, “holding other people's lives in your, hands. It makes an old man out of you. Maybe you were right, Joe, in not wanting to be a doctor.”
“The report?”
“I've never broken the law, that I know of.” And he smiled that sad smile again. “Maybe I'm overdue.” He walked out of the station, a little older, a little more bent, a little more tired. Relief washed over me like an icy sea. “I'll come back tomorrow,” he said wearily, “and treat the man's arm.”
“Tomorrow night, Dad, after I've closed the station. It has to be at night.”
“All right. Tomorrow night.” He got into his car, a battered old Dodge, and I stood there in the station doorway as he drove onto the highway and headed toward town. I felt as though the weight of the universe had been lifted from my shoulders. I took great gulps of air into my lungs and felt young again, and strong.
I never closed the station faster than I did that night. I took in the hose and oil displays, I locked the pumps and the door, and when I headed for Number 2 it was all I could do to keep from running.
Paula had the door open for me. “What happened?”
“It's all right,” I said. I walked over to the bed where Sheldon lay quietly, his eyes closed. “How about him?”
“He's asleep. What did
you tell your father?”
“I told you everything was all right. He thinks I shot your husband.”
She blinked. That was all. Then she laughed. “Your father didn't like me Very much. He didn't approve of me. He thinks I led you astray, doesn't he?”
“Something like that.”
“And he knows about the robbery?”
“Not a thing. He doesn't even suspect anything.”
“Well,” she said, smiling, “you've got brains. I'm glad you didn't disappoint me by not using them.”
There never was another woman like Paula Sheldon. She didn't have to talk. What she had to say she could say with her eyes and her body. I lit a cigarette for her and one for me, and we stood there for one long moment saying nothing. Suddenly I reached for her, but she stepped aside as gracefully as a cat.
“No!”
“What's the matter with you?”
“I think you'd better go to your cabin,” she said. “You look like you could use some sleep.” Carelessly she dropped her cigarette to the floor and stepped on it, then she went over to the bed and placed the back of her hand to Sheldon's forehead. I followed and put one arm around her.
“That's enough,” she said flatly.
I wheeled her around, pinning her arms to her side, and when I put my mouth to hers it was like setting fire to a keg of powder. Her arms went around my neck. She melted and flowed against me and I could feel the nervous ripple of her body, the softness of her, the heat of her.
Then it was over. She slipped away.
“You'd better go.”
“Like hell!” I reached for her again and she whipped her hand across my face with a crack like a pistol shot in the silence of the room.
“Get out of here!” she hissed.
I almost hit her. I could feel the muscles in my shoulders and arms grow taut as I took a quick step toward her. She didn't move. She just stood there smiling that insolent smile, and I grabbed her by the front of her dress and slammed her against the wall. She went reeling back, then fell over a chair and went down to her hands and knees. Even then, in the midst of rage, I thought what a hell of a woman she was. I had to force myself to turn and walk out. If she had said one word, I would have come running. But she made no sound.
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