“Charlie?”
“Hmmm?”
“Shut up and make love to me again, okay?”
“You didn’t say ‘fuck’ this time.”
“I’m a lady now.”
***
At first light, Emil Puckett, stiff and cold from sleeping in his car, slogged through the mud to a nearby farm where he hired the farmer and his team of mules to pull the car back up onto the road. It cost him five dollars.
“I would ‘a done it for two,” said the hayseed, “but that was back afore you said I hadda do it afore morning chores.”
“Well, my time is important. I’m—”
“A banker, yeah. You told me that already. To tell the truth, that didn’t help you much, neither.”
As if that weren’t a big enough disaster, there turned out to be something wrong with the steering on the big car. It consistently pulled to the right, and he thought there might be a vibration in the front end, too. So now instead of going home to his nice, warm bed and liquor cabinet back in Waltham Corners, he had to drive all the way back to the Hudson dealership, where he would demand that they fix his defective machine. He would not, of course, mention that he had driven it off the road. The Hudson dealer was in Ithaca, some forty miles away.
***
Stringbean Moe had managed to spend the night indoors, in the Ithaca jail, without actually being arrested. The night deputy, as it happened, was a person who had a bit of compassion and a passing resemblance to a human being. He had let Moe sleep in an unlocked cell.
In the morning, the deputy did not offer any breakfast, but he did give Moe a cup of coffee. Having his spirits thus lifted, he decided to have another try at the Krueger reward.
“I haven’t heard anything, but I’ll ask Sheriff Drood about it when he comes in. So you know where this Krueger guy is, do you?”
“Well, not exactly,” said Moe. “I just know who he’s traveling with.”
“And who would that be?”
“Hey, I ain’t telling you that until we talk about some reward money.”
“Oh, yeah?” And suddenly Moe learned that the new deputy was not such a swell guy, after all. Faster than he could have believed possible, he found himself pushed back up against a cinder block wall, with a beefy forearm pressed hard against his wind pipe and a very hard-looking set of eyes staring into his.
“You’re saying you only want to do the right thing, which is also your legal duty, if somebody pays you? Is that what you’re telling me here? That better not be what you’re saying, because if it is, then I’m going to have to leave some big, ugly marks on you, just so the sheriff can see I’m doing my job. You understand me?”
“Hey, a fella’s gotta eat.”
Whap! A hand made for wringing chickens’ necks slapped him on the ear, so hard he thought the drum must be ruptured.
“While you still have one good ear, you want to try that again?”
“Hey, I just—”
The meaty arm cocked itself to fire again.
“Okay, okay! This Krueger guy is with a traveling machine shop, belongs to a guy named Jim Avery. He has a Peerless steam engine.”
“And?”
“And?’ That’s it. That’s all I’ve got.”
“And you think that piss ant piece of information is good for some kind of money? Get the hell out of here, before you use up all my good will”
And once again, Stringbean Moe found himself walking away from the sheriff’s office with nothing to show for his trouble. He went back to the dense shrub under which he had hidden his pack. The stick was just poking out enough for him to see the end of it, and he grabbed it and pulled the pack to him. Inside it, he found no Luger. It wasn’t possible! He rifled through the pack again, with growing frenzy, then crawled under the scratchy bush, thinking the gun must have fallen out of the pack. It had not. He couldn’t find it anywhere.
“Son of a bitch!”
He climbed back out on his hands and knees and found himself looking at a pair of black leather boots and some canvas trousers. Looking up, he saw the familiar face of Jim Avery. In his hand, pointed squarely at Stringbean’s forehead, was the seven-millimeter Luger.
“Looking for this, Stringbean?”
***
Joe Wick headed in a totally different direction from Ithaca that morning. The roads were still greasy and soft, but the Model T was designed for bad roads, and its high clearance allowed him to go down secondary trails that his banker’s Hudson could never navigate. He headed north and east, to the grain elevator and rail siding at a place called Meeseville. It wasn’t really a town, but somebody apparently thought it never would be one unless they gave it a name and a sign. What they also gave it, more importantly, was an agent who could buy Joe’s grain. If he would, that is.
The elevator operator was an authorized agent for Wilcox-Crosby, General Mills, and several lesser milling companies, all located in Minneapolis. The elevator man worked on a straight commission, so it was in his interest to get the farmer the best price for his crop. That is, except when he was acting as an intermediate broker, which was most of the time.
“You’re kinda late, Joe. Most folks hereabouts have already sold their crops this year.”
“Ya, well, I had to fight a little war, sorta, with my banker before I could get together a crew.”
“Anybody beats a banker is a friend of mine. Trouble is, though, my elevator’s full up. And nobody’s calling for me to ship anything for another two months. They made enough money this year and they want the profits from milling the rest of the crop in 1920, is what I figure. And you can’t argue with high-powered strategies like that. You want coffee?”
“That’s what you figure, is it? Seems to me you figure a little too much sometimes, and every time you do, I lose money. I got eleven thousand bushels of Turkey red in perfect condition. What can you do on it? And your coffee is always lousy.”
“You want some, or not?”
“Sure.”
“Is the grain bagged or bulk? Help yourself. Over there, by the counting desk.”
“It’s about half and half. You want it all bagged, it’ll cost you another nickel a bushel.”
“You got enough space to store it, out of the weather?”
“Well, I might have to tell the old woman to sleep in the outhouse, but I can find enough room, sure. Sour owl shit, this really is bad coffee.”
“How about I give you a contract now for buying it in December?”
“For how much?”
“Oh, I think about eighty-five cents would be fair.”
“And they say all the big-time highway robbers are dead and gone.”
“Hey, I’m taking a big risk here. What if the market is at fifty cents by then?”
“And what if it’s at two and a quarter? You going to suddenly up my contract, just to be a fair-minded kind of a guy?”
“There ain’t ever going to be two dollar wheat again, Joe. That was only in the war, when the government was underwriting it.”
“Okay, then, tell you what: you give me a contract for one-seventy-five, with half in cash up front, and I’ll store the stuff for you all winter if you want.”
“A dollar even, and that’s being generous.”
“A buck and a half and that’s just being fair.”
“Somehow I get the feeling there’s a number somewhere between those two that we’re both headed for, you know?”
“A buck and a quarter?” said Joe. Half a cup of burnt coffee earlier, he had really been hoping he could get one-fifteen.
“Hey, there’s an interesting number! How about it?”
“Maybe. But I got to have at least five thousand cash money now.”
“The banker again?”
Joe nodded. “Him, plus paying off the crew.”
“Mr. Wick, you just sold a crop. Throw out the rest of that bad coffee, and let’s have a real drink.”
&nbs
p; “What about the five thousand?”
“I don’t keep that kind of cash here. I have to give you a check, for a bank in Ithaca.”
“Son of a bitch.”
“Does your wife know you talk like that?”
“Are you plumb tetched? I’m still alive, ain’t I?”
***
Charlie woke a second time, well after dawn. A cold, gray light was seeping through the cracks in the barn siding, and outside, it was still raining. He had a hangover that would stop a horse dead in its tracks, but he had no regrets. He sat up and looked at Emily, lying by his side. She had partially thrown off her blanket in her sleep, and her scar was totally visible. He wondered how he could have once thought it was ugly. He bent down to kiss her gently on the breast. She smiled but did not open her eyes. He got up and pulled on his clothes as quietly as he could and left.
On the threshing floor below, some people were already up, stitching sacks of wheat closed while they sipped coffee from thick mugs. One was sitting on a pile of filled bags and playing a harmonica softly. Charlie found a big pot of coffee that somebody, probably Annie, had placed on top of a milking stool. He poured himself a cup and strolled with it over to Avery’s machine shop, which was at one end of the floor. He found himself humming along with the harmonica.
In the machine shop, he opened a drawer in the workbench and looked at the broken Pittman-arm gear. Then he looked at the stocks of metals and welding rods and bronzes they had on hand, and he felt an idea begin to emerge.
The problem was that the gear was cast iron. The factory called it “crucible steel,” but everybody knew it was really just cast iron with a little extra carbon thrown in. Weld metal would not fuse to cast iron. And that was too bad, since weld metal was as hard and strong as most steels. Braising alloy would fuse to cast iron, but it was soft and malleable, like brass. If you tried to make gears out of it, they would wear out right away. The question was, would braise alloy fuse to a welding rod? If it would, then maybe Charlie could braise a welding rod, or a bundle of them, to the stump of a broken gear tooth. Then he could file the whole composite mess down to get it back to the correct shape of a new tooth. The welding rods would reinforce the mix, and with any kind of luck, they would also wind up being the wearing surface of the tooth. If braise metal would stick to weld metal, that was. He put some of each material on the workbench, made up a little test bundle, and lit the gas torch.
Three and a half hours later, he had a gleaming, solid, whole gear. He couldn’t wait to show it to Jim Avery. Where the hell was Avery, anyway? He should have been back by now.
***
Emil Puckett left his Hudson Deluxe Touring Car at the garage in Ithaca and strolled down Main Street through the continuing drizzle. He told himself he was looking for a good place to eat, and at some level, he was always doing so, but what he was also looking for was somebody who would be impressed with his custom-tailored three-piece suit and his gold watch fob with the real Harris timepiece on the end of it. And of course, his splendid umbrella with the carved silver handle. He had had quite enough, lately, of people who failed to show him proper respect.
It was an epidemic. Hell, it was a pandemic. Probably all due to the war, he thought. People went over to France, picked up its loose morals, and brought them back home. Pretty soon the whole country was full of upstarts and Bohemians. There was a rumor just that month that a professional baseball team had taken some gamblers’ money to deliberately lose the upcoming World Series, if you could believe such a shocking thing. If you paid a certain amount of money to a certain person in Minot, the story went, he would tell you which team to bet on, as long as you didn’t bet with him. Puckett believed it. He had heard other stories about things that went on in Minot. And in the larger world, a formerly sensible President of the United States was advocating giving up the nation’s sovereignty to that wobbly-commie League of Nations. Worst of all, it looked as though women were about to get the vote. No, the world was definitely not what it was supposed to be anymore.
He sighed, thinking of the decline of the western world and Joe Wick. Should he really call the note, at the twenty percent discount? It was a game of liar’s poker, of course. If Wick could actually come up with the cash, then Puckett would take a real beating on the transaction. But if Wick hadn’t managed to cash out his crop yet, then Puckett could wind up owning a twelve hundred acre farm for a song. It wouldn’t be the first one, of course, but it would still be satisfying. If he had his car back, he could be out making the rounds of the elevators, bribing operators not to buy Wick’s crop. But that impudent mechanic wouldn’t even promise him a time exact. It just never stopped, did it? It was becoming a whole nation of backsliders.
He looked down the street and saw a crowd of migrant workers in front of the County Courthouse. They, at least, would be impressed by the watch. They would also steal it if they could. Across the street from them was the sheriff’s office, and on a sudden burst of inspiration, he headed there.
The bell on the door announced his entrance. Sheriff Drood was at his desk, looking as if he had his usual chip on his shoulder. Standing next to him was another man with a sheriff’s badge, whom Puckett did not recognize.
“…saw him in the alley behind the bakery, but he got away. He was riding a motorcycle with some kind of advertising painted on the gas tank.”
Drood’s face got darker, and he formed a steeple out of his hands and stared off into space. Puckett ignored the conversation, strode up to the big desk and put his well-groomed knuckles on its polished top.
“Good morning, Sheriff. I just stopped in to inquire as to whether you have any reports of a stolen Peerless steam engine?”
“Look, Mr. Puckett, I’ve got a fugitive to catch this morning, and I don’t have time to—”
“Peerless?” said his deputy, seated at a desk toward the rear. “Did you say Peerless? The stiff who was in here last night said the Krueger guy was with an outfit that had a Peerless.”
“What else did he say?”
“Nothing. I threw him out.”
“Nice work, Otis. Remind me to kick your ass when I get some free time.”
One minute later, they were all outside, looking for Stringbean Moe in the city park. They jerked people rudely out of pup tents and rolled over drunks who were sleeping on park benches.
“How long ago did he leave?” asked Drood.
“Half an hour at least, maybe three quarts. He could be most anywhere by now. No, wait a minute! I think that’s him over there, sleeping under that big bush. Hey, you! Hey, ‘bo!” He began to run.
They grabbed the pair of worn shoes that were at the edge of the bush and dragged the man out. It was, indeed, Stringbean Moe. The bad news was that he had a bullet hole in the center of his forehead. Puckett, two sheriffs, and a deputy looked at the body without being able to grasp what it might portend. Then the sheriff whom Puckett didn’t recognize spoke,
“Well, it looks like our boy Krueger has got himself a gun.”
“I’ll buy it for now,” said Drood. “So exactly where was it, Mr. Puckett, that you saw this Peerless steam engine?”
“I didn’t get a serial number, mind you.”
“Oh, I don’t think we have to worry about that. We’re not going to bother to get a warrant, either.”
***
They drove out to the Wick farm in Drood’s four-door Dodge sedan, the sheriff and a deputy in the front seat and the Windmill Man and the banker in back. The Windmill Man controlled his anticipation with a force of pure will. Was he finally about to be forgiven for the time he had missed his quarry by delaying a day? Would he be able to make up for letting the silly bakery girl live? He believed it, but he didn’t yet let himself get excited about it.
The farmyard had a single set of tracks in the mud from Wick’s Model T, going out but not coming back. There were no people or vehicles out in the yard. In the mowed wheat field behind the barn were two huge pi
les of straw. Drood told the deputy to drive in a wide circle around the farm buildings, then around the stacks.
“Hah!” said Puckett. “You see that? They didn’t get those last two headers threshed, at that. Wick is not going to be able to pay his note!” He rubbed his hands together in the classic gesture of greedy people the world over.
“We didn’t come here so you could gloat about some of your goddamn money, Puckett,” said Drood. “Where is this steam engine you say you saw?”
“Well, the guy who was running it, the young guy, must have cleared out and took it with him.”
“Why would he have done that, if they aren’t done threshing yet?”
“Because I bribed him to.”
“What?”
“Sure. I gave him two hundred bucks not to finish the job, and he must have—”
“Are you seriously telling me that you brought us all the way out here, on muddy roads that could have thrown us in the ditch in a thousand bad places, all to look at a possibly stolen steam engine that isn’t here because you paid somebody to make it go away? Is that really what you are saying, you stupid shit?”
“I’ll thank you to watch your tone, sir. You are, after all, a public servant. And I am—”
“A goddamn blithering idiot.”
“Could we please drive up to the house now? I’m going to call in Wick’s note.”
“I don’t work for idiots, Puckett. And if we stop in this mud, we might never get going again. Let’s get out of here, deputy.”
***
They drove a little more than half way back to Ithaca in silence. Then they stopped at about the place where Puckett had first driven in the ditch, though they had no way of knowing that. And once again, Emil Puckett, under-respected titan and landowning mogul in no less than seven counties, found himself walking at the side of a muddy road in a misty drizzle, muttering invectives to himself.
“Why did you dump him there, exactly?” said the Windmill Man.
“I didn’t want to do him the favor of a ride back to Ithaca. Absolutely, damn never. But I didn’t want to leave him close enough to the Wick place to walk back and maybe stay the night, either.”
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